So…show of hands…how many people have had a 4e combat last the entire session, dragging on and on and on? Our latest dungeon escapades have had seen the characters involved in some horrific grinds that I’d rather avoid. I’ve had a few weeks hiatus from game, but tomorrow we get back to it and I’ve been brainstorming/reading the intarwebs to find a solution. My game in particular has very limited time, three hours if no one is late and every
The first idea I came across slapped me pretty hard in the face (thanks Propagandroid!): halve the hit points of the monsters. Apparently R & D have suggested this themselves if you find combat dragging. I like this idea, and may use it at times.
The next idea, mine this time, though I don’t have any patents on it yet –minionize me! It’s like super-sizing sans calories and all that regret…the damn…regret…
Anyway, minions are squishy. Squishy is fun. Further, squishy is fast-paced. When I was in putting the newer stuffi n 4e through it’s paces, I made heavy use of minions. Those combats were all very fun. The less exciting combats have all been those where minions were minimized, and the full-hp monsters were used.
My opinions of minions are pretty high –they allow you add more weight without dramatically slowing down the game. PCs get more room to show off. One thing I’ve implemented in my games is to hand over the particulars of minion-death to the players.
“I hit.”
“How does the kobold die?”
But here’s the thing –sometimes you don’t want to throw a 50 bad guys at the player (wimp!). Sometimes you want a small elite cadre of opponents to contest the players. Going with the half hit-point fix might make the game run smoother, avoiding that mid-combat grind that just sucks the life out of your combats.
Also, consider the proportions of minion to full monster combat encounters in your adventure. In my current dungeon, not one fight has had a minion in it, and an 11-room dungeon has taken three session, streching into a fourth, which is not what I had planned. I’ll take some steps to modify these last few rooms, and I’ll tell you how it works out.
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A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e. By day he is a technologist.
I haven’t had combats last the whole session but I have had combats drag on. I played in a friends running through KotS and combat was slow for three reasons. 1) He wasn’t prepared, 2) We didn’t know the rules, and 3) We didn’t understand our powers. When I starting running my campaign, I made sure that I was prepared as possible, we had a better grasp on the rules, and I had made sure we all knew our powers up and down. Now, combats don’t drag and are challenging.
At which level you had this problem? In my games monsters last for something between 40 to 60 minutes.
I haven’t had any combats last the entire session; most of ours ran about an hour. We averaged two combat sessions and one skill challenge a session, with role-playing packed in between (or included into the challenge).
Most of the monsters I had problems with were the grunts; the hobgoblin soldiers or kobold regulars that always seemed to outlive their commanders (perhaps because their leader’s special abilities make them prime battlefield targets?)
The longest fight (I’d guess it was about 1.5 hours) was probably with the white dragon (Lvl 3) but that one felt just about right — solo dragons should be a tough battle.
That said, when we run our paragon playtests, I’m planning on shaving at least 25% off the hitpoints of the monsters I throw at the party.
Levels 1 to 3.
My group also has a very limited time frame – 3 hours. And we have had one or two sessions where a combat encounter lasted over 2 hours.
5 PCs vs. 5 zombies, 2 deathlock wights, and a hulking zombie… the deathlock wights used their ability to raise up undead… on the hulking zombie – which itself has the same ability. I think the players dropped the hulking zombie four times before they realized wtf was going on. 2 hours 45 minutes for that one. Everyone had fun… but they also wished we had more time.
Anyway… here are my suggestions
1) use minions more often. Something like the Core List: Monsters can help you find minions for all kinds of situations.
2) use Elites rarely. The healing surges and action points elites have make them … much like PCs. those battles should be epic . Use sparingly.
3) use fewer monsters; but make the terrain the challenge. Makes for more interesting fights – that can be short and sweet but still challenging. (doors lock, 5 goblins with short bows are on a balcony 30 feet overhead with wooden tables as sheilds… almost a TPK).
Hey guys!
@ Tony -yes, some of my drag has been with people being familiar to the rules. I made sure that I’m pretty clear on the rules, but can only hold so much of the other character’s abilities in my head at one time. I’m coaxing them into the rules gently, but we’ve definitely had combats that were quick even with that lack of familiarity.
@Gomez, the players are 2nd and third level right now.
@Ken – seeing that problem exactly. The prime targets go down and the grunts last forever. I have some solos that I don’t plan to touch though.
@jonathan –deathlock wights are nasty!
1) Yes. I’m going to be linking to the core lists soon, btw.
2) Yes.
3) triple yes.
Here’s a followup: what role does party composition play in combat length? In my case, We had three strikers and one defender. The problem that occurs is that the strikers can deal hellacious damage, but can’t take the hits they receive back. Anything that doesn’t drop quickly almost kills them, forcing them to back out and the defender (a paladin) to become the main slugger. He deals damage a lot slower while the ranger and rogue recover, which in turn slows down the combat.
The party should be a bit better know as we make an adjustment to 2 strikers, one defender and one leader.
Would love to hear your thoughts on party composition.
I’ve had combats go on for too long, though not because of 4E. My players still aren’t comfortable with 4E yet, so they still spend a lot of time figuring out what to do.
That said, I’ve found that I’m using minions because I’m afraid of PC death. PCs are much more resilient in 4E, and death is less dangerous, so to speak. And I think that a session-length encounter might be a lot of fun!
That’s where the controller comes in. He works in conjunction with the defender to keep the strikers safe and out of reach.
As to the combats themselves, I’ve found 25% to be the magic reduction, and YES! Minions are a big deal. I prefer Elite/Solo bad guys that can spawn their own, or other wise replenish a couple here and there, as any non brute/soldier solo or elite bad guy will go down VERY quickly once their meat shields have gone down.
4E is working well for me, just a few houserules and 3E throwbacks here and there…nothing major, but making the game a little more familiar has helped a lot with the resentment. I wish they had made it backward compatible…that was a much bigger selling point that I think they realized.
You mentioned handing control of minion deaths over to the PCs, which sounds like a good idea. I’ve responded to that part of your post here.
@Brent – indeed, sometimes a session-length combat is just the thing, but only when it’s planned. I’m hoping to have one of those coming up, featuring a dragonborn mummy raised and controlled by sentient, necromancer…tree. Oh, I’m going to love that encounter.
@Donny 25% ? Hmmm, I’ll have to keep that in mind. Overall, I really like 4e. But I expect to this sort of troubleshooting in any game, really. One of the great things about 4e though is how easy it makes the troubleshooting with its transparency and basic design.
@Patriarch917 -thanks for the link! I’ve dropped a comment discussing some further thing I do as well.
Oddly enough, I’ve encountered this kind of situation before when dealing with one half of my group. I suspect it’s because I wasn’t using any minions on that team given that they had no controller.
In hindsight, my encounter design might have been a mistake. In removing the minions, everything was now a credible threat that was meant to stick around. Meaning that they took a lot longer to drop, extending combat further.
The earlier comments about more interesting terrain should be worth applying, a stale battleground is a boring battleground.
I have this problem the last session ( it was the 7th session ), but i see the problem ( at least in my game )
- Two more players enter, players who don´t know the rules (and dont know english…im brazilian by the way )
- People dont get organized like they was, and dont use power cards, waht make them “remember” the powers…no way
- And at least, they dont think ahed of time, and get mess up in the combat when get to theyrs turn.
My solutions were:
- Give then 5s to deceide what to do or lost their turn
- Kill monster when they are low hp ou useless
- Make mosnters that last to run if can ( or just kill then )
But i like to see more opinions here!
Great Post bt the way
[...] building on an inspirational post over at At Will, advocates allowing characters to describe the death of a minion when they hit (and therefore kill) [...]
[...] 3. More and more people are relating their 4e experiences, and learning that, as I said, the new rules are not indeed streamlined, but take even longer to run a combat. [...]
We had a pretty decent party split — fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric, warlock — so I don’t think it’s necessarily a question of party build, though that can play a part.
In our combats, one problem we did see on the player side was people not paying enough attention to their own abilities. For example, the fighter wasn’t using her mark ability nearly enough, which mean less opportunity attacks when shifty opponents moved around the board, and less impetus for monsters to be drawn into the death spiral surrounding the warrior.
Teamwork also has a huge impact on combat; our combats went much worse (for the PCs) when the party wasn’t working together as a team (in other words, trying to take a 3E approach to a 4E game). In 4E, a lack of team work means you aren’t getting the bonuses (either from combat advantage or someone else’s powers) that you need to get your own powers to go off effectively.
Once the party started pulling together, things went better for them.
That said, I think monsters in 4E are *still* big sacks of hit points that could use some scaling back.
Hey guys! Been away for a little bit. So, first things first. My recent 4e adventure went just fine –the last monsters where solos, and in a party with two strikers, even full HP solos don’t last more than a few turns.
I’ll have to wait till another session or so before I can really say what effect cutting hps and more judicious use of minions will do for me.
@leandropug –thanks, and welcome to At-Will! I like some of your suggestions, especially about getting the play space organized. One thing I still have to do is really enforce everyone getting their bonuses in easy to access form on their character sheet, or better yet, on some sort of form that they have all current bonuses on, so they do minimal additions each combat.
@pointyman – minions are the lifeblood of most 4e encounters is what I’m seeing. From what I’m finding, not using minions requires a pretty damn good reason.
@ken –either monster hp needs to be scaled back, or PC power needs scaling up. I have noticed that players working together do some massive damage and get through encounters very easily. Once the ranger and warlock started double-teaming enemies, there was not a lot that could stand against them for more than a few rounds.
“So…show of hands…how many people have had a 4e combat last the entire session, dragging on and on and on?”
What? Last session (4 hours, minus 10-15 min break in middle) I managed 3 combat encounters. Your players are just dragging their feet.
“The first idea I came across slapped me pretty hard in the face (thanks Propagandroid!): halve the hit points of the monsters. ”
You do that then you really need to HALVE the XP as well. Monsters are statted up for a particular level, you go chopping them up then they shouldn’t be worth as much.
@rekres, maybe. I’ve also had 3-4 combat sessions in the course of 3 hours. Generally, I’ve been fine with the pace of combat. While I have taken into the account “feet-dragging”, sometimes encounters do take too long. What we’re doing here is discussing various reasons why it can be taking too long and remedies for it.
As for halving the XP, I don’t think I’d be doing that. I understand how the game is “statted up”. The idea first came from Wizards R&D though, who didn’t suggest halving the XP. I think I’ll go with the experts on that one.
Thanks for your comments!