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It definitely seems like things improve a little once players get used to paragon a little. At 11th , especially if it is your first character to reacvh paragon, many paragon powers and feats will seem foreign and hard to get used to but, after a few mods, players get more comfortable with such powers.

That being said, there is alot more going on in given turn. More prevalent and larger area attacks, minor action, free action and immediate reaction powers and more effects make for more rolls made during a given turn. This takes time and all the little interruptive actions have a better chance slowing each players turn as turn get's broken up and forced to recalibrate for what just happened.

I think the higher the level the longer the play time for a given turn but, I think familiarity helps improve that and as we begin to cap-out on how many powers each character has, I think that may plateau a bit until we need to reacclimate to Epic.

My biggest suggestion is to worry less about taking the perfect turn and "helping" other players play their characters. I see this add of alot needless arguments and interruptions to turns. Trust that your fellow players are on the mark, ignore minor inaccuracies that don't seem to bother the DM, respect that some players aren't always going to synergize their actions with yours and worry about knowing and playing your character. If you have an inspired turn, play it out but, keep the game moving unless the rules are really being bent to the point of ruining the game.

I have one table suggestion and one module design suggestion.

Table: Have the DM announce the "on deck" player when anyone starts a turn.  I have players that simply won't plan their turns out more than one player in advance because of battlefield changes, but one player (usually) won't reshape the map such that the next player's plans become unusable.  This can save a lot of time over the course of a single combat encounter.

Design: In each combat encounter, replace one standard creature with four minions.  Under-use of minions can cause encounters to drag, and LFR adventures seem to be minion-light.

Feb 2, 2010 -- 8:10AM, imaginaryfriend wrote:

Are all those long combats ground out to the last hitpoint regardless of time and situation, or do combats get called? And if so, how?

I typically call combats when it's down to the last enemy and he has no chance of surviving i.e. he's only going to last another round (two tops) with the entire party dishing it out to him.

DM's will often end it here after a final attack by the enemy (to fairly adjudicate the PC's loss of HP/resources)... but that seems to rob the players of their 'victory' a bit, since they don't technically get the last hit.

So instead I typically say something like:
"Ok, this guy is just about done for. Everyone make an attack roll. He's dead unless you all miss."

That way almost everyone can claim to get the final shot. It doesn't take anymore time either, since I start cleaning up the board even as they are all rolling simultaneously.

Some general suggestions for when the fight is over, choose from:

• Tell the players they have a +5 situational bonus to their intimidate checks; intimidate to surrender is a great way of ending fights for all concerned. Nice role-play, validates skill choices, ends up with a live opponent to be dealt with ...
• Turn all bloodied foes into minions
• Minions will all flee when no non-minions left
• Allow players to trade surges for automatic criticals OR for automatic kills (DM preference)
• Just call it