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13 months ago ::
Jun 02, 2012 - 8:45AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Oct 18, 2009
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So, I did it. I finally did it. I read through all of the "Dungeon Master" hints and ideas for speeding up combat.
* I selected all monsters and npcs and put them in a bag prior to the adventure
* I pre-rolled initiatives
* I pre-selected treasures
* I decreased the HP of the monsters by cutting them in 1/2
* I increased the damage of the monsters by doubling the die
* I increased the AC and NADS by 2
* spent hours, litteraly hours the 2 weeks before game night (which occurs every other friday), reading and rereading the encounters for the evening, believing that i KNEW what was going on and wouldn't waste time "researching" what was happening next.
...And it worked.. My turns took less than a minute each.
BUT..the player turn was not affected at all. The first encounter still took TWO (2) HOURS to run. It was an average of 4.5 minutes per player turn. Ug.
HELP!
I think I see some problems with me still.
* I shouldn't have increased the AC and NADS, even though they hardly missed.
* The monsters used restrained, immoblized and dazed.
* I want the PCs to work for their victory.
Any suggestions?
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13 months ago ::
Jun 02, 2012 - 8:56AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Apr 11, 2009
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Really observe the players and see what it is that is making them take so long.
Are they sitting idle while waiting for their turn and then fumble through their powers when it gets to them?
--Tell them to prepare for their turn before it gets to them.
Are they spending too much time debating amongst themselves on what is the best of 2 or 3 different actions one of them could be taking?
--Tell them that in the heat of combat there is no time to discus options and they should just go with the first thing they think of.
Is it the umpteeth time the players are using dramatic narrative to describe actions and powers that the entire group is already well familiar with?
--Tell them it's okay to just use the power name or simply cut down on the narrative.
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These are all issues that we addressed in my group.
Newer players tend to not realize that when it isn't their turn, they should already be planning out their next turn. Too often I saw players just sitting there, probably not even paying attention, and then having to both get caught up in what happened and what action they would take on their turn. We made sure to take that down like the bad habit it is.
The tactical combat of 4e leads a lot of people spend way too much time thinking about different options or actions to take rather than just taking their turn and moving on. While wanting to make the most optimized move possible is commendable, it wastes more time than it's worth and slows things down more than speeds them up.
Also, while using a dramatic narrative to describe the visual effect of a power is fun the first couple times, if you want to move along (especially when the group is already familiar with everyone else's powers) then just move along.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 02, 2012 - 9:13AM
#3
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@ Mejas
You've learned a very important lesson in DMing. No matter what you try, it's very unlikely you can control the behavior, emotional response, habits, or actons of your players. I'm not sure why we go around life knowing this but when we sit down to play, we DMs think we can. You did your due diligence and got your turns cut down to a reasonable time frame; your players, not so much. That is a stark but valuable realization.
So now you know - you only really have control over your own sphere of influence and that does not include the players. What do you do?
Combat outs. This is something in your own control. Your encounter took 2 hours because the goal was to kill everything (probably). Enemies should be fleeing, surrendering, parlaying, or accomplishing their non-kill-the-PCs goals and then getting the hell out of there. OR you set up alternate victory conditions for the PCs - destroy all the urns and the wraiths are sent back to the Abyss, close the portal to save the world from the aberrations in the Far Realm, kill the leader of the trolls and the rest will flee.
That one thing will cut all your combats down to size so that it doesn't take up the whole session.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 02, 2012 - 9:19AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2010
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Sly Flourish's "The 30 Minute Skirmish."This a terrific article on designing the 30 minute skirmish in your game. It's important to understand that this is just an option, that you should talk to your players about it before hand, and that it's only meant to be used every so often. The premise is that you build in limitations to player options, like essentially telling them that they can only use At-Wills. Then you give them an equal level Elite and a handful of Minions to fight. I use this for massed combat scenes like open field battles or sieges, arguing that the mass of humanity in the battle, the chaos and the push of the bodies, makes it impossible to to reach down for that extra 'umph' to get off an encounter or daily power. Then I slice off a scene from the battle and have them fight it. This serves as a very good 'appetizer' encounter. A warm up. In the article they talk about the weakness aura, which can be defeated before the encounter's over, restoring the player's options. I like this design a lot. There is also At-Will's Threshold Design.In this you can cut back on monsters by essentially making the entire grid hazardous terrain, like fighting in a burning building or a volcanic ash cloud, where every turn the players have to pass a skill check or take damage from the environment. Less monsters to kill but still taking tons of damage, I like these encounters for their cinematic nature, though I don't personally use the special movement rules for zones and such. I just like the "Obstacles Phase." These are just suggestions. I like them, and use them very effectively, and my players enjoy the encounters. But nothing will be more effective in the long run than developing the skill of the "combat out."
Sleeping with interns on Colonial 1
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13 months ago ::
Jun 02, 2012 - 3:09PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jul 21, 2004
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Time limits. I don't know how many rounds that 2 hour combat took, but next time put in a problem that they have to solve in one quarter of that number of rounds, but could solve sooner. Maybe it's "kill all the monsters," but it could be "get to a certain point," "kill a certain monster," "destroy a certain target," or "perform a certain skill." Whatever it is, the combat is effectively over after they fail or succeed, so then cut to whatever happens next.
[N]o difference is less easily overcome than the difference of opinion about semi-abstract questions. - L. Tolstoy
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13 months ago ::
Jun 02, 2012 - 7:20PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Mar 31, 2010
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Played in a game for a few months with several very slow players. Our DM put in time incentives, if you could get your turn done in a min or less you got attack bonuses, gold, or extra XP. You could even fluff it, like your character responded so quickly to the challenge that the target was caught of guard and took extra damage or granted combat advantage, etc.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 02, 2012 - 9:24PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2010
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The last time I was at con they had this (i think it was called) battle interactive set up as a day long event. I got placed at one of the lower lvl tables (everyone else that showed up seemed to show up with lvl 6+ chars) so it was just us 5. The party was a Defender, defender, defender/leader, leader, and controller. On the second encounter we found out that there was a time limit and failing to complete the combat before the end of the encounter counted as a failure in the overall event(luckily everyone else succeeded). The next encounter/session we mastered the art of taking quick turns so as to finish the round before the other tables finished a turn.
The moral of this story of course being that if you can get your players to want to go quick through ways like real world time limits(maybe reward them instead with extras) then you can make combat go alot quicker.
What we did was mostly on your turn you enact the standard action(or actions that cause damage/anything that the dm needs to know) that you planned in the time it takes for it to get to your turn then the next person goes as you take care of everything else such as movement or effects on other players.
Spoiler:
Show
I still get bewildered by the idea of Good races and Bad races. I mean, D&D presents a world where there are literally dozens of sentient humanoid races. And then there's a line drawn down the middle, and some races, such as elves, dragonborn and humans, to name but a few, are put on one side and called Good Guys. And with that they are People. They have Rights. And on the other side go a bunch of other races, goblins, orcs, kobolds, and so on. These are called Bad Guys, and as such, they are not People. It is considered ok by many players to track them down and slaughter them. It shatters my suspension of disbelief to see someone who calls their character a hero, a noble sort of person who tries their damnedest to right wrongs and fight evil, making sure that those goblin women and children don't get away, because, you know, they're goblins.
They're not just stupid beasts. They have societies, culture and language. They have goals, and motivations. I can believe that someone would kill a drow or an orc at first sight, because they probably were up to something. But don't try to tell me that that was a Good act and that you did it because you are a Good Person.
When I'm considering what to do with a group of "bad" humanoids, and I come up with an idea, I mentally replace whatever the "bad guy" of the week is with humans. If it isn't ok to do it to a human, I won't do it to any sentient race.
My Views on the Alignment System: Spoiler:
Show
Killing something because it might be evil = evil
Killing something because it might do something evil = evil
Killing something because it is planning to do something evil = neutral
Killing something because has done something evil = neutral
Killing something because it is doing evil = good
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 8:39AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Feb 23, 2012
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I'll have to suggest the bonus reward items to my dm. He's tried to do just the carrot before (+1 to hit if you do your turn in 30 seconds) and I've tried to get him to implement negatives (maybe a timer set for one minute that you lose your turn or take a -5 to hit on) but he wasn't for that. Our combats take really long. Its a combination of most of the other players zoning out/playing with their phones on their off turn and 1 or 2 players dramatically reading their power cards and taking forever to roll the associated dice. I try to set a good example for how fast a turn can be but nobody gets it.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 8:56AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Apr 11, 2009
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... Our combats take really long. Its a combination of most of the other players zoning out/playing with their phones on their off turn and 1 or 2 players dramatically reading their power cards and taking forever to roll the associated dice...
I mentioned this and really, it's a social problem that no rule set will fix.
You as DM have to lay down the law in situations like these.
Talk to your players about bad habits like these and explain that it will be better for everyone to shape up.
Once you've taken care of all you can from the human aspect, then you can consider altering rules to speed things up a little more.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 9:08AM
#10
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Date Joined:
Feb 23, 2012
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Oh I totally agree its a social problem, which ironically isn't present in the VOIP darksun game I DM. It might just be because those are my gamer friends who are all used to yelling at people about hurrying it up to finish objectives. Funny thing is everyone complains about/takes it as a fact that combat needs to be agonizilingly long.
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