PDA

View Full Version : 4E, Game slow down at higher levels



Galdor Miriel
2009-03-26, 08:13 AM
Hi all

we recently played a few sessions at higher levels and noticed that our encounters were taking a long time. Admittedly, were having more rounds of combat than under 3.5, which suffered a similar slow down at high levels, but as characters and often baddies last longer in 4E it was too much. One session we fought a beholder, then a demon lord with some minions. It took 8 hours for the two battles and there was precious little role play.

For our next session we are actually going to try running high level encounters at half hit points. Half hit points for everyone with no change to damage. This will probably make things more dangerous for the PCs but what the heck, we are adventurers are we not?

Has anyone else noticed any problems with how fast the game goes? What solutions have you tried if it is the case.

We have played the Keep of the Shadowfell module, which I dmed and we all enjoyed and it was fast paced and we had a lot of fun with role play, though I did change things a fair bit to keep it interesting.

Thanks for your input

Galdor Miriel (Now a retired wizard after the end of our shackled City campaign in which we saved Cauldron, Yay!)

bosssmiley
2009-03-26, 08:41 AM
By it's very nature as a complex, nuanced decision-making system D&D 4E is going to be slow to play.

This post (http://rollad20.blogspot.com/2009/03/differences-in-versions.html) over at Crit or Cruddy examines 4E in comparison with older versions of the game. Pat and his interlocutors conclude that, sure, it might be faster than 3E, but describing 4E as a 'fast play' game is a major misadvertisement.

The Gaming Den boys are a lot less mannered in drawing a similar conclusion. They typify higher level player in 3E as "rocket launcher tag" (thanks to the ubiquity of save-or-suck/die/lose effects), and 4E as "padded sumo" (thanks to hit point inflation, healing surges, solo monster hp inflation, etc.).

Kurald Galain
2009-03-26, 08:41 AM
It goes without saying that the increase in the list of powers you're allowed to use has a tendency to also increase decision time.

4E makes a few attempts to limit the amount of different actions players can take at higher levels (e.g. because you must retrain old attack powers at paragon level rather than getting new ones, and because you may only use a few magical item dailies) but overall, given that you're likely walking around with over a dozen magical items by then, there's lots of rules text that could plausibly be relevant for every turn you take.

Suggestions to speed things up? Play with less players (the game gets really slow with six). Use a good custom character sheet and/or power cards, so you can tell quickly what to do. Disallow players from looking stuff up in the rulebooks during their turn in combat. If players take too long, hint that they can always use an at-will.

Galdor Miriel
2009-03-26, 10:12 AM
The game in question was with four players. We do use power cards. We know the rules and are not terribly slow. I think the problem is with the game itself, which is why we will try the half hit point method to speed things up. My favourite part of the game is the story building, and the mechanic provides a way to determine success in moving the story.

When I say the problem is with the game itself I am not criticizing it because I do not like it. I am simply curious as to what might be done to the game to make it flow faster at high levels. IN 1E and 2E I never played in any high level games, in 3.5E I played in a high level game and it started to get very complicated and slow, a whole night spent on one battle maybe, and it seems to be the same in 4E.

By reducing hitpoints we are making pcs and monsters more squishy, fights against solos will not devolve into battles were all we have left is at wills and there is nothing funky happening. I will report on how well it works after we have tested it.

I am still interested in anyone has tried changing any game mechanics to speed up the game at higher levels, suggestions on organisation are appreciated, but not what I am looking for in the post.

GM

Awesomologist
2009-03-26, 11:18 AM
The game does slow down, even in Paragon, more so in Epic. We try to keep time down by using an egg timer. Each person gets 1 minute to decide their actions on their turn, although we do try to be reasonable when outside things happen (bathroom breaks, wife calls, etc.). We try to roll all our dice at once so that we have damage ready if the attack hits. These things help us keep the pace up.
I'm currently playing with the "instant death" idea while I DM. If a PC hits a non-elite or solo NPC with an attack, and the attack does damage that is greater than the NPC's bloodied value, I roll a save. If the save fails, the creature is instantly felled. Use your discretion on that of course. But if the encounter isn't an important one than why waste time with a creature who's going down in one more hit anyways? Besides this really only tends to affect NPCs that are of lower level than the PCs.

Tiki Snakes
2009-03-26, 12:31 PM
The game does slow down, even in Paragon, more so in Epic. We try to keep time down by using an egg timer. Each person gets 1 minute to decide their actions on their turn, although we do try to be reasonable when outside things happen (bathroom breaks, wife calls, etc.). We try to roll all our dice at once so that we have damage ready if the attack hits. These things help us keep the pace up.
I'm currently playing with the "instant death" idea while I DM. If a PC hits a non-elite or solo NPC with an attack, and the attack does damage that is greater than the NPC's bloodied value, I roll a save. If the save fails, the creature is instantly felled. Use your discretion on that of course. But if the encounter isn't an important one than why waste time with a creature who's going down in one more hit anyways? Besides this really only tends to affect NPCs that are of lower level than the PCs.

If someone hits you hard enough to 'wound you' as it were, in one blow, I'd say there's a good chance you're going to want to stop fighting them. Running away, surrendering, whatever. I;m going to start trying it out with my own players, see if it feels more realistic and speeds things up.
You could encourage your scarier players to try intimidate checks now and then, and so on, for just this reason.

caith
2009-03-26, 01:22 PM
i think letting your players waste an enormous amount of time over deciding their actions is a bad habit. a few ways to break it are to skip over a players turn, as though they were "holding their action" and move them down in the initiative. my DM gives us about 20-30 seconds to have a combat action ready and after than he just says "i'll come back to you". he plays pretty strictly that you and your character are one and the same, so if you are indecisive, it represents your character being indecisive. this keeps the game moving along at a good pace, and everyone understands that they should be thinking ahead while other players are acting...

eepop
2009-03-26, 02:23 PM
While all the quick play advice helps, its not necessarily the source of the problem.

We have tried out a rule for applying to monsters that does speed things up a bit. One DM uses it pretty much always, and others use it more sparingly.

1)Minions RAW
2)Standards
---Half HP
---1 extra dice of damage on all attacks
3)Elites
---Half HP
---1 extra dice of damage on all attacks
---1 extra initiative action but no action point
4) Solos
---Half HP
---1 extra dice of damage on all attacks
---2 extra initiative actions but only one action point

This way all adjustments are DM-side.

There are some other effects beyond just speeding things up that we kind of like
1) Our Dragonborn Barbarian is somewhat scared of just staying at bloodied from fight to fight. RAW, there is little reason for him not to ever start any fight after the first bloodied. There is very little chance that he would be knocked from a little under bloodied to down on any given turn. But under the modified rules, a good crit from an elite or solo could drop him.
2) Under these rules, you can actually have a striker sneak around to try to take out a pesky artillery. Under RAW, you really need to focus fire to hope to take things down. One character unassisted can do little to quickly dispatch an enemy even just standard monsters.

Oracle_Hunter
2009-03-26, 02:35 PM
By reducing hitpoints we are making pcs and monsters more squishy, fights against solos will not devolve into battles were all we have left is at wills and there is nothing funky happening. I will report on how well it works after we have tested it.

Ah solos. Yeah, they're just problematic under the RAW. Instead of halving everyone's HP it'll be better to halve the HP of solos and double their damage. This keeps solos dangerous without halving everything's HP. Also, if you halve everyone's HP, then your party will be felled more easily by traps and other non-living damage sources.

Out of curiosity, what is your party's make-up? If you are low on Strikers, battles can take much longer than otherwise.

Galdor Miriel
2009-03-28, 01:51 PM
Excellent feedback guys.

The party make up in question could have been lacking as we were quite defensive. We had two wizards, a ranger and a cleric. We finished the campaign and in our new one we will have a barbarian, a rogue, a warlock, a ranger and a cleric. That might speed up battles, but it also might result in us going down hard...

I like the idea of adjusting only the solos, to keep them dangerous but not make them ridiculous in hitpoints, I will suggest that to the group.

The idea of adding extra damage and halving hitpoints has one troublesome aspect, it makes resistance and temp hitpoints less effective for the pcs, so it could have some problems. I will however, suggest it to my group and see what the response is.

I think our group is pretty reasonable about being quick, but I do like the eggtimer and the initiative change suggestion, I think I will implement that the next time I dm and suggest it to the group.

Nu
2009-03-28, 02:48 PM
The party make up in question could have been lacking as we were quite defensive. We had two wizards, a ranger and a cleric. We finished the campaign and in our new one we will have a barbarian, a rogue, a warlock, a ranger and a cleric. That might speed up battles, but it also might result in us going down hard...


Let's see, you're going from 2 controllers, a striker, and a leader, to 4 strikers and a leader. Yeah, battles are going to be quicker one way or the other for sure :P