High level combat pacing: How?

[dangelo]

Keeping track of your resources doesn't seem to be the worst part. But how do you keep combat as a major part of the narrative when any real challenge would take dozens of rounds and hours of a session?

Share your ideas and experiences. How do you keep high level combat interesting without bogging down the session's pacing?

The main issue I tend to think about is the absurd amount of resources your players will have to spend, and you need a couple of fights in a single day to actually limit their spells and similar abilities. For a battle to make them actually spend higher level spells and magic item charges they need to be dangerous but that implies taking most of a four-hours session. Does it come down to just combat pacing? Just do it faster?

[Quertus]

Simply put, high level combat should be, if anything, *faster*. You have more resources because you need to be prepared for the *broader* array of threats high level, not spend more on any given encounter.

[Aotrs Commander]

I have never noted that combat slows down at higher level, in my experience, tends to be no more than 2-3 rounds unless something very explictly unusual is happening. Heck, the problem I have to deal with is usually making the combat LONG enough.

Tentatively maybe you might not be throwing enough at the PCs at once? You maybe need to try to make them nova more. How big is your party numerically? That also has an effect.

(I consistently play with parties of 6-8 characters.)

[Silly Name]

Simply put, there's a difference between "virtual" resources and "real" resources. Yes, the casters have X spell slots and the party as a whole has Y wand charges, but in actual play you tend to know not just the numbers of those resources, but also have a good idea of what they are - you know what spells your Wizards prepares the most, you know that your Barbarian likes to conserve their Rage to turn things around if the battle goes south, and you know the Ranger tries to stay away from melee.

You know what wands the party Rogue has and what situations they cover and which ones they don't. If during the day they're going to fight their way through the Brass Citadel, a wand of Fireballs might as well not be there. If most enemies are flying, a staff that can cast Earthquake loses a lot of its potential.

It doesn't matter how many resources the PCs have if the villains are able to negate their usefulness. And that's why good villains are smart villains who know how to enhance their strengths while neutering their foes'.


You don't need hours-long combat to engage players or challenge them. You know what their party looks like, their strategies, what they tend to prefer and what they fall back on - so throw them in a bender, design encounters that force them to be imaginative in howwell they apply their resources rather than how many - the Ranger that likes to stay out melee? Have the enemy spellcaster summon a monster next to them, forcing the party to divert their attention. Separate the Barbarian from the rest of the party and surround him with enemies so that he's forced to use his Rage just to reunite with his companions. Trick them in using powerful abilities against weaker enemies and then pull out the big guns.

In short, high level enemies need to be smarter, not necessarily stronger or have enormous HP pools (those help, but you don't want to limit battles to how fast players can hit the goal number). At high-level play, most parties aren't going against random orcs in a cave, they're facing powerful enemies who have access to Scry and spy networks and all the reconnaissance tools needed to prepare themselves - and even if they don't, they should have defenses and contingencies ready for many possible scenarios.