Speeding up combat

[Demogorgon]

At this time combat in the 4e campaign I'm running continues to be rather slow.

We have played more than a dozen sessions so far and the pace of things is not improving. Even as players become more familiar with FG2 and their characters it just isn't working out. Of course, having 8 players hasn't helped either.

I'm curious if anyone here has created a time limit for each turn. What as a DM have you done to speed up combat? How do you push your players to make their attacks quicker?

[Robbo]

From the DM's side you can reduce monster hit points and increase damage, include more minions, and hand wave the end of combats when you are certain the players will win.

But 8 players is crazy. Having a time limit will rob the players of enjoying their turn as they usually like to carefully choose what actions to take and discuss with the other players how to work as a team. Rushing them through that process would be a mistake as it is a key part of the game. You would be better off cutting the party in half and running alternating sessions. The enjoyment level of all involved would skyrocket.

[Griogre]

I'd have to agree with Robbo, that 8 players is a lot of players. I run three games with 6 players and I don't think I would ever go higher with 4E online.

I personally have been tempted to impose a time limit, but for the reasons Robbo mention never really did it. One thing I have done time limit wise is a 2 second rule. At the start of the characters turn he must start doing something by 2 seconds, ie set a targeting ring or throw a dice - something. The attempt is to have the character ready to take is turn. If they are not new players don't allow kabitizing either it usually just slows things down.

I haven't done this but have read of some who have - you might try having two players go at once. After they roll initiative, pair up you characters so that the 2 highest initiatives go on the highest PC init, the next pair on the 3rd highest init and so on. When their initiative comes up have the pair of characters both take their turns at the same time without waiting on each other.

[leozelig]

I do a few situational things to try and keep things going. Most of these apply when you have PCs clustered together in initiative order:

1. If the cleric is up next, healing can be rolled ahead of time if one pc clearly needs it and is in range.

2. If 2 pcs are engaging different enemies on opposite sides of the map, ask them to make their attacks simultaneously.

3. Roll monster attacks while you wait. I generally only do this if there are a bunch of minions. I will hide these rolls so I don't influence the current pc's actions.

4. Remind players that they're up next and should figure out what they're going to do.

I have to agree with the others though. Run with a smaller party and you might not have to change anything. While I avoid halving hp and doubling damage types of fixes, I will make monsters retreat if the tide of battle clearly turns against them, assuming it is realistic.

Hope that helps!

Z

[Lysander]

I've played table top with up to 7 players and a GM, and it sucks. More than 5 pc's and my enjoyment plunges dramatically and exponentially.

I like the idea of 'Splitting the Fellowship', but not sure if your players will. 4 and 4 would be much better. I remember reading of a GM that did this, he set session 1 from 1pm to 5pm, and session 2 from 6pm to 10pm, he ran the same campaign but w/ 2 different sets of characters. Not sure how long it lasted, but I though that was a cool idea...

Good Luck, and in the words of lshgaeorh the Liehvaoe, Ocho no bueno...

[Dershem]

I gotta agree even 5 to me is a bit much.. I've found that 4 is almost Ideal for 4E.

[mr_h]

Kill the player characters....they're just slowing things down.

:)

Actually, something I've done on online games in the past has been A) Ask players for default actions prior to the game/scene ("Fighter will defend the cleric at all costs/Cleric will shoot a crossbow from range, only moving into melee if he has to heal). Then B) I give a five minute limit. If I don't have a action from them in 5 minutes, I play their character and we move on.

Granted, this was done on MU* games, text based only without FG's fancy setup, but you could probably tweak it to work with FG.

[leozelig]

I am running a group of 4 also. I agree that it's much better for combat times... The players are also more familiar with each others' PCs, which comes in handy when someone is absent. Combat takes around 8 mins per round on average - still not that fast really, but better...

[Demogorgon]

well I've managed to speed things up a bit. Mostly that amounts to ensuring that all the monsters have their targets selected before their actions.

The number of players has also droped to 5 at the moment, but I'm going to add another to make it 6.

After running some very large and long encounters (12 rounds long) I found that returning to smaller encounters has also helped out a lot. Having over 15-20 monsters can really make things slow down for the players.

As a DM you really have to be ready to click on that attack the moment the turn is passed to you. And if players are not around to take their turn just pass their turn.