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How to speed up combat?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8218219" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>It isn't about changing rules and whatnot. 4e is REALLY an action adventure game. Make combats that are much more than about hacking on things, and it isn't a problem. A 'combat' in my game is like 'Ride the log flume down into the sawmill, swing into the building on ropes, and stop the big bad from cutting the girl in half.' Killing is kind of incidental (though there was plenty of that). Another time the PCs fought goblins which had a 'wrecking machine' which was just an old mining golem, which went berserk and started smashing all the support beams. After the mine started to cave in there was another sequence where the party jumped into a mining cart. The goblins followed on another cart, and they raced along trading shots for a while and flipping switches until the goblins finally got switched onto the track that lead to the giant pit. After that the party escaped, narrowly. </p><p></p><p>Nothing is ever 'slow' in these types of encounters. They need not be QUITE that crazy amusement park ride either to make it work. The other part of the formula is to just make the combat so darned interesting, with great characters and plot, and lots of ups and downs, such that nobody cares if it takes two hours because it IS the story! Think about how action movies work, its the same sort of formula. There's a bunch of boring stuff and blah blah, maybe a research montage or whatever, some brief travel montages, and then BAM! Just keep moving to the BAM! This is actually straight out of the 4e DMG, except people didn't really take it literally and go full tilt with it, and learn that this is 4e's bread and butter. No other game does it better. Forget math fixes, they're irrelevant!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8218219, member: 82106"] It isn't about changing rules and whatnot. 4e is REALLY an action adventure game. Make combats that are much more than about hacking on things, and it isn't a problem. A 'combat' in my game is like 'Ride the log flume down into the sawmill, swing into the building on ropes, and stop the big bad from cutting the girl in half.' Killing is kind of incidental (though there was plenty of that). Another time the PCs fought goblins which had a 'wrecking machine' which was just an old mining golem, which went berserk and started smashing all the support beams. After the mine started to cave in there was another sequence where the party jumped into a mining cart. The goblins followed on another cart, and they raced along trading shots for a while and flipping switches until the goblins finally got switched onto the track that lead to the giant pit. After that the party escaped, narrowly. Nothing is ever 'slow' in these types of encounters. They need not be QUITE that crazy amusement park ride either to make it work. The other part of the formula is to just make the combat so darned interesting, with great characters and plot, and lots of ups and downs, such that nobody cares if it takes two hours because it IS the story! Think about how action movies work, its the same sort of formula. There's a bunch of boring stuff and blah blah, maybe a research montage or whatever, some brief travel montages, and then BAM! Just keep moving to the BAM! This is actually straight out of the 4e DMG, except people didn't really take it literally and go full tilt with it, and learn that this is 4e's bread and butter. No other game does it better. Forget math fixes, they're irrelevant! [/QUOTE]
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