How much faster the combats?

[gloomhound]

I have the core books but I have not gotten the opportunity to play 4e as of yet. I hope that 4e has fixed the biggest pet peeve I had with 3.5. The insane time combat took. So is it any faster?

[Doc Eldritch]

Individual rounds are a bit faster, but overall combat time is not, and in fact might actually take a bit longer (though it does not always feel like it).

4e did not slow down the overall time spent on combat compared to 3.X, it just made it more manageable and easier to run.

[Halfjack]

I have the core books but I have not gotten the opportunity to play 4e as of yet. I hope that 4e has fixed the biggest pet peeve I had with 3.5. The insane time combat took. So is it any faster?

Our first combat, 2 PCs against 5 kobolds (4 minions and a Wyrmpriest) took about 90-120 minutes. When we ran exactly the same combat a second time to try some tactical changes (and embrace roles more effectively) it took about 40 minutes. That second run had almost no rule flipping, but there was an instance or two. I'd say that when we're all comfortable with the system we will probably shave another 10 minutes or so off it without impacting the side chatter, role-playing, and general fun of the fight.

That's a lot faster than 3e ever was for us, but slower than, say, Reign.

[gloomhound]

but not say Savage Worlds fast then?

[Halfjack]

but not say Savage Worlds fast then?

No, but the tactical detail is much richer, which is where you're spending your time.

[James McMurray]

For us it's been right about the same, or maybe a little faster (once we learned the rules). However, the big difference I've felt is in the subjective time the fights seem to take. Whereas our 3.x combats would sometimes seem to drag out and repeat themselves, the 4e fights have all been very dynamic. The same number of real time minutes pass, but so much more happens in the game that I look up at the clock and say "it's 3am already?"

[Illithidbix]

Well, before we got hold of the full rules, one game
Six players, with pre-gens, never played before with a DM working of basic stipped down rules (which where pretty close to the actual ones)

That session we got through 3 really very big encounters.

1) Goblin necromancer and 60 (yes sixty!) zombie minions
2) 1 Hobgoblin Warcaster, two Hobgoblin Soilders and two hobgoblin archers
3) A young black dragon (with aid of half a dozen peasant minion archers)

Which we thought was very impressive.
I'm not sure if 4th ed is actually faster, but the combats generally seem more interesting and bigger than I recall with 3rd edition.

[James McMurray]

I'm not sure if 4th ed is actually faster, but the combats generally seem more interesting and bigger than I recall with 3rd edition.

That's a good point. A 3.x fight using the same number of enemies as you see in a typical 4e fight would probably take noticeably longer.

[Wolfgar]

I don't see anything in the rules that would necessarily speed up combat. Most of the rolls seem like they are still in place, and powers may still need to be looked up and consulted, and of course, players will want a moment or two to contemplate their next move. There is some time savings in the organization and relative streamlining, but enough remains the same.

[DanMcS]

In the combats I played, 4e seemed reasonably fast- for instance, the first one, in which we were all familiar with 3e but hadn't played 4e before, ran 8 rounds pretty quick. This was with 1st level characters.

The speed of individual turns seemed fast, and I suspect this will be the biggest gain- at high levels, an individual's turn will take about the same amount of time as it did at level 1, because you'll have roughly the same range of options for your action as you did at level 1- pick which power to use, use it, and all the details of its use are in the power writeup. No full attacks, and most of the powers are written to resolve as quick as possible; a check of some kind vs one of the defenses, typically, then roll some damage dice and/or apply a secondary effect. Low handling time.

Yeah, you've got slightly more powers to pick from every round (2/4/4 from 20th level on, compared to 2/1/1 at 1st level), but a high level wizard would easily have that many spells of merely his highest two spell levels in 3e. And your high level powers are mechanically similar to your low-level powers; the whole system feels very smooth in action.

Let's see, what else. Seems like fewer opportunity attacks to resolve, but some powers resolve as interrupts to an opponent's action, so that may be a wash.

[rickyh]

Its still about the same, which I lament. Like you I hate combat that goes over 10-15 minutes at most. In my mind a BBEG battle should be like 15, maybe 20 min top. A typical fight maybe 5-8 min. I loved Lejendary Adventure because of this.

That said, I'm currently running 4e and I like the system well enough, that I'm willing to stick with the combat time. I think the DMG says you can get usually one encounter in per hour and an average session has about 2 combat encounters.

[mws]

So far my impression is that low-level combat is much slower than previous editions. Part of this I put down to learning new rules, but there are a few things slowing down the game that stand out in my mind:

- More hit points. I'm not sure I've seen anything other than a minion dropped with a single hit. Even with criticals.
- More bad guys per encounter. If KoS is any indication, 4e encounters are meant to be run on a grand scale.
- More things to do. The tactical wargamers in our group look like deer in the headlights of an oncoming car when you ask them what they want to do next. For crying out loud, stop over-analyzing the combat grid and go stab something in the face.

So far I'm not super enthused, but I'm trying to like it for the sake of my group. My personal opinion is that the combat plays out too much like a board game and the overall lack of flavor makes it a mechanically sound but fairly dull game. It's also not helping that KoS has been pretty crappy so far.

Merrick

[Zeea]

I've run a good number of 4e combats. They tend to take longer than 3e combats at low-levels, but individual rounds are faster and it feels like more is happening.

There are a few things that DRASTICALLY slow combat down. Keep on the Shadowfell has most of these factors in its encounters.

1) Really big combat areas.
2) Terrain that limits attacks or movement.
3) Inexperienced players that don't know how to quickly dispatch enemies.
4) Complicated setups involving ambushes, multiple groups of monsters, and players having the opportunity to scout things out. (Players often take FOREVER to make up their mind about what tactics they want to use if they have the chance to plan for a combat. Things are worse when the monsters are lying in ambush and have their own plan that is going to take a while to execute, since the players usually manage to pick a plan that just extends this time even longer.)

Trust me, if you have encounters in fairly small rooms with brutes and soldiers in them, you'll have faster combats. (And the strikers and controllers will still have plenty to do. Neither really needs a gigantic battlemap to function effectively.)

EDIT: Oh, and one other thing I've noticed is that the typical 4e combat encounter is a replacement for 2-3 encounters from 3e. In other words, a small dungeon might be several encounters in 3e but would constitute a single fight in 4e.

[Menchi]

In my experience, it is much as others have said - overall the time seems to be about the same, but individual rounds are faster and a LOT more happens in a fight.

I've recently changed to playing solely Book of Nine Swords characters in our Pathfinder game, and I've found that for my character, combat is much more dynamic, and I think the same is true for 4e - the power system has created a much more dynamic and tactical system that means players become more engaged in the combat, so time seems to move faster.

The new system is geared towards less combats per session, but for those fights to be interesting and exciting to play.

So, while it isn't technically faster - it makes up for this by being enjoyable and fun to play.

Conan

[hong]

Combat _at 1st level_ will be slower than what it was in 3E. But this is a good thing, because you have more options to choose from, and more stuff happening on the map that requires you to pay attention. It should still be fast enough. By comparison, 3E combat at 1st level was fast only because you really couldn't make it much more basic.

[ResplendentScorpion]

... There are a few things that DRASTICALLY slow combat down...

I don't know, my 3e games had large scale battles, ambushes and terrain features(even by the books most outdoor battles should have more than 50% of the grid taken by various terrain features). If these are what are supposed to slow combat in KotS, I should have noticed a significant increase in speed(especialy given that my current 3e game is at level 18, where the system doesn't quite hold together anymore). Maybe I should blame the players or myself though, we're still learning the system. There is some speeding up, but I'm not sure how much of it to atribute to the reduced quantity of quipping and out of game banter at our KotS table.

[Jive Professor]

The two sessions I have played were with different groups that were just learnig the rules, and in both instances the fights took a goodly amount of time, but people just got to do so much more in that time-span, and individual rounds were so much faster noone ever really begrudged not getting to do something for a turn. "Well, if I need to move all out, that's what I gotta do." Instead of "Oh God, I'm not going to get to attack? Here goes another 30 minutes of my life doing nothing..."

[Wraith2020]

OH no! :eek:
The thought of MORE tactical options just makes me physically ill. ;)

I have a player or two that really attempt to study all the moves and options, then walks it out on the board, checks their sheet, etc.

Very painful way to play. They did that in 3e, etc. Of course, they only tend to do that with a map grid and minis, when we white-board it, not so much.

[Jeffrey Moore]

I've run one session so far. 3 players, running through a slightly scaled down Kobold Hold just to tour the combat system. Almost zilch on the role-playing side because, well, I was running this session mainly to see how combat played out.

3 1/2 hours of play, played through 5 encounters. Deaths: 0. 1 save away from dying with an unskilled healer trying to stabilize: 2. Rounds spent running away from a boulder: many. Good times were had even with limited roleplaying. On the player side, 1 person owned the PHB and was about as familiar with the rules as me (occasional lookups, knew the most commonly occurring rules), the other two were picking it up as they went.

All in all it seemed very fast for D&D, and we weren't quite adept at marking, cursing, etc. That speed might have been an illusion due to turns coming so quickly, but it still felt refreshing.

[wingedcoyote]

OH no! :eek:
The thought of MORE tactical options just makes me physically ill. ;)

I have a player or two that really attempt to study all the moves and options, then walks it out on the board, checks their sheet, etc.

Very painful way to play. They did that in 3e, etc. Of course, they only tend to do that with a map grid and minis, when we white-board it, not so much.

You should get one of those little sand timers that come with board games. :)

[Illithidbix]

One thing that stuck me is how much quicker 3rd ed got once people where pretty clued up on the rules.

And from my experience of running a game, the speed of each round *rapidly* increased over the course of a single fight. (and not just cus monsters where dying)

[James McMurray]

And from my experience of running a game, the speed of each round *rapidly* increased over the course of a single fight. (and not just cus monsters where dying)

A lot of that IMX was because you eventually got to the point where people had the best position they could get and were just swinging back and forth. 4e doesn't have that happen very often, because moving yourself and others is so much easier than it was in 3.x. This is both good (if you like dynamic combats) and bad (if you want fights over fast so you can get back to the other stuff).

[Cortani]

Our group finds itself spending a lot less time doing math. Subtracting 3 from five attacks with four different base modifiers to add 6 to the damage, +4d6 that doesn't get multiplied on a crit, +4 from divine might, +12 from smite, +2 from flanking, no wait, he has improved flanking that's a +3, okay so it's only for the other guy, +2 then, 1d6 acid, +5x1.5 from strength, no 7, you're raging, sooo 62! Oh, concealment you say.... *clatter* miss. Three more attacks!
The fights still take a long time, but mainly because we're playing beautiful fantasy chess.

Combat _at 1st level_ will be slower than what it was in 3E. But this is a good thing, because you have more options to choose from, and more stuff happening on the map that requires you to pay attention. It should still be fast enough. By comparison, 3E combat at 1st level was fast only because you really couldn't make it much more basic.

This.

[Tori Bergquist]

Well, my experience so far has been that combats in 4E are happening more quickly than in 3E, but I actually attribute that to the fact that everyone is pretty new to the system, so the exploitation factor hasn't kicked in yet. I had the same experience with 3E: combat went fairly quick when it was done in the abstract and without minis, or the players were all 3E Noobs, but when I ran a session with full minis, board, and die-hard rules lawyers the combat crawled to maybe one battle per four hour session. I really got to hate 3E combat with minis. 4E has resoted my faith in tabletop battles, so far, although the sessions my wife is running (in which we do abstracted combat without minis and board) are proving to be surprisingly fun and not nearly as detracting as I thought. Unless your a warlord...then you pretty much suck without a board and minis.

[Polaris]

I have the core books but I have not gotten the opportunity to play 4e as of yet. I hope that 4e has fixed the biggest pet peeve I had with 3.5. The insane time combat took. So is it any faster?

As most here know, I am a big 4E critic, but I'll give credit where credit is due. Combat has been cleaned up considerably. Combat is easier to run (even with new players learning the rules) and faster at least on a round by round basis. Of course with more hit points floating around there tends to be more rounds....

Still there is less sitting around in 4E combat than 3E combat.

-Polaris

[Matthew]

I have the core books but I have not gotten the opportunity to play 4e as of yet. I hope that 4e has fixed the biggest pet peeve I had with 3.5. The insane time combat took. So is it any faster?

I don't believe combat is faster, I think you just do more during them and spend less time fucking around.

[DM Fitzgerald]

Okay,,,,I've played 3 4E combats. I wasn't impressed with the "speed" of the combats....I didn't see any difference.

I don't really see what everyone is talking about in "3.5" being slow. In my campaign I can run a combat with 5-8th lever characters and 8-9 monsters (all reacting at their own initive.) In about 20 minutes, maybe I'm just good at running combats


My 2 cents

David

[Crazy Jerome]

You should get one of those little sand timers that come with board games. :)

That will do in a pinch. Better though, to get a fairly big, wooden sand timer. You want it big enough that the players can easily see the sand trickling through from across the table. I tried all kinds of stuff to get over this isuse, and nothing works as well as the big, impressive sand timer. Not even a big digital clock counting down. There is some psychological principle involved here that I do not fully grasp, but appreciate the results thereof. ;)

I rarely even need to use the timer anymore. I can simply casually glance towards it, and the player will immediately pick up the pace, not even consciously realizing that they noticed.

[Eurhetemec]

I don't believe combat is faster, I think you just do more during them and spend less time fucking around.

That's my experience in the test combats I've run so far, and I don't see it as likely to change. A combat in 4E takes the same amount of time in real-time, you just get to do a lot more in it.

Even with the new game, I think we've spent less time looking at the rule book than with 3.5E.

[Tar Markvar]

I ran my first combat encounter in 4E today over lunch. Myself and 2 players (1 playing a rogue and a ranger, and the other playing a fighter, a cleric, and a wizard) took about an hour to complete the fight, from starting to draw the map to killing the last kobold. The encounter was five PCs vs. 1 Kobold Slinger, 3 Kobold Skirmishers, and 4 Kobold Minions.

I had to look at the book maybe twice (once because I hadn't realized that Fighters' Mark ability gives him an attack when the marked enemy moves away, even if it's a Shift). The players were using powers and flanking and everything as expected, and playing the kobolds was a BLAST (which is the first time I've ever been able to say that).

There was one part where, after the wizard had put Sleep on almost all the kobolds at once, a kobold staggered his way over (Slowed), stabbed the party rogue, and then fell asleep at her feet. I loved that image. The rogue player loved being able to slide enemies when she attacked them, feeding the kobolds to the fighter and generally putting them where they needed to be. And while the Slinger's debuff attacks were "annoying," they never took anyone out of the fight for very long.

I had a great time, and I think my players did, too. I'll be running another short session in the near future.

[Zeea]

That will do in a pinch. Better though, to get a fairly big, wooden sand timer. You want it big enough that the players can easily see the sand trickling through from across the table. I tried all kinds of stuff to get over this isuse, and nothing works as well as the big, impressive sand timer. Not even a big digital clock counting down. There is some psychological principle involved here that I do not fully grasp, but appreciate the results thereof. ;)

I rarely even need to use the timer anymore. I can simply casually glance towards it, and the player will immediately pick up the pace, not even consciously realizing that they noticed.

Also, consider hooking electrodes to your players to shcok them if they take too long.

NOTE: Not really. I shouldn't even have to explain that I'm joking, but there's always some stories about idiot GMs...

[Z-Dog]

I'm really encouraged that low level combat is complicated and fun.

Has anyone tried out high level combat?

My old group just stopped playing 3d ed 'cause the combat at levels 15 plus just took too damn long.


Plus, they felt it was like, "OK, who gets the best spell off first?"(3rd ed)

Any observations so far? (for 4th)

[James McMurray]

I'm really encouraged that low level combat is complicated and fun.

Has anyone tried out high level combat?

My old group just stopped playing 3d ed 'cause the combat at levels 15 plus just took too damn long.


Plus, they felt it was like, "OK, who gets the best spell off first?"(3rd ed)

Any observations so far? (for 4th)

We've had one session of 11th level play (3 combats). The fights took about as long as our 1st level fights have taken. Here's a thread about it (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=399926). Unfortunately, the thread got derailed by a discussion of undead and Sleep, but hopefully there's some useful info in there for you.