First... practice practice practice.

I only play 3-4 hour sessions. Frequently there a few ADD kids involved. I get in two fights and an hour of role playing. By the end of every fight... someone (or two) is near death... good tactics (use of terrain and situation) frequently saves the day.

My best sessions have been running old school adventures in 4e. I've converted the freeport Trilogy and it was a blast. City fighting (don't have to fight to the death, you might go to jail for that), 3d fighting (its a city, right?), immense role playing (getting yelled at by Captain Scar Belly at the Captains Ball "I WANT WHAT YOU STOLE FROM ME!"), and hi-jinx (lots of unscripted stuff).


The point I'm trying to make about combat in 4e is that you should have fewer of them.. but make them more fun. In the old days, we'd burn through 5 simple combats in 4 hours... but there was no role playing... In 4e.. combat after combat is just taxing. Boring.


Scales of War goes right down the pooper after the first fight. Its a series of dungeon crawls strung together by a note found at the end of the last one. Hardly fitting of its name sake, The Red Hand Of Doom, which is one of the best adventures for 3e. (There's a 4e conversion if you're interested. Its about the PCs trying to deflect or blunt the assault by Greenskins on a small town. They cannot win, only slow the enemy down.)



Tactics... I've harassed my players until they know what's expected. Even if there is some hi-jinx around the table the players are generally ready.


What is your party composition... class, and role.. are the players optimizers? This is very important, and you should be more proactive about it. Remember the old days... "You're taking a ranger, 'cause we keep getting lost in the woods, and getting our butts kicked." This is no different.

Adjusting the numbers is really about adjusting the meta game. More damage means that your players can die real fast. Fewer HP for monsters means they can die faster. But really, this is about the party and its composition. I played with one party of 4 strikers... They dished out 220 HP of damage in 2 rounds at second level. (But they had a glass jaw, and almost everyone took toughness as their next feat. They also found healing potions... frequently.)

So... lots of leaders... huge healing, and low damage... obviously needs a severe adjustment. Lots of Strikers... Damage isn't the issue.. but they have fewer HP... you could lower the damage output.

In more crisp terms Calculate DPR (Damage Per Round) for each player.. Each monster... Calculate likelihood of hitting, and likelihood of being hit. Munge the numbers... (we are just guessing here, right?) and figure out how long the monster will last for, and how long the players will last for. A good fight is 4-6 rounds... And yes... like any other edition, they will die if they don't think.

I don't have the chance to read through the whole thread yet, but thought I would add my comments from our previous conversation:

Speeding up combat (IE less rounds) can definitely change pacing. Daily Powers, Magic Item Dailies and Healing Surges are really the only things that matter here. If the party is more unscathed then these things become less used. You have a few ways to handle that:

- Don't care about it and just go with the "more encounters in a day" approach

- Do things like BBEG sacrifices minions to increase his damage or to hit. (throws a minion at the party for an extra +half level damage or somethings)

- Use more stuff to expend Healing Surges (environment, traps, etc.)

If any local stores are running Encounters then go to one and see how they are structured.

I hate the idea of Encounters, but it is likely worthwhile to see how they are structured - my basic problem is that they are either unconnected or only loosely connected, rather than having an actual scenario to play through*. So, my problem in not with the individual encounters.

The Auld Grump, I'd rather play a scenario....

* My information is more than a year old - out of date and possibly no longer accurate.