speeding up combat

[Rebar]

Looking for ideas to speed up combat by simplifying rules.

 

We are an experienced group, all good RPers, no one at risk of abusing changes or finding loopholes. Some rules experts, some rules-lite, all many years with system.

 

First considerations:

We conclude that much of the slowness in combat comes from waiting for ones phase to come around. So, lose SPD chart - 1 action per phase, 6 phases per turn. (Tantamount to everyone buying a 6 SPD). No SPD accounting, no one waits on the sidelines for their phase.

 

END, while a good thing to factor, seems to take more accounting than it warrants. Many systems don't even account for it. What about eliminating it?

 

 

Input on other ideas appreciated.

[GreyGuardian]

Depends on the genra. Using a speed table with all the npc's and pc's in an initiative order pregenerated probably would have a similar effect on speed and not loose the ability to act faster or slower than others (spd being a very large advantage in combat).

[lemming]

Allow everyone to see the speed chart. That allows people to plan ahead for their phase.

Yes, they get to see when the villians go, but good players shouldn't metagame too much. Plus, the smart players will figure Speed & DEX after the first couple phases anyway.

[ghost-angel]

This has all sorts of issues with it that would make most people I know balk.

 

First being everyone having a 6 spd. One of the best elements of HERO combat is you can have Speedsters and Normals and the in between. Forcing eveyone into the same SPD immediately removes those options and makes it like every other rather boring game system. Not to mention all the other problems you will incur since the HERO system is based around 12 1-second segemnts per Turn.

 

Next is END. Since you mentioned the need to wait for your turn here's what I do: figure out what I want to do and subtract my END before I even go. Adding and subtracting small numbers cannot be that time consuming. Buy a calculator, pen and pad of paper.

 

On that note.. once you have the pad and paper have everyone make a dozen combat rolls, write down the roll and use them in combat instead of rolling right then. Just go down the list.

 

Basically, it can come down to what you do with your "dead" time - do you sit and wait for your name to be called, or do you start number crunching and come up with a plan and when you do get to go you're ready.

[Derek Hiemforth]

For conventions, I run a game based on the Challenge of the Super Friends cartoon, featuring 11 DC superheroes against 13 supervillains (The Legion of Doom). Every run of CotSF ends with a grand melee involving 24 supers. A few of them aren't much in combat, but even counting only the more combat-worthy characters, we're talking at least 18-20 supers.

 

The combats generally finish in less than 2 hours. That may still sound like a long time, but everyone who plays Champions knows that it really isn't for a combat that large. There are a few minor "house rules" for the CotSF game that speed things up (END is ignored, villains generally stay down once unconscious unless they're just barely unconscious, etc.)

 

But the house rule that really makes the difference, I think, is this: When your action comes around, you must immediately lead off your Phase with a soliloquy, then take your actions. If you aren't ready to go when your number comes up, you lose that Phase. (You get no screen time if you've got nothing to say! )

 

This REALLY helps keep combat moving. The single biggest factor that slows down combat, IMO, is players waiting until its their turn before they start thinking about what to do. This directly counters that trend.

[Legendsmiths]

Heroic or Superheroic?

[Lord Liaden]

Have you checked out the sidebars on pp. 252-54 of the 5E rulebook, "Nine Ways To Speed Up Combat"? Good suggestions there.

 

One method it doesn't list which I've found very useful is for the GM (and maybe the players if you trust them) to pre-roll a bunch of damage dice results for your characters, and have them written on a list. Every time one of them successfully hits, you just cross the damage entry off your list rather than taking time to roll.

[BNakagawa]

Pre-rolled damage only helps if you never push, always do the same number of dice all the time, etc.

 

The GM is almost always the bottleneck in HERO. There's just too much to do to keep things rolling along smoothly. A simiple way to loosen the bottleneck is to delegate damage rolling and counting to a trusted player or two.

 

$0.02

[Monolith]

Originally posted by BNakagawa

Pre-rolled damage only helps if you never push, always do the same number of dice all the time, etc.

You can preroll Pushes too.

 

I go to every game with a chart that has some 40 prerolls for damage classes 8d6 to 15d6 (more if I have more powerful villains). A villain that does 12d6 gets marked off the 12d6 column. If he decides to Push his attack then gets marked off the 13 or 14d6 column. No problem and slows nothing down.

 

Most of my combats involve 7 heroes and 5-12 villains, and we get through them very quickly because all my time is saved from rolling damage for those 5-12 villains each Phase.

[tesuji]

For a superheroic game, i would suggest a little less severe approach.

 

use a six move turn as you suggest but have three speeds...

Normal moves on 3 and 6. Most normals will be normal

Super moves 1,3,4, and 6 .MOST every super is super.

Speedy moves on all six. Speedsters are speedy.

 

Normal earns you a 20 pt disad.

Speedy requires you to spend 20 cp.

super is free.

 

For the majority of the time, everyone will have the four actions and only a few guys here and there will have the extra action... in betweem.

 

You could view this as a four round turn, with speedy guys getting a free action betweem 1-2 and between 3-4. and normal people losing actions on 1 and 3.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Derek Hiemforth

This REALLY helps keep combat moving. The single biggest factor that slows down combat, IMO, is players waiting until its their turn before they start thinking about what to do. This directly counters that trend.

Nice. Similar to my suggestion with an actual bit to encourage.

 

others:

Pre-roll damage!? Get someone else to roll the dice for you!? But I like rolling my own dice. The rattle, the roar as dice thunder across the mat! Ahhhh.

 

Make your players practice rolling dice and counting.

Group dice by counts of ten (6 & 4, 5 & 5, 3 & 3 & 4, etc...), then count up blocks.

For Body, subtract the number of ones from the number of sixes. That's how much up or down body you are.

[Vondy]

I do the following:

 

1. The Standard Effect Rule is in play.

2. Everyone has the Ward Chart *

3. If you want to hold an action you have to declare the conditions you are holding for.

4. I have a pregen SPD chart and call of characters in turn.**

 

*The Ward Chart is a "What CV did you hit?" chart I made for one of my players. You check your CV, roll 3d6, and it tells you what DCV you hit.

 

**I find calling out Phases and DEX order tedious, cumbersome, and fundamentally without merit.

[Rebar]

(speeding up combat) for veterans

 

Thanks, many of these ideas I will take to my group.

 

But to reiterate: these are seasoned players - many years of playing Hero system. Even those who don't read the rulebook are quite familiar with combat, the SPD chart, etc. No problems there. Yet we still find it quite slow.

 

I'd like to concentrate more on shortcuts in the rules, and less on the learning curve.

 

I confess, we do like to take time to assess the situation as the top of our phase comes up. Things change fast, no one wants to fire at an empty target.

[lemming]

Re: (speeding up combat) for veterans

 

Originally posted by Rebar

I confess, we do like to take time to assess the situation as the top of our phase comes up. Things change fast, no one wants to fire at an empty target.

As long as the player is paying attention, he can have several courses of action ready.

Actually that's one thing that wasn't brought up. Players that are multi-tasking such as reading a comic or something besides playing in your game can really slow things down as well.

[Bloodshot]

It's All About Paying Attention!

 

I'm the GM for the game Rebar is in, and I think he nailed the problem on the head: they like to take the time to assess the situation and THEN decide what to do. As a player, I like to make sure I know what is going on so that when my phase comes up I've already decided what to do.

 

As a GM, I don't want to start yelling at the players to "make up your goddamn mind!" when their phase comes up. Maybe an egg timer is necessary?

[Vondy]

I have a 15 second rule. When you phase comes up you have fifteen seconds to tell me what you want to do or ask relevent questions that don't demonstrate you weren't paying attention.

[Legendsmiths]

That's more of an issue for group management. The situation shouldn't have to be rehashed on every person's phase.

 

Out of session, say over email or something, just discuss the fact you want to have combat move faster. One of the ideas you'd like to float is that aside from critical status clarifications, everyone must declare their character's action in a short period of time, say 30 seconds. Let them know that as a GM you will impose a 5 second response if they are dragging things out. Many players become indecisive when they have no "sure thing" choice available. That is unfortunate, but no reason to slow the game down. They have to commit to an action as quickly as possible.

 

You of course want to keep things friendly, but at the same time there is a responsibility to facilitate the game. If people are asking for a recap because things are moving slowly and they lost track, having people remain focused and committed to 30 sec phases is fair.

 

Dice shortcuts are nice, and can help, especially with large numbers of dice. Alternatively, you could come up a chart that is 3d6 always, with xd6 normalized.

 

Most of my campaigns are heroic. We don't use END (except for aborts & pushes). Mooks don't recover. Characters only recover END if they take a recovery (i.e. no post seg-12).

 

I also have an excel sheet that I can enter in DEX and SPD of the characters, hit a button, and it builds a combat order. I then just read down the list so I don't have to call out phases.

[Rebar]

>I'm the GM for the game Rebar is in,

 

busted...

 

 

>Maybe an egg timer is necessary?

 

I can state from experience that any kind of formal timing will be received poorly. Leads to paralysis and frustration.

 

I suggest that the group be presented with this as a key problem and urged to be ready to go at their phase. Point out that in a second, they wouldn't be able to accurately sum up the situation anyway, unless they want to take a half phase to make a perception check. If they're not sure, encourage them to hold their phase until they are.

 

Hopefully, as combat speeds up, people will be less desperate to "make their one phase per 20min." really count.

 

And I suppose some slackers are going to have to put away their sketchbooks...

[Richard Logue]

Well, if you want to see a home brew method, check out the thread on my own version of combat speed. It works pretty well so far and does make combat flow quickly.

 

Try it out.

[Fenixcrest]

I'm gonna suggest the following to my group:

They're all used to ye olde D&D 2nd Edition, so I've devised a way to make the HERO to-hit roll more like the THAC0 roll. It's just a simple mathematical rearrangement, really. They announce their "attack total," or 11 + modified OCV, and roll the dice. If the roll + the target's DCV (I withhold that info) is less than/equal to the "attack total", then they hit. I do all the checking of numbers myself, as at this juncture I'm much faster at it then they are.

[austenandrews]

Where possible, avoid Damage Reduction. What a time & attention hog that is.

 

-AA

[Tech]

How to speed up combat? How about:

a) Flip a coin when you attack. Heads - you hit, tails - you miss.

If you hit, heads - the villain's defeated, tails - he's not.

 

Oh, you mean a serious suggestion!

 

Originally posted by austenandrews

Where possible, avoid Damage Reduction. What a time & attention hog that is.

-AA

 

I would qualify the statement by saying 'Avoid giving unseasoned players Damage Reduction.' Seasoned players should be able to handle it. Everyone in my campaign is a seasoned player. Everyone can handle D.R. and it doesn't slow things down.

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by Tech

I would qualify the statement by saying 'Avoid giving unseasoned players Damage Reduction.' Seasoned players should be able to handle it. Everyone in my campaign is a seasoned player. Everyone can handle D.R. and it doesn't slow things down.

 

I should have been more specific -- avoid giving NPCs Damage Reduction. I agree, one player running one character should handle DR just fine. One GM running lots of NPCs, some of whom have DR, is a major time hog.

 

-AA

[lemming]

Originally posted by austenandrews

I should have been more specific -- avoid giving NPCs Damage Reduction. I agree, one player running one character should handle DR just fine. One GM running lots of NPCs, some of whom have DR, is a major time hog.

Bah! GMs can handle DR fine. 1/4 DR is slightly trickier, but I don't even think the players at my last game realized I was using DR against some attacks and not on others.

 

Though one can nstead of actually writing down DR for the villians, increase their STUN, REC, & CON by a like amount.

[austenandrews]

Originally posted by lemming

Bah! GMs can handle DR fine. 1/4 DR is slightly trickier, but I don't even think the players at my last game realized I was using DR against some attacks and not on others.

 

This one can't. Recently I ran a combat against a bunch of monsters with 50%rPDR. With most PCs doing Sweep or Rapid Fire, the extra effort added up to yuck.

 

Though one can nstead of actually writing down DR for the villians, increase their STUN, REC, & CON by a like amount.

 

Which is exactly what I did on their next combat.

 

-AA