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I'm looking for a way to speed up play and occasionally skip over a few of those early in the adventuring day encounters, especially when the PCs have been traveling overland or exploring an area.
Sometimes we have limited time to play and I don't want to spend too much time on minor skirmishes, but I want them to have consumed resources before they approach a bigger, and more interesting and entertaining battle. I'm thinking of something where they mark off levels of spells, channels, use of rage powers, bardic performance, etc.
Does anyone already do something like this? What mechanics have you developed? And if it's a terrible idea, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
I'd speed up the encounter instead of skipping it. Otherwise you're left with casters going "Why would i waste THAT spell?" when it gets crossed off their list.
1) Use one big monster with no funny abilities. No grab no grappling just out and out roll to hit figure damage wash rinse reapeat.
2) Use a large number of simple monsters. Using either 1 monster or near the max the party can still get xp for means that the PC's will make short work of the encounter.
3) Keep track of resources between game sessions. You can have all the fights you want, just make up a sheet for each character with the spells/rage/bomb/whateever that they use up.
Sometimes we have limited time to play and I don't want to spend too much time on minor skirmishes, but I want them to have consumed resources before they approach a bigger, and more interesting and entertaining battle.
I sympathize with the problem of limited time and the desire to focus on the more challenging, important, or interesting battles. I wonder, though, why there should be any small, uninteresting, or non-entertaining battles at all? Why not wake up in the morning and fight a mated pair of green dragons with class levels and a chip on their shoulder?
I'm looking for a way to speed up play and occasionally skip over a few of those early in the adventuring day encounters, especially when the PCs have been traveling overland or exploring an area.
Sometimes we have limited time to play and I don't want to spend too much time on minor skirmishes, but I want them to have consumed resources before they approach a bigger, and more interesting and entertaining battle. I'm thinking of something where they mark off levels of spells, channels, use of rage powers, bardic performance, etc.
Does anyone already do something like this? What mechanics have you developed? And if it's a terrible idea, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Unless you play it out any system you divise is going to seem arbitrary to some of your players. If you do play it out, it absorbs time. My suggestion is to pre-prepare everything you can (die rolls, etc.) and minimize the time used without completely skipping it. And make even the small encounters interesting / memorable (not for the battle, but for something else). Use morale for the small lopsided (against the monsters) encounters. Have the enemies flee if they are obviously losing. A group of Goblins scattering to the four winds after being on the wrong side of a one sided battle cuts into the length of the battle, makes the players feel good about it, gives them the xp (they defeated the enemy) and minimizes their chance of a pursuit ("They went how many different directions?"). Once they start leaving a trail of living witnesses that can lead to other things too (i.e. the whole tribe, leaders, casters and all planning an ambush or Goblins fleeing them on sight or begging for mercy).
In short, if you want them to arrive at the "big one" short of resources you need to make them expend the resources. Otherwise they'll feel cheated out of them. Just keep it as short and entertaining as possible. My 2 cp.
Try to make every encounter with an interesting background story rather than a tough or easy encounter. Even if it is an encounter with a band of goblins vs a 10th lvl party, they will be tempted to use spells regardless, yes that fireball will be overkill.. but it gets used, it also gives them a sense of power and security that works to your advantage as a DM.
Not every battle has to place the party in a tight spot, an easy encounter will have them wondering and they will try to do something with it, the wizard casts his spontaneous spell for a divination, the cleric casts a cure spell. The battle in itself will probably take 3 rounds at most. Consider that the players will have a good chance to catch the goblins preparing their ambush and they will use a few buffs and invisibility spells, just to be sure.
At the same time having a green dragon fly overhead while battling the goblins will put them on edge and prepare for battle, even though the dragon is just a curious spectator, unless attacked ofcourse..
Try everything to make encounters interesting rather than a random waste of resources, do not be afraid to discard the CR appropriate encounters as long as they are not resulting in TPK or make the real story seem uninteresting.
I've had GMs hand out some wandering damage.
"You wade through a horde of decaying zombies on your way to the Vampire's fortress, everybody mark off (2d8 HP)
If you are doing something in particular on the way there, you can fudge things around. If someone says they are protecting another person, they take some of their damage. If you want to burn other resources ("I cast protection from arrows to stop the harassing goblins with their shortbows) you can do that.
This also can be used for mop up. Do you really need to spend the time rolling dice to root the last of the mooks from the warren after you've smacked down their leaders? From a story standpoint, it needs to happen, but mechanically it's a chore. Best to handwave it and get on with the plot.
You may want to look into 4E's skill challenges. They could easily represent things like a trek through the jungle to the boss' lair or something similar. Every time you failed at one of those it would cost the party resources.
If there's no risk, there's no reason to do it in the first place.
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Your thoughts are appreciated. I'm of much the same mind as you and most of the time I would have my players play everything out. I am very organized and battles in Pathfinder are a reasonable length.
I'm actually asking the question because some of my players have suggested that they would like such a mechanic at times.
Sometimes when the story is really chugging along, the players really don't want to play out all the little stuff that would be bound to happen from A to say D. On the other hand, I don't want them to arrive at D fully loaded.
It seemed to me that there have been a few times, maybe I read about it in Kingmaker somewhere, where players could be asked to cross off a certain number of spell levels to simulate that stuff had happened. Maybe I dreamt it.
So no one out there has tried something like this?
And thanks, Ravingdork, I will look into the 4E skill challenges.