My PCs now have Eidolons, followers and up to six attacks for some of them. The up side to this is that battles are more interesting and the PCs are feeling like they are powerful and have accomplished something.
The downside for me or what I worry about is that the pacing of the battles seems slow. Working out all of the complexities and volume of attacks here at 10th level takes a while to get through. The GM has the bulk of the work I think managing the bad guys. And the players all say they are enjoying it and have a lot to think about between turns.
But I still worry about pacing of encounters.
Any advice to ensure a nice pace for high level encounters? Any observations regarding how battles should go?
Thanks,
John
Some GMs don't allow followers, or more than one "pet/summon/companion" in play at one time. That would really help speed up the pace.
Start taking average damage from attacks instead of rolling. In my experience, past 10th level the actual damage dice are less than half of the damage anyway. Taking the average doesn't effect the game balance much, and it removes several steps from each turn.
To those grognards who will say "psh, it's basic math, nobody should be slowed down by that..." I will remind them that more operations means more time, no matter how basic the math. It's true of computers and it's true of human brains.
Start taking average damage from attacks instead of rolling. In my experience, past 10th level the actual damage dice are less than half of the damage anyway. Taking the average doesn't effect the game balance much, and it removes several steps from each turn.
To those grognards who will say "psh, it's basic math, nobody should be slowed down by that..." I will remind them that more operations means more time, no matter how basic the math. It's true of computers and it's true of human brains.
I kind of like this for early in the battle, but if it starts getting close to character death or being knocked out I might start rolling. I could do this for the bad guys, not sure if my players would go for it though.
Where does the rest of the damage come from?
Where does the rest of the damage come from?
Strength, usually. Favored Enemy, Power Attack, Smite, etc. etc.
I'm running into this issue as well. I have a group of six who really are doing very well considering how much time combat takes. Unfortunately higher level gameplay tends to take more time in general since there are more modifiers to keep track of, more attacks to resolve, and more spell descriptions to check to make sure it really was a will save for half damage.
At the moment I'm juggling:
6 players
1 paladin mount
1 animal companion
1 conjuration wizard who drops monster tokens on the tabletop like they're skittles.
I am seriously considering asking players not to take class ability options that give them mounts, animal companions and so on, and refraining from using summoning spells in a party that already has six players.
Obviously this is not something I will do to my current party, but I will keep it in mind for future games.
Finally, little things help.
Have the initiative track put up somewhere visible so everyone knows when it's their turn coming up and can prepare appropriately.
Roll all your dice at the same time if you're doing full attacks. Color-code dice so you know what damage goes with each attack - green dice is the first attack, red is the second, and so on.
If you think your players will be okay with it, consider enforcing a "decision time". By the end of said time - 30 seconds or so - you need to have declared your actions, or else your character delays till the start of the next round. Please note that resolving those actions can still take more time.