How to gauge CR for glass jaw

[Saurstalk]

As goes the paths of life, my game group's opportunity to get together is not near as regular as it was in the past. We still want to move through our epic adventure path, but I'm trying to find ways to speed up combat, which is always that bit that slows game night down - particular with massive combat that happens regularly.

I've implemented some means to speed things up, e.g., troops & squads, static damage for adversaries, limiting use of maps & minis

I've thought about another option: glass jaws. Basically, keeping the NPC's offensive the same, but halving hps to take them out more quickly. The question I have is how to set the CR. Any suggestions?

Also, if you have any other suggestions on expediting combat, I'm open to ideas.

[Grankless]

Keep AC and saves the same, maybe make it 1/3-1/2 hp, and then just level-1. Still be wary with higher level creatures, though. Not "don't use them", just "watch out and don't stack them".

[Ascalaphus]

Saurstalk wrote:

Also, if you have any other suggestions on expediting combat, I'm open to ideas.

Repeat after me: "combat is just a minigame". Yeah you'll laugh at first, but if you think about it, combat is really the most elaborate minigame of all.

But that also means sometimes you can substitute another minigame.

Are they doing the "sneak up on a sentry, whack 'em quiet" thing? You don't really need to put in all the overhead of setting up a map, initiative tracker and all that. If the PCs are badass adventurers and these are just grunt sentries, it could just be a couple of skill checks (athletics to climb walls, stealth to get close, unarmed strike to whack them over the head). Could take just a few minutes instead of tens.

Think about which of the combats really play a big role in your story, and which ones are just XP opportunities.

Massive combat, also could benefit from some choice minigame mechanics. Like, enemies close by are fought regular combat style, but players can also use skill checks to affect the wider battlefield (Diplomacy to inspire their allied troops, Intimidate to demoralize etc). Each nearby enemy slain is worth victory points, but successful skill checks also earn points. The nature of MAP makes it attractive to split your efforts. Get enough victory points, and the enemy army crumbles and flees.

[MaxAstro]

As someone who has been in this situation, I think Ascalaphus gives good advice.

Instead of potentially crippling all your fights, I would start cutting fights that aren't that interesting. Adventure Paths often have a lot of filler fights that are meant to give the players XP but aren't individually super compelling.

What I do if I want to speed up an adventure is I use milestone levelling, and then I get rid of any combat that doesn't seem particularly fun or plot relevant.

I would also add from experience that with most monsters you can add or subtract 20-30% of their HP without meaningfully changing their challenge level.

[Ascalaphus]

I'm in favor of cutting boring fights, but there's one mistake that should be avoided: cutting only the easy fights.

A game with a mix of easy and hard fights feels very different than one where the fights are always hard. In the latter case, often it feels like the characters never really seem to get any better. On the other hand, an easy fight could be running into some enemies that you fought before a few levels ago, and you realize how much stronger you are now by how much easier they are to beat.

As a GM, these can look dull on paper, but as a player, they can be extremely gratifying. But for optimal effect, you should take some notes which monsters previously made a big impression on your players. During Starfinder in book three of an AP we fought a nasty monster and had a big OMG moment and eventually decided to flee, then solve it by using 40 Magic Missile consumables to kill it from the sky. In book six we ran into three elite versions of that monster and tore through them in just two rounds, and it was glorious.

So, keep some easy fights. If there are no interesting easy fights (sometimes it seems like much of the writing budget goes into the big fights), you can also take one of the big fights and scale it down a little bit. But overall you want to have a difficulty curve, not a flat high plateau.

[HumbleGamer]

- stopwatch to limit player turns.

- macros instead of rolling dices ( this would require a pc + projector for the DM, and a tablet/laptop for the players. Alternatively, the DM can roll everything if fast enough).

- roll in advance standard checks ( stealth, perception, etc.. ) to speed up ooc stuff. The point is to get a list of results for every skill which will be used in sequence regardless the situation.

- speed up trivial combats, and just give time to important ones. This would also result in cutting off rests, medicine check, etc...

- downtime activities and shopping outside the game ( every player will do that on his own)

Speeding up things is something a DM may do on his own, but it's also something a group should do altogether.

Knowing where there's a waste of time, you'd be able to think about a way to deal with it.