Shortening fights

[arouetta]

Average HP+SDC=50 to 150
Average weapon damage 2D6 to 4D6

After a couple rounds of combat I'm totally bored and all the characters are still standing.

What can shorten combat by a lot? Upping the weapon damage? If so, by how much? Find a co-GM to run only the combat sessions and discreetly text during combat? Something else?

Help!

[say652]

Supernaturak strength.
I ran into a similiar problem. High SnPs shortens vthe fights quickly.

[Noon]

So you basically need to have the chance to do around 150 damage over two attacks or is that over two melee rounds?

Parry is probably you're biggest problem if it's not gun play, as it makes alot of attacks do nothing and the PC's probably have a high parry. Dodge has this problem too to some extent but not as bad.

Can you add minions to the fight, or do you just want the main enemies? Minions who throw a grenade in would probably up the damage output considerably. They have X grenades then when they use them up, they run away.

If your problem is the PC's aren't dropping anything by the second round, yeah, it's tricky without either them having minions or just flat out rules changes where you give them extra attacks. Might consider having their weapons have a power shot mode, so for two or so attacks they do double or tripple damage, but it takes awhile to recover this (making it basically once a fight). The weapons might do feedback damage to the wielder as well, in exchange for the power shots.

[Incriptus]

If your bad guys are shooting people try getting them to fire more than one bullet at a time. Short and Long Bursts work.

[parkhyun]

Criticals can either do double damage or go straight to HP. Called shots can target vitals. Teamwork can magnify damage. Knockback pins, traps or further damages combatants.

[LeeNapier]

I tried to do an abbreviated combat system a while back. IIRC, parry and dodge bonuses were added to AR (no additional rolls were made), and HP and SDC were combined and halved. I can't remember if I fiddled with attacks per melee, but I don't think so as it would've negated the effect of reducing the HP/SDC.

Fights went much faster.

EDIT: I can't remember if I did anything with roll with punch... maybe subtract the bonus from the damage dealt? This was a long time ago.

[flatline]

Only apply SDC to non-lethal damage (punches, kicks, non-edged weapons). Edged weapons, bullets, etc go straight to hit points.

That'll speed things up!

--flatline

[Sir_Spirit]

Have someone cast Cloud Of Sleep. That should shorten things considerably.

[SpiritInterface]

If your bad guys are shooting people try getting them to fire more than one bullet at a time. Short and Long Bursts work.

Agreed, auto-fire is our friend. A 7.62x51mm AR (5d6) using a 3 round burst (x2 damage) fired over the whole melee round (5 actions) does 175 pts of damage on average.

[say652]

More incapacity type powers. Bio manipulation , disruptive touch.

[Iczer]

I shorten fights by making HP very critical.

Lose all your SDC? Save vs stun/Knockout (12+)
Down to half? Save vs Stun/Knockout (14+)
Down to a quarter? Save vs Stun/Knockout (16+)
Down to three or less? Night-Night.

Most fights come down to punching through SDC and arresting the incapacitated crook, rather than blowing through the remaining 20 or so HP (and possibly murdering your opponents through a little overkill)

You may choose to forfeit the saving throw and pass out. If you do, all injuries sustained from the beating are reduced (minor wounds don't happen and major wounds become minor)

YMMV: I run a lot of low level, street level games. The average SDC in my Knight-of-the-Crow(n) game hovers around 75 (but almost everyone has autododge) players treat every SDC as precious. But knowing that villains fall down defeated long before falling down murdered makes the game better overall. As power levels climb, I can see how this stopgap may not be as helpful.

Batts

[Noon]

That sounds good in alot of ways. But as a quibble, why at three or less? You can survive to your PE in negative.

[Iczer]

That sounds good in alot of ways. But as a quibble, why at three or less? You can survive to your PE in negative.

it's a number of things. You can survive at negative PE, but after 0 you aren't doing anything but approaching death. So if zero is really deaths door, then we want to stay above that. And we need to be below 13 (average 10PE, plus 3.5 for that first D6 for HP.) so we playtested the numbers a bit.
3 is really close to the end for a lot of people. you have taken several minor wounds, possibly a serious but those horrible, mostly permanent nasty wounds are still just beyond you (look at minor or severe brain damage for instance) so it's natural to assume that this is the last little bit of strength you body has left, pretty much at 3 HP your body tells you to lie down because you are a medium sized boot to the head away from rolling for brain damage and you should probably chill out for a bit.

so three showed up and stayed. Most PC's will consider fighting to half HP, and several can fight below zero (I allow these corner cases to simply pass their saving throws and ignore the KO at 3HP or less)

Batts

[Alrik Vas]

It seems like you're just being too nice. Who comes after a superhero without a magic sword or a few recoiless rounds? Honestly.

[Incriptus]

You may choose to forfeit the saving throw and pass out. If you do, all injuries sustained from the beating are reduced (minor wounds don't happen and major wounds become minor)

I've been toying with this idea for a while of giving someone the pass out option. . . But it always lacked that certain edge to it, but the idea of reducing the injuries if you accept the KO was the peice that I was always missing. Good idea, I'll need to incorporate it at some point.

[Alrik Vas]

I think Iczer has some good rules for this sort of thing.

I also think flatline has a great way of doing it. If you can make a kill and your opponent still has almost all their SDC left, you've got skills.