Eric Jean's page

During the summer, we generally lpay from about 4 pm on sundays to about 10 pm or so. As for the BSing - well, we have found that it is unavoidable. Most of us have jobs and attend university and are otherwise occupied with a slew of other 'real world" projects which unfortunatley limit our gaming time. As well as the scope of our games. So, when we get together an game, often it is the only time we will see certain people for the during the last week or two, depending on how fortunate we have been at coordinating games.

So, given that the game is about the role-playing, but it's also about hanging out with your real world friends, in our group anyways, we still try to limit the BSing, but we are all forced to live with a certain level of it. Dependign on the game being run and the length of time since we have seen each other, the BSing likely takes up about an hour of game time in total, not all of it disruptive, though, as it tends to happen between uninvolved PCs.

Still, if I could cut it down to 30 minutes tops - that would be paradise!

I would love to see an article giving players and DM's a like strategies to increase the pace of combat and/or offer rules to improve this.

Currently as the party rises in levels the amount of attacks each gains also increases. A Ranger can have as much as 7 attacks a round and a wizard can cast two spells.

Monsters number of attacks and abilities also increase making combat a slow and extremely lengthy ordeal. Many fights can take the whole gaming session to complete.

Any article addressing this problem will be extremely helpful.:)

Delvesdeep:b:

I agree with you - the pace of the game is one of the biggest deterents in our group from playing games past 9th or 10th level.

the only solution I have found so far, is I have made an "encounter management sheet" which keeps track of ebv\verything in combat. I am presently working on the same thing for the PCs, so they will have a sort of "list" of options they lie to use and are more likely to take advantage of some feats.

i am toying with an idea, however, which is based on a single attack roll to hit, regardless of the number of attacks, and then the result of that die roll determines how many attacks (if any) hit their mark. Something like, using the same attack roll for all 2 or 3 or 4 attacks, just applying the different attack modifiers to each. So if you roll a 14 on your attack, and have 2 attacks, +7/2, say, then the one roll gives you two results: A 21 on the first attack, AC 16 on the second.

I'm still working out the particulars, like what if the PC rols a critical threat... But I AM toying with the mechanics and as soon as I have something, I'm sending a query!

While i agree that speaking of oneself in the third person may seem unusual (especially on a message board), one thing to keep in mind is that Erik Mona posts not just his opinion, but expresses that of the magazine as its chief representative.

He could easily have written instead: "We here at Dragon/Dungeon magazine feel..." and signed his name at the end as Editr in Chief, yet no one would have questioned his use of the pronoun "we".

Besides, if we get into the habit of cross-examining individuals' speech/writing patterns, I am sure we could find all sorts of idiosyncrasies in each other's writing styles. (As a Canadian, I am sure someone would pick up, sooner or later, on little things like how I write 'honour' instead of 'honor'. or how someone likes to use smileys or whatever!)