Often combat can take hours of game time. What do you use to to reduce the time? This could be required of the players- spell cards, DM- screens, or visuals-battlemat, etc.
Think over what's going on when your characters are in combat. Are they looking over page after page of notes or flipping through book after book for info? Is the DM? Are they chatting and discussing options?
It could be as easy as reorganizing characeter sheets, or more prep on known spells. Or the solution could be an egg timer for decisions.
JUst make sure if you have spell caster they should check all the spells they have so they know what they are casting and if it will be helpful in the campagin.
JUst make sure if you have spell caster they should check all the spells they have so they know what they are casting and if it will be helpful in the campagin.
More to add onto that, ask the spell casters to put down on an index card all of their spell levels they can cast and how many times they can cast it a day, when they cast it just put a check or tally mark there and when it reaches their limit it's over for that spell level today, it works for our group. Also, if you can, memorize most of the players AC and your attack bonus, it isn't needed but knowing your players attack bonuses can both prevent cheating and can speed combat up a slight bit. I would still let your group chat a small bit on possible options so battle can be done easier, but it can sometimes add a little time during the combat. If the group is clear on what they basically do during combat that is great, and if not help them out with rules (I'm sure you already do that) and also try to keep any momentum you have, like if your group is flying through rounds, don't let it stop.
Still, sometimes it takes a little measure to know when you are pushing your group through rounds and when your just asking them to hurry, my group doesn't like to be rushed, so I don't tell them to hurry often at all. Well, I hope that helped, just to add on a bit, I hate when battle takes forever also. I just played a game at a convention today, and a battle took almost an hour...oh well. Sometimes I guess it just can't be helped, you know?(I'm sure you do know)
Spell cards, full write ups of special abilities, and as the DM, be very familiar with your players' character's abilities.
Make players keep track of how much damage they have done to their targets.
As ever,
ACE
Also, take not of the size of the battles. Too many people involved in the fight can bog things down a lot. Look at reducing the total bodies involved, character and monster. This will save time on bookkeeping.
Good GM recordkeeping helps a lot. My husband meticulously puts stat blocks for *everything* he runs onto his laptop, so he has the stats at his fingertips with no looking through books. This also means he's vetted everything before he runs it, which can catch problems in advance.
I'm too lazy to do this, but his combats do run much faster and more smoothly than mine.
Both of us find an initiative chart essential: it has not only PC and NPC initiatives, but the round and segment where each short-duration spell will run out.
If you are using more than one book monster, flipping back and forth through the Monster Manual can be quite cumbersome--copying them out onto paper really helps. It's even worse if you have to do something on the fly, like turning a lion into a celestial line--it's worth avoiding this.
Creatures which the PCs or NPCs intend to summon should be done up in advance. Insist that the players of summoning PCs keep sheets of the things they typically summon.
You can also experiment with shifting some of the bookkeeping to a player, if you have an amenable player. They can track the initiative chart or spell durations, for example, or run allied NPCs, or make certain rolls for the NPCs to save GM time. Don't try this if your players are the slow link in the chain, though, as it will just make things worse.
We find that large delays in combat come from "delay" and "ready" actions, spells which require continuing rolls (Evard's Black Tentacles and similar effects), and from having too many combatants. Unfortunately these are hard to fix without massive house rules, but you can try to avoid loading multiple NPCs in a single fight with combat-slowing abilities.
The setpiece fight in Zenith Trajectory from SCAP took us seven hours to play out, and by the end of that I just wanted my PC to die and put me out of my misery. It's really worthwhile trying to speed things up.
Mary
Make players keep track of how much damage they have done to their targets.
As ever,
ACE
I do this except in the case where the bad guy has all sorts of abilities like Damage Resistance and/or fast healing.
A few other things I like to do to speed up combat - make the players keep track of initiative. If your playing with a large battle map and players scattered all around the table have two players on opposite sides of the table record the initiative. Also have players write down buffs or anti-buffs (spells the bad guys have cast on them) on the battle mat - probably beside the initiative.
Pretty much I try and unload as much work as possible onto the PCs - for one thing most of them are not actively engaged most of the time so its not like the tasks are beyond their ability to handle and it leaves you more time to concentrate on what your guys are doing.
Try and know your bad guys up and down. Work out some probable tactics ahead of time so that you don't have to waste to much time thinking about what the bad guys are doing.
The modern version of the stat blocks is pretty good for helping you decide what a monster can do in a round though I slightly modified them for my own use - for example I added a 'trip' stat after Grp: in the stat block as I have a player that trips pretty much with every attack if the monster is not huge or a Dragon.
I tend to note down the effects of spells that the monster might use after the spell including things like range, duration, save DC etc. everything I need to know to use that spell in combat without having to crack a book open but usually condensed into just a few sentences.
I do the same with any less common feats. So I'm not going to bother writing down what Weapon Specialization does - I know what it does and the benefit is reflected in the weapon stats anyway. But if the monster has Combat Acrobat as a feat I'll note what that means beside the feat.
I also tend to move the special abilities notes from the bottom of the stat block to the part of the stat block that corresponds to the monsters ability. So special abilities that are good for surprise or seeing things would appear in the first part of the stat block, ones that increase armour class or hit points appear in the second part of the stat block while ones that are alternate forms of attack or enhance attacks appear in the third part of the stat block. Essentially I'm just expanding on the idea that different parts of the stat block are important for different parts of a combat round instead of having a mess of special abilities listed under the monsters where I have to sort through them to see if their applicable to whatever is going on every time the monster performs an action or has an action performed on it.
As you can see I'm big on organization and on trying to download as much work as possible onto the players. That said this speeds up combat - it does not make it actually fast. However combat is fun - but waiting while the DM looks up a rule is not fun. Organization helps insure that the combat is always about players choosing what they are doing or the mean monsters doing nasty things to them - which is the fun part of combat.
Ask players to decide their actions and roll their attacks in advance. This is crucial at higher levels, when a round of full attacks or two handfuls of d6s can take some time to roll.
Ask players to know all their spells and abilities beforehand. Learn the combat rules yourself so that players don't have to leaf through the Player's Handbook and scratch their heads trying to work out Grappling.
Use miniatures. This makes combat take longer since it requires more thought, but it also saves time by clarifying the position of combat at a glance.
If a player is taking too long deciding his options, hurry them along. In a real combat you wouldn't have the luxury of spending ten minutes.
Shorten combat? Ban Evards Black Tentacles, web, entangle, annoying combat slowers that are good but make everything painful slow and boring.
Got a laptop? Use one of the combat management programs out there to handle init, roll attack and damage dice for you, track monster hit points, and other things. Makes combat go much, much faster.
Appoint a (rules-knowledgeable) party captain to keep track of party initiatives, remind the person next person it's their turn before it comes up, and help the newbs figure out in advance what they can or can't do.
I find it less important for me to be familiar with their abilities as for the Players to be familiar with their own characters' abilities.Furthermore, my Players know that they are responsible for having rules information, spell descriptions and so forth ready to read to me upon request, especially if they are trying anything unusual.
It's not uncommong for someone to say, "I'm doing XYZ," and then start reading the relevant paragraphs from the Combat section or spell description.
Basically, I as DM should never have to look up the rules, the Players should provide me with that information to support their case.
Rez
QFT...some of my players are too lazy to look up anything...that really annoys me.
I thin kthe most significant factor in speeding up Comabt is making sure everyone knows what their Characters / NPCs can do, and also have ALL their comabt modifiers written down.
When I am a player, I hate it when comabt drags, so I work hard on speeding it up when I am DMing.
My experience has been that the single biggest factor in draggin combats out is the DM not being on top of the NPCs / Monsters.
If you want to speed combat up, I would suggest having an index card with the stats for EVERY NPC / monster in the combat. (Obviously, ideally these would be prepared ahead of time, even with initiative rolled). Also have a card with PC info (the info is not really needed, a blank card with their name and init would do in a pinch).
When combat starts and initiative is rolled, put all the cards in order, and then cycle through them as you go. This way, you know whos turn is next (so you don't skip anyone, as I tend to do at least onceevery session), and you also have all the relevant stats there for your NPCs / Monsters so you don't need to look them up each and every time.
Another thing that can slow combat down is when there are a number of different variables the players have to add each time. For instance, in one game, in our party we have a Shifter Barbarian, and a Bard. Right there, you have 3 Different Modifiers to take into account each time (Rage, Shift and Bard Song), which leaves you with 8 different modifiers. Have the players have all their possible modifiers written out and ready to go beforehand so they don't need to add 4 numbers together, just 2.
1) I use cards to keep track of initiative. I believe I got the Idea from a Monte Cook article on DMing tips. Anyway best idea I have used to speed up combat. I paste cut out stats for NPCs and monsters to these cards, so I can reference NPC's abilities when it is that NPC's turn.
2) I also give experience to spell casters who put there spells on index cards. I make my own cards with the entire description of a spell on top of it. Having easy access to spell info cuts down on time looking for that info.
3) Make the call and move on. Don't get stuck looking up rules. Make a ruling, move on, make corrections after the game for the next session.
4) The 10 count. On rare occasions, I have been known to count down from ten, when a player takes two long to decide on what thier character is going to do. If I get to ten then the character is reserving his action for later. Some times a player has just got to hear the clock ticking, to motivate into action.
as the DM, be very familiar with your players' character's abilities.I find it less important for me to be familiar with their abilities as for the Players to be familiar with their own characters' abilities.
Furthermore, my Players know that they are responsible for having rules information, spell descriptions and so forth ready to read to me upon request, especially if they are trying anything unusual.
It's not uncommong for someone to say, "I'm doing XYZ," and then start reading the relevant paragraphs from the Combat section or spell description.
Basically, I as DM should never have to look up the rules, the Players should provide me with that information to support their case.
Rez
I have found, as a DM, my reading of a rule and a players reading of the same rule cuold be quite different. As a player the rules always seem to be in my favor. Players will omit certain things that I always catch when I look myself. In the end, I don't trust my players.
Never trust the players!!!
They are only out to thwart the best laid plans of the DM!!!
Evil, Evil, D&D players
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as a player more than a DM, I would suggest that each player have a style of play during combat or at least a style for the beggining of combat. however the most effective way to speed up the combat is for the players to know their characters. i usually spend time each week to research what new things my character knows or how to play my character better. combat speeds up a lot if every one knows what they are going to do when it gets to be their turn. make the players do some work.
I prefer that my Players roll their own dice and calculate results immediately before I ask for them. I don't need to see the rolls, just tell me the results.
I let my players calculate results. But I always reserve the right to check there calculations. I always reserve the right to call for a re-roll, if i missed a die roll (cause I don't trust them).
On the matter of trust, I'm very simple ... all of my Players are my friends and I trust them implicitly. They, in turn, don't lie to me, fudge rolls or omit passages when reading rules aloud for consideration.
Trust for me isn't so black and white. There are people I will trust with my wallet, that I won't trust in a poker game. Heck I trust my cousin with my life, but not with my girlfriend (I love him, but he is a dirty dog like that). My mistrust of others on the game table comes from my own behavior. I've been known to keep silent when the DM forgets a rule that would hurt the party or my character. I fudged a die roll or two gaming before. I think it is almost instictive to pick up the dice and try to roll again after you fumbled. It's not a habit, but I've done it before.
If I ever catch a Player cheating I ban them from the game on the first offense, no questions, no excuses.
Boy, if I did this I wouldn't have anyone to play D&D. Although, walk off my table, pouting because things didn't go your way, don't come back.
The Players all know this, but like I said we're all friends to it's not an issue. Either way, I won't DM for anyone who is dishonest and won't allow them in my home in the first place.Rez
Everyone I game with are my friends. If a new player gets invited to the game, I usually make friends with them as well. I am quick to quite a game with someone I do not get along. If I can't trust someone in my house, I won't be gaming with them very long. But as far as trusting someone not to cheat a die roll here or misinterpret a rule here, I can work it out. A player re-rolls, we play the rule as I interpret them, we work it out. If we can't work it out, a player refuses to re-rolls "because I don't trust them", are they get upset because I read the rules differently, then we have a problem, somebody going to go. Most likely the other guy leaves, because my players love me (for 1500 bonus exp., they love me long time).
Another idea would be to roll for the Pcs