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I just had a thought about speeding up high level combat (particularly combat that involves many attacks).
When a character with multiple attacks takes a full round action they roll once, and then do the maths for all their attacks based on that one roll.
For example Dudeson the level 12 fighter has 3 attacks at +16/+10/+5 he's standing in front a Kolyarut, a Leonal and a Lillend(he's been a jerk lately and the gods want to give him what for). He declares he's making his full attack. He rolls a d20 getting a 17 on the roll.
Doing the maths he realises he'll have one attack that beats AC 33, one attack that beats AC 27 and one attack that beats AC 22.
Since both the Kolyarut and Leonal both have ACs of 27 he declares that one attack will hit each of them, and the last attack he'll use on the Lillend. He'll then roll damage for each target hit.
Or maybe he declares all three attacks against the Kolyarut (not realising that the Kolyarut's AC is so high) the DM declares the last hit a miss and Dudeson has a better idea of what to do next time.
What do people think? Will it speed up combat? Make it too swingy? What are the pros and cons of this approach?
Too swingy for me.
Better use color-coded dice. Cheap enough and can be rolled at once.
Best use sets of color-coded dice, to roll attack and damage at once.
(like say a red set of d20 plus damage dice for highest attack, a blue set for secondary, a green set for the next iterative...)
Edit:
What about Criticals, when using your idea?
Criticals nothing, you have a 5% chance of missing every single attack in a round. In high level combat when you have a 50+% chance to hit that's horrible.
Awful idea. Half the benefit of getting extra attacks is a reduced chance of wasting your entire turn on a single bad roll. Besides, in my experience comparing 3 rolls to an AC isn't terribly time consuming. Far more often are problems on the DM's end arbitrating monsters that he isn't as familiar with as he should be. Seriously - I've seen DM's take five minutes to run one monsters turn.
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Awful idea. Half the benefit of getting extra attacks is a reduced chance of wasting your entire turn on a single bad roll. Besides, in my experience comparing 3 rolls to an AC isn't terribly time consuming. Far more often are problems on the DM's end arbitrating monsters that he isn't as familiar with as he should be. Seriously - I've seen DM's take five minutes to run one monsters turn.
In defense of High Level DM's, you've run your character for months at least, we get to look at our monsters for a week or so... just saying.
Speeding up combat is really a matter of knowing what you can do and at higher levels monsters are enormously complex. After finishing the STAP I am fully willing to recruit help to run monsters on my side. Co-DM'ing is a great way to balance the work load.
--Chip off the old Vrock!
What about:
Crits auto-Confirm, 1's auto-Fumble
and don't roll damage dice, just use the average.
And give everybody Vital Strike Feats for free (@ appropriate BAB)
and REQUIRE they always use it
Ditching the damage dice (for spells too) will mean less rolls,
even while retaining Iterative Attacks (which are reduced w/ Vital Strike)
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Do you really want to speed up high level combats in D&D? Here's what you do in my opinion.
1. Find a way for your players to actually pay attention to what's going on and think about what they're going to be doing before it's their turn. This means everyone at the table is watching the table the whole time, not messing around on a phone or watching a TV in another room.
2. Have players with multiple attacks always roll their d20 along with their damage dice and any percentiles that might be needed for miss chance.
3. Make sure all characters are keenly aware of any bonuses they might be under before their turn starts and have a standing house rule that if you forget a bonus you don't get a bonus.
4. If you don't have something to do. Pass your turn quickly. As a DM, enforce a "Once you say Pass, you pass no take backs" rule as well.
Honestly I think the reason that a lot of high level combat slows down has more to do with the players then the game. People who aren't paying attention needing a recap every round which slows down the game enough for someone else to get bored and stop paying attention. Rinse and repeat and you've got 5 hour real life time combats.
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and don't roll damage dice, just use the average.
We've done this and it's actually not a bad system to use. It all balances out in the end after all. Lower levels we don't bother but past level 11 or 12 we've tended to move towards this and it can help a lot by having a sheet listing what the average damage for what attack/spell is.
1. Find a way for your players to actually pay attention to what's going on and think about what they're going to be doing before it's their turn. This means everyone at the table is watching the table the whole time, not messing around on a phone or watching a TV in another room.
You are right of course. But sometimes, this does not work. Even when all players pay full attention, the actions of the opponents destroy the well made plans of the players and they have to start looking through spells and equipment to react to a new situation. But you are still right, attention is one of the top problems
In my opinion the sheer amount of spells and magic items slow down high level play so much. As DM you can’t have all of them memorized. In every high level fight things show up witch will force you to flip through books.
I usually assign a player to the task of looking rules up, but it still slows everything down.
Dice rolling is not the problem (at least in my groups)
I use Maptool to automate most things.
It's free.
Between my custom combat macros and the built-in initiative tracking system, it has really, really sped things up in my games — to such an extent that we use it as a game table even when we are playing face to face.
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You are right of course. But sometimes, this does not work. Even when all players pay full attention, the actions of the opponents destroy the well made plans of the players and they have to start looking through spells and equipment to react to a new situation. But you are still right, attention is one of the top problems
In my opinion the sheer amount of spells and magic items slow down high level play so much. As DM you can’t have all of them memorized. In every high level fight things show up witch will force you to flip through books.
I usually assign a player to the task of looking rules up, but it still slows everything down.Dice rolling is not the problem (at least in my groups)
That's true, it won't work every time. Even with a huge list of spells thought your possible required face time shouldn't be that long. People need to make saving throws or we're all buffed again, or I'm rolling damage dice. The effects of the spells could take longer but having some general idea of what your going to do on your turn is much better then waiting for your turn to come up and then trying to decide.
After playing (running) Castles & Crusades recently, I can tell you that there are just too many things in a 3.x based system that make combat take a long time.
In C&C everyone rolls d10 for combat, rolled every round. At first you might think this makes things take longer but I can personally attest that it does not, and it even appears to speed things up. Players who previously stated they would dislike the randomness of the order or the complication of rolling each round are now in love with it. It keeps players paying attention because they can no longer say "I know I will always go after Bob, so I will start paying attention when its Bob's turn" no, now, in C&C, they are watching the table the entire time and waiting for their turn.
In C&C everyone gets less actions per turn but turns go incredibly faster. I ran an entire con game and a few sessions now and with 5 players each player literally waits, on average, 5-6 minutes between turns. I mean Player A goes, does his action, then everyone else goes, then around 5 minutes later, counting monsters, its his turn again. Even though he does less per round, he is acting much more often. This keeps the player's eyes glued to the table and thinking.
In C&C there are no AoO (except if you flee from an enemy) and so there's less worrying about how to move where etc.
In C&C spellcasters can not move and cast a spell and spells are easier to interrupt. That causes spellcasters to think more when its not their action.
In C&C fighters only get more than one attack at upper levels. Generally everyone only ever gets one attack. This greatly speeds things up.
Monsters are vastly simplified, making planning and running sessions easier.
Combat and challenge resolution are very simplified, greatly accelerating combat and things in general.
So, with all of that said, some might wonder, "if you love it so much why aren't you playing it all the time?" or "what are you doing here then?" well I kind of think of C&C as D&D Turbo and Pathfinder as D&D Advanced. Note that I did not say that C&C was D&D Basic (even though I don't consider the word Basic an insult). I have a taste for both flavors.
C&C addresses my desire for a very fast-paced, more old-school feel game, that is extremely easy to DM and plan sessions for.
PF addresses my desire for "The Complete System", ie, the most complete rules system possible.
As a DM/GM I have to confess that I would probably prefer running a C&C game due to the fact that I still don't see the complexity of high level DMing being resolved in PF whereas it is extremely easy in C&C.
As a player, I'm all over Pathfinder. I can't figure out what class and race I want to play first. Unfortunately though, in our group I always end up DMing, so it makes things harder.
Speeding up combat requires each gamer to be ready on his or her turn. A player's indecision or unpreparedness should be the exception instead of the norm. The GM needs to be ready as well, but a player only has one character to run and so doesn't have an excuse.
A rule change will not accomplish what you seek.
Also, how many PC are at your table? I have no desire to ever again play with more than five. Bringing it down to four speeds things up a bit. Three is harder to pull off, but moves very quickly.
Sean K Reynolds reworked critical hits in his Five Moons game so they simply do bonus damage based on the critical modifier. This eliminates having to roll multiple times for damage. Since it's an overall nerf to critical hits, multiple keen effects stack and critical hit effects (like the Critical Focus feats) can be obtained at earlier levels.
Numanera tries to speed things up by having the GM never roll. Everytime a monster attacks, a PC has to roll to dodge it. You could simulate this by having a player roll 1d20 + AC - 10 against a DC = 10 + monster's attack bonus.
But as Ciaran says, simply streamlining the way the game plays at your table goes a long way.