Tedious Combat, lots of players, how to spice things up?

[TarkXT]

So I find myself at something of an impasse with my pathfinder game.

There's no lack of good roleplayers or stoytelling in our group. We don't have a THAT GUY in our group.

The trouble however is that we have about 5 people, two with leadership (one a necromancer with undead minions) and a druid with an ankylosaurus animal companion so I have to forego a lot of description for the sake of speed. Sadly this is making combat rather tedious. So now I find myself at a loss on how to make combat "fun" without dragging things out.

It doesn't help that the party is getting rather good at combat. So what am I to do?

Group is level 8 homebrew viking setting. Players are out to stop ragnarok currently by reactivating an ancient lizardfolk artifact to drive the world serpent back to the worlds edges.

[Fraust]

What are you doing so far? How do you track initiative? How experienced are the players? How quickly do spell casters take their actions?

Regarding initiative...one thing that helps is index cards. It takes a little bit of prep work though, but writing down stats on index cards, and then putting their initiative total on the top can make combat go pretty quick. Also, having a player stay attentive on initiative order helps out a lot to, as the GM has a lot of other things to keep track of. Do undead minions/druid pet roll seperate or just go when the controlling PC goes? It may feel a little forced, but grouping things up quickens things up.

Regarding experience. It sounds like people are familiar with the combat rules, so there isn't much flipping through books durring game? If people still need to look up specifics on combat manuvers or what a feat does, again, index cards with just the very basics can help out a ton. Everyone having their own rulebook and the foresight to look up stuff while others are going helps out a lot as well.

Regarding spellcasters. One to two players running spell casters and having to stop and look up the specifics of a spell every other round can slow things down to a painful crawl. Suggest to people that they study up on spell stats on their own time, and write up spell cards with the basics of commonly cast spells.

Are people playing distractedly? Watching TV/playing with phones durring the game? Remove any distractions you can, and try to cut down on off topic discussion as much as possible. Obviously you don't want to end up comming accross as some tyranical prick...but all those montey python jokes and "this one time, my character in bob's campaign, stuck a flute..." quickly eat away the time you have to game.

[Sleep-Walker]

Allowing too many players to have allies active in combat situations really slows things down. But that ship has sailed for you.

I would try going with round initiative. Everyone rolls initiative. Person with highest goes first first. Play goes clockwise or counterclockwise in the direction of the person with the second highest. We have found this to work faster than the old fashioned way.

[Michael F]

I agree, having people put the details of spells and rules and abilities on cards or sheets or whatever is very helpful.

I use a magnet board initiative chart, so I always know who's next. Also, we usually tell the person after the person about to go that they are "on deck" so that the (hopefully) get their action ready while the guy ahead of them on the initiative track is going, and can act immediately when called on without dithering.

Cohorts, pets, summoned critters, spiritual weapons, all that crap always goes on the same round as the PC. Our group frowns on cohorts and pets a little bit because they make fights more complicated.

I usually don't break the bad guys into more than two groups. Maybe one for a boss or quick guy and all the other mooks at once. Often they all go in one group.

There are a number of things you can do as a DM to make fights take less time, especially if you are having a lot of fights that drag out a long time and you or some of the players are getting bored by it.

If it's not an important boss fight, have the bad guys bail or surrender as soon as things start to not go their way. If they surrender, taking prisoners is totally optional. Even if the bad guys don't expect mercy, they still might give because they're tired.

If it's a "random encounter" or other less important sort of fight, and your players are really good at combat, maybe don't roll dice for every fight. Just say that the bad guys get beat and cause a little damage to hp and other resources, and move on to the next challenge.

You could add a small amount of randomness to a shortened fight by having each player make a save or a skill check or something, with success slightly reducing the cost of the fight for that player.

[pobbes]

I don't know how you are currently doing this, but take control of cohorts, undead, animal companions, and other followers. The rules specify how much a player can say freely, or the type of actions a character can designate for an animal companion or undead. Have them issue orders, and you resolve their actions on their own initiative. It is how the game is meant to play, and stops players from analyzing every step for 14 characters. Just have them manage themselves and you will run the NPCs. They may get some flack, but just don't play them foolishly and I think there won't be any problems. Also, it will encourage players to invest in making group tactics for and specific orders they can give their units which will make them more heavily invested without further complicating things.

[Michael F]

pobbes wrote:

I don't know how you are currently doing this, but take control of cohorts, undead, animal companions, and other followers. The rules specify how much a player can say freely, or the type of actions a character can designate for an animal companion or undead. Have them issue orders, and you resolve their actions on their own initiative. It is how the game is meant to play, and stops players from analyzing every step for 14 characters. Just have them manage themselves and you will run the NPCs. They may get some flack, but just don't play them foolishly and I think there won't be any problems. Also, it will encourage players to invest in making group tactics for and specific orders they can give their units which will make them more heavily invested without further complicating things.

Most players like to roll dice for their cohorts, and the DM usually has enough dice rolling of his own to do. It's usually good enough for the player to state the kind of orders they're giving and then take the action for the cohort. You just have to keep an eye out and make sure that the PCs don't "overcontrol" the actions of their cohorts. If the table is honest, they will encourage each other not get too complex with animals, etc.

Controlling all the cohorts (and all the bad guys) all going on their own initiatives would add too much to my workload as a DM.

You must really like to roll dice :)

[pobbes]

Michael F wrote:

Most players like to roll dice for their cohorts, and the DM usually has enough dice rolling of his own to do. It's usually good enough for the player to state the kind of orders they're giving and then take the action for the cohort. You just have to keep an eye out and make sure that the PCs don't "overcontrol" the actions of their cohorts. If the table is honest, they will encourage each other not get too complex with animals, etc.

Controlling all the cohorts (and all the bad guys) all going on their own initiatives would add too much to my workload as a DM.

You must really like to roll dice :)

I don't mind letting the players roll the dice, I just like to simplify a lot of NPC action into they advance and attack. When players utilize advanced game tactics adaptively in the battlemap I admire their creativity, but doing so for twelve guys takes up to much time. Letting them minutely control just their PC and saying ten words saves the table time. I just let the followers act more basically, and the dice rolling is less time consuming then decision making. When players go, I wanted them to set up flanking, or maneuver so not to get by an upcoming fireball, it takes up so much time. Let the PCs be the adaptive tactical thinkers, and they will work around their cohorts, but save yourself some time from so much decision making.

[0gre]

Have you tried just telling them they have 30 seconds to declare their actions and 30 seconds to roll? Bust out a timer and get them going.

Have someone with a laptop run a timer to keep everyone moving.

[TarkXT]

I suppose I should have mentioned that this is an online game and thus the index card ideas don't work. On the plus side most of the players have taken to using macros for their stuff including spells complete with descriptions. Not everyone is though, the druid in particular is pretty bad about forgetting basic things like attack rolls. Going to do him and the group a favor and get his updated sheet so we can sit down and macro him up.

Surrender isn't really an option when you're a valhallan warrior fighting against Frost Giants. This is a war of extinction after all. Still I don't think it's a bad idea to fudge hit point totals negatively for the bad guys when the fights been pretty much determined. Also the players have been separating out their cohorts for themselves which is something I think I'll go ahead and put a stop to. A timer is definitely going to have to be needed.

[Fraust]

What are you using to play online? Might want to look at d20pro. It costs money (30 for you and two other people to play, ten a head after that), and it's not ready to run out of the box so to speak...but I imagine it's about as work intesive as writing macros for everyone.

[beej67]

My group is seven people, one antipaladin with a succubus cohort, one bard with leadership and a cohort, one necromancer with animated undead and leadership and a summoner cohort just for grins who has a pokemon and can also summon. And a fighter, a monk, and a barbarian. And one druid with the full Dr Doolittle hoard. (that's me) Party is 12th level. We rotate GMs.

When I run the game, I tell everyone the ACs they're looking for and let them go two (sometimes three) at a time, keeping track of their own damage on a whiteboard referenced to the monsters. I only "oversee" and roll saves during the PCs turns, taking more of a management role.

[TarkXT]

MAcro wise programming them is relatively simple in maptools. So like hell we're spending money after getting 6 or seven different guys macroed out. Nice thing is we got the campaign set up so tokens can have their respective sheet punched in. That way when you edit the token with your updated sheet your macros get updated. So it's not a bad deal.

[Quixote]

This thread is nine years old, so I doubt there's still a problem anymore.

For anyone else looking to streamline their gameplay, the Angry GM's "How to Run Combat Like a Motherf***ing Dolphin" is a fantastic article. Concise, clear and pretty much irrefutable.

[Kir'Eshe]

Quixote wrote:

This thread is nine years old, so I doubt there's still a problem anymore.

For anyone else looking to streamline their gameplay, the Angry GM's "How to Run Combat Like a Motherf***ing Dolphin" is a fantastic article. Concise, clear and pretty much irrefutable.

Always wanted to run a game like a forking dolphin. lol.

Back in the day, we used to divvy up the mechanics. One player would do initiative, one would do badguy hps. D20 rolls were made and damage was averaged. There were between 5-8 players and it went fine.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Yes, creating exigency and bookending combat rounds is all fine and good when running a combat. Sometimes however it isn't that cut and dry. By level 5 and on spellcaster PCs are managing 3 or more levels of spells that are still potentially relevant to the current difficulty of the threat. By level 10 players have so many spells, abilities and magic items that they can easily forget stuff.

As long as we're necro'ing and commenting on this ancient thread, it's valuable to note that the specific example that Angry uses is a player bopping a goblin with a mace for 6 HP. That's an easy combat round to transition through. What about when you've got a narrow, metal bridge with chunks of it corroded away, over bubbling alchemical pits, the bridge occupied by slow-moving half-slime humanoids, the far end of the bridge guarded by a four-armed advanced ogre, and the evil alchemist at the far end of the chamber tossing battlefield control extracts all over the place. Oh yeah, and the walls are slimy brick with the vault overhead obscured by a forest of piping, some of which are steaming as they carry chemicals to the pits. And lastly... the pits are spawning new half-slime humanoids onto the bridge every round.

Now your characters are APL 8, consisting of an investigator 6/wizard 2, a barbarian 6/bard 2, a swamp druid 8 and a bloodrager 2/brawler 2/fighter 4. They've got multiple spells, abilities and powers that have a direct application to the fight at hand. While the players haven't been in something this chaotic before their characters have survived 8 levels of monsters, traps, and hazards sometimes all coming at them at once.

So then when you transition from the Investigator to the b/b/f and go "Ok, the little one here just flung himself up into the pipes overhead to snipe one of the slime-things away; what will you do with your turn?" and they study their character sheet a bit longer... do you just say "you parry. Ok barbarian/bard..." or do you give the player a bit of time?

In this exact situation the player was weighing the pros and cons of using a combo of feats with a Conjuration item to use a 1/day teleportation ability to get him and the bardbarian straight to the alchemist (but also putting them both within reach of the mutant ogre) OR if he should use another combination of feats to clear an easy path through the slime-guys so that the bardbarian could make a Charge attack on the ogre thing. But then, whatever happens, he's ALSO got to wonder; if he moves from his current position, since the druid is extremely squishy and has already sent her Animal Companion ahead, who's going to make sure slime-guys don't pop up from the sides and obliterate the nature-lover?

None of that had anything to do with me of course, but the expectation of folks like the Angry DM is that the player should've worked out all those pros and cons while the previous PCs were taking their turns. Except, during THEIR turns, this player was paying attention to the action on the map to gather info on the threats and the other players' actions SO THAT he could factor that info into his own decision-making process on HIS turn.

So... in the above scenario, I deliberately allowed a slow-down in my combat pacing, giving the player a couple minutes to figure what they needed to figure, announce their actions, and make their rolls. In the end he teleported. The bardbarian locked down on the alchemist while the slime-guys started massing around the druid. The druid however turned into a Diminutive-sized bird and flew into the air while her warcat and the B/B/F tag teamed on the ogre and the Investigator used his skills with alchemy to screw up the chem bath pouring out of the pipes and thus shut down the slime-guys respawning.

However, because of all the weird thought and strategy that went INTO those actions, that fight was one of 2 we had all night, a session which ran 3.5 hours.

The fact of the matter is that the mechanics and abilities of both characters and foes slow down the pacing. Period. There's only so much control the GM has without abandoning some rules, or playing their monsters dumb and having them Charge attack every round, or forcing slow players to give up whole rounds critical to the success of the entire party simply to penalize the players for the vast amount of moving parts and mechanics said players have to keep track of.

In short: forcing standard chess players to suddenly play speed chess so that you can get through more stuff is sometimes not very fun for the folks involved.

When my players are levels 1-5 I can generally get through a "5-room dungeon" or more in a 4 hour session. After level 5, things begin slowing down. By level 10 things move slow. Period.

I don't complain about it because I accept it as the nature of the system I'm using. If I want lots of quick random fights I'll play another game or adjust the rules from the start (set the game to a top tier of level 6 or something).

[Quixote]

Yeah, the "give your players 0 seconds to make a decision" part of the article wasn't one I was about to jump onto wholeheartedly and never look back. That's a group-by-group sort of thing.

I do think keeping to a strict time limit has it's merits though, even if it's not quite 0 seconds. I think Angry's right about players missing turns: after it's happened once or twice, it won't happen again. They'll hate it that much.

I think his breakdown of how to run initiative and, more importantly, how to go from descriptive storytelling to system ref quickly and seamlessly are good ideas for everyone and anyone. Never seen a better way to do it, period.
So even if the game slows down due to complicated rules, you can keep it clipping along as quickly and smoothly as possible.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Words matter.

The words we choose not only convey the info we're delivering but set the tone of the exchange. The 2 conversation examples Angry gives, of resolving a combat round, are a terrific illustration of that point.

I personally use body language and re-enactment when narrating a combat. You don't just Overrun the gnolls for 11 damage, oh no; guaranteed I'll be making the terrified faces of the gnolls, hands up around my face, as they watch in horror as the Dire Bull mount goes tearing through their ranks!

That also goes for transitions between players tho. Finishing with the paladin that just charged through a horde of gnolls, then turning to the next up and saying "Player 2; next" in a dead voice is not keeping the pacing even though it's conveying the info I need to. Something like "The rogue senses the perfect moment to strike; player 2, you're UP!" or whatever.

Minis on a map tells everyone where they are; numbers on a white board or a sheet of paper tells people the order of their actions. Even the dice inform us of the success of those actions. Only WE, the players and GM, can decide and convey what those actions are. WE are the brush strokes of the chaotic canvas known as TTRPG combat.

Words matter.

[Quixote]

...exactly. That's why he combines descriptive storytelling and rules moderation into one thing.

Pretty much everyone I've ever seen run a game goes:

"You bring your sword down in a vicious arc, the blade biting deep into the monster's twisted flesh... okay, next up is...so-and-so. Your turn."

But in that article we get an example like:

"You bring your sword down in a vicious arc, the blade biting deep into the monster's twisted flesh. So-and-so, your comrade has the beast giving ground. What do you do?" -- there's no break between description and game mechanics. The flow is minimally disrupted.

So yeah, words matter. And rules matter. And not letting the latter mess with the pacing and tone of the former matters.

[Andostre]

Quixote wrote:

This thread is nine years old, so I doubt there's still a problem anymore.

It's spam. The thread was necroed because of spam.

Not to diminish the conversation that happened afterwards, though.

[Quixote]

Ha! I didn't even see that. I thought someone was all "here's a stopwatch to manage combat turns" or whatever.