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What would you guys add to this?
Combat Rules for John's Game
Our Goals for Combat:
We want combats that are:
1) Fast
2) Fun and memorable!
3) Have tactical choices
4) Allow PCs to use their skills and abilities
5) Include role play
6) Help advance the story
During the Game
1 Anticipate your turn and have a good idea of what you are going to do.
2 If you are using a weapon, roll your to hit (d20) and damage dice all at once. If you have 3 attacks, roll 3 d20 and 3 damage dice all at once. Associate your attack dice with your damage dice by color - Red d20 goes with red damage dice.
3 No looking up rules during combat unless absolutely necessary - GM will make his best guess and a note will be taken to review the rule between sessions.
4 Do not talk to someone who is taking their turn unless conversation is invited.
5 Stay in character - what would your PC be thinking or saying?
In Between Games
1 Know the rules for your character inside and out. Run an example combat if needed. Ask questions on the Paizo message board for questions or to get ideas you may not have thought about.
Thanks for the post Juda, I am sure there are some faster and interesting combat systems out there. But I like PF, I am just trying to help encourage my players to stay focused and play faster during our games.
If it is going to slow use a timer for deciding to make a move
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If you play faster, players WILL make tactical mistakes. If you make them pay for these mistakes (even if it is RAW), they will stop making mistakes, by taking far longer to decide on their action.
As a GM, what you can do to accelerate combat, is encourage your players to stop considering every consequence by reducing the impact of their mistakes.
Point them out though and tell them that next time they do this specific mistake, you will not be so tolerant. This should help them improve their mastery of the system and make less mistakes, even while still playing fast.
Also, when you veto PC builds, take into account the complexity of a build vs the system mastery of its player. If a player who does not know the rules is playing a build with complex mechanisms involved, it will always take forever.
If it is going to slow use a timer for deciding to make a move
How would the timer be used? Would you limit the turns to 45 seconds? What would the consequence be if the player took to long?
I think a timer might be to difficult to manage. I don't really have one where you can just quickly push a button to stop and start it for each player.
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Assuming you just want fast-paced and your DM, or you if you are the DM, are able to handle a lot of things at once, I would suggest having lots of mooks in most of your combats. I know it sounds like it would slow it down, but it makes those you are going after seem more powerful if they have a small empire under their control, and increasing the scope of what your players are dealing with allows them to feel like real heroes. Have different groups of mooks that all have to be dealt with in different ways, lets say a group of grappling monks+a convoy of archers+a few invisible rogues. All of these mooks have different solutions, and they can all act as one if they have the same abilities, so a quick-minded DM can still pull off fast turns.
Using skills in combat is a hard fix, the ones I can think of are Perception, Knowledge, Sleight of Hand, Diplomacy~etc., Survival to track, Escape Artist, and various terrain based skills like Climb and Swim.
Including role play and advancing should be built into the enemies themselves by the DM. Further explanation of what the campaign is about might lead to more help in that area. Some examples would be to have a bunch of mooks hired by a local lord charge the PCs as they crest a hill and see the town they were headed towards for so long, with perhaps a mini-boss mook leader with some connection to what is going on in the world at large, such as a man who burned down the home village of one of PCs in the name of the lord years ago. Maybe have him escape a few times before taking him down and moving on to the actual boss.
Basic fantasy stuff was sprinkled in there, but make it more interesting/relevant as your GM sees fit.
With the timer, I've heard it suggested to set the timer at 1 minute. If they haven't gone, they "delay."
Having run the Beginner's Box scenario, I can tell you that the very best way to speed up combat is to remove attacks of opportunity. That may take away from the tactical experience some, but I didn't miss it AT ALL. It was glorious. I've also seen it suggested to make AoO's a feat. You can't make them unless you've taken the feat. That would speed up MOST character's turns while still allowing some experienced players to be more tactical.
Have lots of mooks in most of your combats. It makes those you are going after seem more powerful if they have a small empire under their control, and allows players to feel like real heroes.Have different groups of mooks that all have to be dealt with in different ways,
1) grappling monks+a convoy of archers+a few invisible rogues.
2) very fast mooks who have hidden trapsAll of these mooks have different solutions, and they can all act as one if they have the same abilities, so a quick-minded DM can still pull off fast turns.
Using skills in combat is a hard fix, the ones I can think of are Perception, Knowledge, Sleight of Hand, Diplomacy~etc., Survival to track, Escape Artist, and various terrain based skills like Climb and Swim.
Including role play and advancing should be built into the enemies themselves by the DM.
Awesome post - I summarized above and added a little.
Just make sure every one knows their bonuses. Write them down for every variation.
I'd generally rather just sit around the table having fun than being penned in by lots of rules on how I can act, but if you really want to speed up combat here are some ideas I've seen used in the past.
1 - Use average damage for sneak attack
2 - Use average damage for d6/level spells
3 - Roll damage for a weapon once per round, multiply "per hit" if needed
4 - Use average damage for summoned monsters and demand that anything which will be summoned must be printed out prior to the game
4a - Ban summoning
Whether or not you use a physical timer you can "time" a player's turn mentally. If you think the player is taking too long to act you can ask them to declare an action. If they can't come up with something you can say, "You hesitate" and move onto the next player. I used to play with a DM who used this tactic along with some of the others above. It annoyed some players pretty badly, but it did keep things moving.
If it is going to slow use a timer for deciding to make a move
How would the timer be used? Would you limit the turns to 45 seconds? What would the consequence be if the player took to long?
I think a timer might be to difficult to manage. I don't really have one where you can just quickly push a button to stop and start it for each player.
I'd use an hourglass of 15 seconds tops. And if someone doesn't decide in time, apperantly they do nothing this round. I'd also give a high intelligence character more time to reflect his/her better abilities to deal with complex situations. I'd also make an exception for inexperienced players as it will take some time for them to realise all the actions available.
You could have a copy of the outlines of areas, certain spells may cover available for players.
Remember it may not be needed later on as players understand the need to make sure a fight doesn't last the entire evening.
But most importantly, make sure that this doesn't ruin the experience, because it is supposed to be fun. Maybe simply discussing this with your players and 'threatening' them a little might do the trick, without setting a timer. And in case you need one: most mobile phones have reasonably usable timer that counts back.
Thanks for the thoughts ladies and gentlemen. I definitely don't want to come off as the bad guy, but in a way, I want to take the heat of the players and be the bad guy to make it a fun session.
One or two the players play slow, one because he is in 10th grade (we are all 40's) and the other is slow because he just isn't as into it as we are, although he likes to play.
The kids Dad does help out, but I just want to provide some structure.
I already created a card that adds up what his to hit would be with bonus if he is moving or standing still. ANd that does help a bit. I just need to keep his attention - he is easily distracted.
I also just want us all to be reminded to stay focus and keep combat moving.
So here's a house rule I'm considering: Setting a stopwatch for a minute and, if they take too long, going to the next player. After that player (or NPC) has moved, I ask the previous player if they're ready, and so on.
Alternatively, I might do away with the stopwatch and just move on after a arbitrary* amount of time.
What consequences would this rule have?
We have a big group, but our combats have been speeded up immensely by these rules:
1. A player assistant keeps track of initiatives freeing the GM to handle things.
2. The AGM announces, "It's Buck's turn to act. Jenny is on deck." The person on deck should be deciding their action.
3. GM says, "Buck, go." You have 10 seconds to state your action. Failure means you wait. It can then take as long as it takes for your action to be resolved.
4. If you don't know what your spell does without looking it up, you can't cast it. Learn your character; it's not too much to ask. The GM has to learn all kinds of spells and abilities for the bad guys - you can't learn the six spells you cast most often in combat?
The most important of these is the "On deck". When a person hears they are "on deck" they yank their attention back from playing on their phone, talking about Dr Who, dicking the dog, or whatever distraction they have been doing - before it's actually their turn to act! It's awesome. Really.
Not actually. The AGM (Assistant GM) is the one who announces the person up and the person on deck. The Gm is still the one who initiates the timer by saying "Morgen, go.". That way the player's round starts when the GM is ready. When the GM decides the player's round is over, they say "Captain, who's next?"
Example:
The players come out of a bar after a night of gaining trust-points expecting to get their weapons out of the weapons locker. They see that the locker-guards are dead and the zombie/skeleton horde that did it turns on them.
Everybody rolls initiative and the AGM writes them down and arranges them while the GM sets up the monsters.
GM: Ready. Ron, who is first?
Ron: Buck's Paly is first. Jenny's inquisitor is on deck.
GM: Buck, what do you do?
Buck: I say, "Everybody! Get your weapons! I'll try to hold them." I step up to here (moves figure) and prepare to attack the first beasty that comes into range with my armor-spikes.
GM: OK. Ron, 25xps for Buck for good Paladin roleplaying and to compensate him for the dirt-nap he's about to take. (Ron makes a note) Who's next?
Ron: Jenny's inquisitor is up, my Magus is on Deck.
GM: Jenny, go.
Jenny: Is the door of the weapon shed open?
GM: Yes, it looks like it was bashed off it's hinges by zombies but..Make a perception check. (Success) You can dimly see that there are individual lockers inside and those seem closed. You have ten seconds, what do you do?
Jenny: (Flips through papers) I think I have a spell...
GM: 6, 5, 4...
Jenny: I rush over to my locker and get my weapons out!
GM: It takes a move action to get over there and a standard action to open your locker. Next round you can ready one weapon as a move action or take a full round action to get all your weapons out. Ron, who's next?
Ron: I'm up with my Magus, Vanessa is on deck with her Bard.
GM: Buck, help Vanessa figure out what she wants to do with her Bard (she being new). Ron, what do you do?
That is an actual example from our last game. It may seem that people would feel rushed, but they actually felt excited and reacted more as their character's would - rather than trying to figure every edge.
FYI: In case you're curious... The highlights included the Magus deciding to just grab his sword and rush back to guard the Paladin's flank. It cost him a nasty wound but kept the Paly from being flanked and dropped by a swarm in one round. The Inquisitor's Iron Grenade and the Alchemist's bombs turned the tide of the fight. And the Paly got to use his half-orc ferocity to kill the Zombie that was chewing on the Bard. Then he took a mud-nap - thanks to the Magus' Hydro-Spray Thingy spell (what does a Paladin know?). Just as well, though; it put out the fire on his face.