8 minutes/turn - is that very slow? slow? average?

[Jhaelen]

I was a bit sceptical about it, but we've been using egg-timers to good effect. In our group it's just used to limit the time it takes to actually decide what you're doing. Rolling the dice, determining effects, etc. comes afterwards. Coordinating efforts still works as long as players pay attention outside of their turns, e.g. the Barbarian player will say 'please leave this square free, so I can charge there' or the Rogue will ask 'can anyone move to flank with me?' Likewise the leader players decide who's going to help whom before it's their turn.

I think in our group it's also the controller player who takes the longest for his turn, followed by leader players. One reason for the controller player being slow is actually, that many of his powers have complicated effects and he simply doesn't know them very well. Being prepared and knowing your character's powers is very important to be able to decide on and resolve actions quickly.

What helps a lot is that we use a whiteboard to track initiative and any floating modifiers. We also use condition markers and cards.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

This is a view "from the player's side" of the monster/PC defense cards listed in initiative order from left to right. I've been doing this consistently in this new campaign. Guess what? After 12 sessions, most of the time players still ask "does a 27 hit?" No one has any major vision problems and I know the defenses are legible because when I remind folks to look at the monster defenses written on the card they go "ah, yes that hits". Old habits die very hard it would seem. I've gotten tired of reminding everyone.

I'm as flabbergasted as you are. The session I started using monster defense cards, my players jumped right on board. And I don't even include helpful little monster portraits, or even print them.

 

[keterys]

Some folks just can't be led to water. No matter how many times I'll say something like "My lowest defense is 30 and my highest defense is 36" I'll still get people going "So does a 40 hit?"

Even the same person a round later, after I reiterated that "36 is still my highest defense" and occasionally "Now 34 is my highest defense" when a notable combatant dies.

 

[keterys]

Anyhow, carrot suggestion:

"If you announce your intended turn within 20 seconds of initiative passing to you, then you gain a +2 bonus to your attacks for the round.
If you finish your intended turn within 2 minutes* of initiative passing to you, then you gain a +2 bonus to your defenses for the round."
* 4 minutes on any round you spend an action point.

Course, I'd then argue for removing the expertise & improved defense feats

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Anyhow, carrot suggestion:

"If you announce your intended turn within 20 seconds of initiative passing to you, then you gain a +2 bonus to your attacks for the round.
If you finish your intended turn within 2 minutes* of initiative passing to you, then you gain a +2 bonus to your defenses for the round."
* 4 minutes on any round you spend an action point.

Course, I'd then argue for removing the expertise & improved defense feats

Now that's a math fix I could get on board with!

 

[sabrinathecat]

Here's my list:
1 have all the powers written down on note cards (this is the player's job), with all modifiers, stats, and foreseeable factors written down in a nice, clean, clear chart.
"I'm using Tumbling Bolestra, which is base +8, but I have CA from flank for +2, and Astral seal lowered his defenses by 2. 12 on the die hits AC22, so if the monster's base AC was 24 or lower, that hit. Damage is 2D8+5, plus 2d8 sneak attack. total 27 damage, and dazed. I step over here so _____ has a flank in case the creature has superior will and saves during his turn."
Some turns take longer. They just do. Had a lovely power last night that took 4 minutes because of the situation. Hit rolls were easy, (esp when I didn't roll below 17 with a cburst 5 power). Effect was that everyone I hit had to make a basic melee against another monster(one of their allies) or take damage. (Warlocks are fun!) Since some of the monsters didn't have reach, and others did, this made for a nice big mess.

Back to the list:
Create an accountant: Have one of the players keeping track of damage to monsters. This is a good way to keep someone involved who is starting to drift away. Which monster has what damage and which conditions is nearly a full-time job. If the DM is trying to do that AND run the fight, it can really slow things down. There are lots of companies that make chips and counters and whatnot, but small scraps of paper work too.

If there's a rules question, make a ruling and move on. You can always look it up and/or apologize later.

Players should be paying attention to what is going on and plan ahead. Sometimes one player's power, or the monster's move, can completely botch those plans. And contingencies can be hard to plan for.

Plastic sleeves and wet-erase markers can be very helpful for character sheets. Just remember to ban sharpies from the table. (good idea anyway)

Leader healing can be calculated during the next player's turn (unless is is bringing said player back from 0). So, the leader A makes his attack and moves, and says "I use ____ word on B", he can then go talk to B while C takes his/her turn. If B goes next, well, that's another matter. Actually, even then it can wait until the end of B's turn--it is enough to know that you have more HP, or that you will be regaining consciousness.

Interrupts and reaction powers do sometimes slow things down. They just do. Don't like it? Ban Rangers, Barbarians, Bards, Swordmages, and Combat Superiority fighters. Otherwise, it is going to happen.

By the by, if you think 8 minutes was bad, we used to have two players who routinely took 15 minutes each. Their departure from the group was met with mild celebration.

"Speed Chess: The ONLY game of skill in Space City"

 

[Ferghis]

Create an accountant: Have one of the players keeping track of damage to monsters. This is a good way to keep someone involved who is starting to drift away. Which monster has what damage and which conditions is nearly a full-time job.

This is a very good idea, and I support it fully. If there isn't a player that's more in need of a job than others, make the controller do it.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Finally, on the "cheat sheet" - not a bad idea, but I would categorise the powers by action type, not by daily/encounter/at-will. We generally use power cards as separate cards, in Magic-card style wallets; this allows discarding the 'used' powers (or just turning them over) and the cards can be organised into "Standard", "Move", "Minor" and "Triggered" classifications, which makes finding/checking them quicker and easier.

Well, the point of the cheat sheet is to have a single piece of paper that you use in combat. (I am missing hp/healing surge value/#healing surges, stat modifiers and skills). My current group is using cards, but there are usually too many to have them all in front of you, so they make stacks. When it's their turn, they start shifting through the stacks and when you add the item powers, you get a lot of cards. Classifying the powers on the cheat sheet into action type and just color coding the type of power is another option. Part of the point with the cheat sheet is that it abbreviates the information. The default power cards are usually quite verbose.

Cheat sheet, mark 2:

60hp, 15 healing surge value, 7 healing surges

Standard
Magic Missile 20 range 9 damage auto-hit
Scorching Burst 10 range, burst 1, +14vs will, 1d6+9 dmg
Arc Lightning 10 range, two targets +13 vs ref, 1d6+8 dmg
Glorious Presence Close burst 2 enemy, +13 vs will, 2d6+8 dmg, push 1sq, +1 tmp hp.
Fire Shroud Close burst 3 enemy, +14 vs ref, 1d8+9 ongoing 5 save
Lightning Bolt 3 enemy 10 range +13 vs ref, 2d6+8 dmg/miss half
Fountain of Flame 10 range burst 1 enemy, +14 vs ref, 3d8+9dmg/half, zone 5 damage enter/end.
Stinking cloud 20 range, burst 2, +13 vs fort, 1d10+8 dmg. Zone (sustain minor) 11dmg enter/start full concealment -5, edges partial concealment -2.

Minor
Summon Iron Cohort minor burst 2, same defences (AC+2), bloodied hp, interrupt range/melee and take the damage if hit
Healing word minor burst 5, healing surge+2d6

Free
Infernal Wrath reaction to being hit, 1d6+6 damage

Interrupt
Shield interrupt to being hit +4ac/ref until next round

Other
Enlarge spell +1 size -2dmg/dice
7 damage reduction fire
reroll 1 on a damage dice

 

[Quickleaf]

I used to go with all sorts of aids and whatnot, markers and cards and etc etc etc. Now I just have a pencil and lots of blank paper. Forward velocity is the key element. I make the players all track everything that impacts them in a positive way, if they have a buff or another pc gives a buff for some reason, they know to call it out when it comes into play. likewise for debuffs that help them, they need to call them out. We don't go back for some missed reaction or whatever, we just go forward.

Yes, that's something I'm going to start doing from now on. I don't think it will speed up player turns much, however.

MOSTLY though the forward momentum is in terms of narrative and plot. If things EVER start to get slow or dull, then something new happens. The situation gets resolved somehow or changes or a new threat appears, or whatever. The deadly part is that glassy-eyed state that could set in, even with 1 minute turns per player 45 minutes into a fight that still has 20 minutes to go and you know one way or another you're going to win and not much is really happening. The thing is in that situation the players start getting wrapped up in resource management and such, which is OK, but too much of it is just deadly.

Keep it new, keep it fresh, extemporize, create plot twists, disasters, etc. Once I had a boring bit where a party was slugging it out with an elite bad guy in the top of a tower. So I had the tower collapse. All of a sudden it went from "there are going to be 4 more rounds of this guy all surrounded and slugging it out" to "oh crum! We gotta run! Don't let that guy get away! No no watch out for that falling block of... oh ouch!" Clearly that's a strong reaction, clearly collapsing the dungeon on a fight isn't going to work every time, but you CAN find a lot of variations of that, plus maybe just having surrenders, a few 'early deaths', some "reinforcements arrived!" (maybe they're just some minions but they can spice things up) or the enemy retreats, the party discovers a need to hurry on to elsewhere and breaks off, etc.

I'm pretty good about doing this. My OP was actually based on a three-stage solo boss fight with *lots* of planned changes and a few spontaneous changes - it was quite dynamic. Despite this, average turn length was approaching 8 minutes and some players were getting bored and distracted.

I was gonna suggest a solo monster that punishes players when they take too long. For example, a solo creature could have powers like

Stop taking so long
Interrupt, Trigger: The player turn is longer then 45 seconds.
Attack vs. AC
Hit: 2d8 +5 damage
Effect: This power refreshes whenever a player's turn is longer then a minute.

My 4Eisms is off but you get the idea

Haha, I love it! If only I had thought of this

More seriously, I'm going to have a chat with everyone next session to figure out on a player-by-player basis what is causing turns to take so long. It's about figuring out *what* is causing the problem at the source and doing what I can to help solve it (without being a dictator DM). What that is, I have no idea.

 

[Quickleaf]

So here's the collected wisdom I've gathered from my group and your help in this thread. I'm going to bring this list to next game for us to make some changes:

Helping slow players speed up turns?
Alea Colored Markers & condition color code on DM screen
Having a player be initiative tracker/caller
Keep monster cards or ditch them?
White board for initiative, conditions, powers, etc. (necessitates a co-DM)
Egg timer (2-3 minutes)
One-page cheat sheet
Different PC build

Agreements
Not at the table - auto-hold initiative until the player comes back
I forgot about... - forget about it and move forward

Co-DM?
Volunteers?
Could different tasks be split so everyone can still play?
Would this keep players getting bored engaged as we transition to faster turns?