"How to run a PC quick, clean and effective - Forked Thread: (...prevent Grindspace!)

[Spatula]

Power cards are a nice way of keeping the relevant information for your character handy, without having to copy out your power texts or use up a ton of scratch paper (not to mention the time spent trying to decipher your marks from the previous session). There's some nice ones out there on the net, and I believe WotC sells some too. Having them in an electronic format is nice (not sure if WotC does that), since you can just print out the ones you need and can make copies if there's more than one character with the same power.

 

[DracoSuave]

As a DM, you can speed things up by not being afraid to down a party member here and there. It adds dramatic tension and removes a turn from the wait-period.

 

[Alikar]

2. Label your monsters as A, B, C, etc. before the game. 3. At the beginning of the encounter roll multiple dice for initiative, and quickly read off the initiative results adding appropriate bonuses (I read left to right on the dice) to the intiative keeper.

I'd actually recommend simply rolling the dice when you make the encounter in the first place. That way you have it out of the way.

5. Don't use too many monsters with recharge powers in an encounter. The way I do recharge powers on non-solo monsters is I put a tick next to it every time I don't use the power. When I feel I need to use the power, I roll as many dice as I have ticks for and see if the recharge comes up. For solos I just use the regular method since their recharge powers are typically very important.

Interesting. I wonder how much this really changes the odds of it working. I like it.

 

[Vayden]

Big, big tip for speeding up 4e play - use those Alea magnet markers. Want to keep track of who's cursed/marked/quarried? Give the warlock/fighter/ranger a set of white/yellow/grey markers and have make them responsible for putting their marker on their targer. Wondering who's currently bloodied? A nice stack of red magnets helps there. Curious to see which of the vampires have saved against ongoing fire? Check and see which ones still have the orange magnets under them. They're a life-saver when it comes to tracking those little details everyone complains about tracking.

 

[TheLordWinter]

Big, big tip for speeding up 4e play - use those Alea magnet markers. Want to keep track of who's cursed/marked/quarried? Give the warlock/fighter/ranger a set of white/yellow/grey markers and have make them responsible for putting their marker on their targer. Wondering who's currently bloodied? A nice stack of red magnets helps there. Curious to see which of the vampires have saved against ongoing fire? Check and see which ones still have the orange magnets under them. They're a life-saver when it comes to tracking those little details everyone complains about tracking.

A fast and cheap equivalent to these is to use pipe cleaners, cut 'em and wrap 'em into circles. Then when a foe or character is marked/curse/quarried/what have you, you just toss a ring on.

 

[shilsen]

Does anyone here roll all (or most) relevant rolls for the NPCs before the game? I mean things like initiative, attacks and damage, saves, etc. I've done that for a long while for my 3.5e game since 3e is way too slow at high levels (we're at 16th lvl now) and that saves a ton of time. I'm thinking of doing exactly the same thing for my 4e game and I expect it to save a lot of time there too. So I'm curious if anyone else does or has done it in 4e and how it worked out for you.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I used to use a pageful of randomly rolled numbers, and cross them off as I use them.
Figured if SEED algorithms are good enough for computer games, my computer geek players had no cause for complaint.

 

[James McMurray]

A fast and cheap equivalent to these is to use pipe cleaners, cut 'em and wrap 'em into circles. Then when a foe or character is marked/curse/quarried/what have you, you just toss a ring on.

We use 1" and 2" wooden discs. They're 10 for a buck or 4 for a buck at Hobby Lobby. Add some cheap finger paint from Wal-Mart and you've got any number of different colored markers.

We've also used colored paper clips, but the ones I bought were apparently made out of adamantium or something, as they dented a pair of wire cutters so we quit using them. The discs work out better for me anyway. It's easy to tell whose PC is in the most jeapordy just by seeing which mini is tallest.

 

[Dracorat]

My own personal favorite, from a DM perspective.

Coat some quarters in nail polish (of different colors). (I have a daughter, so thus, easy access to said nail polish)

Use them for conditions. Slide them under minis (or sit thim inside the legs of larger ones) to denote condition statuses.

If you later want to use the quarters, just soak them overnight in nail polish remover.

EDIT:

Missed that we had flown to a page two and the poster above me has basically the same idea. Didn't mean to steal any thunder.

 

[Walknot]

How long does it take?

Wonder how long you do take for each round of your PC?

Calculating for my group ---> about 1 minute per PC per round. Yoinks! That just can't be...

(Maths:
6 hours play time. Half battling, half other. 5 PC's in our group. About 3 combats per night. Each combat lasts what 15 rounds? SO...
6*60/2/5/3/15 = 4/5 of a minute or 48 seconds per PC per round)

They say that if you want to improve something, just measure it. You could click a stopwatch and write down how long each PC takes each round. Probably everyone would speed themselves up.