D&D 4E Any tips for speeding up the game? 4e is slowing me down!

invokethehojo · Sep 16, 2008

Also, this is just my thing but it might help you. I made a little word sheet to help me track combat. it's just a table where i write in the combatants in the order of initiative and columns of boxes next to it labeled 1 - 15 for rounds. at each combatants turn i make a mark to indicate they have completed their turn or i write a little blurb like "on 5" to show they have ongoing 5 damage or "slow" for you guessed it. I draw a little line to the box that indicates when this condition will end if there is a time limit.

under that table is another one with a slot for each bad guys name, his AC Fort Ref and Will, and a box for writing his hp.

I can fit two sets of these on one sheet and have plenty of room to write. Combine this with my printed out monster stats and I'm good to go and have plenty of table room.

dunno if that helps you, but if your interested i can post that sheet

Nebulous · Sep 16, 2008

invokethehojo said:
I think all your problems have been dealt with by at least one person on here... except for one, marking. If you don't like it and find it hard to track (like me) then just don't use monsters that mark. Either pick ones that don't or switch out their marking power for another one from a similar monster.

I dislike monster marking as well. I agree, either substitute another minor power in that slot, or even easier, bump up the damage by 1 or 2.

WizarDru · Sep 16, 2008

Nebulous said:
We found that having a way to visually track conditions has massively speeded up play.

We use little colored magnets that I got at Gencon. They're the perfect size to go under the minis, and it makes status tracking easier. They also came with some sticky tack and a magnet-base so when you have multiple magnets near each other, they don't push each other apart.

I got a lot of red ones, which we use to represent bloodied on the field. Silver represents a figher's mark. Green is a Hunter's Quarry. Black is the warlock's curse. And so on. It makes it much easier to track what's going on visually.

keterys · Sep 16, 2008

Probably reasonable to just give creatures that mark the ability to OA someone who shifts, slow instead of mark on attacks that do that, or an immediate reaction attack when someone attacks an ally adjacent to them. Depending on the critter.

robotsinmyhead · Sep 16, 2008

I joined to download some stuff, and as an added bonus, I get to bother you and Tripgnosis now.

cignus_pfaccari · Sep 17, 2008

robotsinmyhead said:
Print off powers cards or make the players do all their bonus addition right on their page.

If a power says 'Will vs AC and 1d6+WIS damage', and the player is always adding up his bonuses EVERY TIME they use the power, you're just wasting time. You should also encourage players to have their actions figured out before their turn in combat.

My rogue's power cards look like:

(weapon) (attack bonus) (dice) (add) If CA = +2/+2d8+3

Like his Sly Flourish with his +2 sword is +11 v AC, d10+9 +2/+2d8+3

For encounter and dailies, those get turned over when used. It's surprisingly helpful.

And at the very least, you should be able to have an idea what you're going to do. You can change your mind, but at least trying to anticipate the next turn is a good thing.

Brad

Staffan · Sep 17, 2008

robotsinmyhead said:
Print off powers cards or make the players do all their bonus addition right on their page.

If a power says 'Will vs AC and 1d6+WIS damage', and the player is always adding up his bonuses EVERY TIME they use the power, you're just wasting time.

Right. This is what the power cards I use look like, filled out.

Foxman · Sep 17, 2008

WizarDru said:
We use little colored magnets that I got at Gencon. They're the perfect size to go under the minis, and it makes status tracking easier. They also came with some sticky tack and a magnet-base so when you have multiple magnets near each other, they don't push each other apart.

I got a lot of red ones, which we use to represent bloodied on the field. Silver represents a figher's mark. Green is a Hunter's Quarry. Black is the warlock's curse. And so on. It makes it much easier to track what's going on visually.

I thought long and hard about doing this and decided against it for a couple of reasons:
1) magnet based vs magnet based - two monsters with magnets tend to stick to each other
2) Cost (those things ain't cheap! - at least when you buy enough to be truely useful)
3) Height - enough conditions can make a monster sit nearly a inch above the others (bloodied, ongoing damage, paladin mark, warlock curse)
4) moving creatures - harder to move a monster around the board when it has a stack of disks under it.

They look cool, but a box of coloured paperclips seems to do the trick just a well - and they hang off most minis pretty good...

This is just a personal obeservation mind you YMMV!

Ravingdork · Sep 17, 2008

I have some extremely well laid out characters here: RavingDork's Character Gallery - Wizards Community

As you can see (if you actually check the link) we write our powers directly onto our charcter sheets. We also print our sheets single sided (along iwth a seperate actions/conditions sheet) so a player can have all the information he needs sitting right there in front of him at all times.

We are still pretty slow if these boards are any indication, but that stems from other things.

WizarDru · Sep 17, 2008

Foxman said:
I thought long and hard about doing this and decided against it for a couple of reasons:
1) magnet based vs magnet based - two monsters with magnets tend to stick to each other
2) Cost (those things ain't cheap! - at least when you buy enough to be truely useful)
3) Height - enough conditions can make a monster sit nearly a inch above the others (bloodied, ongoing damage, paladin mark, warlock curse)
4) moving creatures - harder to move a monster around the board when it has a stack of disks under it.

They look cool, but a box of coloured paperclips seems to do the trick just a well - and they hang off most minis pretty good...

This is just a personal obeservation mind you YMMV!

Hey, whatever works. Pre-Gencon, we were using paper markers, but these got in the way. For about $24, we got something like 24 magnets of any colors I wanted, a magnetic base-plate to override the different minis stacks when necessary and some tacky-stuff. Your point about the height is very valid, though we haven't run into any problem with movement.

Alternately, you can buy some poker chips at the dollar store, and these would work pretty well, too.

D&D 4E Any tips for speeding up the game? 4e is slowing me down!

invokethehojo

First Post

Nebulous

Legend

WizarDru

Adventurer

keterys

First Post

robotsinmyhead

First Post

cignus_pfaccari

First Post

Staffan

Legend

Attachments

Foxman

First Post

Ravingdork

Explorer

WizarDru

Adventurer

Similar Threads