D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 Expediting Combat?

[FEADIN]

Using printed excel sheets with bonuses and penalties on attack, damage, ac, saves that you can adjust each time a spell is cast (prayer, bless, heroism....) all you have to do is writing the bonus in the righ box and adjust the total at the bottom.
For me playing above 8-10 level without is very difficult.

 

[MortonStromgal]

The cards I think will help y'all most but one other option that may help but in a less significant way is max all die rolls. Then no one is looking for what die to roll and rolling it. Longsword just does 8 damage + STR Mod x2 if crit. I would also throw out the confirming roll and just say if your in the threat range AND you hit, it is a crit. Nat 20 is still the only auto hit.

 

[slwoyach]

egg timer. If a player can't figure out what to do within an alloted time he gets skipped until after the next player. If he can't figure it out the second time he loses his action that round.

 

[billd91]

I put the initiative order on a white board and, when I call out a PC's turn, I try to make sure that the players know who else is coming up next. It's my hope that doing so gives that player a chance to plan out what they're going to do and be ready when I turn to them.

 

[Vegepygmy]

wow. that just clarified everything for me. I'll be sure to tell my 12 yo niece that when she can't remember what die to roll.

I'm sure you'll think this is terrible for me to say, but if your 12 year-old niece really can't remember what die to roll, she's not ready for a game like D&D.

My point was sincere: once you (and everyone else at your table) learn the rules of the game, combat will proceed quite speedily all on its own. Ignorance of the rules is (IME) what slows D&D combat. Everything else is insignificant by comparison. YMMV.

 

[rusty2667]

My post was just a wise-a** response; she actually picked up on the dice thing pretty quickly though there are a couple of players who are still very unclear about game mechanics. Under different circumstances I'd consider leaving the group, but this is family so I have to be patient.

I get your point about understanding the rules helping the flow of combat. I do think having as much pertinent info easily within reach will help things go quicker though until we (well...most of us) no longer need to reference much of anything during combat.

Btw, I'm not the DM at the moment. I'm just trying to come up with a way to fix some problems that will improve gameplay for everyone and have some solutions for when I'm finally in the DM's seat.

 

[Jhaelen]

Ignorance of the rules is (IME) what slows D&D combat. Everything else is insignificant by comparison. YMMV.

My milage definitely varies
The main slow-down in my game isn't because some players don't know the rules - and I have several players that seem to forget everything between sessions. I just ask them what they want to do and they tell me. I then suggest how they might do it in game-terms or simply ask them to roll a die. This is not significantly slower as the turns of players knowing the rules.

In my games, combat is slow because my players a) only start thinking about what to do when it is their turn and b) because they're too busy socializing.

Additionally, spellcasters always take longer because they have too many options. E.g. when one of my players played a druid he was always shuffling through his 20+ pages of different creatures he might summon or shapechange into.

As a DM I often also take a long time for my monsters' turns, especially if I have a mix of complex monsters, again spellcasters being the main culprits.

My advice: Don't play 3e if you're worried about combats taking too long
Or, more seriously, at least end your campaign before it advances into the higher level range.

 

[Ashtagon]

A few houserules I use to speed it up...

Iterative attacks are changed. You roll 1d20 for each attack you have, and take the best one. Yes, this does weaken rogues slightly since their best weapon focuses on the much softer flat-footed AC. But it reduces the time spent physically rolling dice and time spent calculating the different target number for each attack.

Melee (but not ranged) attack modifiers for size class are ignored. This speeds play by reducing calculations, makes bigger monsters more dangerous, weakens halflings and gnomes slightly, and also makes more sense (to me).

 

[jedavis]

In my experience, slowdown comes primarily from piles of iterative attacks and high-level spellcaster havoc. My group tends to be pretty prepared, though, so it's just a question of rolling everything.

Iterative attack fixes: Trailblazer's was interesting. It only allowed two iterative attacks, but the drop-off was much lower (-2/-2 at +6 BaB, -1/-1 at +11, and -0/-0 at +16). Since they're both at the same penalty, you can roll both together, which helps.

Spellcaster fixes: not a whole lot you can do there other than get rid of quicken and/or Time Stop (and maybe Chain Spell... those can get seriously ugly, too). We've also basically outlawed shapeshifting and summoning because they're also huge time-sinks (we haven't explicitly banned them, but use of them warrants great scorn).

 

[BENINHB]

Planing ahead and writing things down helps a lot.

I keep note cards with my stats when under common buffs, saves a lot of math at the table.

also i made some note cards with special abilities and special actions on them so i don't have to flip through the book to find the details of grapple etc.

By the way i hate the way grappling works in 3.5 (of course it could be my dm's interpretation of the rules, he and i don't see eye to eye on it)