D&D 5E A guide on streamlining combat

[Matthew Perkins]

Hey!

I knocked up a video guide this week breaking down my best tips to speed up combat, trying to prevent that slog and keep the game flowing.


What are your best tricks for keeping combat snappy in 5E?

 

[DND_Reborn]

We use:

• standard cyclical initiative (DM defaults to 10 plus modifiers)
• average damage for monsters and DM spells. players may use average or roll.
• delay death saves until the character is checked on or the battle is over.

That's all I can think of for now.

 

[Matthew Perkins]

I don't understand the last point. So when the player's turn comes up, they don't roll their save?

 

[DND_Reborn]

I don't understand the last point. So when the player's turn comes up, they don't roll their save?

No, they will roll them later. We track how many turns since they went down. As soon as someone checks on them (successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check) we roll. Sometimes this is during the battle still, other times it is after it is over.

Once the person is successfully checked on, they make as many death saves as round had passed. This might lead to a sigh of relief when the character is stable, or pangs of regret if they have died (Why, oh mighty Zeus?! WHY!?! If only we had gotten to him in time!).

The idea is players will react differently with the knowledge that a fallen comrade is making saves and stabilizing or failing and dying. But how would they know?? They can't tell and it shouldn't be player knowledge, either. This way other characters will spend resources or at least actions to act when a comrade is down instead of "oh, he has made two death saves already? well, I don't need to bother."

 

[ad_hoc]

No, they will roll them later. We track how many turns since they went down. As soon as someone checks on them (successful DC 10 Wisdom (Medicine) check) we roll. Sometimes this is during the battle still, other times it is after it is over.

Once the person is successfully checked on, they make as many death saves as round had passed. This might lead to a sigh of relief when the character is stable, or pangs of regret if they have died (Why, oh mighty Zeus?! WHY!?! If only we had gotten to him in time!).

The idea is players will react differently with the knowledge that a fallen comrade is making saves and stabilizing or failing and dying. But how would they know?? They can't tell and it shouldn't be player knowledge, either. This way other characters will spend resources or at least actions to act when a comrade is down instead of "oh, he has made two death saves already? well, I don't need to bother."

Some of our most exciting and memorable moments have come from a player rolling a 20 on a death save and then doing something amazing during their turn.

 

[DEFCON 1]

While I don't go as far as @dnd4vr in terms of rolling all death saves after the check-in... I do agree that the rest of the group not knowing the downed person's status until the check-in is a good one. So I try and have them roll their death saves in secret so that only they know how they are. Obviously if they roll a 20 they can say "I've woken up!", but until then... how many they have made or missed is best kept quiet so the others have to decide what to do with their turn uninfluenced, like dnd4vr said.

 

[ad_hoc]

We use a streamlined version of Greyhawk Initiative.

At the beginning of every round everyone ponders what they're going to do and they announce it as a group.
Everyone rolls initiative.
Turns are resolved in initiative order.
Repeat.

The benefit of this is that all the thinking and planning is done at the same time. This is great if there are multiple analysis paralysis players at the table. Instead of one player taking 3 minutes, then the next taking 3 minutes, then the last 2 taking 1 minute each to think about what they want to do on their turn adding up to 8 minutes of thinking for a round; only 3 minutes is taken as everyone plans at the same time.

On skipping combat: I cut combats short when I feel like they are no longer exciting or interesting. When we know the outcome, no abilities need to be spent, and no interesting decisions are being made then combat is just over. The good folks win, hooray.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Some of our most exciting and memorable moments have come from a player rolling a 20 on a death save and then doing something amazing during their turn.

Well, unless the whole party is in a world of hurt, any player that normally does roll a 20 should be looking to get to safety instead of doing something amazing during their turn IMO.

Regardless, I recall the RAW is when you have at least 1 hp, you regain consciousness. We only do that if you were restored to 1 HP or higher through magic or the use of a healer's kit (with Healer feat). If another player elects to heal you, everyone is aware at that point (after checks are made if any are needed) that you are awake and stable.

A nat 20 restores you to 1 hp, but you are still unconscious. The upside over being at 0 hp still is a hit will drop you back to 0 instead of resulting in two failed death saves. That is reward enough IMO and it prevents some of the whack-a-mole that so many tables hate.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So, I finally got to watch the actual video and I should add things I forgot about before:

• players often roll and act for NPCs/hireling/henchmen instead of having the DM control them.
• we have a displayed Initiative order so everyone knows who's turn is next.

One thing he suggests we do NOT do is roll attacks and damage together. We had a new player for a while who did this and it drove the DM nuts! Part of the issue with extra attack is often if the first hit kills, then the character moves to another, the AC might be different, the attacked might now be flanking and have advantage, or any number of other things. Also, when we switched to average damage in most instances, rolling for damage wasn't needed.

Plus if you roll damage but have a Sneak Attack or Smite, the player basically has more chances to apply the extra dice to a critical hit. You shouldn't know if the first attack will hit or not because maybe you are holding the extra dice on the second attack in case you crit.

Frankly, all-in-all it became more of a hindrance than a help.

 

[dave2008]

Biggest change we made in 4e was requiring every player to resolve their turn in 30 seconds. Decided what to do, roll and dice for success and damage and report to DM. All in 30 seconds or less. Keeps things moving.