Advice for speeding up combats - in sound bite form!

[Ant]

Do to-hit rolls and damage rolls simultaneously.

Roll miss chances first (or simultaneously as above).

 

[sjmiller]

"Pay attention to the initiative count, and start planning your actions 1-2 combatants prior to your turn."

"When using a spell, special ability, or combat option, have the book open to the rules before your turn."

What else would you put on a card? Or what other kind of reminders would be good?

Instead of, or in addition to, your second one I would use "Know your spell." It is short and to the point. Also along those lines is: "Know your DCs." From the book Dungeons and Dragons for Dummies come these gems: "Do the math ahead of time," and "Don't hog the spotlight." I think that for what you want to do they need to be short and pithy. If people ask questions about them the first time they see them, then there's a good reason to stop/slow down the combat briefly to explain. That's the only really good reason to slow it down.

 

[delericho]

Instead of, or in addition to, your second one I would use "Know your spell." It is short and to the point.

While I agree that players should know their spells, I would argue that they should still look them up ahead of time, and have the book open and ready on their turn. The DM may need to check some of the effects of the spell (for whatever reason), and if the player has the book ready he's just saved him looking it up himself, since the player can just hand over the book. If the DM doesn't need the book, nothing is lost, since players generally have free time during the combat round, while the DM has none.

(The same goes for a player who has decided to use a magic item, grapple, bull rush, or otherwise do something that the DM might need to reference the books for.)

 

[Hussar]

Have your die rollers macroed with html coding inside so that attack rolls and damage rolls are separate colors and each attack is paired with damage on a separate line. Add a ? operator for situational bonuses.

((What? I game over OpenRPG. This is the single biggest time saver I can use.))

 

[McBard]

Use "take 10" initiative checks for DM-controlled creatures (i.e. only the players roll for initiative).

If you use your flip-cards for tracking initiative, you can then already have the monsters'/foes' initiatives written down before-hand.

 

[NilesB]

Start thinking about what you're going to do next before your turn comes up.

 

[farscapesg1]

Do to-hit rolls and damage rolls simultaneously.

Roll miss chances first (or simultaneously as above).

While I like this idea in theory, it doesn't work for all groups. For example, our group uses critical fumbles and if you have multiple attacks in a round and one fumbles, you lose the rest of your attacks after that. That means always having to declare which die is used for which attack, and enevitably someone will forget to announce that.

As for the rest of the thread, definitely use cards for as much as possible. When playing a wizard, I always have my spells on index cards, plus any summoned monsters and similar things. Heck, I'm playing a non-spellcaster (shifter scout/barbarian) and have decided to make index cards with my stats and combat info when shifting/raging/etc.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

On the "use cards" note, use spell cards for spells. That way, they have the spell out right in front of them when they are ready to cast it.

I'm a big fan of cards, though.

I like the spell cards. One of my players is terrible with knowing what his spells do. Thank god he is playing a Sorcerer instead of a Cleric or Wizard. The spell cards have helped a bit. I did get a bit angry with him last session when he wasn't sure whether the spell he was casting had a saving throw or not. Why didn't he know, even though he had the spell card right in front of him? Because he hadn't bothered to actually look at the card!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Delemental]

While I agree that players should know their spells, I would argue that they should still look them up ahead of time, and have the book open and ready on their turn. The DM may need to check some of the effects of the spell (for whatever reason), and if the player has the book ready he's just saved him looking it up himself, since the player can just hand over the book. If the DM doesn't need the book, nothing is lost, since players generally have free time during the combat round, while the DM has none.

(The same goes for a player who has decided to use a magic item, grapple, bull rush, or otherwise do something that the DM might need to reference the books for.)

This is probably one of the more consistent issues in our group, which creates a minor but noticeable slowdown. Another good reason to have the book open and ready is that sometimes players don't know a spell as well as they think they do. There was a dispute over Blade Barrier just last session of this very nature.

What I tend to see more often is where players decide to use something like Trip or Bull Rush, and then when it's their turn, they have no idea how to go about it. I've already made reference cards for these kinds of things to pass around when needed, the trick is getting people to ask for those cards before their turn, not during.

A lot of the ideas mentioned are ones we use - we use initiative cards (actually cardboard standups that attach to a magnetic strip on the table - it has the advantage that everyone can see the entire initiative order). The one player who uses summoned creatures has a stack of pre-made stat cards she can reference.

I used to keep spell sheets, but they became a bit unwieldy (15th level wizard), so now I have a list of all my spells with page number references. I only keep two books with me; the PHB and the Spell Compendium - any spells that I have outside of those two books I have fully typed out on a separate sheet (keeps me from having to schlepp around a dozen books).

To be honest, I don't think our group has a huge problem with slow combats - for the most part we all know our modifiers ahead of time, know what we're doing on our turns, and don't spend a lot of time arguing. I just figure that as our levels get higher, the combats will only get more complicated, and so having reminders out there will help us stay efficient and prompt us to work on our weak areas. For example, I'm terrible at doing the 'roll attack and damage together' thing.