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

[frankthedm]

1. When the DM draws the battlemat: Players get the needed minis.

2. Roll Initiative and Players change their seating so that they sit in the same order they act in. If they delay everyone but the DM changes seats accordingly. This is a subtle hint not to delay.

3. Encourage players to have their decisions made before they get to their turn.

4. This is not chess, It does not matter if your hand is still on the mini, you move the fig, you have moved.

5. It is part of the DM's duty to make decisions on vague rules before game starts.

 

[Xris Robin]

I'm glad you like the sheet, Emirikol. I can provide you with an editable version if you'd like.

I also liked that sheet. Super-useful looking. Could you put up the editable version, please?

 

[PeelSeel2]

Half or quater all monster HP and EXP. Keep characters the way they are. Works great.

 

[blargney the second]

I also liked that sheet. Super-useful looking. Could you put up the editable version, please?

No problem! It's just a straight-up simple word doc. I left space to the right of the action points and magic item dailies boxes to add extra boxes as we pass milestones.
-blarg

 

[zlorf]

For initiative we use magnetic strips that you can write on using an erasable marker. They stick to a piece of sheet metal and you right the character name and init and move them when needed from top to bottom. If someone delays you move them to the side abit. Were been using the same system for the last 8 years.

Cheers
Z

 

[zlorf]

Laser pointer...love it..great idea. As a player i could even get someone else to move my character. Also it could be handy to blind the DM if i role a 1, so he wouldn't know.

Cheers
Z

Some things from my game:

Init - I use clothes-pins - labelmaker a name, and there you go. (wooden ones and a marker works too) I put them up on my dm screen and move the activated ones to one side, the unactivated on the other and the acting in the middle

I use power cards (yay!)

Tracking marks/conditions - office supply store and a box of coloured paperclips - PC's are responsible for placing them on thier own minis or targets minis (red bloodied/blue fighter/yellow paladin/purple warlock/green ranger - leaves black and white for other effects)

Laser pointer!!! Instead of getting up and moving stuff around the table I can just point and ask someone to move a monster - saves a LOT of time. Can be had at a dollar store for CHEAP!

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I found this thread looking for otherways to speed up combat, here are some things I've seen and I'm considering:

* One other thing I've heard is halving monster's HP's. Not sure about this, but it should speed things up.

* Making all players powers reliable, that is if you miss with your big to-do its not wasted. (roll twice for normally reliable powers)

* Adding half-level to damage for the PC's (be easy to do for monsters too...)

I wouldnt suggest using more than one of these...

 

[Nebulous]

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

 

[ExploderWizard]

Half or quater all monster HP and EXP. Keep characters the way they are. Works great.

This seems like a great idea. That would make minions have >1 hit point and they would cease to exist.............Even better!!!

 

[robotsinmyhead]

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.

Especially as a DM, I like fast-paced tactical combats, and if a single player is slowing down the entire encounter because of bad planning or indecision, it's only hurting the game as a whole.

 

[invokethehojo]

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. One of my favorite things about 4e is how modular everything is: you can change one feature of a thing without changing the whole thing. Either write the new power your using on a card, print out the page from the MM and write it in, or find a pdf that's OCR and cut and past into word, then you can really customize your bad guys.

Not only will this speed up gameplay (at least until your ready to give marking another try) but it allows you to use monsters repeatedly without making them boring (assuming you change the newly inserted power now and then)

hey robots, fancy seeing you here