Battles taking too long - whats the tricks?

[babinro]

As a DM I run half monster hp, double monster damage. However, to speed up combat without such drastic changes it is crucial for the PC's to be organized.

I recommend they condense their powers/magical items to one sheet of paper. This is what we do for our level 18 characters. Don't write things like Cha vs Reflex: Cha damage plus wis effect. Quick reference everything on the sheet for easy access.
IE: Encounter: Ranged 10:+20 vs Ref: 2d8+16 lightning + push 5

If players can be fair about it, have them start their turns while the previous player is finishing theirs. The player whose turn is on deck can easily decide on a power and role their attack roll(s), writing down the results should they forget. Damage can be done along with it. This will work for almost all the time except when monsters are unexpectedly killed causing tactics to change. For the most part it is a big time saver to simply tell the DM the attack roll and damage within the first 5 seconds of your turn.

 

[Dredly]

I actually was on here looking for some of the same advice. I had to level up a battle to be more in line with our parties abilities during our Fri session and then one of the main strikers (ranger) didn't show up and the party missed a TON of times, the primary tank missed so many times he eventually ran away from 3 minions!

After talking to the party here is what I came up with:

1. When someone ends a turn tell who the next 2 turns are going to be... ie It is Wizards turn, Fighter prepares for his chance... etc. I think I'm also going to use some sort of list for player turns so they can see who goes when.

2. I think I'm going to implement a "clock" with a delay of game type penalty. I understand you need to carefully consider your move but we had some turns that were taking 4 -5+ mins because people were re-reading all their spells before they would decide on what to do. Basically if you go over a set time (probably 2 mins) you will take a -2 to attack as the enemy has had enough time to position itself to block any move you make... etc

I'm going to "time" the average turn next session and determine what an acceptable time will be. This is a "you need to be picking up the dice to roll" kind of thing and I'm not going to be a jerk about it, but a 2 1/2 hour battle is also crazy

3. encourage the use of action points and abilities that add to rolls to ensure they are hitting. point out whenever they miss by one point to ensure they added in all modifiers to hit... etc

4. have monsters run away if contact is getting to long

I've found that using an excel spreadsheet to write out all the player names, monster names, init rolls and the base monster stats works great. it keeps me from having to look back at the book constantly, easily keep track of effects (you just type it in), sort by init roll... etc

It easily cuts my DM turns in half and responses to attacks way down in time as well.

 

[KarinsDad]

D&D is about action economy.

With 4 on 4, the PCs should start out having 3 of the PCs attacking the weakest looking NPC and the 4th PC defending and holding off the rest.

The faster the first NPC is down, the faster the group can take out the rest. And, it takes less real time per round to run 4 PCs and 3 NPCs than it does 4 PCs and 4 NPCs.

This general strategy of quickly taking out the weakest or most hurt NPCs every single round tends to work best. There are always exceptions, like a monster that has such a devastating attack that this monster is causing too much damage to be ignored, but for the most part, the main idea is decrease the number of foes as quickly as possible.


Another thing that can be done is for the DM to not overload the PCs. N level encounters will go a lot faster than N+4 encounters. So, a discussion with the DM might result is slightly less difficult encounters. Some DMs might not realize how many extra rounds are added by adding one level to the encounter. A level N encounter might take 5 rounds, N+1 6.5 rounds, N+2 8 rounds, etc. So, DMs should be cognizant of this when creating or adapting adventures.


Tactics. Out of combat, the players should discuss their abilities and tactics. In one of our campaigns, we had a command called "Pumpkin" (long story). When I was running the Wizard, I would yell out "Pumpkin" and ready an action. The other players would shift their PCs on their turn so that the several of the NPCs would be in a close burst 1 area, but the PCs would not. When this occurred, my PC would then cast Scorching Burst on the NPCs. This allowed my Wizard to attack multiple foes and often more foes, more often per encounter without targeting any PCs. Group tactics can almost always be improved, but only by having the players discuss them. And, even gaining a level can add to the tactics if the PCs gain certain items or powers.

 

[ggroy]

I'm considering, instead of reducing monster hit points, just decreasing their defenses and increasing their attack bonuses by 2. Missing is boring, especially since players typically spend 95% of their turn figuring out what they're going to do, and only 5% of the time rolling to accomplish it. If you're missing on even a third of your attacks, you're wasting a lot of time.

In advance, I'll usually figure out what the minimum d20 values are which have to be rolled by the players in order to hit a particular monster. For example, if the minimum d20 values are 19 or 20 for a generic monster of a particular level, then the monster will be a long slog to fight.

For a minimum d20 value of 19 to hit, it will take on average 10 attack rounds to hit such a monster. For a minimum d20 value of 18 to hit, it will take on average 6 or 7 attack rounds to hit such a monster. For a minimum d20 value of 17 to hit, it will take on average around 5 attack rounds to hit such a monster.

If the players are regularly having to roll minimum d20 values of 17, 18, or 19 in order to hit a generic monster, then I'll give the players appropriate level magic weapons. At the paragon level, the magic enhancement is usually +3 or +4 which can make a significant difference in combat to hit.

 

[Nifelhein]

7. Cheat sheets
Its kinda like DM's screens, but .. we handed out cheat sheets with the things you can do on your turn, which type of action is required to do which Skill check in combat, what the various status effects are ... Pretty much, every player should have these at their fingertips at any time in any battle, so there's no looking up in books, asking, etc. That goes right back to the "decide what you're doing before its your turn" concept - it only works if you know the rules, or can reasonably be expected to have found the rules before your turn came up.

Care to share with us the ones you use on your table?

 

[Meeble]

edit: Ugh, can't get paragraphs to work for some reason. I will try this again later.

 

[Amaroq]

Care to share with us the ones you use on your table?

Um, sure - I yoinked Kiznet's re crib sheet, linked from the opening post of that thread, and found the second page of Alasomorph's crib sheet (4th page of same thread) for conditions.

For the "skill check actions", I wrote my own - guess I oughta PDF it and post it to that thread, huh?

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Let me just emphasize the importance of Focus Fire; taking down one monster instead of bloodying two means that there's one less source of damage and conditions and irritation, so things go that much faster.

Also, encourage the players to think about what they're going to do during other turns, instead of waiting until their turn. It helps if what they do helps set up their teammates, too. Like, pulling the undead off of the wizard makes it a lot easier for the wizard to unleash hell on those undead that the cleric just shoved into a tidy bunch.

Brad

 

[ggroy]

Another thing I've done is to use group initiative, instead of the players and monsters each individually rolling for initiative. Usually I give the players the initiative, unless they are surprised.

The main drawback of group initiative, is to minimize players from piling on and attacking the boss (or mini-boss) monster, and killing it in the first round. (Though the players all piling on a minion or a generic monster and killing it in one round, isn't much of a problem). Usually I'll have a layer of minions and/or generic monsters near the boss (or mini-boss), which can trip up the players via opportunity attacks.

 

[MrBeens]

In advance, I'll usually figure out what the minimum d20 values are which have to be rolled by the players in order to hit a particular monster. For example, if the minimum d20 values are 19 or 20 for a generic monster of a particular level, then the monster will be a long slog to fight.

For a minimum d20 value of 19 to hit, it will take on average 10 attack rounds to hit such a monster. For a minimum d20 value of 18 to hit, it will take on average 6 or 7 attack rounds to hit such a monster. For a minimum d20 value of 17 to hit, it will take on average around 5 attack rounds to hit such a monster.

If the players are regularly having to roll minimum d20 values of 17, 18, or 19 in order to hit a generic monster, then I'll give the players appropriate level magic weapons. At the paragon level, the magic enhancement is usually +3 or +4 which can make a significant difference in combat to hit.

Whay are you having to do this all the time? If you use the proper level monsters for the player's levels and they are equipped properly you shouldn't need to checking the maths for every encounter.
Monsters that need a 17+ to hit are too high level.