Combat and book keeping - How long does it take in your group?

[Obergnom]

Hi,

I was just thinking about the pacing of my campaign. We recently needed 8 sessions for an adventure that should not have lasted more than 5 sessions (if at all that long).

There were a total of 8 combat encounters involved and of course a lot of role playing and book keeping (Magic Items and Loot in general)

As that chapter really started to bore me, I thought I should try to make later chapters of the campaign shorter, but actually, they start to get to the edge of unbelievablity...

The campaigns outline is similar to the old GDQ series. The first chapter was a Hill Giant Stronghold, with a total of 14 Hill Giants (I use weaker Giants, their CR is 5. There were 12 normal ones, a wereboar and a vrock possessed) and a handfull of other critters. I really do not think I could have removed even a single giants... actually, before starting the campaign I was thinking about adding more, so the stronghold would not be so empty...

I think individual sessions should have a good mix of role playing and gaming (Combat and equiping/looting), Thats what fits our groups style... but combats are taking way to much time. As our sessions have an average lenght of 4 hours, I would say doing 2 hours of gaming and 2 hours of roleplaying would be perfect. At the moment I often have to accelerate the roleplaying part for the group to at least finish a single encounter.
Including the looting and healing, I think encounters cost us about 60 or more minutes. The last encounter we played took "only" 40 minutes, but that was an encounter with 3 Troglodyte Warriors Level 1. (The party consist of 4 Level 7 characters)

Know the characters are approaching a Grotto full of Troglodytes, who are under control of a Mind Flayer... I do not think using more than 20 Trogs, the Mind Flayer and is Chuul Pet would be a good idea, otherwise we will need a whole month to finish that... something I want to avoid at all costs.


I really think a combat should be done in 30 minutes, if it gets longer than that, it seems to be a waste of time.

So, how long are combats in your group? Would do you do to accelerate them? What about the looting/ shopping part? Do you accelerate that somehow?

(We use paizos Initiative Chart allready, thats about all we do for faster battles at the moment)

 

[Doug McCrae]

I had a complex fight last session that lasted for two to three hours. Sometimes I just make an on the spot ruling for speed but this was a hard battle so I wanted to look things up and get it right.

Dividing up treasure can take ages too, deciding which items to keep and who should get them.

Our sessions are about seven hours. We usually only get four fights done in that time but I managed a couple more the session before last as they were all fairly simple (no more than three monsters, all the same type) and being strict about not looking things up.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

As near as I can tell, its a total crapshoot with my group (4 PC's, 2 NPC allies, all 8th level). Last session there were three combats.

The first was against 3 swampstrider swarms that got the drop on the party, and that took like an hour and a half - most likely due to the players not having much experience against swarms and them being unwilling to risk any damage by using minor AE attacks on themselves.

The next encounter was against 2 chuuls, and I think it was over in about 10-15 minutes or so - everyone was on the ball, rolled their damage dice at the same time as attacks, etc.

Last encounter was against a slightly lower HD templated roper, and I'd estimate it took 30 minutes. A good chunk of that came from people trying to recalculate their strength and damage bonus, as due to offhand weapons and 2 handers it wasnt as simple as just taking a -1 to hit and damage for every 2 lost. The grapples and tentacle sunders actually moved relatively quickly to my delight. Lesson learned? Stat damage spread over 4 party members is a royal pain in the ass.

 

[Crothian]

we have 4 PCs and one NPC (characters are 3rd and first level). Last night we had 9 combats

1) we started out with pair of rat swarms
2) They fought off 4 goblin rogues
3) 4 more goblin rogues
4) one goblin rogue, one goblin ranger, and a worg
5) 10 goblin warriors and 2 goblin sorcerers
6) 14 goblin warriors
7) 2 more rat swarms
8) 5 goblin archers, 3 goblin warriors, one goblin sorcerer, one goblin ranger, and one worg
9) 3 bat swarms

They also rescued a PC that was captured and had a good role playing with him (we welcomed back a player that took a break after his wife gave birth to their daughter). And there was a another good role playing bit between them and a teifling a human. Our combats go pretty fast and we get a lot done in a session.

 

[Crothian]

Dividing up treasure can take ages too, deciding which items to keep and who should get them.

We do this in between sessions only. It takes too much time out of a gaming session so we all agreed to handle this out side of game. It really makes a difference!!

 

[Meeki]

One way to speed up combat is to use a wet erase board and track initiatives and buffs. Every round I remind players to tick down buffs and plan their next move. I only give my players about 30 seconds a piece to choose what they want to do. The actual action may take longer, with spells and such, but they must decide or Ill make them delay.

On my end, as the DM, I have a pad of paper and write down all the buffs/regen/DR/SR/etc my critters have and sort of plan a strategy ahead of time. I read the monster and think to myself "what information do these monsters know about the party and what strategy can they use", basing this off of past encounters with the baddies, knowledges, spying, etc. If there are spell casters I either use default MM spell list or alter some of the higher level spells.

The quickest way to speed up combat though is to have everyone know the mechanics of the game and make sure the DM is willing to adlib some rulings and alter them later. That combined with the PC's planning out their next move while the turn is going on is really important. One last thing, the higher level your pc's become the longer combat is going to take. Last saturday my PC's fought a Solar for over an hour, the PC's were clearly outgunned but the fight was epic and took a long while.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Do you have an idea about why it takes so long? Three 1st level Troglodyte warriors should last no more than 2 rounds against four 7th level characters.

- Do the players think about their next action before their turn?
- Do they know their combat modifiers well enough, or are they taking a lot of time to calculate them with each action?
- Are they frequently looking things up in the books while deciding their action?
- Do they argue with each other over one person's actions?
- Do you use minis and they treat it like a chess game, contemplating the exact path of the PCs 30' move for three minutes?
- Do you know the rules well enough to keep it moving?
- Do you have the information for the monsters ready at hand and well organized?
- Do you have minis ready or are you fishing around for the right minis in a bin full of them?

Just spitting out things I've encountered that have seriously slowed the game down.

 

[Obergnom]

Hmm, it is mostly the players trying to figure out what to do next. When the characters are new there is of course some looking stuff up in books, but at the moment it really is the chess factor.
I myself know the rules pretty well, but there is a player in my group, who allways gets out the book when he is not agreeing with a rule. (Allthough he is wrong with "his" rulings 66% of the time, I guess)
Getting the battlemap ready (cleaning, painting) and finding some figs surely takes a few minutes. (As were are not playing at my house, and the minis are where we play, not a whole lot I can do against that)
I guess I am the one takeing the least amount of time looking up stats during play, actually. I print the monster stats out (using PCGen) and usually have them ready.

The mayer problem is somewhere between "I still have a move action left, let me see if I can do something with it..." and "We a screwed, everyone look long and hard at his character sheet and try to find the 'button' that will win this battle for us"

 

[Celebrim]

Do the players think about their next action before their turn?
- Do they know their combat modifiers well enough, or are they taking a lot of time to calculate them with each action?
- Are they frequently looking things up in the books while deciding their action?
- Do they argue with each other over one person's actions?
- Do you use minis and they treat it like a chess game, contemplating the exact path of the PCs 30' move for three minutes?
- Do you know the rules well enough to keep it moving?
- Do you have the information for the monsters ready at hand and well organized?
- Do you have minis ready or are you fishing around for the right minis in a bin full of them?

That's a good list, and it follows with my experience as well. Here's what I do:

1) I give each player only 6 seconds to clearly state thier course of action. If you can't explain your plan in six seconds, then you are assumed to take a wait action and you are now at the top of the initiative order for next turn. In other words, you lose your turn. Chatter outside of your turn is discouraged, and players are expected to be focused on the game.
2) Players are strongly encouraged to simply report the results of thier dice to me. Thier 'normal' modifiers to hit with common weapons are listed on a legal pad next to me and it takes only a brief second to glance at that legal pad and add everything up, and another second for me to apply circumstance modifiers I feel are appropriate. At higher levels, buffs start to become time consuming. Buffs are written on improvised 'buff cards', and I simply amend thier current buff bonus as cards are added to thier pile or taken away.
3) Players are not allowed to look up things in books during thier turn unless I ask them to verify something. If a player wants to cast a spell, they must be able to describe the spell's effects quickly and succintly during thier turn. If they want to look it up, they have to do so before it gets to thier turn. And the 6 second rule applies. If there is a disagreement over the rules, if such thing isn't frequent I generally ask them to verify. If it is common, I generally enforce the rule that disagreements over the rules are resolved ONLY during the breaks or at the end of the session. This is the 'We'll talk it over and set rules for the next time' rule. But between now and the next bathroom, snack, end of session break, Rule Zero. If the player is upset, we talk in private.
4) Out of character chatter is strongly discouraged at all times, but especially in combat or while actually roleplaying. I reserve the right to treat any OOC comment as IC during those times. During combat, meta-combat chatter is basically banned. No discussing plans except in character as your characters may or may not be able to do. Again, the six second rule. This means that the enemy is free to overhear any planning that goes on during combat.
5) When minatures are in use, movements are expected to be prompt and are irrevocable once made. Again, the six second rule. Minatures simply aren't used when I don't feel that they would add to the play experience (confined fighting spaces, tactically simple situations).
6) I've long said that to be a good DM, you have to know the rules or at least know them better than anyone else at the table. Make a point of reading and rereading the rules at your leisure. I'm continually amazed at the number of players that have never bothered to sit down and actually read the rule book, and who then complain that they don't understand the rules.
7) Word processors are great. I put small compressed stat blocks into the text of all my prepared encounters now. Usually, this is basically a cut and paste job from one of several downloads available over the net. Generally speaking, I never crack a book during the entire session. Likewise, I don't waste alot of time throwing dice. I have about 10 d20's of different shades which can easily be arranged according to the spectrum (from red to purple). When running a mass combat, I throw them all at once and then just 'consume' them in order as I need them. Sixteen orcs attacking takes me roughly 5-10 seconds to resolve, and another 20-30 seconds to describe depending on how many hits we had.
8) Mini's can be great. There are alot of times when using minatures really made the encounter for me. But they can also suck, drawing the player out of the 1st person perspective, slowing down the game, and interfering with the players imagination. Even the best designed play area is no match for a player's imagination when fired. Take advantage of that. Only bring out the minatures when the tactical situation is the focus of the encounter.

 

[Festivus]

Combat rounds I reserve for encounters that will offer some level of challenge. For someting overpowering like 3 trogs and 4 level 7 PCs I just skip the combat rounds all together and give a survival chance (like 5%) that any one of the monsters would make it out of the room (perhaps to warn others).

Other things I have done in the past:

* Time limits per player turn... if you can't decide within a reasonable amount of time you are delaying. I usually pad with extra time for newer players and first round of combat.
* Combat Pad - See when your turn is coming up and be thinking about what you are going to be doing. In lieu of these, use index cards... they are wonderful.
* As DM, plan ahead on the monsters - I usually print up nice 8.5x11 sheets of paper with the full MM IV stat block format and room to write things like hit points and spell effects. I also highlight things I will likely use first in combat.
* All similar creatures act on same initiative
* If I am playing a spell caster, have the relevant spell page already open on your PHB in case there are any questions. You have lots of time as a player until your next turn to do this. Spell cards also work for this but I have since dropped them when my spell book got huge.
* Roll all your dice at once for all attacks and damage - Helpful really with things that do lots of dice of damage (e.g. Lightning Bolt), adding up those dice can take some time, so get it done ahead of time. Really helps to have sets of dice colors for this sort of thing so that you know what damage goes with what die.
* As DM, preroll a bunch of D20s and cross em off as used - for spots, listens, etc.
* 30 second rule - If you can't find a rule within 30 seconds the DM makes a call and we move on, looking it up after the game. There is the Sicilian clause of course, when death is on the line we take more time to look up rules.
* Put a player in charge of the init order chart. As a DM you are busy enough, delegate. It also tends to make them more attentive to what is going on.
* Before each session, spend some time looking at the stat blocks of the likely encounters and review any rules you aren't totally familiar with.
* Make index cards for buffs that you cast and put them on the table in front of you, along with when the effect will end.
* Like in Magic the Gathering, have an upkeep mantra you follow when it's your turn. If you ritualize how you take your turn you will go faster each subsequent round. E.g. update effects cards, summoned critters attack, my stuff, etc