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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Magus Coeruleus" data-source="post: 4432818" data-attributes="member: 1704">Things I do:Provide each player with a <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=239047" target="_blank">MS Word Character Sheet</a> tailored to fast use with minimal book lookup, rather than character creation; it's easier to modify each time there is a change than to make the sheet generic.Create <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=239051" target="_blank">MS Word Statblocks</a> for monsters and arrange them in a table, one sheet per encounter.Use my <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=238229" target="_blank">MS Excel Initiative Tracker</a> to calculate initiative and sort accordingly with the click of a button, instead of lots of rolling and writing down numbers.  I also use this to keep track of PC defenses and skill mods so I don't have to constantly ask.I use <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4351249&postcount=718" target="_blank">Grandpa's card set</a> not for powers, as I prefer the character sheet and statblock approaches, but for magic items and a few other things like conditions (I've made a version of some but not all of the condition cards that has large icons, linked to G's post).We use white poker chips for second wind and blue chips for action points.  My players are fine with marking off surges from their sheet, which gives a convenient place to do so.I have these funny little colored rhinestone things and we drop them by minis to represent marking and ongoing effects when feel it is worthwhile.I try to speed up preparing the grid depending on the situation.  Sometimes I don't use one if it seems unnecessary (rare in 4e).  For something like a wooded clearing I'll just drop some coins on the battlemat and shift them where I want to represent trees for cover/obstacles.  For some areas I draw with pencil on some engineering graph paper I have, if my fiance is up to it she will help me with special locales by drawing and coloring for a nice personal touch; e.g. a boat deck, a camp site.For skill challenges I use <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=232340" target="_blank">Stalker0's Obsidian System</a> which is quite streamlined and fast to run, not that the default system is necessarily any slower; just plugging his system.House rule: when out of an encounter, out of danger, comfortable, etc., I let Inspiring/Healing Word work as if max had been rolled.  Gives the party a little edge but the main reason is so that they can quickly determine how many 5s of minutes and surges they want to spend to heal up before moving on.  With a fixed value, there's no time spent rolling dice or strategizing about this.  During combat, they roll for these as normal.This will not work for most people's campaigns but we do not track money, period.  The party are members of a homesteading family with significant assets but lots of recent damage after a goblin attack, so they just roleplay it and they get whatever gear is reasonably available and not unbalancing metagame-wise or inappropriate in-game.  The wizard knows to use Rituals only when roleplaywise it seems reasonable to expend the resources for it.  No buying or selling of magic items.  All as loot or gifts or trade.  They are motivated to collect treasure but the assumption is it all goes back to the homestead, etc.  This saves a lot of bookeeping trouble.That's all I can think of for now.</blockquote>

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