During D&D combat, how do you run it?

[Nine Hands]

It all depends on the situation. At the gaming store I run at, there is a really decent sailing ship model (3 levels all done in 1 inch hexes), so when running an encounter on a ship, I use that. We had a fight once in a field, and I saw a huge piece of wargaming terrain that matched it, so we grabbed it off the wall and ran the encounter there (using a ruler and eye balling the rest). Other times I use a regular battlemat. It all depends on what is around the store at the time

 

[Gilladian]

We use a battlemat (it's only about 20 years old) and painted minis for PCs (I stopped collecting and painting about 10 years ago, when the mini scale shifted to closer to 30 mm than 25) but use cardboard standups for monsters. I've also used dice, game tokens, glass beads, plastic farm toys, lego men, and most recently I've started making colored and numbered standup tokens from polymer clay. I can make them any size and shape I need, and can number them as needed. They're quick and easy to bake a day or two ahead of the game. Now I have a bunch. I also usually make my dragons of origami. In fact, when I play, dragons tend to pop up everywhere, even when not needed.

Gilladian

 

[Greybar]

Battlemat.

Mini's for PCs and some baddies.
Counters from Firey Dragon's Counter Collection 1
Counters from Dragonscale
Pennies for trees, columns, hordes of mooks.
Poker chips for spell effects.
Sometimes dominos for walls and such.

If I'm really spiffy, printouts of floor plans from CADKEY.

john

 

[johnsemlak]

In our games simple battles are done on the fly. With complex battles we use a grid and counters.

 

[Wombat]

Rarely, if ever, use minis. No point, no need, slows things down, combat is not the major point of our games. My groups likes to keep combat fast, light, and general, rather than very detailed.

Different strokes...

 

[Liolel]

I picked We use a battlegrid and miniatures but there wasn't an option for the complete answer to our group.

Minatures are mainly used but when we face a massive battle other things are used like the labled backs of of square cardstock tokens from old games and other such things.

 

[gfunk]

Battlegrid and minis (or pogs if in mass combat).

Frankly, I have a difficult time understand how people do it in their head. I guess our campaign is very combat-oriented, so if you ran a RP-heavy campaign, it might not be such a big deal.

 

[diaglo]

all of the above depending on space and availability of representative items.

but i prefer minis and a ruler. makes spellcasters very leery about casting fireballs and area effect spells that way.

 

[Umbran]

Bit of a mix, here. For smaller, simpler combats I tend to just keep track of it all in my head. When I'm pretty sure the fight's only going to last a couple of rounds, and the party is very likely to win, nothing more is necessary.

When the fight is not as straightforward, or will take longer, then we break out the battlemap, on which we use a mixture of minis, counters, chessment, or whatever else is at hand.

 

[Bloodsparrow]

We have a REALLY BIG BATTLEMAT (tm), like just a bit bigger then my dining table with the leaf in.

Just about everybody in my group has an unnatural love for minis.

With such resources at our disposal, it would be a shame not to use them.