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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tauton_ikhnos" data-source="post: 1561138" data-attributes="member: 16195">Gordon the Unstoppable is a two-weapon fighting elf of a modest 12 levels. He makes six attacks per round, has half a dozen items that add to his attack roll and damage under various situations, and can smite.Just rolling the attack rolls (which have to be rolled sequentially, not all at once, to preserve D&D's iterative BAB) takes several seconds at an absolute minimum (i.e., he's completely on the ball). Resolving the effects takes another second or two (assuming he rolled the damage dice with each attack roll). It takes 1-2 seconds to do a pretty decent description of what he is doing. If he's florid about it, 4-5 seconds. Any longer, and he's giving a speech. He's an extreme example - most characters that my players have created only take 5-6 seconds to handle rolls and results in combat.NPCs and monsters get less description, because the game isn't about them, but they take the same amount of time in the system. Assuming six players and 10 NPCs or monsters, you end up with a minimum of about 80 seconds or more of mechanics, and 30 seconds or less of description. And that's assuming everyone is on the ball and more-or-less describing up a storm.The problem isn't getting more description into the game, it's maintaining energy and visualization between one description and the next. If you lose the energy, you stop describing things. When you stop describing things, it becomes harder to get the energy back.Some of the things we do to help:1. Declare actions ahead of time. Everyone states what they are going to do, round robin. This acts as an overview of the round to come, reduces decision-making time during the actual round, eliminates actions that cause someone to have to do something else, and gives everyone an idea of what they need to roll ahead of time.2. Everyone rolls at the same time, where that is actually possible. Most of the time, it isn't possible, because of the way combat flows in D&D, but when it is, it is a huge time saver.3. We get all of that out of the way FIRST. We do description SECOND, and all together. It is an interesting effect, but the "reward" at the end of each round, even though it is actually less quantity, seems to be of higher quality, and has more narrative flow to it.</blockquote>

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