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Message: <blockquote data-quote="strongbow" data-source="post: 124782" data-attributes="member: 2650">If you play on a grid map with minitures like I do, then there is yet another way to speed up combat.  Too many times I have seen the DM have to pause and figure out exactly which monster out of the 12 half-machine stirges took damage.  To speed things up when I play sometimes, we tape/sticky-tac (the sticky silly putty like substance) a number (1-12) to the base of the DM controlled minitures.  This works a lot better than writing a number on the grid map, only to have the monster move a moment later.  To make sure the number system doesn't slow things down, have some numbers prepared ahead of time.  It doesn't matter how you allot the numbers on the monsters, since you are tracking damage by number instead of by monster.You really would be amazed how much faster combat goes when you roll to hit and damage together.  Until some people I know started to do that, they would spend about 6 or 7 seconds shaking their d20 in their hand, then 6 or 7 seconds shaking the damage die, and so on.  It's infuriating to watch sometimes.  Also, the NO KIBBITZING rule suggestion is fantastic.  I am a relatively new player compared to everyone else.  When I was getting advice from other players, I wasn't thinking for myself.  After making a few mistakes, I learned better tactics.  The monk in my group charged into combat unwisely once, and died.  He doesn't charge as much now.  The PCs had a  discussion of tactics after that, and came to some agreements on how to proceed in battle.  Regarding advice however, if you can say something in character like "Don't charge" upon seeing someone start to move quickly, it might change their mind.  It's up to the DM on how much of this to allow, but I've found that short in character advice is not unbalancing. Banning kibbitzing is designed to stop the  OOC advice, not the IC advice.I've even seen some groups develop CODEWORDS.Ex:  The wizard says SHAZAM! , and the fighter takes a 5' adjustment so that the incoming lightning bolt will not hit him.  When you get to that level, you are getting close to roleplaying combat instead of rollplaying it.  Tales of a improved playerStrongbow</blockquote>

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