High-level combats

[MerakSpielman]

I also prefer to write out the opponent's tactics ahead of time, to save myself from having to think about too many things at once once the combat starts. Of course, a couple rounds in the situation may have changed so much that their original tactics are worthless, but it does help.

 

[Dragonblade]

-Use Initiative cards.

-Use the Players Roll All Dice variant from Unearthed Arcana when they fight a lot of mooks. For example, if a monster has multiple attacks or they fight multiple monsters, have each PC make the appropriate number of Defense rolls simultaneously. This is much faster than the DM rolling each monsters attack one after another against each PC. I still like to roll the dice for the big nasty monsters myself, though!

-Don't let players over-strategize. If they take more than a couple of seconds to decide their action, they get skipped and their action is considered held until they blurt out what they are doing. If the round ends before they act, too bad. And don't let them plan elaborate tactics with OOC character discussion in the heat of battle. With a few reasonable exceptions, they can only say what their characters would say.

-Preparation. Make sure you understand all of a bad guys important tactics and abilities so you don't have to stop the combat in the middle to read the MM. If necessary make a stat block cheat sheat on notebook paper for every opponent which includes their attacks, AC, save DCs, saving throws, etc. I prefer this to electronic aids because writing stuff down forces me to remember it a lot better.

 

[kigmatzomat]

How do you keep high-level combats (say, 12th level and up) interesting, dangerous, and...um...non-tedious?

Preparation is key. For ambushes I have all buff-spells already factored in and accounted for, ach caster has his first 3 rounds of spells selected, and any potions drank. Critters I generally have a mental map of how they will react to a)massive physical trauma, b)visually impressive magic and c)seeing one of their own cut in half. Some beasts will run from a flamestrike or if one of the pack gets killed in a single blow while others won't care what happens as long as they have more than 20% of their hitpoints.

Second, I prepare whole environments when I want to wear down a high level party. Colonies of shocker lizards (check out their power-amplification effect!), grabbing plants, and a few other reasonable critters encountered in a row in a swamp will have the same impact as a couple of trolls without feeling forced, especially if some of the later creatures are scavengers likely to arrive looking for leftovers.

The sheer amount of dice rolling involved would seem to almost inevitably bog the game down, for one thing.

This you get used to.

Generally the first 3-4 rounds of combat I require each blow's damage and don't give out AC or SR. By round 4 I'll tell the AC and if the creature doesn't have DR ask for the damage per round, unless the critter could be taken out by a single hit where cleave or movement might be a factor. It speeds things up while leaving the first couple of adrenalin-laced flavor rounds. After that it becomes a slugging match both for the players and the characters.

Do encourage people to have all the dice they want ready and the spells they intend to cast already selected. That's really 50% of the time wasted at a table.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Init cards: Any advice on what should go into these? GM is thinking:
3x5 card
- circle in upper left to pencil in Initiative
- Character name printed in upper right
- Down left side
- - AC, touch AC; plus space to pencil in buffs
- - Hit Points
- - Spot/Listen checks
- - Fort/Ref/Will saves; plus space to pencil in buffs
- Down right side, space to pencil in spell effects
Is this asking too much of initiative card? Is there something obvious that should be on card also?

In my game, I usually have the monster stats on the initiative cards, but not more than the name and initiative score for the PC on their cards. An important part of my preparation ritual is writing out the opponent cards -- it makes me very familiar with the NPC's abilities, which helps a lot.

Having the stats on the cards also means I can keep all of that in one place -- tabletop space is a premium for our group, and the stack of cards is very efficient that way. If there are a lot of mooks to keep track of -- enough that keeping their HP on the cards is not practical, I'll kepe track with a separate sheet of scratch paper of even just use dice on the table right next to the mook to indicate remaining hit points -- this works best when they're really low level grunts and they're one hit one kill most of the time anyway.

-rg