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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mengu" data-source="post: 4602892" data-attributes="member: 65726">It's not easy to play right and play fast. It requires a certain way of thinking, and a mastery of the rules. But when you can get a few people in the same room who can get it together, play fast and well, it is a rather rewarding experience. Combat with 3 or 4 players goes a lot faster than 5 or 6 players because there is always one or two people in a large group that everyone is waiting on. Player tools to speed up game play: 1. Use a magnetic initiative board (should be operated by a player)2. Pay attention to the initiative board3. Decide what you are going to do during the turn of the player before you.4. Mark any ongoing damage before the beginning of your turn.5. Quickly describe your actions and roll your dice.6. Use multiple different colored dice if rolling against multiple opponents or rolling multiple attacks. Communicate to the DM (or another player next to you) which dice are for which targets as you are rolling.7. Don't think too long about using an action point or not, if it looks like a good time to use it, use it, if you feel hesitant, skip it.8. Roll any saves and announce the end of your turn. DM tools to speed up game: 1. Make sure you have a basic plan for the monsters before the game.2. Label your monsters as A, B, C, etc. before the game. 3. At the beginning of the encounter roll multiple dice for initiative, and quickly read off the initiative results adding appropriate bonuses (I read left to right on the dice) to the intiative keeper.4. Use monster encounter powers early and often, and cross them out when used. This makes sure they get to use them before they die and quickly limits your options to a few at-wills.5. Don't use too many monsters with recharge powers in an encounter. The way I do recharge powers on non-solo monsters is I put a tick next to it every time I don't use the power. When I feel I need to use the power, I roll as many dice as I have ticks for and see if the recharge comes up. For solos I just use the regular method since their recharge powers are typically very important.6. Keep track of any conditions on a monster right next to their running hit points, and cross them out when the condition runs out.7. When it's clear the PC's are winning, have monsters just crumble. Say they kill a necromancer and 4 of his 6 zombies, there is not much point slugging through fighting those 2 last zombies, so have them crumble down on their turn after making one final attack. Tools for both sides: 1. PAY ATTENTION TO EVERYONE ELSES AND THE ENEMIES ACTIONS. I think the biggest reason for delays is a person saying they are going to do something, then another person reminding them that action is not necessary then the person has to rethink their turn. If everyone pays attention to who is attacking/marking what, who is injured, who is healing who, what conditions are inflicted on who, then turns can go a lot faster. The rogue doesn't have to think about how he is going to weave through the fray to get a flank, if he is paying attention and knows that the fighter just knocked someone down, and a thrown dagger will do the job. This one is a big pet peeve of mine.2. Use markers for marked/cursed/quarried/bloodied targets. These I think are the most important ones. If you have the markers to do it, tracking other conditions on the battle map may also speed things up. I'm sure more items could be added to these lists, but it's some of the stuff I try and pay attention to so I spend more time describing the action, rather than resolving the action.</blockquote>

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