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Message: <blockquote data-quote="iserith" data-source="post: 6911365" data-attributes="member: 97077">Mostly the time spent in a combat is typically due to the players in my experience, so make sure the players are aware that their turn is for acting, not for thinking about what to do. They should be thinking about what to do when it's somebody else's turn.If you group has laptops and tablets available, I heartily recommend using Roll20. While I'm sure most people use it for online gaming, it's great for in-person games too and speeds things up a lot. (Plus cleanup is easier.) You can draw in the AOEs with art tools and mark tokens with symbols for any effects that are on them. The onboard SRD has most of the spells and setting them up on a monster is drag-and-drop, then click to cast which outputs the spell text to the chat window. There's no searching for dice, no math to do, and you can set it up to roll attack and damage at the same time, roll two dice for adv/disadv, and have it spit out the AC of the target so that you don't have to say "Hit" or "Miss" before moving onto the damage roll. It saves a lot of time. The most common feedback I get on my games is that we can cover a lot of content in a single session - Roll20 is a big piece of that (though pacing and focus is another).For the decision making issue, consider coming up with a short phrase to establish their goals e.g. "To guard against intruders" or "To protect the Villain at all costs." When you're not sure what a monster might do, look to that phrase and consider that goal in the context of the situation at that moment. If it still has a chance to achieve its goals, it does that. If it does not, it might parley, retreat, surrender, or fight to the death. This should help with dealing with lots of monsters as well, if they have similar or the same goals since they'll largely be doing the same thing.Finally, just be okay with the occasional lengthy combat. Sometimes I have big complex set piece combats that last hours. That's okay if it's fun for everyone throughout.</blockquote>

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