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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shiroiken" data-source="post: 6911519" data-attributes="member: 6775477">First of all, Welcome! Never fear, because the moderators will simply move your thread if you somehow put it in the wrong place. Doesn't look like that's the case here though <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The only cure for that is time and confidence. You've already got a year under your belt, and your player's haven't revolted yet, so you're probably doing pretty well.Happy to help, but I'm wondering how much of this issue is from you, and how much is from your players? I've found delays are far more common the player's side of things than the DMs, and that's also easier to fix. I'll help you with your DM issues though, and if you find your players are having issues as well, we can help there too. ENWorld is always full of helpful advice for new DMs.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"></li> </ul></li> </ul>Tracking can be tricky, but solutions depend of your style of play. If you use minis, it's usually easier to draw the effected area or use markings of some kind (I like the string idea someone suggested). I've seen spell effect cut outs (from either 3E or Pathfinder, I don't remember which) that are very useful, because you can just place them on the board. They might be tricky to find nowadays, but Ebay and Amazon are amazing things. If you use Theater of the Mind, it's actually a lot easier if you have an erasable board or other method of writing things down. All you have to do is describe who's effected by it, and then leave it at that. If you think someone would need to move into the area, tell them when they declare their action (so they can change it if they want to). Making monster decisions shouldn't be too hard. You should know the motivation of the monster before the adventure begins, and you should just run with that. Most monsters aren't going to be tactically minded (unless they have a high Int), so you can often just have them attack the closest PC. If you have an enemy that's been hit by more than 1 PC, I usually have them attack whoever just did the most damage. If a PC is particularly dangerous, such as a spellcaster, you might have  them move past the other PCs (if possible) to get to the caster. Highly intelligent or tactical monsters should be somewhat rare in most games, so you could have a big battle with one every now and then, without it being too much of a drag on the game as a whole.Time to resolve NPCs and monsters is sometimes problematic, depending on how you run your game. If you design your own adventures, I'd suggest using a mix of weak and strong monsters, so that you don't have too many creatures to run. Sometimes a big mob can be a nice change of pace, just like a single legendary creature (once your group is strong enough), but most combats shouldn't have more than a 3:2 or 2:1 ratio of enemies to PCs. If you have a high number of PCs (more than 7), you should probably consider splitting the group into two separate games.Spellcasters are tricky as a DM. I'd suggest a lot of prep work before using one. Spell cards or some other cheat sheet for the spells are a good idea (unless you already know them). A pre-plan strategy is also advised (such as casting an AoE on the first round to catch as many PCs as possible, or casting a buff spell on allies). Another simple thing is to only worry about combat and combat utility spells (figure these should be about 1/2 to 3/4 of their available spells), and just ignore the rest. You might want to avoid or limit Concentration spells at first, because you may forget and overpower the caster by mistake.Never be afraid of a long post when seeking advice. The more we know, the better advice we can give.Best of luck!</blockquote>

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