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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5491850" data-attributes="member: 58197">Those are both extreme examples, though. I never see players taking a minute to remember which mini is theirs. What I do see is players spending a lot of time working out exactly which square to move to, instead of just saying "I run over next to the goblin sharpshooter." Not to mention the time it takes to sketch out the battlefield, get out the minis, and position everyone.And then half the time the players have questions about the map anyway...For a skirmish fight? 1-2 minute turns? Hell no. At least in my view, a skirmish fight should go something like this:Fighter player: "I run forward and attack the big orc. [rolls] I hit AC 22, 11 damage."DM: "You shatter his skull and he drops. Dire wolves' turn. The two dire wolves come at you from either side. [rolls a couple times] AC 18 and 24."Fighter player: "24 hits, 18 misses."DM: "You block one dire wolf with your shield. The other tears a strip out of your arm. Next!"Rogue player: "That rope holding the door to the wolves' cage up. Can I hack through it and swing across the cave to the shaman's ledge?"DM: "Sure. You cut the rope and the cage door falls. Roll Acrobatics."Rogue player: "I got a 17."DM: "That'll do. You land next to the shaman."Rogue player: "Can I attack him too?"DM: "Hmm... yeah, we'll call it a charge attack. You can even sneak attack, since he totally wasn't expecting that. Make your roll."Rogue player: "AC 20, 15 damage."DM: "You put a knife in his belly. He's looking bad but he's not quite down. Next!"We're looking at 15-30 seconds per turn here. The whole idea of a skirmish fight is to be fast-paced, with a high energy level. People waffling over tactics defeats the point. This is one reason I think a non-battlemat option is an absolute necessity for good skirmishing; battlemats add a huge amount to the waffle factor. Players get focused on winning a board game instead of fighting a battle in their imaginations, and when you're playing a board game you want to think through your moves.</blockquote>

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