Combat length seems to be the controversial, so I'll return to it.
Even if your name is Flash Quicksilver, it is going to take you one minute assume your turn, roll your dice and calculate the effect. It is going to take another 30 seconds to a minute to move your miniature. If you have 5 players plus a DM it is going to take 5-10 minutes per round. Three rounds is a half hour, nine rounds is an hour and a half. So the difference as to whether it takes 3 hits to knock an enemy down or 6 hits is a big deal.
Wow. Ok, first of all, minatures are not always required. If the fight occurs in a simple corridor, I'm not breaking out minatures. If I do, I agree that its basically a 5 minute delay. For the moment, let's assume minatures are on the map.
I'm the DM. I have six players, plus me, and there are generally 10-12 combatants in a fight.
When it is a players turn, if they show hesitation in declaring their action, I beginning counting down from 6. They've had in most cases several minutes to think about what they want to do and prepare that action, and delaying at this point is considered by me to be very rude. If I get to zero, they are assumed to have delayed to the end of the initiative order. Combat is supposed to be intense and furious, not a carefully thought out chess match. To the extent that it is chess, it is speed chess and I expect players to act accordingly and move minatures with similar dispatch and confidence.
Players are expected to be able to declare their action in a few seconds, and throw and report the dice in a few seconds more. If they have multiple attacks, they better throw them all (with the understanding that we've previously agreed which dice represents which attack) and not waste time about it. It shouldn't take but a few more seconds for me to relate the outcome of the attack while recording it in my notes.
If this sounds hard nosed, then I agree that it is hard nosed. But in my experience, players rapidly come to understand and appreciate why I run my table this way - especially if they are forced to endure playing at some other table where players are allowed to spend 5 minutes on their turn and it might be 10 minutes before they can act again. In particular, being lenient like that only encourages boredom, and bored players stop paying attention and as a result end up unprepared to act when their turn finally gets back to them.
I try to show similar dispatch when resolving the actions of the foes. I roll dice for every similar foe at once, order them in a standard fashion, and can generally resolve what the 4-6 monsters do in barely more time than it takes a slightly dithering player.
As long as we are talking about keeping the game moving, another rule I keep in place is you can't cast a spell unless you know what it does, if you have to look it up in the rulebook, you can't cast it. This ensures players look up rules in between their own turns rather than during them.
I'm probably going to implement a rule that you can't cast a buff unless you have the buff cards for it, just to keep the bookkeeping from eventually overwhelming me.
Setting up miniatures will generally take 5 minutes to lay the tiles or draw the map and to lay down the relevant minis if the DM is prepared. It will also take a few minutes to clean up. Even if you are an efficient DM, that is still going to be a half hour loss each night from simply handling and dealing with minis.
So don't deal with mini's. Most combats can be handled abstractly. Only bring out the mini's if there is some significant tactical element to be emphasised.
One of the biggest time sink for 3e though has to be movement and attacks of opportunity. We spend more time arguing about that in our 3e game than anything else. Are the players just being difficult? Perhaps.
Yes. And they know you'll tolerate it.
If you load up on the things that slow down 2e combat however (spells and high AC) it becomes just as slow as all the rest.
I didn't ever really play 2e by the rules, so I can't speak to this, but if you bring the tactical options from 1e in - simultaneous declaration, to hit vs. AC, weapon length, etc. even if you have good bookkeeping so that you aren't constantly cross referencing between multiple tables (my 1e stat blocks often included to hit vs. each PC) combat can still bog down. However, it wasn't subject to the worst problems of either 3e or 4e, which is status/buff/debuff tracking, so it never bogged quite like either of them can.
Actually after defeating the party again in tonight's game (2 PCs captured, 1 fled) I lamented on the train home that I wish I could be a bit more lenient, adjusting fights to party strength and such. But I have a very "what's there is there" mindset which doesn't really allow that.
