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<blockquote data-quote="DND_Reborn" data-source="post: 7884873" data-attributes="member: 6987520">Actually, most of the house-rules our tables uses speeds UP combat. We only roll once for Initiative, and the DM uses an excel spreadsheet to put in the numbers and it has a macro that auto-sorts the list. It is on the wall mounted TV so everyone can see the list and knows their place in Initiative.Our DM never rolls damage for monsters, just using the averages, and crits deal max damage. Players (such as myself) can also do this. Most of the players still roll damage though.About 75% of the time is theater of mind. We have a battle map and use dice/minis for major battles sometimes, but other times we even use theater of mind for those.Flanking is advantage per RAW, determined by the battle map if used or by DM discretion for theater of mind.The DM and myself are the most experienced (decades for each of us). The other three are all sort-of new. Two have been around about 13 months, the newest only 5 months.The DM has everything on his laptops (he uses two, one for the game and one for reference), but has monster stats directly on his spreadsheet where he tracks everything else. He showed me how it works and it is pretty cool IMO. He just types in the damage when a monster takes it, and the current HP cell updates instantly.For one of the players, a cell phone is a distraction at times. We've talked to him about it and told him if it doesn't get better he'll have to leave it on the back table.Play is normally &quot;I cast fireball at them.&quot; or &quot;I attack the closest wolf.&quot; etc.Some of the players have spell casts to hep them in referencing their spells, to that helps.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DND_Reborn, post: 7884873, member: 6987520"] Actually, most of the house-rules our tables uses speeds UP combat. We only roll once for Initiative, and the DM uses an excel spreadsheet to put in the numbers and it has a macro that auto-sorts the list. It is on the wall mounted TV so everyone can see the list and knows their place in Initiative. Our DM never rolls damage for monsters, just using the averages, and crits deal max damage. Players (such as myself) can also do this. Most of the players still roll damage though. About 75% of the time is theater of mind. We have a battle map and use dice/minis for major battles sometimes, but other times we even use theater of mind for those. Flanking is advantage per RAW, determined by the battle map if used or by DM discretion for theater of mind. The DM and myself are the most experienced (decades for each of us). The other three are all sort-of new. Two have been around about 13 months, the newest only 5 months. The DM has everything on his laptops (he uses two, one for the game and one for reference), but has monster stats directly on his spreadsheet where he tracks everything else. He showed me how it works and it is pretty cool IMO. He just types in the damage when a monster takes it, and the current HP cell updates instantly. For one of the players, a cell phone is a distraction at times. We've talked to him about it and told him if it doesn't get better he'll have to leave it on the back table. Play is normally "I cast fireball at them." or "I attack the closest wolf." etc. Some of the players have spell casts to hep them in referencing their spells, to that helps. [/QUOTE]

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