Speeding up combat?

[javcs]

Alright, so a friend and I are working on making adjustments to speed up combat.
So far we've got:
-replace initiative rolls with init mod +10, rest as normal
-standardize damage (as in, say, d4 weapons do 3, d6s do 4, d8s 5, etc.)
-banning problematic splatbooks/materials.
-requiring the players of casters to have written out the effects of the spells they have prepared

Anybody have any ideas? Tips? Suggestions?

 

[vikingmonkey]

This is an area of my game I'm working on as well. The single biggest thing that helped me was to throw out the battlemat and mini's. I now use a small, hand-held dry-erase board, but even that only when neccessary. Mostly it's just to give an idea of the layout of a room if it's particularly complex.

 

[The Levitator]

The single biggest improvement we made to our gaming was to start using DM Genie. It tracks everything for me and frees me up to focus on describing the action. Even though I use the autoroll feature, it's designed to work with manual rolls where you can input the information while your players roll. You can check it out at : DM Genie

 

[Vrecknidj]

-standardize damage (as in, say, d4 weapons do 3, d6s do 4, d8s 5, etc.)

I did this for a whole night of gaming once, and I may go back to it. I have a group of 8 players, and the average level for that night was 21. So, lots of attacks, lots of options, lots of dice damage.

I had everyone figure out, ahead of time, the average damage for all their attacks (and then with all the conditions, i.e. sneak attack). I had them figure out maximum and minimum damage as well.

Then I just made up a curve, based it on a d6, and had them roll a d6 with each hit. A roll of 3 or 4 was average damage, a roll of 2 was right between minimum and average, and a 1 was minimum (and mirror image for 5 and 6).

The damage was unusual, but, over the course of the night, it all evened out, and we saved probably a couple hours of time not having to wait for everyone to count the totals from dozends of dice every other roll.

Dave

 

[borble]

I did this for a whole night of gaming once, and I may go back to it. I have a group of 8 players, and the average level for that night was 21. So, lots of attacks, lots of options, lots of dice damage.

I had everyone figure out, ahead of time, the average damage for all their attacks (and then with all the conditions, i.e. sneak attack). I had them figure out maximum and minimum damage as well.

Then I just made up a curve, based it on a d6, and had them roll a d6 with each hit. A roll of 3 or 4 was average damage, a roll of 2 was right between minimum and average, and a 1 was minimum (and mirror image for 5 and 6).

The damage was unusual, but, over the course of the night, it all evened out, and we saved probably a couple hours of time not having to wait for everyone to count the totals from dozends of dice every other roll.

Dave

that sounds plasible

 

[XCorvis]

Make every player type out their own sheet of the rules for cover, grapple, disarm, etc... If they write it out themselves, they will hopefully have paid more attention to it, and can refer to their personal and very familiar cheat sheets.

Also, have your players with different weapon types and common buff abilities write out all the possible permutations. This is most useful for Barbarians (raging or not raging), but it's also good for TWF.

 

[Someone]

Since the one doing the most work is the DM, I've found that shifting some of it to the players is the best way to speed combat. One player may keep track of initiatives and spell durations, another one of hit points dealt to monsters, etc.

This has the added benefit of keeping them in the game, instead of boringly waiting for their turn.

Also make the players have decided their moves when their turn arrive. If a rounds takes, say, five minutes to play, that's five minutes the player has to look through books and add modifiers.

 

[XCorvis]

Replacing your init rolls with static numbers might actually slow things down more. You're going to end up with a lot of duplicate numbers between 9 and 18 or so, and you'll have to stop and compare bonuses to decide who goes first. You may as well just stick with the roll. In our group, the players gather the initiatives and write them on index cards. The DM has pre-rolled inits for the monsters. Sort them in order and then the DM flips through them as each person goes. That alone speeds things up quite a bit, and keeps confusion about who's turn it is way down.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Replacing your init rolls with static numbers might actually slow things down more. You're going to end up with a lot of duplicate numbers between 9 and 18 or so, and you'll have to stop and compare bonuses to decide who goes first. You may as well just stick with the roll. In our group, the players gather the initiatives and write them on index cards. The DM has pre-rolled inits for the monsters. Sort them in order and then the DM flips through them as each person goes. That alone speeds things up quite a bit, and keeps confusion about who's turn it is way down.

I do something similar. I keep a 5x8 card for each character with most of its stats, attacks, saves and stuff. I make up a stack of such cards for all the monsters before every session as well, and keep a stack of extra blank cards for unexpected needs. On each card, I write the init on the lower left corner, and use the extra space on each card to keep track of hit points. I cycle through them in initiative order. Whenever someone delays or readies, turn the card 90-degrees and leave it in the stack.

Makes record keeping much easier.

Dave