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<blockquote data-quote="AaronOfBarbaria" data-source="post: 6779209" data-attributes="member: 6701872">Do you use encounters with more lower CR monsters instead of a few/one higher CR monster? Do you use the mob attack rules when you do so? If not, doing both of these together might speed up some encounters by making each monster involved take less time to deal with individually, and not also adding to the time spent resolving monster turns by a significant amount.Are these combats that are taking considerable time doing so because your players hold back on expendable resources like spell slots? If so, talking with your players about them spending resources more freely so that the combat doesn't take as long, and letting them more readily rest to recover the spent resources, will speed things along.Are the &quot;victory conditions&quot; of these combats &quot;reduce all the monsters to 0 hp&quot; and not other things (for example: distract the dragon long enough to steal the [thing], keep the ogres at bay while the [npc(s)] escape, or get past [monster] without [bad thing it wants to do to the PCs] happening)? If yes, then speeding up combat is as simple as having these kind of victory conditions, or deciding that once it is clear that the NPC forces the party faces are not going to turn things around and defeat the PCs (according to whatever the NPC force considers its victory condition to be, such as a hungry monster wanting to eat them) the NPC force will flee or surrender as appropriate because they'd rather not die if that is at all possible.Altering the HP/damage of monsters is something I'd only suggest if literally all else fails, since while that will certainly speed up combat resolution, it also has the highest probability of leaving the players feeling dissatisfied by way of either not feeling their opponents even stood a chance against them, or by feeling like they don't have the durability to stand against their foes' damage.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AaronOfBarbaria, post: 6779209, member: 6701872"] Do you use encounters with more lower CR monsters instead of a few/one higher CR monster? Do you use the mob attack rules when you do so? If not, doing both of these together might speed up some encounters by making each monster involved take less time to deal with individually, and not also adding to the time spent resolving monster turns by a significant amount. Are these combats that are taking considerable time doing so because your players hold back on expendable resources like spell slots? If so, talking with your players about them spending resources more freely so that the combat doesn't take as long, and letting them more readily rest to recover the spent resources, will speed things along. Are the "victory conditions" of these combats "reduce all the monsters to 0 hp" and not other things (for example: distract the dragon long enough to steal the [thing], keep the ogres at bay while the [npc(s)] escape, or get past [monster] without [bad thing it wants to do to the PCs] happening)? If yes, then speeding up combat is as simple as having these kind of victory conditions, or deciding that once it is clear that the NPC forces the party faces are not going to turn things around and defeat the PCs (according to whatever the NPC force considers its victory condition to be, such as a hungry monster wanting to eat them) the NPC force will flee or surrender as appropriate because they'd rather not die if that is at all possible. Altering the HP/damage of monsters is something I'd only suggest if literally all else fails, since while that will certainly speed up combat resolution, it also has the highest probability of leaving the players feeling dissatisfied by way of either not feeling their opponents even stood a chance against them, or by feeling like they don't have the durability to stand against their foes' damage. [/QUOTE]

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