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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 2953290" data-attributes="member: 3649">This changes things tremendously.What I would suggest: 1. Throw out the time-wasters in the tactical rules. Drop Attacks of Opportunity, reach, cover, sundering, tripping, all that mess. Forget about them and never mention them, ever. Don't let them waste time taking some of the exotic feats relating to them, either. About the only thing I'd leave would be Flanking. The only movement they should care about is the normal move, and the run (don't let them get discouraged from fleeing because they think they can only flee at 30" a round - make that point and make sure they know it).Don't bother with encumberance, spell components other than the holy symbol, or any of the other administrivia that's in the book. Shoot, I wouldn't even bother keeping track of arrows or stuff like that. The more you make the game seem like an exercise in resource management and accounting, the more you will lose their attention. Once they've mastered the basics in a couple months (Sound long? I've been playing with newbies recently and they are still not used to the different shaped dice after four weeks), then maybe take fifteen minutes at the beginning of a session to go over A rule if they seem to be craving it. In fact, do this a little bit at the beginning so they don't wonder why A gets to do something while B cannot. Tell them why sneak attack works the way it does, or discuss the role of the cleric, or the difference between a wizard and sorcerer. Point up the strength of each class and how they work together. If you can do this when y'all get together normally, even better. 2. Pick the spells the casters will have access to. Either find or create a short document that gives them the basic range, damage or effect, save and such for each spell they can use. 3x5 cards are excellent because then they can lay out what they have prepared per day. Divine casters? Pare their spell list down to about six spells, the common bread-and-butter spells they'll be using most often. Let them know about the others, and use 'You have a prophetic dream' to suggest they look at another couple spellsnow and again. 3. In a large combat, and all of them will be large for you, have them pre-roll a series of attack dice and damage. Yes, it will take a little tension out of the game, but with only 4 hours, you're going to want to maximize every second of your time. Just have them roll a simple series of numbers and use them in order, drawing a line through them as you go. A person with, say, a Short Sword and a Str of 12 might have a series that looks like:<s>12 2</s>16 61  35  7after a round of combat. First roll is the 'to hit', second number is damage (They may want to ignore rolling damage on anything under a 'to hit' of 10).Try this: it's not for everyone. A series of known bad die rolls may lead to them being discouraged and you do not want that. 4. Organization. Make sure their character sheets are complete. All those boxes are there for a fricking reason and there is no excuse for someone to constantly be adding up their BAB+str bonus+feat bonus+whatever when there is a box for that derived number on the sheet, in the weapon box. 'Roll a d20 and add that number' is the only instruction they need. Make sure a weapon box is filled out for each weapon they carry. Make sure the armor is listed, etc. Emphasize tht this is something you need to do at best once per level.</blockquote>

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