Tricks of the Trade

[Blue]

I keep track of init as DM, but I don't btoher with numbers past the start - after everyone has an init, I've got them listed on a piest of paper, with the PC's side (including allies) on the left and everyone else on the right (say in a column 1/3 of a paper wide) - usually just initials. If someone delays or readies, it's up to them to remind me if they use it or if their trigger comes up, at which point I erase their initial and put it in the correct place. Last session was 14 individual inits, and that went smoothly.

Combat takes long if people don't know what they are going to do, which happens usually if they need to evaluate the situation on their init. This happens unavoidably when someone soon before them changes things drastically, but also happens if people aren't paying attention. Funny, but if you go fast, players don't lose focus, and can go faster, and vice versa. Sort of a self-profiling prophesy. I don'w worry about rolling attack & damage dice at the same time - it does save some time, but compared to a player taking 45 seconds to figure out what to do, count range, refigure out what to do, check a spell list and equipment list "just in case" for other options, die rolling speed is a trivial percentage.

BTW, in an epic level campaign wheere I'm a player, we often get one round an HOUR. Too many options on all sides, and the effects of a single action are too big so there needs to be constant reevaluation. In an effort to speed it up I did a 1 page printed cheat sheet reminding me of common options I had, and things I would need quickly (liek resistances and such to speed up replies to the DM), and a spread sheet to do numbers (hey, what's the bonus type of that spell, does it overlap with the inspire courage, ioun stone, luck bonus, insight bonus, or sacred bonus I have?)

In my experience, chosing what to do is in general the single largest time spent during combat, so the one with the most to gain from optimization.

Cheers,
Blue

 

[KarinsDad]

And just for KarinsDad's benefit ( ) I'll share this: If I have a group of 12 identical orcs, they all go on one sheet, and all go at the same initiative. No individual inits of mooks for me!

So sad for your game.


For area effect spells, we have wire cutouts for each size. You slip the cutout over the combat from above and determine exactly which miniatures are within the area of effect.

They can also be used for continuous area effects. Put them down, then either trace them or mark the corners (and then pick them up and draw from the corners).

 

[KarinsDad]

I don'w worry about rolling attack & damage dice at the same time - it does save some time, but compared to a player taking 45 seconds to figure out what to do, count range,

I do not let players count range. They state what they are doing. If it is in range, fine. If not, we calculate what actually happened (in the case of area effects). I also do not let them count out a movement path ahead of time for their PC.

Course, I do the same for NPCs. If their spell is out of range, tough luck. If they do not make the movement for what they wanted to accomplish, tough luck.

BTW, in an epic level campaign wheere I'm a player, we often get one round an HOUR. Too many options on all sides, and the effects of a single action are too big so there needs to be constant reevaluation. In an effort to speed it up I did a 1 page printed cheat sheet reminding me of common options I had, and things I would need quickly (liek resistances and such to speed up replies to the DM), and a spread sheet to do numbers (hey, what's the bonus type of that spell, does it overlap with the inspire courage, ioun stone, luck bonus, insight bonus, or sacred bonus I have?)

This is a very good idea. I am planning on our current campaign to go into Epic levels, probably by fall 2007. However, I suspect that I will have to do this for the players as most of them are not very motivated to work on the game outside of game time.

 

[XCorvis]

Hehehe...you're way nicer than me - if a player takes too long for their turn, I start counting down from 6. If they haven't started doing something by the time I hit 0, they lose their action.

One thing I would like people to do: Tell me what they want to achieve, not necessarily how they want to do it. I once had a player standing inside a vendor's kiosk while giant apes were attacking.

Player: <Thinking for a bit> Is there a wheeled cart here?
Me: Huh? Um, no.
Player: <Thinks some more> How about a manhole cover?
Me: Er, no, I don't think there would be. What are you trying to do?
Player: I want to get away from the ape and hide.
Me: Oh! Well, the kiosks are close together and the ape is on the other side. You can just dive over into the next one.
Player: OK, I'll do that.

That's a simple example but we wasted a few minutes on it while he tried to figure out other possible options. If he'd said something like: "I want to get into the next kiosk - is there a wheeled cart I can jump on and ride away?" I probably would have just said "yes". As it happened, I first had to figure out what the heck he was trying to do. If players spend too much time asking questions without stating goals, in my experience it's mostly wasted time.

 

[Pickaxe]

For area effect spells, we have wire cutouts for each size. You slip the cutout over the combat from above and determine exactly which miniatures are within the area of effect.

They can also be used for continuous area effects. Put them down, then either trace them or mark the corners (and then pick them up and draw from the corners).

We used cut-out overhead transparencies for similar uses, but I like the wire idea, since you don't have to lift the minis. Keep in mind that this is particularly useful for keeping track of illumination.

Another idea that has occasionally come in handy: Make a document that consists of a grid of one inch squares, which should match a battlemat; I did it using Photoshop, but I'm sure there are other ways to do it. Print it out, then photocopy it onto a bunch of overhead tranparencies. These come in handy in a number of ways. The DM can pre-draw rooms on them, then just lay them out when needed on the battlemat; less time drawing (and erasing). They're also handy when you run out of time and need to record creature map positions for an encounter.

A final tip: We use poker chips to indicate effects. Small chips are good for indicating individual effects (white good, red bad), and large chips are used for area effects and indicating enlarged characters (since the chips roughly cover a 2x2 area).

--Axe

 

[KarinsDad]

A final tip: We use poker chips to indicate effects. Small chips are good for indicating individual effects (white good, red bad), and large chips are used for area effects and indicating enlarged characters (since the chips roughly cover a 2x2 area).

I like the idea of chips for area effects and individual effects. For enlarged characters, we just use a large miniature. I could see placing a large poker chip under a character when the character is mounted on a horse. Thanks for the idea.


We also place flying PCs/NPCs on top of a D6 (since D6s are relatively stable) to indicate that they are flying. We also put a D10 or D20 next to them to indicate how high they are flying. In a small enclosed area, each 1 on the die represents a foot (i.e. 12 on a D20 represents 12 feet up). With jumping and such, each foot is semi-important indoors.

Outdoors, we typically use D20 and multiply by 5 since most of the time outdoors, being 30 feet up is generally the same as being 28 feet up, a player will often use 5 foot increments anyway and flying creatures often tend to stay out of melee range anyway.


For Mirror Image, we place a D6 (or D8 depending) next to the miniature. As each image gets popped, we decrement the number on the die.


For invisible PCs, we place a clear die on the map. We used to use hex maps with numbers on every hex, so the players would keep track of the coordinates where they were when invisible and just send me a note and I would keep track of where the invisible NPCs were. Unfortunately, due to popular demand, we are using a square grid instead of a hex map and the squares do not have numbers on them. We could write numbers on the sides of the plastic sheet we put on top of the paper squares, but that would be time consuming and the numbers would get wiped off by people's arms, sheets, etc.

I prefer just keeping track of invisible creature locations better than the clear die method because it prevents metagaming more. I generally only have at most one invisible NPC max, at least at lower levels, so I am able to keep track of his exact location based on terrain features, but at higher levels, this might become more of a problem.


We also use dice to keep track of duration of spells and effects. When a given creature's turn comes up, the first thing we do is decrement the die.

 

[Bad Paper]

oo i like keeping track of durations, images, etc. with dice. Consider that yoinked.

For Nail: I don't use cards, I use 8.5"x5.5" pieces of paper with 10-point printing. *Everything* is on them (not only AC, hp, et al. but also MM descriptive text, my own tactical notes, character motivation, whatever). Yeah, sure, it's small, but that way my scribbles stand out better. I used to use index cards, and write on them, but that system sucks.

I have a 12" string that I use for a 60' lightning bolt (for example). Any square the string touches is part of the line. I also tend to have a ruler nearby for ad-hoc measurements. I have an 8" diameter circle that I cut out of 1" grid paper, so not only do I have a fireball, but I also have the squares marked out like in the back of the DMG (which partially-touched squares are affected).

I haven't made a 4" diameter circle for those 10' radius effects, but I think I'll make one of those today, because my players have really been pouring those on lately. I guess I'll rig up a cone, too. By far, that 8" diameter circle has seen the most usage.

If a character is invisible we put his mini inside a bottlecap (not square-based minis, and we always have plenty of bottlecaps, heh). I have also attached twist-ties to signal spell effects, I don't remember which.

 

[DerHauptman]

I do not let players count range. They state what they are doing. If it is in range, fine. If not, we calculate what actually happened (in the case of area effects). I also do not let them count out a movement path ahead of time for their PC.

Here here, I hate the ones counting out movement like 6 different ways to see how they can get that extra 5'. UGH! Same with the mage and he spell effect template considering the effects 5 ways to determinne what is optimal. Having been in combat under fire these long drawn out luxuries are silly wrong. Yact in a second or less or you die.

 

[Dross]

To speed up play I/my group

Note who's action you follow.

Roll dice before your turn, especially for multiple sets and calculating the results. And I assume that if a 15 hit, that I do not have to ask if 20 hit, I state the attack result then the damage. One in my group will always ask this, every round, multiple attacks per round. :\

I will often note the highest miss/lowest hit and keep it in mind/inform the others.

If the DM asks someone else for a spot/listen check, roll the dice. The result can be for the next roll the DM asks for, be it initiative, skill check, save etc.

Have things like the save DC's written out for the spell level, with the item description, etc

Have book, page number, breif description of an ability/feat/magic item written out on a sheet so I do not have to go hunting in a book (especially for the more common actions for that PC). Spell penetration, school specialisation etc change DC's with feats etc. Note what is and is not affected by the feats where possible.

 

[Infiniti2000]

As described in the other thread, I use initiative cards and I have all bad guys printed on their own cards. I generally put spell effects on the cards, with an asterisk if it is in rounds per level. Then, I just tick next to the spell and when the appropriate number of rounds is up, the effect ends. Ideally, if the caster delays/readies, I would create a new card for the previous effects, but in practice I rarely do that because it would not be worth the effort (fairly insignificant difference).

We use tact-tiles. Definitely worth. I had created my own battlemats before, either using poster board or plastic with handmade etching. Nothing is as good as the tact-tiles, except for maybe that computer-generated overhead version.

At the craft store, I picked up a large number of wooden circles, most of them 1" in diameters, with about 12 2-inch in diameter and 6 3-inches. These obviously corresponding to Medium (or smaller), Large, and Huge. I painted numbers on them to represent monsters. I can then basically use any size figure on top of this base, if I so choose, but most of the time we do not have an appropriate figure and just use the base. Which is cool. I have a 4-inch diameter one, but none larger.

I also picked up some 1-inch wooden cubes, which are awesome for aerial combat. I have a lot of them with different numbers written on the sides, representing 10ft, 20ft, etc. If an appropriate height square isn't available, then we can just combine 2 or 3. It's easy, even more stable than 6-siders, but it's also impossible to have creatures both above and below (in which case we temporary have one or the other off to the side, which in practice is no big deal).