What do you do to simplify or speed up your D&D/d20 game?

[Amaroq]

Index cards

We use 3x5 index cards for just about everything.

Spellcasters? Don't need to have the book open - just "Prep" your spells onto 3x5 cards so you can quickly give us everything relevant.

Initiative cards? on 3x5s - and the DM has everybody's Spot, Listen, etc., on their cards, so that he can roll to see if anybody spots the important X or hears the approaching Y without 'tipping' that something is out there.

Monsters? Prepped onto 3x5s in much the same form as the 'short block' described above - and that card slips into the initiative card shuffle when started.

Sure, there are commercial products out there which accomplish the same thing, but why buy something when you can customize your index card to your personal idea of what's important?

 

[Lord Judas]

One thing I do is make a grid of every Npc/Monster "on tap" for battle ahead of time for To-Hit and total damage VS enemy NPC/Monsters. The to-hit is the Absolute roll needed on the D20. No thinking involved on my behalf. I just roll and check the chart. If a Buff goes into effect, its not hard to add 1 or so to the absolute roll. Excel is useful here.

If there is an evil spellcaster involved, I precompute all save DC's, and try to sum up the spells total effect in less then one line. I put all there spells on a list, and cross them off as they are cast. The list gives me their spells at a glance. I shamelessly reuse lists as well for "lesser bad guy spell casters"

 

[BigRedRod]

We always dump encumberance. I assume everybody does this and the rules are provided solely for video game translations. If it ever becomes an issue we just use common sense coupled with superhuman abilities.

Not given any problems to us or anybody yet

 

[Psion]

En-cumb-what?

 

[eris404]

Hafta agree with keeping track of things on cards - wonderful idea. One player keeps track of her character's spells (and psionic powers in a different game) on cards and the DMs always use index cards to keep track of initiative. One DM uses cards to keep track of magic items, too.

In one game, I play a ranger/wizard/arcane archer (3.5 rules) who uses a mighty composite bow of evil outsider bane and has undead and evil outsiders as her favored enemies. Confused yet? So was I until I made a simple spreadsheet in Excel. There are three rows, one for each case (evil outsiders, undead and other), with columns for each type of modifier (feats, magic, class abilities, etc.) for attack and damage. The spreadsheet is set to calculate the modifiers, so I can tell at a glance what the total bonuses are. I have blank space to write in conditional/temporary modifiers as well. Plus, the DM can look over the sheet and see all the math if he wants to doublecheck it. This has sped up combat considerably for me. I'm thinking about creating a similar sheet for another player who plays a barbarian with a love of power attack.

 

[MerricB]

Initiative: At the beginning of each combat, I get people to tell me their initiative rolls and I keep track of them on scratch paper.

28 Lukas x x x
21 Cassie x x x
18 Skeletons x x x
14 Blake x x
2 Ulfgar x x

I draw little lines above the x's to show spell durations.

Rules: I know the rules really well. This speeds things up a lot!

Spells: Open book policy.

Six Second Rule: If you can't promptly tell me what action your character is taking, you do nothing that round.

Cheers!

 

[blargney the second]

Incidentally, I've put my whole campaign onto index cards by the simple expedient of writing encounters on index cards. They're cross-referenced to the relevant NPCs with a simple numbered indexing system and a table of contents that I add to over time.

-blarg

 

[Tranzquility]

I like to have my players keep there characters in sheet protectors and use dry erase markers to keep track of mods. and so forth its verry easy for spell buffs every player keeps about 40-60 glass beads to keep track of there own spells effects for buffs that effect the party as a hole i write the spell down on a note book paper and then right the number of rounds it will take before it is exausted then i just tell them that that mod is no longer in effect so they just subtract it from what ever start or what not the buffed up and thus saves lots of time......

 

[reanjr]

All of our casters seem to have the books open anyway.

Lucky you. We've got 4 casters. One of them usually has the book open. Two more of them at least know which spell they're going to cast (usually) and one of these knows what the saving throw is.

Have caster's create spell index cards for any spell memorized (or known for sorcerers and bards) with all info for the spell on them. Have them create additional cards for bonuses/penalties. For instance, fill out a card for each player that says:

Bless
Attacks (+1 morale)
fear Saves (+1 morale)

When you cast it, pass it out to everyone affected. They can use the card as a reference for what affects are running. You can write the duration in pencil in the corner.