I am a long time player of D&D. Been playing for about 19 years. I thought Basic D&D was more fun than 1E or 2E. I like 3E better than Basic D&D. I have been playing 3E since it came out, same campaign.
My players agreed to try a session without AoO's. I made all actions full round actions. This did not speed up combat resolution. After playing a 3hr session we resolved one combat encounter. The combat was not as fun without AoO's and making all actions full round actions. We reinstated AoO's and the normal round action choices.
I think my problem as a DM is that monsters and NPC's are nearly as complex as Player Characters. Being DM in 3E is overwhelming. Searching for monster stats in adventures are hard on the eyes. It takes a long time to find AC in monster descriptions, for example. Has anyone tried to play another player's character? It can be real challenging to do this effectively. Nobody knows your character like you. It is great for PC's to have so many feats, spells, class abilities etc (if you are playing just one character). For a DM who must run several "Characters" at one time, the task can be overwhelming. To address the problem I thought maybe:
1) use highlighters on combat stats for monsters in adventures
AC, HP, Attk, Dmg, Init
2) or put the combat stats on a 3x5 card
I don't know. I'm just not running the adventures as smoothly as I would like to. And DM preparation seems to be extremely demanding. Does anyone else no what I am talking about?
My players agreed to try a session without AoO's. I made all actions full round actions. This did not speed up combat resolution. After playing a 3hr session we resolved one combat encounter. The combat was not as fun without AoO's and making all actions full round actions. We reinstated AoO's and the normal round action choices.
I think my problem as a DM is that monsters and NPC's are nearly as complex as Player Characters. Being DM in 3E is overwhelming. Searching for monster stats in adventures are hard on the eyes. It takes a long time to find AC in monster descriptions, for example. Has anyone tried to play another player's character? It can be real challenging to do this effectively. Nobody knows your character like you. It is great for PC's to have so many feats, spells, class abilities etc (if you are playing just one character). For a DM who must run several "Characters" at one time, the task can be overwhelming. To address the problem I thought maybe:
1) use highlighters on combat stats for monsters in adventures
AC, HP, Attk, Dmg, Init
2) or put the combat stats on a 3x5 card
I don't know. I'm just not running the adventures as smoothly as I would like to. And DM preparation seems to be extremely demanding. Does anyone else no what I am talking about?
