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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragon Snack" data-source="post: 4631986" data-attributes="member: 9810">I would never audit a players character in the middle of game, unless they were grossly out of line (you rolled a 3 and made the DC 28 save?).  I'm sure some players took advantage of this, but a little leeway here and there was fine by me.  If they were consistently off or wrong, that seems like a player problem as much as a system problem...I think judicious use of index cards helps on so many levels - not just with buffs.  As a DM I used them for initiative order (especially since my group liked to delay and hold their actions), keeping track of bad guy stats (and buffs/debuffs to them), and often notes on spells they could cast.  A little prep goes a long way.  I also think it made me better at winging encounters, since I'm one of those DMs who use random encounters.As I said, we had long combats, but it wasn't because of looking stuff up (I made my Druids have their Summoned creatures stats ready) or debuffs (we kept track of them on separate sheets or on the Tac-Tiles).  It was the caster using their "targeting reticle" on all their AoE spells or a player hemming and hawing about what to do.Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance...FWIW - I had campaigns go to 17th , 15th (with 7 players!), and 13th level (along with some that ended earlier).</blockquote>