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Vemynal
2010-09-02, 03:29 PM
Hey! So I ran my first DM campaign last night. I should prefix this with that I haven't been able to play that many games before in the past, in fact most of them were one shots. But no one out of my current friends wants to DM so its me or no one >.>

Last night everyone was having a blast with the campaign but when we got to the combat it ran on far to long I think, the players started losing interest.

Do you have any tips for spicing up combat/making it run faster?

I had them facing 8 mobs:
2x 'Death Cultists' (lvl 2 Gnome Necromancers)
3x Fast zombie Gnomes w/ 1 level in fighter
3x Elemental Gnome skeletons (1 flaming, 1 electric, 1 frost)

The CR for the encounter I think is 8 (CR 2 for a single level 2. Double that is 2 level 2's CR 4. Double that is 4 level 2's for a CR6. Double it again makes a CR8 for 8 level 2s?...I need help >.>)

The party consisted of 5 level 4 characters: a Rogue, a Monk, a Sorcerer, a Fighter and (our munchkin and my best friend xD) a Monk/Fighter/Fighter/Barbarian

Its not that they almost died or had trouble killing them, but that combat took like an hour and a half

Tyndmyr
2010-09-02, 03:33 PM
How many rounds was the combat, and did you roll init individually?

Having 13 things taking individual turns can take quite a while. If you use individual init, consider rolling once for all mobs of a given type. Speeds things up somewhat.

Have pre-bookmarked monster manual or stat sheets helps avoid lookup times. I track hp on post-it notes, allowing me to slap them on the MM and avoid flipping, then toss them afterward. Speeding up the DMs turn is the biggest saving of time, since the DM runs the most stuff.

If you have individuals who are extremely slow, consider enforcing time limits. If they need to make a decision on their action, they should ponder this between turns, and thus, their round shouldn't take too terribly long.

Nohwl
2010-09-02, 03:38 PM
a 15 second time limit to say an action really speeds it up if you are playing in person.

Amphetryon
2010-09-02, 03:42 PM
a 15 second time limit to say an action really speeds it up if you are playing in person.

That's a really short amount of time, especially with newbie spellcasters. I use 2 minutes, which works out fairly well.

Snake-Aes
2010-09-02, 03:43 PM
Pay attention to whatever seems to happen most often while you play. Are players confused about positions? Are they undecided?
As said, cut his round shorter and things will speed up. If they plan before combat how they'll generally behave, they won't find the time constraint too limiting.
Also, don't be afraid of throwing lower CR encounters, it speeds up things considerablt. Really, cr-appropriate fights should be elite mooks, not normal mooks. (it also helps against rocket tag)

JoshuaZ
2010-09-02, 03:45 PM
I wouldn't worry about this. This is the sort of thing that speeds up a lot as people become more used to a system and more used to having someone run things. If three battles from now things are still running this way then there's more of a concern.

Nohwl
2010-09-02, 03:56 PM
That's a really short amount of time, especially with newbie spellcasters. I use 2 minutes, which works out fairly well.

not really. i don't care if they have to look it up after they say what they are doing, or if figuring out the details takes longer, but i want an action pretty quickly so the game keeps moving.

ka_bna
2010-09-02, 03:59 PM
Just a couple of ideas:
- Have all your monsters act at 1 given initiative (or 2 at most)
- Tell your players again they have to think ahead
- Pre-draw battle-grids

Amphetryon
2010-09-02, 04:01 PM
not really. i don't care if they have to look it up after they say what they are doing, or if figuring out the details takes longer, but i want an action pretty quickly so the game keeps moving.

That's not what you indicated initially, though. 15 seconds to know which spell you're casting, with which metamagic, on a battlefield that changed twice in the last 30 seconds - not to mention move your character and his familiar or animal companion, is quite difficult for an experienced player, let alone a newbie.

Also, how would they know which spell they're casting before they look it up? :smallconfused: I have to assume there's a "no take-backs" clause built in there, or else the time limit is simply farcical, since they could change their mind repeatedly otherwise.

Vangor
2010-09-02, 04:05 PM
Make sure the players have every likely iteration of to hit and damage modifiers, DCs and additional rules to spells, and so forth, written somewhere for easy access with proper labels. The munchkin should know a standard attack all the way to a full power attack pouncing charge while enraged with flanking bonuses, and a Gray Elf Wizard with Spell Focus (Enchantment) should know Sleep has a DC17.

For you, assure you have all of the pertinent statistics similarly written as you will use them during combat at the least. Get saves and armor classes from every player. Know what you will try to do on what rounds in what conditions; does not need to be too complex, but major developments such as how your enemies likely begin combat, how they might react if ambushed, and, using your example, if one of the necromancers dies.

Ozreth
2010-09-02, 04:52 PM
1. As somebody said, it will speed up as everybody becomes more comfortable with the game on a whole.
2. 13 things fighting takes awhile no matter what.
3. Play a few 4e games and come back to 3.5, it'll never seem slow again.

Nohwl
2010-09-02, 05:26 PM
That's not what you indicated initially, though. 15 seconds to know which spell you're casting, with which metamagic, on a battlefield that changed twice in the last 30 seconds - not to mention move your character and his familiar or animal companion, is quite difficult for an experienced player, let alone a newbie.

Also, how would they know which spell they're casting before they look it up? :smallconfused: I have to assume there's a "no take-backs" clause built in there, or else the time limit is simply farcical, since they could change their mind repeatedly otherwise.


i want a player to say i cast magic missile at ___. if they have to look up how much damage it does, that's fine. if they are applying metamagic, it gets stated with the spell. if they are casting something like grease, and they want to hit as many people as possible, saying that is fine. picking a target square can take a little longer, and if i see something better, i will suggest it. if they want to cast fog cloud at a certain location and need to look up the exact miss chance, i don't care if that takes extra time. i want the action or a very good idea of the action within 15 seconds. i have played games where people take 5 minutes to decide they want to cast fireball. i don't mean where they want to cast it or if they want any metamagic on it, but just that they want to cast fireball, and it's another 5 minutes for their turn to be over after they look up what the spell does and then figure out where they want to cast it.

i'm not looking for the whole thing to be complete in 15 seconds. i want you to say i move and attack ___, or my animal companion does this, i'm going to cast ___ to hit these people.

the action they originally state won't change, and if they don't have something ready, or an idea of what they want to do ready in 15 seconds, i move on to the next person. i prefer the spell or action be ready/looked up by the time it is your turn, but that just makes things go even faster.

Xyk
2010-09-02, 05:54 PM
That's a really short amount of time, especially with newbie spellcasters. I use 2 minutes, which works out fairly well.

Get them to make index cards with their spells. I usually recommend t3h n00bs against prepared spellcasting for expediency's sake.

Zhalath
2010-09-02, 07:27 PM
Hahahahahaha...gnome necromancers. I can just imagine their squeaky voices. "Behold, my army of undead short people! Ahahahahaha!"

My rule for initiative is that groups of enemies move at the same time. Like, say that for some reason, while your party is fighting 2 death cultists in their stolen oversized robes, 2 earth elementals come to play Bury The Meatbags. I roll initiative for the cultists as a group (using the highest initiative value in the group), and then roll for the elementals as a group (using their highest initiative value). Now, had the elementals been summoned by the necromancers, I'd have the big piles of rock act with the gnomes, as they are explicitly allies.
This is less dice rolling for the GM and less numbers for you to track.

Also, this is kind of stupid advice to give, as most people do it already, but tell anyone who rolls a bunch of dice at a time (rogue and sorcerer, probably) to group their results in 10s.

Finally, if a player takes too long, just count him as delaying, and ask him the next time another PCs turn comes up.

Balain
2010-09-02, 07:47 PM
The more you play the more combat will speed up.

As a DM I would roll initiative for each set of foes. Writing down every ones turn order on the battle mat can also help speed things up. bookmark all the pages for the monsters you are using so you can get to those pages quicker.

You could do something like lower all the monsters hit points by 1/2 and double all monster damage or at least raise monster damage.

ask players to plan their next turn while others are going. Their plans might change depending what happens on all the other turns but it could speed up things.

Chambers
2010-09-02, 07:50 PM
One thing we do in table top games is to make index cards for each character. The card has the characters name, race, current/max HP, regular AC (also touch & flat-footed), saving throws, and spot/listen check modifiers along with relevant visual abilities (low-light vision/darkvision).

When combat starts everyone writes their initative result on the card and passes it to the DM who puts them in order. The DM has an index card for monsters and one labeled "End of Round". You keep turning over cards, going through peoples turns until the rounds over, then start again. The cards have enough vital info for a quick look that saves the DM asking the players "what's your AC again?" & "who has darkvision?" a bunch of times.

If a spellcaster has a group buff spell they use they'll make an index card for it, listing benefit (i.e. +4 AC or whatever) & how long it lasts, and toss it down on the table-top. Now everyone knows the spell is in play and can easily remember it, instead of going "Oh wait! My AC would have been 4 points higher for the two attacks that were three rounds ago!".

Vemynal
2010-09-02, 11:49 PM
Thank you everyone for the help, I'll be sure to group together my monsters initiative from now on.

I used a grid for keeping track of characters but some of the players still seemed confused

It doesn't help that 3 of the players have never really played before and the Rogue's usual bed time was a half hour earlier then when combat started

What do you think about the idea of rolling for melee/ranged melee attacks together? this was also suggested to me but in the case of the low level mooks I was using, they weren't able to hit unless they rolled a 17+ so I did them all individually.

I'll keep in mind the deciding what to do time limit, but one of the first time players is the Sorcerer.

I'm also gonna force players to use the actually D&D 3.5 print out sheets I think, I tried that before but everyone just showed up with their #'s on a lined piece of paper and has trouble finding their stuff sometimes >.>


3. Play a few 4e games and come back to 3.5, it'll never seem slow again.

And its a personal opinion but 4th ed. imo is the Windows Vista of D&D xD

Edit-

And if anyone would be able to clarify how i calculate CR, I read the DMG but it was...a little confusing.

I also read the PHB's account on experience awards and had difficulty understanding how much exp is required to level since there wasnt a simple table (that i could find). I looked online and they gave me a math formula.

Does anyone know of a simple table with the exp for each level?

Flickerdart
2010-09-02, 11:57 PM
Mutants & Masterminds handles this in an interesting fashion: PCs can "take 10" on attacks against minion enemies.

Likewise, using fewer monsters works. Instead of 20 rolls from 20 kobolds, get one big zombie (zombies can only take one action per turn, which will help) to whack people. Fiddling with AC and HP totals means that combats will end faster. A monster that has 10 HP and 30 AC will take longer to kill than one with 15 AC and 20 HP, because people will be missing more often. Alternately, high AC and low HP saves you time on damage rolls, so you could have 1-hp ninjas cartwheeling around the room.

Endarire
2010-09-03, 01:30 AM
d20SRD.org (http://www.d20srd.org/) has numerous resources, like the Experience Calculator (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20encountercalculator.htm).

As for expediting combat, tell your players to know what they plan to do when their turn comes up. Usually, a minute is enough to determine what to do and start to do it. Die rolls and rules referencing may require more time.

Tabletop games in general are slow-paced. I can finish Temple of Elemental Evil for PC in a day. Running the module would likely take months. Die rolls and consulting people takes a lot longer.

Curmudgeon
2010-09-03, 02:17 AM
Aids for speeding up combat:

Index cards, one for each character, that you keep in initiative order. If somebody uses Delay or Ready you just pull their card out of the rotation temporarily.
Tiny sticky notes that you can attach to a card to keep track of things that depend on the PC's turn, like spell durations or ongoing bleeding damage. When their card comes up in the order tick off one round on the sticky note for each ongoing effect. When you've reached the round count for the effect pull off the sticky and tell the player their PC's spell/bleeding/whatever has ended.
Dice cups for each player. They should have their cup loaded with the d20 and damage dice they're going to use so they don't waste time rolling sequentially. Use separate colors for different damage sources, such as weapon and sneak attack.
Players use the same dice order for percentile rolls, always. Mark the colors/whatever on the index card, and accept no changes. Always use the same system for d2s, d3s, and other things that aren't read directly off a single die (low/high, even/odd ─ it doesn't matter as long as it's always the same for everyone in your game).
A rolling tray, with lips to catch dice, in the center of the table. No rolling elsewhere, ever. (This keeps players from rolling out of order and trying to preserve good rolls or ignore bad rolls. And you'd be surprised how much time is wasted to random rolling and ducking under the table to retrieve lost dice.)