Ugh... We were playing D&D today and what struck me (and other players as well) as pretty annoying was the fact that combat was taking so long. We were trying to beat 10 elves and their leader in one simple room and tried to kill them for something like 3 hours. It was sooo booorrriiinggg, so I was wondering if any of you have any hints on how to make combat faster. We didn't even had a chance to talk why did they attack us... we'll get to know in the following week. I'm open to any suggestions. What are your ways of making it faster/flowing smoother. I'd be very much obliged.
As DM, I have two sheets of paper marked off into identical numbered grids (1-30 works for me) and a set of Post-It flags with the characters' names written on them. At the beginning of each round the players roll their characters' initiatives and I take the flags from last round's grid and put them on the grid in the box numbered with their roll for this round. I post generic flags marked "bad guy 1", etc. for the monsters. (I don't tell them the monsters' initiative rolls). Once evrybody has reported, they each roll attacks, spell damage, etc, and then wait their turn to tell everybody how they did. It speeds up the exchange, since everybody can be rolling at once. We also use miniatures for positioning in combat. That reduces the time spent explaining what we think we did. (We've got some actual tiny statues, but d12 dice work just fine in this role, since I have a bunch of them that I never use, and they can easily be distinguished from each other.)
You're not alone in this plight Maggit... in my experience as D&D has developed more and more rules have been added over time in an attempt to cater to the vast number of situations that may develop in combat. IMO The 3.5 edition did an excellent job of cleanning things up and rationalising rules but it also added a lot of new stuff to juggle (for better or worse). There are now many different tactical rules, attacks of opportunity, 5 foot step, move and attack, free actions, move equivalant actions full round actions... the choices and outcomes are many!!! In my experience good and fast flowing combat comes down to tight control and experience by the DM. When combat occurs in your game you need to treat it accordingly, combat is fast and chaotic there is no time for lengthy discussion, debates or umming and ahhing over what action you wish to take. Have you ever been involved in some fisty cuffs down the pub... it's fast and chaotic! 1. Put your players under the clock. As each player's turn comes up give them 10 seconds to explain what they are doing. If it takes longer than 10 seconds to explain then it's too complicated to attempt in the chaos of combat. If player's are umming and ahhing count it out loud i.e. 'you have five seconds left you're running out of time'. Be brutal if they take too long deciding on their actions they miss their opening and have to wait till next turn. 2. Encourage players to think in advance about the actions they will take during their initative i.e. while everyone else is taking their turn decide on what they want to do when their turn comes up. 3. As a DM you need to know the rules of combat, read them, eat them, live them. Avoid digging into the rule book during combat at all costs. If you're not 100% sure on a ruling remember it's your game you make the rules so make up something fair on the fly. There's no shame in checking the ruling afterwards and applying the correct ruling next time. 4. As a DM know your beasties. In advance know the motivation for the combat, the level of intelligence of beasties and the tactics they are likely to employ. 5. All monsters don't need to always fight to the death. If the players are carving it up make morale checks and have monsters flee. That's about all I can come up with off the top of my head... basically it's up to the DM to set the pace and keep it frantic! Remember keep it real, good combat is fast and chaotic. - Eluthria
The play's the thing, as was once said... Don't let combat or rules get in the way of the story; the immersive quality of the story is why people have such a good time playing. It'll get better once you've played longer, but ditch what you don't need to speed play up at first, then add elements as you get the hang of things.
Thanks guys! I'm sure your advice will prove useful. Keep posting anyway, I'm curious how other players cope with this problem.
My group has gone the opposite direction: we let the dice tell us things like Morale (c.f. Heroes of Battle), facing (c.f. Unearthed Arcana) and we are experimenting with armor and shields receiving damage (weapon type vs hardness). Needless to say this gets very time consuming, but we like the possibility that a Giant can wreck your armor in one or two shots. Players need to be a lot more strategic rather than charge into battle with PC vs monster hubris. By the way, we use Dex (eye-body coordination) for ALL attacks. So larger monsters are even more lethal but often clumsier. In short, The Game offers something to the very strategically minded as well as to those who prefer imaginative role-playing. Finding the balance is the trick.
Eluthria wrote an amazing post. I can't add anything more to the discussion that what he already wrote. The DM knowing combat 100% helps. Having a DM who will hand waive, improvise, and generalize is a good thing too. If you're on a glacier and you start getting hit with massive hail (like in an arctic campaign or something), instead of breaking out a chart and figuring out the damage, duration, effects etc - saying something like "everyone takes 2d4 damage this turn" helps out quite a bit. As a player, I don't want to know the weight, size classifications and allowable saving throws of weather conditions. I'd prefer to have a 2 second static effect penalty issued and keep combat moving. My preference for DnD is as little paperwork as possible, but I know that sometimes trivializes the intricate rules of the system. I'd like to throw a fireball and have my DM tell me "all the mooks die" instead of figuring out all the calculations and taking a few minutes. But to put emphasis on one of Eluthria's points - having your DM know the monsters inside and out helps out a lot. It irks me to no end when a "stupid/instinctive" monster pulls out an elaborate series of trips/disarms tactical strikes on a party in sequence, where as it should charge the biggest thing directly in front of it and start attacking, maybe turning a few times to bite whatever flanked it. But I don't appreciate mindless monsters acting like tactical geniuses. And as such, combat with them can flow a lot faster than intelligent monsters.
I agree. I had my party confronting a combined group of Derro and Duergar slaves; they are very intelligent and use complicated and deadly tactics, my players had a though time with it, and complaint a lot : PC-"it's impossible to fight invisible dwarves when you get casted on you sleep!" Me-"Use tactics, dammit, you're all spellcasters and are fighting melee against dwarves!" but in the end they say it was the best fight they've played. The next room there was a purple giant worm, which they beated to pulp. And they complaint about it was too easy n simple. :roll: -Personally, i don't roll initiative checks each round, just the first one. If someone tries to have a better initiative by rolling again, he must skip a turn and stick with whatever roll he gets. -Also, i don't waste time with whortless opponents: if players are facing a group of goblins, hobgoblins and a bugbear, i just simply let the players roll the dice and say "you split the goblin in two" unless those are high level goblins, they're killed just with the strength bonus. -I don't let players think too much. DM "suddendly, two orcs jump from the shadows trying to stab you, but you're faster" PC "really? well, what are they carrying? cos i want a dagger for my follower...oh wait! i have an idea! i will distract them so the wizard could bit..." DM "an orcs cut you in the arm and the other spills droll and growls at you, trying to cut your guts!" PC "they cut me? and the other...arrrghh!! i kick the closest and draw my greatsword!! nobody cuts me by surprise, you coward fu**!!" DM *smiles* "that's the spirit" Overall, skip the details. If you're trying to get to a high rock to kill two giants, make the climb rolls easy: you fail, or pass. But, if the adventure implies a long climb thru a mountain, to fight a giant, then take your time cos the climbing part it's important.
Thanks for the positive words ShadowDeth you added some great points of your own mate! Might I add that sometimes the same came can be said of players who roleplay their dimwitted warrior as a tactical genius or eleoquent spokesman for the group? Unrelated to combat but a pet peeve of mine that slows the game down is pointless book keeping. I find it particularly irritating as a player when I'm asked to keep track of item weights, quantities, storage capacities etc. The system I use in my campagins is to provide each player a tailored character record sheet (CRS). On the CRS I have three boxes labeled backpack, worn and pouches. Once these boxes are full the character may not carry any further items. While on the topic of CRS... I personally feel that a CRS should never be more than one piece of paper, I hate watching players fumble about with half a dozen pieces of paper or flip through notebooks. - Eluthria
Might I suggest, and I mean this with all seriousness, a conversion to Castles & Crusades? Its usually described as D20 meets Old School D&D and/or D20 Lite. Your players will still have the same basic rules as D20, but without the overwhelming rules that currently afflict D&D 3.5 (C&C having predated 4E and SW Saga's reliance on fewer mechanics by a number of years). On top of that, its easy to modify C&C with whatever rules you want to add, whether from OD&D, AD&D 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, 3.X, Hackmaster, 4th Edition or any other D&D-like game (World of Warcraft RPG, Arcana Evolved etc). It will take some getting used to, especially The Seige Mechanic, which removes the unnecessarily cumbersome skills system. With but a single check, any character can basically try and perform any skill they can think of: a Fighter wants to sneak, go ahead and roll a Dex check (modified by if its a Prime Score and the Difficulty set to what the DM deems appropriate). Most people are at first kinda baffled by the Seige mechanic, but its truly an ingenious and wonderful resolution system. But, best of all (in my opinion) is that its the system Gary Gygax picked to have his version of Castle Greyhawk finally published under (called Castle Zagyg due to WotC copyright of Greyhawk). The first boxset, The Upper Works, is at the printers now and is going to be available by GenCon. Anyway, just thought I would add my 02 coppers to the discussion. Always willing to help bring another to The Crusade (as we say). :wavey:
