Skipping the battlemap for a small encounter with low stakes makes the rest of things feel more important too, especially as the party keeps leveling up.
…you can also just skip the battlement. Full stop. I’ve been playing for over 30 years and never used one. It just slows every down and pulls everyone out of roleplay. I don’t find at all that it necessarily means not having rich, complex, tactical combat. You just have to use language to convey what the grid can.
@@ElenaRevely that works too, yeah. personally i find as a DM that I cannot keep track of all my information very well in my head, and that for more complicated fights with larger enemy groups a battlemap helps me keep track of things as much as it does my players. that's not the end all be all of course, personally im glad that people can choose which to use based on whichever works better for their playstyle
People will also paint battles more epically if it is all in the head. Everyone will imagine machines, terrain, character movements in the ways their brains find most exciting. It's like how movies are rarely as cool as how you imagined a scene when reading a book.
Having the baddies talk is such a great tip! One of my DMs has almost every bad guy make a comment or order once every couple rounds, and it not only keeps the immersion through the battle, it also helps guide us as players and give us in-game reasons for our players to make certain choices. For instance if we're attacked by a bunch of goblins, with no info you'd just attack whatever's closest. But if the goblin near you is kind of goofy and a goblin 30ft away is barking orders, it makes you more likely to focus on that goblin. Once you've taken out the head of the group and a couple minions, it also gives the DM a really valid option to have some of the lower level guys simply run away if the combat has been too long already. Such a simple tip but it really makes a difference!
I'm a bit old school. Before each session, I use Excel to generate an A4 sheet of random d20 rolls. Instead of rolling dice during the game, I use the pre-generated numbers on the sheet, marking them off with a pencil as the session progresses.
Kind of interesting. Theater of the mind, with my group, always bogs down everyone a great deal more than traditional combat. The analysis paralysis comes in when we DON’T have a map, because the rails are sort of taken off.
@@jimmyrips as a neurodivergent DM, absolutely. i cannot do theatre of the mind for anything other than the most basic of encounters because i lose track of where everything is too
Thank you! This is my experience too!. Whenever a DM uses theatre of the mind for an encounter I am totally lost. Even a few squiggles on a grid is better than nothing. I have aphantasia (no mind's eye) so need some kind of visual reference, or just end up feeling really awful from stress and feeling as though all my questions are ruining everyone else's immersion.
Just wanted to say thank you so much for having the countdown timer in the corner per talking point. I know youtube has chapters, but that made my brain pay better attention because I knew how long each segment would be visually.
I have written on small cards the max HP, AC and "To Hit DC" (=12+ their most common to hit bonus). I put them on the table on the initative track, letting my players know how much HP monsters have (so THEY track HP), AC (so they know when they hit instantly) and they roll for "Defense Checks" (the d20 + AC -10) to block attacks. That way I simply go "the goblins launch their arrows at you! Rogue, Wizard, they are 2 arrows targeted at each of you, Fighter, there are 3, all of you roll for defense!", instead of me having to roll 5 d20 and compare it with 3 different AC values, each player rolls between 2 to 3 defense checks knowing what they need on the die to block.
@@superhunksickle if a goblin has an attack like "sword. +5 to hit, one target..." , then it's a "+5 to hit", which translates to a DC 17 (the math behind is a bit complicated, but it checks out). Some monsters have multiple different attack modifiers, i simply use the higher one for all attacks to simplify.
@@AkodoGarou baddies don't roll for defense, i let players attack (knowing the AC). Only players rolls defense vs the monsters "to Hit DC". Keep in mind that if a monster has advantage on attack, it translates to players having disadvantage on their "defense checks", and if the monster has disadvantage on attacks, then they have advantage on the defense check. So for example a goblin with a +5 to hit attack, 10 HP and 12 AC, translates to a "Goblin: 10 HP, 17 Block DC, 12 AC" which is info i give to the players. If they are attacked, they roll their "Armor bonus" (full plate would be 18 = +8), on equal or higher than the block DC (17), they block the attack. If they want to attack the goblin, they roll as normal vs the AC
Amazing timing! Just ran my second session ever as a DM yesterday and the session was slow as molasses because of how I was running combat. 😅 Thank you for the tips! Liked and subscribed 😁
I love that you wrap up saying that this is for faster, not better, combat. It can be better for some, definitely, but it really is about the unique mix at the table. Thank you for all your helpful and insightful videos!
Im running my first campaign with some of my friends and over half had never really played DnD before. One thing I noticed is combat was taking forever because they simply didn’t read there character sheets well enough. So I decided that in order to encourage people to know their characters better I would implement a 30 second time for turns (mine included). This has worked wonder ls for us and I think is a great way to have new players read their sheets carefully and ask question to avoid going past the time and potentially losing their turn.
Interestingly, my players get bogged down in theatre of the mind combat simply because they're hyper worried about positioning and such. They want to make sure they're in positions to block and overwatch their allies and such. I'm blessed with such a wonderful group of players combat wise that scan their sheets outside of their turn and only get bogged down when fights go south and the stakes start getting incredibly high.
I am a minis and terrain DM as well. Agree that using monster average damage and letting players know Monster AC and when they are on deck does speed up combat. I had some of my players comment that my combats seem faster than other tables they have played at. Great tips! I will have to try Theater of the mind on smaller battles and try to remember to goad the PCs. I love that.
I run super fast-paced combat. Even boss fights don't take more than 30, maybe 45 minutes tops. Most small fights are less than 5 minutes in real time. The way I do it is firstly I don't take a lot of time with the NPCs, setting a pace. Second, in session zero, I introduce my most important house rule: players have 30 seconds to begin telling me what their characters are going to do (or ask some clarifying questions, anyway) in the combat round. If they delay too much, their character takes a dodge action and we move on. I encourage players to stay engaged in combat by describing the action in fun ways, and encourage the players to do the same, and coach them a bit to figure out what their next move is while other players' turns are happening. It works very well!
I think balancing the use of terrain is really tricky because terrain or added objects can definitely make combat more interesting and dynamic. Its definitely a balancing act. I guess my thought is use terrain intentionally, instead of just throwing a lot of random stuff at the battle map. I definitely agree about telling players monster's AC. I have also done group initiative (similar to 2e mechanics) which really helped speed things up with big groups.
Some good ideas here. Though I would not players learn AC or use fixed damage as I like thematically describing both. Grazing hit vs full hit is intense and describing why and how something missed gives sense of AC without introducing fiddly metagaming (oh I can never hit without 20 etc).
I tend to do kind of a mix of both. They won't know the AC until they actually hit the exact AC number. So before then, I will describe it as either properly hitting or missing by a varying degree (depending on how bad they failed). But when they do get the exact number, they got to know it. It's also a moment of acknowledging to that player: "That creature tried to evade it as best as it could, but with a bit of a leap forward, you barely just managed to pierce its defense. Congrats for now!". It kinda helps for those combats that last for more than 3 rounds. As for the HP, I tend to mix the HP up by a bit (using a simple pattern of, let's say, +1 per minion: so minion 1 would have 15 hp, minion 2 would have 16, minion 3 would have 17) or something like that. I really don't like it if the players can tell exactly what exact number is required to down a minion. It also helps rerunning goblins. They don't all have 8 hp for my players. When I'm quick enough, I will differentiate some of the minions by one trait (hairstyles, weapons, scars, accessories), so I'll know how they are different (one extra maneuver, a bit more or a bit less hp, maybe one will have more AC). Admittedly, while it does not make the combat slower, it does make it less simple for me to run. I do describe visually how the enemies look. I try to be as obvious as possible now in most cases, because there was this one incident where my players thought they were damaging fire elementals... but they weren't at all XD I meant my descriptions one way, but they completed interpreted it the other way ahahahah. That was collectively not our best moment! As for the damage, I FEEL like I should use the fixed damage more, but unless I got a lot of minions to actually roll for or some dice-addict spells to throw, I never really like doing it. It can be useful in a pinch, but the tension from your players whenever you roll dice on attacks seem really vital to the feel of combat for me. Maybe if you use it for minions on the first 3 rounds (until their hp are closer to dying, so the actual dice rolls technically matter more), that could be an idea? But always using the rolled average... Idk. It takes me 3 to 5 seconds to roll the dice as I'm describing the attack to the player. If the player is not dying from one attack, you can roll the dice total instead of rolling separately. Be quick, be ready and be concise. Also, I will use an app to roll big dice (on my phone, so my players can see the actual result since I am NOT fuding dice personnally). Less visual, but still, I feel like the players will actually listen more attentively to the number I will give to them.
You have done it again! I have been searching for this exact video for a while now and there you go making a perfect fitting, excellently made video. Thanks a bunch and keep on with what you're doing!
a lot of time theater of the mind leads minutes upon minutes of " Who is next to me? " "Can i see X" and "Is there a space visible within x feet of me that is unoccupied near y?" and also " I cone of cold the 5 monsters in the room" often forgetting that the Melee characters are in the way. Theater of the mind is only quick if you have players who are good at keeping track of multiple things in their head. They could remeber the monsters but not their fellow player's positions and down their allies. It used to be my preffered play method until the design of the game and the expectation of the players shifted to expect terrain and maps.
Recently, I did a change to initiative that sped up the game drastically. I am a fond partisan of letting the PCs know when they are going to take their turns and when the monsters are. When my players Roll initiative, i put them in "groups" of initiatives : more than 20, 20-15, 14-10 , 9-5, less than 5. That allows them to make fun combos, and effectively to transform 2 players turns into 1. And if monsters have initiative in the middle of a groupe of initiative (like 16 or 13), I always play them after a group is done. Also, I let them "unrank" their initiatives, like waiting for someone lower than them in the initiative order to take turn, and then taking turn. It allows them to think more precisely what do they want to do wuthout slowing down the game, and it effectively makes their turn quicker. Those 2 things have (for me and my group of 8 PC) turned long 4 hours combat sessions into fun and quicker sessions, with the opportunity to make cool combos that everyone remembers months later (like when one of my PC attached himself hanging with a rope to a tree, going full circles around the tree with his archer partner he was carrying going full rampage while they were "flying" around the tree)
That is fairly interesting! While I'm not sure how much it would help my combat be quicker (since it doesn't solve the bigger issues we have), it certainly seems to make it more interesting. AND!!! I am growingly dissastified with the lack of proper synergy in 5e. I have been trying to find ways to make it work (without adding extra mechanics). This is actually one really simple, clever way to do it. My only question is: do you have separate blocks monsters and pcs? And how would you decide which blocks go first? I think I need to start taking some notes for all the great ideas I found on the web. Otherwise, I feel like I might forget about them.
Some rules changes I make: There are only 2 turns. The DM's turn and the Players' turn. The DM sets an Initiative DC (usually the average initiative modifier of all the creatures in combat +10). All the players roll initiative. If they beat the DC, they get to act in the first turn of combat, then the DM goes, then ALL of the players go. On the DM turn, any monster can do any part of its turn in any order. I usually move all my monsters and then declare who is getting attacked and what the DCs for those attacks are (more on this later). Once all of the monsters have gone, the PCs get a turn. On the PCs' turn, they players take their actions as they decide what they want to do. So long as their actions do not conflict with each other, they can even do stuff simultaneously. Once all of the players have taken all of their actions (or all the actions they want to), the DM gets another turn, and so on, and so forth. The other big change I make is that monsters don't roll for attacks. PCs roll to defend. AC is calculated as (AC - 10 + d20). Monsters have their attacks at a static 11 + attack bonus. For example, let's say a group of 5 goblins attacks the party. 3 go after the fighter and 2 attack the cleric. I would just move the goblins next to the players I intend to attack, then say, "Fighter is getting attacked 3 times and Cleric is getting attacked twice. Roll to defend vs 15." They tell me how many hit and I roll damage for those hits. If it's a LOT of hits on multiple players, I'll tell them how what to roll for their own damage. This speeds up combat a good chunk as the players don't have to wait for me to roll each attack sequentially for all the players AND keeps the players engaged with what is going on.
Regarding point 7, there was a really old series of strategy video games called Command & Conquer which always had fast metal music that really got you into the mood to f*ck sh*t up.
I like to let multiple players take their turn at the same time. Similar to Baulders gates initiative. I like bouncing around between them and doing everything all at once for 2-3 players at once.
I've run combat for groups of 8-10, and here's what I've come up with, (with some help!): 5 Tips for Faster Combat 1) Cheat Sheet: PC Stats by the 3rd game I'd GM'd I was keeping a meticulous cheat sheet of my PC's Stats. If I can simplify things for the players by knowing what their atk/dmg/AC/skills are, then I can speed things along by knowing what they need to roll, on the die, to do the thing. 2) Don't sweat the small stuff: you're there to have fun! if something is reasonable, let them go for it (akin to the rule of cool). don't rules lawyer unless ABSOLUTELY necessary, and don't let players do it either. 3) Ask Specific Questions: every turn is like filling out a form, so ask them questions to usher them along if need be. "Do you attack? how many attacks do you have? do you have dis/advantage on any of them? do you have any special abilities that add or subtract dice?" etc. until they have it down pat. 3a) accept qualified answers: no need to work out all the minutia in detail Ex: "I want to angle my burning hands such that it hits them, and not my allies" means either they can (angled up at large foe, perhaps), or the foe automatically takes half damage b/c so little of them is in the cone that's angled upward. whatever your reasoning, just make a call and run with it, don't get bogged down in the map'n'mini's. 4) Auto-Attack: optional house rule. "if you don't have your clever idea fully worked out when I call on you, you attack" If you're in combat and your PC doesn't know what they want to do, then by default they attack in the most direct way they can. Move > Attack/cast. Combined with the Cheat Sheet, you can almost do this for them, just have them roll the dice and tell you the numbers. 5) fuzzy numbers: "the fight's over when it stops being fun for everyone!" don't be married to your numbers, if your party is having fun, keep the fight going. but if the party is bogged down, then pick a PC, on their turn have them roll, if it hits then just ask "How Do You Want To Do This?" if it doesn't hit, do the same for each successive PC until someone hits.
In person, If you have 3 attacks you can roll all 3d20s, tell the dm the lowest roll is X, working your way up to Y and Z if necessary. If the lowest hits, well then all the other rolls hit and if all 3 attacks hit you roll all the damage die at once.
Use the same initiative for small enemies, or roll initiative for enemies when you're prepping if you know that a fight will definitely happen, it saves time
Thanks for posting this immediately before GenCon, where I'll be running five combat-centric one-shots! During playtesting a lot of GMs found it difficult to squeeze everything into the time limit so I'll be taking this to heart.
Something you might try for speeding up combat is to get rid of Attacks of Opportunity for most creatures. We're trying it out in my current campaign, and it saves on players hemming and hawing about whether to stay put to avoid a free hit from enemies or move to get an advantageous position/do the cool thing. Only PCs with Extra Attack (and monsters for whom it makes sense) get to make AoO as a reaction, and that means less disruption to the flow of turns in combat.
I play a necro mancer wizard and I essentially recreated some of the swarm rules in order to put all my minions (of the same type) on a single d20 roll so as to keep things faster.
As a DM, one thing I do to make the enemy turns faster is to use a dice roller app, I just press 1 Button and I see the roll the hit and damage, and everything I setup. Since they don't see me roll anyway. Might as well make it faster with some technology.
Similar to average damage, you can use a dice app to roll lots of dice and total them for you. I've been using average damage for a while now, and it does help a little bit, but many things don't list average damage, namely spells.
An easy way to figure out average damage where it’s not listed is that the average roll of a die is going to be (1/2 the maximum) + 0.5. So a d6 is 3.5, d8 is 4.5, etc. From there you just gotta multiply, round and add modifiers as needed.
I would add a detail on your concept of monster damage. On crits I would add half the dice max on the damage (your example 5+3=8) other than that everything else I like it
I have a case for avoiding average damage. It causes hopelessness in lower-level characters, or those already injured (say with 4 hp) to Know that because your pattern always results in 5 damage they can never hope to escape with a scratch if hit. You shouldn't know the amount of damage coming.
Agreed, but one could use Bonus Action's idea until it creates that situation and then roll the damage, creating a reversal of expectation and heightened stakes/suspense.
Theatre of the mind takes me much longer. I have no mind's eye (aphantasia), so without a map I have no idea what is happening and end up needing to ask the DMs lots of questions at the start of each of my turns (as dont want to interrupt beforehand). It makes me feel really bad to do it, but I don't know what else I can do! DMs considering using TotM, please *please* consider that not everyone will be able to enjoy or participate equally in those encounters.
I don’t think speeding up combat is the answer. Making it more dynamic is. Having minions, adding leveled terrain, battlefield changes during combat are things that make combat more fun. Also a DM modeling role playing of enemies during combat helps encourage players to do the same.
Try this....roll 1d6 for initiative per side ...PC win draw vs minions, Bosses win draw over PCs/ when the players go. they all move at the same time as a team. Then take actions going round the table , left to right, with fastest dex in seating order left to right. Works well when all your players are wargamers.. Also user player facing....players roll to hit...players roll to dodge...DM only rolls for damage. Always in front of players its very fast. we use ShadowDark.
I get the whole idea of using average damage to quickly assign damage but other than the fact that it doesn't take that long to just roll a simple D6 and add three you're also making combat way more predictable than it needs to be. I love rolling dice for damage because their situations where a monster might roll 3D 10 + 5 and only deal 9 damage. Then, the next attack deals something like 25 plus in the party is all shocked because they assumed they were dealing with a weaker monster. It gets them to reevaluate the situation and think in real time rather than play out the entire combat in their heads because they know exactly how much damage each creature is going to do
Just found your channel. Really like it. But average monster dmg is weak. Rolling for dmg is fun and takes no additional time at all. Roll your to hit and dmg die a the same time. (Everyone at my table rolls their hit and dmg dice together) Agree completely on the DM act fast point. I let my bad guys make quick and often suboptimal decisions all the time. My biggest tool for speeding combat is I don't allow any more discussion among players about combat than they would be able to yell is the midst of chaos. When I look at a player and say "what do you do?" if they don't answer quickly I give them a five count on my fingers. Theoretically if they don't make a decision they lose their turn, but in practice that will rarely happen. They'll make a decision, even if it's suboptimal. Suboptimal decisions are often the most fun. We use minis but no grid. Ranges are contact, near (1 move), far (more than 1 move). I'm baffeld by people who say a single combat took their entire session. While my games vary a lot and some session don't have any combat, I can easily run 5,6,7 combats in a session. Theonly time I've ever had a combat take the entire session was a campaign finale that was the Red Hand of Dawn assault on the city they were protecting, and that was actually about 7 different combat encounters with role playing in between.
Shared initiative, All enemies attack in the same turn, players roll to see if they beat the enemies or not. Players can go in any order, allowing them to combo and do cool things together. if two players want to do something together, but one is earlier than another, the can forgo their initiative order and go later in the turn. My players love it, its easier for me, and still rewards high initiative.
I tend to lower the AC and damage of my monster to encourage my player to go all-in. To much HP make the fight to long and encourage players to focus only on dealing the most damage possible at the detriment of other skills. To much damage from ennemies also lead to too much turtleing, making the fight even longer. Also, ennemies will surrender if they fall to close to death. God I miss DMing
COMBAT GROUPING!!! If you have roughly the same amount of the same type of creature, split them into groups for combat. Combine their health and have one die when a certain threshold is reached. DO NOT do this with important NPC's and harder mobs since it takes away from the thrill of the kill.
Try getting with a simulation turns sistem. Lets gave every player takes the turn at the same time writing their actions on advance or something like that
For the people i play with removing maps & terrain is a nightmare, they constantly need to know where they & the enemies are to do anything, so if i don't have a map im gonna hear where am i ?, how may enemies ?, where are they ?, ... constantly.
Thats a great question! I like to have my bad guys say something to particular PCs on that PCs turn, but I totally get why some DMs would wait for the bad guys go.
No kidding my first campaigns I ever played in we had threee sessions for a combat clearing out a small town from kobolds. Turned me off of dnd for awhile.
4:45 This *Does* make combat faster, but it sucks. SO many 2d battle maps with no interesting anything whatsoever exist in 5e. This also really sucks for martials and rogues in particular. Why play anything that needs to get up close, and specifically sneak, when you will always be at maximum effectiveness by just blasting stuff with spells? Hard disagree with this one. Not worth doing. Other than that I agree with the points you made. Need more commander type enemies.
Sometimes I just countdown 5-4-3-2-1 if a player thinks too much. When the countdown ends turn ends. Unfair for thinking-through players? Maybe. But it is combat, not some magic ritual.
Give your players monster stats. God damn - roll a die, do some math, add the numbers, "I rolled this, did it hit?" DM looks YET AGAIN at the monster, "uhh...yes..." and that's most of your combat action. Just tell me the damned thing has a 31 AC. It means I can do the math backwards, and instead of adding a weird number to a weird die roll, I can just figure out what I'd have to roll on the die and see if I did it. Had an archer at high level with like - 6 attacks every round on a good day. MANY with different bonuses. And my turns were some of the fastest cause I just tossed all the dice out, and knew "This color needs a 9, this color a 14, and this color a 19, did it roll that, yes/no" and it didn't involved me doing math over and over and over Players know the solid chunk of metal is hard to hit, so don't act like it's some game breaking secret exactly what it's AC is. If you're that worried about metagaming you're probably playing the wrong game or need to have a conversation with your players.
My 4 tips to speeding up combat. 1. Double enemy damage and halve enemy HP. Combat is faster, but also dicier and more lethal. Hell yeah 2. Don't roll initiative. At all. DM announces the intent of enemies around the field and players announce what they do. "Okay, the orcs on the ridge are readying their bows and another group is charging across the bridge. What do you do?" Then just resolve actions in the order that makes sense. Are you switching weapons or getting up from the ground? You're last. Are you firing an arrow? You will obviously loose that arrow before the guy across the field can charge and strike you. Only roll initiative if there is a question of who acts first, and only for those characters in question. "The fighter and the orc are face to face and both attempting a melee attack. Fighter, roll initiative. If you beat a 12, you hit first." 3. No out of character planning. If you guys didn't hash things out ahead of time, in character, no strategizing with each other in combat. 4. Stop playing 5e! The TSR editions (1, 2, and the BECMI line of games) are so much faster to play.
I want to run a game with a limit on dialogue during combat like you described here. Say whatever you're going to say in about six seconds, with maybe a Matrix effect for quips exchanged with the big bad. PCs have to strategize what they'll do in situations before they arrive in them.
@@danielpayne1597 It creates more chaos and limits the amount of, "Okay, I'm the most experienced/strategic player at the table. You do this, you do that, I'll go here and then we win." Players can't just optimize actions to win if they're not coordinating. They have to improvise and just act in character.
@@DoctorLazers Yeah, I don't mind there being a team leader who strategizes so long as other players are cool with it and it isn't an every time thing. But if everybody hits the pause button and the game grinds to a halt, I'm going to slam a timer/hourglass down and tell people to move it.
Here's what I do to run faster combat, and this is a very novel idea: I give my players a timer of 10 seconds to declare their actions. If they fail, their turn is skipped. You should be thinking of what to do on your turn when everyone else is playing. Another thing I do sometimes is interpret combat in real time if a player gets stuck. Oh, it takes you a minute to think of what to do? Well, the goblins kill you during that minute. Should've RTFM and should've known your character features. I use a VTT to run combats, so i dont need to memorise statblocks or anything.
No kidding my first campaigns I ever played in we had threee sessions for a combat clearing out a small town from kobolds. Turned me off of dnd for awhile.
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Skipping the battlemap for a small encounter with low stakes makes the rest of things feel more important too, especially as the party keeps leveling up.
So true!
…you can also just skip the battlement. Full stop. I’ve been playing for over 30 years and never used one. It just slows every down and pulls everyone out of roleplay. I don’t find at all that it necessarily means not having rich, complex, tactical combat. You just have to use language to convey what the grid can.
@@ElenaRevely that works too, yeah. personally i find as a DM that I cannot keep track of all my information very well in my head, and that for more complicated fights with larger enemy groups a battlemap helps me keep track of things as much as it does my players. that's not the end all be all of course, personally im glad that people can choose which to use based on whichever works better for their playstyle
People will also paint battles more epically if it is all in the head. Everyone will imagine machines, terrain, character movements in the ways their brains find most exciting. It's like how movies are rarely as cool as how you imagined a scene when reading a book.
Having the baddies talk is such a great tip! One of my DMs has almost every bad guy make a comment or order once every couple rounds, and it not only keeps the immersion through the battle, it also helps guide us as players and give us in-game reasons for our players to make certain choices. For instance if we're attacked by a bunch of goblins, with no info you'd just attack whatever's closest. But if the goblin near you is kind of goofy and a goblin 30ft away is barking orders, it makes you more likely to focus on that goblin. Once you've taken out the head of the group and a couple minions, it also gives the DM a really valid option to have some of the lower level guys simply run away if the combat has been too long already. Such a simple tip but it really makes a difference!
I'm a bit old school. Before each session, I use Excel to generate an A4 sheet of random d20 rolls. Instead of rolling dice during the game, I use the pre-generated numbers on the sheet, marking them off with a pencil as the session progresses.
Kind of interesting. Theater of the mind, with my group, always bogs down everyone a great deal more than traditional combat. The analysis paralysis comes in when we DON’T have a map, because the rails are sort of taken off.
This is what happens with my group as well. I have been able to do some small combats in theater of the mind but they really are quite small.
Playing with known neuro divergent people and some who struggle with attention battlemaps help to hold attention.
@@jimmyrips as a neurodivergent DM, absolutely. i cannot do theatre of the mind for anything other than the most basic of encounters because i lose track of where everything is too
Thank you! This is my experience too!. Whenever a DM uses theatre of the mind for an encounter I am totally lost. Even a few squiggles on a grid is better than nothing. I have aphantasia (no mind's eye) so need some kind of visual reference, or just end up feeling really awful from stress and feeling as though all my questions are ruining everyone else's immersion.
@@John-Dennehy I wouldn’t feel bad. Even for my players without aphantasia, it leads to a ton of questions!
Just wanted to say thank you so much for having the countdown timer in the corner per talking point. I know youtube has chapters, but that made my brain pay better attention because I knew how long each segment would be visually.
I have written on small cards the max HP, AC and "To Hit DC" (=12+ their most common to hit bonus). I put them on the table on the initative track, letting my players know how much HP monsters have (so THEY track HP), AC (so they know when they hit instantly) and they roll for "Defense Checks" (the d20 + AC -10) to block attacks.
That way I simply go "the goblins launch their arrows at you! Rogue, Wizard, they are 2 arrows targeted at each of you, Fighter, there are 3, all of you roll for defense!", instead of me having to roll 5 d20 and compare it with 3 different AC values, each player rolls between 2 to 3 defense checks knowing what they need on the die to block.
Interesting. I may have to steal this. Do you use the same for the baddies on defense, or just the Flat "To Hit DC" you mentioned in the first line?
This is really good. I love how spell DCs work, a to-hit DC seems awesome. What do you mean by most common to hit points?
@@superhunksickle if a goblin has an attack like "sword. +5 to hit, one target..." , then it's a "+5 to hit", which translates to a DC 17 (the math behind is a bit complicated, but it checks out).
Some monsters have multiple different attack modifiers, i simply use the higher one for all attacks to simplify.
@@AkodoGarou baddies don't roll for defense, i let players attack (knowing the AC). Only players rolls defense vs the monsters "to Hit DC".
Keep in mind that if a monster has advantage on attack, it translates to players having disadvantage on their "defense checks", and if the monster has disadvantage on attacks, then they have advantage on the defense check.
So for example a goblin with a +5 to hit attack, 10 HP and 12 AC, translates to a "Goblin: 10 HP, 17 Block DC, 12 AC" which is info i give to the players.
If they are attacked, they roll their "Armor bonus" (full plate would be 18 = +8), on equal or higher than the block DC (17), they block the attack.
If they want to attack the goblin, they roll as normal vs the AC
Amazing timing! Just ran my second session ever as a DM yesterday and the session was slow as molasses because of how I was running combat. 😅
Thank you for the tips! Liked and subscribed 😁
My next two videos are all about pacing and keeping engagement up at the table too! Its something I have struggled with the most in the game.
I love that you wrap up saying that this is for faster, not better, combat. It can be better for some, definitely, but it really is about the unique mix at the table. Thank you for all your helpful and insightful videos!
Im running my first campaign with some of my friends and over half had never really played DnD before. One thing I noticed is combat was taking forever because they simply didn’t read there character sheets well enough. So I decided that in order to encourage people to know their characters better I would implement a 30 second time for turns (mine included). This has worked wonder ls for us and I think is a great way to have new players read their sheets carefully and ask question to avoid going past the time and potentially losing their turn.
Interestingly, my players get bogged down in theatre of the mind combat simply because they're hyper worried about positioning and such. They want to make sure they're in positions to block and overwatch their allies and such. I'm blessed with such a wonderful group of players combat wise that scan their sheets outside of their turn and only get bogged down when fights go south and the stakes start getting incredibly high.
I am a minis and terrain DM as well. Agree that using monster average damage and letting players know Monster AC and when they are on deck does speed up combat. I had some of my players comment that my combats seem faster than other tables they have played at. Great tips! I will have to try Theater of the mind on smaller battles and try to remember to goad the PCs. I love that.
I run super fast-paced combat. Even boss fights don't take more than 30, maybe 45 minutes tops. Most small fights are less than 5 minutes in real time. The way I do it is firstly I don't take a lot of time with the NPCs, setting a pace. Second, in session zero, I introduce my most important house rule: players have 30 seconds to begin telling me what their characters are going to do (or ask some clarifying questions, anyway) in the combat round. If they delay too much, their character takes a dodge action and we move on. I encourage players to stay engaged in combat by describing the action in fun ways, and encourage the players to do the same, and coach them a bit to figure out what their next move is while other players' turns are happening. It works very well!
LETS GO, needed this for sure
I think balancing the use of terrain is really tricky because terrain or added objects can definitely make combat more interesting and dynamic. Its definitely a balancing act. I guess my thought is use terrain intentionally, instead of just throwing a lot of random stuff at the battle map.
I definitely agree about telling players monster's AC. I have also done group initiative (similar to 2e mechanics) which really helped speed things up with big groups.
Balance is a false god.
Some good ideas here. Though I would not players learn AC or use fixed damage as I like thematically describing both. Grazing hit vs full hit is intense and describing why and how something missed gives sense of AC without introducing fiddly metagaming (oh I can never hit without 20 etc).
I tend to do kind of a mix of both. They won't know the AC until they actually hit the exact AC number. So before then, I will describe it as either properly hitting or missing by a varying degree (depending on how bad they failed). But when they do get the exact number, they got to know it. It's also a moment of acknowledging to that player: "That creature tried to evade it as best as it could, but with a bit of a leap forward, you barely just managed to pierce its defense. Congrats for now!". It kinda helps for those combats that last for more than 3 rounds.
As for the HP, I tend to mix the HP up by a bit (using a simple pattern of, let's say, +1 per minion: so minion 1 would have 15 hp, minion 2 would have 16, minion 3 would have 17) or something like that. I really don't like it if the players can tell exactly what exact number is required to down a minion. It also helps rerunning goblins. They don't all have 8 hp for my players. When I'm quick enough, I will differentiate some of the minions by one trait (hairstyles, weapons, scars, accessories), so I'll know how they are different (one extra maneuver, a bit more or a bit less hp, maybe one will have more AC). Admittedly, while it does not make the combat slower, it does make it less simple for me to run. I do describe visually how the enemies look. I try to be as obvious as possible now in most cases, because there was this one incident where my players thought they were damaging fire elementals... but they weren't at all XD I meant my descriptions one way, but they completed interpreted it the other way ahahahah. That was collectively not our best moment!
As for the damage, I FEEL like I should use the fixed damage more, but unless I got a lot of minions to actually roll for or some dice-addict spells to throw, I never really like doing it. It can be useful in a pinch, but the tension from your players whenever you roll dice on attacks seem really vital to the feel of combat for me. Maybe if you use it for minions on the first 3 rounds (until their hp are closer to dying, so the actual dice rolls technically matter more), that could be an idea? But always using the rolled average... Idk. It takes me 3 to 5 seconds to roll the dice as I'm describing the attack to the player. If the player is not dying from one attack, you can roll the dice total instead of rolling separately. Be quick, be ready and be concise. Also, I will use an app to roll big dice (on my phone, so my players can see the actual result since I am NOT fuding dice personnally). Less visual, but still, I feel like the players will actually listen more attentively to the number I will give to them.
Another great video! Great tips, love the view on the monster damage
You have done it again! I have been searching for this exact video for a while now and there you go making a perfect fitting, excellently made video. Thanks a bunch and keep on with what you're doing!
a lot of time theater of the mind leads minutes upon minutes of " Who is next to me? " "Can i see X" and "Is there a space visible within x feet of me that is unoccupied near y?" and also " I cone of cold the 5 monsters in the room" often forgetting that the Melee characters are in the way. Theater of the mind is only quick if you have players who are good at keeping track of multiple things in their head. They could remeber the monsters but not their fellow player's positions and down their allies.
It used to be my preffered play method until the design of the game and the expectation of the players shifted to expect terrain and maps.
Recently, I did a change to initiative that sped up the game drastically. I am a fond partisan of letting the PCs know when they are going to take their turns and when the monsters are.
When my players Roll initiative, i put them in "groups" of initiatives : more than 20, 20-15, 14-10 , 9-5, less than 5. That allows them to make fun combos, and effectively to transform 2 players turns into 1. And if monsters have initiative in the middle of a groupe of initiative (like 16 or 13), I always play them after a group is done.
Also, I let them "unrank" their initiatives, like waiting for someone lower than them in the initiative order to take turn, and then taking turn. It allows them to think more precisely what do they want to do wuthout slowing down the game, and it effectively makes their turn quicker.
Those 2 things have (for me and my group of 8 PC) turned long 4 hours combat sessions into fun and quicker sessions, with the opportunity to make cool combos that everyone remembers months later (like when one of my PC attached himself hanging with a rope to a tree, going full circles around the tree with his archer partner he was carrying going full rampage while they were "flying" around the tree)
That is fairly interesting! While I'm not sure how much it would help my combat be quicker (since it doesn't solve the bigger issues we have), it certainly seems to make it more interesting. AND!!! I am growingly dissastified with the lack of proper synergy in 5e. I have been trying to find ways to make it work (without adding extra mechanics). This is actually one really simple, clever way to do it. My only question is: do you have separate blocks monsters and pcs? And how would you decide which blocks go first? I think I need to start taking some notes for all the great ideas I found on the web. Otherwise, I feel like I might forget about them.
Some rules changes I make:
There are only 2 turns. The DM's turn and the Players' turn. The DM sets an Initiative DC (usually the average initiative modifier of all the creatures in combat +10). All the players roll initiative. If they beat the DC, they get to act in the first turn of combat, then the DM goes, then ALL of the players go.
On the DM turn, any monster can do any part of its turn in any order. I usually move all my monsters and then declare who is getting attacked and what the DCs for those attacks are (more on this later). Once all of the monsters have gone, the PCs get a turn.
On the PCs' turn, they players take their actions as they decide what they want to do. So long as their actions do not conflict with each other, they can even do stuff simultaneously. Once all of the players have taken all of their actions (or all the actions they want to), the DM gets another turn, and so on, and so forth.
The other big change I make is that monsters don't roll for attacks. PCs roll to defend. AC is calculated as (AC - 10 + d20). Monsters have their attacks at a static 11 + attack bonus.
For example, let's say a group of 5 goblins attacks the party. 3 go after the fighter and 2 attack the cleric. I would just move the goblins next to the players I intend to attack, then say, "Fighter is getting attacked 3 times and Cleric is getting attacked twice. Roll to defend vs 15." They tell me how many hit and I roll damage for those hits. If it's a LOT of hits on multiple players, I'll tell them how what to roll for their own damage.
This speeds up combat a good chunk as the players don't have to wait for me to roll each attack sequentially for all the players AND keeps the players engaged with what is going on.
Regarding point 7, there was a really old series of strategy video games called Command & Conquer which always had fast metal music that really got you into the mood to f*ck sh*t up.
I like to let multiple players take their turn at the same time. Similar to Baulders gates initiative. I like bouncing around between them and doing everything all at once for 2-3 players at once.
New DM, about to do my first campaign. I love Brian Murphy's style of combat, but this was great to see a range. Thanks!
New DM here, learning my style. This helps!! Thank you!!
I've run combat for groups of 8-10, and here's what I've come up with, (with some help!): 5 Tips for Faster Combat
1) Cheat Sheet: PC Stats
by the 3rd game I'd GM'd I was keeping a meticulous cheat sheet of my PC's Stats. If I can simplify things for the players by knowing what their atk/dmg/AC/skills are, then I can speed things along by knowing what they need to roll, on the die, to do the thing.
2) Don't sweat the small stuff: you're there to have fun!
if something is reasonable, let them go for it (akin to the rule of cool). don't rules lawyer unless ABSOLUTELY necessary, and don't let players do it either.
3) Ask Specific Questions:
every turn is like filling out a form, so ask them questions to usher them along if need be.
"Do you attack? how many attacks do you have? do you have dis/advantage on any of them? do you have any special abilities that add or subtract dice?" etc. until they have it down pat.
3a) accept qualified answers: no need to work out all the minutia in detail
Ex: "I want to angle my burning hands such that it hits them, and not my allies" means either they can (angled up at large foe, perhaps), or the foe automatically takes half damage b/c so little of them is in the cone that's angled upward. whatever your reasoning, just make a call and run with it, don't get bogged down in the map'n'mini's.
4) Auto-Attack: optional house rule. "if you don't have your clever idea fully worked out when I call on you, you attack"
If you're in combat and your PC doesn't know what they want to do, then by default they attack in the most direct way they can. Move > Attack/cast.
Combined with the Cheat Sheet, you can almost do this for them, just have them roll the dice and tell you the numbers.
5) fuzzy numbers: "the fight's over when it stops being fun for everyone!"
don't be married to your numbers, if your party is having fun, keep the fight going. but if the party is bogged down, then pick a PC, on their turn have them roll, if it hits then just ask "How Do You Want To Do This?" if it doesn't hit, do the same for each successive PC until someone hits.
@bon-usaction begone scammer!
In person, If you have 3 attacks you can roll all 3d20s, tell the dm the lowest roll is X, working your way up to Y and Z if necessary.
If the lowest hits, well then all the other rolls hit and if all 3 attacks hit you roll all the damage die at once.
Use the same initiative for small enemies, or roll initiative for enemies when you're prepping if you know that a fight will definitely happen, it saves time
Thanks for posting this immediately before GenCon, where I'll be running five combat-centric one-shots! During playtesting a lot of GMs found it difficult to squeeze everything into the time limit so I'll be taking this to heart.
Something you might try for speeding up combat is to get rid of Attacks of Opportunity for most creatures. We're trying it out in my current campaign, and it saves on players hemming and hawing about whether to stay put to avoid a free hit from enemies or move to get an advantageous position/do the cool thing.
Only PCs with Extra Attack (and monsters for whom it makes sense) get to make AoO as a reaction, and that means less disruption to the flow of turns in combat.
I play a necro mancer wizard and I essentially recreated some of the swarm rules in order to put all my minions (of the same type) on a single d20 roll so as to keep things faster.
As a DM, one thing I do to make the enemy turns faster is to use a dice roller app, I just press 1 Button and I see the roll the hit and damage, and everything I setup. Since they don't see me roll anyway. Might as well make it faster with some technology.
Great video, great quality also
Similar to average damage, you can use a dice app to roll lots of dice and total them for you. I've been using average damage for a while now, and it does help a little bit, but many things don't list average damage, namely spells.
An easy way to figure out average damage where it’s not listed is that the average roll of a die is going to be (1/2 the maximum) + 0.5. So a d6 is 3.5, d8 is 4.5, etc. From there you just gotta multiply, round and add modifiers as needed.
@@teachytv3242 - yes, but doing that in your head is not easy.
I would add a detail on your concept of monster damage. On crits I would add half the dice max on the damage (your example 5+3=8)
other than that everything else I like it
Announcing who is on deck also helps a lot.
I have a case for avoiding average damage. It causes hopelessness in lower-level characters, or those already injured (say with 4 hp) to Know that because your pattern always results in 5 damage they can never hope to escape with a scratch if hit. You shouldn't know the amount of damage coming.
Agreed, but one could use Bonus Action's idea until it creates that situation and then roll the damage, creating a reversal of expectation and heightened stakes/suspense.
Theatre of the mind takes me much longer. I have no mind's eye (aphantasia), so without a map I have no idea what is happening and end up needing to ask the DMs lots of questions at the start of each of my turns (as dont want to interrupt beforehand). It makes me feel really bad to do it, but I don't know what else I can do! DMs considering using TotM, please *please* consider that not everyone will be able to enjoy or participate equally in those encounters.
I don’t think speeding up combat is the answer. Making it more dynamic is. Having minions, adding leveled terrain, battlefield changes during combat are things that make combat more fun. Also a DM modeling role playing of enemies during combat helps encourage players to do the same.
Try this....roll 1d6 for initiative per side ...PC win draw vs minions, Bosses win draw over PCs/
when the players go. they all move at the same time as a team.
Then take actions going round the table , left to right, with fastest dex in seating order left to right.
Works well when all your players are wargamers..
Also user player facing....players roll to hit...players roll to dodge...DM only rolls for damage. Always in front of players
its very fast.
we use ShadowDark.
I get the whole idea of using average damage to quickly assign damage but other than the fact that it doesn't take that long to just roll a simple D6 and add three you're also making combat way more predictable than it needs to be.
I love rolling dice for damage because their situations where a monster might roll 3D 10 + 5 and only deal 9 damage. Then, the next attack deals something like 25 plus in the party is all shocked because they assumed they were dealing with a weaker monster. It gets them to reevaluate the situation and think in real time rather than play out the entire combat in their heads because they know exactly how much damage each creature is going to do
Great video. Currently dming a game of 7. Im desperate 😂
I fell asleep during combat last online session. I felt real bad
Have you thought about including Mark Hulmes of High Rollers in your analysis of great DMs? He is killing it with Altheya imo.
I have used him in a few videos and definitely plan to do more so! He is a great resource!
Yep....def used insult as a technique in our show. "You rank amateurs." didn't half invest the players. Check it out: The Grimm North: Ep 4.
Just found your channel. Really like it. But average monster dmg is weak. Rolling for dmg is fun and takes no additional time at all. Roll your to hit and dmg die a the same time. (Everyone at my table rolls their hit and dmg dice together) Agree completely on the DM act fast point. I let my bad guys make quick and often suboptimal decisions all the time. My biggest tool for speeding combat is I don't allow any more discussion among players about combat than they would be able to yell is the midst of chaos. When I look at a player and say "what do you do?" if they don't answer quickly I give them a five count on my fingers. Theoretically if they don't make a decision they lose their turn, but in practice that will rarely happen. They'll make a decision, even if it's suboptimal. Suboptimal decisions are often the most fun. We use minis but no grid. Ranges are contact, near (1 move), far (more than 1 move). I'm baffeld by people who say a single combat took their entire session. While my games vary a lot and some session don't have any combat, I can easily run 5,6,7 combats in a session. Theonly time I've ever had a combat take the entire session was a campaign finale that was the Red Hand of Dawn assault on the city they were protecting, and that was actually about 7 different combat encounters with role playing in between.
Shared initiative, All enemies attack in the same turn, players roll to see if they beat the enemies or not. Players can go in any order, allowing them to combo and do cool things together. if two players want to do something together, but one is earlier than another, the can forgo their initiative order and go later in the turn. My players love it, its easier for me, and still rewards high initiative.
Fixed initiative, enemies of the same type take their turns together. Six goblins? Assign targets, roll attack once, damage once.
I tend to lower the AC and damage of my monster to encourage my player to go all-in. To much HP make the fight to long and encourage players to focus only on dealing the most damage possible at the detriment of other skills. To much damage from ennemies also lead to too much turtleing, making the fight even longer.
Also, ennemies will surrender if they fall to close to death. God I miss DMing
COMBAT GROUPING!!!
If you have roughly the same amount of the same type of creature, split them into groups for combat. Combine their health and have one die when a certain threshold is reached.
DO NOT do this with important NPC's and harder mobs since it takes away from the thrill of the kill.
Try getting with a simulation turns sistem. Lets gave every player takes the turn at the same time writing their actions on advance or something like that
Everyone in the thumbnail look psychotic
For the people i play with removing maps & terrain is a nightmare, they constantly need to know where they & the enemies are to do anything, so if i don't have a map im gonna hear where am i ?, how may enemies ?, where are they ?, ... constantly.
Why just now i discover that karen page DM’s, my god is there something that woman can’t do?
Great advise! Silly question, but should I as a DM "shout at the PCs" whenever or wait for the bad guys own turn to do it? :D
Thats a great question! I like to have my bad guys say something to particular PCs on that PCs turn, but I totally get why some DMs would wait for the bad guys go.
Why would you have more than 4 players?
No kidding my first campaigns I ever played in we had threee sessions for a combat clearing out a small town from kobolds. Turned me off of dnd for awhile.
4:45 This *Does* make combat faster, but it sucks. SO many 2d battle maps with no interesting anything whatsoever exist in 5e. This also really sucks for martials and rogues in particular. Why play anything that needs to get up close, and specifically sneak, when you will always be at maximum effectiveness by just blasting stuff with spells? Hard disagree with this one. Not worth doing.
Other than that I agree with the points you made. Need more commander type enemies.
Sometimes I just countdown 5-4-3-2-1 if a player thinks too much. When the countdown ends turn ends. Unfair for thinking-through players? Maybe. But it is combat, not some magic ritual.
Give your players monster stats. God damn - roll a die, do some math, add the numbers, "I rolled this, did it hit?" DM looks YET AGAIN at the monster, "uhh...yes..." and that's most of your combat action.
Just tell me the damned thing has a 31 AC. It means I can do the math backwards, and instead of adding a weird number to a weird die roll, I can just figure out what I'd have to roll on the die and see if I did it.
Had an archer at high level with like - 6 attacks every round on a good day. MANY with different bonuses. And my turns were some of the fastest cause I just tossed all the dice out, and knew "This color needs a 9, this color a 14, and this color a 19, did it roll that, yes/no" and it didn't involved me doing math over and over and over
Players know the solid chunk of metal is hard to hit, so don't act like it's some game breaking secret exactly what it's AC is. If you're that worried about metagaming you're probably playing the wrong game or need to have a conversation with your players.
My 4 tips to speeding up combat.
1. Double enemy damage and halve enemy HP. Combat is faster, but also dicier and more lethal. Hell yeah
2. Don't roll initiative. At all. DM announces the intent of enemies around the field and players announce what they do. "Okay, the orcs on the ridge are readying their bows and another group is charging across the bridge. What do you do?" Then just resolve actions in the order that makes sense. Are you switching weapons or getting up from the ground? You're last. Are you firing an arrow? You will obviously loose that arrow before the guy across the field can charge and strike you. Only roll initiative if there is a question of who acts first, and only for those characters in question. "The fighter and the orc are face to face and both attempting a melee attack. Fighter, roll initiative. If you beat a 12, you hit first."
3. No out of character planning. If you guys didn't hash things out ahead of time, in character, no strategizing with each other in combat.
4. Stop playing 5e! The TSR editions (1, 2, and the BECMI line of games) are so much faster to play.
I want to run a game with a limit on dialogue during combat like you described here. Say whatever you're going to say in about six seconds, with maybe a Matrix effect for quips exchanged with the big bad. PCs have to strategize what they'll do in situations before they arrive in them.
@@danielpayne1597 It creates more chaos and limits the amount of, "Okay, I'm the most experienced/strategic player at the table. You do this, you do that, I'll go here and then we win." Players can't just optimize actions to win if they're not coordinating. They have to improvise and just act in character.
@@DoctorLazers Yeah, I don't mind there being a team leader who strategizes so long as other players are cool with it and it isn't an every time thing. But if everybody hits the pause button and the game grinds to a halt, I'm going to slam a timer/hourglass down and tell people to move it.
Here's what I do to run faster combat, and this is a very novel idea: I give my players a timer of 10 seconds to declare their actions. If they fail, their turn is skipped. You should be thinking of what to do on your turn when everyone else is playing.
Another thing I do sometimes is interpret combat in real time if a player gets stuck. Oh, it takes you a minute to think of what to do? Well, the goblins kill you during that minute. Should've RTFM and should've known your character features.
I use a VTT to run combats, so i dont need to memorise statblocks or anything.
No kidding my first campaigns I ever played in we had threee sessions for a combat clearing out a small town from kobolds. Turned me off of dnd for awhile.