If the issue is just that the monster has a lot of HP, you can just reduce their HP to their minimum value. All monsters display their average HP, but it also gives you the ability to customize it by rolling, or you can just set the HP to whatever you want within that range.
If reducing HP to the minimum value makes combat too quick, you can slow it down a bit by having the monster die whenever the player performs a critical hit or do something cool to kill the monster when the monster is between its minimum HP and average HP threshold.
I think this depends on your definition of short, and maybe the party makeup. High CR monsters don't really have that many hit points, my experience with using a well-over-CR monster is that it instantly flattens someone and then gets flattened.
Nothing speeds up combat as much as everyone figuring out what they're going to do before it's their turn. That includes the GM.
This is definitely something I need to work on more as DM. Players have time between their turns when they can be paying semi-attention while deciding what to do next. But as DM, I pretty much always having to pay attention. So when it's time for a boss or other complicated opponent to act, I am constantly finding myself looking through their abilities to figure out what to do.
To counter that, for opponents that I know are complicated (especially spellcasters!!!), I work on planning out their main actions ahead of time and even have a bit of flow chart aspect to them:
If they don't have any better options, they default to X
If they are being hit the hardest by a spellcaster, they will retaliate with X, or if a melee fighter will retaliate with Y
etc.
Definitely need to do it more, but I will freely admit that I often find as DM that I take long turns because my players don't really waste time, so enemy turns are often my first opportunity to stop and think how they will react!
If the issue is just that the monster has a lot of HP, you can just reduce their HP to their minimum value. All monsters display their average HP, but it also gives you the ability to customize it by rolling, or you can just set the HP to whatever you want within that range.
If reducing HP to the minimum value makes combat too quick, you can slow it down a bit by having the monster die whenever the player performs a critical hit or do something cool to kill the monster when the monster is between its minimum HP and average HP threshold.
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I think this depends on your definition of short, and maybe the party makeup. High CR monsters don't really have that many hit points, my experience with using a well-over-CR monster is that it instantly flattens someone and then gets flattened.
This is definitely something I need to work on more as DM. Players have time between their turns when they can be paying semi-attention while deciding what to do next. But as DM, I pretty much always having to pay attention. So when it's time for a boss or other complicated opponent to act, I am constantly finding myself looking through their abilities to figure out what to do.
To counter that, for opponents that I know are complicated (especially spellcasters!!!), I work on planning out their main actions ahead of time and even have a bit of flow chart aspect to them:
Definitely need to do it more, but I will freely admit that I often find as DM that I take long turns because my players don't really waste time, so enemy turns are often my first opportunity to stop and think how they will react!
Yeah, a certain amount of consideration is needed, especially with complicated NPCs like spellcasters.
I've just had GMs who were so disorganized that they had to consult the book every round to figure out their NPCs' actions.
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Strong monsters, strong players, ticks down hp faster on all sides