Context: 6 PCs, all 11th level, all but 1 of the Players has been gaming for 30+ years. We use DDB, combined with Roll20, using the Beyond20 extension.
Admittedly, some of the problems are very obvious and have obvious solutions.
1 Player has a wizard PC and constantly brings the game to a halt on his turn. So many spell options are now complicated by the fact that some spells changed recently or he's still thinking things work like they did in 3rd edition. He needs some effort and help.
Another is on me, as DM, for similar reasons. There are a lot of rules and interactions that I just need to study and refamiliarize myself with.
We also tried the optional set Initiative scores...but nobody liked that. They want to roll and keep things dynamic.
So, other than the DM being quicker with either accurate rulings or at least stop-gap rulings, and each Player being READY on their turn...
As the DM, worry less about correct rulings and just focus on getting by. Look things up after the fact and communicate the real ruling for next time.
Something I've just started doing is calling out who's on deck. So I'd be announcing something like "Janice, it's your turn. Zoot, you're up next." Or "Dr. Teeth, you're up, and the dragon gets its turn next, then Floyd." when it's a monster next.
When you have monsters on deck, try to think about what they're going to do while your players are taking their turns.
Share more information. Tell the players the AC/save target they're aiming for.
Have the players' ACs on hand, and get them into the habit of telling you the save ability and target when they cast if they're not doing so already.
If you have to, you can enforce a time limit on player turns. Give them advance warning, and then, if they don't take their turn in reasonable time, they do not act. This is a last resort, but it is an option.
Share targets AC and have players preroll - instead of waiting for the normal series of misses and hits for the players to naturally determine what it is - example
Mobs 1,2,3, have an ac of 22 mob 4 ac 24
John your up
Mike your on Deck - go ahead and roll
Mary your on Deck after Mike go ahead and roll
Any player that takes longer than a min - I will generally say ok if you do not know what you want to do we will skip you this turn and we can catch you next round. Somehow they always end up making a decision right away.
Gently remind the group it is rude and holds up gameplay if they do not use the time during everyone else's turn to decide what they will be doing.
I generally have a placeholder mob in D&D Beyond with all the correct weapons and to hit / damage modifiers for various monsters in the session so my rolls as DM are super quick - if they are casters I generally prune the spell list down to 5-10 spells that are combat focused and just use them (also programed in) its easy enough to create a level 12mage l8 fighter just for purposes of rolling in D&D beyond.
Honestly there should not be that many novel interactions in any 1 combat - where you need to constantly be looking things up in a l11 game.
Best of Luck!
Edit once your creatures get higher level you may need 2-3 placeholder NPC's to correctly simulate save DC's and spell lists but that is for later in the campaign - even then if you are comfortable you can do a wizard 10 / cleric 10 / and equip that one npc with a sword dagger short bow etc and do the math in your head to manually edit the melee weapons to have the correct modifiers. If you are fighting dragons and such modify a weapon to simulate a bite and claw - a wing legendary and use a modified cone of cold for the breath attack. (Just as an example)
Something I've just started doing is calling out who's on deck. So I'd be announcing something like "Janice, it's your turn. Zoot, you're up next." Or "Dr. Teeth, you're up, and the dragon gets its turn next, then Floyd." when it's a monster next.
Totally off topic but I'm now imagining how stressful it would be trying to run a game for Electric Mayhem
Some people think it's rude to be thinking about what to do on your turn during other people's turns, like waiting to talk rather than listening in a conversation, but you actually should be doing it.
Planning your turn during and in response to what others are doing is actually an example of active listening, and it speeds the game along significantly when you do it.
For most casters, to play efficiently (time-wise) you want to have 3-5 strategies already in your brain to pick from during combat. So either you or the other players should meet up with the Wizard outside of game time to help them plan those out - e.g. Fireball if there is a group of enemies, Haste on the Paladin if there is one BBEG, Tasha's Mind Whip on brute-ish enemies, Wall of Force to contain the biggest threat on the board. They can even write these out separately if they want to help them remember them. This greatly reduces the amount of things they have to look at on the fly. You can also consider making the Wizard's character sheet available to all the players to they can make suggestions if the Wizard gets choice paralysis during combat.
DMing Combat
Plan out ahead of time the "default" strategy each monster or group of monsters will use based on their personality & goals. E.g. a pack of wolves might attack the weakest-looking player and run away if below half health, a devil lord might try to kill a paladin/cleric or other holy character first, a vampire might try to charm big strong enemies and kill casters, a brutish monster might just try to kill the closest hostile to them, or a creature defending its lair might attack whomever hurt it the most last round. Remember enemies don't have full information so they won't usually do the most optimal strategy in combat but rather their best guess at what furthers their aims in the heat of the moment.
Simplify enemy attack / DCs / ACs, if you are using a bunch of different enemies rather than using their RAW stats simplify them so be identical across a group of monsters. E.g. maybe all the minions have +8 to hit, AC 16, and save DC 15, while the BBEG has AC 19, +11 to hit and save DC 17, and the squishy rogue/caster support creatures have +8 to hit, AC 14, and save DC 17. Personally, I also do this for hit points, rather than remember this Giant has 152 hit points, while their pet chimera has 112 hit points, I just say the giant has 150 hp, the chimera has 100 hp, this mean adding up the damage dealt doesn't need to be exact, if you just worry about the 10s and the 5s of damage it's close enough so you can accurately call when the monster gets killed.
Also feel free to farm out some of the work to the players, let them know if the enemy resists any of the damage they do or not then ask them to add up their total damage dealt per turn for you. If you're feeling brave you could also ask one of the players to roll the d20 for enemy saving throws for you while you tally up the damage dealt (this also helps keep the other players engaged in the combat between turns). You can also have the players roll attack & damage rolls at the same time for all their attacks rather than waiting to know whether each hits or misses.
Alternatively, just take one monster use a bunch of copies of it and add a special ability to each one to make them feel different - e.g. the party is facing a clan of Stone Giants, there are 4 of them, one has a bucket of water that they can use to replicate Tidal Wave, one is the vanilla version, one has a longbow that replaces their fist/club attack, and one has a magic staff that let's them cast Entangle, Spike Growth, and Wall of Thorns.
Roll20 has an encounter tracker you can use to deal with Initiative very quickly and efficiently and will help remind players when their turn is next.
Context: 6 PCs, all 11th level, all but 1 of the Players has been gaming for 30+ years. We use DDB, combined with Roll20, using the Beyond20 extension.
Admittedly, some of the problems are very obvious and have obvious solutions.
1 Player has a wizard PC and constantly brings the game to a halt on his turn. So many spell options are now complicated by the fact that some spells changed recently or he's still thinking things work like they did in 3rd edition. He needs some effort and help.
Another is on me, as DM, for similar reasons. There are a lot of rules and interactions that I just need to study and refamiliarize myself with.
We also tried the optional set Initiative scores...but nobody liked that. They want to roll and keep things dynamic.
So, other than the DM being quicker with either accurate rulings or at least stop-gap rulings, and each Player being READY on their turn...
Any other suggestions?
As the DM, worry less about correct rulings and just focus on getting by. Look things up after the fact and communicate the real ruling for next time.
Something I've just started doing is calling out who's on deck. So I'd be announcing something like "Janice, it's your turn. Zoot, you're up next." Or "Dr. Teeth, you're up, and the dragon gets its turn next, then Floyd." when it's a monster next.
When you have monsters on deck, try to think about what they're going to do while your players are taking their turns.
Share more information. Tell the players the AC/save target they're aiming for.
Have the players' ACs on hand, and get them into the habit of telling you the save ability and target when they cast if they're not doing so already.
If you have to, you can enforce a time limit on player turns. Give them advance warning, and then, if they don't take their turn in reasonable time, they do not act. This is a last resort, but it is an option.
Share targets AC and have players preroll - instead of waiting for the normal series of misses and hits for the players to naturally determine what it is - example
Mobs 1,2,3, have an ac of 22 mob 4 ac 24
John your up
Mike your on Deck - go ahead and roll
Mary your on Deck after Mike go ahead and roll
Any player that takes longer than a min - I will generally say ok if you do not know what you want to do we will skip you this turn and we can catch you next round. Somehow they always end up making a decision right away.
Gently remind the group it is rude and holds up gameplay if they do not use the time during everyone else's turn to decide what they will be doing.
I generally have a placeholder mob in D&D Beyond with all the correct weapons and to hit / damage modifiers for various monsters in the session so my rolls as DM are super quick - if they are casters I generally prune the spell list down to 5-10 spells that are combat focused and just use them (also programed in) its easy enough to create a level 12mage l8 fighter just for purposes of rolling in D&D beyond.
Honestly there should not be that many novel interactions in any 1 combat - where you need to constantly be looking things up in a l11 game.
Best of Luck!
Edit once your creatures get higher level you may need 2-3 placeholder NPC's to correctly simulate save DC's and spell lists but that is for later in the campaign - even then if you are comfortable you can do a wizard 10 / cleric 10 / and equip that one npc with a sword dagger short bow etc and do the math in your head to manually edit the melee weapons to have the correct modifiers. If you are fighting dragons and such modify a weapon to simulate a bite and claw - a wing legendary and use a modified cone of cold for the breath attack. (Just as an example)
Totally off topic but I'm now imagining how stressful it would be trying to run a game for Electric Mayhem
Some people think it's rude to be thinking about what to do on your turn during other people's turns, like waiting to talk rather than listening in a conversation, but you actually should be doing it.
Planning your turn during and in response to what others are doing is actually an example of active listening, and it speeds the game along significantly when you do it.
Wizard Player
For most casters, to play efficiently (time-wise) you want to have 3-5 strategies already in your brain to pick from during combat. So either you or the other players should meet up with the Wizard outside of game time to help them plan those out - e.g. Fireball if there is a group of enemies, Haste on the Paladin if there is one BBEG, Tasha's Mind Whip on brute-ish enemies, Wall of Force to contain the biggest threat on the board. They can even write these out separately if they want to help them remember them. This greatly reduces the amount of things they have to look at on the fly. You can also consider making the Wizard's character sheet available to all the players to they can make suggestions if the Wizard gets choice paralysis during combat.
DMing Combat
Plan out ahead of time the "default" strategy each monster or group of monsters will use based on their personality & goals. E.g. a pack of wolves might attack the weakest-looking player and run away if below half health, a devil lord might try to kill a paladin/cleric or other holy character first, a vampire might try to charm big strong enemies and kill casters, a brutish monster might just try to kill the closest hostile to them, or a creature defending its lair might attack whomever hurt it the most last round. Remember enemies don't have full information so they won't usually do the most optimal strategy in combat but rather their best guess at what furthers their aims in the heat of the moment.
Simplify enemy attack / DCs / ACs, if you are using a bunch of different enemies rather than using their RAW stats simplify them so be identical across a group of monsters. E.g. maybe all the minions have +8 to hit, AC 16, and save DC 15, while the BBEG has AC 19, +11 to hit and save DC 17, and the squishy rogue/caster support creatures have +8 to hit, AC 14, and save DC 17. Personally, I also do this for hit points, rather than remember this Giant has 152 hit points, while their pet chimera has 112 hit points, I just say the giant has 150 hp, the chimera has 100 hp, this mean adding up the damage dealt doesn't need to be exact, if you just worry about the 10s and the 5s of damage it's close enough so you can accurately call when the monster gets killed.
Also feel free to farm out some of the work to the players, let them know if the enemy resists any of the damage they do or not then ask them to add up their total damage dealt per turn for you. If you're feeling brave you could also ask one of the players to roll the d20 for enemy saving throws for you while you tally up the damage dealt (this also helps keep the other players engaged in the combat between turns). You can also have the players roll attack & damage rolls at the same time for all their attacks rather than waiting to know whether each hits or misses.
Alternatively, just take one monster use a bunch of copies of it and add a special ability to each one to make them feel different - e.g. the party is facing a clan of Stone Giants, there are 4 of them, one has a bucket of water that they can use to replicate Tidal Wave, one is the vanilla version, one has a longbow that replaces their fist/club attack, and one has a magic staff that let's them cast Entangle, Spike Growth, and Wall of Thorns.
Roll20 has an encounter tracker you can use to deal with Initiative very quickly and efficiently and will help remind players when their turn is next.
I am so jealous! You get to play D&D with Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem!?
😏😉