Often when preparing sessions, I find myself choosing between (1) a difficult encounter/combat and (2) short combats.
1. If I want to include some real challenges for my players, I prepare an interesting map, with lots of combat opportunities and enemies with a high CR. But these combats tend to take forever, hence a high CR monster often has a lot of HP and takes a long time to kill. Players take forever on their turns and we sit there for hours. The first exciting encounter ends up tedious and boring.
2. If I go easy on my party and keep the CR relatively low, they often end up running over every enemy without spending many resources. This is often perceived as a victory and the party is happy because they succeeded, but especially the more experienced players notice the low difficulty level and the success gets tainted. Short, but not challenging.
Do you guys have some tips or insight knowledge on how to either speed up combats or coming up with short, yet exciting encounters?
Full disclosure, I've never understood why people hate long combats - maybe I'm blessed with my personal experiences, but it's never been an issue for me having a foe that takes as long as it takes to defeat. So I need to guess what it is your players are finding boring.
Based on your post, my first solution would be trying to achieve a high CR with many weak monsters, not one strong one. Because this provides players with a way to measure progress - every foe defeated is a step towards victory - combat is automatically less tedious, for the same reason being put on hold is less bad when you're told your position in the queue.
My second solution is ensuring both sides (or at least one side) of the combat have/has a way to opt out of combat - PCs are smart, and many compelling foes are also smart. As soon as either side becomes aware they're fighting a losing battle of attrition - and you said your players find battles of attrition boring - in such a scenario they can bail on the fight to gather additional resources and come back to the fight and try again.
So, for example, the party might be ambushed in the Underdark by a squad of Drow slavers. The Drow squad is built to be dangerous due to quantity rather than quality, and they're also designed to engage in guerilla tactics, especially if they start losing. Perhaps they respond to 25% losses (very, very substantial for any combat squad) by retreating back to camp for reinforcements, to ambush the players again later.
I'm currently running the SKT module which has some battles with a ridiculous number of units. Potentially 3 battles in a row against two ogres, 4 bugbears and 10 goblins, followed by a battle against 4 Hill Giants, 6 ogres and 30 goblins is just one example. The party are also tasked with protecting 6 allied npc's and potentially a load of civillian/guard npc's as well.
It was after this slog of a chapter of watching my players bored whilst waiting for all the other npc's turns to finish that I decided I would make sure in combat, the amount of time taken between the players turns was as short as possible. I used the following methods:
Have the statblocks open in front of you. This may seem obvious, but when I first started I would just flip through the monster manual, whereas now I either have all the statblocks open in different stabs, or a small piece of paper that lists the attacks and damage each creature can do.
Make creatures with the same statblock have the same initiative. This was the biggest time saver, as you only have to pay attention to one statblock at a time and can even roll all their attacks at the same time.
Keep a clear initiative tracker in front of you. You don't want to waste time trying to work out which creature goes next.
Make the enemy attack rolls during other players turns. This is optional, and should only really be done on a virtual tabletop, so as not to distract the other players during their turns. This is very useful if you have players who take ages to decide what to do (You used Eldritch Blast the last 2 rounds, why is it taking you this long!!!)
Do you guys have some tips or insight knowledge on how to either speed up combats or coming up with short, yet exciting encounters?
How about long, exciting encounters?
Long doesn't have to equal tedious. You avoid tediousness by keeping things dynamic. Any kind of "boss" monster I run has at least two stages with different attacks and different tactics. Have terrain or environmental effects that keep people moving around. Have the battlefield itself change or move. Have new goals emerge that give the party viable alternatives to the old surround & pound, like hostages to save or enemy buffs that can be disabled. A fight gets boring when there are no more choices to make, so keep those choices coming.
As for the short combats, you can make them more deadly but still quick simply by increasing monster attack/damage values without touching AC/HP. This makes things feel much more threatening while still dying quickly. I would just recommend ramping it up gradually because it can be pretty easy to overdo it. In a fast-paced battle, one PC going down can spiral into a TPK fairly easily.
There's a difference between a long combat due to a grueling situation/difficult opponent and a long combat because players are artificially extending their turns. I always encourage my players to plan ahead during others turns what they want to do in their own turn, so they aren't stuck figuring out what to do when their turn comes around. Even a difficult, multi-round fight can feel breezy if the players plan during their "inactive" time.
If it helps, you can set a timer for each turn, no more than 1-2 minutes, for the player to figure out what they want to do. if the timer runs out before they do something, they take the 'dodge' action and end their turn. (note that the timer is not for the whole turn, but for them to figure out what they want to do before moving/action/etc). the timer might not be a good idea though, if you have very new players, or players with needs that might make a timer a bad idea (for example, i have a neurodivergent player who needs time to process in general, and we accept that their turns will take longer than normal as a result).
If you do have a mix of new and experienced players, asking the experienced player help the newer ones with reviewing spells/actions/abilities during their turns is also helpful and can speed the overall game up.
Just to be clear. It's not that I take too long as a DM. At least I think so. I have the Monster stat blocks open in multiple tabs or an encounter with the encounter builder. I am quite fast at rolling and try to give the control of NPCs to the players or let them act fast and decisive.
Based on your post, my first solution would be trying to achieve a high CR with many weak monsters, not one strong one. Because this provides players with a way to measure progress - every foe defeated is a step towards victory - combat is automatically less tedious, for the same reason being put on hold is less bad when you're told your position in the queue.
Yes and no. This would solve the hp issue but enlengthens time between player turns.
Having monsters retreat is a good idea. Probably underused by myself.
Do you have a way to encourage players to finish their turns fast(er) besides "hurry up." I feel that's rude especially for newer players.
That's never been a goal at my tables - my groups have always enjoyed combat (and I do as a player and DM).
That being said, the things that slow down combat that can somewhat be addressed:
Too many players = long combats. The only way really to address this is to keep combats to a relatively small number of people - otherwise each person is going to have a 5 minute turn then wait 30-45 minutes until it's their turn again. That just isn't fun for the players IMO and it results in a spiral - the players waiting start to get bored waiting for their turn, they look at their phone or just don't pay attention so when it gets close to their turn, they don't really know what's going on and it's like you have to recap the last round for them. (It also sucks when it's your turn and you do something cool and the other players aren't paying attention). Anyway, this is the biggest lesson learned for me in 40 years of DMing - keep the number of players small. (Critical Role has too many players IMO, but they mostly treat the game seriously as it is sort of their job - so it's not as bad as a "normal" table.)
The more monsters you include in an encounter, the slower it's going to be. You can speed things up by doing things like using average damage, but neither I nor the other players have ever liked that - we feel it eliminates the drama of whether you take 3 points of damage or 12 from that orc or whatever.
As a DM, I have a cheat sheet for my monsters that just lists EXACTLY what I need to know in combat and nothing more - I create a Google Doc that has the NPC's/monsters that shows only combat info, no flavor, no out-of-combat spells. This has been the #1 thing to make the monster turns faster and more polished - I tried using the D&D monster cards, have tried using D&D beyond stat blocks, but both of them have too much stuff YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW during combat. I do not need to know that a monster can cast Mend, Augury, Create Food and Water, etc. - I do need to know that they can cast Bless, Cure Wounds, Darkness and Spiritual Weapon. (I drop combat spells from my list that I KNOW the monster is not going to cast - and sometimes I make a note that of what they will cast when - like casting Bless on round 1, a cantrip + spiritual weapon on round 2, etc. etc.).
You can use simplified rules for 'minions' - e.g., 1 hit will kill them. That way you can bump up on the actions available on the bad guy side without tracking a ton of hitpoints for goblins or whatever cannon fodder. If a fireball hits minions or the fighter hits them with a sword, they are just dead - no rolling saving throws for them, no tracing HP, etc. This will let you use a lot of monsters without dramatically slowing the game down (it is no fun for anyone when the wizard hits a group of goblins with a fireball and you have to roll 9 saving throws - it's also more dramatic just to let the fireball hit and blast those minions into smithereens, or allow a fighter to wade into some goblins, make 3 attacks and slay 3 goblins).
In terms of logistics:
Have the players track their initiative order too - so they can see it AND make sure you don't skip anyone. Remind people when they are on deck (it's Bob's turn, let Mary know she's next and that Svetlana is after that).
Give a VERY short recap of what the last two players did and link them together. "Guntar has just swung his glaive in 3 quick arcs, leaving 3 goblin heads on the ground as Elspeth sent two arrows at the wizard who managed to summon an arcane barrier just in time to deflect them. Bondarin, what do you want to do?" IMO, this makes the fight more cinematic than just dice rolls and initiative order and keeps the players engaged/reminds them of what has happened. It may seem like it would take longer to do this, but it prevents a lot of "what did so-and-so do, reminds them of things like the wizard currently has shield up BUT has used his reaction, etc.).
Have a good initiative tracker that helps you keep track of monster HP and status effects. I use Fantasy Grounds and tho most of the program is clunky, the combat tracker is actually really powerful - I have one window where I can track initiative, deal with monster hitpoints, etc. There are others online you can use, but find one that lets you do more than just track initiative and really learn it.
Why are your players taking so long on their turns? Is it because they don’t know what they can do, or are they in analysis paralysis, or trying to milk every last point of damage from every attack? Something else? Because those problems all can have different solutions. But as a rule of thumb, the two I’ve heard work best are either remind the person a round us six seconds long, they can’t spend 10 minutes thinking about how they’ll spend it. And if that doesn’t work, get a little one-minute timer, and start it when the turn starts. Decide you action by the timer end, or lose it.
And now I see icon already said that. What I get for not reading thoroughly.
If whatever the party is fighting isn't dead in 10-15 minutes (depending on what it is of course, sometimes I'll keep them fighting for up to an hour) then I just tell them that it gets bored and runs away. It's an easy way to say "Hey, I don't want you guys to be fighting this thing for the next 3 hours, and I've got pizza on the way, so let's stop fighting this thing and move on to something else."
I actually don't make my CR high, but my combats are still fairly length.
My players never feel like they are tedious though why. I take the time each round to describe what the players are doing.
You raise your great sword and swing down with all of your might, but the orc catches your swing out of the corner of his eye and raises his shield causing the loud clash as your sword grinds against the shield and the orc avoiding your attack.
So the combats still feel long and epic, but most combat encounters I design are actually easy to medium CR.
We typically have battle that last 2 -4 hours in real time. No one gets bored. I guess it's how much you enjoy tactical combat vs. RP.
Players should know their character's abilities/spells like the back of their hand. If they take too long to decide what to do, let them know that their character does nothing this round...or have the monster(s) "choose" to focus fire on the character(s) holding thing up.**
Put en egg timer on the table, or a stopwatch.
Encourage them to think of their next move while others are taking their turn.
**Sorry if this sounds mean, but it's a pet peeve of mine. It's especially aggravating if the "slow" player is running a wizard.
We typically have battle that last 2 -4 hours in real time. No one gets bored. I guess it's how much you enjoy tactical combat vs. RP.
Players should know their character's abilities/spells like the back of their hand. If they take too long to decide what to do, let them know that their character does nothing this round...or have the monster(s) "choose" to focus fire on the character(s) holding thing up.**
Put en egg timer on the table, or a stopwatch.
Encourage them to think of their next move while others are taking their turn.
**Sorry if this sounds mean, but it's a pet peeve of mine. It's especially aggravating if the "slow" player is running a wizard.
Yes, definitely speed up the combat by reducing the amount of time players are allowed to think about their actions for the round.
Step 2. If step 1 isn't an option, reduce number of monsters.
Step 3. Don't attach combat difficulty, boss encounter, final villain to HIT POINTS. You start chasing meat shields, which always bogs things down. Just because one thing was a challenge with 200 hit points doesn't mean you need to find something with 300 hit points to create more challenge. I've had monsters with 88 hit points be a significantly more difficult and fun challenge than a monster with 410 hit points.
Step 4. Have initiative order displayed where all players can see it. If not, always indicate who's coming up next.
Step 5. Use a timer--a stopwatch or cool hourglass. At 30 seconds, say, "hey, times up. Decide now!" At 35 seconds, if they aren't taking their turn say, "ok you stand there defensively - taking the Dodge action. Blayne, you're next. 30 seconds on the clock, start doin' stuff!"
Step 6. Delegate. Have a player that's with it and engaged keep track of initiative turns and call them off for you.
Step 7. Focus on pacing. Don't bog the game down looking up rules. If you don't know, rule something--preferably in favor of the players, then say, "I'm ruling it like this for now, we won't go back, but I'll get it right next time." Or you can say, "for now, I'm ruling it like this. Hey Jamie, can you look up the rule for me and see if you find anything please? If so, we'll adjust it accordingly, here and now. Thanks."
Step 8. Understand that the higher level the PCs the more complicated (and long) things get. A level 1 character won't have nearly as many buttons to push as your level 13 Wizard.
Step 9. There's nothing wrong with an entire session of combat. Likewise, there's nothing wrong with an entire session of one combat. If the story has led to this point, run with and put all your eggs into it. Full terrain, painted miniatures, good music, narrative, etc. It's how it should be when you've had 12 sessions of mini-fights and roleplay and tonight the PCs finally meet the Balor in the Cathedral of Flame.
Step 10. Remind the next player of what's happened recently. Draw attention to things that have happened that can be directly influenced by the upcoming players actions. For example. Bomar the dwarven cleric is up next. Just before Bomar's turn, say, "ok Bomar, you're up. In the last few turns, and up to this point, you can tell that it's been a losing battle. Your fighter just took a punishing blow, is breathing heavily and even dropped to one knee for a brief moment. He looks badly hurt." This sort of things already answers the question from Bomar of, "ok..my turn..my turn. what to do. what to do. Ok DM, is anyone hurt? Hey fighter? How badly hurt are you?" With the prompt from you, Bomar can already start to think of actions that he can use to actually contribute - in this case, HEAL.
I don't know why I listed them in steps. There's more to list but that's good for now.
Often when preparing sessions, I find myself choosing between (1) a difficult encounter/combat and (2) short combats.
1. If I want to include some real challenges for my players, I prepare an interesting map, with lots of combat opportunities and enemies with a high CR. But these combats tend to take forever, hence a high CR monster often has a lot of HP and takes a long time to kill. Players take forever on their turns and we sit there for hours. The first exciting encounter ends up tedious and boring.
2. If I go easy on my party and keep the CR relatively low, they often end up running over every enemy without spending many resources. This is often perceived as a victory and the party is happy because they succeeded, but especially the more experienced players notice the low difficulty level and the success gets tainted. Short, but not challenging.
Do you guys have some tips or insight knowledge on how to either speed up combats or coming up with short, yet exciting encounters?
Love, Xenologio
Full disclosure, I've never understood why people hate long combats - maybe I'm blessed with my personal experiences, but it's never been an issue for me having a foe that takes as long as it takes to defeat. So I need to guess what it is your players are finding boring.
Based on your post, my first solution would be trying to achieve a high CR with many weak monsters, not one strong one. Because this provides players with a way to measure progress - every foe defeated is a step towards victory - combat is automatically less tedious, for the same reason being put on hold is less bad when you're told your position in the queue.
My second solution is ensuring both sides (or at least one side) of the combat have/has a way to opt out of combat - PCs are smart, and many compelling foes are also smart. As soon as either side becomes aware they're fighting a losing battle of attrition - and you said your players find battles of attrition boring - in such a scenario they can bail on the fight to gather additional resources and come back to the fight and try again.
So, for example, the party might be ambushed in the Underdark by a squad of Drow slavers. The Drow squad is built to be dangerous due to quantity rather than quality, and they're also designed to engage in guerilla tactics, especially if they start losing. Perhaps they respond to 25% losses (very, very substantial for any combat squad) by retreating back to camp for reinforcements, to ambush the players again later.
I'm currently running the SKT module which has some battles with a ridiculous number of units. Potentially 3 battles in a row against two ogres, 4 bugbears and 10 goblins, followed by a battle against 4 Hill Giants, 6 ogres and 30 goblins is just one example. The party are also tasked with protecting 6 allied npc's and potentially a load of civillian/guard npc's as well.
It was after this slog of a chapter of watching my players bored whilst waiting for all the other npc's turns to finish that I decided I would make sure in combat, the amount of time taken between the players turns was as short as possible. I used the following methods:
Everything here is perfect.
Using the monster stat block cards from G49 saves so much time.
Before combat begins..I always write down the creature names with their starting HP - Then I just deduct once it begins.
Not all combat has to finish by death - Morale checks on creatures. Maybe they retreat or surrender.
How about long, exciting encounters?
Long doesn't have to equal tedious. You avoid tediousness by keeping things dynamic. Any kind of "boss" monster I run has at least two stages with different attacks and different tactics. Have terrain or environmental effects that keep people moving around. Have the battlefield itself change or move. Have new goals emerge that give the party viable alternatives to the old surround & pound, like hostages to save or enemy buffs that can be disabled. A fight gets boring when there are no more choices to make, so keep those choices coming.
As for the short combats, you can make them more deadly but still quick simply by increasing monster attack/damage values without touching AC/HP. This makes things feel much more threatening while still dying quickly. I would just recommend ramping it up gradually because it can be pretty easy to overdo it. In a fast-paced battle, one PC going down can spiral into a TPK fairly easily.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
There's a difference between a long combat due to a grueling situation/difficult opponent and a long combat because players are artificially extending their turns. I always encourage my players to plan ahead during others turns what they want to do in their own turn, so they aren't stuck figuring out what to do when their turn comes around. Even a difficult, multi-round fight can feel breezy if the players plan during their "inactive" time.
If it helps, you can set a timer for each turn, no more than 1-2 minutes, for the player to figure out what they want to do. if the timer runs out before they do something, they take the 'dodge' action and end their turn. (note that the timer is not for the whole turn, but for them to figure out what they want to do before moving/action/etc). the timer might not be a good idea though, if you have very new players, or players with needs that might make a timer a bad idea (for example, i have a neurodivergent player who needs time to process in general, and we accept that their turns will take longer than normal as a result).
If you do have a mix of new and experienced players, asking the experienced player help the newer ones with reviewing spells/actions/abilities during their turns is also helpful and can speed the overall game up.
Just to be clear. It's not that I take too long as a DM. At least I think so. I have the Monster stat blocks open in multiple tabs or an encounter with the encounter builder. I am quite fast at rolling and try to give the control of NPCs to the players or let them act fast and decisive.
Yes and no. This would solve the hp issue but enlengthens time between player turns.
Having monsters retreat is a good idea. Probably underused by myself.
Do you have a way to encourage players to finish their turns fast(er) besides "hurry up." I feel that's rude especially for newer players.
What is G49?
That's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much, I will definitely try that.
That's never been a goal at my tables - my groups have always enjoyed combat (and I do as a player and DM).
That being said, the things that slow down combat that can somewhat be addressed:
Too many players = long combats. The only way really to address this is to keep combats to a relatively small number of people - otherwise each person is going to have a 5 minute turn then wait 30-45 minutes until it's their turn again. That just isn't fun for the players IMO and it results in a spiral - the players waiting start to get bored waiting for their turn, they look at their phone or just don't pay attention so when it gets close to their turn, they don't really know what's going on and it's like you have to recap the last round for them. (It also sucks when it's your turn and you do something cool and the other players aren't paying attention). Anyway, this is the biggest lesson learned for me in 40 years of DMing - keep the number of players small. (Critical Role has too many players IMO, but they mostly treat the game seriously as it is sort of their job - so it's not as bad as a "normal" table.)
The more monsters you include in an encounter, the slower it's going to be. You can speed things up by doing things like using average damage, but neither I nor the other players have ever liked that - we feel it eliminates the drama of whether you take 3 points of damage or 12 from that orc or whatever.
As a DM, I have a cheat sheet for my monsters that just lists EXACTLY what I need to know in combat and nothing more - I create a Google Doc that has the NPC's/monsters that shows only combat info, no flavor, no out-of-combat spells. This has been the #1 thing to make the monster turns faster and more polished - I tried using the D&D monster cards, have tried using D&D beyond stat blocks, but both of them have too much stuff YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW during combat. I do not need to know that a monster can cast Mend, Augury, Create Food and Water, etc. - I do need to know that they can cast Bless, Cure Wounds, Darkness and Spiritual Weapon. (I drop combat spells from my list that I KNOW the monster is not going to cast - and sometimes I make a note that of what they will cast when - like casting Bless on round 1, a cantrip + spiritual weapon on round 2, etc. etc.).
You can use simplified rules for 'minions' - e.g., 1 hit will kill them. That way you can bump up on the actions available on the bad guy side without tracking a ton of hitpoints for goblins or whatever cannon fodder. If a fireball hits minions or the fighter hits them with a sword, they are just dead - no rolling saving throws for them, no tracing HP, etc. This will let you use a lot of monsters without dramatically slowing the game down (it is no fun for anyone when the wizard hits a group of goblins with a fireball and you have to roll 9 saving throws - it's also more dramatic just to let the fireball hit and blast those minions into smithereens, or allow a fighter to wade into some goblins, make 3 attacks and slay 3 goblins).
In terms of logistics:
Have the players track their initiative order too - so they can see it AND make sure you don't skip anyone. Remind people when they are on deck (it's Bob's turn, let Mary know she's next and that Svetlana is after that).
Give a VERY short recap of what the last two players did and link them together. "Guntar has just swung his glaive in 3 quick arcs, leaving 3 goblin heads on the ground as Elspeth sent two arrows at the wizard who managed to summon an arcane barrier just in time to deflect them. Bondarin, what do you want to do?" IMO, this makes the fight more cinematic than just dice rolls and initiative order and keeps the players engaged/reminds them of what has happened. It may seem like it would take longer to do this, but it prevents a lot of "what did so-and-so do, reminds them of things like the wizard currently has shield up BUT has used his reaction, etc.).
Have a good initiative tracker that helps you keep track of monster HP and status effects. I use Fantasy Grounds and tho most of the program is clunky, the combat tracker is actually really powerful - I have one window where I can track initiative, deal with monster hitpoints, etc. There are others online you can use, but find one that lets you do more than just track initiative and really learn it.
Why are your players taking so long on their turns? Is it because they don’t know what they can do, or are they in analysis paralysis, or trying to milk every last point of damage from every attack? Something else? Because those problems all can have different solutions.
But as a rule of thumb, the two I’ve heard work best are either remind the person a round us six seconds long, they can’t spend 10 minutes thinking about how they’ll spend it. And if that doesn’t work, get a little one-minute timer, and start it when the turn starts. Decide you action by the timer end, or lose it.
And now I see icon already said that. What I get for not reading thoroughly.
If whatever the party is fighting isn't dead in 10-15 minutes (depending on what it is of course, sometimes I'll keep them fighting for up to an hour) then I just tell them that it gets bored and runs away. It's an easy way to say "Hey, I don't want you guys to be fighting this thing for the next 3 hours, and I've got pizza on the way, so let's stop fighting this thing and move on to something else."
You've been DMing for 40 years? Jesus christ man, does it ever get boring?
I actually don't make my CR high, but my combats are still fairly length.
My players never feel like they are tedious though why. I take the time each round to describe what the players are doing.
You raise your great sword and swing down with all of your might, but the orc catches your swing out of the corner of his eye and raises his shield causing the loud clash as your sword grinds against the shield and the orc avoiding your attack.
So the combats still feel long and epic, but most combat encounters I design are actually easy to medium CR.
We typically have battle that last 2 -4 hours in real time. No one gets bored. I guess it's how much you enjoy tactical combat vs. RP.
Players should know their character's abilities/spells like the back of their hand. If they take too long to decide what to do, let them know that their character does nothing this round...or have the monster(s) "choose" to focus fire on the character(s) holding thing up.**
Put en egg timer on the table, or a stopwatch.
Encourage them to think of their next move while others are taking their turn.
**Sorry if this sounds mean, but it's a pet peeve of mine. It's especially aggravating if the "slow" player is running a wizard.
Yes, definitely speed up the combat by reducing the amount of time players are allowed to think about their actions for the round.
Not so far. :) I did skip 3.5 and 4e though...
The stuff Romidar said. To piggy back off of it:
Step 1. Reduce number of players.
Step 2. If step 1 isn't an option, reduce number of monsters.
Step 3. Don't attach combat difficulty, boss encounter, final villain to HIT POINTS. You start chasing meat shields, which always bogs things down. Just because one thing was a challenge with 200 hit points doesn't mean you need to find something with 300 hit points to create more challenge. I've had monsters with 88 hit points be a significantly more difficult and fun challenge than a monster with 410 hit points.
Step 4. Have initiative order displayed where all players can see it. If not, always indicate who's coming up next.
Step 5. Use a timer--a stopwatch or cool hourglass. At 30 seconds, say, "hey, times up. Decide now!" At 35 seconds, if they aren't taking their turn say, "ok you stand there defensively - taking the Dodge action. Blayne, you're next. 30 seconds on the clock, start doin' stuff!"
Step 6. Delegate. Have a player that's with it and engaged keep track of initiative turns and call them off for you.
Step 7. Focus on pacing. Don't bog the game down looking up rules. If you don't know, rule something--preferably in favor of the players, then say, "I'm ruling it like this for now, we won't go back, but I'll get it right next time." Or you can say, "for now, I'm ruling it like this. Hey Jamie, can you look up the rule for me and see if you find anything please? If so, we'll adjust it accordingly, here and now. Thanks."
Step 8. Understand that the higher level the PCs the more complicated (and long) things get. A level 1 character won't have nearly as many buttons to push as your level 13 Wizard.
Step 9. There's nothing wrong with an entire session of combat. Likewise, there's nothing wrong with an entire session of one combat. If the story has led to this point, run with and put all your eggs into it. Full terrain, painted miniatures, good music, narrative, etc. It's how it should be when you've had 12 sessions of mini-fights and roleplay and tonight the PCs finally meet the Balor in the Cathedral of Flame.
Step 10. Remind the next player of what's happened recently. Draw attention to things that have happened that can be directly influenced by the upcoming players actions. For example. Bomar the dwarven cleric is up next. Just before Bomar's turn, say, "ok Bomar, you're up. In the last few turns, and up to this point, you can tell that it's been a losing battle. Your fighter just took a punishing blow, is breathing heavily and even dropped to one knee for a brief moment. He looks badly hurt." This sort of things already answers the question from Bomar of, "ok..my turn..my turn. what to do. what to do. Ok DM, is anyone hurt? Hey fighter? How badly hurt are you?" With the prompt from you, Bomar can already start to think of actions that he can use to actually contribute - in this case, HEAL.
I don't know why I listed them in steps. There's more to list but that's good for now.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
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.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
honestly we dont