If your not doing it already, have damage and attack rolls made at the same time. If the attack misses, disregard the damage. It's even better if you have 2 d20s and 2 sets of damage dice for each common attack with each set being a different color. Then you can roll advantage/ disadvantage and crits at the same time. Just identify the color that corresponds to the normal rolls to eliminate that argument. If the DM can give a general response for each enemy and make similar rolls, then that should speed things up.
Macros can be made on many VTTs dice rollers to mimic this aspect.
The best way is to talk about it as a group, and agree to a time limit per player as a goal. Start with 1 minute, then down to 30 seconds. The DM will probably need extra time depending on how many monsters there are, but if they are on point, probably not much more.
I'm guessing you will find that it's just one or two players that are soaking up all the time. That's why it should be a blanket goal for all players to shoot for. The slow ones won't feel like they're being singled out. Also, if you do have slow players, it's easy to work with them to figure out and fix what's slowing them down.
Incidentally, 10 minutes for 5+DM isn't terrible. Could be streamlined, but it's not the worst I've heard of by far.
If you're taking 10 minutes per round and your combats are lasting 2-3 hours, then your combats are going for 12-18 rounds, which indicates much deeper issues than "how long people take to take their turns." Are you sure your numbers are right here?
As has been said, 10 minutes for five people is actually quite a good pace, especially if most of the players are casters. At that rate, most combats should be somewhere around thirty minutes, which feels quite reasonable to me.
How many rounds on average do your combat encounters go? Also, does the DM use an initiative spot for every monster, or group them together and use a single initiative number for each group of similar monsters?
11-15 rounds is a lot, and is definitely what's causing the long amount of time. So rather than focusing on how long each player takes, it's more about focusing on what they are doing in combat. Are your casters using mostly control spells? Or are they damaging the enemies? Combat is always drawn out when total damage output of the group is low. Do monsters regularly run away, creating mini chase scenes that draw out combat? Are the players spreading damage across all enemies, or focusing their fire in order to drop them quickly, reducing the enemy numbers?
Encounters run for 11-15 rounds. We roll for initiative at the beginning of an encounter. DM rolls for each monster individually.
Yeah, that's insane. Combats should be 3-4 rounds, maybe one or two more if the players aren't great at combat.
This.
Had a combat last night, 6 level 7 PCs and a Hollyphant, vs a Narzugon, a Nightmare and 20 stirges. Should have been a tough as nails fight, the party wiped the floor with all of that in just under 3 rounds.
Combine NPCs into small groups that share initiativ.
Use average damage for NPCs instead of rolling.
Don‘t be afraid to narrate the end of a battle instead rolling each and every action, once the outcome is clear.
Remind people who‘s up next.
What the players can do:
Roll hit/damage at the same time or set up macros
Make sure you know what you do when it is your turn, maybe even have a simple backup plan in case the DM rules against your first idea.
Concentrate fire on individual enemies. They will deal less damage to you and more importantly, each dead enemy saves your DM time in the following rounds.
I'm curious as to what the party is doing when it comes to spellcasting?
Are the casters holding their high spells in reserve all the time, or are you regularly running out of spell slots and the casters wind up stuck using nothing but cantrips?
Also, how are the resistances and immunties of the creatures you're fighting? Are you fighting a lot of foes that are really hard for the party to actually injure?
If either of those things are true, then the GM might need to work on re-balancing the way they run encounters.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Encounters run for 11-15 rounds. We roll for initiative at the beginning of an encounter. DM rolls for each monster individually.
Yeah, that's insane. Combats should be 3-4 rounds, maybe one or two more if the players aren't great at combat.
This.
Had a combat last night, 6 level 7 PCs and a Hollyphant, vs a Narzugon, a Nightmare and 20 stirges. Should have been a tough as nails fight, the party wiped the floor with all of that in just under 3 rounds.
Took about 20 minutes altogether.
That encounter killed one of my player's characters and caused another to make a deal with another greater devil (who'd been tempting her for some time) to stop it becoming a TPK... The most devastating and memorable fight to date in the campaign. Essentially created a new BBEG in Haruman, and one of the PCs is on a very different path to the one she imagined. Another of the PC is kinda dealing with PTSD regarding the whole thing.
Encounters run for 11-15 rounds. We roll for initiative at the beginning of an encounter. DM rolls for each monster individually.
Yeah, that's insane. Combats should be 3-4 rounds, maybe one or two more if the players aren't great at combat.
This.
Had a combat last night, 6 level 7 PCs and a Hollyphant, vs a Narzugon, a Nightmare and 20 stirges. Should have been a tough as nails fight, the party wiped the floor with all of that in just under 3 rounds.
Took about 20 minutes altogether.
That encounter killed one of my player's characters and caused another to make a deal with another greater devil (who'd been tempting her for some time) to stop it becoming a TPK... The most devastating and memorable fight to date in the campaign. Essentially created a new BBEG in Haruman, and one of the PCs is on a very different path to the one she imagined. Another of the PC is kinda dealing with PTSD regarding the whole thing.
I thought that was what ours was going to become, but the players pulled out all the stops and focused fire on Haruman. Even frightened of him the Dwarf Fighter managed to crit with Disadvantage and that really helped them.
It was a good fight and they had a lot of fun. Now they've got Mooncolor in the party and Red Ruth just sent them to arrange her bath.
At the risk of being totally useless, are electronics allowed at the table? I've found when players are on their phones/computers/etc, they're not using the time between turns to think about what they'll do, so even if they're aware it's their turn, they end up taking thirty seconds just to choose what to do. When people don't have electronics at the table, they can decide what to do before their turn rolls around, so no one wastes time thinking. (Edit: online, I imagine this equates to a "don't open other apps/tabs" honor rule.)
Secondarily, remember that monsters are smart, and most of them want to live another day. If at any point it becomes clear to the DM that the monsters have zero chance of winning or at least taking vengeance by bringing a PC down with them, it's probably clear to the monsters too. They can then flee or surrender, ending combat early.
Some other advice, most of which is for the GM. As a player, there's not a lot you can do, except keep your turns as brief as possible.
- Players can only talk on their character's turn. On other turns they can only make one- or few-word answers to questions. "yes", "no", "the right hand orc". As a player, if another player tries to engage ina long conversation with you on their turn, politely refuse to engage.
- Make initiative very obvious. One of my current GM's announces the next three characters each turn. "Conan, then Juma then Bêlit. <after Conan's turn> Juma, then Bêlit then Aiko." If your VTT tool has an initiative tracker then use it. At the table, use initiative tents on the GM screen.
- Enforce strict time limits. If all the people around the table know the game then it is fair to expect they can tell you their action in 6 seconds or less. No declaration, then skip them (their character takes the Defend Action and doesn't move). Limit the number of questions a player can ask, perhaps to two (2). If a player is asking lots of questions on their turn then ask them if they are using their Action for the Investigate Action.
- Use the same initiative for groups of monsters. If the party is fighting five goblin archers, three goblin skirmishers and four wargs, then make three initiative rolls - archers, skirmishers, wargs.
I'd be interested in knowing the party make-up, the general battle tactics (or lack there of) of the party, and the number of monsters present in a given encounter. If the party's damage output is low, but they have tanky frontline and generally high resistance to chip damage, then it makes sense for combat to take an eternity. If the players are not making good use of Flanking to give Advantage (higher crit rate, Sneak Attack for Rogues, etc), are not focus firing a vulnerable support, or are generally spreading their damage against many targets, it agains makes sense for combat to take a life age of the Earth. If there are a ton of weak monsters they are constantly having to cleave their way through, then overkill damage per creature will make sense that it takes forever and a day to whack all the moles.
Can't give any further judgement on the situation without knowing more variables in the equation. But it's gotta be 1 of those 3 things for combat to take 12 to 13 rounds to complete.
Or being excessively frugal with abilities. I've played games with more than a few players who got hyperfixated on the idea that they needed to conserve spells or other limited-use powers like Bardic Inspiration or Ki points to the point of being unable to ever actually use them. I played with a group where the bard never wanted to use any of his bardic powers, instead focusing on melee combat while the paladin at level 8 had only used his Divine Smite power twice (both times after I'd reminded him that he had it) and never cast spells, laid on hands, or activated any of his Oath abilities.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
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This leads to combat ranging from 2-3 hours per encounter, it's making D&D more of a slog and less enjoyable for me.
We are Online.
I am the only Martial in the Party.
If your not doing it already, have damage and attack rolls made at the same time. If the attack misses, disregard the damage. It's even better if you have 2 d20s and 2 sets of damage dice for each common attack with each set being a different color. Then you can roll advantage/ disadvantage and crits at the same time. Just identify the color that corresponds to the normal rolls to eliminate that argument. If the DM can give a general response for each enemy and make similar rolls, then that should speed things up.
Macros can be made on many VTTs dice rollers to mimic this aspect.
The best way is to talk about it as a group, and agree to a time limit per player as a goal. Start with 1 minute, then down to 30 seconds. The DM will probably need extra time depending on how many monsters there are, but if they are on point, probably not much more.
I'm guessing you will find that it's just one or two players that are soaking up all the time. That's why it should be a blanket goal for all players to shoot for. The slow ones won't feel like they're being singled out. Also, if you do have slow players, it's easy to work with them to figure out and fix what's slowing them down.
Incidentally, 10 minutes for 5+DM isn't terrible. Could be streamlined, but it's not the worst I've heard of by far.
If you're taking 10 minutes per round and your combats are lasting 2-3 hours, then your combats are going for 12-18 rounds, which indicates much deeper issues than "how long people take to take their turns." Are you sure your numbers are right here?
As has been said, 10 minutes for five people is actually quite a good pace, especially if most of the players are casters. At that rate, most combats should be somewhere around thirty minutes, which feels quite reasonable to me.
The numbers are right and combat has a mean of 2.5 hours.
How many rounds on average do your combat encounters go? Also, does the DM use an initiative spot for every monster, or group them together and use a single initiative number for each group of similar monsters?
Encounters run for 11-15 rounds. We roll for initiative at the beginning of an encounter. DM rolls for each monster individually.
11-15 rounds is a lot, and is definitely what's causing the long amount of time. So rather than focusing on how long each player takes, it's more about focusing on what they are doing in combat. Are your casters using mostly control spells? Or are they damaging the enemies? Combat is always drawn out when total damage output of the group is low. Do monsters regularly run away, creating mini chase scenes that draw out combat? Are the players spreading damage across all enemies, or focusing their fire in order to drop them quickly, reducing the enemy numbers?
Yeah, that's insane. Combats should be 3-4 rounds, maybe one or two more if the players aren't great at combat.
Yeah I would say almost all of our combat is resolves in 3-5 rounds.
So you are basically doing 3-4 combats in that time.... which can take as long as you are saying.
This.
Had a combat last night, 6 level 7 PCs and a Hollyphant, vs a Narzugon, a Nightmare and 20 stirges. Should have been a tough as nails fight, the party wiped the floor with all of that in just under 3 rounds.
Took about 20 minutes altogether.
What the DM can do:
Combine NPCs into small groups that share initiativ.
Use average damage for NPCs instead of rolling.
Don‘t be afraid to narrate the end of a battle instead rolling each and every action, once the outcome is clear.
Remind people who‘s up next.
What the players can do:
Roll hit/damage at the same time or set up macros
Make sure you know what you do when it is your turn, maybe even have a simple backup plan in case the DM rules against your first idea.
Concentrate fire on individual enemies. They will deal less damage to you and more importantly, each dead enemy saves your DM time in the following rounds.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]I'm curious as to what the party is doing when it comes to spellcasting?
Are the casters holding their high spells in reserve all the time, or are you regularly running out of spell slots and the casters wind up stuck using nothing but cantrips?
Also, how are the resistances and immunties of the creatures you're fighting? Are you fighting a lot of foes that are really hard for the party to actually injure?
If either of those things are true, then the GM might need to work on re-balancing the way they run encounters.
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.
That encounter killed one of my player's characters and caused another to make a deal with another greater devil (who'd been tempting her for some time) to stop it becoming a TPK... The most devastating and memorable fight to date in the campaign. Essentially created a new BBEG in Haruman, and one of the PCs is on a very different path to the one she imagined. Another of the PC is kinda dealing with PTSD regarding the whole thing.
I thought that was what ours was going to become, but the players pulled out all the stops and focused fire on Haruman. Even frightened of him the Dwarf Fighter managed to crit with Disadvantage and that really helped them.
It was a good fight and they had a lot of fun. Now they've got Mooncolor in the party and Red Ruth just sent them to arrange her bath.
10 minutes per round for a part of 5 people is completely reasonable. Encounters taking 11-15 rounds instead of 3-5 rounds is the problem.
At the risk of being totally useless, are electronics allowed at the table? I've found when players are on their phones/computers/etc, they're not using the time between turns to think about what they'll do, so even if they're aware it's their turn, they end up taking thirty seconds just to choose what to do. When people don't have electronics at the table, they can decide what to do before their turn rolls around, so no one wastes time thinking. (Edit: online, I imagine this equates to a "don't open other apps/tabs" honor rule.)
Secondarily, remember that monsters are smart, and most of them want to live another day. If at any point it becomes clear to the DM that the monsters have zero chance of winning or at least taking vengeance by bringing a PC down with them, it's probably clear to the monsters too. They can then flee or surrender, ending combat early.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Some other advice, most of which is for the GM. As a player, there's not a lot you can do, except keep your turns as brief as possible.
- Players can only talk on their character's turn. On other turns they can only make one- or few-word answers to questions. "yes", "no", "the right hand orc". As a player, if another player tries to engage ina long conversation with you on their turn, politely refuse to engage.
- Make initiative very obvious. One of my current GM's announces the next three characters each turn. "Conan, then Juma then Bêlit. <after Conan's turn> Juma, then Bêlit then Aiko." If your VTT tool has an initiative tracker then use it. At the table, use initiative tents on the GM screen.
- Enforce strict time limits. If all the people around the table know the game then it is fair to expect they can tell you their action in 6 seconds or less. No declaration, then skip them (their character takes the Defend Action and doesn't move). Limit the number of questions a player can ask, perhaps to two (2). If a player is asking lots of questions on their turn then ask them if they are using their Action for the Investigate Action.
- Use the same initiative for groups of monsters. If the party is fighting five goblin archers, three goblin skirmishers and four wargs, then make three initiative rolls - archers, skirmishers, wargs.
I'd be interested in knowing the party make-up, the general battle tactics (or lack there of) of the party, and the number of monsters present in a given encounter. If the party's damage output is low, but they have tanky frontline and generally high resistance to chip damage, then it makes sense for combat to take an eternity. If the players are not making good use of Flanking to give Advantage (higher crit rate, Sneak Attack for Rogues, etc), are not focus firing a vulnerable support, or are generally spreading their damage against many targets, it agains makes sense for combat to take a life age of the Earth. If there are a ton of weak monsters they are constantly having to cleave their way through, then overkill damage per creature will make sense that it takes forever and a day to whack all the moles.
Can't give any further judgement on the situation without knowing more variables in the equation. But it's gotta be 1 of those 3 things for combat to take 12 to 13 rounds to complete.
Or being excessively frugal with abilities. I've played games with more than a few players who got hyperfixated on the idea that they needed to conserve spells or other limited-use powers like Bardic Inspiration or Ki points to the point of being unable to ever actually use them. I played with a group where the bard never wanted to use any of his bardic powers, instead focusing on melee combat while the paladin at level 8 had only used his Divine Smite power twice (both times after I'd reminded him that he had it) and never cast spells, laid on hands, or activated any of his Oath abilities.
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.