I have monsters have set initiatives. 10 for minions, 15 for minimosses and 20 for legendaries. -5 if they manage to sneak up on them

Thing i do is when its combat i talk faster. When you talk faster and put energy in your voice people tend to rush there desition making. And i also preasure them to go go go. Not with those words but "what are you gona do comeon " its funny cause the mood then starts to feel like a real fight and they hurry up there actions

When he said lower hitpoints i gasped Now i absolutley love it

AW LAWD!!!! Those are the BEST corpse tiles I've ever seen!!!!

Lower hitpoints improves the "realism" (if I can use that term) of the game. In standard 5E, a standard party lacks the terror that should accompany a trip into a pitch black dungeon because "hey, we've got a bag of hit points." When characters have a ceiling on hp, they're FAR less likely to act reckleslly.

Nice! Critical hit for the use of “abattoir”!

I use the very techniques you mentioned: d20 Ave damage for monster and npc's; except bbeg's where I make the fight more dynamic in description and pace. I really appreciate these videos, Professor. You are a well of rational experience and advice. Thanks.

I want to thank you for making these Videos. They have sped up my games in areas that were bogged down previously. I do want to share with you a small scenario that got me to your videos. The characters were in a desert environment, Mad Max esq. They had to defend a small mining facility from a 300 strong army of "royals", the ones that dolled out resources etc... Anywhooo, that battle with 300 soldiers took all night long. It was fun but also tedious, and was difficult to damage the players to make it seem dire but also have the players take large swaths of them down in one or two hits. The Leggolas factor i'm now calling it, got me to rethink how damage is done at higher levels and I now implemented a system that just has the players do extra damage depending on how many levels they are above the enemy. So if they are 5 levels higher on average from the soliders they would do an additional 5 damage per hit, arrow, bolt, spell etc. So now high level characters can massacre low level tanks in 1 hit.. I do a similar thing for the low level characters they fight. Usually in large numbers I group them up into groups of 5 or 10 depending on the levels of the characters. Each "regiment" of soldiers I add +2 to hit per person in the group. I just roll once, instead of 5 or 10 times with that modifier and VOILA! The players can get hurt even with 24 AC. I would typically do damage based on one individual and add +1 damage per person in the group that contributed. Average damage would be about 11 per group of 5 soldiers if they hit. Again, I want to thank you for your videos and insight into bringing back the roleplay in D&D. Far to often it can turn into a combat simulator. Some of the most memorable games i have had was the roleplay not the combat. P.S. I took your group initiative rules as well as made a whole new casting system that allows players to basically cast any spell they wish but with potentially dire consequences if its spells they are not familiar with. A brilliant idea you addressed in a previous video. Cheers! and may all your rolls be 1 :)

I use the Init system from Monte Cook Games (numenera and cypher system). One test at the start of the combat. Monsters do a group roll based. Any players who succeed act before the monsters in whatever order they like. Anyone who fails acts after. It's pretty quick!

The moment you put the timers on the table you'll hear the sound of footsteps... of a lot of players leaving the table. Tried this way back in the day and learned that people don't want stress at the table, they play to relax. Stress them and lose them. Especially if your table is one of roleplayers and not wargamers. Welcome to the modern world, the roleplaying is more important than the combat.

Here's a couple of house rules that you can use instead of rolling for initiative: 1. Let initiative act as an extra ability score that players can improve. You might wanna award a few extra ability score improvements if you choose this tho. OR 2. Let every class have its own initiative. For example the barbarian could always go first followed by the fighter etc. Treat the 8 monster types as classes and assign each one a value or a turn order along with the player classes at the start of the campaign.

I love how succinct and to the point you are. Thank you for providing well thought out content in a logical, step-by-step fashion. Keep up the good work!

Second video of yours that's popped up in my recommendations! Related to #2, rolling to-hit and damage dice at the same time, also if a character has multiple attacks, such as a ranger dual-wielding, fighter iterative/extra attack, or wildshaped druid claw and biting, roll them all. Use color-coordinated dice, so the orange d20 goes with the orange d8 main attack, and the green d20 goes with the green d6 secondary attack.Players love excuses to buy more dice. Related to #3, averaging damage, you also mention rolling NPC attacks. One thing I like to do is, if it doesn't break immersion, have a combat-capable NPC branch off and engage with one or two enemies and effectively they all disappear. Say there's 4 PCs and an NPC, and they're going against 5 orcs. The PCs engage with 4 of them, and actually do combat rolls, while the NPC "takes care of" one of them. Still narrate some back-and-forth action, mark some hp loss on the NPC depending on how long the fight goes, and the NPC "finishes it off" around the same time the PCs finish theirs. That's two rolls per turn eliminated. Related to #5, stopping some progression at a certain level reminds me of Epic 6 for 3e/Pathfinder. Essentially, leveling stops at 6, and thereafter xp can only be spent on bonus feats. It keeps the action at what a lot of people think "the sweet spot" is without introducing game-breaking spells, effectively infinite hp, or a dozen iterative attacks, while still allowing for new capabilities in the form of wider options rather than more direct power. If someone really wants a lot of HP, then they can keep taking the Toughness feat, but at the cost of so many other options.

For Initiative I have adopted the Mythras ACTIONS system. I give EVERYONE 3 chips to represent the three actions you can do in a round (move, action, and bonus action). You surrender 1 chip and take an ACTION. Then the next person at the table takes 1 ACTION and so on until everyone has taken one action (monsters included) and then the table proceeds to their second action and so on. This mixes in movement with attacks and basically causes all the combatants to "interact" with each other between each ACTION. No longer do you have a fast character move, attack, attack AGAIN, and then retreat all at once. That process would take FOUR ACTIONS and the other players (and monsters) would be taking their own actions in between each one. I find that it... - Keeps players invested in combats (I use a timer just like you do) due to the need to keep track of HOW combatants are interacting between each action. - Forces the adoption of tactics since one can no longer move, attack, and then retreat. - Causes the players to become anxious about combat because NOTHING is certain when the combatants are exchanging actions throughout the round. For multiple attacks at higher levels, I give the character another ACTION (which need not be an attack).

Glad to see more content from you. Another solid video!

I have just found this channel. It's pure gold!!!! About the video, some things other systems have already implemented them: 1) Cypher System has group initiative, low hit points, no roll for damage (weapons do a fixed damage) and the GM don't roll for NPCs; 2) Savage Worlds solves the hit points issue. Common enemies are eliminated with just one wound and players and tougher enemies are eliminated with 4 wounds, regardless of their level. After I played these more simple systems, I don't wanna DM D&D anymore. I can play it, but I can't bear to DM it anymore.

I'm trying to figure out why you don't have more subs! Great intro, good visuals, good personality, easy to understand and most of your ideas were good. WTF?

Terrific, you continue to be my number 1 reference for new DMs.

Thanks for this. I have been running a high level 5E campaign (Against the Giants) and the combats have been a slow slog. I had been using the standard 5E "ask each person what they want to do in individual initiative order" approach to having everyone call out what they want to do at the same time (I give them 3 minutes but they are actually fast and I usually get their responses within a minute or so), have everyone make all necessary rolls (to-hit, damage, etc) simultaneously and then I go around and get results. It worked wonderfully - so much faster and better. I had a few complaints initially like "what if the monster is dead by the time my attack goes off" and I just responded "that's real-time combat." Overall, the players liked it too and it definitely upped the fun level of the game, which is the ultimate goal. Big improvement!

I just found your channel, and I'm absolutely Loving your ideas. It's clear how much time and thought you've dedicated to the game, and I'm reaping all the fruits of your labor!! Thanks for putting your thoughts out there, mate

Professor Dungeon Master your advice rejuvenated my Pathfinder 2E game! I'm so grateful for your videos and you're my go to for all RPG advice and content. Combat turns used to be three minutes a piece and players would wait to figure out their actions at the start instead of during the downtime! Who could blame them since 3 minutes per player would often mean 12~15 minute wait times between turns... Switched to 60 seconds to declare (working towards thirty), losing extra actions if they weren't ready and now combat is a dream come true. Action packed and just the right amount of stress! So grateful for your video.

Brilliant video. Faster and more exciting battles.

Thats the first time I felt supported when it comes to simplifying combat Thanks sir u got urself a squire

I've adopted a bag method for initiative at my table. The bag is a pencil bag filled with one-inch floor tiles labeled with numbers, usually ranging from 8-20 depending on the size of the group and the number of monsters. Before combat I hand the bag to the player to my left and they take a floor tile, or initiative token, out of the bag. Then the players take turns drawing their initiative, going clockwise around the table. Once it gets to me all my bad guys go on those initiatives. It saves me a bunch of headache and peppers the combat round with enemy turns, something I feel is lacking in side initiative.

Lol now I know why my dm mate runs all his games like this now, he's taken your advice. It is helpful but sometimes feels mechanical, sometimes im immersed in the game and all of a sudden it's average damage this and predictable layout that. You need some randomness in combat, a hit isn't always a hit. Sometimes they roll low. Definitely agree on the lower hp thing. I'm thinking about running a campaign where all world hp drops to 20%

For the problem with everybody being a walking tank, I just halve the hit points and double the damage for monsters. In this way, my players can progress their characters by the book not bothering with any house rules and calculations are very easy on my end. As for taking average damage for monsters, never tried that, but maybe I will give it a go!

Quick shout out- I REALLY enjoy this series. As for speeding up my game, what I've done is whichever character triggers the encounter rolls for the group. Then it's their side v.s. my side. Their side of 6 players gets 5 minutes and I get the same. Using this method, I've rarely had combat run more than 6 rounds- they've either won or are running for their lives, and most notable combats are done in less that 40 minutes.

Great video! Thanks for the ideas!

This video is legendary! Professor Dungeon Master's dry wit is killing me.

I love these ideas! And I loved the "No More Initiative vid. Capital ideas, Prof.

Amazing videos ! So many great tips for playing d and d . Keep up the excellent work

I wholeheartedly endorse this. I might even adjust things to favor a little more of the heroic side and say that that at first level the players receive their full hit die + con and then at second it's half of the hit die + con (average), and then every level after that it's a +1 + con This gives them something to look forward to.

I've been binge watching DungeonCraft to level up my DM skills for a few weeks now (randomly out of order). This is my second time watching this video. I don't know if you've done a "redo" or "rehash" of this video more recently, but it's so practical... making it one of your best. Watching your videos has inspired me to work out a new combat system that has No Initiative, No Rounds, and No player HP (technically). I'm not done yet, but I've got enough of it sorted out that I'm starting to get excited.

You've done a great job codifying and putting into words things I've always felt about high-level campaigns. The massive amount of hitpoints means that high level content really only comes in a few flavors (I mostly play 3.5/Pathfinder). Either it's save-or-die attacks (which I hate) or millions of attacks. I'll be trying to implement some of these measures and we'll see how it goes.

This intro is HILARIOUS - - I play it from time to time !! BRUNT KICKS DOWN THE DOOR : RELEASE THE PRINCESS YOU FIENDS !! HE SWINGS HIS BROADSWORD IN A MIGHTY ARC, CUTTING THROUGH MUSCLE AND SHATTERING BONES !!

I DM a game of homebrew 1E and 2E mix. One of the things I have came up with is combat sheets that I print out. We use D10 for initiative with low rolls going first. When I am designing the adventure I print out the combat sheets and I roll the monster's initiatives right then and not at the table. It only takes a few seconds for the players to roll their initiative rolls and I can quickly place them in order on the sheet just by writing PC's initials. This is done on graph paper so it is very easy to track from round to round just by drawing an X to the right of the combatant as their turn comes up. Doing this prep work before sitting down at the table speeds combat considerably. Professor, keep putting out great content! Many of your ideas have made it to our table.

great video, love the figures

I used these ideas to run 10 folks through a Shadowdark adventure last night and they worked great. In spite of the high number of players, combat hummed along smoothly.

I'm so grateful for these videos! I've been planning my first campaign as a DM for months and it's been really fun but there's been an emptiness I couldn't identify in my SOUL and finally, after watching so many other DM advice videos on KZfaq, I feel like here I've finally found someone that really speaks to the things important to me about the game. I don't know why it took KZfaq so long to suggest you!

This video series is the most useful one Ive come across. I am a year 3 DM and still learning the ropes

Seriously, I have searched for videos like this one but never stumbled on yours. I came here by accident and will come back for the ride. I like your ideas. Less HP, averaging dmg for monsters are good suggestions.

Lots of good things in this video. Thanks!

I threw out HP a long time ago, instead damage is caused to a players attributes. Damage to the Body is CON damage, Damage to the Arms is STR, Damage to the Legs is DEX, Damage to the Head is INT, Psychic damage is applied to WIS and I use CHA more as a social stat so social battles cause CHA damage. Makes the game a level of grittiness I like and it gets rid of a massive heap of house rules on wound penalties, for newbies it makes it easier to understand you just took 8 points of damage to your STR ("Oh crap you mean I can't lift this sword anoymore?") rather than your HP ("Ok.....can I still hit that goblin next turn?" followed by 15 minutes of calculation to apply penalties that are only used for 5 minutes of combat gameplay). I also change up how each stat can be healed: STR requires eating meat, END requires eating Vegi/fruits, DEX requires water, INT requires sleep, WIS requires therapy, and CHA requires R&R.

One way I speed things up and add tension is drastically reducing or removing healing options. Little to no healing items, few chances to rest, etc. Even if you have a cleric it builds up as you progress through an adventure. Combined with some of these ideas you could make things really tense and fast. Love your videos!

One idea for speeding things up but keeping damage variability is that each weapon deals it's average damage + modifier + how much higher than the opponent's AC they rolled. Damage is now solely based on the quality of the hit. If you roll a 18 versus an AC of 15, you deal an extra 3 points of damage over your average. Crits are handled normally.

My recommendations: 1. Waves. It is faster fighting three groups of 6, than even one group of 12. (a) less creatures in initiative, (b) players don’t get swarmed as frequently (resulting in wasted rounds repositioning, healing, defensive spells, etc.), (c) players can more easily team-up on enemies, and (d) later waves can free or just not be added if it’s taking too long. 2. Surrender/flee/metagame. Once the leader does down or it is obvious that they enemies aren’t going to win, end it - even if you have to just say “You hack down the remaining zombies.” 3. Limit numbers. Use other methods than increasing numbers when scaling fights. If the PCs are too powerful for 12 goblins, don’t make it 18. Make a few hobgoblins, give some better weapons, or give them some cover. 4. Don’t metagame against PC strengths. If the PCs are melee focused, don’t continuously force them in ranged fights. 5. Avoid nerf effects - darkness, fog, sleet storm, etc. These waste turn after turn of non-activity. 6. Let players track damage or even move (minor creatures). Use dice or numbered tokens and have a player track damage done on the battlemap or paper. It gives them something to do, it’s fast, less work for you, etc. "Joe, the red goblin group swarms the nearest PC." 7. Prep the actions for the first two rounds of combat for your enemies. This saves time vs. looking at long spell lists, equipment, etc. 8. Have goals in combat besides fighting and killing. For example, the goal isn’t to kill the enemies, but to get past them to get across the river crossing. Likewise, consider chases or fighting someone in a burning building, a tavern fight, etc. The encounter can end without having to zero hp all the enemies. 9. Use colored dice for markers. Yes, figs are lovely, but they waste time trying to figure which is which, moving them, knocking them over, etc. Groups of little six siders of 1-6 dice are easy. At least apply group initiative to color groups. 10. Don’t draw out combats if they are too easy. Let them end quickly and make a note for the next combat. You don’t have to make every combat ‘epic’. Balanced them over time. Likewise, don’t be afraid to toss in too difficult encounters (with fair warning and the option for PCs to flee). If a player casts a spell or takes an action which ends a two-hour combat in six minutes… have a laugh and continue to the next encounter. 11. For large numbers, if seen groups of enemies use standard rolls in addition to average damage. For example, you have a group of six (red) goblins. 1-2 automatically roll a 5 on attacks and saves (total of say 8), 3-4 roll a 10 (total 13), and 5-6 roll a 15 (total 18). Next round you roll a d3 to switch the order of the 5,10,15. This said, better to avoid large groups.

Professor Dungeonmaster, love the less hit points suggestion. Reminds me of Savage Worlds mantra "Up, down or off the table." Especially with "extras".

So awesome again!

Fascinating ideas

Great ideas all, thank you.

I play with my kids, one of which has a bit of autism and both have a bit of adhd. Faster turns is a must at my table if I want to keep them engaged with the game. Your videos have been incredibly helpful. So far I've thrown out initiative and simplified spells. I'm excited to try the game with lower hp. I think they'll enjoy hacking down a lot of monsters quickly.

Love your timer idea. I'll be using that.

It is 1:30 in the night, I watch your videos and I announced a dummy session for tomorrow evening. And I will do all your suggestions at once and ask how the players will like it.

This is why I like Dungeonslayers so much. Your attack roll *is* your damage roll. Your HP is your Body + Constitution + 10 (+ potential *Endurance* talent) regardless of level.

In the last few sessions, we had a lot of NPC allies. The DM took the "average damage" approch for everything except the PCs. Worked wonders

I love all the dungeon raft videos!

Professor DM, these rules have changed my games, all for the better. Thank you for your experience and insight. I've been a DM, off and on, for over 25 years; though I've always been reluctant to administer too many house rules (especially drastic ones, such as these) in fear of unbalancing the game. Not only have I found no unbalance issues, but these changes have made my job MUCH easier, allowing me to focus more on story and theme and far less on calculations. My "hold on a minute"s have dropped off significantly and the combat runs swiftly and silky smooth, with a lot of tension..precisely what this games should provide. Our combats are over within minutes; not hours, adding a sense of realism to the game. This just means more encounters and combats per session! My players love the new play style. One thing I do differently is with initiative. Although I use group initiative and the players decide who goes first, I have broken up turns into "half turns", using tokens (people love tokens!), to keep track. Each player is given 4 tokens, 2 move tokens (2nd move token represents the Dash action), one action token, and one bonus action token (if applicable to them). On a players turn, they decide what they want to do, and spend the appropriate token (move, action, or BA), and take that action. Their turn pauses and then it goes to the next player who spends a token and so on. Then I take my half turn for the monsters (if I lost initiative, otherwise, I would've gone first). It goes back to the first player, who spends their next token, and so on. Eg. 1st Player decides to move, spends move token, and then moves towards target. Everyone else takes their "half-turn". The battlefield has changed , since monsters and companions have moved or attacked. 1st player can now spend their second move token, ending their turn (if they have no bonus action), or use their action token to do something. The round continues until appropriate tokens are spent and all creatures have taken their complete turn. This may sound cumbersome, but it is not. It goes quick. The best thing about this system is that it can be quite chaotic and can easily foil plans, so strategy is paramount. If you ponder all the possible scenarios by having half-turns, you will see how strategy must come into play, as things can drastically change before you get you second half of your turn. It also adds more realism to the encounter, as creature aren't just standing around while you run up to something and then hit it with your weapon. It better represents "everyone moving and attacking at the same time.

For initiative I have a magnetic dry erase board. I found magnetic label holders that I can print labels or have the player write their name on and stick it on the board. So it takes maybe a min to get everyone's init up and ready to go. The board is up where everyone can see it. I also have a crit hit and miss for init. Rolled 20 = +2 on rolls other than damage +5ft base movement(First Rd). Not surprised if applicable. Rolled 1 = -2 on rolls other than damage -5ft base movement (First Rd). Acts if it is a surprise round.

this is my new favorite DM show

Wow! Great video!

As a newer DM, this type of information and experience is invaluable. Thank you for sparking new ideas in my imagination. Love the show... easily one of my new favorites. Keep it coming.

Also, a way to speed up initiative tracking that I use, that's not quite as radical as yours, is adapting the Savage Worlds practice of dealing out playing cards. Go in descending order, aces high, reverse alphabetical suits for ties. Rather than creating and tracking a table every combat (which is tedious and I hate it), I can just scan the face-up cards on the table. When someone is done with their turn, they hand in the card. Turn the card sideways when someone is readying an action, so that's a visible indicator too. Flip the card over for delaying turn, and at any point they can flip the card face-up to indicate they go next. Keep drawing from the same pile each round until a joker is dealt, then shuffle the discard in to the draw at the end of that turn. Can lead to some interesting custom rules design space too - I had players pick a particular card that was "theirs" and if they drew it got a bonus to rolls, but if someone else drew it they got a bonus to rolls interacting with that person - extra hit and damage against an enemy, extra hp from a healing spell, or a bonus to save from another party member's area effect spell.

i def gonna bring this up to my group. i mean other than the attack damage and hit points i love these new mechanics. my pet peeve has always been electronics during game time when players surf instead of paying attention and formulating strategies as each player performs their actions, only to ask the "repeating" question...."okay now what has happened?".

This is great!

Really great ideas! I have an alternative for fast initiative: Just get yourself some cards with symbols or colors; one for each player and one for each group of monsters (boss, minions, archers) and draw one card from the pile you shuffled through before the combat starts. It keeps that random element and is still very fast.

I don't use HP at all now in my games, and damage dice determine the severity of a hit rather than an amount of points you take. Your CON score (not mod) determines the total number of light hits you can take. You divide by 2 as you go up in severity. So a CON of 15 means 15 light, 7 moderate, 3 severe, 1 critical. I adapted your system from the GM secrets for rolling difficulty for how to determine severity on the damage die. 1d8 means 1-3 light, 4 - 6 moderate, 7 severe, 8 critical. So on and so forth. This sped up combat rather a lot for the group, and it still allows for the cinematic combat feel. Shoot an arrow at that orc, but roll a 1 and it sinks into the arm rather than the neck, but roll a 6 and it dies immediately. Critical successes mean you cause a critical wound plus whatever extra wound you roll for. Critical failure means your actions halt for the rest of the round. I still use the AD&D 1E round combat system with 10 segments, but I like it because the players have 60 seconds to declare actions before the round begins, and then I call for rolls to resolve the round. I think our longest battles have been like 10 minutes long because the number of creatures was fairly high. Usually a single round can resolve most conflicts, with a dragon taking about 8 rounds total.

Great ideas. I hate to say it but D&D 4th ed addressed some of this with the idea of minions and and listing average damage on stats along with damage ranges to reduce rolling. You can run a cinematic battle pretty easily. The bad part of 4th ed is players ramp up to god-like abilities pretty fast.... but so do the monsters.

The HP bloat is one reason I like the Wounds/Vitality alternate system... Vitality is like the normal HP, how much combat wears you out... but Wounds are the ‘meat’, and are always equal to Constitution. Mostly, Vitality will be the damage taken...but once you’re out of Vitality, it’ll take Wounds. BUT...Critical hits, or hits when the character is unable to defend (sneak attacks, paralyzed, asleep, whatever) do normal amount of damage, but take off Wounds directly. Any damage to Wounds has the potential to cause short-term penalties, and even long-term consequences. Like getting a hand cut off, or an eye gouged out, or even a collapsed lung...

Love it. Thanks!

Love your vids. Another idea about monster damage: if you know that the average damage is enough to knock the player out, but rolling might change that outcome, roll for monster damage only at that time. That way you don't roll most of the time when it doesn't matter, but you add some suspense when it does matter. Also if you don't want to mess with HP of all characters and monsters because you're afraid it will be too much work, I read about an interesting modification to the critical system to effectively lower HPs against lower levelled matchups: For every (full) +10 that a character defeats an opponent's AC, add extra damage. There are a lot of ways you could do this: you could double the rolls, you could guarantee max damage, etc. If you really want to speed things up you can tweak that +10 to +5 or something. Example: Every +5 a character rolls over an opponent's AC is 1 stack of guaranteed max damage from their weapon, plus the usual damage roll. If the fighter attacks a low level goblin and gets 11 higher than the goblin's AC using a longsword, that would be 1d8+16 damage (plus usual bonuses for strength, etc). This example of course works in reverse when the PCs are attacked by a high level monster (if your game has players running into high level monsters, of course). IIRC I believe this solution was used as a 5e patch because 5e's scaling isn't quite as bad as 3.5 / Pathfinder, especially with bounded accuracy.

The way I have always sped up combat was to give ridiculous magic items to both sides or unbelievable abilities. The effect is similar but much math is happening. Yours is fast with less math, and therefore arguably better. I think my next campaign will be something like what you have. Thank you

Okay, this is epic

New on this, great channel to learn for first timers... thnks!!!

Here's my thoughts On lowering hit points: if you essentially halve/reduce the players and the monsters then you have to half the damage to make it balanced. There is some validity to the point that level 3 players should be able to carve down goblins, so let them, but if everything is cut in half you're back to square one. Side combat: I like the idea of side combat but you need to be careful and test it out a few times with your party before you switch completely. The things I noticed with my group was they ended up falling in a pattern of who goes when, and they don't work as a team as much as I thought they would. And on the dm's side you are running (possibly) many monsters at one time and I won't lie, I love the break when players go. In reality between turns some players do not pay attention, but some do. The break between turns gives them time to plan ahead and look over the abilities. But it just depends on your group. Timers: I think this is a good idea when doing a surprise attack round or they are in a situation where they have to act fast. The timers should symbolize when the characters are out of their element and caught off guard or when the opposing team is in that boat. In a battle with a dragon they all know how to fight and they know the rhythms they fall into. The character would know how to act in that situation. But if they are in a chase down the street then having a timer is perfect. It brings them out of their element and also gets them thinking fast like a chase would be. Roll damage with attacks: brilliant idea! And if the PCs have multiple attacks make sure they divide up each roll into one little group. So crits go with crits and misses go with misses. Use average damage: yes. And so here is some of my own advice: Music and lighting: never underestimate what a good atmosphere can do tense music will bring up the heart rate of the players. They will feel the stress. Same with lighting Magnets: this shaves off some precious time. The players have something they can stick their magnets too and the DM has something on their side. That way players and dm can quickly stick their magnet on the inative they want and you can keep secret monsters from them. And they are left to wonder what number do they act on. It also gives room to quickly readjust order if new situations arise. Pre-roll encounters: another few seconds shaved off. Have a cheet sheet: this is for monsters and PCs alike. Have the PCs AC passive perception and insight on the ready. For monsters have a sheet of paper that has every monsters AC stats and summarized attacks. (aka breath weapon would be dex save 17, 10d6 fire) then also keep their stats on the ready but also off to the side. Also include a box where you can track their hp. Dry erase: very helpful for everything mentioned above Pre plan strategies: its easy to look over this when beginning, but have half a sheet of paper giving if so statements. If more than half dead, retreat. If on last few hit points, beg for mercy. Or other info about how different monsters will interact with each other and provide buffs. Use less monsters: if you are running 8+ creature and are managing them each individually you are doing it wrong. The ideal monster zone 1-3 and maybe some minions (4e inspired). If using minions only roll once for their whole group and estimate how many of the PCs get hit. Then use average damage. Keeping it small is vital to fast combat.

I play in smaller groups than you and we use individual initiatives. In Lamentations we each roll a d6 every round, while in 5e we establish an initiative order and keep to it. The delay in the narrative as we do the numbers is an exciting calm before the storm, especially as when the initiative order appears, our GM has given each combatant an individual name which allows us to see them, interact with them and really brings combats to life. Fighting Belcher Blackrock, Thespin the Glaive, Maerwina the fisher, Maidenchin, Hal Redtroos, Dogface, the Spider and the Eastlander is much more vivid than fighting 8 bandits.

Great video. As someone that rarely has less than 6 players at my table, I've come up with lots of ways to shave combat time down, but I am always looking for more options. A few of these I already tell my players.

This is a fantastic video, one of your better ones, right there alongside your Initiative video. I just discovered you and wish I had years ago, you understand the dynamics of roleplaying better than anyone else I've found. And I say that as the guy who wrote Vampire: The Masquerade, the World of Darkness and Ars Magica. Doesn't mean I'm not full of sh*t, but it does mean I have.some experience with trying my best to not design BAD game rules.

I’m not totally sold on the no innative as I love to watch the other players roll and react to the dice, but love the timer idea and the lower hit points, as I feel the high hp of characters and monster leads to a slugfest that becomes rinse and repeat. Again Professor you are full of wonderful ideas and I’d love a chance to play in your sleek streamlined fast fun system and dark gritty and dangerous campaign

Great ideas!

I always loved this idea -- but how do you keep track of all the players' different actions when they announce it all at once? If it was me it feels like everyone would announce it in a huge mess and I wouldn't be able to remember who said what as I was resolving them.

Here's an idea to speed up combat though one that isn't quite compatible with everything in this video: all damage die deal max damage. Player, monster, everyone. Rationale is 2-fold. For one it does the same thing as rolling hit & damage die at once, but better since knowing the attack will deal say 6 damage instead of 1-6 damage makes the mental math easier. In addition it is the reciprocal of lowering hit points. The reverse of it. If everyone is dealing ~2x damage, HP is only worth half as much. Combat should now only last half as long. As for another benefit, it's also somewhat in the spirit of the game. Lets be honest, whenever a plater is picking the 1d8 longsword over the 1d6 shortsword, in their mind everytime they are seeing the 6 & the 8. Those are the numbers that represent weapon damage to us, so why not make that happen all the time?

I can see this solutions taking away as much excitement as they’re adding, if not more. The player who spends 2 minutes on their turn clarifying room layout is the one who makes his movement JUST eek out to fit the distance it takes to spider-run up a wall, jump to the chanelier, and cut the chain holding it up, impaling the dragon’s face. Your suggestion about lowering HP makes it so some of my most memorable bosses never would’ve seen daylight. My CR 25 Shade of Vecna (patterned off the CR 23 Worm Who Walks) would’ve wiped the party in moments unless I made him weaker than a dragon. If you like faster combat instead of gimping HP in general, re-implement Minions from 4e. Normal enemy, no changes to damage or AC, but it only takes 1 point of damage to kill them. I think the “How do you challenge high-level players?!” meme goes a bit far sometimes. If all else fails, make a quest involving a 2-star puzzle box that you bought off of Amazon. That’ll challenge even a Level 20 party of ten for days lol

I am, as usual VERY glad that I'm playing Call of Cthulhu.

Alexa is good for timers and can learn a skill to answer dnd questions.

About the HP of PC, I came up with this, instead of increasing those by level or capping it, you can increase it when the Character get it's Ability Score (AS) increase (at lvl 4/8/12/16/19), so your hit dices and HP increase by power realm, and balance between being a Heroic resilient MOFO and a mortal struggling to kill hordes of monsters and dragons. In this Hypothesis, Consider a Paladin reach level 19 and has +5 of CON, if the paladin decides to get average instead of rolling, he will reach 65 of HP, which is not low for his high level, neither is high for a fast paced combat against giant abominations. Additional toughs: - Fighter get more AS increases than other classes, you can opt to ignore the ones that other class don't get. - Your players will get a max of 6 hit dice, to balance healing you might consider other methods. - This is a suggestion I came up just now after watching the video, is not perfect and you can use it as reference to work your own, I am now thinking on how to implement what I learn and what I come up with to work in my game, it will require some time and some lab rats. - Remember to have fun.

Remember minions from 3E? Yeah, I still use those. Most NPCs have 1 HP. Big tough ones have more. That’s how many actual hits they can take before going down, regardless of how much damage the characters roll. How much they roll merely effects my description of that hit or death. The only NPC I bother giving normal hit points to is the Big Bad of that session, if there is one. My players don’t know any of this. Don’t tell them. What they don’t know can’t hurt me. (They really like all the “options” that fiddling around with their character sheet gives them. Keeps them busy & worried. I do take their character’s abilities into account, but only conceptually.) I also steal a page from Earthdawn (Adepts being infused with magic) to explain why their characters become supernaturally tough.

Will try this with my high school science students. We don't have a lot of time to spare with the combat (but I don't want to avoid it either) and have to get the specific learning objectives. Would love your input on how teachers could accomplish a lesson using D&D!

This is fantastic. I've always raised monster HP to deal with overpowered PCs. I very conveniently have a campaign currently at Level 3. Players are going to be shocked when I tell them to lock in their HP :D Brilliant strategy since 5e is SO character-favored. After level 5 monsters become pincushions and PCs are basically invincible. Thanks for the tip!

You know, I like this, I agree with you wholeheartedly. In line with what I've said before: Once you mod it to this, it's basically OD&D, and Basic D&D. The experience is almost akin to running Labyrinth Lord + Advanced Edition Companion, or a modded Swords and Wizardry with feats and other abilities.

One idea I had was to pause at the top each round and ask the players to take a minute and make a quick general decision about what they want to do from the list of possible actions in the PHB. Perhaps write it down or use cards or something. I would make it clear they may change their mind at any point but having something decided at the start will help them process faster if they do.

I m going to test the idea from your another video and use the attack roll as initiative roll.

Should be mandatory viewing for DMs.

Man, I felt that when you mentioned the hitpoints thing. Having played a barbarian in PF with what was probably around 200 HP I can attest to this bullcrap. Sure, it was interesting to see how many hits I could take, but I really felt like I was playing a weird hack of a game. I'm way more a fan of lower HP stuff (which is probably also why I've always enjoyed lower levels infinitely more than any high level content I have ever played. Great stuff, though with the amount of changes I'd probably personally use some OSR-system. Not because I can't hack 5e or PF into what I like, but because if I present it as being 5e or PF there'd probably be a lot of resistance.

As a new player, this sounds like a godsend! To be honest, I was shocked how boring I found combat to be. I thought maybe it's just because I'm new and a bit slower than a veteran player at making decisions, but it seems to be a global issue. If I ever DM with friends and my combat is slogging, I'm gonna add in timers!

YOU changed my way of playing, crafting and preparing! I completly reforge the game . so far , after 3 games... players love it.. and i do too: faster simpler and more fun after all!!! thanks prof.

I focus on Rolemaster (not that experienced, still at the beginning), and although you can raise your hitpoints via 'body development', the crits can be quite deadly. And these crits stay deadly throughout the game, also in higher levels So, another way (for different game systems) might be: make the crits really deadly

So, one of the things I have been using to speed up combat is using the Gamemaster 5 app from Lion's Den. I have no affiliation with them, btw. I just like the app. I have a compendium of monsters I downloaded from a drop box, and use then to make my own variants. Then, I create encounters for the campaign and add the various monsters for each encounter. When i start the encounter, it auto rolls their initiatives, and you can have it roll the players too (though they like to roll). Then I run the encounter. I also have a setting that groups initiative for same type, so I can roll weenies as a group. Finally, I track damage and healing on there, and all the monster stats and data is in the app at the touch of a finger, so no page flipping. It has been working really well, I think. I am not into making as radical changes as some on here, and this GM5 app was a very easy way to improve things. The only thing that would make stuff even faster is if I had a tablet to run it off of instead of my phone. My 2cents. Edit: spelling

Fantastic content as always. I know this video is an older one, but I really resonate with what you say about scaling hit points and damage to speed along battle. While you touched on it in general terms in this video, I would love to know more details about how you adapt the concept across your game. Do you have a dedicated video to this concept? Or do you recommend a source that would help me adopt my whole game in this way? Appreciate you!

I like the idea that if a player doesn’t make their choice of action fast enough, they provoke opportunity and can get attacked. No monster is going to wait on you.

I give the monsters class levels, with feats. Goblin rogues can do a lot of damage when flanking. Have any kind of Giant use power attack and awesome blow. Add templates (Spellwarped is horrifying). I used a third party book to make a gruesome Troll. It had feats for creatures with regeneration. Add a couple of Adept levels for effect. The party didn't want to mess with the four armed Troll with bone spikes who could cast burning hands.