Troll Lord Games

Any suggestions or advice for keeping a combat with 8 PCs moving? This is an over the table top live game.

We use a dry erase board for initiative tracking.

Abandon individual initiative. Do group initiative for the monsters and party. On the party's turn, start with someone and then go clockwise or counter-clockwise. Reverse direction next round or start on somebody else. Only roll initiative every 3 or 4 rounds. If a player doesn't announce an action within 2-3 seconds of getting to them, their PC is paralyzed with indecision for the round and you move on to the next player. When combat hits the mop up stage, end the fight and declare the party finished off the remaining mooks without sustaining further injury or expending further resources.

Don't let them waste time when it is there initiative. Only let them have a 5-6 count to state what they are doing.

R-

I''ve got some new folks so a bit more time might be needed, but the "shot clock" idea will work, they got plenty of time to plan just after their turn. We only roll initiative once per fight and stick with it, its written down so it is our simple order and a player calls out who's next and who's on deck. Monsters unless only one or two all go at once.. great input, thanks, Kirk

This is what I do as well.

Also, for individual effects and whatnot, I find little post-it notes to be very handy in keeping things sorted.

Buttmonkey wrote:Abandon individual initiative. Do group initiative for the monsters and party. On the party's turn, start with someone and then go clockwise or counter-clockwise. Reverse direction next round or start on somebody else.

Buttmonkey wrote:Abandon individual initiative. Do group initiative for the monsters and party. On the party's turn, start with someone and then go clockwise or counter-clockwise. Reverse direction next round or start on somebody else. Only roll initiative every 3 or 4 rounds. If a player doesn't announce an action within 2-3 seconds of getting to them, their PC is paralyzed with indecision for the round and you move on to the next player. When combat hits the mop up stage, end the fight and declare the party finished off the remaining mooks without sustaining further injury or expending further resources.

This

Kill the slowest person three times. The other five will get the message.

AGNKim wrote:Kill the slowest person three times. The other five will get the message.

Awesome.

R-

AGNKim wrote:Kill the slowest person three times. The other five will get the message.

Yep, that'll do it!

Captain_K wrote:Any suggestions or advice for keeping a combat with 8 PCs moving? This is an over the table top live game.

We use a dry erase board for initiative tracking.

Some fine general advice all around, but I wonder what is keeping the combat from moving in your game?

I run 9 people in my campaign. For C&C, the combat is so much faster than other versions of the game, but when you have 8-9 people, combat for C&C can slow down due to sheer numbers. Let me ask the question, why is this a problem? Are the players not having fun? Is the CK not having fun with that many players?

If you don't want to change the game itself, perhaps adding a little flavor to combats can keep them from getting stale and making the time to seem to go by faster, or making the time spent during combat more rewarding. Perhaps, describe the action in a little bit more detail. Throw in some colorful adjectives, and as CK, stand up and be a bit more animated.

You could also swing the numbers a little bit more. For example, you could up the damage done to players by the enemies but in turn reduce their HP and or AC to make the combats go faster.

~O

Folks are doing well, having fun, as am I the CK, but we only play for about 3-4 hours once a month so I want to get the most out of it we can. We had 8 PC, one NPC and 16 stirges.. to about one hour for th combat and I had the last 8 fly away.. fun for all, just seems kind of slow and most are fighter types, only one spell caster. I'm trying to get through three groups of encounters in one night next month, we'll see how the above ideas work. If we pull it off, it will be a serious improvement in speed. If the game and fun do not suffer, all the better.

Thanks, Kirk

In my C&C or even D&D games I have the player's roll individual initiative and create a list. Then I use it for at-least two combats then have them re-roll for the third. Which I then use for two combats and repeat. This speeds up the initiative collection part of combat and makes it easier for me. I'll roll for the opponents and put them on my list under "mobs" or "monsters" and generally have them go at the same time for non-extreme and ordinary combats. I have been seriously considering using group initiative again. I did use it sometimes under Second Edition AD&D.

On the initiative front, each PC roles a D10, adds their Dex mod (and another +1 if DEX is a prime). We write them on small dry erase board and one person calls each round who's next and who's on deck. We start highest to lowest and keep cycling it the whole fight. I think the list makes it go as fast as group since each still has to go in some sort of order and this brings it into focus with a non-CK person in charge (usually the most experienced).

One guy offered to bring his Chess clock, we might try that on the shot clock idea.

Great ideas, thanks, Kirk

Once my players roll for initiative, I let the order stand for the duration of the battle, unless someone does something drastic that would make them drop in order. I let the players roll first, and then I roll for the monsters as a group.

AGNKim wrote:Kill the slowest person three times. The other five will get the message.

Choo-choo. Chugga-chugga-chugga...

Well, no.

Ask them once for their immediate action. If they do not have one, skip them -- they do nothing.

Great advice, Kim.