Comments on: D&D 4e Combat Tips

By: MadBrew

MadBrew — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 01:05:05 +0000

@Chuck: Hehe, well welcome back! Glad to see the pipe cleaners in action!

@Chris: What would be slick is to create some sort of laminated character cards that can be hung on the screen with check boxes for bloodied, marked, etc., and then you can use wet or dry erase markers on them. While I’m not one for revealing monster stats, I could see where it might speed things up, but then it might make it more difficult to add descriptive damage later.

By: Chris Cumming

Chris Cumming — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:46:06 +0000

Tried out a very similar init card idea in my last session that sped things up. Instead of using it like a deck of cards to shuffle through, I hung them on the top of my DM screen and wrote on the back the character’s defenses, and notes on HP/conditions/marks/etc. I’m going to try putting the same thing on Monster cards in the next game and actually expose the creature’s defenses to the players on the opposite side of the board. That way the players can easily tell me if they hit. Next step encouraging descriptive attacks rather than ‘an 18! I hit, thats 24 dmg’.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 22:23:58 +0000

Hilarious. Jonathan linked here in his weekly around the blogs post today. I dutifully came ’round and read this. I thought “hmm, I should really tell him about the condition cards at dragon avenue and how we’ve used pipe cleaners.”

Then I read comment #2… from me.

I at least have something to add at this point. We started using pipe cleaners and a few months back I posted about it with a picture: http://neartpk.blogspot.com/2008/10/tracking-ongoing-effects-on-cheap.html

Chuck’s last blog post..Weekly What the Heck

By: MadBrew

MadBrew — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:02:13 +0000

I’ve noticed that the BlogTopSites counter at the bottom seems to take a while to load sometimes.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:50:16 +0000

Madbrew... just Stumbled this page today. Haha! Just wanted to let you know that there's a script running somewhere on this page that is cuasing load times to be kinda long (30s or so). Just FYI. jonathan’s last blog post..RPG Anthology Weekly Update

By: madbrewlabs

madbrewlabs — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:51:48 +0000

@ Jonathan While I never made the jump to disallowing rulebooks, I think its a grand idea, and I am also all for shaving time off turns.

@ Chuck Thanks for the link to additional resources! I dig the picture of the “You are Dominated” condition card.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:24:25 +0000

There are a lot of good resources at http://www.dragonavenue.com/dnd/resources/

The Condition Cards by Jim Goings are especially worth a look.

I love the pipe cleaner idea for marked, bloodied and ongoing damage (which either aren’t covered by the condition cards or in the case of marked aren’t covered well in that format)

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:47:56 +0000

At my table – the following “helps things go faster” rules apply to the players (not the DM):

1) no rulebooks allowed. If its not on your character sheet and you don’t know what it does, how it works, or where you put it – then it’s up to the DM and the DM’s spot-ruling holds. Period. Write down what you missed, and look it up later.

2) 15 seconds to decide what to do on your turn. The 15s rule is golden. Your turn may TAKE longer (rolling dice, resolving effects, etc) but if you dont start taking actions after 15s, then I usually say “OK… Milli the Mage stands there in shock at all the blood everywhere; bewildered by the scene – she looses her turn. Moving on, Sir JamminFast, you’re up next.” Since we keep the initiative order on a magnet board for everyone to see there should be no reason for someone to not know what they are doing on their turn when it comes up. This is a major time saver, and … people “feel” the frantic pace of combat at times – making mistakes in judgement, and dealing with the consequences. Fun times…
3) All power on stat cards (like you suggested). When you use a daily or encounter power, you give it to the DM.

I LOVE the idea of NAME cards. I think I’m going to have to put this into effect. Nothing like asking a player what there [SKILL] level is when you want have a creep sneek past them, stab them, surprise them, etc.