How to make things go smoothly: combat & general referencing

[Dalcharis]

So we've been trudging through Andaryan's Revenge, all of us learning ED3 as we go, about to enter the last session or two of that campaign.... they seem to like things generally, I think that we need to figure out something to reference things far more quickly... They're seemingly constantly looking up step dice, searching for them on sheets, losing track of what step is for attacking which one's for damage, relocating their perception step and dice, dunno, it's one thing after another and I think they're getting frustrated and consider the way things too complicated (compared to a d20 system where you roll and add ie Pathfinder). I even have set up obsidian portal pretty extensively so that I can look up talents and skills pretty quickly... but it seems a losing battle there.

Then there's combat:

My little group is having some difficulty with combat, mostly that it often takes a long time to get through, and this is after we've eliminated several things... here's how we're doing it:

1. Everyone rolls initiative
2. Initiative stays the same throughout.
3. We declare actions on the fly, at your turn
4. Any actions that incur a bonus or penalty last until its your turn again.

This seems like it probably eliminates several minutes of combat, but still it drags on. This might be in part due to the characters themselves, as there's only 3 of them. The Troubadour tends to just whiff, the Elementalist spends half her time threadweaving, and the Taildancer either smashes things to pieces in one or two rounds or can't roll for squat. I'm debating things like... if the elementalist is casting Earthdarts, got an excellent/extraordinary threadweaving result (and thus has two threads when it requires one), she could cast Earthdarts once each round for the two threads (and the thread couldn't be used for anything else but that dart).

Perhaps I need to scale back the number of NPCs... I always kept it on the bottom end of what the book says (ie 3-4 cultists instead of all 6), but when the Taildancer goes all SMASH on the little boss in one round instead of whiffing away... it seemed like it totally trivialized the encounter.

I'd love to hear a few ideas as to how people manage to get through combat smoothly and without some resulting groans because it takes so long, I do try and rush through my rolls (most of the NPCS seem to whiff all the time too). I'd also like to see how people managed to make things easier for themselves and their players so they're not constantly shuffling through papers and looking things up everytime something required a roll. I'm debating a massive quick reference 4x4 foot chart at this point with most everything in columns for each character...

[Flowswithdrek]

Some of the ways I speed things up.

Put the Step Chart in large font on your gm screen if you use one so all your players can read it from where they sit so they don’t have to look it up in the book. Do the same with the Combat Options.

When I play I have a list of my favourite attack combos written out so I can see what dice I need.

Declaring your actions at the start of the round could actually speed things up, I find declaring actions on the fly slows the process down. If actions are declared the players have an idea of what they want to do before it’s their go, rather than waiting to see and then coming up with a plan. They can have their dice ready to roll by the time their turn comes around. You don’t have to give details of your action, just something like “I will take out the meanest ork and use the aggressive attack option” I think declaring combat options is important at the start of the round as their positive and negative effects come into force before any one has acted.

Having said all that it took Ardanyan’s Revenge and a few others before my players fully got the hang of the system. Players that switch disciplines between adventures can slow things down too if they don’t know the system well. Give it time!

[arma]

Here's some of my basic advice for "getting into ED":

For the players:
Step Dice are the biggest hurdle for new players, though in essence, it's actually no different than finding what to add to a D20 roll. Get to know the basic step progression. It's always 4:D6 - 5:D8 - 6:D10 - 7:D12 - 8: 2D6. If you know the 4 and the 8, you're usually good nd can extrapolate from there.
Note every time you go up by one step, it's within this progression, with the lowest die being brought up one step (e.g. D12+2D6 plus one step = D12+D8+D6).
As the round is progressing, plan what you're doing and already pick out the dice. Maybe even put your what you typically use all the time (for example, for a spellcaster, have your Spellcasting and threadweaving dice ready constantly.), or write them up on a small piece of paper.

For the GM:
Often, it's actually the GM slowing things down because he goes into too many details. NPCs and opponents don't deserve as much time to do their stuff as the players. Keep them simpler, don't let them use all of their possibilities all the time, and don't roll for things that are likely to succeed anyway or have little chance to succeed at all (e.g. if an opponent has a Knockdown step of 6, don't roll it against a 1 or a 12+, just say he makes it or doesn't). Now, this should be handled differently if you have a group of mooks or a single elite opponent. Sometimes, having a single opponent can also make things go faster, so consider that (your group setup also kind of lends itself to that, e.g. the Taildancer is a duelist, the magician is always better against tougher opponents because of... well that takes to long to explain right now... and the Troubadour is a support character -- your group will be good at buffing/debuffing, but these help the most against single tougher opponents and are less efficient against groups of opponents; against groups you need multi-attacks and area of effect or "rank targets" spells, all of which your group will only really get in the Journeyman Level).
Putting out your dice ahead of time applies to the GM too, and it sometimes pays out to just equalize similar steps (for example, if an opponent has Attack 15 and Damage 17, just use Step 16 for both).

For the game:
- use result modifiers, not step modifiers
- consider ignoring combat options

[Penagain]

To expand on what Arma said: Sometimes with new players, I take a piece of paper and divide it into quadrants. In the first quadrant, I put their primary attack dice (we write the step, the dice, and then physically KEEP the dice in that square on the piece of paper on the table during play). In the second, their primary damage dice. In the third, I put their Perception die/dice, and then we put their Most Useful Talent (depending on the character) in the fourth. Yes, it requires a few extra dice than a basic set of polyhedrals, but then these are primed and you only need to look up the exceptions, rather than the common tasks.

For one player who can't seem to memorize what the dice types look like (It's been a long journey with this one...) we even draw pictures. BUt that's just silly.

As to combat-- I think you've done some good simplification work yourself, and Arma's advice is spot-on... but combat in ED is a bit slower than in other games, largely because every opponent has a reasonable amount of health. If that's a problem for you, you can always strip Death Rating from the non-central opposition. My creatures get notably smaller Death Ratings the later in the night the combat begins

[slayride]

Additional help in speeding up combat:

Take the step, Initiative is the step number for gamemaster opponents. So a creature with an Initiative Step of 6 goes at 6. Using playing cards to represent initiative is useful, you use the card with the appropriate number then flip it down after acting, helps with the initiative phase and keeping track of who has acted.

Mook rule, non-central opposition can be taken down in one hit if it equals their wound threshold, or an amount of damage equal to their KO rating, a large number of scrapes and bruises defeating them. So 1 wound = down for the count for mooks.

Poker chips, small poker chips from axis and allies. Put them underneath characters to represent penalties and bonuses as a visual aid in two different colors. 2 red= -2 harried. 1 blue = +1 attack from tactics, etc.

Gamemaster characters (taking the step further). When going up against each other gamemaster characters just take their step. So a 9 attack versus a Physical Defense of 8 is a hit. Damage 11 saber - 6 armor = 5. So on his turn, the ally or enemy who takes this attack takes 5 damage and we move on, rather than give any time in the limelight to the gamemaster characters.

[The_Gun_Nut]

I like the poker chip idea.

[Mataxes]

Yeah, one thing to keep in mind is that most people will not fight to the death/unconsciousness. An idea I've seen borrowed from one edition or another of Shadowrun was to give opponents a "threat rating" that would represent a 'break point' for them. As Slayride says above -- a number of wounds equal to this number causes them to surrender/flee. Most animals will behave in a similar manner. Of course, not all opponents will behave this way (undead, constructs, and simple horrors for example).

[Dalcharis]

Thanks guys, I'll try a few combinations of these I think. I've been using the idea of the baddies fleeing in the event that they're outnumbered and injured (or saw all their buddies severely injured), and their boss is down... which generally allows for two to flee. I figure most creatures will likely flee after 2-3 wounds or half health unless cornered.

I did make up a detailed list of attacks and dice rolls for the taildancer since there were just so friggin' many options, and each adding different modifiers as it went along. I made one up for the elementalist, but I think she left it at home last game, I think I'll keep it with me instead.

[Telarus_KSC]

I've been toying with the idea of "Power Cards" (ala that other game).

Not pre-filled ones, just blanks for people to fill in their own attack detail/combat options, or even a string of (combat option)+Talent/Skill combos. Haven't worked out the format I like yet tho.

I also have a mass-combat style Unit/Swarm rules that I had been playtesting thro (basically uses the "1 wound dropped a mook" rule, but allows you to roll one attack roll for the whole group and scale attack and damage step based on how many targets they attempt to hit). I'll have to re-post that for the new forum.