[D&D 3.5]Streamlining Minionmancy: How to make multiple Minionmancers play fast?

[Cieyrin]

I think the title states it all. We all know how bogged down a combat gets when a player or DM has lots of critters to run or summons them up or has Leadership (:smalleek:). How do we defuse that situation so if a game starts culminating from small scale skirmish up into clashes of warbands, the combat doesn't grind to a halt as somebody starts flipping through pages of stats or takes tens of minutes perfectly situating their minions for the most efficient evisceration of the current obstacle.

I'm looking for ways of simplifying statblocks, altering initiative so more than one person can act at a time so one person doesn't move 50 creatures in one initiative count, etc.

So Playground, how do we Minionmance quickly enough so the rest of the party doesn't break out the videogames while you play Sun Tzu?

[Aemoh87]

I make it easy by killing all my Adventurers followers if they aren't careful.

As for the rest there are three categories:

1. The Fight Breakers:
summon a horde of angels to blast a powerful foe... well we don't need to roll it up if the foe is obviously dead.

2. The Equal Participants:
These are the summons and cohorts who deserve a turn to fight because they are near equal to everything else on the battlefield.

3. The Fodder:
I do these like swarm damage because they aren't powerful enough to have an effect on the fight unless in huge numbers. So it's easier to divide their max damage by their chance to hit (which is usually 1/20), then multiply it by the amount of them. They do not deserve individual HP, Initiative, or turns.

[Cieyrin]

Y'know, I think I'm going to shift fulling into homebrew, like this thread should have been. Further discussion should carry on here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10486095#post10486095). Feel free to lock/delete this thread, mods.

[NecroRick]

If you have a bunch of low level minions to roll for, you could revive an old Shadowrun technique, and get out 'ye old bucket of dice'. You can roll to hit and damage at the same time if you have different colour d20s that match with same coloured d6s or d8s or dwhatever. For simplicity, don't even bother asking about anything that is under a roll of 15 on the d20.

Also if using miniatures, consider mounting a bunch of them on a shared base.

[Eldan]

Perhaps give them fewer or weaker minions, but apply the mob template? That makes them effectively one creature. Roll bard, buff and any other kind of bonus just into that.

[Jayabalard]

takes tens of minutes perfectly situating their minions for the most efficient evisceration of the current obstacle.This one has a simple solution: use an timer and tell them that they have 1 minute to declare what their character and all of their minions are going to do in the round. When the time is up, you're moving to the next person.

I'm not saying that it's necessarily the best solution... but it is a solution.

[mikau013]

I'd let minions use their average stats (fex if half has 14 str and half 10, I'd ask if I could play them as with 12 str for ease of play) if there are a lot of them or just use average rolls but also delay their action so they all act at the same time with similiar actions and stats.

Thus if they are really weak they bunch up and use the aid action to grant a defence or an attack bonus.

If they are stronger I usually just try to move them all at once still and just roll their attacks together.

Or just assign some to other players, thus that if I have 8 minions and 3 other players that we all controll 2 minions.