need combat to be much quicker

[agumathebear]

hey all, i just moved and im still playing d&d with my buddies (i now live in a different state) but we do it on msn or skype (depending on if they want to use webcam or not) and i was wondering if there was sort of a battle resolver or even better, an old school style final fantasy ish battle system.

all i need is to be able to input how much damage the weapons do (for instance d8), preferably what spells do, but if it cant do that then i can just actually use combat for that part, and input hp, armor, etc.

anyone know of something like this? because combat takes like 45 freaking minutes to kill a single enemy online :(

Thanks much!

[Knaight]

Maptools provides several things, not the last of them mapping software via shared program. Among these is something called a macro, which would let everyone roll dice in public (removing the results reading phase) as well as adding whatever must be added. That said, if you switch away from D&D odds are combat speeds up.

[agumathebear]

thanks but ive used maptools before, im not really looking for world-creation stuff jsut stuff to speed up combat.

basically, take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8FlpqaHP4Y&feature=related

basically what im looking for is something where the players can go through their inventory, select what attack or item or magic or action they want to perform and then it simply rolls. it doesnt have to be d&d in fact i havent started the campaign (im starting a new one) and obviously it doesnt have to be pixelated and have graphics, it could just be like...a java based web-program or something with just text, i really dont care, but that's what i'd prefer.

either that or just a combat resolver, where i just input the player's stats and the monster's stats and it says who wins or loses (id like to stray away from taht but if it means speeding up killing the obviously weaker enemies then sure)

[DracoDei]

MapTool never struck me as having much, if anything, to do with what I call "World Building". I have seen the functionality you described built into it, although we did also use it for the map and the dialogue.

Could y'all meet on IRC? I think I know of a place that has a good programmable dice-bot.

[Draz74]

Yeah, if you know some programming (or if you're willing to hike the learning curve to learn to use lmarkus' programmed framework), then you can basically program all of D&D combat rules into MapTool. After the initial investment of effort, that could potentially make combat really fast.

Other than that, I'd agree that switching away from D&D is probably the best idea. My fascination with Risus has decreased over time, but I still think it's a great system for online play, due to its speed and simplicity.

[Cidolfas]

Mechanically speaking, ratcheting up the game balance coul make combat go faster in terms of the number of rounds it takes. Incorporating save-or-die effects is a pretty simple way to do that. Probably results in significantly less die-rolling too.

[Mayhem]

Rolling the d20 along with damage dice and all that speeds things along. Adding hit points up from zero also helps, most people are better at addition than subtraction and doesn't change anything.
This (http://www.penpaperpixel.org/tools/d20dicebag.htm) is a great virtual dicebag, just open up new browser tabs for each weapon and effect.

[Mutazoia]

check out http://www.kloogeinc.com/

[Toofey]

I would look at the combat system you're using and see what you can strip out (for instance I don't use weapon speeds/use times or casting times when I DM 2nd ed, because with higher level players that's part of what slows the game down) I would also say this is the sort of situation where you should just tell the players the ACs they have to hit, so they do what they need to do without replies and give you and end damage

hope that helps

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

3.5 D&D usually does that just fine as long as the players know their math. (If they're refusing to learn the rules, then you need to step in as the GM and tell them, "write '1d20+4' and '1d8+3' on your character sheet next to your longsword, and don't ask me what to roll for damage next time.")

If a player is humming and hawing about what to do on his round, politely ask him if he wants to postpone his turn while he thinks about it (3.5 D&D has the Delay action for this.) I did this in my last campaign, and it worked great. Everyone learned very quickly that they couldn't hold up combat just to decide what to do, and things went very smoothly. Players paid attention during combat, and already had their actions decided when it was their round.

You also have to be willing to "wing it" as a GM if you don't want to pause the game for 10 minutes to look up an obscure rule. Just make a ruling on the fly, and write down a note to look up the actual rules later. Of course, since you're on the Internet, this might not be a problem if you use a reference site like d20srd.org.

I'm reasonably sure that these same principles apply to 4e D&D.

As for software, you should probably use maptools or any of the other things that have been mentioned here. For my last campaign, the two guys owned a TV with a VGA connection, so I just drew up the map using GIMP and put each token on a seperate layer and moved them around like that. I'd use VNC for this sort of thing, or possibly some sort of desktop-webcam software.

You can run a D&D game with no map, provided you're willing to make quick and dirty rulings on things like reach weapons and ranged attacks.

For dice, most chat clients have some kind of dice-rolling software built in, or you could get a client plugin. If you trust your players, just have them roll their own dice or use random number generators.

[Hawriel]

crystal ball light is a roller for gamers. It has macros that you can save in a file. It can be rolled in the open or private between players and GM.

http://www.crystalballsoft.com/cblite.html

The demo is free, and does not expire. It has just about every thing you will need to play a game with.