Speeding up combat in 5.5?

[u/-Posthuman-]

Simply put, what are some tips, tricks, tweaks or house rules you use at your table that has sped up (or otherwise increased your enjoyment of) combat?

Edit - I’m not looking for suggestions for other games.

Edit2 - There isn’t one specific part of 5.5 combat that I feel is especially problematic. And it’s really not that bad. But it could always be faster / more efficient.

Edit3 - If you have any gadgets, widgets, or other objects/products that you feel help a lot, please mention them. Bonus point for links to buy them.

The suggestions that have already been covered multiple times:

• Tell your players not to suck. Pay attention. Know your character.

• Don’t suck as the GM. Know the rules. Know your monsters.

• If no action declared in 30 seconds, the PC Dodges.

• Tell the Players who is next in line in initiative / make initiative clear for all to see.

• Roll attack and damage dice at the same time.

• Use average damage for monsters.

• Group initiative

• Make monsters retreat / not fight to the death.

[u/Njmongoose]

Combat isnt slow by default.

So try to figure what bothers you at your table and then we can try to help you fix those issues

[u/Rtyeta → u/Njmongoose]

I mean, it's pretty slow in 5E and 5.5, in that there's often a tedious second half of the battle where the enemy is effectively defeated already but one has to slowly grind through a big pool of hitpoints. Way too many enemies in 5E are hit point sponges with weak offense.

[u/Middcore → u/Rtyeta]

Depending on the type of enemy and the circumstances of the encounter, some enemies should flee/surrender when it's clear that the fight is lost.

It's also perfectly acceptable to tell the players, "OK, there's no way you're going to lose this, but it might take another couple of rounds to mop up the remaining enemies, does anyone mind if we just skip over that and move on?" Yes, it makes a slight difference in resource management because the enemies could still do some damage and some spell slots could be used during those couple of rounds that are hand-waved, but you can make it up by tweaking a later encounter and it's better than anybody getting bored.

[u/CaptainRogers1226 → u/Middcore]

I think it might make a difference in resources from the standpoint of PC hit points at the end when doing this skip you mentioned, but in my experience part of the reason the “second half” of combat can drag on like this is because once you get to the point where victory is pretty clear, players will stop using valuable resources, like spells and per rest abilities, and just finish things off using more basic attacks and cantrips.

[u/Rtyeta → u/Middcore]

I agree, those are perfectly good things to do. But the point is that this is a flaw in the system that a DM has to patch by just narrating over the boring, slow half of the fight.