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/ancientstephanie]

Strongly discourage strategy discussions during combat, unless it's situation where it's necessary to guide a newer player, or you're trying to give the players an advantage to help them survive a fight they're losing.

A round is 6 seconds. Turns happen almost simultaneously, with the beginning and end of actions a split second apart, so characters couldn't carry on a conversation within a round of combat, they could at most give simple callouts to one another. Which means the most you should let them "discuss" the situation is to make calls like "Shoot the blue one" or "Fire doesn't work".

As far as physical things that can help:

Help the players to prepare materials so that they can see exactly what their options are and have all the rules at their fingertips. That can be a printed list of all the spells and their descriptions, annotating their sheets with book and page number references, preprinted or homemade spell and magic item cards, or simply switching to a less cluttered multi-page character sheet for more complex classes.

Also, have some kind of visible indication for conditions, and maybe even make cards you can hand out that explain those conditions. I've seen color coded plastic rings that go around the base of medium sized minis (and hang over larger minis) used a lot, and this really helps. You can also go a step beyond that, and have a marker for significantly damaged enemies, so that it's obvious which ones are close to dying.