M dude I ' ve put an almost embarrassing amount of thought into that myself . <| sep |> Some of this comes off as you telling them how to play their game . To address some of your points Playing without a battle map can work with smaller groups , but when you ' re talking about 6 or 7 players , exact positioning can become important , especially when dealing with AOE spells . Matt does remind players that they ' re up next and I think most of the time the players are deciding on their actions beforehand look at Vax when he says I do this , then this , then this . Sometimes , though , the turn before yours can mess up your plans and you ' re forced to revise on the fly . As a player , I ' d hate this . Rolling for damage is half the fun of combat . The high rolls are exciting , the low ones disappointing , and the fun is not knowing what you ' re going to get . Matt threatens skipping players turns when they start to take too long to decide on their action . This usually works in getting them to choose a course of action . That seems to work fine rather than actually skipping them which is no fun for the players Matt ' s players , when they have multiple attacks , tend to roll all their attacks one after the other and then only roll damage dice for the ones that hit . I think this is more efficient than rolling attacks with damage especially with all the extra dice some players need to roll . They do double damage dice on criticals , so no issue there . Matt does sometimes take the average roll for things like dragon breath weapons . But , like with player damage , part of the fun is the randomness of damage . It ' s exciting when the monster rolls low damage on you when you ' re low on life and excruciating when it rolls high damage to knock off half your HP . Matt loves building their 3 D battle maps and we love seeing his creations the players too ! . In the last fight I think the 3 D map helped the players understand the lay of the land better Sam said so in Talks Machina . Let Matt have his fun ! Listen , I understand that combat can be a grind to watch at times . The only times my mind wanders is during combat . But this is a game , first and foremost , for the players . And they ' re having fun and that ' s all that counts . And , for some viewers , combat is their favourite part of the game . Even if you find combat to be a grind , putting up with an occasional long combat is a small price to pay for all the hours of entertainment the rest of the show offers !