30 minutes a turn? I've played tabletop DnD for years and we never had combats take quite that long! A couple of suggestions: 1. Especially with newer players, start at low level! I've seen this mistake with other DMs where they want to "show how cool" the game is and start at 12th level or something. A 12th level character has quite a few more options than a 1st level character. If the player has actually been using that character to 12th level, they've gotten used to the majority of their abilities through weeks or months of gaming. When someone has to go through all the options, especially spellcasters in the case of Pathfinder or just about anyone if 4e DnD, it can take a long time. You can make a game "epic" with low level characters and honestly DnD games tend to be balanced a bit better from the 1-10 range. 2. Know the rules. As the DM it really helps if you are as familiar as you can be with all the rules. It's OK to have to look something up that is uncommon (grappling, swimming, flying, effects of cold weather, etc.) but you should have a general idea of the rule and where it is. As the DM you should understand combat rules forwards and backwards. If a player is taking a long time trying to figure out what to do, ask them what they're trying to accomplish, and then translate it into rules for them. I recently played a one-off Pathfinder game with my wife and a friend using the Crow's Nest Island adventure. My wife had never played Pathfinder or any tabletop roleplaying game before. My friend has been playing almost as long as I have. He was able to act a bit quicker in combat but for them most part the fact that she didn't know the rules or her character (I gave her the fighter just to make it easier...) didn't matter. I had her describe generally what she wanted to try, gave her a couple of options and how to do them, told her what to roll, and she had a great time having never opened a single Pathfinder book. The rules should be a facilitator to your game...if they're slowing you down or holding you back, it may be worth just changing them to be easier! 3. Roll20 specific: It may be worth just making macros for your players. Go into their character sheets, create abilities that use their common rolls, and have them use those. They can add them to their macro bar just like other macros (I almost never use the standard macros for character abilities). It's kind of the easy way out but it gets the job done. One advantage is it gives them sample macros; they can copy and modify your macros to make their own. Sometimes it's a little bit easier (especially if you aren't used to programming or syntax) to see an example rather than trying to make one from scratch. Keep in mind that players can enter your campaign without you there. Consider making a "test" map with player tokens and nothing else. At the end of your session move the players there. That way between sessions they can log in and "play" with their character, testing macros and rolls, saving time during your actual sessions. Just remember to put a "The session ends!" and "The session begins!" (or whatever) statement in the chat log, via an emote or whatever, so you don't get confused when there's a bunch of die rolls you don't remember =). 4. Roll20 specific: Finally, make sure you're using all of Roll20's extra tools to help speed up combat. For DnD-style games I use Bar 1 for HP, Bar 2 for AC, and Bar 3 for counters/timers. For flanking I use the ruler to see if it draws a line through the token. Your players should never be confused about what a particular ability or action is going to do (or has potential to do). 5. Finally, and this is up to GM preference, I encourage players to discuss combat OOC. Sure, it's not the most realistic (you don't exactly have the ability to discuss battle tactics in 6 seconds during the heat of battle!) but I feel it helps keep players who aren't currently on their action engaged. If the next player in the turn order is discussing the current player's strategy they are more likely to already be thinking of how their turn will compliment that action. I just justify it in the context of a "team" of heroes...real heroes wouldn't have to think for 30 minutes about what to do with their action and would have practice fighting together. The tactics are "plays" that the team would already know...the players are the ones holding them back! If players are taking too long to discuss the tactics, or spending too much time rule lawyering or agonizing over crazy plans, make a judgement call and step in. I like to give players feedback on their discussions. When a player mentions "I'm thinking about doing this..." I tell them "You can do that, it could cause this..." I think about what a character would probably know and give feedback to the player. As an example, I once had a level 5 rogue player decided she wanted to charge a troll in the first round of combat. I told her that it was probably a bad idea...the troll was big and scary, and her character was more of a stealthy, stab-in-the-back type of character, but she wanted to do it anyway to get the flat-footed sneak attack. She charged the troll, got her sneak attack, the troll attacked back, critted and got full rend damage, and instantly killed her. Did it suck? Yeah. She wasn't happy when I made her reroll her character. But she never charged trolls in leather armor again, and couldn't say I didn't warn her. Hope that helps, and good luck!
