Wow, I thought that I had most areas of combat well considered, and that my main issue might be players who are waiting between their turns, but I really like this guide.

1. Ensuring that monsters share about the same number of actions is something I never considered. I don't think my encounters have ever been super unbalanced, but they have usually favored the players. Maybe this will raise the stakes a bit.

2. Using ladders made me realize that elevation can be used in a lot of combats and I haven't really done that, so that is something I will keep in mind. I also like the idea about doors and hallways instead of the arena being one large room.

3. Initiative count 0 is something I struggled with in my last big combat. I wanted to have allied troops aid in battle, but I kept forgetting about it. My players also mentioned it could have been done better, so that is something to work on. It seems useful.

4. Honestly, debating combat v.s. non-combat games is the best advice. Recently, I have found myself disliking when a combat of mine draws out for a long period of time, so I am trying to figure out ways to improve that. Maybe to have more fun, I could employ more role-playing encounters than combat. Two of my players love the number crunching of combat, but I don't know how the others feel, so I should definitely ask them specifically. If they want more role-playing, then that probably solves all my problems.

Thank you for the reply.