Average Length of Combats [Poll]

[Creampuff]

My group is averaging 19th level now, so our fights last 2 or 3 rounds if you don't consider the rounds spent inside of timestop as rounds. A quickened haste followed by time stop allows one of our parties wizard to cast 4-10 spells on the first round (ignoring his other quickened spells). When the other party wizard follows suit, it is difficult for opponents to stand up to that for long.

 

[arwink]

I picked six because it was a roundish number, but I can't actually peg down a standard length for a fight. It lasts as long as it lasts, and some fights will be a two round anihilation while others will be drawn out, tactical whittling of hit points for a dozen rounds or more.

 

[Tyberious Funk]

This stunned me, as I can only recall two or three combats in my entire playing of 3E in the last few years to go that long...and one of them was when we were less familiar with the rules, so that somewhat extended it to a RW time of almost 7 hours.

I voted 12+, although we often have multiple encounters within a 'combat period'. However, what I find more telling is length of RW time a combat takes. 7 hours is a marathon, though I can appreciate your point about being unfamiliar with the rules. Sadly, we are averaging in the vicinity of 3+ hours for each combat at the moment... if you exclude intra-party skirmishes

 

[hammymchamham]

I don't know my average. I've had combats that lasted 1 round and combats that have lasted 20+ rounds.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

In the 3 or so years (is it that long already?) that I've been playing 3e I've had maybe five combats last more than 6 rounds. D&D battles are damn fast if you think about the six-second round thing, but they still take just as much, if not more time in real-life as they did in previous editions.

 

[hong]

In this thread: about Haste , Simulacrum mentioned that he thought that combats that ran 3-4 rounds was 'Diablo 2' D&D, as he had never played a combat that ran less than 12.

Simulacrum is either talking out of his hat, or he's running battles involving huge hordes of combatants. I think I've had maybe half a dozen fights that went longer than 10 rounds (1 minute), in the time since 3E came out. And I've been in LOTS of battles.

 

[Lela]

Re: Re: Average Length of Combats [Poll]

Simulacrum is either talking out of his hat, or he's running battles involving huge hordes of combatants. I think I've had maybe half a dozen fights that went longer than 10 rounds (1 minute), in the time since 3E came out. And I've been in LOTS of battles.

You know, come to think of it, the post did seem a off. Maybe his hat is getting a little lighter.

 

[el-remmen]

Stats for my “Out of the Frying Pan” Game

I was able to collect these stats because of the excellent game log that one of my players keeps (Thanks Helene!)

These stats are taken from a period of 12 sessions and includes 21 combats.

The shortest combat: 1 round (the spider thought it had the jump on them, boy was it surprised!)

The Longest Combat: 32 rounds (There were two that were 31 rounds long –and if you count the 10 minute wait in the middle of a combat while both sides waited for an obscuring mist to fade away, then even longer).

Average # of Round Per Combat: 12.7

If I omit the longest and the shortest, it doesn’t make much of a difference to the average.

I wish now I had kept track of the individual numbers when I counted them up so I could find the mean. Oh well. But I seem to remember that they were mostly nines, tens, and thirteens.

Only two or three were less than 5. It seems strange to me that a combat could be done in less than five rounds. What fun is that? And for the record, the longest combat was a party of six against a single opponent (a manticore).

Oh, and you can read about the these 21 combats in Sessions #24 thru #36 in my "Out of the Frying Pan" story hour!

 

[hong]

Only two or three were less than 5. It seems strange to me that a combat could be done in less than five rounds. What fun is that?

Because standing there, hacking at enemies round after round, isn't a lot of fun.

I think your numbers might be a bit skewed because your campaign is relatively low-level (6th-7th?). In my experience, combats tend to be short when first starting out, because nobody really has that many hit points. They last longer when you gain a few levels, as things like magic armour, buff spells, etc make an appearance). When you get to the _really_ high levels though, say 12th or higher, the combats become pretty short once again. You have fighters capable of dishing out 100+ points of damage per round, wizards flinging off instakill spells, etc. With that sort of firepower on the battlefield, fights almost _have_ to be short.

D&D is all about the damage.

 

[el-remmen]

Because standing there, hacking at enemies round after round, isn't a lot of fun.

Well, if you play/describe them like that OF COURSE they are no fun. But part of the fun of the tactical portion of the game for me - is unique twists on combat situations and environs. For example, in the manticore combat I mentioned, there was a clunky flyer with missile weapons, against the party using an abandoned and crumbling manor as cover

D&D is all about the damage.

It most certainly isn't.