Yeah - if you're trying to handicap your speed, that's the way to do it!
Cheers,
Merric
D&D 5E Length of Combat & Time Taken per Round (collecting data from my games - updated 3/13 with an hour 30 minute 11 round battle!)
Cheers,
Merric
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
We finally got to play my Primordial Evil in-person campaign again this past Sunday and our four and a half hour session had two combats both of which occurred before noon on the same in-game day. The second combat went 11 rounds and has to be one of the longest (in terms of time) combats this group has had. It is definitely top five and probably top three. Technically, we haven't even finished it yet because we left off in initiative with the party fleeing (though they should get away).
These kinds of combats are nothing new to me and my style of running D&D. As an extreme example, in my "Out of the Frying Pan" 3E campaign that ran from 2001 to 2006, we had a running combat that started at the end of one session, went the entire next five-hour session, and then finished about forty minutes into the session after that (and I will add that it was among the most fun and role-playing intense combats/sessions the group ever had).
Anyway, here is the data:
* there was also a bugbear leader, but he never joined the fight, believing his underlings should take the risk first.
Encounter 8 occurred on a narrow mountain path along a stony ledge with snow piled up against the cliff face on the left, and dropping off into the canyon 120' deep on the right. At its widest point there was an approximately 25' x 25' ledge, but the path leading to it was only 15 feet wide and the path in the direction the PCs were going it was only 8 feet wide. "Acid Face" (the peryton that survived encounter 5) tracked the party down, showing up days away from where they fought, with two more its kind. He wore the scar of the tabaxi druid's acid arrow attack in the last combat and had it in for her. I had the perytons use the tactic of the first one drawing the party's attention in one direction having the party think it was alone, while the other two flew over the mountain and surprised from the rear starting in round 2. In the end, "Acid-Face" was killed via a critical hit arrow as it tried to flee again, as was another, but the new potential peryton nemesis, "Moose" (I used a tiny toy moose to represent it since I only have two peryton minis), got away unscathed).
Encounter 9 was a protracted fight that unfortunately 1. my players did not approach strategically enough, and 2. was a little flabby in terms of time because of both other unavoidable non-game stuff (like my wife brought down the toddler to say hi to everyone when she woke up from her nap) and there were an unusual number of rules questions that I think arose from the players trying to think of ways to approach the fight. They found the bugbears and goblins in a tall ancient white tower with no windows (save for some glass brick style one on the roof). There were pair of ramshackle wooden doors that were clearly not of the original architecture. Only one person in the party has darkvision and unless a PC was right in the doorway they could not see the goblin archers along the open stair on the rear wall, but the goblins (looking out into the light) could see them. I lost track of how many times those doors were opened and closed and at different times there were dueling entangle spells on each side of them! The party paladin went down three times and the tabaxi druid went down once. The party managed to defeat two of the bugbears and three of the goblins but decided to retreat anyway, betting on the goblins not following, and being able to get into a better position if they do. Of course, if they retreat and rest up, the bugbears and goblins will too. We will take it up where we left off next time (unfortunately not until April).
In terms of the round by round breakdown (as opposed to averages), it went like this:
Encounter 8
rd 0 1:38
rd 1 6:48
rd 2 9:46
rd 3 11:21
rd 4 8:04
rd 5 3:54
Encounter 9
rd 0 2:10
rd 1 9:30
rd 2 5:21
rd 3 8:38
rd 4 13:50
rd 5 11:33
rd 6 9:01
rd 7 9:26
rd 8 10:05
rd 9 6:37
rd 10 8:01
rd 11 6:07
In terms of feel, the second fight did not feel as long as it actually was and I was surprised when I realized that it has been over an hour and a half (and still going)! Looking at the numbers, encounter 8's average time per round is nearly 2 minutes longer than the average of the previous averages (6:15), and encounter 9 is nearly 3 minutes longer per round on average. It will be interesting to see if this upward trend continues or if it was a fluke and/or a result of that day's mood and focus, or if it gets faster as the players learn their characters better.
I will have the final data on encounter 9 after the next time we play.
These kinds of combats are nothing new to me and my style of running D&D. As an extreme example, in my "Out of the Frying Pan" 3E campaign that ran from 2001 to 2006, we had a running combat that started at the end of one session, went the entire next five-hour session, and then finished about forty minutes into the session after that (and I will add that it was among the most fun and role-playing intense combats/sessions the group ever had).
Anyway, here is the data:
Session # | Encounter # | # of Characters | Encounter Type | Combat Type | Party Level | IG Rounds | Initiative | RW Time | Average / Rd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
13 | 7 | 4 PCs | 3 perytons | G | 3 | 5 | 1:38 | 41:31 | 7:59 |
13 | 8 | 4 PCs | 2 bugbears, 1 bugbear druid, 10 goblin archers* | G | 3 | 11 | 2:10 | 1:39:59 | 8:54 |
* there was also a bugbear leader, but he never joined the fight, believing his underlings should take the risk first.
Encounter 8 occurred on a narrow mountain path along a stony ledge with snow piled up against the cliff face on the left, and dropping off into the canyon 120' deep on the right. At its widest point there was an approximately 25' x 25' ledge, but the path leading to it was only 15 feet wide and the path in the direction the PCs were going it was only 8 feet wide. "Acid Face" (the peryton that survived encounter 5) tracked the party down, showing up days away from where they fought, with two more its kind. He wore the scar of the tabaxi druid's acid arrow attack in the last combat and had it in for her. I had the perytons use the tactic of the first one drawing the party's attention in one direction having the party think it was alone, while the other two flew over the mountain and surprised from the rear starting in round 2. In the end, "Acid-Face" was killed via a critical hit arrow as it tried to flee again, as was another, but the new potential peryton nemesis, "Moose" (I used a tiny toy moose to represent it since I only have two peryton minis), got away unscathed).
Encounter 9 was a protracted fight that unfortunately 1. my players did not approach strategically enough, and 2. was a little flabby in terms of time because of both other unavoidable non-game stuff (like my wife brought down the toddler to say hi to everyone when she woke up from her nap) and there were an unusual number of rules questions that I think arose from the players trying to think of ways to approach the fight. They found the bugbears and goblins in a tall ancient white tower with no windows (save for some glass brick style one on the roof). There were pair of ramshackle wooden doors that were clearly not of the original architecture. Only one person in the party has darkvision and unless a PC was right in the doorway they could not see the goblin archers along the open stair on the rear wall, but the goblins (looking out into the light) could see them. I lost track of how many times those doors were opened and closed and at different times there were dueling entangle spells on each side of them! The party paladin went down three times and the tabaxi druid went down once. The party managed to defeat two of the bugbears and three of the goblins but decided to retreat anyway, betting on the goblins not following, and being able to get into a better position if they do. Of course, if they retreat and rest up, the bugbears and goblins will too. We will take it up where we left off next time (unfortunately not until April).
In terms of the round by round breakdown (as opposed to averages), it went like this:
Encounter 8
rd 0 1:38
rd 1 6:48
rd 2 9:46
rd 3 11:21
rd 4 8:04
rd 5 3:54
Encounter 9
rd 0 2:10
rd 1 9:30
rd 2 5:21
rd 3 8:38
rd 4 13:50
rd 5 11:33
rd 6 9:01
rd 7 9:26
rd 8 10:05
rd 9 6:37
rd 10 8:01
rd 11 6:07
In terms of feel, the second fight did not feel as long as it actually was and I was surprised when I realized that it has been over an hour and a half (and still going)! Looking at the numbers, encounter 8's average time per round is nearly 2 minutes longer than the average of the previous averages (6:15
), and encounter 9 is nearly 3 minutes longer per round on average. It will be interesting to see if this upward trend continues or if it was a fluke and/or a result of that day's mood and focus, or if it gets faster as the players learn their characters better.I will have the final data on encounter 9 after the next time we play.
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
I confess I have no practical use for all this info, but it's still interesting to see it. If nothing else I guess it'll help if I ever get organized enough to do some similar data collection on a game I actually play, so thanks for that.
el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
I must confess that I also have no real practical use for all this info despite being the one collecting it. I was just curious. The only thing I think I have decisively figured out from doing it so far, is that feeling and engagement in combat matters more to if a combat feels like "a slog" than the actual length of the combat does.
The question then becomes, how can I maintain that feeling and engagement? I think I have figured it out for my group (so far) - but maybe it is the kind of thing that each DM/group has to figure out for themselves.
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
Nothing wrong with that. Curiosity drives discovery. Discovery drives progress.
That matches my experiences. Subjective perception of the passage of time is frequently much more important than objective reality. The trick is to get the whole table on the same "clock" so some folks don't feel like things are dragging while others are having a grand old time and couldn't be happier.
I think it probably is or the gaming community would likely have "solved" the problem long ago. There are some things that work to increase engagement for most folks most of the time, but nothing does so for everyone all the time.
At least with D&D 5e it's relatively easy to find players to collect data from. My own interests in this kind of analysis currently center on the Sentinel Comics RPG, which is...ah...not blessed with such a large fan base, to put it mildly.
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