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!)

[el-remmen]

I don't want to sound like one of those uncompromising posters who says "Dealbreaker!" and leaves the table with their toys, but uh. . . that kind of speed would likely be a dealbreaker for me, requiring a discussion about how we can move past that.

 

[el-remmen]

I will say, however, that I am blessed with players who are not on their phones and are always ready when their turn comes around.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I have a few questions: 1) How many players? (That's not in your chart, and I may have missed it in the lead-up); 2) Do you factor in grid setup time? I mean, if you weren't running a combat, you wouldn't have to set up the grid, so I kind of feel like it's part of each combat.

My IRL players drink and talk about world politics. Everything takes forever. But it's part of the comradery of our game, so I put up with it. I'd be curious to try to time the combats like you're doing, though!

 

[TwoSix]

I will say, however, that I am blessed with players who are not on the phones and are always ready when their turn comes around.

It's something that's been discussed here before (as I think you mentioned in the OP), and I've been trying to nail down exactly what the root cause is over the past year or so.

With the understanding that the common denominator in my observations is, of course, me, I don't think I'm the root cause. My turns are routinely speedier than the other players, even when I interject flavor text and extra narrations into my actions. And the games where I DM are generally faster paced than some of my other DMs, although not to the speed I would aspire to.

I've noticed three major aspects that really slow up combat, in increasing order of "fixability".

1) Slow speech patterns. Some....people...just....talk....more....slowly. I have 4 players (across multiple groups) who simply don't talk fast, both in and out-of-game. Nothing like an impairment or a disability; they simply draw out their sentences as part of their normal speech pattern. Telling people to talk faster seems both rude and unlikely to work, so this is something that just has to be accepted.

2) Focus on stunts/negotiations/non-standard actions. I have 5 players (across multiple groups) who like to try something weird at least once or twice a battle. Some weird stunt that involves multiple grapple checks and positioning, trying to talk to the enemies during combat, casting a new spell they've never used before and aren't quite sure of what the implications are, etc., etc. Combine this with a newer DM (2 of my groups have first-time DMs) and trying to do this on online battle maps, and this is the source of a lot of 10+ minute turns.

3) General hesitancy. There are way too many players in my groups (at least half) who express their turns as questions, not statements. "I would like to move here and attack......right?" instead of "I move here and use my action to make 2 attacks, here's my rolls" is way too common an occurrence. This seems like it should get better as people get more familiar with the system, but some people are simply not "rules people". Excellent at in-character dialogue and character inhabitation, but the rules minutiae seems to be a permanent challenge.

 

[el-remmen]

I have a few questions: 1) How many players? (That's not in your chart, and I may have missed it in the lead-up); 2) Do you factor in grid setup time? I mean, if you weren't running a combat, you wouldn't have to set up the grid, so I kind of feel like it's part of each combat.

1. Four players. Some of these combats involved an NPC ally (though to be honest I tend to play those less than optimally, they might take two rounds to make a choice, just moving in-between or say "I'll watch our back for reinforcements!")

2. I did not count set up time. This would make it really difficult to measure properly, tho. Because sometimes I have it pre-set up. Sometimes I have it pre-drawn on 1-inch grid paper and just have to roll it out. Sometimes I draw it on a wet erase, and sometimes wet-erase + scatter terrain. Sometimes (like Sunday's ogre fight) include a full laid out (DIY) terrain piece. I will say, that I am VERY fast at drawing usable/clear wet-erase setting if the battle happens unexpectedly or out in the wilderness. Other times, we will take our 10 minute break (we take one or two depending on session length) and I will do the set-up while folks are getting a smoke or a snack. Most often RP and other tactical planning discussion happens while I am setting up - so very little time is lost.

My IRL players drink and talk about world politics. Everything takes forever. But it's part of the comradery of our game, so I put up with it.

Luckily, my in-person group are also my closest local friends (we moved back to my wife's hometown in 2019), so we all hangout regularly doing non-game things and have a board game night where other spouses are involved (one couple both play in the D&D group, but my wife and another player's are not into RPGs) and those games are a lot more casual with the global politics, etc discussions.

 

[el-remmen]

2) Focus on stunts/negotiations/non-standard actions. I have 5 players (across multiple groups) who like to try something weird at least once or twice a battle. Some weird stunt that involves multiple grapple checks and positioning, trying to talk to the enemies during combat, casting a new spell they've never used before and aren't quite sure of what the implications are, etc., etc. Combine this with a newer DM (2 of my groups have first-time DMs) and trying to do this on online battle maps, and this is the source of a lot of 10+ minute turns.

My games have a lot of this too. I think the average length of a round in my group is slightly misleading because often rounds go by A LOT faster than 6 minutes each (I'm talking 2 minutes or less) - which also means, of course that some rounds (like the ones you describe) take A LOT longer.

 

[GreyLord]

WOW...it seems my games FLY by with combat.

Rounds with 5 players take a little over a minute overall. I'm not sure why it's so much faster with us then others (in this thread).

Even at high level we'd be hard pressed to be over 2 minutes with our rounds. People tend to know what they want to do and have all their numbers added up so when we get to each player it's normally just rolling dice and moving on.

I have a hard time imagining 30 minutes or longer for 5 rounds of combat!

Then again, many of our combats are less than 5 rounds as well. I think the average is somewhere between 2-4 rounds in general.

I must have fast moving games (or fast moving combat) or something.

 

[el-remmen]

I just realized I should try another strategy for timing combats. Record the whole session and then just fast forward to when initiative is called and check the time sig for when it ends - that way I never have to remember to start or stop the timer and can even count the rounds post session if I have to.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

WOW...it seems my games FLY by with combat.

Rounds with 5 players take a little over a minute overall.

Have you timed them? I'm not saying I doubt you, but... that sounds impossible. I can't even imagine anyone being able to articulate what they're doing in that time, far or less decide and roll. Do they all speak at once?

 

[TwoSix]

I just realized I should try another strategy for timing combats. Record the whole session and then just fast forward to when initiative is called and check the time sig for when it ends - that way I never have to remember to start or stop the timer and can even count the rounds post session if I have to.

Yea, I’m kinda tempted to record a few sessions and then do transcripts.