Wrong facts about D&D3 combat?

[Bullgrit]

Things that are regularly said about D&D3 combat that I just don’t see in my games:

Combats take a long time – we seem to naturally pace about 3-5 minutes per combat round.

Combats are short, 1-3 rounds – we regularly experience 4-8 rounds of combat, with some going up to 10+, only occasionally 3 or less.

Combat is the PCs vs. one opponent – we regularly fight multiple enemies, usually 3-6, sometimes a dozen or more, only occasionally just 1.

I regularly keep track of all the combat encounter stats when I DM, so my above numbers are based on actual facts, written down at the time, not based on estimation or feel. For instance, the past two game sessions from our current adventure (I’m the DM), the 4 PCs have fought opponents numbering: 10, 2, 9, 4, 6, 9, 1.

As a group, we’ve never intentionally worked to make the above happen, it’s just the natural way our combats evolve. So every time I read someone state the apparently “accepted facts” that D&D3 combats take a long time to play out, last only a couple of rounds, and are always against just one opponent, it makes me wonder who’s doing what wrong/different.

Is my group, are my games the anomaly, or are the “accepted facts” of the edition wrong for you, too?

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

 

[delericho]

Things that are regularly said about D&D3 combat that I just don’t see in my games:

Combats take a long time – we seem to naturally pace about 3-5 minutes per combat round.

Yep, this matches my experience. It might be to do with my relatively small group, the fact that we're now relatively expert in the rules, or that I'm relatively draconian at enforcing decisive actions, or something else, but we definately see quick rounds.

In 4e, the rounds were individually close to the same duration each (slightly longer, but we're not experts in that system), but there were a lot more of them.

Combats are short, 1-3 rounds – we regularly experience 4-8 rounds of combat, with some going up to 10+, only occasionally 3 or less.

No, in general our combats were quite short, especially in the mid levels. Generally, the reason things would take longer was due to a period of 'mopping up', where the PCs are having difficulty chasing down (or sometimes just hitting!) that last orc.

In 4e, combats took a lot longer, due to the higher hit points of the monsters encountered. (I think the "Kobold Hall" adventure is maybe a bit weak, in that it doesn't make enough use of minions, dragging things out.)

My personal preference is for short, decisive battles in most cases.

(We did have exceptions in D&D - in the adventure "Zenith Trajectory", the PCs found themselves in a running battle that lasted 6 hours of real time, at a round every 5 minutes or so. By the end, the combat came down to the last PC taking out the last monster with his final attack of the round, while knowing that if he missed then that monster would probably hit him for enough damage to knock him out... and thus TPK. That was a good campaign.)

Combat is the PCs vs. one opponent – we regularly fight multiple enemies, usually 3-6, sometimes a dozen or more, only occasionally just 1.

It varied quite a lot. However, the encounter design guidelines in the DMG certainly seemed to favour the use of a single powerful opponent. And the CR/EL rules were such that encounters with more than a couple of monsters tended to either be walkovers or overpowered.

I consider the encounter design guidelines, and the minion/normal/elite/solo division in 4e to be the highlight of the system.

 

[DeusExMachina]

We usually fought combats that were long in duration, low in amount of rounds and usually vs 1 opponent, sometimes 2.

However, we have a group of 6 players and we played a lot of mid to (very) high level stuff...

If we played 1st level combat rounds would indeed not last very long...

 

[Azgulor]

Bullgrit, my experience aligns much more closely to yours. Almost exactly, in fact.

 

[Dausuul]

Things that are regularly said about D&D3 combat that I just don’t see in my games:

Combats take a long time – we seem to naturally pace about 3-5 minutes per combat round.

Combats are short, 1-3 rounds – we regularly experience 4-8 rounds of combat, with some going up to 10+, only occasionally 3 or less.

What level are you playing at? That makes a huge difference. In the "sweet spot" around levels 4-10, 3E combats go quite smoothly. It's when you get to the high levels and things start getting crazy that you see 3-round combats that take an hour and a half to play out.

 

[Bullgrit]

In my 8 years of D&D3, I've played through levels 1 to 12, with 4-10 being the most played. This is almost exactly what I played in nearly 15 years of AD&D1, also.

If levels 4-10 are the sweet spot, where most people play, and things don't get wonky (long time, few rounds, one monster) until past level 12, why is the "long time, few rounds, one monster" spoken of as the accepted facts of D&D3 combat in general?

I can see complaining about this kind of combat when specifically talking about higher levels, but the complaint seems to be directed at all D&D3 combat. Why is all D&D3 combat smeared with the complaint of only rarer higher level combat? I mean, it's like complaining that all the game's magic spells are bad because many 7th-9th level spells are bad.

Bullgrit

 

[timbannock]

I too track my combats in a way that allows me to refer back to them.

Before I started adding a ton of house rules, here's how it worked:

4-6 players on average, we NEVER went higher than 13th level.

Combats: 2-4 rounds, 1 to 2 hours. Lot's of OCC BSing going on, though.

I tend to run humanoids as major badguys, so usually the fights are against multiple opponents (average between 2-4).

Since I've added in house rules -- PCs get max HP; Action Points can be spent to (1) heal 1/4 your max HP as a swift action, (2) give you an auto-success on a d20 roll, (3) auto-stabilize you if you're dying; enemies get Max HP + Con (more if "solo," considerably less if "minion"); enemies get their abilities cut down to between 2 and 8 abilities max -- things have changed:

Combats: 4-10 rounds, 1 hour tops

Usually multiple opponents, often many more than before thanks to minions (maybe 4-10 enemies or so). I still use mostly humanoids, so rarely have "solo" fights.

Now, my players have gotten a little faster at picking their actions, which helped, but I found that my streamlining of enemies GREATLY reduced the time. Rather than wading through statblocks and spell lists, I've got a handful of abilities that are significantly simplified from the usual 3.5 rules for each enemy, which greatly improves my ability to decide and determine the results of enemy actions.

I also have players that are less into BSing during combat.

Take what you will from this analysis!

 

[TerraDave]

Your second and third points are probably conected.

Your experience isn't that different from my own--I hardly did the one vs many battles...but it still felt like things dragged. The DM (me) either being pressed to look more and more up, or ignore various monster features. And the buffing...and the healing. So much before, and after, and a lot of resource managment for the cleric. All together it felt slower then 4E.

But I didn't really mind until about level 8. Then, then it all started to get a little silly.

 

[DeusExMachina]

If levels 4-10 are the sweet spot, where most people play, and things don't get wonky (long time, few rounds, one monster) until past level 12, why is the "long time, few rounds, one monster" spoken of as the accepted facts of D&D3 combat in general?

I thought it was called the sweet spot because it is where 3e works best, not because it was what most people played...

Also, only 7 levels out of the 20 that are supported in 3e core rules really working well, is not what I'd call a high number, so I do think that people are allowed to criticize that...

Now we played lots of high level stuff and had some pretty wonky combats and such, but to be honest we had a lot of fun doing it for a year or two. After that the inherent broken rules of high level and especially epic play really started to grate and I'll freely admit that it is one of the reasons I like 4e so much these days...

 

[Runestar]

why is the "long time, few rounds, one monster" spoken of as the accepted facts of D&D3 combat in general?

Since when was it ever spoken of?

My experience is that combat at mid levels tend to average 4-5 rounds. For me, 1st round is typically spent on buffing/preparation, with the PCs jumping into combat in the 2nd round. Though with battlefield control spells, the outcome is more or less determined by the 3rd, with the remainder spent on mopping up.

Here is one such example.

[sblock]Another really funny party was Fighter, Wizard, Wizard, Nymph. Both of the wizards focused on control spells, with one favoring summons and the other favoring defensive stuff. Basically, this party was the exact opposite (even though the fighter in this party was one of the fighers in the other party) of the other. They simply did not so any damage, instead completely looking up the fight with stunning gaze, acid fog, wall of ________, trips, summoned elementals, etc. while slowly chipping the opponent away. Every combat took a long time to resolve, but usually it was a forgone conclusion early on. The opponents would get seperated and stalled while the fighter individually pounded them. For a powerful single opponent would be subjected to repeated save-or-abilities from behind barriers of spell created obstacles and the fighter. Probably the most "professional" party I'd ever been in, from the perspective that they always were able to solve every encounter they faced with a clear, efficient strategy that was often ad-libbed and always effective.

It also helped convinve me that the game is less fun with two wizards, because you really, really always have a solution to every problem as a standard action, even when both wizards are intentionally limiting their spell lists for thematic and balance concerns.[/sblock]