D&D 5E What does 5E do well?

[Ruin Explorer]

Normally I would just let this go but since we all seem to be making a big deal about this.

If I assume a 5 person party, with an equivalent 5 monster party fighting them....which is a good solid "normal" 4e fight. That means that every single person here.....including the dumb as rocks brute monster that literally has 1 attack.....takes a full 6 minutes to perform their action.

How does it take 6 minutes for a creature to make an attack, roll some damage dice, and add them up?

I could respect one of your players having analysis paralysis (we've all been there), or having a really complex power and maybe taking 6 minutes, maybe even 10. But every....single.....creature on the board taking that long every....single.....time?

I could absolutely believe it takes an hour to finish a combat, I can absolutely believe two hours. But an hour for just a round....I'm sorry but that really seems like an exaggeration to me....or you are running a lot more PCs and monsters on average than I noted above.

I think he was probably unlucky for it to be that bad, but I did see 4E frequently stretch on for ludicrous amounts of time once you got into the teens and especially with a larger party. We have six PCs, like fifteen monsters/NPCs, in a level 14 fight and it took two sessions to resolve, and I doubt there were more than 9-10 rounds in there. Sure it was a pivotal fight but it wasn't two sessions pivotal (they were short sessions, maybe 3 hours of actual play). If things ran a bit slower...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Now that's interesting, because this is where I'd give the system an A: the skill resolution system is fast and loose, and in my experience produces great results even when everyone involved is tired and a little tipsy. Elegant and robust.

You could point a gun at my head, @Parmandur, and I wouldn't agree, in 2021 lol. I've played so many games with such good skill resolution systems, including better "fast and loose" ones, that it is never going to get respect from me there. No guidance, high RNG, many DMs become catastrophists, and the whole thing often isn't even fun.

It's basically DM fiat. You got a good to great DM? Skills going to work good to great. You got a normal or inexperienced DM? Ehhhh it's not going to be pretty.

In like 1990, I would have been like "THANK GOD FOR 5E!" skill-wise, and in 2000 I'd have been "Well it's a hell of a lot better than 3E!" so there's that.

I think you're coasting on a good DM and a great group there But what do I know, right? Honestly. Not everything lol.

 

[Oofta]

I believe you Oofta, to be clear, and you know I'm a 4E fan.

I think taking an hour per round is probably towards "extremely unlucky" end of the scale in terms of PC/monster numbers, but taking WAY TOO FREAKIN' LONG? That was common once you got into the teen-levels in 4E.

So I believe you and sympathize with your position. I loved 4E, but we changed to Dungeon World when the PCs were all like level 14 or 15 or so and a combat was taking 1-2 hours, or 3 hours, instead of, say, 30-40 minutes. We were also working hard at speeding things up - not criticising you here btw, we were going above and beyond - we have really well-used initiative cards, we used a whiteboard to track stuff AND a battlemap AND counters for stuff - everything we could come up with to make it go faster.

And it still bogged down in the mid-teens. It was as you were saying, all the complex interactions that did it. Reactions leading to Interrupts leading to Immediate Actions. People moving around in initiative. Working out the full impacts of some highly complex ability involving damage, CC, and area denial, and so on.

Now we saw somewhat similar issues with 3.XE/PF, but with a different root cause - i.e. when people got to the 5-10 range and Feats and PrCs and obscure rules and stuff started to pile up, and the at like 7+ magic got more and more powerful and complex to adjudicate, and we saw longer combat rounds at lower levels than 4E. But we never saw rounds as very long as we ultimately saw in 4E.

The worst we ever saw was Champions: The New Millennium (a version of Champions which ran on R Talsorian's FUZION engine), where 3 minutes of in-game interaction and combat between like 4 PC heroes and 5 NPC villains took over 5 hours to resolve. We never played it again lol.

It may have been an unlucky combination of players, and LFR mods that was written by a guy who seemed to not really like 4E and did everything to simply f*** over the PCs and nullify all abilities. Also remember, this was epic level play, so levels 20-30. You start dealing with some crazy stuff and a ton of things to track. Again, I see why people enjoyed 4E. It ended up not being my cup of tea but in heroic tier it could be fun. It started to drag in paragon. Epic levels? Epic was when we hit the hour long turns on a regular basis.

For 3.5 at levels above around level 14 it was simpler. Bunch of people went did whatever they did and then the optimized cleric or wizard went. After at most 10 minutes all the monsters were gone.

Playing level 20 in 5E is pretty gonzo, but it can be fun if you put some effort into it. The hardest thing is to make it engaging and dynamic, but I think that's true of all editions and a separate thread.

 

[Manbearcat]

My take on the length of combat in 4e (at endgame in particular) was that it was the combination of some/all the below:

* GMs spending Encounter Budget poorly. You should be spending a hefty chunk of the EB on Hazards that must be navigated. They help fortify Team NPC positions and PCs can be force moved into them (and vice versa). There should always be Minions as well. These two EB approaches create dynamism, decrease overall HPs to ablate, and create asymmetric problem solving for the PCs and stunting opportunities.

* Have alternative Win Cons that aren’t “get rid of all Team monster HPs.” Rescue NPC and get them out of there, transit the crumbling bridge, get the thing and get out, defeat the ritual, close the portal, etc.

* Just too many damn people. My games were always either 3 PCs or 2 PCs + Companion Character. Our rounds were inside a minutes a Turn for PCs and probably 1.5 minutes for me (at most). So you’re talking 6 minutes per round top end when you include Off Turn actions and interactions.

* Analysis Paralysis. These players (a) shouldn’t have ANY off turn actions and (b) if the 1 minute Eggshell timer goes off, there is a “script” (like a board game monster) that they do.


—————

All told, our fights were 5-8 rounds, so 30-48 minutes (probably averaging 6.5 rounds so a bit under 40 minutes). Our sessions were 4 hours. Scenes were typically 3:2 Skill Challenges to Combat. A Skill Challenge Scene would take 20ish minutes. Typically we’d get in around 2-3 Combats and 4-5 Skill Challenges (about 6-7 scenes) with the rest of the time being set-up, interludes, and post-session conversation about what just happened (DW End of Session equivalent where we went over Quests and XP).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

* Just too many damn people. My games were always either 3 PCs or 2 PCs + Companion Character. Our rounds were inside a minutes a Turn for PCs and probably 1.5 minutes for me (at most). So you’re talking 6 minutes per round top end when you include Off Turn actions and interactions.

I think this is probably the biggest factor though the others definitely do matter.

When we had sessions with 2-3 players, and commensurately lower numbers of NPCs for balanced encounters, things didn't drag nearly as much. It's kind of multiplicative effective, not quite but it's beyond linear, because as you get more players and more monsters you get more buffs, more debuffs, more area denial, more zones, more initiative movement, more Reactions, more Interrupts, more Immediate Actions. When we had six or even seven players, well... It did feel pretty epic at least.

Notably too one player running 4 PCs and coordinating them is drastically faster than 4 players running 4 PCs in 4E, I speak from experience! It's a bigger difference than most editions.

* Analysis Paralysis. These players (a) shouldn’t have ANY off turn actions and (b) if the 1 minute Eggshell timer goes off, there is a “script” (like a board game monster) that they do.

I didn't find analysis paralysis was at all the problem with out-of-turn actions, myself. In-turn actions were occasionally the victim of that, but the sort of people who got paralyzed usually just forgot they even had out-of-turn ones. Rather it was stuff like move-countermove and people tracking all the buffs and debuffs and conditions and so on that were flying around.

 

[Manbearcat]

I didn't find analysis paralysis was at all the problem with out-of-turn actions, myself. In-turn actions were occasionally the victim of that, but the sort of people who got paralyzed usually just forgot they even had out-of-turn ones. Rather it was stuff like move-countermove and people tracking all the buffs and debuffs and conditions and so on that were flying around.

I think this is the other knock-on effect of what I mentioned in the first * above.

A battlefield that features tons of Hazards and interesting Terrain encourages people to take Powers with Movement and Forced Movement Riders (get in an out of trouble abc put bad guys into Hazards/Terrains) rather than constant Condition Affliction!

My last 1-30 game featured a Bladesinger, Rogue Duelist and Swarm Druid so it was heavy on the movement/forced movement/self-buff riders and abilities.

But they did, of course, have Conditions (as well as the bad guys and Hazards). We used color-coded rubber bands for that and that lowered the cognitive load.

Honestly, at the end of our play, our 4e combat was faster than plenty of other rules light combats (because of execution efficiency and the time it can take to navigate Theatre of Mind orientation questions and then go through your cognitive loop).

 

[Scott Christian]

Tatical play requires understanding mechanics and tatics. If you can't process those concepts quickly, then it will be slow.

Maybe just not interested in learning and engaging those mechanics. Maybe the juice was not worth the squeeze for you.

Every group I played with, and I played with several since coordinated or helped coordinate a couple of game days in a major metro area, had the same experience.

I had similar experiences as you, Oofta. Maybe a pool of about 40 people, including 5 PHDs, with a collective several hundred years of RPG and wargaming experience and amongst them at the absolute fastest combat rounds took about an hour. This is with several small groups of course.

I have posted many times, on several different forums for people to show these expedited combats that are talked about. I have asked for people to video a combat, at tenth level, for any edition of D&D 3.5 and up, that runs quickly (30 minutes). I have never had a taker. Not one. (I have had many people just tell me that they do it, and I can accept their word as truth.) I have been to convention after convention (GenCon, GaryCon, OrcCon, StrategiCon, etc.) and have never seen a table playing above 5th level able to have a 30 minute battle.
The point is, I have tried to look specifically for this holy grail because there are many that say they do this, and I would like to run my games that way. I think it is better for the story. So I want to learn. But, it does not seem to exist. There are threads all over the place about ways to decrease combat time. Yet, even with those implemented, at 10th level, all newer editions are slugs.
If I am wrong, please please please tape your next session and show me how it is done. I want to learn. But after 15 years of trying find the grail, it seems that it does not exist.

 

[overgeeked]

I have posted many times, on several different forums for people to show these expedited combats that are talked about. I have asked for people to video a combat, at tenth level, for any edition of D&D 3.5 and up, that runs quickly (30 minutes). I have never had a taker. Not one. (I have had many people just tell me that they do it, and I can accept their word as truth.) I have been to convention after convention (GenCon, GaryCon, OrcCon, StrategiCon, etc.) and have never seen a table playing above 5th level able to have a 30 minute battle.
The point is, I have tried to look specifically looked for this holy grail because there are many that say they do this, and I would like to run my games that way. I think it is better for the story. So I want to learn. But, it does not seem to exist. There are threads all over the place about ways to decrease combat time. Yet, even with those implemented, at 10th level, all newer editions are slugs.
If I am wrong, please please please tape your next session and show me how it is done. I want to learn. But after 15 years of trying find the grail, it seems that it does not exist.

That seems like an oddly specific bar. Any reason why 30 minutes for a level 10 fight? Is it just an arbitrary pick?

Any effect in the game that controls, removes, or otherwise disables a creature can lead to incredibly quick fights in 5E. Especially when it’s a group vs a solo monster if they don’t have legendaries. Even with, a group burning legendary resistances then going to control or polymorph the enemy can be very fast combats.

The lost common response I see is people saying to have alternate win conditions instead of a straight fight to the death. That can help a lot, too.

 

[Oofta]

My take on the length of combat in 4e (at endgame in particular) was that it was the combination of some/all the below:

* GMs spending Encounter Budget poorly. You should be spending a hefty chunk of the EB on Hazards that must be navigated. They help fortify Team NPC positions and PCs can be force moved into them (and vice versa). There should always be Minions as well. These two EB approaches create dynamism, decrease overall HPs to ablate, and create asymmetric problem solving for the PCs and stunting opportunities.

* Have alternative Win Cons that aren’t “get rid of all Team monster HPs.” Rescue NPC and get them out of there, transit the crumbling bridge, get the thing and get out, defeat the ritual, close the portal, etc.

* Just too many damn people. My games were always either 3 PCs or 2 PCs + Companion Character. Our rounds were inside a minutes a Turn for PCs and probably 1.5 minutes for me (at most). So you’re talking 6 minutes per round top end when you include Off Turn actions and interactions.

* Analysis Paralysis. These players (a) shouldn’t have ANY off turn actions and (b) if the 1 minute Eggshell timer goes off, there is a “script” (like a board game monster) that they do.


—————

All told, our fights were 5-8 rounds, so 30-48 minutes (probably averaging 6.5 rounds so a bit under 40 minutes). Our sessions were 4 hours. Scenes were typically 3:2 Skill Challenges to Combat. A Skill Challenge Scene would take 20ish minutes. Typically we’d get in around 2-3 Combats and 4-5 Skill Challenges (about 6-7 scenes) with the rest of the time being set-up, interludes, and post-session conversation about what just happened (DW End of Session equivalent where we went over Quests and XP).

There are things you can do to speed up combat of course like rolling all your dice at once (I have color coded sets) or using averages but it's very dependent on version of the game and the PC build. We did use color coded tokens (along with a key), minis and so on. We still use minis and a handful of tokens for things like who's concentrating on what spell or if we have ongoing effects like poison or blindness.

Especially in 4E, at higher levels I feel like every additional person at the table can add exponentially to the time it takes to resolve a round. Depends on builds and scenarios of course. Personally I never manage to have less than 6 people. I'd love to lower it to a 4 person party, but people ask if a friend or sibling can join and next thing I know I'm back up to 6. Maybe I should just work on being a bad DM?

 

[Manbearcat]

There are things you can do to speed up combat of course like rolling all your dice at once (I have color coded sets) or using averages but it's very dependent on version of the game and the PC build. We did use color coded tokens (along with a key), minis and so on. We still use minis and a handful of tokens for things like who's concentrating on what spell or if we have ongoing effects like poison or blindness.

Especially in 4E, at higher levels I feel like every additional person at the table can add exponentially to the time it takes to resolve a round. Depends on builds and scenarios of course. Personally I never manage to have less than 6 people. I'd love to lower it to a 4 person party, but people ask if a friend or sibling can join and next thing I know I'm back up to 6. Maybe I should just work on being a bad DM?

Honestly, I won't GM for more than 3 people anymore. 2-3 for me is the sweet spot of almost any TTRGP experience. Anything more than that and all sorts of problems can (and often do) arise.

Like you (and @Ruin Explorer ) mentioned, intricate combat (eg 4e) is especially sensitive to increase in numbers (exponentially so). 2-3 people brings the right alchemy of diverse input, pace of play, thematic coherency/focus in my opinion. Go beyond that and you're asking for trouble. Honestly, the only sort of game where that probably isn't true is a Horror genre game like Dread or Paranoia. Dread is probably the only game where something like 4-5 people is better than 2-3 people (because it makes things scarier and more "red shirt-ey" for each participant playing in Dread and more shenanigan-ey in Paranoia).