D&D 4E 4E Combat Rounds and Perception

[McBard]

The biggest slowdown for D&D combat are the players, not the rules.

No, it's the rules. And I'd say more than just D&D, it's d20 in general that's slower.

I'm running a Star Wars game using the story of Dawn of Defiance (it's a SW Saga edition adventure path provided for free on WoTC's site), but the game mechanics of...basically Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu (the old-school version tweaked and house ruled slightly for Star Wars flavor).

My group of 3 hard-core gaming veterans, who had been playing 3.X since it came out, are absolutely floored by how quickly combat in this non-miniature, non-d20 game takes. And none of the "drama" or "detail" has been lost in our encounters.

I suppose it's hackneyed, but it's a refreshing return to the old school (and I type these words sitting next to about 1,000 painted miniatures and dozens of battlemats on my shelf), and for one of our younger players, who has only ever played 3.X/d20, it's a complete eye-opener. He's actually now more disinterested in 4E than I am.

No, D&D 3.X combat is slow. I'll probably play 4E as a sort of miniatures fantasy war game (1-off, massive 5 hour miniature battles), but most likely not as a fantasy RPG.

 

[HP Dreadnought]

I'm greatly looking forward to the increased pace of combat in 4th edition.

As has been discussed elsewhere, its not the number of rounds that is important. Its not even really the total clock time of the combat that is problematic. Its the dead time for individual players during combat between their actions that is the problem.

4E looks like its going to solve that problem.

In our group, the least experienced person has been playing D&D for 12 years. Most of us are into our 20s. . . but combat moves very slowly by my standard. A group of six players plus the DM, a combat round probably take 15 minutes. That's around 10-12 minutes of sitting around doing nothing every round for each player. No wonder D&D has been called "20 minutes of fun packed into four hours."

A six player combat round should take no longer than 5 minutes.