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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 6781696" data-attributes="member: 6790260">It's nice to hear a fan echo my (mostly reading-based, but now partially play-experience-based) criticisms, though I wish it didn't have to be part and parcel with "and thus things are unnecessarily difficult." <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />Technically, we always use the battlemap, and mine is a group of five rather than four (Devotion Paladin, Moon Druid, Tempest Cleric, probably-but-not-yet-decidedly Beast Master Ranger, and my own Valor Bard). That's a 25% increase in the number of players, so 20*1.25 = 25 minutes, plus some slowdown because two of our players are new to D&D and another hasn't played a TTRPG in over a decade, gives a rough length of 30 minutes for a normal combat. But my experience with 4e at similar levels has been pretty much exactly the same.If I had to guess, it's a difference of preparation. Every 4e player I've played with has either known their character sheet very well, or (in one case) had the DM prepare some simple advice for what to do at any given time (the two were old friends, but the player had never played 4e before). In my case, my "character sheet" is often just names + highly condensed details; I keep a separate file with a full, precise list of abilities (effectively my own form of "power cards") so I can quick-reference during play. I also find that my mind wanders a lot more while playing 5e, because I've found I don't actually need to pay much attention to anything but the flowery descriptions when it's anyone else's turn.* With 4e, things felt too dynamic and interactive (between party members, mostly), so it was uncommon for me not to have an idea of what I wanted to do next the moment my turn came up, and my co-players' reaction times seemed to reflect the same thing. *shrug**This happens a lot when a system's mechanics fail to keep me engaged. Dungeon World--a game I adore--is even worse than 5e on that front. I basically zone out, analytically, whenever it's anyone else's turn. I remain plenty engaged with the fiction, but the combat needs only the barest fraction of my attention and the rest just sort of churns on itself. At an actual gaming table, I fear it would become a real problem; since I do all my gaming over the internet at present, I have things to keep me occupied instead.</blockquote>

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