D&D 5E Big Battle, Exciting Victory, 36 seconds.

[FormerlyHemlock]

If they could have limited it to that it would have been a great movie... the final battle felt like a D&D slog though - interminable!

This part of the final battle was pretty fast though: 12 seconds to disable four or five guys. https://youtu.be/5JlySl0Z6cQ?t=39 ("Did I Step On Your Moment?")

I assume you're referring to the Bucky vs. Evans fight though. Yeah, that... wasn't so fast.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Actual combat is very quick. What D&D doesn't (and shouldn't) simulate is the circling of opponents that takes the majority of most MMA fights. I remember seeing Ken Shamrock fight Dan Severn back in the 90s. They quite literally circled each other looking for openings almost a full 30, Then Severn Grapples, and Proned his opponent and threw a ridiculous amount of punches in a few seconds. Bruce Lee was also famous for circling an opponent and then when he saw their guard was let down striking before they could get a hand up in defense.

Likewise a realistic big battle probably wouldn't even be a single encounter, there would be waves of enemies, retreats and regrouping etc. For my game I'll take the 6 rounds any day.

 

[robus]

This part of the final battle was pretty fast though: 12 seconds to disable four or five guys. https://youtu.be/5JlySl0Z6cQ?t=39 ("Did I Step On Your Moment?")

I assume you're referring to the Bucky vs. Evans fight though. Yeah, that... wasn't so fast.

I'm thinking of the ridiculous final superhero battle where everyone is fighting? Was that a different Capt. America movie? They're all becoming a blur....

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I'm thinking of the ridiculous final superhero battle where everyone is fighting? Was that a different Capt. America movie? They're all becoming a blur....

Yep, that's a different movie, and it's not the final battle of that movie anyway.

It's interesting how Vision is conspicuously absent from that battle, and the moment he does show up he pretty much ends it. Implication: he had to be absent from the battle or it would have been "too short." Ergo, Vision = 20th level Evoker w/ Meteor Swarm.

 

[robus]

Yep, that's a different movie, and it's not the final battle of that movie anyway.

It's interesting how Vision is conspicuously absent from that battle, and the moment he does show up he pretty much ends it. Implication: he had to be absent from the battle or it would have been "too short." Ergo, Vision = 20th level Evoker w/ Meteor Swarm.

It's gotten weird now that I DM I find I watch movies very differently and I'm constantly reminded of things that happened in a session. I certainly feel less bad about some my NPC/PC interactions and on-screen combats now look very scripted as I imagine myself describing the scene to my players.

 

[Jester David]

I think there's no good answer if you track actual time.

If you have long combat rounds (1 minute), people take unrealistically long to walk short distances and archers are curiously slow to fire. And you wonder why it takes two or three minutes to knock out a guard in an incidental encounter.

If you have short combats (6 seconds), combats are over super fast, even the big epic ones.

I've stopped associating rounds with seconds in my homegame, going more for a abstract/ narrative "scene" passage of time.

 

[ro]

I think there's no good answer if you track actual time.

If you have long combat rounds (1 minute), people take unrealistically long to walk short distances and archers are curiously slow to fire. And you wonder why it takes two or three minutes to knock out a guard in an incidental encounter.

If you have short combats (6 seconds), combats are over super fast, even the big epic ones.

I've stopped associating rounds with seconds in my homegame, going more for a abstract/ narrative "scene" passage of time.

This.

I suppose the "abstract/narrative 'scene' passage of time" really is the only way to go. As [MENTION=6802553]BookBarbarian[/MENTION] pointed out, 5e combat really does lack the time spent sizing up opponents, and characters are expected to almost always know what to do all the time, both allies and enemies. There is little allotment for hesitation or caution or thoughtfulness on either side.

 

[Eltab]

When my Tiamat group took on Arauthator, it took about 1 minute of in-game time but three-and-a-half hours of real time.

When I said that out loud, the opinion around the table was that the fight should have taken hours in-game, too. Their victory was too hard-earned to have been a blitzkrieg.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

I'd say the fight in Balin's Tomb from the LotR film is what most players visualize as a standard D&D combat. It takes up nearly 5 minutes of screen time.

The climactic duel from the Adventures of Robin Hood (a fight that the hit point mechanic was designed to emulate) takes over 2 minutes.

No point. Just food for thought.

 

[robus]

I'd say the fight in Balin's Tomb from the LotR film is what most players visualize as a standard D&D combat. It takes up nearly 5 minutes of screen time.

The climactic duel from the Adventures of Robin Hood (a fight that the hit point mechanic was designed to emulate) takes over 2 minutes.

No point. Just food for thought.

In onscreen group battles I always think we're seeing repeated chunks of time but from different perspectives so that each hero has their time to shine. And I do think a one-on-one combat can take a decent amount of game time as the combatants wear each other down before a killing blow can be landed. So I think it works fine.

If the combat is of an epic scale the DM should be narrating that between rounds to impress on the players the magnitude of the combat. Basically what else is going on while they're in the battle. But yes there are definite pauses in a fight that aren't refelected in the game. It's often just endless broadsides until someone loses