Combat Rounds: How Long Should They Be?

[RHGreen]

How long should a Round be?

How long is a piece of string?


My answer - as long as it needs to be.

It should be totally abstract and have no real time comparison.

Someone said above about a round in Marvel is as long as a frame in a comic.

Suits me.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Rounds of 6 seconds are weird. It's one of those things about post-3E D&D that fall apart once you try to explain it. A lot of things can happen in 1 minute, not so much in 6 seconds. The system tells you that someone can move 60 feet in 6 seconds or make a full attack, but you can also move 60 feet to arrive at a position adjacent to a creature that will, after that, full attack you, just before a third element moves 30 feet to flank you and also make an attack. There you are: three actions that can only happen in response to each other and would take 6 seconds to perform; 18 seconds in my clock.

If the system required each player to declare his actions before initiative and before knowing what other would do, things would become more interesting and reasonable, and the time bending effect described above would stop existing. For those interested in acting in response to others actions, that would cost you some of your time, so, you would be able to declare your action in response to those of the others, but at the cost of your move action. If more than one person opts into this "wait" special action, you could also be able to also sacrifice your standard and have a swift action that happens in response to everything else.

As I took the time to write this whole thing, I think I'll just test it in one of my games and see how it plays in practice.

Cheers,

 

[jcrowland]

A quick bite for thought

Just as a quick thought experiment: What if a round was 18 sec? If 5E retains some version of a Standard action, a Move action, and a Minor action, they could be 9 sec, 6 sec, and 3 sec respectively.

Perhaps using a model like that, one could exchange a Standard for a move and a minor or even 3 minors !(rather than 4Es simple downgrade). How would doing 6 minor actions in a round change the game? Would most minor type actions need serious re-working? Would there be a market for more minor and/or move actions? Would combining three minors into a standard be allowed such that I could forgeo a move and a minor to gain another standard?

Consider the spell "Haste" through all versions of D&D. Would a 5E version grant an extra minor action be iconic enough?

Given that the design focus of 5E is modularity, what would a modular action economy look like?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Please, no. The idea of sitting for three rounds twiddling my thumbs while everyone else is doing stuff, only to have the action interrupted at the last moment or the situation change so much that casting would be a waste, or possibly even detrimental sounds distinctly horrible. The spells would have to be so powerful as to completely trivialize the encounter to make such a high risk action worthwhile, which puts you in the everyone babysit the wizard while he takes care business situation, ultimately leading to a place where the wizard the most important person in the combat, or utterly useless if his actions are spoiled or combat is largely resolved before he can finally act.

Agreed. Spells taking longer than a round should be reserved for the more powerful spells generally not cast in combat, such as call lightning.

Still, I like one minute rounds.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Throwing in my vote for 10 second rounds. It allows just enough time to move certain actions to free actions (drawing weapons, standing up), while allowing you to change movement speeds to 50 feet with 10 second rounds. You can move farther (but not necessarily faster), do more actions, and get to the action quicker. It's a nice even number, too.

The only downside? Taking a 20 is three minutes and twenty seconds. Not exactly a nice, intuitive number. Everything else, though, has more than made up for it, in my experience (it's the round time in my RPG). As always, play what you like

 

[Tovec]

Please, no. The idea of sitting for three rounds twiddling my thumbs while everyone else is doing stuff, only to have the action interrupted at the last moment or the situation change so much that casting would be a waste, or possibly even detrimental sounds distinctly horrible. The spells would have to be so powerful as to completely trivialize the encounter to make such a high risk action worthwhile, which puts you in the everyone babysit the wizard while he takes care business situation, ultimately leading to a place where the wizard the most important person in the combat, or utterly useless if his actions are spoiled or combat is largely resolved before he can finally act.

A. What if it were say 1d4, instead of 3 rounds. It means it might be 3, or 4 but it might just as likely be 1 or 2. That reduces the chance of the "last second" interrupt - from those people waiting until the last second.
C. What is wrong with having to sit there for 3 rounds to prepare a spell, except that some jerk might interrupt in the last second. If it is a 50/50 chance of ending a fight in the 3rd or 4th round instead of the 5th or 6th it doesn't seem that unbalancing.
C.. What is wrong with having to babysit the wizard while he casts/prepares a big boom? It adds excitement, jeopardy, and pressure. It means that the fighter has a chance to shine for keeping the hordes at bay long enough. It means the rogue can help the wizard cast (maybe?) or strike at enemies who close the gap/get past the fighter.


Back to topic at hand, for those people who hate(d) 1 minute rounds -> what about 30 second rounds. Include with that minor actions or swift actions for truly smaller time frame.
The biggest problem I see with 1 minute durations is a sword swing - which should be closer to 6 seconds instead of 1 minute. Mind you that is assuming that each (potential) blow is a blow (potential) and not the "one that got through".

 

[howandwhy99]

6 seconds, 1 second, 1 minute. Anything over 1 minute may be a problem, otherwise I think we can have this decision be one made per campaign.


Round or Turn length really comes into play when we're talking about the actions being performed. Way back, psionic combat all happened in fractions of a second. It was resolved while those not involved waited. Exploring was in 10 minutes turns and combat in 1 minute rounds. Other stuff was even measured in hours or days or whatever suited the practice.

I'd say Combat Effects that are meant to carry over into Exploration Turns will have their durations affect Round length. If you want an effect to last an entire round regardless, just use something the exploration durations won't trump.

 

[Dausuul]

Rounds of 6 seconds are weird. It's one of those things about post-3E D&D that fall apart once you try to explain it. A lot of things can happen in 1 minute, not so much in 6 seconds. The system tells you that someone can move 60 feet in 6 seconds or make a full attack, but you can also move 60 feet to arrive at a position adjacent to a creature that will, after that, full attack you, just before a third element moves 30 feet to flank you and also make an attack. There you are: three actions that can only happen in response to each other and would take 6 seconds to perform; 18 seconds in my clock.

What does this have to do with 6-second rounds? Your complaint is about 3E's introduction of cyclical initiative. The same problem would exist if rounds were 1 second, 1 minute, or 1 hour.

 

[Slander]

More than 6 seconds, not longer than a minute. Originally, I would have said 10 - 20 seconds, but Matt's suggestion of a round equaling one frame of a comic really resonates with me. For an abstract combat system like D&D, the blow-by-blow feel of the 6-second combat round always felt out of place. Not so much that I haven't enjoyed playing 3x D&D for the past 12 years, but if the possibility now exists to move from that paradigm with 5E, I'd prefer it.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

What does this have to do with 6-second rounds? Your complaint is about 3E's introduction of cyclical initiative. The same problem would exist if rounds were 1 second, 1 minute, or 1 hour.

While I'm also not a fan of cyclical initiative, the big problem here is that 6 second rounds remove combat abstraction, which was a much better approach, in my opinion.

In the 1 minute round paradigm, when the rules tell you that the fighter will attack twice per round, they're telling you that he will do various attempts, feints and parries, and his level will allow him to check twice for actual hits. Likewise, when the rules tell you that the same fighter can move 60 ft. in that amount of time, they're taking into account that characters are moving carefully through the battlefield.

In the round of 6 seconds, the number of attacks or distance of movement is (at least in theory) a direct representation of what characters actually do in that amount of time. While I see that declaring actions before rolling initiative improves both paradigms, I also believe that the 1 minute round is not suffering that much, thanks to it's abstract nature.

But you're probably right. I'd be satisfied if we managed to remove cyclical initiative from the game. Declaring actions before knowing what the enemy (or even the allies) will do is a much better approach and also more interesting, in my opinion.

Cheers,