D&D Combat Time - Edition comparisons

[NewJeffCT]

In 3e, frecuently one or two of the players did not play for the entire combat ("ok, bad guy wins initiative. Cast hold person on Bob. Please bob, go and buy a few pizzas for us, could you? We'll finish in half an hour or so"). That, however, is a questionable way of speeding things up. At the very least, for Bob...

I tried that several times with my old group, once it was one of those big "high five" moments in the campaign.

The evil lich had cast "Maze" on the goliath barbarian. The maze lasts for 10 minutes, or until the person in the maze makes a DC:20 Intelligence check. So, the barbarian was there in the maze and needed a natural 20 to get out of the maze - anything less, and she'd be trapped there. And, 10 minutes in D&D in 3E or 4E is forever...

So, what does she roll - "20"

We make all our rolls on the table as well - so, it wasn't like she rolled the dice in some mysterious box off the side of the table that nobody could see.

Needless to say, she got a lot of high fives at the table, and the lich suffered great consternation when it saw the barbarian emerge only one round later.