D&D General Do You Play Out Every Combat?

NOTE: This is a D&D question because a lot of games make the question moot: they have built in systems for treating a combat as another sort of gameplay element (like Dramatic Tasks or Quick Combats in Savage Worlds).

So, the 7th level party is traveling through the Goblin Forest and encounters Goblin Warband. The appropriate establishing and reaction rolls are made, and the goblins attack. The gobs have no chance outside of really, really bad rolling on the part of the players. The fight is not part of the main storyline or anything. Do you run the whole fight down to the last goblin HP? Do you run the first round or two and (assuming things are what you expect here) have the goblins run, surrender or just tell the players "you finish them off." Do you skip it entirely or fudge the dice so it was a more level appropriate encounter?

What if it isn't a random encounter? What if the Penultimate Battle (the one before the boss fight) has turned into a slog due to bad luck, bad tactics or some combination. Do you keep at it because it is important what resources the PCs use up before the boss fight? Do you cut it in the middle and "charge" the PCs some spell slots, hit dice, and/or other resources?

In D&D, have you implemented something like Quick Combats or Dramatic Tasks to deal with these sorts of things? If so, what and how do they work?
I feel like there are two different questions being asked here simultaneously. “Do you play each fight to its conclusion?” And “does every fight conclude with one or the other side being reduced to 0 HP?” I would answer yes to the first and no to the second. I find it important to focus on what are the monsters/npcs’ goals in a combat? What do they want that they think fighting will help them achieve? And I’m constantly checking, is fighting still a viable way for them to try to achieve that goal? If not, what should they be doing instead? I find that, using these heuristics, very few combats end up being fights to the death. Sapient enemies will often surrender when it’s clear they can’t win, and animals with bestial intelligence often flee if they even become injured. I don’t use any sort of “quick combat” mechanic to resolve the encounter in a single roll or anything like that. But fights where every enemy stands their ground down to their very last hit point are quite rare at my table. They usually only happen when the enemies are cornered or otherwise desperate. Monsters should have self-preservation instincts!
 

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I don't use random encounters or trash encounters. If i misjudge and throw something too weak at them and after first round or two opponents are down to cca 25-30%, i zoom out from combat mini game and enter narration mode. I tell them what opponents try to do and ask players what they want to do.

If it's important encounter and it goes south ( series of bad rolls from both sides, lots of misses and low damage rolls), then i try to read the room. If it looks like players are just going trough the motions round after round, i'm slowly debuffing encounter ( not adding extra combatants i have planned or monster that was planned to have transformations after certain treshold doesn't have them). In extreme cases, i lower HP on the fly, or if it's really grindy, i declare that opponents are starting to move for tactical retreat (after all, both sides are doing piss poor). If players are having fun, no matter bad luck, sure, we grind it away, but i still do encounter debuff (i almost never use single opponent fights).
 

I feel like there are two different questions being asked here simultaneously. “Do you play each fight to its conclusion?” And “does every fight conclude with one or the other side being reduced to 0 HP?” I would answer yes to the first and no to the second. I find it important to focus on what are the monsters/npcs’ goals in a combat? What do they want that they think fighting will help them achieve? And I’m constantly checking, is fighting still a viable way for them to try to achieve that goal? If not, what should they be doing instead? I find that, using these heuristics, very few combats end up being fights to the death. Sapient enemies will often surrender when it’s clear they can’t win, and animals with bestial intelligence often flee if they even become injured. I don’t use any sort of “quick combat” mechanic to resolve the encounter in a single roll or anything like that. But fights where every enemy stands their ground down to their very last hit point are quite rare at my table. They usually only happen when the enemies are cornered or otherwise desperate. Monsters should have self-preservation instincts!
Hear hear!

All enemies have motivations and goals. We run the combat until one side is unable to continue -or- when both sides are unwilling to continue.*

*paraphrased from an advice blog
 

Hear hear!

All enemies have motivations and goals. We run the combat until one side is unable to continue -or- when both sides are unwilling to continue.*

*paraphrased from an advice blog
Exactly. That's really one of the major keys to keeping combats fun and interesting. Goals and motivations. If the only goal-motivation is "kill the other side" your combat is going to be boring. Only fanatics and mindless undead fight to the last. Everyone wants to get home to their friends and family and they have to have a really good reason to risk that. Once it's obvious they cannot achieve their goal, the fight's over.
 

To be clear, my "yes" was to the question as I understood it, if my group always plays out round by round combats even when combat seems to be a foregone conclusion for the PCs. The answer to this is Yes. Since I know some DMs prefer to handwave this situation and just narrate the results, I interpreted the question that way.

I am not much a handwaver. I am more of a firm handshake, pull you in tight for a hug, and then whisper creepily into your ear, "That 4 hp kobold might get lucky and kill you."

As for if combats end in ways other than one side being reduced to 0 hps, then the answer is also yes, frequently. Just yesterday, the two remaining bullywugs fled when their Nightcroaker leader was killed. One was chopped down and the other failed their save against Hold Person and was taken prisoner.
 
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No, not every one - but I run a lot of combats where the heroes of the tale feel heroic and that they are not at risk of dying. A massively underutilized and misunderstood opportunity for improvement with a lot of DMs is the misperception that encounters must meaningfully threaten the lives of PCs to be enjoyable or contribute to the quality of the game.

So, the 7th level party is traveling through the Goblin Forest and encounters Goblin Warband. The appropriate establishing and reaction rolls are made, and the goblins attack. The gobs have no chance outside of really, really bad rolling on the part of the players. The fight is not part of the main storyline or anything. OK.

HOWEVER, when the PCs encounter the Goblin Warband the goblins are attacking a caravan of travelers from the town ahead. When the PCs make their presence known, the people beg for protection and help. The goblins are not going to attack the heroes. They're trying to drag off the people. The PCs will never be in jeopardy in this fight ... but they can still lose out if the goblins are allowed to escape with the people. If the PCs save the travelers they can give information about the upcoming town. If the goblins escape with a captive and the PCs recover them they might discover additional treasure in the goblin base. A few days after they arrive in town, word of their heroic protection of the travelers may reach back to the town and a wealthy benefactor may approach them. On the other hand, if they let the people be taken by the goblins ... or do not utilize resources to do it fast enough and some people die or are lost... their lack of concern may be the reputation that reaches the ears of others. The local rangers might come across the scene and determine the PCs were there during the combat and failed to help - and may raise that to the government, the public, or those that the PCs wish to engage.

In my experience, every encounter should have a way to win, and a way to lose. However, only a small portion of those combats should be ones where losing means death. If every combat is a battle for survival you get three problems:

1.) If there is a meaningful risk of death in every combat, probability indicates you will get TPKs more often than most people consider acceptable fun,

2.) It doesn't feel heroic to constantly feel threatened and unsure during every combat because every time you randomly run into something it is a deadly encounter ... you feel more like a victim than a hero, and

3.) Your world logic tends to be destroyed pretty quickly when threats capable of killing 11th level PCs are running around next to every town they encounter. If a small army of evil and destructive giants is next to a town, that town should be rubble.

So, when do I wave away combats? When I want to remind the PCs that they are awesome and powerful, primarily. It is entirely possible that 6 goblins will attack a party of 5 11th level adventurers as they leave town. If we determine that makes sense and happens, I won't roll a combat. I'll figure out how the combat would have opened and then ask them what they want to do. Kill them? Capture them? Use magic to control them? Scare them to drive them away from town? I won't roll out the combat. I may ask someone to roll a single die and use the result to say how well they execute their path ... but I won't have the combat roll out.

Why is this a good idea? It reinforces for the players that their PCs are above these types of encounters being a threat to them. I could have given the goblins a goal like I describe above and allowed the PCs to deal with trying to prevent that goal from taking place... but I can also just use it to reinforce the idea that these PCs are not low level or medium level anymore ... they're in that realm where they are powerful and important. This approach conveys that message.

So all in all - Yes, I sometimes bypass combats ... but it is rare and strategic when I do it. Beyond that, I am primarily giving the PCs something to accomplish outside of mere survival when I put them in most combats.
 

It depends on the system I'm running. I'm currently running a PF2 game and the assumption there is that you will be able to heal to full HP between each combat barring time crunches. I'm running Abomination Vaults, so there are some of those elements, but they are currently at a point where they have time to heal between combats.

As a result, for that game, I just hand-wave combats with lower-level monsters. I picked a boss monster (or monsters) for each level, and the group advances a level on defeating them. When all of the bosses are done, I simply declare that the battles with creatures on that level are "mundane" and just hand-wave them.

Now for D&D, I usually don't do that because there isn't that same assumption. I do tend to curate encounters more, though, so I don't include battles that aren't interesting.
 

We tend to run things down to the end, but it's not my preference - it's because our group HATES letting anyone get away! They'll ignore helping friends (like, PCs making death saving throws) if it means chasing down that lone goblin and making sure he's dead, lol. I don't get it but they find it fun, so /shrug

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No.

Time is valuable in my games. If something would be a waste of time it does not happen.

So weak, pointless encounters can not happen in my game. For example I forbid 7th level characters from getting into a "cool bar fight" with 0 level commoners.
 

No.

Time is valuable in my games. If something would be a waste of time it does not happen.

So weak, pointless encounters can not happen in my game. For example I forbid 7th level characters from getting into a "cool bar fight" with 0 level commoners.
Even if it’s a sandbox game?
 

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