Dual Wielder vs. Polearm Master

[jgsugden]

I'm not sure how long it would take to get to level 7 but it's close to your number. 60-70 hours at a guess.

We could be more efficient - or slightly less inebriated - during that game.

Just to pull up the data:

The DMG identifies how much XP a PC should earn in an 'adventuring day' at each level, and the PHB identifies how much experience it takes to advance a level. That is meant to represent 4 to 9 encounters depending upon difficulty. In my experience, that represents about 4 hours of combat per adventuring day. If you do the math to trick that out, you get about 40 hours of just combat to go from 1st to 7th level following the recommendations in the DMG and the assumptions I listed. In my experience, a combat heavy game still spends at least a third of the time outside of combat (for 60 hours) or up to double the time outside combat for games that are more combat focused (for 120 hours). A RP driven game, like Critical Role, might spend 3 to 5 hours outside combat for every hour inside combat - which we can see for ourselves in the metrics they have tracked.

CritRole Stats says that Vox Machina spent 111 of 447 hours in combat (~25%) to go from 9 to 20. Mighty Nein was 108 of 556 (~19%) to reach 16th level. Bells Hells 59 of 336 (~17.5%) to reach 11th level.

I've played in games where we had one combat over four six hour sessions - and had a blast. That was AD&D, though...

Regardless, in my experience, if you're not spending at least as much time in the game outside of combat as you do inside combat, you might as well just be playing a board game like Gloomhaven. If you're actually role playing characters, the non-combat time requires time.

 

[Zardnaar]

We could be more efficient - or slightly less inebriated - during that game.

Just to pull up the data:

The DMG identifies how much XP a PC should earn in an 'adventuring day' at each level, and the PHB identifies how much experience it takes to advance a level. That is meant to represent 4 to 9 encounters depending upon difficulty. In my experience, that represents about 4 hours of combat per adventuring day. If you do the math to trick that out, you get about 40 hours of just combat to go from 1st to 7th level following the recommendations in the DMG and the assumptions I listed. In my experience, a combat heavy game still spends at least a third of the time outside of combat (for 60 hours) or up to double the time outside combat for games that are more combat focused (for 120 hours). A RP driven game, like Critical Role, might spend 3 to 5 hours outside combat for every hour inside combat - which we can see for ourselves in the metrics they have tracked.

CritRole Stats says that Vox Machina spent 111 of 447 hours in combat (~25%) to go from 9 to 20. Mighty Nein was 108 of 556 (~19%) to reach 16th level. Bells Hells 59 of 336 (~17.5%) to reach 11th level.

I've played in games where we had one combat over four six hour sessions - and had a blast. That was AD&D, though...

Regardless, in my experience, if you're not spending at least as much time in the game outside of combat as you do inside combat, you might as well just be playing a board game like Gloomhaven. If you're actually role playing characters, the non-combat time requires time.

We spend around 1/rd to 2/3rds of the time in combat.

 

[Quartz]

Since this thread has been resurrected after so many years, let me weigh in again. I ask people to consider a spear-wielder with the Duellist fighting style and PAM. A one-handed spear does 1d6 + Str + Style (+2) so an average of 8.5 damage at Str 16 for a base attack and a first level PC can get two of those as Action and Reaction, plus the Bonus Action butt strike attack of 1d4 + Str (3) +2 for 8.5 + 8.5 + 7.5 or 24.5 damage per round, and 33 damage at level 5, and 41.5 at level 11 and 50 at level 20. While still getting the +2 AC benefit of a shield. Add in bonus damage from magic, Battlemaster, Sneak Attack, Smites, being 11th level Paladin, etc.