D&D 5E Has D&D Combat Always Been Slow?

Argyle King · Dec 14, 2020

For a while now, my primary group has been playing other rpgs more often.

Also, for a while now, I have had the feeling that D&D combat seems to take a long time to work through one encounter. However, it really hit me how slow it was (or at least seems to be to me) after the group recently played a mini-campaign of 5E to cover a few sessions that a regular couldn't attend.

Thinking about it more, I started to ponder if D&D combat has always been this way. I'm most familiar with 3rd, 4th, and 5th. All three are relatively quick for the first few levels. As options (and monster HP) start to pile up, encounters slow. What highlights is more is that it becomes slow for reasons which aren't (imo) compelling. If an encounter is a dramatic fight with a tough opponent, involves and epic chase, or something else, it's not quite as noticeable. But taking (sometimes) an hour to beat on some basic critters as part of an opening encounter gets old quickly. When I played primarily D&D, I didn't notice it as much. As myself (and the group) have spent more time with other games, coming back to the D&D combat system feels more and more like a slog beyond around 5th level (and sometimes before that).

In comparison, our primary campaign is currently a FFG Star Wars game. Even with high-point-value characters and some ridiculous dice pools, we were still able to play through several encounters (and still have time to wrap up some RP stuff) in one session. Also, because of how the game functions, there were rarely turns during which nothing happened.

Likewise, for those of you who may be familiar with my posts elsewhere, you may know I play GURPS. Somehow, a game which has a reputation for being "overly complex" still manages to play through combat encounters faster than D&D.

So, my question is three parts:

1) Do you feel D&D combat is slow (or "drags")?

2) If yes, how do you address this in 5E?

3) Has it always been that way? I'm not familiar with very much of 1E or 2E.

Retreater · Dec 14, 2020

Yes. I think it can be slow, especially compared to old-school (i.e. pre-3rd edition D&D). There has been massive HP bloat, removal of morale mechanics (which can end a combat before 0 hp), and many more character options, and multiple actions per round.
To address in 5e, make sure your players are paying attention and know what they want to do before their actions. Consider doing group-based initiative to speed up the combat. Decrease HP or just "kill off" monsters when the fight is turning into a slog. Change some combats into social encounters or have the monsters surrender.
But yes, 5e monsters are often "bags of hit points." I was running tonight with monsters that had 60+ hp. The wizard was hitting them for 1-3 points of damage per turn and no one else could hit their AC. That is an example of "end this combat before we waste a few hours."

iserith · Dec 14, 2020

In my experience, how fast or slow it goes, regardless of edition, has been entirely up to how effectively the players and DM pay attention, get on the same page, plan ahead, and execute.

Argyle King · Dec 14, 2020

Retreater said:
Yes. I think it can be slow, especially compared to old-school (i.e. pre-3rd edition D&D). There has been massive HP bloat, removal of morale mechanics (which can end a combat before 0 hp), and many more character options, and multiple actions per round.
To address in 5e, make sure your players are paying attention and know what they want to do before their actions. Consider doing group-based initiative to speed up the combat. Decrease HP or just "kill off" monsters when the fight is turning into a slog. Change some combats into social encounters or have the monsters surrender.
But yes, 5e monsters are often "bags of hit points." I was running tonight with monsters that had 60+ hp. The wizard was hitting them for 1-3 points of damage per turn and no one else could hit their AC. That is an example of "end this combat before we waste a few hours."

Thanks for answering.

The part I bolded is interesting to me. I own some old-school D&D stuff, and my perspective (based solely on a read) is that encounters were designed with a different mindset than contemporary adventures, but I didn't/don't have enough experience with the older editions to be confident in my perception. Part of my perception is based upon (anecdotally,) having better results when converting old-school stuff to other games.

DND_Reborn · Dec 14, 2020

Johnny3D3D said:
So, my question is three parts:

1) Do you feel D&D combat is slow (or "drags")?

2) If yes, how do you address this in 5E?

3) Has it always been that way? I'm not familiar with very much of 1E or 2E.

#3. No, it was faster before.

#1. It did, but we've made changes to help speed things along. See #2.

#2. Here you go (some of these are in play-test stages but working well to our style of game):

Decrease all NPC/monster HP by half (round down).
Bump AC for everything (including PCs) by 4 or 5. Personally, we started with 5, but 4 works better for us.
PCs get max HP and CON mod at level 1. After that, just HD, no more CON mod.
Have the DM (and players if they want) use average damage for things instead of rolling all the time. You standard fireball, for instance, would do 28 damage (14 on a save).
EDIT: forgot to include all creatures are proficient in all saves, but there is no longer a save each turn to end effect for many spells. If a PC selects a save (as defined by your class) or a creature has saves listed in their stat block, you gain advantage on those saves.

These changes more mirror 1E/2E. You miss more often, but things have fewer HP, so the net effect is combat is a bit fewer rounds. Also, without having to determine damage with practically every attack, there is less rolling, adding, etc. so the combat goes faster for that reason as well. If you want, do average damage (number 4) and that helps a lot as well. As DM, I've been using it for over a year. If the players agree, as a DM you will quickly learn this PC hits for 9 damage, that one for 13 when raging, the other's sneak attack does 21, etc.

We've been doing the other changes (1-3) in our online game for months now and it is quicker because it helps with the HP bloat. There are side-effect for things like spells being more "deadly/powerful" but considering the nerfs in 5E, this is a good thing IMO.

Much more recent is the Cinematic Initiative Variant I recently developed. The thread is here:

D&D 5E - Cinematic Initiative Variant (CIV)

So, after some discussion in my thread about what the combat round feels like/represents to you, I've done a lot of thinking about initiative and what might be a good alternative. A couple things I want to address first: 1. This is not a roll = time system. So, going on 20 or higher doesn't...

www.enworld.org

It is strange, but it makes it goes even faster for our table. Paying attention (the biggest problem for some players IME, along with some who have number/math issues) is vastly improved using the C.I. variant in our play-tests so far! The combat flows better, is more exciting, and so on.

Other tricks include rolling attack and damage dice together, rolling initiative for the next round after the current turn is over for a PC, etc. If you have any other issues or questions, just ask.

EDIT: We've spent over 9 hours on a series of combat encounters once. The group was running a gauntlet-style series of encounters with no rest and it took forever.

J-H · Dec 14, 2020

It's up to the DM and the players. If everyone's combat turn takes less than 30 seconds, the DM's turn takes 1 minute, and there are 5 players and a DM, then it's 3.5 minutes per round, or 10.5 minutes for a typical 3-round combat.
-Know what you're going to do before your turn starts
-Have your dice picked out
-Roll all at once instead of 5 separate roll events.

tetrasodium · Dec 14, 2020

Johnny3D3D said:
Thanks for answering.

The part I bolded is interesting to me. I own some old-school D&D stuff, and my perspective (based solely on a read) is that encounters were designed with a different mindset than contemporary adventures, but I didn't/don't have enough experience with the older editions to be confident in my perception. Part of my perception is based upon (anecdotally,) having better results when converting old-school stuff to other games.

5e slowed it down by removing a lot of things like meaningful positioning rules with cost for benefits & really toning down how functional force multiplier/debuffer type characters could be in favor of MOAR HITPOINTS & MOAR OPPONENTS causing things to slow down. Downplaying morale & getting rid of the PC equivalent n favor of changing things like
with having a long rest recover all spell slots all abilities and all hp means that it doesn't matter how bad everyone gets beat down while thoughtlessly facerolling through a difficult encounter made things worse. The ease of healing (even at range!) combined with the shift from 0 or -10=death to death saves & an inability to drop below zero as long as you don't get hit for more than maxhp minus one from any single digit number of hp further extended that with endless slapstick slogs.

In past editions you could have fights take a long time yes, but for various reasons like the ones I noted above those fights were either something the gm should have handwaved with "and you kill all the helplessly debuffed low level baddies" or a thing that posed such extreme risk that casters would pull out their aces to end things fast* before people sitting around the table started to croak .

* A caster pulling out all the stops tends to be far from the old encounter ending might that inspired things like the linear fighter quadratic wizard stories. It might be impressive but doesn't really do much & the caster isn't really going to feel tapped out of resourceslike prior editions after doing it.

Argyle King · Dec 14, 2020

Each player is reasonably quick at taking their turn.

It's the overall encounters which seem slow.

Retreater and 6ENow! have touched upon a few reasons which overlap with my own experiences.

I think it hit me more recently because we had less people than we normally do and it still somehow took longer.

pming · Dec 14, 2020

Hiya!

Johnny3D3D said:
For a while now, my primary group has been playing other rpgs more often.

Also, for a while now, I have had the feeling that D&D combat seems to take a long time to work through one encounter. However, it really hit me how slow it was (or at least seems to be to me) after the group recently played a mini-campaign of 5E to cover a few sessions that a regular couldn't attend.

Thinking about it more, I started to ponder if D&D combat has always been this way. I'm most familiar with 3rd, 4th, and 5th. All three are relatively quick for the first few levels. As options (and monster HP) start to pile up, encounters slow. What highlights is more is that it becomes slow for reasons which aren't (imo) compelling. If an encounter is a dramatic fight with a tough opponent, involves and epic chase, or something else, it's not quite as noticeable. But taking (sometimes) an hour to beat on some basic critters as part of an opening encounter gets old quickly. When I played primarily D&D, I didn't notice it as much. As myself (and the group) have spent more time with other games, coming back to the D&D combat system feels more and more like a slog beyond around 5th level (and sometimes before that).

In comparison, our primary campaign is currently a FFG Star Wars game. Even with high-point-value characters and some ridiculous dice pools, we were still able to play through several encounters (and still have time to wrap up some RP stuff) in one session. Also, because of how the game functions, there were rarely turns during which nothing happened.

Likewise, for those of you who may be familiar with my posts elsewhere, you may know I play GURPS. Somehow, a game which has a reputation for being "overly complex" still manages to play through combat encounters faster than D&D.

So, my question is three parts:

1) Do you feel D&D combat is slow (or "drags")?

2) If yes, how do you address this in 5E?

3) Has it always been that way? I'm not familiar with very much of 1E or 2E.

No, D&D combat isn't NECISSARILY slow... let me 'splain. No. It'd take to long. Let me sum up.

1e AD&D: Monsters had less HP's and did less damage, overall. Also, Spells, Magic Items and other special abilities (re: A fighter getting a number of attacks per round against opponents with less than 1HD, equal to the fighters LEVEL; e.g., Level 7 fighter gets 7 attacks per round against most commoners, kobolds, goblins, etc).
..
Result: Fights not lasting very long...except when you keep adding in more and more baddies. In 1e, a fight against a dozen goblins would be over in between 1 and maybe 7 rounds. What happens in a round? Roll d6 for initiative, high roll's side goes first. Done. Each makes their attack or casts a spell/use magic item. Done. Then other side. Round is now finished. There is usually no "modifiers for Reach", or sifting through class abilities, special racial stuff, continuing "buff" spells, concentration check rolls, or variable saving throw's. E.g., goblins have a Spell save of 19. All of them. Regardless of the Spell or the level of the caster/item, etc. Fast and simple.
..
B/X D&D: Pretty much 1e, but usually even MORE simplified (unless you use the "Weapon Mastery" rules; then it gets complicated...but that's optional and many folks don't or use modified versions of it). Basically... each side rolls d6 for initiative; each side makes attacks/saves. Next round.
..
Now, and here is the crux of the speed: The VAST majority of "modifiers" during combat are on a case-by-case basis and based on the DM's adjudication of each individual situation/action! I can't stress enough just how FAST this is in play. When a Player says "Fellborn jumps down off the balcony, trying to slice the ogre in two with his two handed sword!" ...the DM just thinks "Ok, that's 10'. You'll take d6 damage. You get +1 to hit from attacking above, and do double damage as if you charged, but if you miss, you will be on the ground and automatically get an attack from the ogre as you stand up". Done. The player accepts it or not. There is no need to flip through books, look up special abilities that might apply, check out the rules for Athletic Skills to see if there is an adjustment/modifier, or anything of the sort. A DM can make a decision on the spot in seconds...not the minutes it may take to flip through 3 books.
..
So there you have it. With the more "rules a game gets", the slower it becomes; kinda like Windows OS.

Go back to earlier editions, with a MUCH greater focus on "Rulings not Rules", and "If it's not there...make it up", and you get a LOT of speed in regards to game-flow.

^_^

Paul L. Ming