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

[Don Durito]

It could be. Pre 3E (and to an extent even 3E at low levels depending how you approached it) you mostly did one thing on your turn.

In 5E (as in 4E) it's not unusual to do more than one thing on your turn. This creates an arms race of sorts. It makes sense that if you have to wait some time for your turn then you need to do more, but it also means each turn will take longer. I'm more then half convinced that 5E ended up giving multi-attacks to warriors mostly for spotlight reasons.

But always the organisation of the players, and particulary of the GM makes a massive difference to how fast combat can run.

Another thing that makes a difference is that older styles of play had a lot more of what I've seen around here called "trash fights" - short combats that aren't usually likely to seriously threaten pcs (although notably even these could be a lot scarier in earlier editions if they were things like giant spiders with poison), but are there to drain resources. These fights have always been resolved a lot more quickly.

Once the game moved more toward the idea of set piece combats that challenge the party, then combat inevitably slowed. Basically you can't really have your cake and eat it too. If you want an epic combat to take place across multiple vertical levels with reinforcements arriving halfway through and various terrain effects then it is going to take time.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That's cool. Right now, we're using a kitchen table and a handful of random board game tokens, standies, and etc. We don't set up an exact location for things, it's more like "most of the party is engaged with a group of goblins (green pawns) here; across the hallway, the paladin is fighting with the ogre." If distances are important, we'll write that down on a scrap piece of paper or a dry erase board.

We've gone for a minimalist approach because we can fit most of the things we use in a small tackle box. That makes it easy to meet at a location and set up without much hassle.

Thanks. We like it as an option that suits us and also use theater of mind a lot.

But, I totally get the minimalist approach as well and used to do similar things before we had a dedicated gaming area set up in my house.

What seems to take a while is the actual mechanical resolution of an encounter.

Yeah, I get that. It has been a factor for me since I started 5E--it is especially a problem if you have a lot of combat--which our groups do.

For simple steps, I would (please!) try the items 1-3 I listed earlier. You will notice an increase I think in how quickly a player's turn gets resolved (when you miss more often LOL) but psychologically some people don't like the "I am missing all the time" feeling. We like it because when you hit it feels more special and has greater impact (due to fewer HP).

I'll give you a quick comparison:
5E Ogre has AC 11 and HP 59. Suppose you have +7 to attack and deal 10 damage on average. Not counting critical hits, your average expected damage per attack is 8.5 (0.85 hit probability x 10 damage), meaning it will take you 7 attacks to kill the ogre. If you attack twice per round that is 4 rounds.

Our Ogre has AC 15 and HP 29. With the same attack and damage, your average expected damage per attack is 6.5 (0.65 x 10 damage), meaning it will take you 5 attacks (less than 4.5 actually) to kill the ogre. With two attack per round, that is 3 rounds. So, our ogre is quicker in terms of rounds to kill.

Now, look the rolling involved if you roll damage as well. RAW 5E you have to roll damage 7 times, adding modifiers, telling the DM, the DM has to subtract. Our system is only 4-5 times, so less damage rolls, less telling the DM the damage, less subtracting for the DM.

Doing this dozens or hundreds of times during a session makes a difference in real time IME.

That being said, what kind of damage are the PCs dealing as well? If they are not optimized at all, the battles could take longer because it takes so long to whittle down the bags of HP many monsters have.

 

[Argyle King]

Once the game moved toward more the idea of set piece combats that challenge the party, then combat inevitably slowed. Basically you can't really have your cake and eat it too. If you want an epic combat to take place across multiple vertical levels with reinforcements arriving halfway through and various terrain effects then it is going to take time.

I found this part interesting because it highlights the difference I noticed between our Star Wars game and when we play D&D.

The most recent SWs session involved fighting our way out of a prison. While that could be viewed as multiple encounters, it felt like one large moving encounter (which involved the party being split up at one point and then joining back together).

We were still able to play through that, get to a space battle, and have time left over at the end to wrap up some RP. I'm inclined to believe we wouldn't have made it out of the prison in only one session of D&D.

 

[Don Durito]

Thanks. We like it as an option that suits us and also use theater of mind a lot.

But, I totally get the minimalist approach as well and used to do similar things before we had a dedicated gaming area set up in my house.


Yeah, I get that. It has been a factor for me since I started 5E--it is especially a problem if you have a lot of combat--which our groups do.

For simple steps, I would (please!) try the items 1-3 I listed earlier. You will notice an increase I think in how quickly a player's turn gets resolved (when you miss more often LOL) but psychologically some people don't like the "I am missing all the time" feeling. We like it because when you hit it feels more special and has greater impact (due to fewer HP).

I'll give you a quick comparison:
5E Ogre has AC 11 and HP 59. Suppose you have +7 to attack and deal 10 damage on average. Not counting critical hits, your average expected damage per attack is 8.5 (0.85 hit probability x 10 damage), meaning it will take you 7 attacks to kill the ogre. If you attack twice per round that is 4 rounds.

Our Ogre has AC 15 and HP 29. With the same attack and damage, your average expected damage per attack is 6.5 (0.65 x 10 damage), meaning it will take you 5 attacks (less than 4.5 actually) to kill the ogre. With two attack per round, that is 3 rounds. So, our ogre is quicker in terms of rounds to kill.

Now, look the rolling involved if you roll damage as well. RAW 5E you have to roll damage 7 times, adding modifiers, telling the DM, the DM has to subtract. Our system is only 4-5 times, so less damage rolls, less telling the DM the damage, less subtracting for the DM.

Doing this dozens or hundreds of times during a session makes a difference in real time IME.

That being said, what kind of damage are the PCs dealing as well? If they are not optimized at all, the battles could take longer because it takes so long to whittle down the bags of HP many monsters have.

It's interesting that the conventional wisdom seems to be that it's better to hit more and give the monsters more hit points because that's a marker of progress so you can see the progress happening.

I've never, as a player, found that to be the case. If I know that the impact of a hit isn't going to do that much then I start looking for what I can do to make an impact and trying to stunt, which usually annoys the DM who wants to keep the fight at the appropriate level of challenge.

Psychologically, I think I prefer it when there's a decent chance of taking out the monster in two hits (and perhaps at least a remote chance of a single hit). I don't mind it so much if I miss - although it's frustrating at the time - as long as I feel that it's possible to make an impact. If there are four monsters and I know I'm going to have to hit any one of them three or four times to kill it, then it becomes demoralising - unless I have some chance of finding a way around that situation.

 

[Argyle King]

That being said, what kind of damage are the PCs dealing as well? If they are not optimized at all, the battles could take longer because it takes so long to whittle down the bags of HP many monsters have.

It varies.

A few of the players like to optimize, so a paladin being able to smite something to smithereens isn't uncommon.
Though, after a while, I think some of us have gravitated away from the numbers game because it started to become less fun. Anecdotally, some of us felt that we were forced to choose between options we found interesting and options we felt were necessary to keep the game moving.

For the mini campaign, I'd say about "average" optimization. All of the characters were functional and proficient, but nothing mind blowing. The characters were meant to be quick and relatively simple so we could play.

 

[Asisreo]

I've resolved 3 rounds of combat altogether within 10 minutes. This is an extreme example because the purpose of the combat was to get it done as quickly as possible so not alot of things were going on, but it was a good experiment for the "floor" of time.

Combat is slow because the DM and players make it slow by not following or knowing the rules. There's also excessive Q&A time.



Afraid of running a combat with 8 kobolds because you need 8 different initiatives with 8 different attack and damage rolls? Nope. It can be resolved in a minute or two at worst.

Identical creatures share initiative, it all happens at once. If you use Mob Combat rules (which are not "optional" but its application is up to the DM like Inspiration), no need for attack rolls and use the table. If you use average damage, no damage rolls.

Its literally "The group of kobolds sling rocks. 3 of them hit the wizard and do 3 instances of 4 damage. Take 12 damage."

Bam, 8 kobolds done in 3 sentences.



If you're running a spellcasting NPC, your focus should either be on the most obvious option or the most powerful if they aren't the same. If your NPC is being blocked by a Wall of Force and have Misty Step, they use it. If that isn't the scenario they're in, just use their highest level damage spell on the weakest member. There's really no need to overthink things on your side as the DM unless you're new.

 

[Don Durito]

I found this part interesting because it highlights the difference I noticed between our Star Wars game and when we play D&D.

The most recent SWs session involved fighting our way out of a prison. While that could be viewed as multiple encounters, it felt like one large moving encounter (which involved the party being split up at one point and then joining back together).

We were still able to play through that, get to a space battle, and have time left over at the end to wrap up some RP. I'm inclined to believe we wouldn't have made it out of the prison in only one session of D&D.

This is curious, because, if you mean the latest edition of Star Wars, I didn't personally find it particularly fast (it was probably a more tense combat system with more inherent threat - but not especially fast, considering the need to to work out what all the dice mean).

I guess the question would be - what would make it slow to do the same thing in D&D? My experience is that the biggest offender would be the idea that the combats need to be level appropriate and challenging. But if you have 4th level characters in D&D and the guards are basically 1st level then you should be able to steam roll through a lot of those encounters. The difference is perhaps that this would be tense in Star Wars because you would always be able to take a serious injury, but less so in 5E, because the threat would seem minimal, making the combat boring, creating the need to add threat to make it not boring, meaning it takes more time etc.

 

[jayoungr]

It's funny--I remember when 5E first came out, people were delighted at how fast combat was. What's changed?

 

[Argyle King]

This is curious, because, if you mean the latest edition of Star Wars, I didn't personally find it particularly fast (it was probably a more tense combat system with more inherent threat - but not especially fast, considering the need to to work out what all the dice mean).

I guess the question would be - what would make it slow to do the same thing in D&D? My experience is that the biggest offender would be the idea that the combats need to be level appropriate and challenging. But if you have 4th level characters in D&D and the guards are basically 1st level then you should be able to steam roll through a lot of those encounters. The difference is perhaps that this would be tense in Star Wars because you would always be able to take a serious injury, but less so in 5E, because the threat would seem minimal, making the combat boring, creating the need to add threat to make it not boring, meaning it takes more time etc.

We're playing the Fantasy Flight Games version of Star Wars.
Currently, most characters are around the general ballpark of 400 points worth of advancement.

Edit: I think part of what helps our group is we've become proficient at reading the dice. Sometimes a player may be unsure of how best to use advantage, but (overall) I think most of us are rather quick at adding narrative elements or knowing what our character abilities are.

Space battles are still a little slow sometimes, but some of that is because we're still learning what people other than the pilot (and gunners) are able to do.

Your comments on boring fights here are (I think) relevant. That touches on some of what I said back on page 1.

 

[Don Durito]

In the case of a prison escape I think I would probably use easy underlevelled combats but try to make up for some of the lack of inherent threat by using some kind of timer or mechanism to mark the convergence of large numbers of cards on the party's locations. So a combat makes the situation worse and if the combat lasts into round 3 it gets worse again (to encourage the players to expend resources on simple combats to finish them quicky).

There is still a lack of threat however. In 13th Age I would represent the guards with double or triple strength mooks - especially the latter - more damage then normal monsters but go down much faster. You could do the same in 5E - but it's more at odds with the more simulationist aspect of how weapon damage works.

In 3E you would have some of the same issues, but I would probably at least give the guards some weapons with nasty crit multipiers.

Basically, in 5E, I would probably end up with a homebrew monster solution for the guards. Give them low hit points plus sneak attack and/or the sentinel feat perhaps so the damage can add up quickly. Balance it out perhaps by giving them nasty ugly looking flails so that if they roll less then 5 on their attack roll they damage themselves.