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

[DND_Reborn]

Sure, but as a rule of thumb on average, three rounds takes less real time than 6 rounds.

Not sure how many people are actually timing their combats, but my guess is the "feel" of the combat has more to do with enjoyment or wanting to move on than the actual amount of time.

Shrug

It depends on the tables and such whether 3 rounds is faster or slower at one table than 6 rounds at another. In general, I agree, but the fact is it comes down to simply how much time in real life is being used.

As others have pointed, too long a slog in between turns and players often tune out, etc. So, resolving the round and getting back to a player's turn is vital IME.

It is the primary reason why I am so happy with the Cinematic Initiative Variant I developed and have been testing/using lately. It breaks up the action so player's "turns" don't happen all at once and keeps the players more engaged in the flow of combat. It helps address the "feel" of the combat as you put it.

 

[el-remmen]

As others have pointed, too long a slog in between turns and players often tune out, etc. So, resolving the round and getting back to a player's turn is vital IME.

This is part of what I meant by "table culture" in my original post. This is also why I'd never run D&D for a group bigger than 5 ever again.

 

[Ringtail]

1. Is 5e Combat Slow? It certainly can be, but I really think it depends on the people at the table. I have two groups that couldn't be further apart. One, full of optimizers and rules-lawyers can run through several turns quickly and multiple combats in a session. We all plan our actions during other players turns, execute them quickly and move on. My other group has one player who never plans ahead of his turn or often changes his mind on his turn, wondering out loud and comparing pros and cons of certain spells in a running commentary until he decides. Believe me we've tried, but I think that's just the way he thinks through problems. He's a very technical guy working on his master's in computer science and I've seen the way he writes code and its exactly the same.

I don't really have any tricks to speed up combat. We like 5e the way it is and don't really want to mess with the rules. The only things I could say are plan your actions ahead of time and pick out all your dice ahead of time. I would even suggest rolling attack and damage at the same time but some DM's don't seem to like this. While I find the experience less satisfying, moving to a Virtual Tabletop for the pandemic has helped speed a lot. We can all see the map easier and manipulate our tokens faster, making it easy for us to make tactical decisions. Several of us also have automated sheets and macros, which roll attack, damage (and in my case sneak attack) all at once and automatically calculate extra crit damage. However, several players still prefer rolling physical dice so the speed advantage is still negated somewhat.

3. Was it always slow? Can't say for certain as 4e was my first but I've dabbled in B/X and watched Streams of PF1, PF2, B/X, 4E and 5E. I think some editions, 3e/PF and 4e, took longer because you had a lot of choice on your turn and a lot of fiddly rules. 5e I think is quicker as there is less going on, but I think combat takes more rounds in general because of higher hitpoints. I still think it comes down to the group though. I've listened to the Glass Cannon Podcast play Pathfinder 1e and they move through those combats pretty quick because each player knows their stuff. I also watched Adam Koebel run a B/X game where combat seemed to take forever, somehow. I am a fan of OSR (So 0e, B/X and sometime 1e) and a lot of people talk about how quick those combats are as being a aspect of the game they liked. With such simple rules combined with a good familiarity I think it would be quicker.

 

[Oofta]

Like @Ringtail, I've seen big differences between different groups, but that doesn't have much to do with edition (well, other than 4E when single rounds could take an hour or more at high levels). Sometimes you have people that are efficient, sometimes you have "the analyzer" who wants the most optimal choice possible. In our game it was a data base administrator, also a computer science guy.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

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.

1. Not inherently, no.

There are many things that can slow down combat, of course. IME a "killer GM" will do so. Killer GMs aren't necessarily trying to kill the PCs, they may just be ramping up the difficulty because the group is steamrolling pre-generated encounters. As encounters get harder, players slow down to try to avoid mistakes.

Of course, in another group where the players are far less skilled, you might have players with messy character sheets (or trying to read character sheets off a tiny cell phone), people who need to be reminded about the rules every few rounds, characters that are the opposite of optimized, and so forth.

A large group will slow things down because more NPCs (or traps, etc) are required to challenge the PCs.

2. I haven't found this to be an issue with 5e at all.
3. 3e to 5e are slower than earlier editions. IMO that's not a bug, but a feature... in 2e, if I were playing a fighter, I would simply announce who I'm attacking, roll some dice, and the turn is over. I avoided playing rogues as there seemed to be two or three separate set of mutually incompatible surprise/stealth rules. In 3e, 4e and some fighter builds in 5e (playing one right now) I have to make tactical decisions. Most of the time when I saw a slow game in 3e for rules reasons, it was because someone was spamming summons. Sometimes I found 4e to slow down, not because of hit point bloat or other grind symptoms, but because there were too many off-turn powers available (that everyone went for, since most of the players in my group knew how to otpimize), and this tended not to be an issue at the heroic tier. Strikers in my campaign were so effective; one party even had a pacifist healer and they still killed things very fast.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Agreed. 4e combat at mid to higher levels took forever. If I had two combat encounters planned, that was all we were going to get to do in a session. Original, Basic, 1e, and 2e were all faster, to be sure, but 5e is not slow by any means. With one exception - when you get in excess of six players, it starts to slow down exponentially. I think older editions tolerated larger group better. But even so, I think most of us aren't running seven+ player groups.

In my experience, 5e is faster than either 3e or 4e because it's got a lot less detail to micromanage, and probably even 2e because handling initiative often took so long in that edition. 1e was faster, in my experience, because we weren't dealing with battle maps, initiative was side initiative rather than individual, and there were a lot fewer options to think through.
That said, I'm not finding the speed of combat in 5e onerous by any means. It's a very nice change from anything 3e/4e/PF even if it's not as fast as 1e.

 

[Asisreo]

Its also makes it easier when the DM understands the dilemma the monster has and is doing to determine their tactics in a more automatic fashion.

A creature defending its territory acts different than a creature raiding a village

If a creature is smart, they should target the healer as best it can. If its dumb, it should attack the closest. If its a hunter, it should retreat when they realize the enemy is overwhelming them. If its prey, it flees immediately and attacks whatever is preventing its flight.

If the creature is after a treasure, their actions should prioritize getting the treasure and leaving. If its proud, it will wait until its cornered to finally spring its biggest attacks.

 

[Charlaquin]

Basically like 5e, 3E was designed with the idea that an environment was the primary challenge and that you populated that environment with a range of different CR encounters.

That’s a really interesting way to put it! I like that.

Yeah, I definitely think you’re right that a big part of the shift is responding to the way DMs actually use the system.

 

[Helldritch]

I never changed my stance. The environment is there. It is not because the players meet something that it can be defeated. They have to learn when to flee to fight another day. If monsters and foes can flee, so should the players.

 

[Zardnaar]

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

Probably reaching the later levels and new options counting out.

Still fast vs 4E, not fast vs older D&D/clones.