D&D 4E How long are your 4e combats taking, real time?

[Aenghus]

The OP asks for real-time measures for 4e combats. It does occur to me that different people will start and stop the clock for this measurement at different points. The decision point on whether combat will take place at all can take varying amounts of time in different campaigns. Combat setup can take varying amounts of time, longer if minis or tokens have to be picked out there and then, a map is drawn etc.

There's also the subjective factor, that if a person thinks combat is dragging on they will tend to inflate the time, and vice versa.

As regards my experience, combat times have gradually reduced as my group and I have come to grips with the system. My group composition is Dwarven talent fighter with craghammer/shield, Tiefling cha-paladin with bastard sword/shield, halfling dodger rogue, human taclord and human staff wizard, now at level 5. The party is a little low on doing damage, particularly as the rogue isn't much of a team player and doesn't get sneak attack a lot of the time. (This has been commented on and is improving.)

So I think average combats take maybe 80 mins, quickest being 30 mins for small encounters they get the drop on, and longest being major encounters that drag on due to high enemy ACs and low rolls - I think the longest was three and a half hours.

Steps I'm taking to speed things up
- get minis ready beforehand, colour coded with paper clips
- prepare maps beforehand when possible
- whiteboard with magnetic markers for initiative, announced by a player,
- power sheets printed out for my players
- get players to roll attacks and damage at the same time
- end combat when the conclusion is obvious, by fleeing, surrender or cleanup at the cost of some healing surges

Existing issues - the main one is player and DM decision time, some players are slow to decide what to do., and I struggle with it as well Practice does improve things but there's a limit on what can be done and still keep the game enjoyable for everyone. I haven't set hard time limits for decisions yet, but may need to in the future to keep things flowing.

I do think there will be a huge difference in combat tempo between groups with tactically-minded combat-optimised PCs using teamwork and synergy, and more casual groups with combat-unoptimised PCs who possibly like to mix combat and roleplay.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I have kinda lost track of how long we need for combats in my regular group. I just don't note the time.

But I am currently also running an online game using GameTable and Skype Conference Call, and it seems to be about 1h per encounter. We play around 2 to 2:30 h, and last week we had 2 combats and one skill challenge (interrogation) with a lot of exposition.

I think the "face-to-face" games had similar lengths, but I am sure there have been a few that went longer. I think the longest (at least "felt") must have been against a Black Dragon...

 

[Jack99]

Average time for each combat was about 2.5 hours.

That's long.


Anyway, I have 5 players, 11th level, and our combats seem to be quite steady at around 1h. Hard (n+3) combats last longer, while easy combats (n-1 or n) do not last as long. Of course, there are the odd screw-up on my part, like making a two-headed troll with cleric template.. Giving Cure Serious Wounds to a monster that 1) has regen 2) is 3 or 4 levels higher than the players is a bad idea, if you want short combats. But it was a great fight though

 

[Paul Strack]

My combats last about an 60 - 75 minutes. I run 5-6 hour sessions, typically 2-3 combats and a mixture of skill challenges and role playing for the balance of the session.

My group has 7 players, but only 5-6 show up for a given session. We have every PH1 class except a Cleric, but group composition varies from session to session. The Paladin, Fighter, Wizard and Warlord attend every session, but the Rogue, Warlock and Ranger are variable. I've noticed that fights go faster the more Strikers there are in the group. Things have gotten much faster now that the group is better at teamwork.

The PCs just reached 6th level. Early in the campaign, the encounters varied from Level+0 to Level+2, but now I have to throw Level+2 to Level+4 encounters at the group to keep them challenged. I never throw trivial encounters at the group, since I find they are just boring.

We do a lot of prep in advance of the game. All attack bonuses and damage rolls are pre-calculated for all characters (PC and monster). I try to have the maps prepared in advance. I generally have the minis for the adventure set aside for easy access. I am doing 2 hours of prep time per hour of play (10 hours prep for a 5 hour session), but I also update the PC character sheets as well.

I've recently had the monsters start to run away when it was clear they were losing, but the party's fighter won't let anyone run. If I terminated fights at this point, though, it would probably shave 15 minutes off of each battle.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

The DMG says that combat should take about an hour per encounter. So if people arent having approximately hour long combats, then there needs to be an errata because they obviously didnt calculate it properly. If I know that I am going to be running a 5 hour session, the DMG tells me that I should prepare approximately 4 combats. But if in reality I am only going to be running two, or even eight, then the DMG is giving bad advice.

IMO they need to release an errata/dragon article or have a section in the PHB 2/DMG 2 about how to make the most of your time so that you dont have DMs who are either wasting time preparing for something they arent actually going to use until their next session, which could be a month or more away depending on play schedules, and so that you dont have have DMs preparing for only a fraction of the encounters that they are are going to be running.

 

[Rel]

Well I'm very embarassed to say that I'm just now seeing this thread despite my remarks having helped to spark it. Sorry about that and I'll do my best to make a worthwhile contribution.

I've only just recently started my first 4e campaign and we're only two sessions in. This means that my data set isn't terribly huge but it does mean that I can recall specific encounters pretty well. We start playing at 7:30 on Monday nights and finish up by around midnight so we're playing about 4.5 hours in a session. Our first session ran a bit long at 5 hours and our second stopped right at 4 hours.

Our first session kicked off with a lengthy bit of roleplaying that assembled the party and eventually had three combat encounters and a pretty involved Skill Challenge. The second session (that I referenced in the quote in the OP) had four combat encounters and a good bit of roleplay and skill rolls but no actual Skill Challenge per se.

What was interesting to me was that I wanted to examine my encounters before I posted them in this thread. So I plugged them into the encounter builder tool and was rather shocked to see that of the seven combat encounters I've run thus far two were "Hard" and all the rest were "Easy" according to its calculations. You should ask my players if THEY thought these were easy encounters.

I don't really want to bore you with precise details (if you want them then you can read my "Running Commentary on Rel's Campaign" thread in the General Forum). I will say that I've managed to make relatively easy foes very challenging and I think this is contributing to the game being fun but also the fights not dragging on.

For example during a skill challenge wherein the PC's were being swept down a river, I had them get attacked by a some "Dire Pirhanas". This was just a Needlefang Drake Swarm that I'd filed the serial numbers off of. By virtue of the positioning of the PC's it effectively only attacked two of them (the Warlock and Ranger). The Paladin and Cleric had to swim in order to get close enough to use their powers in that battle and by the time they got there the other two PC's were nearly dead (as in unconscious, failing Death Saves and about to drown). Terrain was a HUGE factor in that little encounter (which again was considered "Easy" by the Encounter Builder).

A later fight had them battling a Wraith in a descecrated temple. Here again the Encounter Builder said that this fight would be Easy. I tweaked the Wraith just a bit by giving him one Encounter Power that did a Close Burst 2 for 1d6 Necrotic Damage and pushed all the targets it hit back 2 squares. This was so it could protect the dead body on the altar with a sacrificial dagger stuck in its chest. If the PC's could remove that dagger then it lost its Regeneration 5. The other factor was that there was a balcony it could retreat to thanks to its flight. Again, this was a tough fight for the PC's as they kept trying to wear it down with attacks that it was mostly recovering from (thanks to Insubstantial + Regeneration). They finally managed to get the dagger free and then they finished it off. Fun, tough fight but not a grind. I think the entire thing lasted about an hour and was maybe 8 or 9 rounds.

One other fight that the EB told me was Easy was the pair of Clay Scout Homunculi that guarded the inner sanctum of this temple. The combo of their mind blast that Dazed the PC it hit plus being Invisible to Dazed creatures was brutally effectively. Combine that with their power to redirect melee attacks to another target adjacent to them and those little bastards were really tough.

I guess what I'm saying is that one way to keep fights shorter is to use foes that aren't higher level but who have abilities that combined with their surroundings and fellow bad guys can make it a challenging battle. It certainly hasn't seemed like a cakewalk to the PC's. (Also I find it amusing that the Hard encounters according to the EB were not really all that tough for the PC's compared to some of the others.)

One other thing that might be helping me out is that my group is slightly smaller with only 4 players. In terms of other external factors in making things go quickly, I haven't had to draw any maps because I've used my very favorite gaming accessory: Snap together dungeon tiles from my Descent boardgame. They are awesome.

We play again tomorrow night and we're going to be getting to some tougher encounters so I'm interested to see if this trend of 1-hour battles holds. I know of at least one encounter that I'm guessing will go at least an hour and a half but it's a pretty involved set-piece in an interesting location. I don't think anybody will mind the extra time for that one.

One final thing I should note is that since I'm not tracking XP it doesn't matter that these encounters are falling on the Easy end of the XP spectrum. I can see that being an issue if running a game by the RAW if you're trying to keep a certain pace of advancement.

 

[Final Attack]

We are 5th level. 5 players. Combat will take between 1-2 hours.

Honestly combat takes around 3 hours with beginners too.

It comes down to how long each player is taking and how many rounds it takes to finish combat. The tactical analysis of the situation and player options makes each player take a little longer.

I'm sure with decisive and quick acting players its faster, but we are only regular players.

My speed up combat ideas -
~25% extra damage for monsters
~25% less health on monsters

I give speed damage to players who act quickly ~ 25% extra.

I'll be rough with the percentage and establish a numbers at the start of the battle. Eg.
+4 for all monsters
-10 HP
+5 damage speed damage

I don't really care about how this adversely effects the game as long as battle goes quicker.

 

[Plane Sailing]

For example during a skill challenge wherein the PC's were being swept down a river, I had them get attacked by a some "Dire Pirhanas". This was just a Needlefang Drake Swarm that I'd filed the serial numbers off of. By virtue of the positioning of the PC's it effectively only attacked two of them (the Warlock and Ranger). The Paladin and Cleric had to swim in order to get close enough to use their powers in that battle and by the time they got there the other two PC's were nearly dead (as in unconscious, failing Death Saves and about to drown). Terrain was a HUGE factor in that little encounter (which again was considered "Easy" by the Encounter Builder).

I'm guessing the issue here is that the needlefang drake swarm is dramatically underlevelled - it's aura, knocking prone and massive damage make it a real killer for its level (they probably out to either remove the double damage on prone targets or reduce the damage die generally)!

 

[Plane Sailing]

That's long.

Encounter duration came down yesterday. In 7 hours of play we had 3 encounters, each of which took about 8-10r and lasted 60-90 mins.

The second encounter was definitely a "Let's just bug out and call it even, OK?" moment - the party failed to stop the evil ritual, failed to rescue their old friend from the sacrifice and only just managed to run away carrying two negative-but-stabilised comrades out with them

 

[Rel]

I'm guessing the issue here is that the needlefang drake swarm is dramatically underlevelled - it's aura, knocking prone and massive damage make it a real killer for its level (they probably out to either remove the double damage on prone targets or reduce the damage die generally)!

It was kind of a thing of beauty.

When they finally got out of the river they were like, "Dammit! We just got beaten up by FISH!!"