How long do your battles take

bradikus · May 24, 2005

I have noted that on average a major battle will take our group about a 45 minutes to an hour to complete. This just seems way to long to me, so I am wondering how long it takes other groups.

10 minutes or less. Our battles are real time
10 to 20 minutes.
20 to 30 minutes.
30 to 45 minutes
45 to hour
Hour or more. People are falling asleep in between turns

Crothian · May 24, 2005

Usually less then a half hour I'd imagine. But it varies a lot.

Dracomeander · May 24, 2005

Our major battles vary alot in complexity which makes the time vary as well.

With 5 PCs and a DM who are well conversant in the rules, our battles tend to take approximately 5 minutes per round. But we've had major battles that took as few as 5 rounds and others that took more than 20 rounds.

scrubkai · May 24, 2005

A major battle for us can be a VERY long process.

The last one I can think of took us 2 hours... But then that was one, where we knew we were going in so we had a ton of allies, The BBEG knew we were there and so he had a bunch of demon allies and there were a ton of innocents....

So between our 5 characters/assorted allies, the 4 major bad guys, plus 6 minor henchmen and the 30 some innocents that the bad guys/the party were going working through trying to avoid, it took some serious time.

Still it was one heck of a memorable time, so we all enjoyed it.

Bront · May 24, 2005

It realy depends. If the group is in synch and on top of things, it goes quickly. If the group is not in synch, someone's distracted, or not everyone is following the combat, it takes much longer.

I've actualy found it sometimes faster to reroll initiative each time, because otherwise players forget they're coming back up and then get distracted, while everyone seems to want to wait to roll initiative. Not an issue for a more experienced/focused group.

Tatsukun · May 24, 2005

Well, our last session was only a battle. It was a long fight with lots of 3D movement and spells. By the end our wizard* was down to a wand, the archer was low on arrows, the bard was down to using his long bow and my paladin /cleric was at 0 hp, 0 turn attempts, 0 Lay on hands points, 0 healing potions, 0 spells left, and 0 buffs running. I've never run the proverbial tank so empty!

I think that battle took about 5-6 hours, but a lot of that was everyoen trying to wrap our collective head around 3D movement in DnD.

DnD is a role playing game, so it's great to have long role playing events. But it's also a war game, so I enjoy a good fight once in a while...

-Tatsu

*Something our wizard learned from the battle; even if you use SEVEN fireballs on a guy, it won't kill him is he's a vampire! DOH!

Jolly Giant · May 25, 2005

Our longest-lasting battle took one up whole 8-hour session, then continued for another 6 hours the next session.

That was in an epic game, though.

I voted 45 - 60 min. for 6-9 level battles, since you asked about major battles. Of course, many battles last for a much shorter time.