How long do your battles take

[DonTadow]

I don't allow the players to discuss each other's tactics or moves in detail. Each player takes his or her turn, other players can, within the six second round, shout out advice such as - 'flank this guy' "lightning bolt him' etc but there is never a committee meeting on every move. I think that would drive me batty (and at least half of my group too).

I choose 30-45 minutes but that is more of an average than anything else. Some take as little as 10 minutes others over 2 hours. For the most part 30-45 minutes is the average though.

my players are only allowed to speak on there turn and no one can respond until their turn.

also all rolls are made at the same time. There was one player i had whom was highly superstitious and didn't want to do it but i had to explain to her that speed is important in keeping the game fun

 

[Quasqueton]

also all rolls are made at the same time.

This is something I've never been able to get into. I am the only one at my game table who doesn't do this. I just can't. 25 years of habit is ingrained into my gamer being.

Quasqueton

 

[Henry]

This is something I've never been able to get into. I am the only one at my game table who doesn't do this. I just can't. 25 years of habit is ingrained into my gamer being.

Quasqueton

As long as you don't take up a ton of time doing this, then there's no harm in it. Me, I dislike rolling it all at once, and then I've got one player who rolls all his ATTACK ROLLS for the next THREE ROUNDS and lines them up on the table for everyone to see. It's weird to know if he's going to hit on his turn or not before you even get to him.

The biggest time-stealer I see is players who don't take the combat seriously enough to keep it moving, but this can happen with any time players don't pay attention to the game, and are spending more time either making movie quotes or nuancing every move their PC makes. If I take longer than 15 seconds to figure out what I'm doing in a round, I feel like I've taken too long.

 

[ThirdWizard]

It's sad. I can often decide and carry out the actions of three NPCs in the time it takes one player to figure out what he's doing. They're ponderous. It takes forever for anything to happen, always has. Every time I institute some rule to limit the amount of time allowed, it fails miserably.

A simple battle against an equal CR enemy can take an hour.

 

[Darmanicus]

It's sad. I can often decide and carry out the actions of three NPCs in the time it takes one player to figure out what he's doing. They're ponderous. It takes forever for anything to happen, always has. Every time I institute some rule to limit the amount of time allowed, it fails miserably.

A simple battle against an equal CR enemy can take an hour.

Too be fair though a DM is more prone to whining considering a lot of his critters are gonna die anyway, so he's going to be more impatient because there's no real attatchment to them in most cases. Us players on the other hand do have an attatchment to our 'critters' and are therefore bound to take a bit longer. Just remember that you might have an idead about what you're gonna do in the next round but what happens when your carefully laid plans are spoiled by the creature/character that goes right before you do?

Take our campaign for example, (ok it's 16th/17th but hang in there), and this is what could happen on me go.

1. Any number of free actions, say activating haste.
2. Full attack on Mr X, (5 attacks), which leads to......
3. 5 attacks worth of dice rolling to hit which includes crits.
4. 5 possible rolls for damage in which I need to know a combination of...
5. Is it evil, (for holy damage, smiting and possible other evil related goodness)?
6. Is it Undead, (for much the same as the above)?
7. Is it an Outsider, (etc. etc.)?
8. Can I crit it?
9. Should I Power Attack and the associated maths with that?
10. With re to 4, and if all of the above apply, "has anyone got 4d4 +4d6 +1d10 etc. that I can roll"?
11. If I critted and it was susceptible then "can you make both a FORT an WILL save DC X to avoid X"?
12. Now it's me mounts turn..............

Seriously, it's bloody murder and I haven't even factored in all the freakin' buff effects that the other 3 members of our group can lay down, the math associated with that, (and thinking of that, that's wherein a lot of time gets used up), and a DM who sighs all the time just to distract you even further, (believe me, based on how much he whines, you'd think that he'd be savvy enough to just shut the hell up coz I might go a bit faster but I suppose it's one of the few joys he gets out of life ).

And JUST when you think you've got it ALL worked out, the silly t**t dumps an AM field on ya...........

AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!​

 

[Steel_Wind]

I said an hour or more, but I don't agree that people are falling asleep. We have 8 player party so things are bound to take a while.

6 players here.

And yes, frequently an hour or more I guess. I expect that I have a different view of the word "major battle" than do many here.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Too be fair though a DM is more prone to whining considering a lot of his critters are gonna die anyway, so he's going to be more impatient because there's no real attatchment to them in most cases. Us players on the other hand do have an attatchment to our 'critters' and are therefore bound to take a bit longer. Just remember that you might have an idead about what you're gonna do in the next round but what happens when your carefully laid plans are spoiled by the creature/character that goes right before you do?

Perhaps I should have qualified that. They're currently 7th level, and the only spellcaster of the group is a Rogue/Sorcerer 1/6. And, I don't think we've ever finished a battle in under thirty minutes.

Last campaign it was even longer, but that group was 21st level at the end and one character was an rogue/illusionist/arcane trickster. Those illusions really slow things down!

 

[Romnipotent]

depends on what we're fighting. and what our goal is, killing, capture, looking cool?

 

[Kershek]

Isn't the goal always to look cool?

 

[Romnipotent]

NOT if its a scout party, thens its silent and quick...