How long does combat take your group?

[Ibram]

it took my party about 2 hours at most to kill 60 terracotta warriors (a fairly tough fight). and thats about average for a big battle involving lots of NPC's.

as has been stated above that combat should have gone by fairly quickly.

round 1: spell casters bombard the high level NPC's. Front line combants lay into the lower level shumcks, decimating most of them (isnt great cleave wonderful). supporting combatants mop up those who are left
round 2: spell casters bombard the high level NPC's again, most likely killing the wizard (and maybe killing the cleric, though i doubt it) Front line combatants move in and mop up who ever is left.

 

[Thanee]

Definitely no longer than half an hour. With so many higher level PCs the two 8th level opponents would be down by round two probably, the rest cannot stand up against 10th level PCs. And that is assuming a group of four, not six.

Of course, this is also assuming a fair playing field. If the opponents have a situational advantage, it could be trickier.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Plane Sailing]

We find that a combat might not take many combat rounds but take an awful number of hours.

Last Sunday our party of 10th sorcerer, 10th bard, 9th ftr/sor/dragondisciple, 8th cleric, 8th ranger, 8th ranger/fey, 8th paladin, 7th dwarf fighter was ambushed in the woods by four fey cats, two howling hounds, 6 giant spiders, 6 spriggans, 8 locust swarms and a druid 10(?). The battle lasted for about 8 melee rounds and took from 7pm to 9.30pm to complete.

 

[WayneLigon]

...your response is 2 hours or less -- how in the HECK do you do that?!? What tips or tricks that have been suggested on these boards have you used that have allowed you to play through your combats so quickly?

Last Friday we did two major combats; first one was five 8th/7th level PC's (three of which are spellcasters) against leveled monster foes, plus a spellcaster. Took us about 45 minutes or so. Maybe an hour, tops. If you get off topic a lot, then it seems like that's your major problem.

1. Have statblocks done for all foes, including XP for each group.
2. Roll initiative for blocks of foes; usually I give all melee fighters the same init, the spellcasters another, and special foes their own init roll. Never roll init seperately for each combatant. In fact, roll all that beforehand and note it on a card.
3. Each person in turn rolls their init; I write down what they get, ref the foes and either write their init or roll it. Then we go in init order. I call out that character name, they describe what they're doing, we do results, go to next person.
4. I think it should go without saying that the PC's should have all their ducks in a row. After a level or two, they should really be able to go through a normal combat and not even look at that character sheet. The weapon block on your character sheet has a big box where you put that final number with all your normal plusses; use it. Roll a die, add that number, call to DM along with what you're doing in the round. Simple. Spellcasters should have a spell ref sheet (several are available on this site, or many others), know the save needed and the DC, and what effect it will have.

Now, this is not just us going 'I roll a 22' 'That hits' 'I do 45 pts of damage' 'He falls'. This is us going 'I heave the falchion over my shoulder and cut him down.. 22! and 45 damage if that hits..?' 'It does; the troll hisses as your sword slices through his skin, the flesh reknitting as the blade passes through him. He still looks like he's in the fight, though'. For normal foes; some get less description than that, some a lot more.

Key point: Organization. Have all your stuff ready to go, and expect the players to do the same.

 

[diaglo]

getting the players to pay attention is the main problem. but i would say 1.5 to 2 hrs sounds about right currently.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

So an average fight lasts 1.5-2 hours. You need 13,333 average fights to go up a level. That's 20-26 real-time hours spent in combat to go up a level? Doesn't that sound in-sane?

I understand that low-level fights will go faster, but still.

I'm not saying we're doing any better... I'm just realizing how much time we're spending on combat (which isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing!)

AR

 

[Pants]

My experience:
A couple of rounds. One Firebrand and half of them are toasty dead. Follow up with some Sneak Attacking, Power Attacking, and a Chain Lightning and those guys are fried.

Add to it that the Leaders don't have much ability to truly 'harm' the PC's at that level (they can also cast 4th level spells) and the fight looks like a pushover.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

My group is so incredibly prone to off-topic discussion that, sometimes, combat can take up to 3 or 4 hours...

However, that's part of the fun-- isn't it?!

... Where are the cheetos?!?!

... am I in the room?!?!

... if there are any girls there I want to DO THEM!!!!

--LizzyB, Professional Paladin.

 

[fourthmensch]

My group is so incredibly prone to off-topic discussion that, sometimes, combat can take up to 3 or 4 hours...

However, that's part of the fun-- isn't it?!

... Where are the cheetos?!?!

... am I in the room?!?!

... if there are any girls there I want to DO THEM!!!!

--LizzyB, Professional Paladin.

Ah, but you forgot about the mountain dew!!!

 

[haiiro]

We find that a combat might not take many combat rounds but take an awful number of hours.

True for my group as well. With 6 4th level PCs in a combat that involved 4 NPC foes, an NPC ally, 8-10 zombies, 6-8 spiders, plus a handful of summoned beasties and familiars in a very large area, the combat took 7 rounds -- and five hours of play time! As long as everyone has fun (which we did), how long combat takes doesn't bother me a bit.