How long should a standard combat last?

[JRRNeiklot]

I've run games with 6 combats in 4 hours. It can be done.

It involves keeping everybody moving, no dawdling.

I find this laughable. We run over twice that many in some adventures in the same time span. Again, though, we play 1e. We tend to like exploring, planning, solving puzzles, with several fast and furious combats mixed in. Anything over 10 minutes, unless it's a major fight with the boss, and folks start yawning.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I find this laughable. We run over twice that many in some adventures in the same time span. Again, though, we play 1e. We tend to like exploring, planning, solving puzzles, with several fast and furious combats mixed in. Anything over 10 minutes, unless it's a major fight with the boss, and folks start yawning.

Out of curiosity, do you use minis for your 1E combats or not?

 

[Zanticor]

I´m amazed by the outcome of the poll. I never want a combat scene to last 10 minutes! In four hours of play you would have to fight at least 12 encounters at that rate. If they are 12 solo weak encounters that might be doable but I greatly prefere an interesting encounter once per session than an enormous amount of forgetable goblins. I enjoy the complex medium level 3.5 fights so 2 per night seems like an appropriate rate. 1 to 2 hours each minimal. I don´t mind to much that in game terms we sometimes have to sleep in between.

Zanticor

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

How on earth do you get a standard 4E encounter for 5 players to run in 10 minutes?
If a typical combat is supposed to be about 6 rounds, that's 1 min 40 sec per round, with 5 players that averages @ 30 seconds per player. Wow. To me that seems really fast.
I wonder if that is because I have 3 veterans and 2 relative n00bs at my table.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I voted 15-20 minutes and that is luckily what we have been able to get in 4e.

Through a combination of narrative first, mechanics second, ie: You decide what your character would do that round then simply pick the mechanic/Power that works best so don't spend time fuddling around with trying to max out something.

Lower the level of HP that some monsters have. Obvious reasons why it would speed up combat here.

Not using grids/minis for all but the most serious of combat. Saves time having to not set it up.

Plus since combat is generally part of the story it usually isn't wail on someone till their dead. It is chase them down a alley, engage in combat, he climbs up a wall to continue the chase then he disappears and you find him later bloody and exhausted in his home (at his health from the fight). So each fight is really broken up a lot of the time.
​

 

[Herremann the Wise]

How on earth do you get a standard 4E encounter for 5 players to run in 10 minutes?
If a typical combat is supposed to be about 6 rounds, that's 1 min 40 sec per round, with 5 players that averages @ 30 seconds per player. Wow. To me that seems really fast.
I wonder if that is because I have 3 veterans and 2 relative n00bs at my table.

We have 4 hardened players and 1 wife in our 4E group.

I'd say 30 seconds would be about right for a standard turn for those in the group who know their powers without needing to refer to cards or their character sheet. You are still going to get longer turns here or there, but from my own experience with a tactical warlord, the tactics required are normally pretty obvious and 30 seconds is about it. For those that need to refer to powers a lot, or have less obvious choices, it can go quite a bit longer.

At low levels, we've found 4E combat to be pretty similar to 3E. I imagine 4E will start to shine at higher levels where we have found 3E bogs down significantly.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Out of curiosity, do you use minis for your 1E combats or not?

Only rarely, in very large battles, though we do sometimes do draw rooms out on a battle map.

 

[justanobody]

The less time the better. If I am going to spend more than 10 minute in some combat situation I will not play D&D, but some mini/board game made for battles of a longer time.

 

[MerricB]

Merric, one thing though -- aren't you the guy whose group was plowing through 3e combats in record time?

Indeed I was.

I'm imagining that in a year, you'll be back here regaling us with tales of your sessions lasting 3 hours and handling 8 combats.

I hope so.

I think everyone is slower than they'd like, for now, because of rules familiarity. I certainly don't have that "I know the rules like the back of my hand" feeling that I used to have with 3e. At least, not yet.

The thing is... there aren't really that many rules to know in 4e. My DM screen has all the conditions on it, and that's most of the struggle. I'm sure part of it is due to the greater number of combatants (we basically had 11 in the last set of battles, so for a combat that lasted a little more than 6 rounds, we had pretty much ~60 actions).

How much faster are we going to get? That's an interesting question.

Cheers!

 

[crash_beedo]

We're averaging 45 minutes per combat (4 combats in a 3-4 hour session) - although I wish we'd consistently get down to the 30 min range. Slowly getting there. One of the player's sons plays (he's 12) so things tend to bog down on his turn, and one of the guys is an over-thinker / recites all of his bonuses twice to make sure... you know the type. (He's working on it).

When we started 4E the first 2-3 sessions, combats would be 90 minutes.

I'm leery of cutting monster HP's... it reduces the # of rounds they're alive, reducing their damage output, reducing the threat, etc... unless maybe it becomes a 'cut their hit points, power up their damage output' kind of house rule.