How long should a standard combat last?

[Shroomy]

I voted 45 minutes, but I would have liked to vote for a 30-45 minute range. We've had some zippy encounters in 4e and some that bogged down, but the majority have fallen into this range. Our very last combat was fairly short; we decimated a whole party of orcs in about 20 minutes. I've noticed two factors have contributed to long ecounters: one, our striker, who is admittedly an under-optimized star pact warlock, can't hit anything, and two, truthfully, bad encounter design on the part of the DM (incorporeal wraiths against a 3 man party that has a relatively low DPS due to problems with our striker).

 

[mhensley]

Interesting data coming back so far...

I have a sneaking suspicion that this is one area where Wizards misjudged what people wanted with 4e. I enjoy 4e, but combat is taking a little too long for my tastes; about a 45-60 minutes with 5 PCs against a standard group of monsters. I personally would prefer combats in the 30 minute range: some a little more, some a little less.

I may soon go to reducing monster HP and seeing what that does; are the PCs still challenged? Is it fun for us?

A quasi-minion may be a very good idea.

Cheers!

Yep, this is my #1 problem with 4e- combat takes up way too much game time. When a 1st level combat with with a small group of kobolds ended up taking over an hour to play, that's when I knew it wasn't for me.

 

[Raven Crowking]

My point is that D&D is not the game for someone who, as a whole, does not want combats to last longer than 10 (or even 20) minutes.

This is, IME, only true for WotC-D&D. It was not true, IME, of TSR-D&D.


RC

 

[I'm A Banana]

Alternate "Overwhelming Force" combat resolution rules:

Attribute a damage rating for the combat.

Every PC rolls attacks against a DC for the combat. Failure means they take damage. Once the party has achieved 4-6 "successes," the game moves on.

In 3e, I'd just have one PC roll an attack roll, and, based on that, assign the party damage depending on their level. "He rolled a seven! This combat didn't quite go your way. Everyone take 80 points of damage!"

 

[ExploderWizard]

This is, IME, only true for WotC-D&D. It was not true, IME, of TSR-D&D.


RC

QFT.

WOTC D&D makes the assumption that combat is the primary focus of the game. Complex combat rules help reinforce that idea.

TSR D&D assumes that combat is a part of the game and provides mechanics to resolve it quickly. If more detail (and thus time investment) is desired then it can be added as desired.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Alternate "Overwhelming Force" combat resolution rules:

Attribute a damage rating for the combat.

Every PC rolls attacks against a DC for the combat. Failure means they take damage. Once the party has achieved 4-6 "successes," the game moves on.

In 3e, I'd just have one PC roll an attack roll, and, based on that, assign the party damage depending on their level. "He rolled a seven! This combat didn't quite go your way. Everyone take 80 points of damage!"

OUCH!!! I pity the fool that encounters anything while slightly wounded or at all if he/she is a magic user

 

[The Human Target]

I prefer a close relationship between the amount of time a combat is supposed to represent in-game, and the amount of time it takes to resolve mechanically. One of the major immersion-breaking moments in 3rd edition is realizing that a combat which is supposed to be only a few minutes long from your character's point of view could take an hour or more to resolve at the table.

One of the interesting side effects of the much-maligned 1 minute combat round from AD&D was that it could result in combats taking about as much time to resolve mechanically as they took in-game. Five rounds of combat between a few opponents could often be resolved in about 5 minutes.

That factors into the equation for me as well.

A combat doesn't have to happen in real time, but you should try to keep it as close to real time as you can without making it lame.

A four minute in game time skirmish that takes 50 minutes to real time play makes me groan.

For a standard encounter, I'd say about 30-45 minutes tops. Enough time to get into it and enjoy some of the tactics without getting bogged down.

Much shorter than that and I'd wonder why I didn't handwave the battle and move on. If it's a foregone conclusion that the PCs are to win the combat, why bother spending the time going through the motions?

"You face off a legion of kobolds. After several minutes of brisk fighting, you chew through the front lines and face off against the royal guard defending the kobold general." And then the encounter picks up from there.

I've never planned an encounter to be a guaranteed win for the PCs. I don't see what the point would be. Even a standard, short encounter should be worth running through, and for me and my group, 30-45 minutes seems to be the butter zone.

To me, its fun sometimes for the PCs to be totally in charge of the combat.

If you really fear the enemy, it can be kinda of hard to justify trying out there/fun things in combat.

But if you're pretty sure you're going to win, you can try to drown a kobold in a horse trough or drop a barrel over a thief's head and kick him out the front window of a tavern.

Plus, in certain systems short doesn't mean easy. A gritty fight between a PC and the assassin that crept into his room shouldn't take long, but it should be dangerous for both of them.