D&D 5E How many combat encounters per adventuring day does your group have?

[pming]

Hiya!

It's not the time the combat takes, it's the time the things that aren't combat take.

Yes, that takes more time than combat often enough. My reply was in regards to a few folks who seem to be confused as to how long a combat can take, I guess. You can run a dozen combats in a 4 hour session if the session primarily consists of said combats. If we are talking "half hour or so between battles as the PC's roleplay, solve puzzles and explore", then obviously not.

My point was that the number of books, options and "RAW look ups" will SIGNIFICANTLY impact the speed of your combats. Ditch all that and run the game in more of a traditional manner (re: Players state what they want to do in 'normal lingo', DM interprets and makes judgement call, dice are rolled, next Player...), and you'll find that a 'smallish normal' combat can be over and done with in 5 minutes...twice that for a normal combat, maybe double for a big one. I've had some combats that I thought were going to take a good half hour (re: 2nd and 3rd level PC's foolishly attacking a 5 headed hydra in a swamp) be over in 5 minutes (re: clever tactics, lucky rolls, and unlucky rolls).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Asisreo]

Hiya!

Yes, that takes more time than combat often enough. My reply was in regards to a few folks who seem to be confused as to how long a combat can take, I guess. You can run a dozen combats in a 4 hour session if the session primarily consists of said combats. If we are talking "half hour or so between battles as the PC's roleplay, solve puzzles and explore", then obviously not.

My point was that the number of books, options and "RAW look ups" will SIGNIFICANTLY impact the speed of your combats. Ditch all that and run the game in more of a traditional manner (re: Players state what they want to do in 'normal lingo', DM interprets and makes judgement call, dice are rolled, next Player...), and you'll find that a 'smallish normal' combat can be over and done with in 5 minutes...twice that for a normal combat, maybe double for a big one. I've had some combats that I thought were going to take a good half hour (re: 2nd and 3rd level PC's foolishly attacking a 5 headed hydra in a swamp) be over in 5 minutes (re: clever tactics, lucky rolls, and unlucky rolls).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I ran a combat with 8 players, all newbies once. Didn't know the difference between an attack or damage roll. We got it done in roughly 30 minutes.

To be fair, the combat was an "easy" encounter but it consisted of 7 enemies with a high CR threat that could easily incapacitate two PCs within their turn. The reason it took so little time is because I literally said before combat "I know the rules inside and out, don't worry about knowing the inner workings of the system, just tell me what you want me to do, I'll tell you if its possible and what to roll, then we'll move on."

They enjoyed every minute of it. They stopped feeling so limited about their options as well and began engaging with the environment yet it still took only roughly 15 minutes per round. Example: "I want to kick the table down as cover and shoot the enemy" "alright, the table isn't large enough to completely cover your body but its covering about 3/4th of your body. Roll attack and damage." "15 and 8 piercing" "You kick down the table, knock your arrow and quickly peak over and shoot it at the man. He notices and tries to dodge, but it grazes him and blood pours out the wound. Next, its [player's] turn"

Takes roughly 3 minutes. Even with a few questions about the environment, a turn can be done within a minute so long as the DM and player are at least prepared to the bare minimum.

 

[Flamestrike]

It is a time longer than preferable.

And yeah, very subjective. But for me refreshing my long rest abilities every third session would definitely be too long. I'd expect to level up about that often. (And that point you might just remove long rests. You get your stuff back when you level up!)

He was running 3 hour sessions.

Levelling every 9 hours of game play seems excessive.