How many combat encounters per session?

[Djeta Thernadier]

Last session, I believe I ran only 3 combat encounters for the entire session. The total time for the session was around 4 hours or so. The group consisted of 6 players.

Now, on average, how many combats do you have a session and what would you consider a good amount?

I would have had more combat, but I am currently unused to DMing that size of a group, so I suppose combat could have been much faster.

Our 3.5-4.5 hour sessions usually have 1 or 2. More than that might take too long and less than that is okay, as long it's a huge non combat period (like a few sessions) before the next one. I like a good mix of both roleplay and combat.

 

[drunkmoogle]

On average, I plan about 6 combat encounters, but only about 3 or 4 ever take the quantum leap from my notes to the gaming table in an average session. Oh, and I do use rules for wandering encounters; it's a dangerous world my PCs live in.

 

[Wombat]

Battles? 0-2, depending on the session. One is normal.

 

[Breakdaddy]

We have 4 players atm and we went two sessions recently with no combat at all. The next session had 1 short combat in it. Last session, however was one big combat, the whole session. Of course we normally play D&D but last game was a military based D20 Modern game.

 

[Talmun]

Anywhere from one to as many as four or five, although the average is probably 2. Last session was one long combat, 5 8th level PCs Vs. roughly 50 orcs...

 

[sparxmith]

3-4

In the campaign I'm playing, RttToEE, we average 3-4 per 6 hour session. It's been fun.

Then last session, we managed to find an area we weren't supposed to get to yet, (I'm meta-gaming here) and we didn't have a single combat encounter. We were to busy trying to escape from a beholder and a 14th level cleric while we are but 5th level.

Sparxmith

 

[kigmatzomat]

If I'm using published module then its as many as the characters get through.
If its an adventure I have written it can be anything from none through 3 or 4. Although my players are not happy if they don't get at least one decent combat per session.
I'm curious why so many of you seem to be against combat?

Not against, but for established campaigns (like most of the people here seem to be running) the combats need to be justified.

IMC the majority of "random" encounters are CR3-8 (animals, bandits, random beasties) for rationality (I hate the games where one year the encounters on a road are rats and wolves and the next are demons & tarrasques). Since my players have 9 highly recognizable 13-15th level characters including a huge dire wolf mount and an Ogre paladin, most of the humanoid and animal encounters don't even bother. Only the few non-sentient (and cocky) beasts and aberrations will try.

The party is well known in most of the game's cities and have ties to church, government, guilds, trade houses, and the black market. You have to be motivated or ignorant to try anything and few ignorant opponents will be a challenge.

My game runs ~6 hours and there's roughly 1 combat each session. At their level and number of characters, the fights take forever or are over in an instant. More importantly, the party has learned to avoid irrelevant encounters. I'd planned on having a series of running battles last session but they managed to avoid the trigger events and talked their way out of the unavoidable situation.

Which basically means outside of "dungeons" they don't fight that often. Of course, the fight last session was 4 max HD elder elementals and 8 frost giant mummies so it was a nifty fight.

 

[Janx]

I think a better question would be, how many combats between "rest" periods.

meaning how many orcs, goblins, etc does the party encounter before you let them rest or heal, rather than the inevitable death to statistics.

Especially important in low level games. You can't run into too many bands of orcs before they kill you due to attrition.


My games run 4-6 hours. We had 6 fights in the last game, including a 2-hour ship battle.
Janx

 

[Henry]

All you noncombative wimps step aside - I run about 2 combats per 6 hour session, on average; we chew iron and spit nails, we don't stop 'till the hit points are single-digits, and we like it.

Ours is a little more social, but we do have sessions with only a single combat, and once in a blue moon (say while solving a mystery, or working out a sticky political situation), we have NO combat that session.

 

[Morpheus]

Usually we have 1 per session...Almost like clockwork