Ideally, How Many Battles?

[Steel_Wind]

I think the question is perfectly fine as asked. I'd say I like about 2-3 combats a session on average. That's true whether I'm playing 4, 6 or even 8 hours or more. Simply the longer the session, the bigger the fight, and vice-versa.

The question presupposes a perfect combat resolution mechanic where a combat takes only 2 to 3 minutes to resolve.

So in a 4, 6 or 8 hour session, your players are happy with only 10 minutes TOTAL of that entire session being combat? ALL of the rest of that time "should" be spent "roleplaying" and your players will be happy with that breakdown of time in your gaming session?

That IS what is being asked. Are you really sure about that?

I know my players wouldn't be happy with that; at all.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Before CR system, DMs just ran an amount of combats based on his own discretion. Back then you needed 1million XP to level up at higher levels, but it didn't mean you start go on a genocide for XP.

Now with the amount of encounters needed to level up (13.3 in 3.5e and 8-10 in 4e), it is codified that you must have that much combat just to level up. This also influenced adventure design as you can see from the recent published modules. It seems like there is a need for filler combat just to level up PCs. Older editions did have them in terms of random encounters, but they were short combats and were very insignificant.

Sure in later editions I can just have 1-2 important fights and handwave level the PCs up when I want to, but the game wasn't intended to be that way.

The 4e DMG talks about giving xp for combat encounters, skill challenge encounters, puzzle encounters and quests. In addition it mentions that you can simplify the level up procedure by just counting encounters, 8-10 is a level.

Hand waving level-ups was clearly something they intended the DM to be able to do. That they suggest that you level up after 8-10 encounters isn't a bad idea. Padding modules with combat encounters to make up the xp for people that don't hand wave level-ups is a bad idea.

 

[Bullgrit]

Perfect numbers:
4 hours game session (240 minutes)
4 Players/PCs
Combats average 6 rounds in length
Combat rounds average 3 minutes (average of 18 minutes per combat)
Half the game time is spent handling battles (120 minutes)
= 6-7 battles per session

I sometimes get this when I DM. I more often get 4-5 when I DM. (A lot of time is wasted with non-game stuff.)

I almost never get this when I’m a Player. Most times when someone else DMs (and I’m a Player), I get 1-2 battles per game session. (Other DMs seem to think combat is the lesser aspect of RPGs, and/or they think every combat should be very, very challenging/hard.)

Bullgrit

 

[Celebrim]

The question presupposes a perfect combat resolution mechanic where a combat takes only 2 to 3 minutes to resolve.

So in a 4, 6 or 8 hour session, your players are happy with only 10 minutes TOTAL of that entire session being combat? ALL of the rest of that time "should" be spent "roleplaying" and your players will be happy with that breakdown of time in your gaming session?

That IS what is being asked. Are you really sure about that?

I know my players wouldn't be happy with that; at all.

I basically agree. Even if I could mechanically resolve a combat in 2-3 minutes, I wouldn't spend 2-3 minutes on the combat scene. There is more to combat than its mechanical resolution. Combat is part of the narrative. Both the storyteller and the players contribute to that narrative through the combat. So its not like I see this clear division between 'combat scenes' and 'roleplaying scenes'. Roleplaying can go on in combat, and sometimes its quite intense role-playing and critical to the scene. Think how the fight between Count Rogan and Inigo plays out if there is no role-playing, or for that matter the fight between Inigo and the Man in Black. Sure, in a fight between the PC's and an ooze, there is fairly little personification going on on the DM's end, but even then, the DM still has the capacity to stage the scene in such a way that its not just a series of rote dice rolling and accounting tasks.

 

[Harlekin]

Before CR system, DMs just ran an amount of combats based on his own discretion. Back then you needed 1million XP to level up at higher levels, but it didn't mean you start go on a genocide for XP.

Now with the amount of encounters needed to level up (13.3 in 3.5e and 8-10 in 4e), it is codified that you must have that much combat just to level up. This also influenced adventure design as you can see from the recent published modules. It seems like there is a need for filler combat just to level up PCs. Older editions did have them in terms of random encounters, but they were short combats and were very insignificant.

Sure in later editions I can just have 1-2 important fights and handwave level the PCs up when I want to, but the game wasn't intended to be that way.

Nonsense. 3.x and later explicitly give XP for things other than combat or looting. In 4e you can easily get half a levels XP out of skill challenges.

To answer the OP, I'ld say 1-2 meaningful combats that the players actually care about above and beyond their own survival.

 

[Shemeska]

I'll also point out that I don't make a great fit to the X number of combats per session truly, because a lot of by the book leveling (in any edition, though perhaps some more than others) is predicated on a certain amount of XP and thus a certain amount of combats.

I don't provide numerical XP, and simply tell my players to level up their PCs when I feel it appropriate. I don't have any incentive to provide combats simply to allow for combat-based accrual of XP. So that might skew the direction I approach this all from.

 

[Ourph]

I find this kind of poll a little puzzling, because I don't really care how many fights occur in the 4-5 hour window of time that I'm playing. I care whether I'm having fun. If that includes combat (which I find fun), great! If it includes problem solving, roleplaying and exploration (all of which I also find fun), great!

It surprises me to see that so many people's fun is heavily invested in having a particular number of fights in every session.

 

[Celebrim]

It surprises me to see that so many people's fun is heavily invested in having a particular number of fights in every session.

I blame Monte Cook.

Not really, but its not surprising to see it if you look back over the last 10 years at how various influential designers have exalted mathimatical goals in game design (particularly, of D&D). We've spent 10 years talking up encounters per level, expected rounds of combat, expected treasure per combat, and so on and so forth as if the art of game mastery primarily revolved around achieving some sort of ideal mathematical precision and that the designs which best facilitated game mastery and good mastery were ones that met goals of mathimatical precision, fixed math, mechanical balance and so forth and which delivered fixed rewards (treasure, mechanical advancement) to the players on a regular predictable schedule.

So its no wonder that our discussions of design have become encumbered with assumptions about what design means and what it addresses.

And I should note, because people seem to be particularly quick to leaping on what I didn't say, that I don't in fact think mechanical balance and mathimatical precision and elegance are bad things. I like unified mechanics. I very much support designers working out the mathimatical consequences of their choices, because I see so many house rulers fail at that and remember 'back in the day' that being one of the biggest problems with the hodge podge system that 1e AD&D grew into as it expanded. (See early dragon issues for detailed discussion and examples). All I'm saying is I think we've got over focused on that as an end unto itself and neglected other things that are equally if not more important.

 

[Woas]

I picked As Many as Possible. But the real answer is, over nine-thousand.

:vegettasmiley:

 

[Henry]

For me, about 1 battle, lasting anywhere from a half-hour to 45 minutes, every two hours of play would be close to ideal. That way, there's plenty of time for exploration, characterization, and roleplay, but there's enough combat that the more battle-hungry players don't get bored.