D&D 5E Length of Combat

[Xeviat]

Was there ever a poll on how many rounds people typically like combat to go? I remember a lot of complaints about 4Es combat length, which I think was exacerbated by the system favoring novas and blowing all your encounter powers immediately rather than something that may have favored at-wills first.

I have a level 6 party, four players. They faced a CR 8 dragon at the end of a hard day; they were nearly out of spells, and the barbarian was out of rages. It was intense, and circumstances allowed the dragon to get away at the last moment.

That was going to be all they heard of the dragon for a while, but the players were paranoid and were worried it was following them, so I obliged. Now fresh, they took it out in like 3 rounds, with minimal damage suffered. A raging Goliath bear totem barbarian with GWM is a sight to behold. Granted, I played it a little bad, but it was anticlimactic and I don't think the players had much fun with it.

Is 3 rounds the typical now? Is that what people want? I'm finding myself tempted to go max HP for players and monsters and beef up short rest healing, just to make fights longer.


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[Tony Vargas]

Was there ever a poll on how many rounds people typically like combat to go?

I don't recall one. Obviously, 'rocket tag' isn't desireable for everyone, and on the other extreme you can have a 'grind' going 10, 20, umpteen rounds, whether against a waddling 'padded sumo' unhittable boss, or a regenerator you can't pull ahead of, or a hit-only-by-something-you-don't-have gotchya....

There's a /lot/ of room in between, and, regardless of edition, it's one the DM to use the tools he has to tune his encounters to what he wants. For shorter combats, that means less durable, but harder-hitting foes, and fewer of them but more individual encounters each day, for longer ones, the reverse.

I remember a lot of complaints about 4Es combat length, which I think was exacerbated by the system favoring novas and blowing all your encounter powers immediately rather than something that may have favored at-wills first.

Well, it might have been exacerbated by that mistaken perception. If the game /did/ favor offloading all your encounters in the first round or few instead of using them to best advantage over the battle, the fight would have ended shortly after that last encounter was expended. That it typically didn't (usually, with sufficient optimization, it was entirely possible, in some sorts of encounters - again, matter of encounter design catering to play style or not), resulting in a grind, illustrates that it wasn't favored.

Is 3 rounds the typical now?

Yeah, pretty typical for a 5e combat. Rocket tag isn't out of the question, but it's not de riguer. Design a combat to go much longer and it'll run the risk of getting boring.

Is that what people want?

It's a reaction to one thing some people had been loudly complaining about.

I'm finding myself tempted to go max HP for players and monsters and beef up short rest healing, just to make fights longer.

For longer fights you want more hps relative to damage. You can do that just on the monster side be beefing up hps (or damage mitigation features) and cutting back damage a bit.

And you don't have to get it perfect before hand. You can keep the stats behind the screen and decide when its' had enough, hps on a scrap of paper notwithstanding.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I prefer combat to go ten rounds, so we know that your stats actually matter and it's not overwhelmed by luck or insufficient sampling, but it's hard to fit six of those into every adventuring day.

 

[Xeviat]

I prefer combat to go ten rounds, so we know that your stats actually matter and it's not overwhelmed by luck or insufficient sampling, but it's hard to fit six of those into every adventuring day.

I like 10ish rounds myself. Plenty of time for varied actions. But it only works if your players are quick on their actions. With 4 players, taking 1 minute rounds, that's 40 minutes for a battle, plus DM time.

I hate trash fights. They're boring. They can be useful for making people feel strong, but I only like fights that serve the story.


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[Rhenny]

Easy and moderate encounters are between 1 and 3 for me. Hard and deadly ones, depending on the number of foes, can be anywhere from 4-12 so far. Encounter length is often situational, foe motives, PC motives, when in the adventuring day it occurs, and party composition. Lots of foes tends to take longer especially if party doesn't use area of effect spells to end it quicker.

I like having a variety of encounters (even ones that can last 1 or 2 rounds) and I design most of my adventures (and even modify the ones in pre-written adventures) to follow logic of the environment more than calculating difficulties. Even the short ones, if they are part of the story, can chip away at the party, and sometimes the noise will alert others, etc. For some reason, I'm so much more attentive to chain encounters now-a-days. In my games, often a moderate difficult encounter may just be the first wave of an extended set of encounters when reinforcements arrive. If PCs aren't careful, they might draw in 2, 3 or 4 encounters worth of combatants without chance for escape or rest. In one of my sessions, there was one moment where the group had to last 18 rounds total (at 6th level). That was scary (and it took about 2 1/2 hours to complete).

 

[happyhermit]

10 rounds of flat-out straightforward fighting usually seems like a grind to me and players I've seen. Generally 5 round or less straightforward fights go over better in terms of fun, for us. Now, sometimes there is tons of preparation before the fight, or it gets split up into several, or someone is taking pot shots from cover, etc. and those can take more rounds but are interesting to us, they also might not actually take more out of game time.

 

[I'm A Banana]

3-5 rounds is pretty standard. These aren't "trash fights," IMXP, since the players need to plan for an uncertain number of encounters before they rest, so every rounds' decision whether or not to use some limited-use ability is one that has pretty significant ramifications, and every goblin-scratch can have lasting consequences. It's also pretty typical for each party member to only be able to take 3-5 rounds of hits, so each hit is truly felt, and even weak enemies stand a good chance of hitting thanks to Bounded Accuracy and 5e's tendency to favor lots of smaller critters.

For longer battles, slamming two encounters together is how I roll - typically after the first few rounds something happens and then we play out the next few rounds. Reinforcements arrive, the enemy goes all One-Winged Angel, rocks start to fall, whatever.

Shorter, more dynamic combats IXMP keep the game lively and flowing, and also help reduce the emphasis on builds and stats and Optimal Strategies. The decisions you make before the fight matter less than the decisions you make in the fight, and I'm fond of that vibe.

 

[n0nym]

I have between 3 and 5 players. Here's how it goes :

3 rounds = typical fight. Usually easy/moderate (according to my standards, not the DMG's), unless I chose a monster that hit very hard on purpose to scare the PCs. Ex : 1 Bone Devil and 14 Imps (4 level 6 PC)

5-6 rounds = boss fights or fights I want to count. Usually hard/deadly. Ex : 1 Gladiator and 2 Bandit Captain (3 level 5 PC)

More than 6 rounds = I miscalculated CR or HP. Boring fight.

I like when fights are dynamic, people move around the battlefield, retreat, counter-attack. I hate static fights where you just stand there and throw dice. Which longer encounters tend to be.

 

[Shiroiken]

In general, I've found about 3-5 rounds to be about right for most combats. Longer than that can seem like a grind, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

My group's last combat was about 20 rounds, but that's because it was a running battle. They are in the Hall of the Fire Giant King, and the giants keep throwing rocks, then fleeing around corners and switching up with a fresh group. Meanwhile, trolls keep popping up from side passages as the PCs try to pursue, delaying them long enough to give the giants time. The players could have stopped at any time after the 4th round (when the giants first fled), but they felt that doing so would have favored the Giant's strategy (giants took almost no casualties).

 

[wedgeski]

If you were to raise a poll, a I would report about a 5 round average. I have to say that combat length in 5E has struck a good balance between the blink-and-you-miss-them fights of AD&D and the overlong, condition-strewn fights of 4E. Both extremes have their value, and you can still achieve them in 5E, but it seems to have struck a nice middle-ground for my table.