D&D 5E Length of Combat

[delericho]

I care less about the number of rounds than two other things:

- The amount of real time consumed by the fight. If it takes only a single round to resolve the fight, that's still too long if that single round includes 40 minutes resolving an area-effect dispel magic (3e, I'm looking at you). As a rule of thumb, any combat that takes more than 40 minutes start to finish is too long.

- The amount of time between it being obvious how the fight is going to end up and us actually getting there. I've had a few less-than-satisfactory combats with 5e here, where it's been clear the PCs would eventually win but where they had to grind out that victory. Perhaps, in addition to a simple number of hit points, we need some sort of swingometer for combat progress, where if either side hits an "overwhelming" advantage the whole thing gets called at the end of the round?

 

[Psikerlord#]

Yeah for me most important is real time - less than 1/2 hr is perfect. That could be 3 rounds, or 10 rounsd, doesnt matter. Unfortunately 5e combat is often much longer than this, more like 1 hr. Which is doable. Just not as enjoyable, and hinders other aspects of the game, like improv side treks/random encounters.

 

[Helldritch]

So far most encounters I build goes for the 4 to 7 rounds and I am quite happy with that because both of my groups have 6 players.
Easy fight go slightly faster and they are in the 2 to 5 rounds with some being only one round fights (no time for them, fireball or simply Begone creatures of the night by the will of Amunator! I blame bad luck on these .
Only big boss fights actually go longuer than 7 rounds and that boss needs help or it is toast in less than 3.
I have yet to see a solo fight going for longuer than 5 rounds.

 

[Talmek]

My preference is to have combat last 10 rounds or less, regardless of the circumstances. There would be some exceptions, such as the climax of a campaign, fighting the BBEG, and the like. Primarily, though I feel that anything longer than 10 rounds drags out and people (especially my group) tend to fall into wash, rinse, repeat.

 

[robus]

I care less about the number of rounds than two other things:

- The amount of real time consumed by the fight. If it takes only a single round to resolve the fight, that's still too long if that single round includes 40 minutes resolving an area-effect dispel magic (3e, I'm looking at you). As a rule of thumb, any combat that takes more than 40 minutes start to finish is too long.

- The amount of time between it being obvious how the fight is going to end up and us actually getting there. I've had a few less-than-satisfactory combats with 5e here, where it's been clear the PCs would eventually win but where they had to grind out that victory. Perhaps, in addition to a simple number of hit points, we need some sort of swingometer for combat progress, where if either side hits an "overwhelming" advantage the whole thing gets called at the end of the round?

If the PCs obviously have the upper hand then it seems best to quickly end the combat either through fudging the remaining hit points, narration or the monsters arrempt to withdraw to fight another day. A drawn out inevitability is no fun for anyone.

 

[cheezitmojo]

I'm just a player, not a DM, but I've noticed that ours tend to go 4-7 rounds depending on # of enemies and terrain.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I care less about the length of combat per se and more about the duration of the interaction/encounter.

If the time between "weapons free" and "all the goblins are dead or fleeing" is only eighteen seconds, well, I can be okay with that. But if all of your interactions with monsters and NPCs are measured in mere seconds--if you never have the opportunity to negotiate with a goblin chieftain, pretend not to speak his language, and then pick his pockets while he's helping you up from "tripping" over your own feet--if the first thing that crosses your mind when you see a dragon is "Action Surge" instead of "riddle game"--then you aren't playing a game I'd care to run.

 

[Rhenny]

I care less about the length of combat per se and more about the duration of the interaction/encounter.

If the time between "weapons free" and "all the goblins are dead or fleeing" is only eighteen seconds, well, I can be okay with that. But if all of your interactions with monsters and NPCs are measured in mere seconds--if you never have the opportunity to negotiate with a goblin chieftain, pretend not to speak his language, and then pick his pockets while he's helping you up from "tripping" over your own feet--if the first thing that crosses your mind when you see a dragon is "Action Surge" instead of "riddle game"--then you aren't playing a game I'd care to run.

This reminds me of one particular moment in a game I ran a while back.

The 8th level PCs (party of 4) were exploring a frozen mountain to find a device that was affecting the weather in the region. They knew that there were giants in the mountain, and perhaps a dragon. Eventually they got to an icy room where three Frost Giants were sitting down telling stories and jokes. The party decided to talk with them instead of fighting. Then the bard joined in to tell them stories and sing songs. The wizard offered wine to the giants, but since his wine skin was so "puny" the giants unloosed their own and shared drink with the party, passing the wine around. The other PCs fake drank as the bard played songs that the giants asked him to play. Each player (and PC) was given a turn to tell some kind of tale or sing a song if they wanted to do so. We had a ton of fun just roleplaying the entire encounter for about 45 minutes. When the giants were drunk, the party decided to run for an ice chute at the other side of the room, which they found out led down to the Chief's room which was adjacent to the dragon's lair where the magical weather control device was too.

After the session when we were talking about the game, the players said they really enjoyed the encounter with the 3 giants, but they also mentioned that if they had just attacked them, they probably could have finished them off in 15-20 minutes of real time (maybe 4 or 5 rounds at most - or 24 to 30 seconds in game) instead of the 45 minutes it took to roleplay the entire encounter (and probably play more like 45 minutes in game as well).

 

[delericho]

If the PCs obviously have the upper hand then it seems best to quickly end the combat either through fudging the remaining hit points, narration or the monsters arrempt to withdraw to fight another day. A drawn out inevitability is no fun for anyone.

Sure. Part of that's down to relative inexperience with 5e - I hadn't realised just how long it was going to take to finish it off 'properly'.

That said, I am inclined to think there's a weakness in 5e's design - it seems that monsters have a lot of hit points, while the damage that the PCs can do doesn't seem to keep up. So while it's a good thing that they've tended to model a monster's resilience by giving them hit points (rather than high ACs or lots of immunities, as was often the case in 3e), they have perhaps gone too far. Either that, or I've been very unlucky in my selection of monsters!

 

[John R Davis]

If each pc gets to attempt 5-6 things per combat, then that's about enough spotlight for each pc, and should end most combats
One of the good things about 5th ed is every class can do something effective on their go in combat