Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Length of Combat
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6932021" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>To be fair about this though: 5E achieves short combats primarily through making combats easy. A lone beholder is a Medium combat, over in two rounds after contact is made in earnest. "Contact in earnest" isn't necessarily synonymous with "you see a beholder" or "roll initiative". The GWM Barbarians might have to jump through some hoops to bring their melee attacks to bear on the beholder. It's impossible to estimate in general how long that will take though because it's very terrain- and DM-dependent.</p><p></p><p>The point is though that 50 hobgoblins + 1 beholder is no longer a Medium encounter. It's a triple-Deadly encounter. On the one hand, I highly recommend triple-Deadly encounters and above because unlike Medium encounters they are not usually boring and contrived. On the other hand, it's not a surprise that a triple-Deadly encounter takes much longer to run than a Medium encounter, not least because the players will be taking longer in real-time to make their decisions in this high-stakes environment.</p><p></p><p>An encounter like that may only feel like a few minutes, but it's not at all unlikely that at the end of it you look at the clock and discover that it's really been two hours.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6932021, member: 6787650"] To be fair about this though: 5E achieves short combats primarily through making combats easy. A lone beholder is a Medium combat, over in two rounds after contact is made in earnest. "Contact in earnest" isn't necessarily synonymous with "you see a beholder" or "roll initiative". The GWM Barbarians might have to jump through some hoops to bring their melee attacks to bear on the beholder. It's impossible to estimate in general how long that will take though because it's very terrain- and DM-dependent. The point is though that 50 hobgoblins + 1 beholder is no longer a Medium encounter. It's a triple-Deadly encounter. On the one hand, I highly recommend triple-Deadly encounters and above because unlike Medium encounters they are not usually boring and contrived. On the other hand, it's not a surprise that a triple-Deadly encounter takes much longer to run than a Medium encounter, not least because the players will be taking longer in real-time to make their decisions in this high-stakes environment. An encounter like that may only feel like a few minutes, but it's not at all unlikely that at the end of it you look at the clock and discover that it's really been two hours. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Length of Combat
Top