On average, how many rounds does combat last in your game?

[Dragonblade]

This question really is edition specific.

In 3e, most fights would be over in 3 rounds. Sometimes 4 rounds. But each round took about an hour to play through due to all the buffs and debuffs, having to flip through multiple books to look up spells and feats, and so on.

In 4e, fights go for more rounds but the rounds are much faster to play through. We can get through a complete 7 or 8 round combat in less than an hour with moderate off topic table talk. We can cut that time in half if we are focused, or add 30 minutes if there is a lot of off topic chit chat.

 

[Crothian]

In 3e, most fights would be over in 3 rounds. Sometimes 4 rounds. But each round took about an hour to play through due to all the buffs and debuffs, having to flip through multiple books to look up spells and feats, and so on.

Sounds to me like you had players that didn't know what their characters could do and were not prepared for it. That can happen in any version of the game.

I'm currently running a 3e game and we have combats that routinely last 8 or more rounds and take less then an hour in total. I don't think I've ever seen a round take an hour even with groups that numbered 8 players.

 

[harpy]

UPDATE

So I asked this question on five different RPG forums and was able to get plenty of responses.

Averaging everyone's averages together ended up with a result of 5.86 rounds.

From the perspective of the original article I'd cited, this could make some sense. A surprise or first initial round is often going to involve positioning, buffing or other preparations and then when the party really mixed it up with the encounter there is an on average of five rounds in which the creature is going to be functional.

As so many people pointed out, there can be a great deal of variance, with hit and run skirmish tactics, or other evolution of the encounter.

I doubt that any of the editions of the game can really take those kinds of factors into account, so in the design process, in terms of monster stats, it has to really look at roughly five rounds of exchanges between the monster and the party, whether those exchanges are consecutive or spread out in a more dense tactical situation.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, my group is atypical, so the data probably does not mean much. WE are playing a gestalt version with only three characters. So we ahve fewer attacks round (about half a normal party) but more versatility with two classes. Still most fights take 8-10 rounds, with some going higher than that. We never finish fights in 3-4 rounds.

 

[Hussar]

When I ran Savage Tide in 3.5, fights were 4-5 rounds on average. Generally about 40 minutes to play through. My guys were pretty on the ball for actions. I have seen games where rounds can be PAINFULLY slow.

4-5 rounds seems about right to me. I think where the biggest difference comes in is if you use large numbers of classed humanoids or small numbers of "monsters."