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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ferratus" data-source="post: 5609918" data-attributes="member: 55966">Combat length seems to be the controversial, so I'll return to it.Even if your name is Flash Quicksilver, it is going to take you one minute assume your turn, roll your dice and calculate the effect.  It is going to take another 30 seconds to a minute to move your miniature.  If you have 5 players plus a DM it is going to take 5-10 minutes per round.  Three rounds is a half hour, nine rounds is an hour and a half.   So the difference as to whether it takes 3 hits to knock an enemy down or 6 hits is a big deal.Setting up miniatures will generally take 5 minutes to lay the tiles or draw the map and to lay down the relevant minis if the DM is prepared.  It will also take a few minutes to clean up.  Even if you are an efficient DM, that is still going to be a half hour loss each night from simply handling and dealing with minis.2e generally has a high "wiff" factor at low levels which is both tedious and slows combat down to a crawl.  Since the monsters have a low amount of hit points however, and the combat actions for non-spellcasters generally involve saying "I hit" or "I miss", combat can be speedy.  Spellcasters also hadn't develop 3e's bad habits such as the time sinks of buffing and debuffing spells.Both 2e and 3e severely undervalue spells that remove actions or nerf combat effectiveness.  Whenever one player of 4 is taken out of the game with a sleep, hold monster, or similar spell then combat is going to be 25% longer.  However, 4e properly values the threat level of such effects, while 2e has less spellcasting monsters in general.One of the biggest time sink for 3e though has to be movement and attacks of opportunity.  We spend more time arguing about that in our 3e game than anything else.   Are the players just being difficult?  Perhaps.  But I remember arguing about that when I played 3e with my other group as well.2e doesn't have an opportunity attack mechanic, so generally you can move around much more freely.  4e has opportunity attacks, but allows those who need to ignore it (mages and rogues) the tools to do so by granting teleportation and shifting powers.So if you weigh all the things that slow down combat between the editions, I think you'll find that 3e and 4e come out about even, while 2e is faster (most of the time).  If you load up on the things that slow down 2e combat however (spells and high AC) it becomes just as slow as all the rest.</blockquote>

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