Real-time needed to run combats (simili-poll)

[Sammael99]

If the combats are fun, who cares how long they take?

Well, me...

Because there's lots I want to run besides combat. When your session is four hours long and you like r-ping (which I know you do Nemm, so I think you'll understand my point) and you only play once every two weeks at best, the plot moves forward extreeeeeeemely slowly.

So if the average combat takes nearly half the alloted time (assuming no one was late and we gobbled down the pizza ) that leaves even less time for non-combat situations and plot development. I'm getting increasingly frustrated at the fact that whichever way I look at it, if I want to lead my main plot thread to completion, it's at least two years' game time away...

If I could reduce combat to half its length and still keep it exciting, I'd do it. Unfortunately, heroics is kinda why we came back to D&D...

What a conundrum...

 

[el-remmen]

Well, my suggestions are as follows:

1) Using a dry erase board to keep track of initiative - everyone can easily see when their turn is - and it is easier to keep track and change the order when people do things like ready an action or delay.

2) Keep the combat moving. That means - don't allow too much (or any) out of character discussion of tactics.

3) Have your player's help to move minis around when there are multiple opponents - I don't know about you - but I can't always reach them from behind my screen - so I direct others to do it.

 

[pogre]

Man I am shocked by these responses!

18th level party - 25 minutes tops (usually more like 15).

I use complete miniature set-ups and all the works. Do you let your players ask everybody what they should do before every action? Do your players roll one die at a time? I can't imagine what is taking so long.

1st/2nd level party - 15 minutes tops (usually more like 8-10).
The longest one so far involved a tiny Black Dragon employing hit and run tactics on the party. (see my sh for details).

 

[el-remmen]

Man I am shocked by these responses!

18th level party - 25 minutes tops (usually more like 15).

I use complete miniature set-ups and all the works. Do you let your players ask everybody what they should do before every action? Do your players roll one die at a time? I can't imagine what is taking so long.

1st/2nd level party - 15 minutes tops (usually more like 8-10).
The longest one so far involved a tiny Black Dragon employing hit and run tactics on the party. (see my sh for details).

It seems this thread is linked to that other thread - but regardless - how long in rounds, pogre?

25 minutes seems like an awfully short time - that'd be about four rounds for my group - but as I said in the other thread - average # of rounds for us is about 13.

 

[haiiro]

I use complete miniature set-ups and all the works. Do you let your players ask everybody what they should do before every action? Do your players roll one die at a time? I can't imagine what is taking so long.

In the RttToEE game I'm in, we tend to strategize extensively, metagame and toss around plenty of table talk. We use a wet-erase map and counters.

In the Banewarrens game, we're very focused, everyone has a limited amount of time to think about their actions beforehand, and we play shorter sessions. We also use maps and minis.

I think it's really just a matter of play style, although I've run and played in games where everyone was focused and combat still took a really long time.

 

[barsoomcore]

These times seem pretty long to me, but I guess I don't ever really "stopwatch" our combats. Still, a combat-heavy session in my game would include, say, three reasonably big fights. The session will last something like six hours, and I don't think even in a combat-heavy session we spend more than half of the time on combat, so that's an hour for a big fight -- something lasting ten rounds or more.

Okay, not so far off the average. Huh.

I have run REALLY long fights. The climax of last season on Barsoom was a single fight that took nine hours to resolve. And they were on the edge of their seats the whole time. Heh, heh, heh...

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

Average Party Level: 12
Number of Players: 8
Average Combat time: 1 1/2 - 2 hours
Average #Rounds per Combat: 6

We have a lot of table chatter at our games (which we continuously try to reign in), as we advance in levels our combats seem to take longer and longer. Our original goal was to run the campaign until our characters reach roughly 25th level...

We are very concerned that as we get closer to 20 our games are going to slow to an unbearable crawl...