Six hour combats

[Mercule]

We gamed last night. It was a continuation of the climactic final battle of a Dungeon adventure ("Mud Sorcerers' Tomb") that was begun the session before.

We only game for 3 - 3.5 hours at a sitting, which is somewhat below the norm, by my understanding. Still, this one combat ran almost two full sessions and didn't even leave time for looting at the end of the second session. This isn't the first time I've seen this happen -- from either side of the screen and with a range of players. Two to three hour combats are almost common.

Does anyone else have this issue? Is this something endemic to 3e or is it a play-style issue?

 

[Caliber]

I've seen this happen a few times. It gets particularly bad the higher level you go. The fight with the final BBEG in the Shackled City AP took two sessions, plus another two hours of overtime (with our sessions being about 3.5~4.5 hours)

I'd say the problem is endemic, as each character gets more and more rolls, creatures are summoned, various affects are thrown about, buffs are dispelled and stats need to be re-calculated, etc, etc.

 

[Crothian]

I have had long battles like that but we plan for them. I had a 8 hour battle verse giants and goblins and kobolds that we held a special Saturday session for since we knew it was going to be huge and epic like that.

But for the most part our 3ed fights are not nearly that long.

 

[The Little Raven]

Does anyone else have this issue? Is this something endemic to 3e or is it a play-style issue?

I found this very common when playing 3rd, especially at higher level. When you've got characters taking multiple attacks, things tend to slow down to a crawl.

It's especially startling when you realize that the 3 hours you just spent only translates to 18 seconds in-game.

 

[Dragonbait]

wow.. 6+ hour battles? Really? Maybe I'm missing something? Is it the PCs vs. 1 enemy, or the PC's vs. an army?
I can see 6 hour army battles. But, really, I've seen most high-level fights end in 4 rounds. Yes, each round takes about 10 to 15 minutes, but still..

 

[Foundry of Decay]

I found that regular combats were generally quick to moderate depending on the mix of monsters used.

For the big baddies, I front loaded a lot of HP and/or buffs usually, and combats did start to run long around the level 10 mark (We rarely went beyond). So some combats could be spread across two sessions as you've stated (We usually ran 4 or 5 hour sessions depending on the night).

 

[Hussar]

We just had combat eat up THREE SESSIONS. Almost 8 hours of play. GACK! So, no, you are not alone in this one.

This is unusual though. It wound up being a running battle where we kept pushing further and further in and then had to retreat, then try to force in again, wash, rinse, repeat.

We got our asses kicked in the end. Very unsatisfying finish.

But, yeah, I've seen three hour combats loads of times.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Unfortunately, I have never really tracked how long combats took, but 6 hours seems excessive!

 

[radferth]

I used to play a lot of Champions, so 3e combat seems to fly by as long as someone is not trying 17 different ways to do something in order to avoid an attack of opportunity.

 

[delericho]

Only once, in the Shackled City adventure path. By the end of the combat, all but one PC was down, the final PC was in single-digit hit points, and if he didn't both hit and do lots of damage, he was going to die.

He rolled a critical.

I think a more telling question is not, "do you have combats lasting a long time?", but rather "did you enjoy it?" If so, it's not really a problem.