Six hour combats

[DM_Jeff]

My players tend to be really savvy about their characters and I do my homework. I play 3.5, and I've hardly ever had a battle that takes more than 2 hours to complete. Maybe a few times in 8 years.

Most normal battles take about 15-30 minutes and big battles at the end closer to an hour.

-DM Jeff

 

[billd91]

We ran a combat in the Steading of the Hill Giant chief, must have taken 3 or 4 sessions (we play about 3 hours a session, with a fair amount of non-gaming table talk). The PCs triggered the conflict in an area where they could choke off approaches with area-effect spells and barriers. The giants tried to approach from different directions, but because they had different routes to take, ended up coming in fairly piecemeal. By the end of it, giants and dire wolves littered the floor, the PCs were exhausted of a lot of spells, wands were a bit feeble of charges, but the steading was quiet save for the few surviving giant women and children taking to the hills.
In many ways, it was a series of encounters all based on the big party room in the middle plus a few nearby areas, but with each encounter flowing into the next.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Background: The UGT’s weekly sessions run for 10+ hours. Now anywhere from one to two hours gets eaten up by pre-game socializing and mid-game dinner, but generally speaking we start at 4pm Saturday afternoon and go till 12-2am Sunday morning. At the time of this encounter, we actually started at 2PM.

So, we were a party of 6 or 7 PCs plus a 3 or 4 cohorts, I was a recent addition to the group so my character was the lowest level at 9 and the highest were 11 or 12, I think. So, the DM was confident in our ability to handle rough challenges. Having tracked the BBEG to his cliffside fortress, we decided to climb down and walk in the front door, instead of our normal motis operendi, which would have been to use Rope Trick and Feather Fall for a HALO style attack. Well, obviously the guards saw us coming before we were halfway down the cliff face. *Roll for an Initiative that would last for the next 8 weeks (+/- my memory is fuzzy, but if I err, it is likely on the conservative side). These sessions were running 2pm-3am, 4am, even 5am a couple of occasions. The running battle went along the path into the front doors, into the main complex, through a series of rooms and 'arenas' finally into the catacombs below for a head to head with BBEG 'LaProv' Yes, that's Vorpal backwards...

I don't recall what my XP haul was in the end, but I did go from upper 9th to 10th capped, leveled again the next week. (I was the only one getting xp for the dozens and dozens of ogres we fought. )

 

[Mercule]

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..

Five 15th level PCs, one level 12 cohort, and one animal companion. They faced a unique evil outsider (effectively a CR 16 balor, in terms of number and style of abilities, but earthy themed) and an elder earth elemental.

The PC who had the cohort was stoned the first or second round (but after he did massive amounts of damage with his sacred mercurial greatsword), so ended up running the cohort most of the encounter. The ranger got caught be poison that ended up reducing her to a 3 strength, which made her bow all but worthless. The rest of the combat was largely defensive for the PCs until someone managed to get a successful break enchantment on the stoned tank.

In fairness, almost no one could reliably get past the 24 SR and 15 DR on the outsider. Neither of the disintegrates scratched him and the character with the transmuting sword and Find Weakness was the only character who could do more than one or two points of damage to the outsider -- and even she couldn't crack much of the elemental.

 

[Obryn]

The longest "combat" I've run was under 3.5, and it was the end of the Expedition to the Demonweb Pits. More or less, the last section is one big combat with some slight interruptions. Maybe. If you do it right.

That was about an 8-hour session...

-O

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Those are some pretty scary numbers. I ran plenty of entire 2E adventures in eight hours or less, let alone combats! The longest combat I've ever run was in Champions: The New Era, which lasted 5 hours to resolved what was technically 3 minutes of combat, and which made us all swear to never play it again (it feature some pretty amazing stuff, though).

 

[hazel monday]

My group has never seen a 3rd ed. D&D fight that went on longer than 20 minutes. 6 Hours sounds pretty incredible to me.

 

[Mercule]

Those are some pretty scary numbers. I ran plenty of entire 2E adventures in eight hours or less, let alone combats! The longest combat I've ever run was in Champions: The New Era, which lasted 5 hours to resolved what was technically 3 minutes of combat, and which made us all swear to never play it again (it feature some pretty amazing stuff, though).

Having played and run Champions, and read comics, I think that's to be expected in the genre. 90% of many comics is fighting, anyway.

The trick is to have it be interesting combat.

Isn't "The New Era" the Fusion-based Champions? If so, I suspect that was your problem. I never could enjoy that system.

 

[Mercule]

My group has never seen a 3rd ed. D&D fight that went on longer than 20 minutes. 6 Hours sounds pretty incredible to me.

Out of curiosity, what levels do you play? I'm wondering if that's a factor.

 

[Ant]

My group played a few nights ago (the finale of the Test of the Smoking Eye for those Paizo fans out there). A party of 6, averaging around level 12. They had four major encounters, one containing 8 monsters. On top of that there was room for inter-party conflict, roleplaying, some idle banter, exploring and a whole heap of laughs. We not only finished the adventure but also did the prelude to the next one ...

Total session time: 3.5 hours.

When I get home from work tonight I'll post some tips on how we achieved this.