The 150+ round combat that took over 5 hours...

Greylock · Dec 24, 2004

The last two sessions of the game I'm in took some 7-8 hours of actual RPing combat, with some tension with npcs, general exploring, and tactical maneuvering. Number of combat rounds was in excess of fifty.

It will appear in our Story-hour, ahhh, maybe next summer

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Truth Seeker · Dec 24, 2004

An old White Wolf game, from 9:30 p.m. to 8:45 .a.m, it was a entire combat scene, dealing with one of the ancient wyrm and Baba Yaga, some werewolves and a vampire. (6 players)

One by one, players left to go home, until it was just two, my friend Stan playing a Metis Black Fury Male. Me, a Lupus male Shadow Lord, Audley the GM, was giving his all, on pure zeel...as we did. Luck was on our side, because the awakend dragon was not fully coherent yet, we pounded on that beast...and pounded, and pounded...and pounded.

Time was ignored, real time...until I saw the crack of dawn by chance, and realized how much we zoned out the outside world.

We won the fight, just two garou...exhausted, shaken, and much personal glory gained...rounds were not counted, only the effort of courage and dogged determination was the high mark of that game and that day.

*shedding a tear*

Evilhalfling · Dec 24, 2004

what does a wizard have left to do after 20 rounds?
I so would have bailed on this, I have run and played fights that last all session, but I don't like'um

Creamsteak · Dec 24, 2004

Hide and prepare his finisher, apparently.

alsih2o · Dec 24, 2004

Greylock said:
The last two sessions of the game I'm in took some 7-8 hours of actual RPing combat, with some tension with npcs, general exploring, and tactical maneuvering. Number of combat rounds was in excess of fifty.

It will appear in our Story-hour, ahhh, maybe next summer .

I was the DM here, and I had a blast. Bull-rushed one of the party tanks into an underground river, got some roleplaying in with the anger of some helpful npc's who were upset that the druid only healed the humans, saw my Sea Hag dropped with one blow by the party tank who was bumrushed into the river (Greylocks angsty "Dex based fighter with his high stat in str), and had some major plot points.

All in all it went really smoothly. The PC's fought bravely and honorably, allowing some gnolls to escape after their surrender and smashing all that smashed back. Lots of healing was used and the other party tnak ended with 1 hp.

The PC's also managed to make allies of a local Dryad and Nymph. Considering they seem top be plannign to join a revolution back home this may be a good thing.

reanjr · Dec 24, 2004

I have a similar, yet opposite problem. My players (well, about half of them) mix/max the hell out of everything and take everything out in no more than 2 rounds. Level 5 party, CR 8 creature? No problem. Two characters caused 89 points of damage in the first round. Doesn't help that they cheat on their dice rolls as well, but there's really nothing I can do about that, given that there is no table to sit at.

haiiro · Dec 24, 2004

MoogleEmpMog said:
Wow... you got through 150 rounds in just 5 hours? I really envy you. :\

Heck, I've seen a single round with two friendly NPC spellcasters, two PC spellcasters and four NPC spellcasters take about that long.

The "bigger" combats in my current campaign have been on the order of 10-15 rounds, and taken 3-5 hours. I'm similarly impressed at how much ground you covered in your 5 hours, Creamsteak!

UltimaGabe · Dec 24, 2004

Wow. A year or two ago, back when I was DMing my first campaign (god-awfully, might I add), I ran an adventure I had gotten off of the Wizards' website involving a big keep infested with Orcs. A single battle from that, lasting no more than ten rounds, took us six hours of gameplay, and we were all exhausted afterwards.

Creamsteak · Dec 24, 2004

It's not as impressive as it might sound. I do try a couple things to move things along faster (there are other things I'd like to try too, but they envolve more preparation on the player's part), but the "number of rounds" might be misleading since most of the party goes straight for melee combat, and there were periods where no dice were being rolled. Also, after enough time, they knew the AC of the target, and most of them knew whether their weapons were getting through DR or not, and how much so.