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<blockquote data-quote="Sunseeker" data-source="post: 7701819">15 IRL minutes.&nbsp; I would say that typically carries us through about 10 rounds.&nbsp; Which IMO, feels about right to me.&nbsp; Most of the time my players know what they're going to do ahead of time and we spend very little time adjudicating rules questions or player attempts to do something weird.&nbsp; It's not that weird things don't happen, we just don't spend a lot of time figuring out how we're gonna roll them.&nbsp; IE:*Fight starts*couple rounds later:Bob: I run up the nearest wall and jump down upon the BBEG from above!DM(me): Do you have Spider-Climb?&nbsp; Bob: No.DM: Okay make an acrobatics check, DC whatever based on appropriate conditions.Bob: Okay, I beat it.DM: Cool carry on.&nbsp; Alternatively he fails, falls on his face and loses the rest of his turn.I give my players very little for attempting to game the system to gain advantage, attack bonuses or extra damage.&nbsp; If they want to do something, they do it because they'd think it's fun or cool.&nbsp; Getting my players to avoid gamesmanship tends to speed up turns significantly because I'm not constantly being asked &quot;If I jump off the wall, will I get XYZ bonus?&quot; or &quot;What if I attack him like such-in-such, will that help my attack?&quot;&nbsp; My style of DMing is &quot;You don't know until you do it, so just do it, or don't do it, and roll with the consequences.&quot;Well, due to my players being experienced and 2/3 are powergamers, my typical fights are a minimum, of double CR.&nbsp; But &quot;challenge&quot; is what 5E attempts to set guidelines for, which I don't much like.&nbsp; Some fights are easier or harder because my players play smarter or take better advantage of skills, terrain and tactics.&nbsp; But after I've reviewed my fights, I find I have typically pitted my players at a bare minimum of double CR.&nbsp; This usually results in a fight of say, 4 PCs against 6-8 NPCs of .75x to 1.5x CR.&nbsp; Like I said, I custom build almost all my NPCs for how I want the fight to play out, so it's hard to say what exactly the CR of each one is.&nbsp; I don't even run these.&nbsp; I tell the players &quot;You have encountered XYZ creatures who intend to fight you, but clearly pose no challenge to you, please tell me what you would like to do.&quot;&nbsp; If they want to enter combat, I will have them role-play the results.&nbsp; It makes for some interesting results sometimes though, as these &quot;fights&quot; are often actually minor plot points.&nbsp; That is what makes them interesting, the why of the fight.Sure, but challenge is relative in a large degree to player skill.&nbsp; I've had fights I intend to be quite challenging be toppled easily simply be creative players.*shrug* everyone is different.Though I often agree that 4E fights were a slog, MM3 and the revised monster math did a lot to alleviate that.&nbsp; Fights were still long but they felt more engaged and less &quot;I hit it with my stick.&nbsp; He hits you with his stick.&nbsp; Repeat.&quot;&nbsp; What I like about the longer fights though is that it did away with a lot of the irrelevant fights.&nbsp; You fought 1-3 fights per session and they REALLY mattered.&nbsp; If they didn't, you went home asking yourself if a fight that doesn't matter was necessary to play, and often the resulting answer was: it's not, lets just do the fights that are relevant to the &quot;story&quot;.I guess we have different definitions of &quot;long&quot; from 4E, because in the games that I played, a &quot;long 4E fight&quot; was 1-2 hours.&nbsp; I almost never spend that much time on a 5E fight unless the fight is designed to be absolutely insane.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Sunseeker, post: 7701819"] 15 IRL minutes. I would say that typically carries us through about 10 rounds. Which IMO, feels about right to me. Most of the time my players know what they're going to do ahead of time and we spend very little time adjudicating rules questions or player attempts to do something weird. It's not that weird things don't happen, we just don't spend a lot of time figuring out how we're gonna roll them. IE: *Fight starts* couple rounds later: Bob: I run up the nearest wall and jump down upon the BBEG from above! DM(me): Do you have Spider-Climb? Bob: No. DM: Okay make an acrobatics check, DC whatever based on appropriate conditions. Bob: Okay, I beat it. DM: Cool carry on. Alternatively he fails, falls on his face and loses the rest of his turn. I give my players very little for attempting to game the system to gain advantage, attack bonuses or extra damage. If they want to do something, they do it because they'd think it's fun or cool. Getting my players to avoid gamesmanship tends to speed up turns significantly because I'm not constantly being asked "If I jump off the wall, will I get XYZ bonus?" or "What if I attack him like such-in-such, will that help my attack?" My style of DMing is "You don't know until you do it, so just do it, or don't do it, and roll with the consequences." Well, due to my players being experienced and 2/3 are powergamers, my typical fights are a [I]minimum,[/I] of double CR. But "challenge" is what 5E attempts to set guidelines for, which I don't much like. Some fights are easier or harder because my players play smarter or take better advantage of skills, terrain and tactics. But after I've reviewed my fights, I find I have typically pitted my players at a bare minimum of double CR. This usually results in a fight of say, 4 PCs against 6-8 NPCs of .75x to 1.5x CR. Like I said, I custom build almost all my NPCs for how I want the fight to play out, so it's hard to say what exactly the CR of each one is. I don't even run these. I tell the players "You have encountered XYZ creatures who intend to fight you, but clearly pose no challenge to you, please tell me what you would like to do." If they want to enter combat, I will have them role-play the results. It makes for some interesting results sometimes though, as these "fights" are often actually minor plot points. [B]That[/B] is what makes them interesting, the [I]why[/I] of the fight. Sure, but challenge is relative in a large degree to player skill. I've had fights I intend to be quite challenging be toppled easily simply be creative players. *shrug* everyone is different. Though I often agree that 4E fights were a slog, MM3 and the revised monster math did a lot to alleviate that. Fights were still [I]long[/I] but they felt more engaged and less "I hit it with my stick. He hits you with his stick. Repeat." What I like about the longer fights though is that it did away with a lot of the irrelevant fights. You fought 1-3 fights per session and they [B]REALLY[/B] mattered. If they didn't, you went home asking yourself if a fight that doesn't matter was necessary to play, and often the resulting answer was: it's not, lets just do the fights that are relevant to the "story". I guess we have different definitions of "long" from 4E, because in the games that I played, a "long 4E fight" [I]was[/I] 1-2 hours. I almost never spend that much time on a 5E fight unless the fight is designed to be absolutely insane. [/QUOTE]

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