D&D General What flavor of D&D has the fastest combat?

[Bacon Bits]

I would say OSE. Very limited mechanics, side initiative, uniform stats, and a first order ascending AC optional rule so there's no needlessly cumbersome attack roll.

The most complicated bit is saving throws.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Shadowdark and OSE are pretty efficient as far as OSR goes. A little barebone on the players' side, IMHO.

I think 5e (or at least a version of it) with 1 action per turn only and reduced HP would be 1) doable and 2) welcome by a segment of the player base. I dont believe reducing the options of players necessarily reduce the time spent on a single turn...if they only get to use a single feature on a given turn (no reaction, no bonus action).

 

[Bacon Bits]

Shadowdark and OSE are pretty efficient as far as OSR goes. A little barebone on the players' side, IMHO.

Definitely, but it's what OP asked for.

I think 5e (or at least a version of it) with 1 action per turn only and reduced HP would be 1) doable and 2) welcome by a segment of the player base. I dont believe reducing the options of players necessarily reduce the time spent on a single turn...if they only get to use a single feature on a given turn (no reaction, no bonus action).

One option is Into the Unknown, which is like if you took 5e D&D and stuffed it into the Red Box. It's an interesting exercise, but I don't know if it makes for a faster game because most of the fat was trimmed from the character options rather than combat rules. However, O5R is a one-man-show with the author having some health problems recently, so the level 11-20 book has been delayed.

Still, it's a cool project that has the correct feel to me, so I thought I'd mention it.

 

[jdrakeh]

Original D&D (1974) using the "Alternative Combat System" from Men & Magic (this system forms the base of what would become the standard combat system in all subsequent editions of D&D).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The flavor the players (especially the DM) are most comfortable with playing.

Seriously. What is incredibly quick and straightforward to one player can be the most soggy mess ever played by another, and the vast majority of this evaluation comes from familiarity. Being comfortable with a ruleset makes you excuse an enormous amount of ills, while being uncomfortable with a ruleset will make you self-limit and perceive restrictions that are (explicitly! In the text itself!) not present.

 

[Stormonu]

More than anything, the level of the game has a large factor on how fast combat goes. Just about any version of D&D of level 6 or below tends to go pretty quickly, and begins to balloon upwards beyond that. However, I think 3E is probably the worst offender overall.

 

[S'mon]

B/X and clones, and 0e and clones, probably edge out 1e/2e AD&D, but all those are very fast compared to 3e/4e/5e.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Shadowdark and OSE are pretty efficient as far as OSR goes. A little barebone on the players' side, IMHO.

I think 5e (or at least a version of it) with 1 action per turn only and reduced HP would be 1) doable and 2) welcome by a segment of the player base. I dont believe reducing the options of players necessarily reduce the time spent on a single turn...if they only get to use a single feature on a given turn (no reaction, no bonus action).

One of the things I did with Bugbears&Borderlands (5e basic) was to remove bonus action economy. Funny enough, the goal when I wrote the game was to use Moldvay's philosophy of streamlining the game, to make B&B feel like the 5e version of B/X lol.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My least favorite thing about D&D is waiting half an hour for my turn to come around in combat.

So which flavor/branch of D&D has the quickest combat, in your experience? I assume it's some varierty of OSR, but please enlighten me.

Most editions before 3E were much faster

 

[DEFCON 1]

Grape.