Wrong facts about D&D3 combat?

[Ourph]

One possibility that just occurred to me: Might it be that, in general, people's turns take longer with characters who were created at high level than with characters who worked their way up (and thus had time to master their tactical options one at a time)?

This was never my experience. When I ran 3e we always started campaigns at 1st level. Even people who were playing basically the same character as they did last campaign took forever if they were playing certain classes and employing certain strategies. It just takes time to resolve all the actions and change all the numbers once high level magic comes into play.

 

[drothgery]

One possibility that just occurred to me: Might it be that, in general, people's turns take longer with characters who were created at high level than with characters who worked their way up (and thus had time to master their tactical options one at a time)?

That's completely the opposite of my experience. Characters that have been played a long time often have all sorts of fiddly magic items and a haphazzard selection of spells and feats designed around choosing things that they really wish they had had for the last adventure. Whereas when characters are created at a higher level, people who had problems with too many options will delibrately build something simpler if a character dies and needs replacing (so in the only game I played from 1st level to 20th, my PC went from wizard to bard to warmage).

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

One possibility that just occurred to me: Might it be that, in general, people's turns take longer with characters who were created at high level than with characters who worked their way up (and thus had time to master their tactical options one at a time)?

In general? Doubtful. I played in hundreds of RPGA adventures in Living Greyhawk with multiple characters. Living Greyhawk characters earn XP at about 1/3rd to 1/4 the rate of Core awards, so that means I played them in many more combats than in a normal campaign.

Based on the two characters I achieved high levels with (12th and 16th), combats dragged out longer as the higher and higher levels were achieved . . . in general. The combats that ended quick were those where we won via save or die effects or where we spent 20-30 minutes of real time prepping by buffing our warriors before we rolled initiative so the warriors could be nearly invincible. That only happened in the rare times we got to pick the time and place for an encounter, or were aware of an impending enemy.

In general, another factor that could result in a fast combat was when our party miraculously had precisely the right character class combination, equipment carried, AND right prepared spells. When those lined up, voila, rapid combat sometimes happened.