Wrong facts about D&D3 combat?

[Reynard]

As it relates to turn length, I think it is incumbent on the players to have their information in order. This means both prep -- if you are playing a summoner or a shape changer, frex, have the proper stats prepared before the game -- and during play -- keep good records of buffs and other temporary modifiers. The DM has plenty to do without having to manage the PCs for the players.

On the DM side, prep is of course important, but keeping track of changes is also important. Some people can keep it all in their heads; not me. I have to use lots of paper on my side of the screen to keep things moving. It's a pain but that's the job I volunteered for when I offered to run a game.

One of the guys a play with uses index cards to great effect when he runs 4E which would work fine with 3E as well. He puts the cards in initiative order and every time an effect comes into play, he adds a small colored post-it to the card with the name of the effect. As he moves through the initiative count, he sees exactly what is affecting each character or creature. he also uses the cards to track hit points and other expendable resources.

Ultimately, the biggest time sink in D&D -- any edition -- is participants, players or DM, not knowing what their things do and therefore having no idea what to do when their turn comes up. Wizards don't take longer to play than fighters if the wizard player knows his spells; conversely, a fighter player who isn't sure of how all of his feats interact with one another and/or the game rules is going to take forever just to take a swing at an orc. Giving everyone at the table a "shot clock" helps speed things up, with the added benefit of simulating a little of that combat chaos (AoOs, catching allies in areas of effect, choosing the wrong action and accidentally turning the tide of battle, etc...)

 

[Darrell]

Oh sure, there were plenty of times when we would have 3-5 minute rounds, but that was a minimum, not an average. There were also plenty of times where we would take an hour to resolve a 3-4 round combat.

Holy crap. My guys would get up and throw on a DVD if a 3-4 round combat encounter took an hour to resolve. We're currently playing an 'old school' D&D, and we routinely get through 10-12 rounds of combat in less than 5 minutes.

Even when we were playing 3.X, one round (four players) took us about 1-2 minutes.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

This is a fairly average round for us:
<snip>

Whoa. I'm having a flashback, I swear most of the tables I sat at the combats went just like this.

 

[Dragonblade]

Fighter: "Alright, I charge the enemy with full power attack..."
Cleric: "You are adding the +1 to hit from Bless, right?"
Fighter: "Yes, I am."
Wizard: "And the plus 1 to hit from Haste as well, right?"
Fighter: "Oh, right, I forgot about that one. At any rate, I Power Attack for 6, I roll a 13 on the dice...plus....umm, normally I'm plus 12. But, I am getting +1 from the bless and +1 from the haste. That's..umm...hmm....27 to hit minus the 6 for Power Attack...that's 21."
Rogue: "Don't forget the +2 for charging."
Paladin: "Yeah, it's always best to remember to charge it. You don't have to carry around cash that way."
Fighter: "Ha. Well, I probably hit without it anyways. So, I hit AC 22."
Wizard: "I actually hate using my credit card. It has way too high an interest rate."
Rogue: "That's +2 for charging, not +1."
Fighter: "I thought I added +2. I got 20 before, and then added +2 for 22."
Cleric: "No, he's right, you rolled 21 before."
Fighter: "Did I? I don't remember that. Do you remember, Paladin?"
Paladin: "...find it's much easier to use my credit card. I hate dealing with cash."
Fighter: "Hey! Did I roll 20 or 22 before charging?"
Paladin: "What? Oh...I don't remember."
Fighter: "Let me double check then. So, I rolled a 13..."

Yep! Thats often what my games were like.

 

[Bagpuss]

why is the "long time, few rounds, one monster" spoken of as the accepted facts of D&D3 combat in general?

I can see complaining about this kind of combat when specifically talking about higher levels, but the complaint seems to be directed at all D&D3 combat. Why is all D&D3 combat smeared with the complaint of only rarer higher level combat?

Because it isn't only higher levels.

Bullywug Gambit (3rd level adventure), number of monsters in encounters
4, 2, 3, 1, 1 , 1, 2, 1, 3 , 8 (but assisted by a 13 level NPC) Nearly half the encounters verse a single creature.

The Sea Wyvern's Wake (5th level adventure)
1, 1, 1, 1, 9, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 3-4, 1 (11 of the fifteen encounters against a single foe).

There are other adventures I could pick and I admit the Sea Wyvern's Wake is a particularly bad example (although actually a very good adventure), but I picked those because they are from a recent adventure path, and since lots of DM's use them, they are a shared experience for a lot of players.

You will find a lot of published adventures tend to have a noticeable number of single or paired creature encounters, it is rare to have three or more opponents. The complete opposite of what I've found in 4th edition.

 

[Dragon Snack]

I would never audit a players character in the middle of game, unless they were grossly out of line (you rolled a 3 and made the DC 28 save?). I'm sure some players took advantage of this, but a little leeway here and there was fine by me. If they were consistently off or wrong, that seems like a player problem as much as a system problem...

Just a side note: We have found that carrying around a pack of inexpensive index cards really helps the group buff / dispel situation.

Write the buff name, benefit and type (e.g. luck bonus), spell and caster level. Now dispels are a breeze.

I think judicious use of index cards helps on so many levels - not just with buffs. As a DM I used them for initiative order (especially since my group liked to delay and hold their actions), keeping track of bad guy stats (and buffs/debuffs to them), and often notes on spells they could cast. A little prep goes a long way. I also think it made me better at winging encounters, since I'm one of those DMs who use random encounters.

As I said, we had long combats, but it wasn't because of looking stuff up (I made my Druids have their Summoned creatures stats ready) or debuffs (we kept track of them on separate sheets or on the Tac-Tiles). It was the caster using their "targeting reticle" on all their AoE spells or a player hemming and hawing about what to do.

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance...

FWIW - I had campaigns go to 17th , 15th (with 7 players!), and 13th level (along with some that ended earlier).

 

[MichaelSomething]

In my opinion, people should secretly record their sessions and podcast them so we can all hear them. That's the best way to see how people are doing it.

Of course, there are many, many factors you need to account for. Everything from rules, systems, and options numbers to a group's system mastery, habits, and playstyles affect how long battles last.

 

[Hussar]

Things that are regularly said about D&D3 combat that I just don’t see in my games:

Combats take a long time – we seem to naturally pace about 3-5 minutes per combat round.

That jives with my experience.

Combats are short, 1-3 rounds – we regularly experience 4-8 rounds of combat, with some going up to 10+, only occasionally 3 or less.

This does not. In my current campaign, the vast majority of fights last 4 rounds at max. When I ran the World's Largest Dungeon, I found exactly the same thing to be true.

Combat is the PCs vs. one opponent – we regularly fight multiple enemies, usually 3-6, sometimes a dozen or more, only occasionally just 1.

This is pretty easy to prove actually. Look at any Dungeon magazine. You'll find that nearly every encounter is 4 monster or less. To me, 3 is not "multiple". I mean, I'd never look at three cats and say, "Wow, that's multiple cats". Multiple generally means a lot more than a few.

I regularly keep track of all the combat encounter stats when I DM, so my above numbers are based on actual facts, written down at the time, not based on estimation or feel. For instance, the past two game sessions from our current adventure (I’m the DM), the 4 PCs have fought opponents numbering: 10, 2, 9, 4, 6, 9, 1.

As a group, we’ve never intentionally worked to make the above happen, it’s just the natural way our combats evolve. So every time I read someone state the apparently “accepted facts” that D&D3 combats take a long time to play out, last only a couple of rounds, and are always against just one opponent, it makes me wonder who’s doing what wrong/different.

Is my group, are my games the anomaly, or are the “accepted facts” of the edition wrong for you, too?

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

I'll do you one better actually. I have the complete transcripts of my first 11 sessions of my campaign up. Take a look here. And, since the transcripts are originally time stamped, I can get exact timings. (note, the 'scripts I have posted have stripped the time stamps because they are annoying to read)

IMO, the timing you list is about right. About 5 minutes per round at lower levels. Although that can easily stretch up to ten or fifteen if a couple of players aren't on the ball.

The funny thing is, people are claiming how fast 3e combat is AFTER they have instituted shot clocks to hurry things along. If 3e combat was fast, why would you need a shot clock?

 

[Hussar]

/snip for length

Ultimately, the biggest time sink in D&D -- any edition -- is participants, players or DM, not knowing what their things do and therefore having no idea what to do when their turn comes up. Wizards don't take longer to play than fighters if the wizard player knows his spells; conversely, a fighter player who isn't sure of how all of his feats interact with one another and/or the game rules is going to take forever just to take a swing at an orc. Giving everyone at the table a "shot clock" helps speed things up, with the added benefit of simulating a little of that combat chaos (AoOs, catching allies in areas of effect, choosing the wrong action and accidentally turning the tide of battle, etc...)

QFMFT

As a DM it drives me straight up the wall when a player takes a PC that you KNOW is going to be homework intensive - caster being prime candidate for this - and then does absolutely nothing to make their turns go more smoothly. I remember timing the turns people took in one game I was playing and one player regularly took four to six TIMES as long as everyone else.

My head asploded!

I showed everyone the list after the game and had some pretty choice words for my fellow player. After cooling down and apologizing for my outburst, things did get better. I really think some players are just that oblivious to how much frustration they generate when they aren't on the ball.

Just remembered, I have that conversation here

And, for more FYI, here's the Eberron campaign I was playing in. No modules, all homebrew. Saw the exact problems that they talk about when you use large numbers (AKA multiple) opponents - complete cake walks or instant death. The transcripts are on that forum I linked above.

See, that's something to remember. The criticism isn't exactly that you never saw large numbers of opponents. The criticism is that the EL/CR system doesn't work at predicting the outcome when you use large numbers. The CR/EL system presumes that you only use small numbers of opponents, because of the way a given CR is balanced against 4 PC's.

 

[Reynard]

QFMFT

As a DM it drives me straight up the wall when a player takes a PC that you KNOW is going to be homework intensive - caster being prime candidate for this - and then does absolutely nothing to make their turns go more smoothly.

And people say there's no benefit to having "easy" classes and "hard" classes in the game...