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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 4630163" data-attributes="member: 7635">In my experience, there are a lot of factors playing into this.* Level range: As PCs get more powers, their round-length grows longer. High level PCs have a huge amount of options which slows game down deciding on the best option.* Buffs/De-buffs: magical short-term buffs or de-buffs (esp. ones that effect a variety of areas or ability scores) require large amounts of re-figuring time, esp str/dex/con ones.* Party/Class composition: Casters typically take much longer to complete actions than non-casters due to spell adjudication. This is especially true of summoning spells, polymorph effects, metamagic effects, and quickened spells. Similarly, PCs focused on large amounts of attacks/round (like TWF rangers or FoB monks) or those with animals (like druids) who effectively had secondary PCs to run eat up a large amount of time. Woe to the DM who has a wild-shaping-natural-spell-summoner-druid-who-just-formed-into-a-dire-bear PC in his game. ;-)* Rules Mastery: It goes without saying that experienced players are more adept at speeding up decision making, if only by the process of weeding out poor choices.* Book Multiplication: The more books a player needs to cross-reverence, the longer the combat. While PCs typically get blamed for this (with their splat book PrCs and Spell Comp spells) many monsters require at least two or more books open to run (try running a large demon encounter with all their SLA's flying to see this in motion). Typically, these are the elements I see slowing down 3e combat. The reason 4-10 work as a sweet spot is that monsters tend to be simpler (few SLA's/weird powers), PCs have mild-moderate options (1-2 attacks/round, only 5th level spells, few with long durations, and not many huge buffs). 11th level+, the game slowly descends into madness as PCs power accelerates and monsters join the arms race.</blockquote>

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