So how about it? Zero to 60, you tell me: how many minutes should the standard D&D combat last?
It’s no secret Faster Combat is a big deal to me and much of the D&D community, so go ahead and share what you think the target number should be in the current Leonine Roar featured poll.
Vote right here or on the home page in the sidebar, sort of like Choose Your Own Adventure. Without the whole book thing! (And yes, those books are as awesome as Lego or Transformers, I agree.)
[poll id = “6”]
+2 Faster Combat Tips
Player Quick Tip: Jot down a few combat “scripts” for your character that cover typical combat situations. For example, write down certain combinations that work well for your melee character, parsing them by action type. This ensures you have your minor, move, and standard actions all planned out and as synergistic as possible ahead of time.
DM Quick Tip: Limit or don’t use monsters with a lot of different timing checks for their powers and abilities. For example, don’t create encounters where monsters have start of turn effects, end of turn effects, every different save duration abilities, and auras. Trust me: not only will your combat hiccup and drag on and on, your head might just explode.
Your Best +1 Tip: What’s the #1 tip you have for faster RPG combat as either a player or GM? Talk about it below. Or, share tips you’ve heard or tried that simply haven’t worked for you and ask or discuss how to make them better.
The Faster Combat Course
Want more help for all things faster combat?
Tony Medeiros (LeonineRoar.com) and Johnn Four (Roleplaying Tips, Campaign Mastery, GM Mastery) have teamed up to create the world’s first online course for game masters.
We will show you how to double or even triple your combat speed.
Our 52 week, massive online course show you exactly how to speed up your combats, step by step.
Each lesson shows you what to do and exactly how to do it. Plus, both Tony (hey, that’s me!) and Johnn will be there to coach you – you can ask all the questions you want and we will personally answer them all.
Check out the full, original Faster Combat course announcement on Leonine Roar here or click right over to FasterCombat.com to learn more and grab your own special early bird discount code before it’s banished to the Abyss!
Kilsek
I think it depends. A big cinematic boss battle deserves to be long, a random skirmish should be short, and a typical challenging encounter should be in between. Sometimes having players spend several minutes plotting out strategies can heighten the tension – but usually it just bogs things down.
I’ve found repeatedly telling players to write down their bonuses and plan their turns before their turns come around, is really all it takes to speed things up. And throwing a few dice at the one guy who insists on doing neither of those things.
Welcome to Leonine Roar and thanks for your comment, Swordgleam!
I agree, every game needs a mix of combat encounter types and length, though the “stock” or standard difficulty one now pushes 60 minutes in 4e, as the DMG talks about. That’s a huge departure from previous editions, and it often has a big (rather uncomfortable, for me anyway) ripple effect on the rest of the encounters, pacing, RP and exploration aspects of the game.
Do you feel as rushed as I do sometimes when you DM, simply because most combat encounters take so long to resolve?
As long as the pace is correct, it doesn’t really matter how long a combat encounter takes. Some combat encounters are dramatic multi-staged wars of attrition, some are roughing up local thugs.
I use a countdown timer. If the player acts before the bell tolls, they get a +1 to everything until the beginning of the next turn. This counts for actions, saves, and checks so the bonus can really add up. I flavored the bonus for our Underdark campaign: “Lolth wants you to act quickly, chaotically, and always in her service.”
Note: there is no penalty for not acting quickly, just no benefit. Use a pleasing temple bell, not a buzzer. If the PC’s are paying attention BEFORE their turn starts, one minute is more than enough.
The action of the characters (minor, move, standard) is what combat is about so you don’t to cut into the time they are actually using their actions, cut into the time they are perusing their character sheets.
Where did you buy or download your temple bell timer, BeanBag? I’ve used timers loosely before, but I’d be willing to try them again the way you explain them here.
Then again, Swordgleam’s idea about throwing dice at slow-moving players might still be best… 🙂
I don’t like to throw dice. I would never find them again. I’m thinking of ping pong balls for our slow-moving player. That great “pop” sound as it bounces off his dome…
Anyway, I used an old app: Chronolite (dont know if it works anymore). I have been using the standard ipod timer for the time being. The players have been so used to acting quickly, it is very rare that they don’t go in just a few seconds. But our Monk… “POP” dude, go.
Great poll, Tony! Looks like my vote is inline with what the majority of other voters feel.
I also agree with BeanBag, so my vote was more of a best practice goal, as I like 3-5 combats per session, plus leave at least a good couple hours for roleplaying and exploration.
But if a combat needs to be long once in awhile, so be it.
Johnn recently posted..For Members Only
3-5 combat encounters was a solid number in prior D&D editions, but from my experience, it’s just not practical in a typical 4 hour D&D 4e session these days. You basically have to go heavy minions, or else four standard or average non-minion combats will eat both your clock and patience.
Does Pathfinder routinely fit in 3-5 standard combat encounters per ~4 hour session?
Also, one simple tip I believe Chris Perkins (or was it Monte Cook?) recently mentioned was to make an effort not to separate combat, RP and exploration elements or scenes. Keeps all player personalities engaged too, for more of the session. Good, solid advice. I guess that’s why I like to add a dash of RP, as DM or player, whatever the encounter or scene!
The inference that this raises is the notion of using timeboxes in combat.
I’d actually suggest, based on Scrum principles, that perhaps rather than trying to suggest a timeframe for how long a whole encounter should/might take, try instead to place a physical timebox on round-to-round.
This will help to focus players on the “here and now” that is most typically associated with planning and execution in Agile project environments.
M
Welcome to Leonine Roar, magia3e and thanks for your comment!
I researched Scrum because I didn’t know what it was, but as I read through it, it reminded me of three major work and educational experiences: my production floor days managing product, my corporate office job days managing projects, and instructional and learning theory (i.e. DID, ADDIE) study from my instructional design degree. And so Scrum quickly made sense to me!
Your idea on looking at combat length at a different level – the round level – and using that as a base for measurement and improvement is good. It’s another way to view and focus on reducing time costs. My brother took something like this approach in his recent Shadowfell campaign I played in, and talked about it here.
Again, thanks for the comment – loved seeing the connections.