How long do your encounters take?

[bjoern]

Just wondering. So far, our encounters have been about 6 or 7 rounds of combat and have taken about 5 hours a piece. Each encounter has had between 16 and 20 different participants.

[OldTrees1]

6 rounds sounds about right for a Encounter Level = Party ECL + 3 encounter. In general it has taken anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on the number of people(4 to 12).

[heavyfuel]

It really depends on the table. At my current table, everyone takes about 1.5 min per round (except for our problem player, which takes 3+ min). Counting me (DM) that adds up about 12min per round. Our usual battles take about 4~6 rounds, so that's about 1 hour per combat.

In boss battles, players take about 2 minutes per round (problem player about 5) but I don't usually have many character to play myself, so the average rounds rises to about 15 minutes. 8~12 rounds of combat means about 2 and half hours of combat.

Of course, my group seems much smaller than your. If you have 20 participants in a fight, battles are bound to take longer. Still, 5 hours is too much.

[Curmudgeon]

8-10 rounds including surprise round, 6 players, varying number of enemies, about 3 hours each encounter. We play at higher levels (BAB roughly 11-17) and I (as DM) make the enemies work very hard at staying alive.

[Lightlawbliss]

Just wondering. So far, our encounters have been about 6 or 7 rounds of combat and have taken about 5 hours a piece. Each encounter has had between 16 and 20 different participants.

that averages to just over 23 turns an hour or about 2.5 minutes per turn.

When people are prepared, I have seen turns taken in less then 6 seconds. I have also seen times where turns take half an hour or more (usually because other things distract *cough* food *cough).

[bjoern]

It really depends on the table. At my current table, everyone takes about 1.5 min per round (except for our problem player, which takes 3+ min). Counting me (DM) that adds up about 12min per round. Our usual battles take about 4~6 rounds, so that's about 1 hour per combat.

In boss battles, players take about 2 minutes per round (problem player about 5) but I don't usually have many character to play myself, so the average rounds rises to about 15 minutes. 8~12 rounds of combat means about 2 and half hours of combat.

Of course, my group seems much smaller than your. If you have 20 participants in a fight, battles are bound to take longer. Still, 5 hours is too much.

By 20 participants I mean PCs and enemies.
Our group is 5 people and we usually encounter 11+ enemies at a time.

Our group is really low op. I'm a little above that but I've been trying to keep things close optimization wise that way encounters aren't a breeze. It just seems like like things are taking too long. I was considering talking to the DM and the group and see if the felt the same. The spells I pick up the next few levels could really change how long encounters take. But it will depend on if the DM is comfortable having 2-3 encounters ready per session and if the group wanted things to go faster as far as out of combat story progression. When you spend a whole session in a fight, the story really slows down.

[Lightlawbliss]

By 20 participants I mean PCs and enemies.
Our group is 5 people and we usually encounter 11+ enemies at a time.

Our group is really low op. I'm a little above that but I've been trying to keep things close optimization wise that way encounters aren't a breeze. It just seems like like things are taking too long. I was considering talking to the DM and the group and see if the felt the same. The spells I pick up the next few levels could really change how long encounters take. But it will depend on if the DM is comfortable having 2-3 encounters ready per session and if the group wanted things to go faster as far as out of combat story progression. When you spend a whole session in a fight, the story really slows down.

11 enemies? I rarely see that many in boss fights, let alone normal fights. With that many enemies in a cr appropriate fight you will want aoe spells. If your dm is basing cr on RAW then you are looking at about a +5 to +6 to cr from numbers in your "average fight". This means you are fighting relative weaklings and even fireball could be a save or die OR your DM is giving you deadly encounters regularly and you would be wise to invest in death prevention and reversal.

[bjoern]

11 enemies? I rarely see that many in boss fights, let alone normal fights. With that many enemies in a cr appropriate fight you will want aoe spells. If your dm is basing cr on RAW then you are looking at about a +5 to +6 to cr from numbers in your "average fight". This means you are fighting relative weaklings and even fireball could be a save or die OR your DM is giving you deadly encounters regularly and you would be wise to invest in death prevention and reversal.

The CR of the enemies is 2 so they aren't hard, and we escape almost unscathed. It just takes a while to take them all down since only 3 of us deal damage and its not really alot of damage. Im laying down empowered magic missiles for about 21 damage per round and thats as good as the other two are doing .Ironically enough, the only AoE spells I have are BFC spells.

Casters have the ability to make the rest of the party obsolete and could spoil their fun. I'm aware of this and I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen. However, with the lack of damage dealers, I was considering taking Wings of Flurry next level to help move things along. I know its a strong spell, but I doubt I'll play a sorcerer again for a while so I wanted to play with it since I'm here now.

[Blackhawk748]

anywhere from 10 minutes to 3 hours, and generally our combats are about 2-3 rounds apiece

[nedz]

I try to run a wide variety of encounters — not all of them involve combat.

A quick encounter can be over in minutes, at the other extreme I have run several long encounters: 30 round combats can be done.

[Spore]

3 Rounds (buff, move him, kill) up to 8 rounds are our combat situations. Sadly my fellow players take AGES to decide what to do. Spellcasters always take longer to be played since no one ever has the exact rules for spells on hand. I'm not telling people to remember all the spells your character could cast but good lord you can't decide 5 minutes on a spell when your character has to decide in fractions of seconds.

[Vogonjeltz]

3 Rounds (buff, move him, kill) up to 8 rounds are our combat situations. Sadly my fellow players take AGES to decide what to do. Spellcasters always take longer to be played since no one ever has the exact rules for spells on hand. I'm not telling people to remember all the spells your character could cast but good lord you can't decide 5 minutes on a spell when your character has to decide in fractions of seconds.

My condolences, I've had encounters that last anywhere from <1 round (characters deal with the enemies before they can even begin combat) to many many rounds (10+). I don't think I've ever seen more than 20 however.

*For the forgetful casters, I would be inclined to have a 1 minute timer. If you can't pick a spell in 1 minute, your turn ends.