Straw poll: when is a combat "done"?

[MaxWilson]

You shouldn't roll dice unless the outcome is in doubt and interesting. How dangerous does the situation have to be in order for you, as DM, to feel that it's still interesting enough to be worth treating as a round-by-round or turn-by-turn combat?

Situation #1: 8th level party against a Mind Flayer, Githyanki Knight, and Fire Giant at night in a river canyon, theoretically a triple-Deadly fight, or double-Deadly if you count the fact that the PCs knows they are coming and can pre-cast some spells. On Round 1, Fire Giant gets hit with Hypnotic Pattern (Githyanki Knight was hit too but made its save) and Mind Flayer fails a save against Fear. By the end of round 2, the Mind Flayer is fleeing verrry slowly through Plant Growth while being chased by 2 conjured wolves, the Fire Giant is still hypnotized, and the Githyanki Knight is dead from archery and Eldritch Blast. 2/3 of the monsters are still alive but their situation is basically hopeless unless the PCs really mess up. Do you keep rolling dice until all the Fire Giant's HP are gone, or do you just narrate an end to the combat? (E.g. "You kick the Fire Giant's sword in the river, quickly tie him up, and then all prepare to hit him at the same time. After you do, he snaps out of hypnosis and tries to headbutt you, but being weaponless and restrained, he only [roll dice] hits Belaji once for 7 points of damage, and then you finish killing him.")

Situation #2: 12 drow warriors led by a minor priestess (Acolyte stats). 4 5th level PCs walked up to the drow and openly tried to parley; being young, arrogant, and inexperienced, she ignored their words and simply commanded her warriors to "Take them!" Six seconds later, PCs have taken minimal damage (6 HP and 13 HP, thanks to high AC and Shield spells) and succeeded on all of their saves vs. poison; Spike Growth and some lucky die-rolling with Agonizing Repelling Eldritch Blast have turned the priestess into a red smear on the floor (-26 HP), six of the twelve drow soldiers are caught in a Web; those who aren't caught in the Web can't move anyway without cutting themselves to pieces on the Spike Growth; and the harmless-looking Goblin is now a Grizzly Bear. "HALT!" screams one of the PCs in a commanding tone. Would you make the drow keep fighting because of their numerical superiority, or stand down now that their impetuous leader has been... summarily recused?

Note: the PCs did spend a fair amount of spell points on Shield, Web, Spike Growth, and a Conjure Animals spell that fizzled due to house rules on spell failure after taking damage that round, but the drow wouldn't know that.

I like to run a fairly combat-lite game, reserving round-by-round combat mode for situations of relatively high drama/stakes, so in both these cases I rolled some dice and then wound up ending the combat right there and moved on to roleplaying consequences. Curious how alone I am in that. What would you do?

[NecessaryWeevil]

That's entirely reasonable but I might ask the PCs' permission first.

[Mr_Fixler]

Great thought exercise. I agree that going round by round on a foregone conclusion can drag the table energy down and waste a lot of time.

One quick point before I address the situations presented.

Is the table having fun? Take a read on the group. Sometimes it's fun to have the dice or situation go your way and it's fun to stomp the baddies with ease. Don't take away the fun of the table if they are having fun. However, if you are slowly winning via "whack a zombie" and the table seems uninterested wrap it up.

1. I would let that one play out. The Mind Flayer might break the fear and still make things interesting. The giant, while less likely, might still beat the save and still be relevant. Plus I suspect that the table might enjoy smacking around these iconic monsters.

2. I would probably have the enemies surrender. PCs spent resources in a dramatic show of force, and furthermore called for surrender. I might roll for it if I think it's iffy, but I think calling it narratively is a justifiable call.

[MaxWilson]

That's entirely reasonable but I might ask the PCs' permission first.

Good point. I didn't mention it, but at my table it's understood that the players can always ask to "please play this fight out in full detail" instead of accepting my summary. Sometimes players like just making attack rolls and damage rolls against helpless targets.

It's really no different from me skipping to the end of any other interaction ("you go to the inn and bed down for the night and...") and then discovering that the player wanted to do other stuff first ("I wanted to talk to that old guy at the market"). Player speaks up, makes it known that he wanted to do something else, DM adjusts the narrative pace or events accordingly.


1. I would let that one play out. The Mind Flayer might break the fear and still make things interesting. The giant, while less likely, might still beat the save and still be relevant. Plus I suspect that the table might enjoy smacking around these iconic monsters.

Note that neither Fear nor Hypnotic Pattern grants repeated saves, although Hypnotic Pattern does at least end if you take damage. But it doesn't end if you're disarmed/pushed prone/grappled/tied up, so there's quite a lot players can potentially do to stack the deck in their favor before breaking the spell, and for certain players you know that they know these tricks and will use them. (And of course by RAW they can all Ready attacks to go off at the same time, so they get almost two full rounds of attacks before the giant can respond--but I don't use vanilla PHB cyclic initiative so that particular RAW trick doesn't work at my table.)

Thanks for responding!

[JNAProductions]

I'll second saying "Ask the players."

But, to be more exact:

1) I'd ask them what they do before the duration on the spells run out, and narrate from there. If they keep the Fear caster in sight of the Illithid and properly bind the Giant before killing him/capturing him/whatever, then they win from then on, all good. If they goof, such as by allowing the Illithid to break line of sight or directly attacking the giant with something that won't just one-shot him, then the fight resumes. Depending on their characters' Intelligence and Wisdom scores, I might warn them if they're about to do something stupid and risk blowing the fight, since their characters would realize, even if the players didn't.

2) They would surrender SO FAST. So fast. Technically, five normal birds outnumber a Roc, but I sure as hell wouldn't put money on the regular birds winning that fight. While I'm sure that, being Drow, they'd try some trickery, at that moment, they'd surrender to save their butts.

[LudicSavant]

You shouldn't roll dice unless the outcome is in doubt and interesting. How dangerous does the situation have to be in order for you, as DM, to feel that it's still interesting enough to be worth treating as a round-by-round or turn-by-turn combat?

Situation #1: 8th level party against a Mind Flayer, Githyanki Knight, and Fire Giant at night in a river canyon, theoretically a triple-Deadly fight, or double-Deadly if you count the fact that the PCs knows they are coming and can pre-cast some spells. On Round 1, Fire Giant gets hit with Hypnotic Pattern (Githyanki Knight was hit too but made its save) and Mind Flayer fails a save against Fear. By the end of round 2, the Mind Flayer is fleeing verrry slowly through Plant Growth while being chased by 2 conjured wolves, the Fire Giant is still hypnotized, and the Githyanki Knight is dead from archery and Eldritch Blast. 2/3 of the monsters are still alive but their situation is basically hopeless unless the PCs really mess up. Do you keep rolling dice until all the Fire Giant's HP are gone, or do you just narrate an end to the combat? (E.g. "You kick the Fire Giant's sword in the river, quickly tie him up, and then all prepare to hit him at the same time. After you do, he snaps out of hypnosis and tries to headbutt you, but being weaponless and restrained, he only [roll dice] hits Belaji once for 7 points of damage, and then you finish killing him.")

Situation #2: 12 drow warriors led by a minor priestess (Acolyte stats). 4 5th level PCs walked up to the drow and openly tried to parley; being young, arrogant, and inexperienced, she ignored their words and simply commanded her warriors to "Take them!" Six seconds later, PCs have taken minimal damage (6 HP and 13 HP, thanks to high AC and Shield spells) and succeeded on all of their saves vs. poison; Spike Growth and some lucky die-rolling with Agonizing Repelling Eldritch Blast have turned the priestess into a red smear on the floor (-26 HP), six of the twelve drow soldiers are caught in a Web; those who aren't caught in the Web can't move anyway without cutting themselves to pieces on the Spike Growth; and the harmless-looking Goblin is now a Grizzly Bear. "HALT!" screams one of the PCs in a commanding tone. Would you make the drow keep fighting because of their numeric superiority, or stand down now that their impetuous leader has been... summarily recused?

Note: the PCs did spend a fair amount of spell points on Shield, Web, Spike Growth, and a Conjure Animals spell that fizzled due to house rules on spell failure after taking damage that round, but the drow wouldn't know that.

I like to run a fairly combat-lite game, reserving round-by-round combat mode for situations of relatively high drama/stakes, so in both these cases I rolled some dice and then wound up ending the combat right there and moved on to roleplaying consequences. Curious how alone I am in that. What would you do?

Combat is done when the Dramatic Question has been answered. (https://theangrygm.com/four-things-youve-never-heard-of-that-make-encounters-not-suck/) (CTRL+F Dramatic Question in that article)

If the question has been answered, I either introduce a new one, or end the fight.

[Man_Over_Game]

Tough question, MW.

I'd say, after about 50%.

Once 50% of the enemy's combat effectiveness is gone (either from losing troops, HP, or some combination thereof), they're seriously considering retreating, especially if the players are in a better place. I'd also say this is dependent on shock value (such as insta-gibbing that priestess in the first turn) and how reckless the creatures are.

A troll is probably going to fight to the death, but a small skirmish of Drow may be willing to surrender.

For the Fire Giant example, I'd just continue the rounds until the players state they repeat the same thing they did in the previous round, when I would just fast forward to when something changes.

[MaxWilson]

For the Fire Giant example, I'd just continue the rounds until the players state they repeat the same thing they did in the previous round, when I would just fast forward to when something changes.

Point of clarification:

If for example that means one PC is Dashing after the Mind Flayer to keep it in sight while another PC is shooting arrows from his overwatch position along the canyon wall and the wolves are making opportunity attacks, would that constitute repeating the same thing they did the previous round, or do you specifically mean when the players get so bored they start declaring "I do it again"?

[Sigreid]

Table dependent. At our table we fight until the last opponent is either down or has fled and no one chose to pursue.

[Laserlight]

I would bring up "I don't want to drag out combat to the last HP" in Session Zero, and I'd always allow them to play out a fight if that's what they want. With that in mind, yeah, once you see how the fight is going to go, narrate it. There's no point in cycling through initiative while your L8 monk chases down that last kobold.

In example 2, if I were the drow, I'd surrender.

[MaxWilson]

1) I'd ask them what they do before the duration on the spells run out, and narrate from there. If they keep the Fear caster in sight of the Illithid and properly bind the Giant before killing him/capturing him/whatever, then they win from then on, all good. If they goof, such as by allowing the Illithid to break line of sight or directly attacking the giant with something that won't just one-shot him, then the fight resumes. Depending on their characters' Intelligence and Wisdom scores, I might warn them if they're about to do something stupid and risk blowing the fight, since their characters would realize, even if the players didn't.

The more I think about it, the more I like this approach. Why not have the players narrate what they think will happen, and have the DM interject as necessary? Depending on what the plan is, the DM might say, "Lo, everything transpires exactly as you have foreseen," or he might say, "Everything goes perfectly up until you kill the Mind Flayer, and then you hear a noise from behind you and realize that you spent too long tying up the Mind Flayer and that the duration on Hypnotic Pattern just ran out..."

No reason not to ask the players what they expect to happen. I may steal this approach next time, thanks.

[JNAProductions]

Feel free to.

Player power is good.

[MaxWilson]

Feel free to.

Player power is good.

One of the things I like most about the idea is that:

(1) Players can remain in character, since you're asking them to describe a plan the PC is imagining; and yet

(2) You still get around the DM-player bandwidth limitation that often makes the world richer/more detailed in the DM's head than in the players' heads.

The player may come up with details the DM wouldn't have thought to mention (maybe the ground ahead is muddy from the river) without having to play Mother May I with the DM, because the DM can account for irrelevant differences when narrating the actual events ("the ground is actually completely dry, but otherwise your plans works exactly as you thought it would") and only stop and ask the players for a new plan if the differences are large ("you turn the bend and see that the ground is actually completely dry and you realize at that point that you can't cast Mud To Rock. The Mind Flayer is still right in front of you fleeing at top speed. What is your new plan?").

[Chronos]

The first one isn't over yet. The players have gotten to where they probably have things under control, but not to the point where they're guaranteed to keep them under control. The mind flayer might break line of sight, or telepathically alert other mind flayers, or do something as a bonus action while fleeing. The giant might take some damage and break the hypnosis before he's completely neutralized, or break the bonds and start punching things (and a fire giant's punch is still significant) once they start damaging him. If they're smart, the players will focus down the flayer, do as much as they can to hamper the giant, and then all ready actions to hit the giant all at once... but as JNAProductions points out, they might still screw up.

The second one, the remaining drow have just seen their Supreme Infallible Leader (any member of the clergy is that, from the perspective of any other drow) defeated very quickly and very thoroughly by the party, as well as themselves seriously hampered. They'll probably try some treachery later, but right that moment, they're probably very much in the mood for surrendering (especially since the party asked them to). But if it happens that, for whatever reason, they don't, then let the party use them as punching bags for a few more rounds if they want.

[MaxWilson]

The second one, the remaining drow have just seen their Supreme Infallible Leader (any member of the clergy is that, from the perspective of any other drow) defeated very quickly and very thoroughly by the party, as well as themselves seriously hampered. They'll probably try some treachery later, but right that moment, they're probably very much in the mood for surrendering (especially since the party asked them to). But if it happens that, for whatever reason, they don't, then let the party use them as punching bags for a few more rounds if they want.

The funny thing about the drow is they're actually still in a pretty good position tactically, almost the same as what they had before. The Acolyte was basically tactically irrelevant, and 12 poisoned crossbow bolts can knock soft targets unconscious on a failed save very quickly. Disadvantage to the six drow caught in the web stinks, true, but they could theoretically Ready attacks for as soon as the Web vanishes and then have the other six drow try to knock out the web-caster and then the Moon Druid. I chose that example because it highlights a fight that was won mostly psychologically, not tactically. If instead the Bardlock had killed two of the random drow soldiers instead of the Acolyte, they would have fought on, with a small chance of TPKing the PCs. (2%? just a guesstimate)

[Laserlight]

Players CAN manage to shoot themselves in the foot. I once had players sidestep a boss fight with a hydra by Banishing it. They quickly released the prisoners they'd come to rescue... and then spent 48 seconds with the barbarian giving the prisoners a rousing speech.

Barb: "We have killed your jailors! More await outside, but we will arm you and lead you, and sweep all before us! Are you ready to FIGHT!"
Caster: "I hate to interrupt but that hydra will reappear right here in 11, 10, 9..."
Barb: "Are you ready to RUN AWAY!"

[ThePolarBear]

You shouldn't roll dice unless the outcome is in doubt and interesting. How dangerous does the situation have to be in order for you, as DM, to feel that it's still interesting enough to be worth treating as a round-by-round or turn-by-turn combat?

When i no longer need the turn-to-turn granularity to adjudicate the situation. Initiative and such is a system that is used when order of action matter and a DM needs to adjudicate fast-paced action. If such a fast paced action stops, then there's no need to keep track of that.


Situation #1:

Joking a bit: Being able to kick an appropriate sized weapon out of a 18 feet tall giant, while someone else climbs on it to tie its hands together!

Jokes aside: i can keep track of the time and give players an idea of how much time will pass even without doing turn by turn. I would judge the actual composition of the party, ask about what they want to do, then see if i need to keep the turns going or not, or if it might be necessary to just pause and reprise after the actions have been carried out. Obviously, you need to speak with your players: "Well, it IS a giant, so you can't really reach up to the hands from the ground. Do you want to climb, do you want to just tie the rope at the ankles...?" "It will take about X, you think that if you do not mess up or something unexpected happens, you should be able to do it in time to coordinate an attack. I think a x diff roll on Y seems appropriate for the situation. Do you concur?"

If i don't need turns, i don't use turns. Even if its still "combat".

[Gtdead]

In the first situation, since enemies don't have control of their actions, it's reasonable to end the combat with narration. Sure something may go wrong, like a streak of low rolls, even with advantage, but it's pretty unlikely, and I'd rather the DM rolled the d100 for any complications. I would probably do something similar to what you proposed.

Second situation, and since I do this a lot as player (asking intelligent enemies to stand down after they suffered loses), I'd love a couple of negotiation rounds. The group can use the time to reposition and create a tactical advantage too if they are savvy. I usually dislike fighting battles to the bitter end, unless it's against monsters/aberrations. Depending on how the negotiations go, the combat can continue or end right there.

[Keravath]

Note that neither Fear nor Hypnotic Pattern grants repeated saves, although Hypnotic Pattern does at least end if you take damage. But it doesn't end if you're disarmed/pushed prone/grappled/tied up, so there's quite a lot players can potentially do to stack the deck in their favor before breaking the spell, and for certain players you know that they know these tricks and will use them. (And of course by RAW they can all Ready attacks to go off at the same time, so they get almost two full rounds of attacks before the giant can respond--but I don't use vanilla PHB cyclic initiative so that particular RAW trick doesn't work at my table.)

Thanks for responding!


Hypnotic pattern says "The spell ends for an affected creature if it takes any damage or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature out of its stupor."

It's a DM call but personally most of the actions required to put a creature under hypnotic pattern into "disarmed/pushed prone/grappled/tied up" would likely be more than sufficient to wake them up if all that is required to wake them is a "shake".

As for your scenarios, in the games I have played there are times when it is just a time sink to play out a combat however, that may or may not be the case in the scenarios you have outlined.

1) In scenario 1 .. if there is no way for the Mind Flayer to get out of the sight of the one who cast the Fear spell then they will be out of the combat.

However, you mentioned a river canyon ... so the best bet for the Mind Flayer might be to jump into the river which avoids both the Plant Growth and allows them to lose sight of the caster. In addition, Plant Growth makes all the plants in an area thick and overgrown. Depending on the nature of the foliage there is a good chance that the Plant Growth itself will break the line of sight to the caster of the fear spell. In addition, if there are any trees or boulders nearby, there is nothing preventing the Mind Flayer from breaking the line of sight by going behind the tree as long as they are moving away from the caster.

In addition, in a canyon at night it is dark so if the mind flayer can manage to get 120' away they won't see the caster anymore.

If none of these options (or lots of other ways to interfere with the fear spell) aren't available to the mind flayer (i.e. Wide open flat terrain with no trees or boulders covered with low lying plant growth and no way to get beyond the visibility limit) then the mind flayer is out of combat for now.

However, did the players manage to kill the Githyanki before he could even take a turn? It seems to me that the Githyanki's main goal would have been to wake the Fire Giant either using a ranged attack (even just throwing a rock) or moving over to the giant (maybe using his misty step) and shaking it awake. These monsters are experienced enough (particularly the Mind Flayer and the Gith) to likely recognize the effects of hypnotic pattern and know how to overcome it.

Anyway, sometimes the dice go in odd directions and challenging encounters are trivialized or easy ones become deadly.

However, in your scenario 1 ... I would have played it out since I would not have allowed the characters to do almost anything to the giant without waking him from the effect of hypnotic pattern. I'd also have played it out if the Gith could have wakened the giant or if there was any chance for he Mind Flayer to overcome the fear spell.

Finally, just a note on the encounter itself ... it wasn't really very deadly at all since all three opponents are most effective in melee. The Hypnotic pattern and plant growth made engaging in melee almost impossible. The party picks them off at range with repeated ranged weapon attacks and eldritch blasts though I would expect it would take more than a round or two to get through the 90+ hit points of the gith and 162 hit points of the fire giant who has both a decent melee and ranged attack (assuming he has some rocks) but they likely would go down unless some lucky rocks took out a couple of characters.

In your second scenario, what the drow would do would depend on their attitudes ...
- they could be fanatics and would fight to the death against the infidels
- they could be realists and decide to cut their losses and run (though they might not get a good reception having lost the drow female leader they were supposed to be protecting ... their lives might even be forfeit already ... so they might decide to fight to the death anyway)
- they could be fatalists ... I'm going to die anyway, might as well be today
- they could just decide to flee for other reasons

It's hard to picture circumstances where drow might surrender since with their cultural upbringing they are unlikely to believe any reassurances from the PCs even assuming they have a common language.

-----------------

In the end though :) ... combat ends when the DM says "Combat is over" :) ... and this can be when the last opponent is dead, the last one has fled, the last one has surrendered or when the outcome is narratively certain and neither the DM nor the players want to finish it.

Keep in mind though that sometimes the combat gets easy due to luck on the part of the players. However, I have seen the second half of many combats go in the opposite direction as players start missing, failing saves and the opponents land a crit or two. Even battles that seemed like a forgone conclusion can become close depending on the dice. So when you stop a combat and narrate a finish you leave out the natural variation of luck that could have made the rest of the fight significantly more difficult than expected. I think it is the vagaries of luck that drives most tables to finish out a combat.

[Thrudd]

Combat is over when one of the parties is dead, flees, or surrenders. For me, every combat is a "stakes" situation - I follow the results of the dice, so anything can happen even in cases where it looks like one side or the other is hopelessly outclassed. I've seen enough crazy dice to know that results are not assured.

I also never presume actions for the players, so in situation #1 I would never narrate something like that. How do I know they would want to kick the giant's sword in the river and tie him up? This is an important decision point for them. Same with the Mind Flayer - he keeps fleeing until he's out of sight or dead. If he gets out of sight before he's dead, he gets to make a saving throw, and then things are different. I would be using a morale mechanic to determine if enemy combatants choose to stop fighting, so most likely the mind flayer would choose to flee anyway, after making a saving throw -but I'd still check. If the players let him run off and didn't keep tabs, there's a small chance he'd decide to creep back and try to mind blast somebody. If the mind flayer's gone and the giant is still hypnotized, then the combat is over - but the players still have an important decisions to make about what to do with the unharmed giant, who will stop being hypnotized in under a minute. Maybe he would surrender or try to flee, seeing that he is outclassed and outnumbered - but maybe not. A full-power fire giant can still do a lot of damage if he chooses to fight. Tying him up needs to be their idea, not mine (and they better have a lot of rope, or some chains and locks, or something, because giants are damn strong.)

In situation #2, morale mechanics come into play again. After 50% of the Drow are disabled and their leader has been killed, there will be a morale roll and chances are they are going to flee or surrender, even though they still outnumber the PCs, but it's up to the dice. They could potentially decide to fight on, and those that aren't dead certainly could still do some damage - just because they rolled poorly in round one doesn't mean they'll keep doing so. If they don't give up, some would likely break free of the web, some might score a lucky hit and bring a PC down, and the tide could turn. If they get reduced by another 50%, one last morale roll would happen that would probably result in flight or surrender for the survivors - but again, you never know. Even one enemy left that has chosen to fight to the death can cause damage or death to the PCs.

Dice and player decisions determine what happens in all cases, and nothing is ever over until the dice say it's over. Of course, morale is a very important element and there will be many cases where enemies do not fight to the death - but as DM I don't choose when to end the fight. If the players aren't running away, dead, or parleying for peace, then the monsters will fight until the dice say they won't or can't fight any more (excepting exceptions for specific NPCs that might have specific motives to try to avoid a fight or to fight to the death or to parley, or whatever.)
The players are the ones who need to choose what to do about fleeing, surrendering, or otherwise incapacitated or weakened enemies. Their decisions can have later consequences, and there's no way that I would want to interfere in those choices and restrict possibilities. I would never narrate actions for the PCs that the players didn't think up and declare themselves.

[MaxWilson]

Hypnotic pattern says "The spell ends for an affected creature if it takes any damage or if someone else uses an action to shake the creature out of its stupor."

It's a DM call but personally most of the actions required to put a creature under hypnotic pattern into "disarmed/pushed prone/grappled/tied up" would likely be more than sufficient to wake them up if all that is required to wake them is a "shake".

Quick response to this point:

What is needed is a full action's worth of shaking, equivalent to a full attack sequence. If you could shake allies awake with just an object interaction I'd agree that disarming could probably awaken you, but you can't, it has to be more intensive shaking.

[Chronos]

Oh, also don't forget in scenario 1 that both Fear and Hypnotic Pattern have only a one-minute duration, and you've already spent two of your ten rounds in taking down the gith. The mindflayer might be fleeing through Plant Growth, but the wolves harrying him are also slowed by it, and he's dashing, so even with their greater base speed, they won't actually be doing much damage to him, and as soon as the Fear ends, he's going to mind-blast those wolves to oblivion. If he's going down, it's going to have to be from ranged attacks from the party... and that's time that they're not spending disabling the giant, and might cost them resources.

[Finback]

You shouldn't roll dice unless the outcome is in doubt and interesting. How dangerous does the situation have to be in order for you, as DM, to feel that it's still interesting enough to be worth treating as a round-by-round or turn-by-turn combat?

Depends on external factors. My group needs to wind up by a certain time, so if combat is nearing an end, and time is short, I can find narrative shortcuts. Case in point: they fought Zalkore last night in ToA. Dropped her, and there was still two eblis. I had them fly up and escape. I give the PCs a chance to act (eg fire off a parting shot, etc) but otherwise, the eblis aren't dumb enough to stick around. Likewise, in your drow encounter, it would make sense that one of the other drow would act towards stopping the combat, because chances are, they're getting a PROMOTION! A drow would love to see their leader dead, so they can make their own power play. They'd likely either parley a truce, or call a strategic retreat (possibly coming back later at night, when they might have an advantage). Give the NPCs their own motivation - do they want to fight to the death? Are they smart, or dumb? Can they call a truce and work an advantage? Are they motivated by anger, greed, or honour?

tl;dr shorten if the narrative can support it, and players don't want to take any other actions.

[Spamotron]

Depends on external factors. My group needs to wind up by a certain time, so if combat is nearing an end, and time is short, I can find narrative shortcuts. Case in point: they fought Zalkore last night in ToA. Dropped her, and there was still two eblis. I had them fly up and escape. I give the PCs a chance to act (eg fire off a parting shot, etc) but otherwise, the eblis aren't dumb enough to stick around. Likewise, in your drow encounter, it would make sense that one of the other drow would act towards stopping the combat, because chances are, they're getting a PROMOTION! A drow would love to see their leader dead, so they can make their own power play. They'd likely either parley a truce, or call a strategic retreat (possibly coming back later at night, when they might have an advantage). Give the NPCs their own motivation - do they want to fight to the death? Are they smart, or dumb? Can they call a truce and work an advantage? Are they motivated by anger, greed, or honour?

tl;dr shorten if the narrative can support it, and players don't want to take any other actions.

With the Drow not necessarily. My understanding is that to Drow society a female priestess is worth any number of male grunts. It won't matter that an unbiased examination of what happened will reveal that the Priestess was a fool who picked a fight she couldn't possibly win. The instant those Drow soldiers return home they'll be made painful examples of. I would probably have to determine which is currently greater their fear of imminent death by PC or their fear of being slowly tortured to death for not avenging the Priestess. Of course knowing the Drow they're getting tortured to death whether they avenge her or not.

So roll a d3 on a 1 they surrender in fear, on a 2 they make a desperate fight to the death, on a 3 they realize that they're screwed win or lose and surrender but with their wits about them and trying to scheme how to survive this fiasco.

[TheUser]

As a DM I've uttered the phrase "I'm going to hand-wave the rest of this encounter" many times. My timing must be fine because my players seem to be on board. However, I do give my players the agency over how they'd like to have the scenario wrap up, capturing prisoners, chasing down fleeing enemies etc.

[Yora]

I end a fight when nobody is taking any offensive actions anymore.

Since my NPCs and monsters prefer not to die, this is usually when they run away and the players don't pursue, or when they offer to surrender and the players accept.

[Yunru]

When the DM says it is.
For the monsters losing (the ones that aren't the party), that's whenever there's no more twists to the encounter.
For the players losing, as above, except if they want to fight on (as in, the opponents might offer them a chance to surrender or something similar).

[JackPhoenix]

1) sounds like some very strange team-up. Mind flayer and githyanki on the same side? The flayer may or may not escape once it breaks LoS (Plane Shift helps with that), but unless the PCs decide to give chase, it propably won't have no desire to return.

2) the drow will propably fight to the death, maybe flee to try again later, but never surrender. The PCs will only kill them, their own side will do *worse* if they surrender to surfacers and let the death of a priestess unpunished.

[MaxWilson]

1) sounds like some very strange team-up. Mind flayer and githyanki on the same side?

A strange teamup? Yes. Yes, it was. :-)

[Azgeroth]

so for...

1. I would ask the party, or rather each player what they are doing, figure out the viability (chance of auto-win) and act accordingly, for example. the fire giant is out, untill he hits the deck (knocked prone). not exactly RAW but in my book, he just got hit, and hit the ground pretty hard, that is enough to end the spell. for the flayer, if the player can give a good enough tactical description of how they keep LoS, then i would roll 3 saves for the flayer, if it fails them all auto-win against flayer, if it passes one of those, i tell the player to roll his attacks/damage until that round with the passed save, and resolve accordingly. keeping track of the fire-giants status aswell. (he has a really high strength, chances are he is going to break free of those binds, its more a question of how much damage the party can do before that happens.)

so in a nut-shell, i would allow a narration of what they wanted to do, and then ask for attack/damage rolls concurrently, round by round (as in, all the players take their turns at once) until either enemies are dead, or the auto-win situation changes. if it reaches a point where there is no concievable way the enemy can win, they either attempt to escape, or just die. narrate accordingly.


2. now this is tricky.. on the one hand, drow would never surrender to non-drow, save for some sly or cunning plan, in the event their priestess got turned to paste though, first round or not things get a little shaky.

even if the drow murder the PC's they can't go home, they failed to protect the priestess, bad times for them. chances are a few more will die, and its highly likely that at least half the force would rather die trying, for the glory of lolth, than to be seen as weaker than some non-drow, lolth is not forgiving.

so i would have the combat continue untill there were fewer drow than PC's, then i'd roll some die to figure out which of them surrenders first, and let the players decide what to do.. as a note, the first to surrender also asks for refuge, in exchange for intel. if the players accept, you know one of the others is going to try and murder them then escape, that is how drow operate IMO.

[MaxWilson]

for the flayer, if the player can give a good enough tactical description of how they keep LoS, then i would roll 3 saves for the flayer, if it fails them all auto-win against flayer, if it passes one of those, i tell the player to roll his attacks/damage until that round with the passed save, and resolve accordingly.

Don't you mean the opposite? Roll 3 saves for the flayer only if the players give a poor tactical description of how to keep LoS? Because if they do keep LoS the mind flayer doesn't get any additional saves, it can only Dash away until it breaks LoS or has nowhere to move.

[Finback]

With the Drow not necessarily. My understanding is that to Drow society a female priestess is worth any number of male grunts. It won't matter that an unbiased examination of what happened will reveal that the Priestess was a fool who picked a fight she couldn't possibly win. The instant those Drow soldiers return home they'll be made painful examples of.

Iunno, there's plenty of other backstabbing. There's internal positioning for the priestesses, Matron Mothers, the Houses, etc. all going on. A male soldier might be the consort of a low-level priestess, who now has an opportunity to get someone above HER into power, and thus escalating her own position. Some of the recent Salvatore stuff, eeesh, so much going on like that you need a flowchart to keep track of it all. House A was dissolved and its soldiers absorbed into House B, who are allied with House C against House D, but House D has a bigger threat from House E..

[KorvinStarmast]

when is a combat "done"?


Never.

In war, the outcome is never final.
~Carl von Clausewitz~

[MaxWilson]

Iunno, there's plenty of other backstabbing. There's internal positioning for the priestesses, Matron Mothers, the Houses, etc. all going on. A male soldier might be the consort of a low-level priestess, who now has an opportunity to get someone above HER into power, and thus escalating her own position. Some of the recent Salvatore stuff, eeesh, so much going on like that you need a flowchart to keep track of it all. House A was dissolved and its soldiers absorbed into House B, who are allied with House C against House D, but House D has a bigger threat from House E..

Also, only an idiot discards useful tools because they failed to protect an incompetent low-status female. If the males backtalked the priestess, sure, they'd get punished up to and including torture with no objections from anybody because that threatens the status of the people who really matter. But a higher-ranking priestess who hears the report from the males about how this particular priestess died is going to shrug internally, and maybe punish the males to some degree "pour encourager les autres" but not in a way that will permanently damage them (e.g. have them whipped) so they will still be available next time she needs tools.

Think of the drow female/male relationship as the relationship between a mob boss and her thugs and flunkies. Al Capone doesn't really care if Mickey the Fish manages to get himself killed; he's certainly not going to torture Mickey's bodyguards to death because of it. In fact, maybe Al Capone put Mickey in that position on purpose (running a patrol solo, on the outskirts) in hopes of getting Mickey embarrassed or even killed.