DMs: How long are combats running, and are you ok with it?

[Kurt Kurageous]

From another thread, combat is still the primary focus of 5e.

1. How much session real time are non-BBEG complex encounters (defined as monster numbers > party numbers and monster stat blocks > 1) taking at your table?

2. Are you ok with the time it's taking?

3. If not ok, what have you done to add/remove the session real time it takes to run a complex combat?

[Man_Over_Game]

From another thread, combat is still the primary focus of 5e.

1. How much session real time are non-BBEG complex encounters (defined as monster numbers > party numbers and monster stat blocks > 1) taking at your table?

2. Are you ok with the time it's taking?

3. If not ok, what have you done to add/remove the session real time it takes to run a complex combat?

A simple fight, for me, might run...gosh...40 minutes or so? Although I usually have larger tables.

I think I'll start speeding things up by making it more Theater of the Mind and less tactical. Maybe tell people that if they take too long, they default to the Dodge action. Stuff like that. But I like the complexity, and I like not being a d***, so we'll see.

[Karnitis]

1. Probably between 45 minutes to 75, depending on the total enemies. A non-BBEG can still be a singular creature, and then closer to 30. But add 3-4 minions, about an hour. (Side note: every group I've been in has 4-5 people)

2. Mostly. When theres only one enemy, even though it takes less time, it seems boring because we're all clustering to do the same thing. When there's multiple enemies, even though it takes longer I feel like the guy I'm fighting is "my" enemy. Also helps so I'm not feeling competitive (The wizard just did 50 dmg to this boss, and I'm only doing 20 to him! :smallfrown:)

3. We've tried turn time limits, but that can cause the person (not character) to feel targeted verbally. A common suggestion I've found helps is telling the person when they're next, so they can plan their attack as the current attack does their thing.

[darknite]

To me it's a factor of number of players. Since I mainly run AL and am nearly always at capacity it takes longer to run. My favorite number of players is 4 or 5. Adding a 6t or 7th player seems to make a significant impact on length of combats, in my experience.

[Benny89]

Hmmm, hard to say. Usually combat lasts 3-4 turns. 4-5 players...

I would say around 20 minutes with experienced party (smooth rolling and calling damage/hits etc.) to 30 minutes maybe.

Am I ok with it? Yes, I think bigger encounters ended in 20 minutes are good, because DnD combat is boring mechanically (so many different dices to roll, attacks, damage, hits, a lot of bonuses, class features etc.) so the faster the better in my opinion as it does not knock my players out of story/narrative too much. The longer combat last, the more I have to work after to get players back into narrative.

I am huge fan of fast intense fights, so I throw harder enemies than I should but make fights shorter.

But I am more of narrative/story DM so I rarely have more than 3 encounters per long rest on average. Something like siege or stronghold defense might see much more than that.

[Sigreid]

10-20 minutes tops. But we do use Fantasy Grounds and it does a lot of the heavy lifting (Tracking turns, Tracking damage, Tells us straight up if it's a hit or not, etc.).

[Rukelnikov]

Low impact battles, those with enemies far below the parties capabilities, we generally do theater of the mind and are over pretty fast, sometimes I won't even roll initiative and have the players act in sitting order. Generally done in 5-10 mins.

[stoutstien]

I'd say 20 minutes for most fight but I use a time limit on declaring actions for more experienced players

[GreyBlack]

Combat lasts as long as is fun. I've had knock down drag out brawls between the party and a boss with an army of minions, and I've had combat last 2 rounds. Both have been satisfying. I'm fine with this.

[Misterwhisper]

I have played 5e 2 to three times a month since it hit shelves.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever seen more than one combat per game.

Combat in 5e is rather boring and people would rather skip it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

3-5 rounds, most of the time. Wall time depends on the group and is dominated by distractions more than anything. If everyone is paying attention and no babies need fed or changed, not very long at all. If distracted...way too long.

I'd say that the time generally is dominated by anyone ever needing to look anything up. If they don't have to, things go fast. If they do, the time increases dramatically.

[NaughtyTiger]

1. How much session real time are non-BBEG complex encounters (defined as monster numbers > party numbers and monster stat blocks > 1) taking at your table?
20-45 minutes with a typical AL table of 7
but with my seasoned table of 4 it is down to 10-25.

2. Are you ok with the time it's taking?
20-45 no.
10 yes.

3. If not ok, what have you done to add/remove the session real time it takes to run a complex combat?
average damage for NPCs
group attack rolls for NPCs/summons
speed factor initiative -> forces people to mostly decide what they are doing at the start of the round (experienced folks)
split the party-> two combats of 4 players is faster than 1 combat of 7 players. (not sure why)
once the party is clearly gonna win, jump to killing blows...


that said, malifice and ad_hoc run 6 significant battles in a session, and I don't know how they do it.

[Rukelnikov]

1. How much session real time are non-BBEG complex encounters (defined as monster numbers > party numbers and monster stat blocks > 1) taking at your table?
20-45 minutes with a typical AL table of 7
but with my seasoned table of 4 it is down to 10.

2. Are you ok with the time it's taking?
20-45 no.
10 yes.

3. If not ok, what have you done to add/remove the session real time it takes to run a complex combat?
average damage for NPCs
group attack rolls for NPCs/summons
speed factor initiative -> forces people to mostly decide what they are doing at the start of the round (experienced folks)
split the party-> two combats of 4 players is faster than 1 combat of 7 players. (not sure why)
once the party is clearly gonna win, jump to killing blows...


that said, malifice and ad_hoc run 6 significant battles in a session, and I don't know how they do it.

How do you handle Crits? All the enemies crit at once? Sounds devastating.

[NaughtyTiger]

How do you handle Crits? All the enemies crit at once? Sounds devastating.

just 1 crit, 2x average damage..

that would be viscous!

[Rukelnikov]

just 1 crit, 2x average damage..

that would be viscous!

yup, that's why I wondered :P

[Tanarii]

What I'm not really okay with is the length of time it can sometimes take to run non-combat encounters that aren't particularly designed to require any significant resources, i.e. they count as Easy difficulty. Those can eat up table time like no tomorrow if you're not careful.

[Man_Over_Game]

What I'm not really okay with is the length of time it can sometimes take to run non-combat encounters that aren't particularly designed to require any significant resources, i.e. they count as Easy difficulty. Those can eat up table time like no tomorrow if you're not careful.

That's one of the reasons I've started transitioning away from roleplay conversation. It's fine for 5-10 minutes or so, but after that, it's just best to transition to Action-Effect. So rather than constantly bickering about the price of an item, you summarize it as "Your bartering sways the merchant, and he offers to include a pack of arrows with the scimitar as a special deal."

[Rukelnikov]

That's one of the reasons I've started transitioning away from roleplay conversation. It's fine for 5-10 minutes or so, but after that, it's just best to transition to Action-Effect. So rather than constantly bickering about the price of an item, you summarize it as "Your bartering sways the merchant, and he offers to include a pack of arrows with the scimitar as a special deal."

I agree when it comes to buying/selling. If the PCs wanna buy a cart, rations and bedrolls, pay the gold and move on, if the players ask for barter I'll have them roll persuasion and adjust the price ad hoc.

If it's something special like PCs are trying to sell an embalmed dragon I'll roleplay the part cause it's an unusual situation and its likely something interesting can happen there.

[Malbrack]

Combats take anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes. It depends on if the players are distracted or if they need to look things up.

I do what I can to speed things up from my end. I use average damage for NPCs, I roll handfuls of dice together, I have a rough strategy for the NPCs ahead of time, etc. I also have one of the players track initiative order for me. That lets me ask, "Who's next? What are they doing?" to keep things moving forward. It also tends to encourage the player that tracks initiative to help me move things forward too.

I tend to run about 3-4 combats per adventuring day. That also tends to line up with being a session. So we'll play for like 4 hours: 2 hours are combat and 2 hours are exploration and social RPing. That works out pretty well for my table.

I try to pay attention to when the battle devolves into just rolling attacks to finish off enemies. There's a certain point where victory is inevitable, and the players stop using resources because they know it is inevitable. I abbreviate that phase. I might have the enemies surrender or try to run. If the players say they want to kill them all, I might reduce the enemy HP to speed up the process. Etc.

[Tanarii]

That's one of the reasons I've started transitioning away from roleplay conversation. It's fine for 5-10 minutes or so, but after that, it's just best to transition to Action-Effect. So rather than constantly bickering about the price of an item, you summarize it as "Your bartering sways the merchant, and he offers to include a pack of arrows with the scimitar as a special deal."I'm talking about action-effect stuff. I'm talking about non-combat encounters in an adventuring site (dungeon or wilderness). Sometimes that's Social Interactions, but they are with purpose, and action-effect is key to them as well. More usually it's a form of Exploration. What used to be called Tricks.

Besides, action-effect is roleplaying. As along as the action is based on the players making meaningful decisions :smallamused:

[Tiadoppler]

I play a mix of in-person and online (over discord, using the dice-rolling tool avrae).

The shortest 'combats' tend to be about a full round (5 minutes). My players like to get sneaky and surprise their enemies, and that makes an 'easy' encounter more like a tripwire.

The most common significant combats ('deadly' CR, 1 boss and 2-3 minibosses with interesting abilities) take 3-5 rounds (an hour).

I've run a couple massive large-scale battles. I think the longest single combat was 43 rounds, and took (5-6?) hours of real time broken up into two online sessions (on consecutive days), simply because of the complexity, and the large number of players (11) and enemies (umm... Lots.).

In order to streamline things, my preference is to have no more than four distinct stat blocks for enemies. Each type of enemy moves on the same initiative, and acts simultaneously (using online tools to roll and add many attack rolls at once, for example).

The slowest part of combat is waiting for my players to decide their actions and roll their dice.

[MrStabby]

Average simple encounter is usually 25 min. I would like to speed these up. They are generally easy and simple.

The tougher encounters usually run for about 3 hours.

3 hours seems excessive but a bit of context...

I believe that the game is best balanced with effects that extend fights: defensive abilities, spells that control the PCs, illusions that misdirect and forms of damage resistance that need to be discovered before pumping resources in.

I like reinforcement to arrive. It may just be from the next room, it may be summoned creatures, but extra meat is coming down after a round or two.

My style is out of combat is role play, in combat is a puzzle. Less of an issue on easy fights but my players can take their time to look through their collection scrolls, wands and potions looking for answers to help them win a tough fight. Given the complexity of loot I hand out, this can take a while. 3 hours for a puzzle that everyone enjoys and is engaged by is fine for me.

[djreynolds]

I have played 5e 2 to three times a month since it hit shelves.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever seen more than one combat per game.

Combat in 5e is rather boring and people would rather skip it.

I'm sorry to hear that.

It may be the table composition or something else.

For me, combat is where the players get to shine and players build rapport

I always go big, as a DM. I'm not there to kill the players but to make it engaging and exciting and dramatic. The enemy can always retreat if the players are doing badly, and "evil" monsters have no qualms about leaving comrades to die if the party is not going to win.

If the party kills the BBEG, maybe the number 2 evil guy says, lets go... now I'm the new BBEG

I feel it is "important" to make combat feel "important", IMO make it life or death. There is no reason to have unchallenging fights, unless the players are trying out tactics or combos, or they are secretly showing off their evil side

[mephnick]

I have played 5e 2 to three times a month since it hit shelves.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever seen more than one combat per game.

Combat in 5e is rather boring and people would rather skip it.

You sure seem to dislike 5e for someone who plays it that often.

[PiperThePaladin]

For complex fights, I roll up a cheat sheet ahead of time and it is a lifesaver.

I pre-roll a table of to-hit and damage rolls for each unique attack that a monster uses, adding in all of their bonuses. I assign each column in the table a number from one to ten. At go time, I roll one d10 and take that to-hit and damage roll.



d10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10


To Hit
15
22
5
8
18
15
24
19
9
11


Damage
8
4
8
12
13
7
10
16
9
11



If I roll a crit or a nat 1 as I'm rolling the table, I circle the to-hit roll and calculate the damage accordingly.

Each variety of attack for each kind of monster has a table like this. Since I select the to-hit and attack with a d10 roll, it's still random. I don't know when I attack if the monster is going to hit or miss. But I've calculated all the unique bonuses in ahead of time, so I can spit out the completed attack actions of five unique attacks in about ten seconds. It makes my turn as the DM go SO much faster, which puts the spotlight back on the players. Plus, it frees me up to add a lot of variety of monsters to big fights without increasing the overhead of stat blocks I need to juggle.

[TyGuy]

I'd say 20 minutes for most fight but I use a time limit on declaring actions for more experienced players
What do you use, stop watch on a phone?
How much time do you give for each player? What happens when time's up and they're truly not ready?
Do you give yourself, the DM, unlimited time or a limit as well?

I've been wanting to implement this, so I'm very interested in what's working for you.

[Tanarii]

Time on declaring your action when a turn comes up should be immediate, unless the situation just changed dramatically on the turn before. You've got every other players turn to think about what you might want to do. About the only exception should be the player who goes immediately after all the monsters.

[MaxWilson]

From another thread, combat is still the primary focus of 5e.

1. How much session real time are non-BBEG complex encounters (defined as monster numbers > party numbers and monster stat blocks > 1) taking at your table?

2. Are you ok with the time it's taking?

3. If not ok, what have you done to add/remove the session real time it takes to run a complex combat?

[Apologies for wall of text. I don't run 5E very frequently lately, but took notes tonight for the sake of this thread. Here's my writeup. -Max]

They always take longer than I think they do. Had a short adventure tonight where the players wound up beelining almost directly for the objective (i.e. they got lucky with the maze and skipped all the dead ends, almost) which meant they really did only five encounters: laundry room (2 Rodents of Unusual Size/giant rats), lavatory (gray ooze that they never realized was there), sewage tunnel (4 giant rats, 2 goblins), wine cellar (three statues, two of which were gargoyles, plus a Black Pudding), and guards outside the hostage room (6 githyanki warriors). And yet somehow it took two and a half hours.

I'm 100% OK with the amount of time it's taking, because they players were fully engaged in interacting with each other the whole time, making plans about what they should do next and how they were going to survive what was happening to whom at the moment. Probably the longest encounter was the first one, when they were trying to decide who was going to enter the door to the laundry room and, once the rogue detected the giant rats hiding under the piles of laundry, whether they were going to fight the rats or attempt to decoy them away by capturing stray cats and feeding them to the rats. The actual fighting part of the encounter was over in I think about ninety seconds and three attack rolls once they actually engaged, but the encounter itself took much longer, partly because all three players were new to 5E and two are new to RPGs, so they were still getting a feel for what the world was like and what they could do.

The way I see it, the goal isn't to get through a certain amount of content, it's to provide the players with a fun experience. If they spend two and a half hours having fun with each other, but they take thirty minutes to kill a couple of gargoyles and a black pudding, oh well. They don't have to be a well-oiled SWAT team.

...However, I think it would have gone quite poorly if I'd used vanilla PHB initiative, because that initiative system would have forced two of the three players to sit around doing nothing for most of the night, every time it was someone else's turn. I would much, much rather have players talking to each other about what weapons might be able to harm this black pudding and whether they can have the NPC fighter grapple the gargoyle and stick its face in the black pudding--I would rather that than have them take turns talking to me declaring actions and rolling attacks and damage and waiting while I roll attacks and damage for the monsters.

My initiative system is nothing special, it's basically just AD&D initiative where everybody says what they're going to do and then we roll dice and resolve it, but here's a thread with an example and discussion (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?513971-Concurrent-initiative-variant-Everybody-declares-Everybody-resolves-WAS-Simultaneous-Initiative). Because these are new players I didn't even really explain the system to the players, I just had all of the monsters Delay in almost every combat unless the PCs were surprised, so it basically just turned into "PCs go, then monsters go, then PCs go" except for a couple times when it mattered which PC went first (because of sneak attack adjacency) so the PCs rolled initiative against each other.

Combat length is tied directly to the amount of decision-making that happens during combat. Complex and interesting combats with lots of decisions take a while, but they don't feel like it because they're interesting. Simple combats with few decisions to make are fast even when they involve a lot of dice rolls. (I hit you, you hit me, until one of us dies... you can do ten rounds of that in two real-life minutes.) For new players, even simple combats are interesting and time-consuming because they're still learning the game rules/gameworld. Uninteresting combats should be brought to an early close.

Case in point for early close: we were out of time for the end of the githyanki fight, so I made a judgment call about who was winning at that point and told the players, "If I roll anything but a 6 on this d6, you guys win the fight and successfully rescue [the hostage] and recover [the treasure]." I think they rolled a 2, so they won, and then they asked me questions about the meaning of certain clues and what was in the parts of the dungeon they hadn't gotten around to exploring, and we all went home satisfied.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

5 minutes to 3 hours.

The longest fight I was running was a fight between to armies the PCs saw happening very far.

The fight was between a natural faction, a tribe of nomads dog peoples(The half- Minotaur did try to mate with one of their cows but they didn't remember) and an enemy of the PCs.

They saw their enemies losing but wanted to join and use all tye resources they had to get to the fight in time. I wasn't even ready to roll, my dices was away.


My group are very tactical, the turns take as long as rolling and writing, sometime we argue about the rules(we all consider this as fun) but that is the biggest time sink.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yesterday we had a session of the game I'm a player in.

Working through PotA, we had ~5 Medium (at a guess) combats plus exploration in a 3.5 hour session. Without the toddler it would have gone faster. So maybe 20-25 minutes per combat, mostly due to distractions? Each turn took only a few tens of seconds, except the wizard (who kept having to look up spells) and the DM (who doesn't always play fast).

[Tanarii]

Each turn took only a few tens of seconds, except the wizard (who kept having to look up spells) and the DM (who doesn't always play fast).
Players of long rest casters can definitely take the longest to make decisions, especially as they go up in levels and have more prepared/known spells & spells slots. I mandate some form of spell cards to cut down on that. It also speeds up as the adventuring day goes on, and they start running out of slots for specific levels, and flipping over spells that can't be upcast. (Technically they can be, just without benefit, but most players don't unless it's an emergency.) They definitely aren't as new player friendly in terms of learning curve & time to make decisions.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Players of long rest casters can definitely take the longest to make decisions, especially as they go up in levels and have more prepared/known spells & spells slots. I mandate some form of spell cards to cut down on that. It also speeds up as the adventuring day goes on, and they start running out of slots for specific levels, and flipping over spells that can't be upcast. (Technically they can be, just without benefit, but most players don't unless it's an emergency.) They definitely aren't as new player friendly in terms of learning curve & time to make decisions.

Yeah. This player in particular is the weakest (rules-wise) and the most often distracted (because we play at her house and she and her husband, who also plays, have an 18-month-old daughter). That doesn't help. I use spell cards for my school groups, but we're all on app-based character sheets (which include the spell descriptions). But she, due to child duties, often can't pay total attention to what's going on, so it takes her a bit to get caught up and figure out what she'll do. Fortunately her character is basically just a pyromaniac, so throwing fireballs or firebolt (or occasionally shatter or scorching ray) and backing away from melee is about as far as her tactical needs go.

[GrumpyHobbit]

I'm honestly suprised how many posts there are about "people not liking combats" :O

there is only 1 grp i play in (we only play face to face, exceptions mainly ppl going abroad for a semester, which join on skype) where some (2 out of 8) People dont like Combats in general.

the other 3 Groups (D&D, Pathfinder, Mage, Shadowrun, Das schwarze Auge, warhammer 40k) love fights - even if they go on for hours. as Long as Players are invested and having fun, there is no such Thing as "to Long"

[mephnick]

I'm honestly suprised how many posts there are about "people not liking combats" :O

This is where "you're playing the wrong system..but that's ok." comes in.

I can't imagine not liking combat and still using DnD when there are hundreds of amazing systems out there.

[GrumpyHobbit]

i know taste differs a lot, just suprised to see so many "non-combatants" in any of the listed Systems (except mage) - all of them are tabletop rpgs. and honestly whats the Point of tabletop if there is no tactics - or in other words Combat - ? ^^"

[darknite]

What do you use, stop watch on a phone?
How much time do you give for each player? What happens when time's up and they're truly not ready?
Do you give yourself, the DM, unlimited time or a limit as well?

I've been wanting to implement this, so I'm very interested in what's working for you.

When I DM combat my expectation is that the player is ready with their action when their turn comes. They can get clarifying info if they need, but I heavily discourage folks who have tuned out (looking at their cell phones, etc) from getting much time at all. I also don't appreciate players who sit there for minutes balancing a bunch of options looking for an optimal one and dragging the combat out.

So usually I am tolerant of those who are ready to execute their turn and not so much with those who are unprepared or indecisive (unless they're new to the game). With the latter I'll start prompting them with, "Well, what are you going to do?" after a minute or so, followed by a, "Make up your mind" a short while afterwards, if needed. If they are completely flummoxed I'll finish with a, "So you're taking the Dodge action, then?", letting them know that it's really time to fish or cut bait or that's what they'll be doing. That seems to get the job done.

[Misterwhisper]

To elaborate on my earlier post.

Out of 100s of games played, only like 3 times did we ever have more than one combat per session.

Only once out of all those games did we ever have more than one fight between rests.

Only 2 fights lasted more than 4 rounds and one of those was only because one of our PCs would not stop concentration on a fog cloud spell and the whole fight happened with everyone blind essentially.
The other one that lasted more than 4 rounds was the very last fight in a long running campaign where all players were level 16 by the end and the fight lasted a while because the main villain had a burrow speed and used it correctly to the point that the only way anyone could attack him was to ready an action. Needless to say the martial classes felt pretty worthless and the melee martial character just said forget it and walked out of the fight.

[darknite]

To elaborate on my earlier post.

Out of 100s of games played, only like 3 times did we ever have more than one combat per session.

...

I would posit that your experience is an outlier. I have certainly had sessions where there wasn't more than one combat but it certainly isn't under 3%.

[MaxWilson]

I would posit that your experience is an outlier. I have certainly had sessions where there wasn't more than one combat but it certainly isn't under 3%.

I've certainly run combat-lite campaigns where less than 1/4 of gameplay was combat, which probably translates to approximately 1 incident of violence per session. However, I think I agree with Mephisto that 5E is not a good system for those campaigns--I had to invent almost everything about those campaigns because 5E has no real rules for anything but combat. After last night's 5E game I am seeing more and more advantages to AD&D/OD&D--none of the new-to-5E players wanted to care about bonus actions and concentration economy and lists of powers. They wanted to figure out what the statue was and where the tufts of hair were coming from and if there was any way around the githyanki guards. They got zero value out of 5E's various mechanical bells and whistles. 5E is probably the wrong system for them.

[Misterwhisper]

I've certainly run combat-lite campaigns where less than 1/4 of gameplay was combat, which probably translates to approximately 1 incident of violence per session. However, I think I agree with Mephisto that 5E is not a good system for those campaigns--I had to invent almost everything about those campaigns because 5E has no real rules for anything but combat. After last night's 5E game I am seeing more and more advantages to AD&D/OD&D--none of the new-to-5E players wanted to care about bonus actions and concentration economy and lists of powers. They wanted to figure out what the statue was and where the tufts of hair were coming from and if there was any way around the githyanki guards. They got zero value out of 5E's various mechanical bells and whistles. 5E is probably the wrong system for them.

Switch to Pathfinder.

Customization and skill use is massive.

All to combat bells and whistles are great but you don't really have to care about them.

[MaxWilson]

Switch to Pathfinder.

Customization and skill use is massive.

All to combat bells and whistles are great but you don't really have to care about them.

...you're kidding, right? I don't see any blue text but you've got to be joking. Massive amounts of customization, powers, and skill lists is exactly what these players don't care about. They found even the short list of 5E skills distracting and intimidating ("what do all these numbers mean?")--would be much more comfortable with the OD&D/AD&D approach of, "Use your head, not your character sheet."

DM wanting rules for non-combat activities != players wanting lists of abilities.

[Tanarii]

AD&D / OD&D werent exactly heavy on non-combat rules.

[MaxWilson]

AD&D / OD&D werent exactly heavy on non-combat rules.

And yet, I can open up my AD&D 2nd edition Monster Manual and see noncombat information in every single entry, and almost every encounter started with a noncombat decision supported by noncombat rules (parlay/threaten/fight? + reaction rolls) and most of the game structures I've had to invent for 5E would fit smoothly into an AD&D campaign and some of them are inspired by it. 5E doesn't even have rules for sprinting outside of combat, crazy as that seems. AD&D (2nd edition) does, so when I need sprinting rules in 5E, I steal and tweak the AD&D rules.

What 5E does have rules for is lists of special buttons you can press to activate limited-use powers under complex constraints about which powers are usable how quickly and in what combinations, and those constraints are designed around the assumption that you'll be using them in combat. (Everything is an action or a bonus action.) It's a good game at what it does, don't get me wrong. It is lots of fun to make character builds, tweak them to be highly-effective at what they do, and run them through combat grinds. 5E makes a terrific basis for a hack-and-slash campaign a la Gold Box CRPGs, and that's why I hang out on these forums--to inspire me with ideas for those types of games. But it didn't have anything to offer my players last Saturday that wouldn't have been done better by a TSR D&D.

[Rukelnikov]

And yet, I can open up my AD&D 2nd edition Monster Manual and see noncombat information in every single entry, and almost every encounter started with a noncombat decision supported by noncombat rules (parlay/threaten/fight? + reaction rolls) and most of the game structures I've had to invent for 5E would fit smoothly into an AD&D campaign and some of them are inspired by it. 5E doesn't even have rules for sprinting outside of combat, crazy as that seems. AD&D (2nd edition) does, so when I need sprinting rules in 5E, I steal and tweak the AD&D rules.

What 5E does have rules for is lists of special buttons you can press to activate limited-use powers under complex constraints about which powers are usable how quickly and in what combinations, and those constraints are designed around the assumption that you'll be using them in combat. (Everything is an action or a bonus action.) It's a good game at what it does, don't get me wrong. It is lots of fun to make character builds, tweak them to be highly-effective at what they do, and run them through combat grinds. 5E makes a terrific basis for a hack-and-slash campaign a la Gold Box CRPGs, and that's why I hang out on these forums--to inspire me with ideas for those types of games. But it didn't have anything to offer my players last Saturday that wouldn't have been done better by a TSR D&D.

Maybe my memory is failing me, I haven't played 2e in almost 20 years now, but IIRC combat as a martial boiled down to movement + attack, there was little if anything to do besides that, 5e gives a bit more options in combat however few they are. I've never played with players options though, maybe that changed things.

[MaxWilson]

Maybe my memory is failing me, I haven't played 2e in almost 20 years now, but IIRC combat as a martial boiled down to movement + attack, there was little if anything to do besides that, 5e gives a bit more options in combat however few they are. I've never played with players options though, maybe that changed things.

They weren't interested in complicated in-combat actions. When I tried to explain to the warlock why he could cast Hex and Eldritch Blast in one round, and which of his spells he could cast without losing Hex, his eyes glazed over. But he was happy to just take my word for it that if he cast Hex, he could roll at +7 to hit for d10+d6 damage (twice per round) in order to kill The Blob that was trying to eat the party, and that made him happy because arrows weren't working on it and neither were rapiers.

But the big star of that fight was the fighter who grabbed a gargoyle that they were also and bum-rushed it over to face-plant right in front of The Blob to try to get them to fight--a tactic which AD&D and 5E handle about equally well. I put that together with other out-of-the-box thinking that the players engaged in (trying to distract giant rats by capturing starving cats to feed to them) and the lack of interest in actions/bonus actions/reactions/jargon, and I conclude that it was a mistake to choose 5E as the system for these new players.

[Rukelnikov]

They weren't interested in complicated in-combat actions. When I tried to explain to the warlock why he could cast Hex and Eldritch Blast in one round, and which of his spells he could cast without losing Hex, his eyes glazed over. But he was happy to just take my word for it that if he cast Hex, he could roll at +7 to hit for d10+d6 damage (twice per round) in order to kill The Blob that was trying to eat the party, and that made him happy because arrows weren't working on it and neither were rapiers.

But the big star of that fight was the fighter who grabbed a gargoyle that they were also and bum-rushed it over to face-plant right in front of The Blob to try to get them to fight--a tactic which AD&D and 5E handle about equally well. I put that together with other out-of-the-box thinking that the players engaged in (trying to distract giant rats by capturing starving cats to feed to them) and the lack of interest in actions/bonus actions/reactions/jargon, and I conclude that it was a mistake to choose 5E as the system for these new players.

Fair enough, that about sums it up.

Regarding the example in particular, I think 5e in trying to "balance" magic has ended up with the most complex magic system of any edition that should be the next fix.

[GrumpyHobbit]

well i played AD&D for About 20 years before Picking up pathfinder.
what you are describing sounds more like your Players would prefer a System like MAGE or FATE instead of AD&D - btw my 5e Monster Manual provides a few noncombat Details About the creatures, and volos does provide even more...

[Puh Laden]

I'll go with my four most recent sessions from oldest to most recent:

Level 1 Adventure with three PCs (Paladin, Sorcerer, Fighter): all brand-new players. The entire adventure was able to fit into an hour and a half and had four combats and one prolonged social encounter (though one of the combats only lasted half a round due to some lucky rolls for the players). The first fight was the most interesting involving a goblin in a bell tower and a wolf on the ground. The PCs managed to kill the goblin right before he was about to ring the bell as an alarm. All combats were run theater-of-the-mind and role-played more so than tactical (all combat rules were followed, but the in-combat decisions were made by thinking what the character would do rather than what was objectively the best tactics according to the rules). Combat was "sport" rather than "war" and the adventure was fairly linear. Theater-of-the-mind rather than grid. Had just read the book-version of this article: https://theangrygm.com/manage-combat-like-a-dolphin/
Combats: 1 wolf + 1 goblin archer in tower; 1 wolf; 3 goblins behind flipped tables as cover; 2 goblins + 1 goblin boss

Level 2 Dungeon Crawl with three PCs (Paladin, Cleric, Rogue) part 1: Four combats (and a fifth one that was trivial): 1 animated armor in a doorway; 1 vine blight, 1 needle blight, and 2 twig blights ambushing in a courtyard; 4 kobolds and 2 urds ambushed by the party in an atrium; 3 kobolds that ambushed party in tunnels. Session was 3 hours, the party explored about 7 out of 10 areas in the dungeon, but solved only two minor puzzles. Combat was grid-based.

Level 2 Dungeon Crawl with three PCs (Paladin, Sorcerer, Rogue) part 2: two/three combats: 3 kobolds and 1 kobold inventor (party had to retreat and thus encountered twice); 2 kobolds, 1 kobold inventor, 1 kobold scale sorcerer. Session took three hours. Party explored all non-hidden areas in the dungeon, and solved two more puzzles. Combat was grid-based. The first revisited encounter rolled into the second encounter and thus felt extra long. Combat was more tactical.

Level 1 Mystery adventure in a fishing town with four PCs (Rogue, Warlock, Bard, Monk) part 1: four combats: 1 reef shark after PC fell into the sea while trying to balance across a keeled-over mast, 1 giant octopus on the deck of a derelict ship; 1 sea hag that the party caught off-guard on the ship; 10 octopuses in the sunken part of the ship as they tried to retrieve treasure. 3 major social encounters: dockmaster; handsome/scar-face Daniel who encountered the sea hag and just barely got away; sea hag. Combat was theater-of-the-mind. Session took three hours.

Overall thoughts: the first adventure's first combat was the best out of all of them. The latest adventure's combats were bearable but at least a little boring except for the reef shark. The second adventure's combats were a little more dry and felt less urgent (except for the atrium fight). My goal is to from now on give fights more urgency, always have one interesting set-piece, and to generally run theater of the mind with at most 4 enemies (unless they're really weak and mob-together well like the octopuses, since I have 5 d20s I can roll all at the same time).

[Kurt Kurageous]

For complex fights, I roll up a cheat sheet ahead of time and it is a lifesaver.

I pre-roll a table of to-hit and damage rolls for each unique attack that a monster uses, adding in all of their bonuses.

I also use a preprint for dice rolls. Mine is an excel sheet with three hundred d20 rolls. It speeds up the unofficial "waiting to die" phase of the game, as I know the target PC AC, know the plus to hit, and know what numbers are needed for hits. I cross em out and can announce the total, throw dice for damage, look up, grin, and say, "your turn!" Time elapsed for six monster attacks, like 10 seconds. Its so much faster than rolling actual dice when determining monster saves, too. Just read the numbers then cross them off. As a bonus, you know what you rolled and have an initiative tracker on the paper for each fight.

Folks, realize that rolling then interpreting dice brings the action to a dead stop. I encourage my players to include damage dice in the cup/hand they roll with. Crits add an amount of the maximum dice roll, so no need to roll that.

I've had two new players that liked too much the attention they got then rolling dice. They'd do a martini shaker routine for 3-4 seconds before releasing the dice. I had to talk to them. One player I lost because of how I handled it. DMing for a spouse is so problematic.

IMO, combats need to be intense, not a lot of time for considering all your options, and as short and brutal as possible. I lead by example, and that's why I use massive lists of pregen d20s.

Try it, you'll love it. Worst case, you're back to fumbling with lots of dice behind the screen.

[GrumpyHobbit]

(all combat rules were followed, but the in-combat decisions were made by thinking what the character would do rather than what was objectively the best tactics according to the rules).

...ups… i thought that's a given - my bad^^"