Is 3e combat too short?

[Elves]

In number of rounds, 3.5 combat is pretty short. Once enemies are in striking distance, 1-2 round resolution is common and very rarely will a combat go over 5 rounds.

It has the advantage of brevity over 4e and 5e which have been criticized as slogfests, but it does constrict the possibilities for viable game abilities. 1, it means the value of an action is high, so few things are worth spending an action on. 2, it means there isn't much time for ramp-up or over-time effects, which removes one axis of expressivity that abilities could otherwise have.

I don't have a feeling either way, but it does seem like a modestly higher round count could bring out more expressions from the gameplay. It means fewer encounters per session, but by the same token it can be underwhelming when a big fight is over in a round or two.

A frequent retort is that if length is achieved through higher HP totals, that only empowers the already superior SOLs. 4e and 5e brought a decent solution to this by replacing instantaneous SOLs with duration effects that require multiple failed saves over successive turns to kill/incapacitate and normalizing a save each round to break the effect even if affected.

What are your feelings about the ideal combat length?
How long do your encounters usually take?

[Zanos]

Yeah, in practice I've found that combats that last longer than 5 rounds are very rare, and single rounds tend to take a long time to play out. To compound things, combats that take more than 5 rounds also tend to have many combatants, which makes each individual rounds longer, in real time. And of those combats that do last longer, the fight is usually decided a few rounds in, with the rest of the fight being cleanup. Death spiral just seem to be a core part of the system, really. If you're up against two equally strong monsters and kill or disable one of them, it might take just as long to down the other, but with half their offensive power gone the fight is more than likely over.

I'm not really sure how the designers expected people to resolve 4 CR = ECL encounters per session. Maybe they played 8 hour games, or didn't do any roleplaying? Not that I haven't had 8 hour sessions, but 4 hours of real time seems to be the norm.

A side effect of this is that I have a heavy bias against any form of short duration buffing builds. There are some like haste that can nearly double the parties damage output, or like enlarge person that can massively change how enemies have to fight, but am I really going to spend 20-50% of my combat actions casting a short duration buff on myself? Sure, there are some very good ones, but if a build requires a turn to buff up to be effective I generally don't consider that to be all that viable in actual play.

Encounters could probably be a bit longer, but I'm not sure how to approach doing that while also making rounds shorter. Even though 4e and 5e are simpler it doesn't seem to have actually helped much, the core problem of getting people to decide what they want to do quickly remains.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I don't play 3e, so I can't comment directly.

But I would question anyone who considers 5e combat a slogfest (in terms of number of rounds). I think in 5+ years of running 3 games a week (well, except during the pandemic) I've gotten to 10 rounds...once? twice? And those were wave-style fights.

Plus, when run right, 5e rounds each take about the same time as single turns took in the PF game I played. And that was at low levels.

4e, in my experience, had super long battles both in terms of rounds AND (most critically) in terms of real time because turns took forever.

For me, personally, I'd rather not take more than 3-5 rounds total for most combats. I don't like rocket tag, but long drawn out fights are annoying.

[Thunder999]

Given how long combat takes to actually play out, the last thing I want is to make fights take more rounds.

It's not like short fights are problematic, if anything it adds to feel of the game for most fights to be won in under a minute, makes combat feel a little more deadly than it is.

[Calthropstu]

Your gms don't really set up very good combats then. My record for number of rounds is 43. Lasted 3 sessions.

With my current group, my record is 29. Sure, a lot of combats last only 1-5 rounds, but it's an intense 1-5 rounds. How much should I put in? Will I have enough firepower for what's coming? How many top tier spells and abilities do I have left? Is the barbarian holding up on rage? As those short combats drain your party resources, you get more worried about the eventual boss fight.

[Kayblis]

I feel this is a result of both sides of the system, palyers and DMs alike, focusing more on offense than defense. It's just easier to win the race if you deal more damage, instead of dealing with your enemy's attacks if he survives. Whenever you see people complaining about uberchargers, it's not that they're unbeatable, but they just deal too much damage for normal play. It requires you to neutralize the tactic(be it fatigue or any barrier) to allow for the usual game to be played, which isn't fun for the player. Any tactic can be countered, but if you counter it every combat with increasingly contrived methods, it starts to look like a personal thing, and it'd be better to just not allow the playstyle if you can't let it play properly in your table.

More than damage potential, I feel more creatures should have movement options and defensive options beyond the basic. I've implemented some creatures with Quickness(the Ekolid ability) and Parry(the Dragon Mag #301 feat line) to great success, as a way to improve these two points. It doesn't feel cheap, as they're spending the feats to get it and/or are rare creatures.

I recommend everyone to try this once, follow the guideline for Swashbuckling Campaigns and give Parry(only the first feat) to every humanoid as a baseline(yes, including players). This alone has made the game more enjoyable to my friends, as you have a reason to pay attention to the enemies' rounds and can react without having to get a class feature that works with Immediate actions. Raising the baseline is always good.

[Elves]

Even though 4e and 5e are simpler it doesn't seem to have actually helped much, the core problem of getting people to decide what they want to do quickly remains.
If nothing else you can bring out the chess clocks. You don't have a million hours to decide things in the midst of action afterall.

[Thurbane]

Given how long combat takes to actually play out, the last thing I want is to make fights take more rounds.

It's not like short fights are problematic, if anything it adds to feel of the game for most fights to be won in under a minute, makes combat feel a little more deadly than it is.

^^ This. My experience is that fights, especially around mid-levels where we usually play, can take up a lot of IRL time to resolve.


Even though 4e and 5e are simpler it doesn't seem to have actually helped much, the core problem of getting people to decide what they want to do quickly remains.

Agreed. While I haven't played a significant amount of 4E, we did do a fairly long 5E module recently, and I didn't find the combats flowing much faster than in 3.5.

[Biggus]

I feel this is a result of both sides of the system, palyers and DMs alike, focusing more on offense than defense. It's just easier to win the race if you deal more damage, instead of dealing with your enemy's attacks if he survives. Whenever you see people complaining about uberchargers, it's not that they're unbeatable, but they just deal too much damage for normal play. It requires you to neutralize the tactic(be it fatigue or any barrier) to allow for the usual game to be played, which isn't fun for the player. Any tactic can be countered, but if you counter it every combat with increasingly contrived methods, it starts to look like a personal thing, and it'd be better to just not allow the playstyle if you can't let it play properly in your table.

Yeah, I've reached similar conclusions, currently I'm trialling a bunch of houserules to make defensive fighting more viable (everyone gets higher AC, shields are significantly improved, and tactics which allow one-round kills against high-HP opponents are banned or nerfed). Combats still don't tend to take more than two or three rounds at higher levels, but at least it's not straight whoever-wins-initiative-wins.



More than damage potential, I feel more creatures should have movement options and defensive options beyond the basic. I've implemented some creatures with Quickness(the Ekolid ability) and Parry(the Dragon Mag #310 feat line) to great success, as a way to improve these two points.


I can't find the Parry feats, what page are they on?

[Quertus]

If 3e is played right, each turn should take about 30 seconds or less.

Don't slow the game down. Don't make us do fiddly math in the middle of combat. If you can't Persist the buffs, don't cast buffs.

It's amazing how fast encounters fly by when you follow this mindset to its Determinator level of maximal efficiency.

But, yes, most 3e encounters don't last very long (in game; ie, very many rounds). It certainly limits your witty banter with a single foe, or your number of opportunities to convince them to surrender / buy your cookies / whatever else you're selling.

But otherwise, no real problems characterizing the charters, no.

[Kelb_Panthera]

My experience seems to be atypical. Finally got a new group together a couple years ago now and we have -rarely- had an encounter last fewer than half-a-dozen rounds. I'll happily grant that only two of us have the system mastery to do any serious optimization and I'm sandbagging a bit. I can't remember a single 2 round encounter yet, much less a single round encounter. Single creature encounters are extremely rare for us and I suspect that has more than a little to do with it too.

As for ideal, it's hard to say. Player side issues have been dragging things out to well over an hour per encounter. One total newb with focus issues and one player that has serious issues with rule retention tend to drag things down. I'd hazard that 5 to 10 is probably about right for justifying the complexity of the system. Much less makes it difficult to do much and much more would be a bit of a slog even if the players were a bit quicker.

[Faily]

Can't say there's been a huge change in the number of rounds played across editions for me. But I'm personally not a fan of "padding" combat like I've heard 4e does by giving Boss Monsters and obscene amount of HP.


Even though 4e and 5e are simpler it doesn't seem to have actually helped much, the core problem of getting people to decide what they want to do quickly remains.


^^ This. My experience is that fights, especially around mid-levels where we usually play, can take up a lot of IRL time to resolve.

Agreed. While I haven't played a significant amount of 4E, we did do a fairly long 5E module recently, and I didn't find the combats flowing much faster than in 3.5.


Agreed with this.

Not played 4e, but I personally didn't feel like things flowed faster in 5e than in 3.5/PF. It goes about the same pace.

IME, the only thing that will make combat flow at a good pace is to have players that 1. pay attention, and 2. know their character and rules well. IME, this applies across all character levels, based on the different groups I play/played with.

One of my groups have never had a problem with a flow of combat in any edition of D&D we've played (3.5, PF, 5e) as most turns are resolved at a good pace, people usually know what they'll do on their turns and know their character's options well enough to adjust quickly when situation changes (I want to add that this is the group that has the highest overall rules mastery when it comes to these games too so it certainly helps). The other groups got varying levels, and sadly the group I play with weekly is the one that is always the slowest on getting through combats (and pandemic hasn't made it easier as we're all playing from home and two of the players often have disturbances from partners and children. It is what it is).

Things that can help combat run more smoothly:
Make notes as combat progresses, such as calculating new bonuses for your attack rolls (if you have party members that like casting buffs, or you have a specific bonus against this type of enemy, on your note-sheet just write up your new total modifier to attack/damage). For me this helps a lot because I am bad at math and so I use less time trying to remember all the bonuses and adding things up.
When it is not your turn, plan your next action. If you're casting a spell, make sure you know its range/targets/save/duration by either checking your sheet, book, or app. This means that when its your turn you already have that information on hand, instead of a "oh I forgot the range on this" or "was it Fortitude or Will?".
Outside of combat, it doesn't hurt to engage with the others (IC or OOC) to plan tactics for fights.

[Yael]

If 3e is played right, each turn should take about 30 seconds or less.

Don't slow the game down. Don't make us do fiddly math in the middle of combat. If you can't Persist the buffs, don't cast buffs.

What do you mean exactly by that? By the duration of the spell? Or that if you want to cast a buff it must be persisted? Either way seems restrictive to options.

[Gruftzwerg]

Regarding HP:
I also did used extra enemy Hp for a group of 6+ players once where I talked with the players about it, since a few wanted to play some more dmg optimized builds.

Other than that:
Our table already generally uses often "max HP for everyone" because we all thing that HP optimization is to bad in 3.5 compared to damage optimization. I never did understand the idea of rolling HP. Having different HP for different classes, yeah I got that. But rolling HP? Do we roll skill points? No, so who had this glorious idea for HP? really..^^


Another optional HP (homebrew) rule that I like is to alter the "Disabled", "Dying" and Death thresholds:

Disabled: from "0 HP" till "-1/2 max HP"
Dying: when below "-1/2 max HP" and above "-max HP".

Early levels are a bit deadlier for most builds. But with increasing lvl the thresholds increase. This allows for slightly longer combat and new dimensions of role play opportunities.
Because normally you almost never become Disabled (0hp). Chances are already low for low level characters and with increasing level the chance gets minimal. And then it is to fast over with the slightest breeze (1 dmg).
With the altered rules the Disabled status will happen much more often. This gives opportunities and reasons for one side of a battle to retreat or beg for mercy. Normally you wouldn't had the opportunity at all. But the altered thresholds create those.
Finally the dying threshold doesn't become a joke at higher levels. Normally with higher dmg at higher lvls you skip disabled and often even the dying status. Imho it looses all of its purpose.
With the altered rules it remains useful at later levels. Maybe adjust the possible dmg per turn to character lvl so that the dmg doesn't become to easy to ignore it.

[Zombimode]

In number of rounds, 3.5 combat is pretty short. Once enemies are in striking distance, 1-2 round resolution is common and very rarely will a combat go over 5 rounds.

They may only take 5 rounds, but they still take 5 hours to execute :smallbiggrin:

[Saintheart]

In number of rounds, 3.5 combat is pretty short.

Try it in PbP and see whether it's short.

[Quentinas]

Trisha, Silph, Pandora, Errethera, if you have session this afternoon ,and you have a mercane in your party don't read this post

Today my party .that is composed from a lesser drow ranger 3/cleric 3/ Sword dancer 6, an hengeyokai (weasel) factotum 9/Dungeon delver 1/An homebrew class that give her an animal companion and other bonuses but no spell, a Gnoll Duskblade 9 and a lesser aasimar shadowcaster 6/Master of shadow 6 will have an encounter with 2 midgard dwarf battlesmith 5 that are escaping from a ruin chanter with two ruin elementals.
They don't have to fight each of these enemies (as you can see the ruin chanter and two ruin elementals is a cr 15 as encounter) but they can choose
Help the dwarfs and try to beat the ruin chanter (this will be quite long as no one of the player is quite the optimizer and i expect at least 10 round)
Help the ruin chanter and beat the dwarfs (this will be shorter...but I don't expect that they will win in 5 round...maybe one or two round more as the dices for the hit point for one of the dwarf were quite high and they have around 30 of AC)
Ignore the situation (and this require roleplay)
This is a casual encounter in a table I created , as they are on Nidavellir on the plane of Ysgard and I didn't like the manual of the planes encounter table for ysgard

Considering that a fight with 3 bar-lgura when they were level 10 and there wasn't the shadowcaster (okay they had only half of their spells and was an ambush) with two of three characters was teleported away from these demons with the third that seeing the situation, knowing that the teleport for three times in a row failed against him choosed to fail his save to be with his companions (hoping that he would be here) , endend in 10 rounds , I think that the average number of rounds depend on two things . First the optimization of the party , and second the monsters (and the tactics ) the DM choose. If the party is optimized nearly then what the DM puts of monster I think that 5 rounds for many combats is not so much , if the party isn't optimized is not so easy doing maximum 5 round of combat for each encounter, so depends so much on system mastery rather than "the combats are too short, the combats are too long"

[smetzger]

If 3e is played right, each turn should take about 30 seconds or less.

Don't slow the game down. Don't make us do fiddly math in the middle of combat. If you can't Persist the buffs, don't cast buffs.

It's amazing how fast encounters fly by when you follow this mindset to its Determinator level of maximal efficiency.


You have mentioned this before. I don't see how this ban on non-persist buffs would work.... maybe my definition of a buff and yours are different.

For example...
Rogue - can he not use his ring of invisibility or drink a potion of invisibility once the fight starts?
Wizard/Cleric - I just saw the enemy Rogue disappear , can I not cast see invisibility or invisibility purge?
Wizard with a bunch of non-spellcasters - Seems like Haste is a very optimal choice of spells to cast. Why can't I cast it?
Cleric - i just saw the enemy cast a summon spell. Why can't I cast Prot from Evil so I can't be attacked by the creature?
Gish - why can't I cast shield before wading into melee?
Cleric - barbarian is stuck in a grapple or entangle spell. Why can't I fast freedom of movement on them?

Does wildshaping count as a buff? How about polymorph?

I guess I just see a lot of frequent things happening in combat where a buff spell is needed in order to overcome the obstacle.

If you consider the above actions to be 'buffs' - how are the obstacles overcome?

[Xervous]

3.5 is structured to encourage hitting the JRPG auto battle button, prevailing expectations are that most fights go to the death. If the round count were much shorter initiative would be the coin flip that determines victory. Increasing the round count past a point doesn’t add much since the vast majority of combat interaction is governed by a flowchart that vacuums STR combatants into the melee gravity well. You won’t see new tactics generally; if something was worth stalling for it was a thing you accomplished on the party level. Lots of archetypes don’t have much in the way of combat choices (much less choices overall) so you’re not actually adding anything beyond the literal extra turns of doing the exact same thing except the conclusion will be more obvious as you slog towards it.

[Learn34]

So, my (limited) experience thus far is that unless everyone is playing bone-dead-stupid characters who's only options are "move here" and/or "hit it with a stick", then combats take a long time. Obviously system mastery helps, as does enforcing turn time limits (e.g. 1min to declare your actions), but your entire plan can easily be thrown off by what ever the person/monster before you in initiative does.

My current table is a microcosm of alot of the discussions/disagreements I've seen on these forums lately, and we recently got through a fight which took 3(?) 4+hr sessions (6 PCs, 1 PC-NPC, 17-ish monsters). The second session took ~5hrs to get through 8 rounds, with 1 PC paralyzed for 4 of them.

Buff spells can easily be accounted for by the party having standard picks and making alternate sheets/cliff-notes cards rolling those in. Especially for high-granularity rules systems like 3.5/PF, excel sheets et.al. are great.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Regarding 4E, longer encounters works well for the highly tactical combat. When 4E is at its best, everyone's best powers are a) single use, b) tend to be very different from their other powers (you tend to want to avoid redundancy when selecting powers so you can cover more situations), and c) will often significantly change the battle. This tends to make combat very dynamic; there might be an obvious best move for the first person up, but they won't have that available next turn so they'll have to come up with something else, and their move will also change the battlefield or the opponents, so everyone after them has to adapt to the new state of affairs. Enemies having distinct tactical roles combined with good use of terrain will also tend to make each fight feel relatively unique.

Where I was going with this is that that needs more rounds to fully develop than 3.5 usually does, and crucially will actually develop and change in interesting ways over those multiple rounds. 3.5 has some of that for the player side of things, between martial initiators (who usually can't refresh their maneuvers each round and so must use different ones as the fight goes on) and spellcasters (who often don't want to cast a redundant spell), but not to the same degree and not with all or even most classes. Similarly, on the monster side of things, the DM can build so monsters have distinct roles and a combat style that evolves as the combat goes on, but it's by no means the default (and there aren't any handy guidelines for that design ethos included in the DMG/MM like in 4E). So usually 3.5 won't benefit as much from longer combats, because it's not designed with that in mind. And even 4E, which is designed with that in mind, can screw it up and turn into a slog-fest if you're not careful (though apparently the later Monster Manuals were much better about this).

[King of Nowhere]

My experience seems to be atypical. Finally got a new group together a couple years ago now and we have -rarely- had an encounter last fewer than half-a-dozen rounds. I'll happily grant that only two of us have the system mastery to do any serious optimization and I'm sandbagging a bit.


I feel this is a result of both sides of the system, palyers and DMs alike, focusing more on offense than defense. It's just easier to win the race if you deal more damage, instead of dealing with your enemy's attacks if he survives.
this.
the fights were supposed to last longer, but optimization pushed them shorter.
not only increasing damage was easier than increasing defence, but more important, there is magic. and magic has so many avenues of offence, it's virtually impossible to stop all of them. got loads of hp? target saving throws. Got all three high saving throws? use no save touch attacks. got high touch ac too? quicken true strike, possibly some debuffs first. got high spell resistance? there are spells that ignore that. and let's not even mention those spells that screw you up without any kind of counterplay.
the thing is, in order to defend, you have to defend against each and every possible attack. in order to get good at killing, you only have to focus on doing one thing.
oh, and then they introduced stuff to break the action economy that made things even worse. so you won initiative and you make your round first? well, between belt of battle and celerity you actually get to make 2 rounds first. just in case the opponent survived the first round...

so, eventually it became more efficient to use your build resources to kill the opponent before he gets to act, than it is to use those same build resources to thoughen up.

my solution has been a general nerf of every optimized strategy of attack, but most especially those that ignore defences (no save spells are the main offenders here, but there are also some martial things, like the aforementioned uberchargers or those weapon enchantments that turn everything into touch attacks). this ensurees fighting lasts a bit longer.

[Quertus]

What do you mean exactly by that? By the duration of the spell? Or that if you want to cast a buff it must be persisted? Either way seems restrictive to options.


You have mentioned this before. I don't see how this ban on non-persist buffs would work.... maybe my definition of a buff and yours are different.

For example...
Rogue - can he not use his ring of invisibility or drink a potion of invisibility once the fight starts?
Wizard/Cleric - I just saw the enemy Rogue disappear , can I not cast see invisibility or invisibility purge?
Wizard with a bunch of non-spellcasters - Seems like Haste is a very optimal choice of spells to cast. Why can't I cast it?
Cleric - i just saw the enemy cast a summon spell. Why can't I cast Prot from Evil so I can't be attacked by the creature?
Gish - why can't I cast shield before wading into melee?
Cleric - barbarian is stuck in a grapple or entangle spell. Why can't I fast freedom of movement on them?

Does wildshaping count as a buff? How about polymorph?

I guess I just see a lot of frequent things happening in combat where a buff spell is needed in order to overcome the obstacle.

If you consider the above actions to be 'buffs' - how are the obstacles overcome?

I haven't been very clear, have I? :smallredface:

Let's start with a few examples of what fiddly math looks/sounds like:

Battletech

Medium range is 6, I jumped is 9, two woods is 11, target's defence is 13, pulse laser is 11, targeting computer is 10.

Bad 2e

My THAC0 is 9. I rolled a 12. 12 is 3 better than 9, so I hit 3 better than 0; ie, AC -3. But my strength gives me a 1-point bonus, and my weapon is +3, so that's… AC -7. Any other bonuses? Oh, you cast prayer? So, that's, what… AC -8?

Bad 3e

My attack bonus is +12, +2 for flanking, +1 from higher ground, +2 for charge… do I count the effective +2 for my target having charged, or is that figured into his current AC?

OK. So, what buffs am I under that affect this? +1 from Haste? That's cool. And another +1 from Prayer? And +1 from the Bard. Of course.

So that's… +20 total.

(Bonus points: Wait - what are the types on those? Do they all stack? Nobody knows? OK, let's look them all up.)

-----

If you can't <roll> <math> <declare> in about 30 seconds, and it's because you're doing fiddly math, that's too slow for 3e for my groups.

OTOH, many of the same players also play Battletech, and we *love* the fiddly math there. In Battletech, the fiddly math is a fun minigame; in 3e, it breaks the rule of "don't slow the game down".

Now, yes, not all turns are that fast - occasionally there are legitimate questions to answer, even if people have been paying attention. But *most* turns in 3e can be taken very quickly, so long as everyone is on the same page about *what* actually slows the game down.

And… if, in your groups, that's *not* fiddly math? If your players can keep all that in their heads, or on scratch paper, roll a die, and tell you an AC / tell you if they've hit (and for how much damage) in just a few seconds? Then my comments are not applicable to your tables.

But tables I've played at, fiddly math has been a strong contributor to Sloth's campaign. Or the campaign's sloth. Whichever. :smallwink:

Is that "restrictive"? To answer that question with a question, is "don't play a character you can't play quickly" and "don't make other people play their characters slowly (with fiddly math)" as rules derived from, "don't slow the game down" restrictive?

So, in practice, it's less a ban and more an awareness. When people notice, they self-correct, just like with Balance to the Table.

If you can somehow play a self-buffing Abjurant Champion Wild Shape character, who never casts the same buff routine & never fights in the same form twice, and can still take your turns in seconds? Great.

If you can't figure out Power Attack math in a minute? Maybe you should be playing a simpler character.

Just… IME, fiddly math has slowed down every group in every RPG and war game I've ever seen have to handle it.

Lastly, some obstacles, the party is explicitly OK with slowing down for. Like… "everything hinges on this one roll", or "we know that we're walking into a Medusa nest tomorrow - what's every buff we can possibly pile on?" scenarios, for example.

But I figured it best to state it as a hard rule because, if you want to experience the difference for yourself, you'll probably need to use the "hard rule" version, for at least a 1-shot, to get everyone onboard to truly experience it.

[heavyfuel]

I think it has to do with the amount of optimization that is put into most characters. Being able to one-shot a CR=ECL monster is not that difficult with some 3e builds. Uberchargers, Wraithstrikers, and a few ToBlers can do it, as can some more builds that are borderline TO, like Mailmen.

Longer combats do occur in low OP. I once entered a game with a full-support Charisma based Cleric (Dynamic Priest feat meant that most of my BFC and blasting were 100% useless). The level 6 Fighter was the best damage dealer with an average of d8+8 per attack, so even a single CR 6 enemy would take multiple rounds for the party to beat.

Fun group, though.


I don't play 3e, so I can't comment directly.

But I would question anyone who considers 5e combat a slogfest (in terms of number of rounds). I think in 5+ years of running 3 games a week (well, except during the pandemic) I've gotten to 10 rounds...once? twice? And those were wave-style fights.

Plus, when run right, 5e rounds each take about the same time as single turns took in the PF game I played. And that was at low levels.

4e, in my experience, had super long battles both in terms of rounds AND (most critically) in terms of real time because turns took forever.

For me, personally, I'd rather not take more than 3-5 rounds total for most combats. I don't like rocket tag, but long drawn out fights are annoying.

This has been my experience as well. It does get sloggier by the level, though. In 5e, damage does not scale nearly as fast as HP, so by levels 14+ it does get pretty tedious.

[PhoenixPhyre]

This has been my experience as well. It does get sloggier by the level, though. In 5e, damage does not scale nearly as fast as HP, so by levels 14+ it does get pretty tedious.

In my experience, the single most important factor is decisiveness of the players. I can take a party of people who actually know what they're going to do through a level 20 combat in less time than another party of less decisive people through an "easy" level 1 encounter. Both take between 3-5, maybe 6-7 max rounds.

[Elves]

Being able to one-shot a CR=ECL monster is not that difficult with some 3e builds.
Basic PHB-only martial kills most CR=ECL monsters with a full attack at most levels. Raging barbarian, TWF sneak attacking rogue and mounted paladin straight off WOTC's iconics character sheets all do 275-300 damage with fra @ 20th, similar to a 20 HD foe with +10 Con (see balor). Rocket tag was a thing before splats.

[Kesnit]

Yeah, in practice I've found that combats that last longer than 5 rounds are very rare, and single rounds tend to take a long time to play out.

That's on the players, not the system. Between players not paying attention and players who choose not to do their math beforehand, rounds can take a long time. I keep a folder with notes on all the abilities my PCs have - as well as AB, CMB, and DC - so when it's my turn, I can just say "I grapple the monster. The CMD is Z." If I have a buff or debuff that affects those numbers, I can write it (in pencil) on my notes. The same thing works for casting spells. Cast the spell, tell the DM what the DC is. DM rolls for any/all affected enemies. Or tell your allies what bonuses they have and have them write it on their sheets.


To compound things, combats that take more than 5 rounds also tend to have many combatants, which makes each individual rounds longer, in real time.

Which means the DM has to be prepared with info on the enemies. Using the same stats for multiple enemies will speed things up here, too. I've run combats with 4 PCs and 10 enemies (of 3 different types) that go quickly because everyone is prepared when their turn comes around.


I'm not really sure how the designers expected people to resolve 4 CR = ECL encounters per session.

It's not "per session." It's "per in-game day." That day can stretch over multiple sessions, if necessary.


Encounters could probably be a bit longer, but I'm not sure how to approach doing that while also making rounds shorter. Even though 4e and 5e are simpler it doesn't seem to have actually helped much, the core problem of getting people to decide what they want to do quickly remains.

^This. Rounds become shorter when everyone is prepared. If you want to keep the encounter moving, put people on a timer. If they can't say what their character is doing within a reasonable limit, they move to the bottom of the initiative for that round. If they still can't come up with something, their character does not act and the party moves into the next round.


IME, the only thing that will make combat flow at a good pace is to have players that 1. pay attention, and 2. know their character and rules well. IME, this applies across all character levels, based on the different groups I play/played with.

Yes.


One of my groups have never had a problem with a flow of combat in any edition of D&D we've played (3.5, PF, 5e) as most turns are resolved at a good pace, people usually know what they'll do on their turns and know their character's options well enough to adjust quickly when situation changes (I want to add that this is the group that has the highest overall rules mastery when it comes to these games too so it certainly helps).

System mastery helps. But just knowing what the PC can do will go a long way. As I said, I have note sheets with all my character's info (including what all powers do) that I can review before my turn comes up. No need to go book-diving. (When I play casters, I make a spell book sorted by level so I can look up any given spell. To save paper and make searching easier, it's a Word file in the cloud I can access on my tablet.)

Yes, this requires a little effort on the part of the players to put it together. But it pays for itself in ease of access and less frustration.


Things that can help combat run more smoothly:
Make notes as combat progresses, such as calculating new bonuses for your attack rolls (if you have party members that like casting buffs, or you have a specific bonus against this type of enemy, on your note-sheet just write up your new total modifier to attack/damage). For me this helps a lot because I am bad at math and so I use less time trying to remember all the bonuses and adding things up.
When it is not your turn, plan your next action. If you're casting a spell, make sure you know its range/targets/save/duration by either checking your sheet, book, or app. This means that when its your turn you already have that information on hand, instead of a "oh I forgot the range on this" or "was it Fortitude or Will?".
Outside of combat, it doesn't hurt to engage with the others (IC or OOC) to plan tactics for fights.

I think I love you. :smallbiggrin:


but your entire plan can easily be thrown off by what ever the person/monster before you in initiative does.

That can happen, but not often. Which is why everyone needs to be paying attention so (1) they are aware their plans may have to change, and (2) they are aware of everything on the battlefield and can have a tentative back-up plan if their first plan falls apart.

[heavyfuel]

Basic PHB-only martial kills most CR=ECL monsters with a full attack at most levels. Raging barbarian, TWF sneak attacking rogue and mounted paladin straight off WOTC's iconics character sheets all do 275-300 damage with fra @ 20th, similar to a 20 HD foe with +10 Con (see balor). Rocket tag was a thing before splats.

I mentioned splats, but my point is about optmization, not splats.

Plus, relying on a full attack means you have to wait at least until round-two to kill, unless you optimize and have a way of moving and dealing enough damage. Plus, a lot characters below high-OP probably don't have attack bonuses that high, so a Balor with 39 AC (at will Unholy Aura) has a very decent chance of surviving.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Basic PHB-only martial kills most CR=ECL monsters with a full attack at most levels. Raging barbarian, TWF sneak attacking rogue and mounted paladin straight off WOTC's iconics character sheets all do 275-300 damage with fra @ 20th, similar to a 20 HD foe with +10 Con (see balor). Rocket tag was a thing before splats.

Got a link to those iconics? My gut is saying that doesn't sound right. Memory can be a funny thing if you haven't looked at 'em in a while.

[Quentinas]

If i remember well (but i'm not sure it's the iconic characters he said) there were some iconic NPCS in Enemies &Allies but it's a 3.0 book if I'm not wrong

[Kelb_Panthera]

If i remember well (but i'm not sure it's the iconic characters he said) there were some iconic NPCS in Enemies &Allies but it's a 3.0 book if I'm not wrong

That was my first thought, maybe it was an excerpt, but that can't be right since those stats only carry them up to level 15. They don't come within spitting distance of 275 in a round either. I'm perfectly willing to think my gut may be wrong but I don't see how 5 more levels at WotC dev levels of optimization are gonna get them to that kind of DPR from the level 15 blocks in enemies and allies.

Unless Elves meant collectively with two or three of them?

[Elves]

Not hard to do the math.

PHB paladin 20 with +5 holy lance, spirited charge, power attack, smite evil
STR 31 (15 base, 5 level, 5 inherent, 6 item)

4 weapon
21 str
5 enhance
7 holy
20 smite
40 PA
3 divine favor
=100
*3 = 300

PHB bbn full attack with +5 greataxe, PA, mighty rage
STR 43 (15 base, 5 level, 5 inherent, 4 race, 6 item, 8 rage)
6 weapon
24 str
5 enhance
40 PA
=75
*4 = 300

PHB rogue full attack with +5 weapons, greater TWF, finesse, SA
STR 20 (10 base, 6 item, 4 inherent)
4 base rapier
5 str
5 enhance
35 sneak
=49
*3 & 1 crit = 162
+
3 base shortsword
2 str
5 enhance
35 sneak
=45
*3=135
= 297

This is if all attacks hit, which vs AC 35 balor they won't. Bbn suffers most from this problem due to PA iteratives. With WF his attacks are +22/17/12/7 so in reality he needs to peel back his PA at which point he's still only dropping it with a crit and/or cleave attack. (he should probably get a bunch of chickens specifically to use his last iterative on to trade it for a cleave).

So only the paladin is dropping the balor consistently. 24 cha (14 base, 6 enh, 4 inh), WF, prayer and bless puts their attack at +29, for guaranteed kill on 6+. Bane weapon and ioun stone with 1 less PA brings it to 2+, or 90% kill rate (70% when taking into account balor's unholy aura).


Numbers will look better if you allow for full WBL gear, rogue UMD, etc...which is not high op, WBL is baseline.

1v1 numbers not really the point either since vs level 20 party a balor is the major element of an encounter.

These stats are extrapolated from the level 15 iconics but I know they had alhandra with spirited charge and the rogue with twf.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That's not gonna output 300 damage a round. On most rounds it'll be lucky to put out any at all.

You're missing with that first attack on Krusk 60% of the time, 85% of the time for the second and 95% of the time for the remaining two. That's seriously only a 54% chance to hit on any given turn, -if- you can get off a full attack. Most of that 54% is only gonna be one hit or about 100 damage a round. The odds on all 4 hitting are a tiny fraction of 1%.

You got Alhandra straight up wrong. The enemies and allies stat blocks show her as charisma focused with a starting strength of 14.

It's not impossible for them to bring down a foe in one round it's just so unlikely as to warrant discarding the idea of rocket tag out of hand. If Krusk, Alhandra, Tordek, and Regdar were all to dogpile the same foe, they could almost certainly bring it down in a round with a bit of luck and a more reasonable PA adjustment. No one of them is up to the task though.

[heavyfuel]

it's guaranteed kill on 7+.

You mean 11+. At will Unholy Aura means the Balor has effectively AC 39.

Also, I'd rate every single one of your characters as at least mid-OP. I'm not joking. You may have gotten these stats from WotC, but things get pretty crazy when people that are truly casual about optimization are creating their characters. I swear a real arguement I once heard for a Barbarian starting with Str 14 was "cuz when I Rage I get Str 18, so I think it's better to improve my Con to tank better".

Stuff most forum regulars take as "completely obvious" from an optimization perspective (optimize your to-hit, use two-handed weapons with Power Attack, Rogues get TWF, etc) are not obvious for casual players. A lot of casual players have Rogues with +1 Keen Flaming Rapiers instead of +3 Rapiers because they don't know any better.

[Gnaeus]

Why do we only compare 3e to 4/5e. There are a ton of games with real robust crit tables. It got shot in the eye aaannndddd now it’s dead. You see the monster and now you are insane. I’m sure it’s possible in Hackmaster or Rolemaster to kill an enemy by hp damage rather than a brutal crit, but I’ve rarely seen it. 3.5 is slow because after about level 2 only SoD casters and some chargers ever one or 2 shot much of anything.

[Gruftzwerg]

3.5 is slow because after about level 2 only SoD casters and some chargers ever one or 2 shot much of anything.

My Glaivelock: Hold my beer..



Balor: Relevant Stats

Spot: +38
Listen: +38
Touch AC: 16 (+4 Unholy Aura = 20)
HP: 290

Killer Kobold Stats @20 with Gear:
STR: 1(!) ^^
DEX: 36
Move Silently & Hide: 23 ranks +8 DEX + 15 competence bonus from item (armor enhancement) + 15 insight bonus from Divine Insight wand = +61

Greater Chausuble of Fell Power: +2d6
Hellfire Vitriolic Eldritch Blast: 9d6 +2d6 (Chausuble) + 6d6 (Hellfire) = 17d6 (~59.5dmg)
Divine Power + Haste: +20/+20/+15/+10/+5
Weapon Finesse: Eldritch Glaive (+8 Dex modifier)
Double Full Attack with Shadow Hast Eldritch Glaive: +28/+28/+28/+28/+23/+23/+18/+18/+13/+13

This results in 6 attacks with 100% to hit (against touch AC20). 2 attack with a 90% to hit. 2 attacks with 65% to hit. Just the average dmg of the higher BAB attacks is enough to kill the Balor: 6 x 59.5 = ~357 hellfire dmg average. And we still have 4 attacks (where ~3 are likely to hit) to backup bad dmg rolls.

If hide is prevented due to light conditions, drop Nightmares Made Real to get basically HIPS inside it. Even with the Balors True Sight, the ability to HIPS works.

Finally, even if everything should go wrong (all rolled dmg dice are 1's..) you just need to HIPS and can just go away. The Balor can't do anything to stay alive anymore. 8d6 hellfire dmg for each connected attack for 4 rounds (Hellfire Vitriolic Blast). With a minimum of 6 attacks that did hit, we are looking at an minimum of 48d6 hellfire damage for 4 turns.

Lets have a Balor Barbecue as long as my Beer is still fresh and the meat is warm ;)

Imho there are other high dmg builds beside from ubercharger. They are just not as common and well known in the community and need much more system mastery & books.

[Gnaeus]

My Glaivelock: Hold my beer..

Imho there are other high dmg builds beside from ubercharger. They are just not as common and well known in the community and need much more system mastery & books.

Sooooo. Big wall of text there that doesn’t actually contest anything I said. Your crazy optimized killer kobold build needs 6 hits to take out a book standard opponent of your CR. You cannot kill it in one or 2 shots. A feat that in other systems I regularly see happen from characters with players who just crack a book and put high ranks in their relevant attack skills/attributes. You need to break out the serious min max chops to do worse than the core book only cowboy in my GURPS game when he says “called shot to his head with my rifle”. And all he had to figure out was to get a decent Dex and put points in rifle. Your optimization level is like 50 times his.

Ok, there are a few other odd builds like 1d2 crusaders that can regularly one shot things. Usually with some rules exploit or infinite loop or broken stuff like consumptive field to get an arbitrarily high strength. But the basic damage formula for 3.5 is to hit things repeatedly until they drop from attrition. Which is not the case in many games (arguably most, but that’s unverifiable).

[nedz]

Your gms don't really set up very good combats then. My record for number of rounds is 43. Lasted 3 sessions.

With my current group, my record is 29. Sure, a lot of combats last only 1-5 rounds, but it's an intense 1-5 rounds. How much should I put in? Will I have enough firepower for what's coming? How many top tier spells and abilities do I have left? Is the barbarian holding up on rage? As those short combats drain your party resources, you get more worried about the eventual boss fight.

This.

I run a wide variety of encounters and about 10% last for more than 10 rounds.

If all of your encounters are ambushes, or meeting engagements where both sides rush into melee, then your encounters will be short — and this is fine sometimes.

If, on the other hand, the adversaries use terrain and tactics to try to obtain an advantage before engaging then it can take several rounds before contact. This is standard Battlefield control - which can be done mundanely at low levels.

If one side thinks that they are loosing then they should try to disengage and withdraw rather than fight to the death. This can lead to several rounds of pursuit.

[Calthropstu]

This.

I run a wide variety of encounters and about 10% last for more than 10 rounds.

If all of your encounters are ambushes, or meeting engagements where both sides rush into melee, then your encounters will be short — and this is fine sometimes.

If, on the other hand, the adversaries use terrain and tactics to try to obtain an advantage before engaging then it can take several rounds before contact. This is standard Battlefield control - which can be done mundanely at low levels.

If one side thinks that they are loosing then they should try to disengage and withdraw rather than fight to the death. This can lead to several rounds of pursuit.

Ask my group about a particular awakened raven druid from Jade Regent. It got away from them... TWICE. Each time it set up an ambush with a summons. They still mention it from time to time. It was one of the most memorable fights we've ever had.

A lot of players don't get that... The gm is roleplaying too. Each npc is representative of a living creature. If a fight is started, unless its crazy, it's not gonna fight to the death.

I ran a cult in my last session running. The players were surprised when cultists just started jumping out windows and running away on sighting the party. Others just flat out surrendered.

People are very rarely willing to fight to the death.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I ran a cult in my last session running. The players were surprised when cultists just started jumping out windows and running away on sighting the party. Others just flat out surrendered.

People are very rarely willing to fight to the death.

TBF, that one would draw a little consternation from me too. I agree with you in principle but if there's any group that's actually pretty willing to fight to the death, it's the kind of religious zealots that make up your average cult.

[Calthropstu]

TBF, that one would draw a little consternation from me too. I agree with you in principle but if there's any group that's actually pretty willing to fight to the death, it's the kind of religious zealots that make up your average cult.

Oh yes, the "core" fought hard. But the people in it for the free food and housing, the open sex and the open bar? Several were thinking it was time to go already after the grand master summoned some sort of wierd monstrosity. Adventurers come knocking on the door? Yup, time to go.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Oh yes, the "core" fought hard. But the people in it for the free food and housing, the open sex and the open bar? Several were thinking it was time to go already after the grand master summoned some sort of wierd monstrosity. Adventurers come knocking on the door? Yup, time to go.

Well fair enough then. Open bar? That's practically begging for adventurers to kick your door in by itself, never mind the trucking with fiends. :smallamused:

[Elves]

It's not impossible for them to bring down a foe in one round it's just so unlikely as to warrant discarding the idea of rocket tag out of hand.
With the unholy aura adjustment, Alhandra is doing it 50% of the time baseline, 65% with ioun stone and bane weapon


If Krusk, Alhandra, Tordek, and Regdar were all to dogpile the same foe, they could almost certainly bring it down in a round
In fact 2 of them could, and the average CR 20 encounter would be 4 of them vs the balor.

[Kelb_Panthera]

With the unholy aura adjustment, Alhandra is doing it 50% of the time baseline, 65% with ioun stone and bane weapon


In fact 2 of them could, and the average CR 20 encounter would be 4 of them vs the balor.

Bruh.

Str 26, Cha 26(extrapolated from the E&A statblock) +5 holy longsword

Say she stows her shield and puts both hands in.

+8 str
+5 weapon
+20 BAB
+8 smite
+1 weapon focus

+42 to-hit total.
-20 for full PA

+20 to-hit for max damage vs AC 39.

Primary attack hits on a 19 or 10% of the time.

12 str
~12 weapon enchants
~4 weapon die
20 smite
40 PA

makes about 88 damage on a hit.

Unless she gets some buffing rounds, which you seem to have assumed, she's simply not hitting hard and often enough to one-round the balor.

Put her on her horse with her much less powerful lance (again, extrapolated from her official stats) and the odds don't get a whole lot better since she's -still- pretty likely to miss and only gets one swing on a charge.

You didn't extrapolate her, you rebuilt her entirely.

And given the -two- +stat books costing at least 220,000 by my run or 247,500 by yours, there's not a lot of room for WBL to save her either. That's a third of it gone for a bare handful of extra accuracy and damage. The sword is another 98k. Same for the lance and we're over 60%. You added 30k for a pale green ioun stone. There's not a whole lot of room for anything that would actually be able to add to this, nevermind at WotC levels of optimization.

Even by your own math, on the rebuild, a coin-toss -after- the initiative roll isn't good odds. Even adding the extra 15% to-hit, she's still only one-rounding the balor about one time in six, figuring in initiative; Balor takes to wing, mount becomes useless. Balor charges Alhandra, no more spirited charge. Disarms her with his whip or knocks her from the horse by tripping her or it with the same... blasphemes the horse...

Those books are a trap, ya know. -Way- too much cost for their benefit. Over an 8th of a million gold for -maybe- a +3 to one stat?

Remember, your statement was that the iconics as presented by WotC at WotC optimization turned the game into rocket tag at 20. That's pretty demonstrably not the case. I'm not saying you can't get there by PHB alone, although its dicey, but it takes more chops than WotC put into it.

[Elves]

Spending on stat books and +5 weapons is exactly the type of low op WOTC character building we're talking about, so how's that a detriment.
Adding +stat books and higher lance enhancement bonus is not "rebuilding entirely"...it's extrapolation.

+5 holy can also done with holy sword instead of WBL.

for core paladin with 15/14 str/cha, 13/12 wis & con, 10/8 int & dex, I get
20 BAB = 20 PA = 0
15+4 level+5 inh+6 enh=30 str = 10
14+1 level+5 inh+6 enh=26 cha = 8
5 enhance
1 WF
3 divine favor
1 prayer
1 bless
1 ioun
= +30
+ (potentially) 2 bane
vs balor, can lower PA by 1 point
bane damage means another 3 points lower PA

hence 55% hit rate, or with bane, 80%


Anyway we aren't talking 1v1. Or at least, if we're talking average (4/day) solo encounter for Alhandra, it isn't the balor. If you have four 20th level characters who spend their WBL on stat books and take Weapon Focus, they're still likely to take down the average encounter in one round, which was my point.

[Elkad]

+20 to-hit for max damage vs AC 39.

Primary attack hits on a 19 or 10% of the time.

In this case you would be a fool to use PA. You are cutting your damage output in half at least vs just spending the feat on something else.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Spending on stat books and +5 weapons is exactly the type of low op WOTC character building we're talking about, so how's that a detriment.

The comment about them being a trap was mostly an aside. I see it taken as a given all too often but it's just a bad call from an optimization stand point. There are -way- better ways to spend 127k even as you're approaching epic levels. They don't really get you any better accuracy but you didn't need more accuracy if you weren't throwing it all away on a PA that's not gonna hit.


Adding +stat books and higher lance enhancement bonus is not "rebuilding entirely"...it's extrapolation.

No, but positing she started at strength 15 and put all 5 level ups into it when that's plainly not the case looking at her existing stats is. At level 15 she has str 15 base and a +4 belt of giant's strength. You get one more level up boost at 16, 2 more from upgrading the belt and whatever you want to spend on a manual. I slapped a +4 on there because an odd number when you're not getting any more 'til epic is pointless.


In this case you would be a fool to use PA. You are cutting your damage output in half at least vs just spending the feat on something else.

I'm well aware. It's a pretty big part of my point, actually.

[Elves]

this thread has gotten weirdly specific but here (https://web.archive.org/web/20060222070055/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/dnd/rwiconics)'s the page I was basing them off of. saw this a couple years back but pretty sure I got it broadly right

[SangoProduction]

You mean 11+. At will Unholy Aura means the Balor has effectively AC 39.

Also, I'd rate every single one of your characters as at least mid-OP. I'm not joking. You may have gotten these stats from WotC, but things get pretty crazy when people that are truly casual about optimization are creating their characters. I swear a real arguement I once heard for a Barbarian starting with Str 14 was "cuz when I Rage I get Str 18, so I think it's better to improve my Con to tank better".

Stuff most forum regulars take as "completely obvious" from an optimization perspective (optimize your to-hit, use two-handed weapons with Power Attack, Rogues get TWF, etc) are not obvious for casual players. A lot of casual players have Rogues with +1 Keen Flaming Rapiers instead of +3 Rapiers because they don't know any better.

... I... I think your observation about it being mid-OP was the point. They were all as basic and plain, basically martial types as possible.


But onto the original topic: Yes. Combat rounds take way too much real time, and so lots of combat rounds would take even more real time.
So... if you were to increase the combat rounds... it would be pretty miserable. Especially if have one of those so common groups whose only combat RP is "I roll my shiny dice."
Most of the time, combat is filler content, which allows you to take a break from the main game. Like a "giant open world" which is basically just a bunch of empty area to make sure you spend your hours in the game. (Don't get me wrong, there are occasional GOOD combat encounters, or particularly plot-relevant combats. They exist. But the random bandits attacking the party, when banditry isn'ta primary issue of the campaign...not so much.)

[Quertus]

Don't get me wrong, there are occasional GOOD combat encounters, or particularly plot-relevant combats. They exist. But the random bandits attacking the party, when banditry isn'ta primary issue of the campaign...not so much.

I dunno - all it takes is the bandit leader surrendering (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?620907-All-the-enemies-are-dead-except-the-boss-who-says-he-surrenders-what-do-you-do&highlight=Bandit%20leader%20surrender) to make things interesting.

Of course, that isn't the fight itself that's necessarily interesting at that point, so learning to take your turns as quickly as possible, so that you can get to the good stuff, is a good idea. :smallwink:

[farothel]

I think it has to do with the amount of optimization that is put into most characters. Being able to one-shot a CR=ECL monster is not that difficult with some 3e builds. Uberchargers, Wraithstrikers, and a few ToBlers can do it, as can some more builds that are borderline TO, like Mailmen.

Longer combats do occur in low OP. I once entered a game with a full-support Charisma based Cleric (Dynamic Priest feat meant that most of my BFC and blasting were 100% useless). The level 6 Fighter was the best damage dealer with an average of d8+8 per attack, so even a single CR 6 enemy would take multiple rounds for the party to beat.

Fun group, though.

I totally agree. In our tabletop group we also do quite low optimization and it gives some long combats. And it makes the few 'barbarian charges in, rolls a crit and basically chops the guy's head off' or the 'cleric cast save or dead spell and they don't make their save' moments all that more memorable. The same goes for the combats that go on and on because the d20 seems to be stuck on rolling 1-4.

But mostly our combats have been 5-10 rounds and that's long enough to make it interesting, yet short enough so we don't get bored.

[An Enemy Spy]

The party in the game I DM consists of a Monk, a Rogue, and a Cleric who prefers to hang back and give buffs and summon monsters to fight for her along with two NPCs who mainly serve as comic relief. One is a Hal-Orc who would make a great fighter or Barbarian but unfortunately decided to be a Bard instead and a rather airheaded Celestial Elf Wizard whose daily spells I pick using a random number generator so it's a total crapshoot if she'll have anything useful.

Combat hasn't been much of a problem for my group. We've had some very brutal and tense fights. Just be sure to have your villains send a bunch of goons at the heroes to keep them from mobbing him on round one. A single enemy against a full party isn't going to stand a chance unless he's overwhelmingly powerful.

[martixy]

My answer to the central premise is:

Yes. (In simulated time.)

And of course no in real time.

I think longer than 5-10 round combats open up opportunities for interesting things to happen. And more verisimilitude. Longer combats also favour mundanes over casters, which is another positive effect.

However logistically, due to the complexity, you tend to want shorter combats, simply because of how much is involved in a single round of combat.

I don't believe that's an insurmountable problem however, I think the right technological aids would mitigate the problem significantly. None that I'm aware of exist however, and I haven't gotten around to making one myself yet (though I do have the desire to do so).

[Max Caysey]

In number of rounds, 3.5 combat is pretty short. Once enemies are in striking distance, 1-2 round resolution is common and very rarely will a combat go over 5 rounds.


We very seldomly have less that 5 rounds of combat when we have combat. So, where do you have this stat from?

[Elkad]

We very seldomly have less that 5 rounds of combat when we have combat. So, where do you have this stat from?

Exactly. My fights probably average 8 rounds or so, and more than 20 isn't exactly rare.

At the end of my group going through RHoD, they finally started getting damage in on Azarr Kul when his round/lvl buffs started dropping. Until then they accomplished literally nothing vs him.
While I rebuilt him as a defensive powerhouse, that situation isn't exactly rare. The enemies may be kiting the group, or have good defenses, or simply come in huge numbers.

Another current thread is talking about Dragon Mountain. Which has an encounter with 800 kobolds, and the battle map is a whole village.

[Gruftzwerg]

Exactly. My fights probably average 8 rounds or so, and more than 20 isn't exactly rare.

At the end of my group going through RHoD, they finally started getting damage in on Azarr Kul when his round/lvl buffs started dropping. Until then they accomplished literally nothing vs him.
While I rebuilt him as a defensive powerhouse, that situation isn't exactly rare. The enemies may be kiting the group, or have good defenses, or simply come in huge numbers.

Another current thread is talking about Dragon Mountain. Which has an encounter with 800 kobolds, and the battle map is a whole village.

@Azarr Kul
Maybe I'm missing something here. I just looked at the encounter and it looks pretty easy to me.
I'll start with a quote from the book:

The PCs will have a rough time with this battle if they don't prepare beforehand.
The encounter gives the PCs a free Ambush (surprise round), since listen checks have a -20 penalty.

Your PCs seems to lack any kind of damage optimization and/or combat tactics. Most groups I played in would just have focused the big bad guy within the surprise round.
With some optimization many builds can solo Azarr Kul within the first round.
A single ubercharger can do that.
A clever caster would have prepared maximized Shivering Touch to do the same (and if he lacks access to the spell/metamagic he could have just bought a scroll of that).
Even with a minimum of dmg optimization a decent tactical PC group would just focus him down within the surprise round before he can even react. The casters can cast from the entrance without entering the silence area, literally every part of this encounter has loop holes to abuse. If you ignore all of em, "you are not prepared".
The encounter gives you really nice shortcuts (surprise round & cast outside of the silence area). If you ignore/miss it, it was your own decision to take the long route.

[Elkad]

@Azarr Kul
Maybe I'm missing something here. I just looked at the encounter and it looks pretty easy to me.
I'll start with a quote from the book:

The encounter gives the PCs a free Ambush (surprise round), since listen checks have a -20 penalty.

Your PCs seems to lack any kind of damage optimization and/or combat tactics. Most groups I played in would just have focused the big bad guy within the surprise round.
With some optimization many builds can solo Azarr Kul within the first round.
A single ubercharger can do that.
A clever caster would have prepared maximized Shivering Touch to do the same (and if he lacks access to the spell/metamagic he could have just bought a scroll of that).
Even with a minimum of dmg optimization a decent tactical PC group would just focus him down within the surprise round before he can even react. The casters can cast from the entrance without entering the silence area, literally every part of this encounter has loop holes to abuse. If you ignore all of em, "you are not prepared".
The encounter gives you really nice shortcuts (surprise round & cast outside of the silence area). If you ignore/miss it, it was your own decision to take the long route.

Party was bard, wizard, druid (with Tiger), goliath crusader, dwarf warblade (with an ardent dip)

AK was not stock. I rebuilt him to be more defensive.
They also let a wraith get away in the prior encounter - it went in the wall, what do you do? They realized it and pursued immediately, but he had a few rounds of warning while they dealt with the vertical shaft to get into the room.

I did NOT raise his level, just changed his spell selection to something CoDzilla-ish and gave him a couple potions (Cat's Grace, etc). And max hitpoints - he's the big boss afterall.
They fell for the Major Image from the Blue Abashi (animating the dragon statues) and wasted a couple rounds on those and the Abashi themselves. Thanks to the Silence, the PCs that made their illusion save couldn't tell the others. And with Azarr flying, the Crusader and tiger couldn't get to him initially. He continued buffing and dispelled a bunch of the party buffs. Silence caused problems for the party wizard, and also meant Bardsong was useless.
When he went to melee, he had AC39, so the two tanks - now minus some of their buffs - had serious problems hitting him initially. Enough that he actually ignored them and killed the Druid's uber-buffed tiger first. Warblade was doing a little by cycling in Emerald Razor Power Attack every chance he could (an auto-hit vs 15 touch) and running up the walls with Earth Walk, but they didn't even force him to use his Heal for about 10 rounds.

Tiger was the only death. Others got close repeatedly, but they worked well together to get one another clear.