Pillars of Play, how much time in Combat?

[Kessel]

In an average four hour session, how much time do you spend in encounters/combat?

[nickl_2000]

Depends on the campaign. At a minimum we spend about 30 minutes. However on average our group would likely be more like 60% of the overall time. The rest spread between roleplaying, chatting, making Monty Pythons jokes, and puns.


Although I will say that our group tends to be more combat focused than some tables I've seen and it depends on which DM is DMing.

[strangebloke]

Depends on the campaign. At a minimum we spend about 30 minutes. However on average our group would likely be more like 60% of the overall time. The rest spread between roleplaying, chatting, making Monty Pythons jokes, and puns.


Although I will say that our group tends to be more combat focused than some tables I've seen and it depends on which DM is DMing.

Sounds about right. Sometimes there's no combat at our table, other times its one hour-long incidental encounter, and other times its the whole session. We spend a lot of time by volume on exploration as well as social interaction, but it really depends on what they're doing. Sometimes the party just spends 2 hours casing out the fortress they're trying to sneak into, for example. As DM I only set the pace to a degree.

[Trask]

Depending on the DM we probably spend 40-80% of the session on combat. It can really depend on the campaign and also the circumstances though.

[Psyren]

In terms of table time the majority of it is in combat. In terms of narrative time obviously each fight only takes up a minute or so in-universe, with hours or even days spent outside it.

[Lunali]

Far more than I'd like, which is the main reason I keep trying to push my group towards trying other systems that aren't built as tactical combat simulators first and RPGs second.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Very varied. I ran 1 combat last session...ok, 2, but they were back to back on the same map. Total time...maybe an hour? So 1/3 (3 hour sessions). But I've had anywhere from
* a single combat taking the entire session, with time the next session spent finishing up the details/looting
* a span of a few sessions with no combat whatsoever.

[Zhorn]

I've found it depends as much on the players as it does on the DM planning out the session.
Despite trying to steer my current group into more social encounters, the combat solution tends to be what they seek. This makes probably over half my session time on combats.
Comparatively my last couple of campaigns as both a DM and player were with very RP focused players, so it was rather easy to have 4 hour sessions where combat rarely came up.

[animorte]

Same as already listed. Sometimes the combat will take up most of the session while other times, there can multiple sessions without any such encounter.

On average though, I would say that combat can take up to 2-3 hours out of our typical 5-6 hour sessions. So probably 35-40% realistically.

[da newt]

Narratively / in world time - it's quite low. A slog of a fight lasts 10 rounds or 60 seconds, and a really nasty day is 4 separate combats, with 6 - 8 being the absolute max, so at most 10 minutes of every 24 hrs.

BUT - IRL game time? That's completely different. I've been playing online with large parties and my DM is prone to large scale battles with many combatants, so we've had single encounters last for 6+ hrs of IRL/game time (we aren't very efficient), but some sessions there is no combat too.

IME - published mods tend to be more combat predictable - 50/50 in initiative/combat vs RP and everything else. Home brew - it all depends on the DM.

[heavyfuel]

encounters/combat

Encounters are not combat. Encounters can occur in any of the pillars of the game /pedantry

2 of my groups tend to have almost no combat. For these groups, I'd say about 1 hour of a 4 hour session is spent in combat, if that. A lot of sessions are just planning, role playing, and exploration with zero combat

The other group I play with tends to love combat, so it's pretty much just combat, and the other pillars are mostly handwaved. I'd say about 3 hours of combat per session

[RSP]

Current table takes a good chunk of time for combat. I’d say at least 50% of our table time, in general. We’ve had big set combats take two sessions to resolve: with our sessions being about 3 hours.

[sithlordnergal]

Ehhh, a decent chunk of time is spent in combat...that's mostly because the two campaigns I run have a looooot of dungeon delving. It doesn't help that I have a gremlin disguised as a player that wakes up and chooses violence. X3

[Kane0]

In an average four hour session, how much time do you spend in encounters/combat?

About 1-2 hours, so 25%-50% of the time.

[Demonslayer666]

Sometimes zero, sometimes the whole four hour session (dungeon crawling). Easier combats are over quickly, say 30 minutes to an hour. Serious combats can take a couple.

I think the most sessions without combat were three in a row.

[Dark.Revenant]

Most modules, in terms of time and page space, are a roughly 50% - 30% - 20% split for combat - exploration - social. In a four-hour session, you'd spend two hours in combat, ~75 minutes exploring, and ~45 minutes socializing. That's roughly in line with my experience running and playing in those modules, as well.

[Trask]

Most modules, in terms of time and page space, are a roughly 50% - 30% - 20% split for combat - exploration - social. In a four-hour session, you'd spend two hours in combat, ~75 minutes exploring, and ~45 minutes socializing. That's roughly in line with my experience running and playing in those modules, as well.

Those are interesting stats. And you know I'm really OK with them. I think 5e largely succeeded at making combat a less overwhelming and rigid part of the game's structure and than 3e and 4e, but at the end of the day D&D combat is still pretty bulky and probably always will be as long as WotC owns it, and if in general half the time of a game session is spent on combat, I don't think that's too much, especially since "combat" is a pretty nebulous term to describe a wide array of possible activities that often mix with the other two pillars.

Combat and exploration especially tend to blend at the edges IME. A party sneaking through a dark barracks, butchering hapless sleeping goblinoids. A party desperately trying to find their way into the engine room of a Duergar war machine before it attacks with its cannon. A party making a mad dash through a mountain pass while pursued by a horde of screaming gnolls. These are all things I've experienced. Its sometimes hard to tell where "combat" ends and "exploration" begins.