CR and how long a combat should last

[tomjon]

As we all know CR is a very rough measure of power. My question is how many rounds should a combat last in general. Also should a very challenging combat say 2-3 CRs or more above the party last longer than say an easy encounter 1-2 CR below the party.

Just looking for some guidance on how to make an encounter last an appropriate amount of time. No one shots on the encounter and no multiple minute combats.

[stoutstien]

As we all know CR is a very rough measure of power. My question is how many rounds should a combat last in general. Also should a very challenging combat say 2-3 CRs or more above the party last longer than say an easy encounter 1-2 CR below the party.

Just looking for some guidance on how to make an encounter last an appropriate amount of time. No one shots on the encounter and no multiple minute combats.

Honestly it doesn't matter. It's the time individual turns take to resolve that you should focus on.

[Unoriginal]

As we all know CR is a very rough measure of power. My question is how many rounds should a combat last in general. Also should a very challenging combat say 2-3 CRs or more above the party last longer than say an easy encounter 1-2 CR below the party.

Just looking for some guidance on how to make an encounter last an appropriate amount of time. No one shots on the encounter and no multiple minute combats.


2-3 CR above the party is most likely not going to be a very challenging fight.

To answer your question, it was calculated that a fight against a CR = group level opposition without any special factors generaly lasts three round on average, but CR= group level means a Medium or even Easy fight, which won't do much but drain a bit of ressource from the PCs.

Like many things in RPGs, however, what matters is less the numbers and more that the fight lasts long enough to be entertaining but not long enough that it *stops* being entertaining. And you can't really quantify how to make/keep something entertaining in a vacuum. Adding special circumatances and conditions almost always make the fight longer, but can make it more fun and memorable.

[Tawmis]

As we all know CR is a very rough measure of power. My question is how many rounds should a combat last in general. Also should a very challenging combat say 2-3 CRs or more above the party last longer than say an easy encounter 1-2 CR below the party.
Just looking for some guidance on how to make an encounter last an appropriate amount of time. No one shots on the encounter and no multiple minute combats.

Sheesh. This can vary widely from lucky/unlucky rolls (Lots of natural 20s? or losts of misses?) - to a player, trying to decide what they're going to do.
The more players, the more chance of both of the above happening.

[Hawk7915]

We're coming up on the 3-year Anniversary of my real-life campaign that I DM. While I've by no means kept detailed data, a few observations:


The average encounter lasts about 3 rounds. We probably were closer to 4 rounds at low levels (started at 3, currently 11), and have had a few encounters ended in 2 or even 1 round at higher levels here.
The highlights of the campaign were closer to 5-6 rounds, but one of them was an encounter that was part "puzzle" and part "encounter" (protect alternating casters while they channeled some rift-sealing magic while holding off a swarm of undead; it was impossible for the ritual to take less than five turns and the Warlock and Wizard in the party had to alternate parts or take damage) and the other was a sprawling boss fight against a proper dragon. A third place again had moving parts (a minecart chase with legions of Kruthik chasing the party and blocking parts of the track).
A few other encounters have been ~5 rounds but have generally been snooze fests - fights on small maps with "tank and spank" monsters that just need to get knocked down aren't very fun once we get past round 2.
I have found 2-3 rounds to be ideal for both "scary" encounters and lower-level threats. That's enough time for everyone, monster and hero alike, to do something cool before we move on. A horde of mooks that get killed in one round by a fireball or a Turn Undead is cool for that person, but feels like it wasted everyone else's time especially if other folks blew spells/ki points/channels etc. on a fight another teammate was going to auto-solve. Some of those puzzle/terrain elements alluded to above are a good way to keep combat interesting and an appropriate length even if the actual monsters in question aren't terribly threatening.

[Kurt Kurageous]

We're coming up on the 3-year Anniversary of my real-life campaign that I DM. While I've by no means kept detailed data, a few observations:


The average encounter lasts about 3 rounds. We probably were closer to 4 rounds at low levels (started at 3, currently 11), and have had a few encounters ended in 2 or even 1 round at higher levels here.
The highlights of the campaign were closer to 5-6 rounds...
A few other encounters have been ~5 rounds but have generally been snooze fests - fights on small maps with "tank and spank" monsters that just need to get knocked down aren't very fun once we get past round 2.
I have found 2-3 rounds to be ideal for both "scary" encounters and lower-level threats. That's enough time for everyone, monster and hero alike, to do something cool before we move on. A horde of mooks that get killed in one round by a fireball or a Turn Undead is cool for that person, but feels like it wasted everyone else's time especially if other folks blew spells/ki points/channels etc. on a fight another teammate was going to auto-solve. Some of those puzzle/terrain elements alluded to above are a good way to keep combat interesting and an appropriate length even if the actual monsters in question aren't terribly threatening.


Ditto. I've been DMing 5e since 2015. My observations match yours.

A monster has 2-3 rounds generally to do it's special thing and make an impression on the party. If the monster can keep the frontliners at bay, it might get a couple more rounds. Now you know why most recharges have a 33% of happening (1 in 3 rounds?)

[Kane0]

As we all know CR is a very rough measure of power. My question is how many rounds should a combat last in general. Also should a very challenging combat say 2-3 CRs or more above the party last longer than say an easy encounter 1-2 CR below the party.

Just looking for some guidance on how to make an encounter last an appropriate amount of time. No one shots on the encounter and no multiple minute combats.

Sweet spot for my group is 3-5 rounds, although big set piece battles might breach the 1 minute mark especially if there's lot of distance involved.

[da newt]

As a DM IME, a generic combat is a 2-4 turn affair (and the last round is mostly a forgone conclusion / wrapping things up). The more intense encounters - boss fights, etc can go on for a bit longer, but more than 6 rounds is rare. We do tend to play w/ parties of 5-7 and I rarely use just one bad guy.

As for CR, it is very dependent on your Player's skill, PC builds, party size, magic items, etc - you'll have to play with a group for a while to fine tune the appropriate encounter balance.

[KorvinStarmast]

Honestly it doesn't matter. It's the time individual turns take to resolve that you should focus on. Amen to this!

Sweet spot for my group is 3-5 rounds, although big set piece battles might breach the 1 minute mark especially if there's lot of distance involved. My experience as well.

[Rafaelfras]

Honestly it doesn't matter. It's the time individual turns take to resolve that you should focus on.

This. A combat will become a slog of you as the dm or the players (or both) are taking too long to take their turns.
It usually tend to last 3 rounds and depending on party size and number of enemies can take a long time in RL. But specially as levels go higher PCs tend to do a lot of damage and unless you artificiality keep the monster alive it will take 3 to 4 rounds to kill.
In the early levels though where turns go very fast I got a some combats to go over 5 but they where rare

[Brookshw]

Depends on your fight. I've run fights that lasted dozens of rounds with waves of enemies, small fights that last 2 rounds, and everything in-between. On average, maybe 2-3 rounds for mooks, 5 for big boss type fights

[animorte]

Second pretty much everything before me. Most of the time, it's 4 rounds on average. About 20-30% of the time it will be an absolute curb stomp of 1-2 rounds. About 20-30% of the time, it's upwards of 10 rounds specifically because combat has greater variables based on environment, distance, or objectives.

So it breaks down to the standard of about 3-4 rounds 50% of the time. Unless the opposition has something particularly creative or dangerous, most of those fights aren't extremely memorable. I do my best to keep things interesting though.

On this note, has anybody ever established the combat encounter as a... hmm... a sort of summary? A couple times, the scene was set and described as each round basically representing 10+ minutes. We were prepared for a siege (whether invading or resisting) and portrayed the entire scenario as lasting up to a few hours (anywhere between 8-30 rounds) in which a few objectives were accomplished and the opposition seemed endless. I've never seen a system describe scenarios in quite this way, but my table has certainly tried this a few times. The major points in this being successful is that everybody understands this is THE encounter for resources and most (if not all) PCs have an objective to accomplish so it's not repetitive.

[Cheesegear]

My question is how many rounds should a combat last in general.

My preference is three rounds. Per the DMG.


Also should a very challenging combat say 2-3 CRs or more above the party last longer than say an easy encounter 1-2 CR below the party.

Xanathar's says absolutely not.
It depends on how many players are in the party.
It depends on the Tier you're at.

That being said; Xanathar's has some great tables for building encounters on the fly. You can probably find those tables without Xanathar's if you look hard enough. But I would also strongly recommend Xanathar's anyway. IMO it's far and away better than Tasha's.


Just looking for some guidance on how to make an encounter last an appropriate amount of time.

Unfortunately, there's two answers that are the lamest answers you can get, but unfortunately they are the answers:

1. Trial and error.
2. Your table is your table.

Sometimes the DPR is a Wizard with Alert and Fireball,
Sometimes the DPR is a crit-fishing Paladin or Rogue,
Sometimes the DPR is a Gloomstalker with TWF.
Sometimes the DPR is an Aaracokra Fighter with a Longbow.

Unfortunately - and I know this answer sucks - but the appropriate amount of time for a combat is the same as the appropriate length for a piece of string.

[Osuniev]

About 20-30% of the time, it's upwards of 10 rounds specifically because combat has greater variables based on environment, distance, or objectives.


What ? I'm unsure if we have different definitions of combat, but I've been DMing bi-weekly for 6 years, and I've gotten maybe ONE combat last longer than 10 rounds.

I'd be really interested in a short summary of your last 3 "more than 10 rounds" encounters :)

[Sigreid]

My observation is that the amount of time combat takes has more to do with how long the players take for their turn than the number of rounds. I've had groups that can do 10 rounds smoothly in the time it takes other groups of the same size to do 3.

[da newt]

Not the guy you were talking to, but my last two LONG fights (I was a PC for both) were 1. party of lvl 6 PCs defending a town vs 2 fire giants, 4 orog, and ~16 magmen/steam/magma mephits that started at giant rock throwing range with a second wave of 12 orcs riding axe beaks and 2. a large party of level 5 PCs as the 3rd party in a battle between an army of lizard folk and a stronghold of humans (who turned out to be cultists of Kyuss) - there were more than 90 figures on the battle field at one time.

The first was an absolute slog where most of the PCs dropped to 0 hp at least once, but we got lucky and prevailed in the end, and the 2nd was a terrible mess that lasted forever and the PCs were like 10% of the participants (literally the better part of 3 consecutive 4-hour sessions). The first was exciting, the second was nigh unbearable.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not the guy you were talking to, but my last two LONG fights (I was a PC for both) were 1. party of lvl 6 PCs defending a town vs 2 fire giants, 4 orog, and ~16 magmen/steam/magma mephits that started at giant rock throwing range with a second wave of 12 orcs riding axe beaks and 2. a large party of level 5 PCs as the 3rd party in a battle between an army of lizard folk and a stronghold of humans (who turned out to be cultists of Kyuss) - there were more than 90 figures on the battle field at one time.

The first was an absolute slog where most of the PCs dropped to 0 hp at least once, but we got lucky and prevailed in the end, and the 2nd was a terrible mess that lasted forever and the PCs were like 10% of the participants (literally the better part of 3 consecutive 4-hour sessions). The first was exciting, the second was nigh unbearable.

Ouch on that second one. Yeah, doesn't sound much like fun. And I think the big thing is the "DM playing with themselves" issue with having that many NPCs who are fighting other NPCs. Either hand some of them off to players to run or focus tighter on the PCs and let the NPCs be backdrop, resolved algorithmically or based on the PCs' performance.

For me, the only 10+ round combats have involved waves, usually with a round or so in between to catch your breath. Mine run 2-4 rounds, usually. Both as DM and as players.

[Sigreid]

Not the guy you were talking to, but my last two LONG fights (I was a PC for both) were 1. party of lvl 6 PCs defending a town vs 2 fire giants, 4 orog, and ~16 magmen/steam/magma mephits that started at giant rock throwing range with a second wave of 12 orcs riding axe beaks and 2. a large party of level 5 PCs as the 3rd party in a battle between an army of lizard folk and a stronghold of humans (who turned out to be cultists of Kyuss) - there were more than 90 figures on the battle field at one time.

The first was an absolute slog where most of the PCs dropped to 0 hp at least once, but we got lucky and prevailed in the end, and the 2nd was a terrible mess that lasted forever and the PCs were like 10% of the participants (literally the better part of 3 consecutive 4-hour sessions). The first was exciting, the second was nigh unbearable.
For big battles I tend to focus on the party's direct actions viewing them as the elite in the battle. From there based on how they do and the tactical areas they focus on I story mode the rest of the battle. It is absolutely their abilities and choices that decide the fight, but I don't roll out the masses on the sides.

[animorte]

What ? I'm unsure if we have different definitions of combat, but I've been DMing bi-weekly for 6 years, and I've gotten maybe ONE combat last longer than 10 rounds.

I'd be really interested in a short summary of your last 3 "more than 10 rounds" encounters :)
I might be able to share some memories. :smallsmile: I'll say this again:

The major points in this being successful is that everybody understands this is THE encounter for resources and most (if not all) PCs have an objective to accomplish so it's not repetitive.
I find a reason on this forum probably once a week to say that combat isn't strictly a race to zero HP. We have a great deal of encounters like that, but we really like to get creative as well. Disclaimer: sometimes we'll take advantage of not getting to play as often by coming up with a full-combat one-shot.

The amount of rounds is an estimate from memory.


There are several wells that we need to shut down (by finding and dropping amulets in them) on this particular level to clear out the magical heavy mist and unlock the gate to the next level. This level has a sort of hive mind in which everything knows we're here by now and what we're capable of. Final well, showdown...

There are already 6 things waiting for us, 5 smaller and 3 bigger. Initiative.

Rounds 1-3: Fireball in the bulk of them and we realize the big ones are wearing the amulets. Close distance. Rogue one-shots a big guy, Warlock launches another big guy into the well. Barbarian one-shots a big guy. Any amulet not in the well at the end of the round respawns a big guy at the top of the next round.
Rounds 4-7: Loud footsteps are heard and massive guy shows up. Somebody has some sort of force wall that blocks off little/big guy area so front-liners can go tank massive guy. Little guys die. All 3 amulets in the well, no more big guy respawns. Massive guy dies.
Rounds 8-11: Well explodes and massive guy dematerialized into 6 smaller things and suddenly every party member is blocked off for their own 1v1. When someone wins, top of the next round they port in to assist an ally of choice making a 2v1 and so on.

We had grown accustomed to the amulets, just not being on an enemy, and the sudden 1v1 was a fantastic experience. This one was much more recent.


I'm assuming a lot of people haven't run a "battlefield" where there are constant things going on over a large area. Even of they do, it's likely a just serious of different smaller combats with breaks in between. Anyway, we needed to get around the main army, beyond the gate/wall, and into the mage's tower.

Rounds 1-4: Escort our own battering ram while protecting from flank.
Rounds 5-6: Fight through a few mooks to approach a side gate.
Rounds 7-8: Defend area while a couple party members break through.
Rounds 9-12: Big bad guys waiting on the other side, we're fighting on two fronts.
Rounds 13-15: Defend "elevator" area from flying summons while a couple party members utilize lifting mechanisms.
Rounds 16-21: Fight evil mage guy in the top of his tower and big scary looking construct guardians.

Another follow up to this was defending the very same area from (yes, the very same) evil mage guy who was driven out. We defended successfully and had a trilogy with this guy, in which we finally defeated him for good.

*Whew... Reminiscing is awfully fun for my day off. I'm sure others would have run these differently. Hey, as long as you're all having fun, right?

[Demonslayer666]

Ours are typically 3-4 rounds, taking about an hour to complete. We recently had a boss fight that lasted over ten rounds and took nearly the whole 4 hour session. We've had some really short ones too, lasting only a couple rounds.

If the fight is too short, it should just be narrated rather than go though all the trouble.

[Telok]

Old-ish data but over 36 sessions levels 10-15 averages 6-7 round per combat at about an hour to 75 minutes per combat.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cv3fIN1RDxRP3dThqjfEpTYT8mRrhKW5/view?usp=drivesdk