How many combats per session do you find most enjoyable?

[Jonjonjon4]

It is a simple question.

How many combats per session you find the ideal, and which system are you playing?

[KorvinStarmast]

It is a simple question.

How many combats per session you find the ideal, and which system are you playing?
Three to five in a session where the table knows what they are doing.

Two to three when the players or GM/DM can't keep focused.

Some games the combat is quicker (Blades in the Dark) and in some games it can really slow down (Star Trek RPG) since the back and forth between player and (everyone else) in a six player game can eat up time.

The degree of systems mastery/systems comfort is a major variable.

[Darth Credence]

I play D&D 5e, and my ideal is 0-2, almost always having 1. We run four-hour sessions, of which about half an hour is taken up with the initial meetup small talk, and another half hour of game time is some joking around, leaving us with about 3 hours of playtime. A fun combat session for us can take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour and a half. We like a lot of roleplaying and exploration, with RP in general taking close to half of all session time.

[icefractal]

In most games, 1-2, for similar reasons as Darth Credence. If combats are fast, there could be more, as it's really about "% of time spent on combat". But even then, I'd rather have one exciting combat than five meh ones.

[RedMage125]

I'd say at least 2, with the caveat that major fights that last longer, like ones with mechanical and narrative significance (i.e. "boss fights") counting as 2.

But I like combat.

[Tarmor]

Preferred "combats per session" depends on the game played. Some games I've played (Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu) don't need to have any combat, though ONE is probably expected in a session.
If it's D&D (3.x, PF, or 5th, or another RPG based on these rules), Gamma World, MERP, Shadowrun... I'm happy with 1-3, though some of my players would probably like more. Regardless of game, I hate any combat that takes 30min+ to resolve, which I primarily see in later versions of D&D, particularly when I have most of my 6 player group available. (In these cases I wish we were still playing AD&D.)

[JusticeZero]

We've been at about 0.25 for the past couple years. Pathfinder 1, Epic-6.

[Leon]

Depends which game it is and how experienced all participants are with the system or how many people are paying attention (because you can have experienced people but if they are not on the ball its going to dragon no matter)

[Mastikator]

I like to present 3-4 encounters that may result in combats if the players initiate it, which results in 2-4. For shorter sessions it'll be less.

[stoutstien]

Depends on where the table is at as far as the pacing/tension cycle goes. There some give and take but generally i like to build up to the final scene with more decisive encounters.

I also tend to view it by potential turns rather than encounters.

[Catullus64]

Vastly system-dependent question. In 5e D&D, my ideal would be one to three fairly 'simple' fights (not very challenging, low stakes, there to burn a few resources and to build tension) with one or maybe two 'centerpiece' fights (more dangerous, more tactically involved and complex, higher stakes).

For my current favorite system of choice, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the formula is different. Combat is brutal, takes longer in terms of overall number of turns, and there's almost no such thing as a 'low-stakes' fight; a scrap with a small goblin patrol can be a life-or-death affair, and injuries are hard to recover from. With combat being so involved and high-tension, and more emphasis on non-combat sequences than D&D, one combat per session is plenty, more than two starts to be too many. That said, combat is still sufficiently central to the system that less than one fight for every two or three sessions is too few.

On the even more extreme end, something like Call of Cthulhu might well involve as few as two or three fights in an entire campaign. That's a game system where combat is almost more of a failure state than an intended piece of gameplay.

[gbaji]

Typically, one or two actual combats. Lots of encounters, but most aren't going to involve combat. My game tends to focus more on the PCs interacting with all of the places/people around them, talking, getting information, traveling, encountering people along the way, etc. I like to give the players as many opportunities to make RP and action decisions as possible, so providing them with lots of information, choices, and potential interactions maximizes that.

That's not to say that I don't toss in some "random encounter" type stuff as well, some of which may certainly involve combat. For the most part though, those are going to be pretty minor/quick combats and don't take up much time. Usually, there may be one or none of these in a typical game sesssion.

The bigger combats are generally plot focused, and something that represents an objective the party has, and an action/choice that leads them there. They decide to raid the local bandit hideout. Or they've found the location of the evil baron's keep, and attack. Or they track the Orc raiders to their warcamp, and attack. There are never more than one of these, and they tend to take up a large portion of the session when they happen.

So there's usually a bit of ebb and flow to the game sessions. Some will have minor or random encounters "on the way" to something bigger (and a whole lot of information gathering and social stuff), then we deal with a major combat. And given the game system, and the complexity/difficulty of some of those fights, it may actually not be resolvable in a single session. We do, occasionally, have to stop mid fight (just gets too late), and then resume in the next session. I think our record was four sessions for one really massive fight (yeah. That one was crazy).


But yeah. I'm just not a fan of "random encounter for the sake of a random encounter", so I use them only occasionally. And just the time to explore, discuss, decide, and then encounter something "planned", tends to limit those to one per game session. Exceptions to that limit tend to be when the party is having a series of related encounters/combats (say, they are assaulting someone's keep/lair). It may not be uncommon to have a very short fight against a couple enemies guarding an entrance, then a couple more quick small to medium sized fights as they encounter various minions wherever they might have happened to be when the party initated the attack, and then likely one "enemies organize their defenses and fight you" fight (which is usually larger), and then finally the "party breaches into the main chamber and fights the top dog" type fight. An assault like that would probably take 3 game sessions to manage (gotta include time for exploring, descrbing the rooms, making decisions about which way to go once inside, dealing with barracades, etc).

[Pex]

I don't care about quantity. I care about quality.

Players' side: Know what your character can do, teamwork, tactics

DMs' side: Let the players rest already, not a fan of using waves of enemies, don't stack the deck overwhelming the party with debuffs (plural) & 75% hit point loss in the "surprise" round as a means to make it "challenging"

[Jay R]

It depends tremendously on the kind of adventure, and how the PCs are approaching it. But it can't be calculated "per session" when some sessions take place over lunchtime and others are twelve or more hours.

I'd say on average about one serious combat ever two hours seems normal. But that ignores quick, easy fights that are really just the introduction of some plot element – a quick tavern brawl with locals, or a single pickpocket trying to steal from a PC.

But some dungeon crawls have one every half hour and some political sessions might have only one or two – or none. [I've had a very enjoyable ten-hour session without a single combat, or even a die roll. And it was wonderful. But that's an exceptional session, and must be treated as an exception.]

[Pauly]

Depends on
- Genre, both system and campaign
- Consequences of combat (games like WFRP or Cyberpunk even the most mundane of combat carry the risk of death or serious injury)
- Time to resolve combat/how much fun is combat
- system mastery
- metagame considerations (eg resource management in D&D)
- other avenues for interesting encounters such as investigation, social, exploration, puzzle solving or chases. This depends both on the campaign setting and the tools available in the system.
- tone of the campaign. Serious or realistic campaigns tend to have fewer combats than heroic or beer’n’pretzels campaigns.
- other methods availablrpe to resolve an encounter - eg social, stealth, running away and looking for a different path, creating distractions.

I’ve been playing Traveller and Cyberpunk the most recently and on average I would say there have been 5 or 6 opportunities for combat in a 3 hour session, with 0 to 1 actual combats in most sessions, sometimes 2 and 3 rarely.

[Psyren]

I like 1-3. (Keep in mind of course that combats per session and combats per adventuring day can differ, sometimes significantly.)

[Trask]

If D&D, as many as possible. That's only slightly sarcasm. In D&D I think oftentimes quantity > quality when it comes to combat, because generally combat means progress. If we're our Quest is to rescue Princess Buttercup and we have...

A random encounter with dryads in the wilderness
Fight worg mounted goblins at the entrance
Sleepy/dumb ogres guarding a treasure room
A rival adventuring party who wants to take the princess near the underground sea cave
A giant octopus while trying to take the makeshift raft out to surf with the princess

That is a lot more fun to me than one huge fight where we

Walk into the cave and fight a huge epic encounter 1 big guy with a mountain of HP, legendary actions, special reactions, lair actions, summoning minions with a bonus action, a transformation once he reaches 20% health....and then grab the princess. And it takes an hour and a half. :smallsigh:

Maybe I'm like this because in my experience as a player, 90% of the time combat ends in PC victory. So what's the point of a big "interesting" battle? I'm not saying it doesn't have its place in the DM's repertoire, but I'd rather have 3 different fights in dramatic locales against different NPCs in each case than just 1. When a D&D session ends, I get retroactive feelings of fun and excitement when I can look back and say "Wow, we did a lot today!".

Maybe I just don't appreciate tactics as much as some others, but to me a long combat in D&D is akin to getting flavor fatigue. I just want to eat something else man! I'm tired of eating this, I want to eat something else already. Its part of the reason why as a DM I generally have no problem whatsoever with PC's getting lucky and killing someone faster than I expected them to.

[Eldan]

Very system dependent. D&D 3.5, where one combat can be several hours? One. Never more than one. Spire, which I'm playing right now, where the shortest possible combat is one roll of the Fight skill and even a boss fight won't be that long? As many as it takes.

Generally, I'd say 25-33% of the time. I might be convinced to do 50% if the fight system is very interesting.

Also, as a DM, I'm very fond of having enemies surrender or run away once the fight is clearly decided.

[gbaji]

But some dungeon crawls have one every half hour and some political sessions might have only one or two – or none. [I've had a very enjoyable ten-hour session without a single combat, or even a die roll. And it was wonderful. But that's an exceptional session, and must be treated as an exception.]

I'm two 3-4 hour sessions into the current adventure I'm running, and they have yet to get into any sort of combat. Lots of decisions being made, information being discovered and discussed, inter-pc and pc2npc interaction, etc, but so far.... no actual combat. And the players seem perfectly interested and engaged. Now. I totally had some NPCs made up, just in case they decided to wander off and go find some trouble along the way. But the party is "on a mission", and mostly decided to stay on the ship while stopping in ports along the way. At least at the really dangerous ones (we have a variant of Sanctuary, from Thieves World, in our game. And the boxed set with full maps and whatnot *right there* on a bookshelf next to the gaming table, so... they could totally go ashore and "see what happens". What could go wrong?). I'm always willing to come up with something in response to whatever they decide to do. But it's up to them. And in this case, they chose "avoid unnecessary entanglements", so that's what they got.

I expect session 3 will have some combat. The've arrived at the location where the first bit of info they need is located, and it's extremly unlikely they'll be able to get it without some sort of fight happening. Now... who they fight and why is still up in the air.

IMO, it helps that we're playing a skill based game, so even non-combat sessions are quite useful to the PCs. Making spots, and searches, and listens, and whatnot, all allow them to get better at these things. So these kinds of sessions are a bit of a bonus. They get the RP stuff *and* still get some character improvement. All good IMO.

[Mastikator]

Also, as a DM, I'm very fond of having enemies surrender or run away once the fight is clearly decided.

I think this is a is very important thing to do as a DM because it can add a dimension to combat. It gives a chance for the players to talk to NPCs they otherwise wouldn't have, it makes the NPCs feel more personable and therefore the world more immersive, it gives the players a another opportunity to roleplay and make character based choices.
I too am fond of it and it makes me happy to see other DMs do this too!

[Eldan]

The roleplay opportunities too, of course, but mainly, I have enemies run away or surrender once the fight gets boring. I.e. you've killed half the goblins and survived their ambush and the traps. The rest of them scurry back in their holes, so we don't need to play another five rounds of everyone using their most expendable abilities to mop up.

[Easy e]

Typically we have 3 hour sessions, and no matter the game we tend to have 0-2 per session. So, it averages to about 1 per every 3 hours of gameplay or so.

[Vegan Squirrel]

This will vary a lot depending on where the characters are, and I do like that mix, but on average I think I'd say about 2–3 combats in a 2–3 hour session (so a combat per hour of play). We're currently playing D&D 5e; I think maybe combat was slightly more common back when we played 3.5.

In dungeons, there can be more; in town, there can be none (and both of those can be subverted, by the DM or the players). There are a lot of blurred lines, where even a hostile encounter ends up getting resolved without any actual combat. And I think some of our most memorable sessions have been entirely free of combat.

In the end, whatever feels right in the fiction.

[gbaji]

Responding to the set of "end fights early" posts here, and not just yours.


The roleplay opportunities too, of course, but mainly, I have enemies run away or surrender once the fight gets boring. I.e. you've killed half the goblins and survived their ambush and the traps. The rest of them scurry back in their holes, so we don't need to play another five rounds of everyone using their most expendable abilities to mop up.

I do this as well, mostly when the end of the combat is unambigous. I do have one minor caveat though: The actual result needs to be unambigous, not just "who wins". Having enemies surrender works well (very well, in fact, for the reasons mentioned previously). I'm always a bit concerned over the "have the NPCs run away" bit, though. This makes sense from a realistic pov (would they just stay in a fight they are doomed to lose?). However, it still needs to be something the PCs can't prevent, if that's what they want to do, and I will continue to play out the encounter if the players want, for this exact reason.

Sometimes (quite often, in fact), the PCs don't want any of the NPCs to escape. Escape may mean they run off to warn the rest of their group, maybe. It can also be frustrating for players if the main leaders always escape every fight. So, as a minor modification, I'd caution about just handwaving the conclusion with regard to NPCs running away, unless it's actually the case that they can run away and the PCs can't stop them (ie: the conclusion is not in doubt). What you don't want to do is run a couple rounds of combat, then declare "Ok. You guys are easily defeating the NPCs, so I'll just say you win, but some of them get away". Sometimes, that's fine. But sometimes, the players want to do more, so you should let them play it out.


I suppose it's also a point to make if the objective of the fight itself is resource depletion. If the party is attacking an area with enemies, and this is one group of such enemies out of possibly many that need to be defeated, and it's a dynamic environment (so the NPCs become aware of the party and will response in kind), you really do want to play things out all the way to the point of "there are no more resources needed to reach the conclusion". This gives the PCs options like "do we use our default combat stuff, knowthing that half of this group of enemies will get away and warn their friends, but have more resources for the fights to come?" or "do we use some of our more powerful but limited resources, and make sure no one escapes to tell the tale?". Sometimes, ending a fight early may remove those choices from the players, and IMO, those are valid and significant choices for them to make.

[Ionathus]

My (5e) players are at level 14 now, so it's hard to come up with encounters that don't fall into the dichotomy of:

So easy that they're really just roleplay encounters with an initiative tracker
Convoluted session-long ordeals against high-powered opponents with plenty of traps, minions, and special abilities

That said, my answer is probably somewhere around 0.8. My players like talking, exploring, and resolving disputes with diplomacy/creative thinking, but they usually get to fight something significant most weeks.

[KorvinStarmast]

I play D&D 5e What's it like, at your table?
There is a reason that I am asking this.

[Anonymouswizard]

As others have said it depends on the system. If the system has a dedicated combat system my ideal is for the average to not exceed 1/session, because combat just takes upn a LOT of time and for some characters can devolve into 'I do the same thing over and over'. The more detailed combat gets the less I want to spend actually doing it, if I have to track hp by body part I'm putting all my skill points into 'Athletics' and 'Hooting like Daffy Duck'.

If the game doesn't have a dedicated combat system? No real need to have an average, and the ideal will depend on 'did anybody take smashing heads as their thing'. Combat no longer slows the game to a crawl, so it just becomes one more tool to solve a problem.

In D&D if I punch an NPC we lose at minimu half an hour to the fight. In Monsterhearts if I punch a guy one roll determines if I win or lose the fight (and if it cost me any social capital). That means that combat can pop up a lot more organically, and is going to feel bloody and short compared to the indepth tactical analysis D&D and GURPS tend to devolve into. Weirdly while this means I like the idea of Star Trek Adventures having detailed combat: it's thematic for fights to be avoided until the last possible minute unless you've gone for a Klingon game.

[Kane0]

One combat per 2 hours of play, so like 1/3 of my play-time spent in combat

[Quertus]

Top 3 answers:

#3) 10-15. The players know what they’re doing, the party is making clear progress.

#2) 1. Spend the whole session strategizing for one final showdown. Epic.

#1) 0. Conversions, intrigue, Exploration, puzzles, and a group that enjoys such. Priceless.

EDIT: my 3rd choice of 10-15 is for D&D and similar, or anything that can manage such rates; my other options of 0 and 1 are presumably System-agnostic.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

In D&D -- I've played 2E, 4E and PF 1e but never run them, and have both played and GMed 3.0, 3.5 and 5E -- three is the maximum number, and usually I want one. At my tables, usually a quarter to a third of a session is combat time, maybe up to half with a particularly challenging obstacle or major antagonist battle. 5E published adventures are absolutely loaded with 'it takes 10 days to walk from here to there, roll three times on this chart every day, everything on the chart is a battle against 1-3 goblins in an open field' and I hate it. I, and my normal group, would much prefer the normal routine to involve one battle that's extremely challenging at maximum resources rather than attriting away resources three kobold crossbow shots at a time.

In other systems like Gumshoe, which I've played in Night's Black Agents and am preparing to run in Delta Green, maybe one? Or zero? Ideally zero? Combat mechanics aren't the strong point of Gumshoe. I think they're more fun as a thing that happens rarely when the company has no other choice rather than as a core piece of the group's problemsolving.

[KorvinStarmast]

In Star Trek RPG we have had three combats in the last two sessions.
The GM is the only person with anything close to systems mastery. (We are all kind of new to the game, less than a year).

Combat resolution is a two step process with a bunch of strings attached. (Complications, specials, etc, avoidances).
If more of the players, like me, had bothered to actually get into the pdfs to get a grip in the sequences and basics, combat would not take so long.

Last night, fortunately, only three players showed up so play was a little faster (we each controlled two of the characters who'd been left hanging as the session ended).

A lot of Star Trek RPG is skill checks; which is good. Few battles is good, based on the low effort players and the combat system's layered approach.

[Quertus]

The GM is the only person with anything close to systems mastery. (We are all kind of new to the game, less than a year).
If more of the players, like me, had bothered to actually get into the pdfs to get a grip in the sequences and basics, combat would not take so long.

Sorry for your luck. I’ve played with literal 7-year-olds who I’d expect to grok the mechanics for any RPGs I’ve played with them after around 4 sessions, if not before. Having played with both ends of the spectrum, and plenty in between, I find such definitely preferable over adults who are still clueless months or years in.

If you figure out the trick to convert one type of player to the other type, or even help make progress on that spectrum, let us know!

[Anonymouswizard]

In D&D -- I've played 2E, 4E and PF 1e but never run them, and have both played and GMed 3.0, 3.5 and 5E -- three is the maximum number, and usually I want one. At my tables, usually a quarter to a third of a session is combat time, maybe up to half with a particularly challenging obstacle or major antagonist battle. 5E published adventures are absolutely loaded with 'it takes 10 days to walk from here to there, roll three times on this chart every day, everything on the chart is a battle against 1-3 goblins in an open field' and I hate it. I, and my normal group, would much prefer the normal routine to involve one battle that's extremely challenging at maximum resources rather than attriting away resources three kobold crossbow shots at a time.

I think part of the issue is that random encounters existed for a different type of module than today's adventure paths. If the point is to explore an area than these random encounters are the primary things stopping you from getting to the reward, and I believe tended to be both quite varied and avoidable ('the bandits are at longbow range and may not have spotted you, what do you do?').

Then you get to the dungeon and random encounters exist to discourage resting and novaing.

The modern D&D adventure path really needs to be closer to '3 combat encounters per long rest, we tell you when the PCs have the opportunity to rest'.


In other systems like Gumshoe, which I've played in Night's Black Agents and am preparing to run in Delta Green, maybe one? Or zero? Ideally zero? Combat mechanics aren't the strong point of Gumshoe. I think they're more fun as a thing that happens rarely when the company has no other choice rather than as a core piece of the group's problemsolving.

Games where combat is either a punishment or just another type of activity are becoming more common, and it's pretty great. I honestly think there's a lot to be said for 'you can get by these guards with a successful Fight roll, but if you're unlucky you'll come out battered, do you want to consider another approach'.


Sorry for your luck. I’ve played with literal 7-year-olds who I’d expect to grok the mechanics for any RPGs I’ve played with them after around 4 sessions, if not before. Having played with both, I find such definitely preferable over adults who are still clueless months or years in.

If you figure out the trick to convert one type of player to the other type, let us know!

My working theory is that most adults who play TTRPGs aren't there to interact with them as a game as much as a social/storytelling experience, which combined with a tendency for at least one player to know The RulesTM means they offload system knowledge onto those who already have it.

This is, honestly, generally fine if it's at the level of 'I don't want to deal with point buy character creation, but I can remember which dice to roll for what', it's the people asking 'what die do I roll again' every single roll that get on my nerves.

[gbaji]

5E published adventures are absolutely loaded with 'it takes 10 days to walk from here to there, roll three times on this chart every day, everything on the chart is a battle against 1-3 goblins in an open field' and I hate it.

Yikkes! If that's the way the encounters are done, then that would generate lots of hate for them. I get the whole need to make travel feel like it took time, was risky, etc, but IMO there are better ways to do that. I think I stated in the last thread on random encounters that we had that I have a strong dislike for rolling encounters. Especially on a table. And triply so if it's some sort of generic "encounters in X terrain" type tables.



I think part of the issue is that random encounters existed for a different type of module than today's adventure paths. If the point is to explore an area than these random encounters are the primary things stopping you from getting to the reward, and I believe tended to be both quite varied and avoidable ('the bandits are at longbow range and may not have spotted you, what do you do?').

Then you get to the dungeon and random encounters exist to discourage resting and novaing.

The modern D&D adventure path really needs to be closer to '3 combat encounters per long rest, we tell you when the PCs have the opportunity to rest'.

Right. I think the problem is that on the one hand, the module writers want the players to feel that there is an accomplishment in just "getting there". But where the really annoying encounters come in, I suspect, is out of a desire to be "more realistic". If every encounter is level appropriate and a challenge, then that seems too contrived, right? So let's mix it up with a bunch of random small nuisance encounteres instead! Yeah... that's not annoying at all.

I do think that a lot of these problems (especially in D&D) stem from the encounter math in the game itself. There's a significant gap between what characters can do while using zero "per rest" abilities, versus using them. Encounters that don't require the use of these resources are viewed as nuisance encounters and waste everyone's time. But there are only a certain number of "non nuisance" encounters you can run per rest period before the party becomes tapped out. And that number tends to be "more than you're reasonably going to run into randomly while travelling" but "less than what you would reasonably expect to be sufficient to clear an entire area in a dungeon/fort/lair/etc".

Which, historically, leads us to "find places to rest" as the solution. But, if they can do that, then they can go full force on the next 2-5 encounters, and then rinse/repeat. But if they can't, then hard math creates a wall in front of them, success wise. Which... is where the whole "There are places to rest, but the DM will have random encounters occur if you overuse them, so as to push you closer to your resource limits". But if those random encounters are actually random, then you run the risk of TPW by total accident and more or less unavoidable by the players. But if you don't, then the DM is basically gaming the system for/against the players. So... depending on the philosopy of running the game, these factors can result in some pretty strange/ugly outcomes IMO.

It's one of the reasons I tend to really enjoy RuneQuest as a game system. The game technically has "per day" resources (magic points), but those are very very flexible, and rarely actually come into play much (aside from very beginning level characters maybe). What magic/buffs you have going when in an encounter has almost nothing to do with resources available, but how much prep time you had before the encounter. Characters can sustain an almost unreasonable number of encounters this way before worrying about running out of actual resources to continue fighting (it's more or less just "what we can do all the time" sort of stuff). The real resources are Runespells, which are pre-defined and limited in number. but those are very slow to recover resources. You are typically using those in small bits, perioidically, through the course of the entire adventure. It takes a day of prayer to get a single point of those spells back, so barring sitting somewhere for like a month or more, those aren't just going to be usable again.

So in RQ it tends to be less about "how many level appropriate encounters per day", and more "how many really really tough fights are in the entire adventure?". You can run as many other encounters as you want, pretty much as often as you want, and not have a lot of problems. So GMs don't feel any pressure at all to "make more random encounters to challenge the party", or "have them encounter random stuff while resting to reduce their resources". That's just not a thing. If I put a random encounter in, it's because I decided that this encounter fits into wherever they are, and that it's a fun and interesting encounter, and I want to play it out. There is pretty much zero resource math pushing me one way or the other.

[emulord]

Depends on the session:
exploration / adventure with one big fight at the end = 1/session
Intrigue, figuring out the bad guy, finding the lost macguffin = 0-1/session
Dungeoncrawling = At least 3/session, and I have had as many as 7

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I think part of the issue is that random encounters existed for a different type of module than today's adventure paths. If the point is to explore an area than these random encounters are the primary things stopping you from getting to the reward, and I believe tended to be both quite varied and avoidable ('the bandits are at longbow range and may not have spotted you, what do you do?').

Then you get to the dungeon and random encounters exist to discourage resting and novaing.

The modern D&D adventure path really needs to be closer to '3 combat encounters per long rest, we tell you when the PCs have the opportunity to rest'.


I think the issue is that 5E's developers don't have very good technical skills. Random encounter tables are there because they don't really know what else to do in the exploration pillar, just like adventure pathing often boils down to putting an NPC somewhere and having them tell the party where to go next, whether as part of a railroaded structure or as a literal fetch quest -- go here, get this, come back. Random encounters are a substitute for putting things in the world-space. There's a place for them, certainly, but they have to be used intelligently. Often the adventure designs have players walking back and forth across a space looking for the next plot hook because hooks are strung together in sequence rather than in a flexible web; the players can't find Clue Y until they've found Clue X. So they have to walk across the Vale to the location of Clue X, then walk back to the location of Clue Y even though Y is closer, and that means what should be 15 days of travel turns into 26 days of travel, and they're rolling three times a day and then there's a note in the adventure saying 'if your players get frustrated, you can reduce the number of random encounters a little bit'. If you have to have that note, your adventure relies too much on random encounters to fill time. In a properly-sequenced adventure, finding Clue Y should give them enough information to find Clue X, and the two combined can lead to Z or even further up the chain to A! But that's a whole bigger issue.



Games where combat is either a punishment or just another type of activity are becoming more common, and it's pretty great. I honestly think there's a lot to be said for 'you can get by these guards with a successful Fight roll, but if you're unlucky you'll come out battered, do you want to consider another approach'.


It depends on the setting and the system and their interactions, you know? I like D&D-style combat generally, and it fits in a High Fantasy, uh, fantasy. I want a big system of magic and sword-swinging and jumping from here to there and shooting arrows and throwing axes. It's great when the guy casts wall of fire to block the door so the orcs can't get into the room while the other player is climbing up the thing to get to the guy who's shooting at them. But that's not what I'm looking for in a game where I'm playing a burned spy on the run from a secret vampire cult. When I get in my car and the car bomb goes off, I should die, not take 4d8 damage. (Gumshoe's problem, at least in NBA, is basically a math-design one. You should either use all of your resources or none of them. It means there aren't that many meaningful decisions to make in combat.)

[AMFV]

It is a simple question.

How many combats per session you find the ideal, and which system are you playing?

It can vary completely depending on what system I'm playing or running and the complexity of the combat. One super complex combat is usually sufficient, but that might count as several. Sometimes no combats can be ideal. it just depends.

[MrStabby]

If D&D, as many as possible. That's only slightly sarcasm. In D&D I think oftentimes quantity > quality when it comes to combat, because generally combat means progress. If we're our Quest is to rescue Princess Buttercup and we have...

A random encounter with dryads in the wilderness
Fight worg mounted goblins at the entrance
Sleepy/dumb ogres guarding a treasure room
A rival adventuring party who wants to take the princess near the underground sea cave
A giant octopus while trying to take the makeshift raft out to surf with the princess

That is a lot more fun to me than one huge fight where we

Walk into the cave and fight a huge epic encounter 1 big guy with a mountain of HP, legendary actions, special reactions, lair actions, summoning minions with a bonus action, a transformation once he reaches 20% health....and then grab the princess. And it takes an hour and a half. :smallsigh:

Maybe I'm like this because in my experience as a player, 90% of the time combat ends in PC victory. So what's the point of a big "interesting" battle? I'm not saying it doesn't have its place in the DM's repertoire, but I'd rather have 3 different fights in dramatic locales against different NPCs in each case than just 1. When a D&D session ends, I get retroactive feelings of fun and excitement when I can look back and say "Wow, we did a lot today!".

Maybe I just don't appreciate tactics as much as some others, but to me a long combat in D&D is akin to getting flavor fatigue. I just want to eat something else man! I'm tired of eating this, I want to eat something else already. Its part of the reason why as a DM I generally have no problem whatsoever with PC's getting lucky and killing someone faster than I expected them to.

That's a reasonable stance to take. The only thing I would add is that the DM is a also a player and a lot of DMs will create encounters of the type they like to run.

I know when I DM I like challenging fights. I like abilities on enemies that I feel will be memorable - I certainly think this motivation would lead me to create the kind of encounter you don't like.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

That's a reasonable stance to take. The only thing I would add is that the DM is a also a player and a lot of DMs will create encounters of the type they like to run.

I know when I DM I like challenging fights. I like abilities on enemies that I feel will be memorable - I certainly think this motivation would lead me to create the kind of encounter you don't like.

Yes and -- I think when I run encounters that are that '1d3 kobolds in an empty field' style in a 5E D&D game, my players instinctively attempt to get through them with as few resources as possible. They'll avoid using leveled spells or 1/SR resources. It's just cantrips and weapon attacks unless I specifically tell them they won't have any more encounters. Partly that's because I've trained them to expect big lethal encounters later, but also partly I think I'm just reinforcing a natural tendency this group of people already had (and partly it's carryover from many years of 3E where there are no short rests). So if I want to give the players the chance to use their features and show off their abilities and how creatively they can use them, I have to design a battle in a space with three vertical layers, three types of environmental hazards and a wide variety of enemy types and threats, because that's the only thing that'll provoke them to actually use their abilities to the fullest.