Time spent on combat in different editions

[tavis]

At the last OD&D game I ran, I realized that in 4+ hours of play we only got through two combats. In my experience this was no different than 4E, for which I've spent substantially more effort in measuring the amount of time devoted to combat. Since I often cite the faster combats of OD&D as a significant advantage over the new school, I was shaken to consider that this cherished belief of mine might not be true.

Fortunately, forager23's game gave me the opportunity to collect some data without the confounding factor of me being the DM & thus having a major role in setting the pace of play.

Some details of the session for comparative purposes:
Rules: OD&D 3LBB's plus Blackmoor monk and assassin and Greyhawk spells available on scrolls
Interpretation: Alternate combat system, low-complexity approach (generally not separate phases for movement/missile/melee, roll initiative only when necessary to resolve which action happened first, no miniatures used)
Players: Seven, across a wide range of experience with OD&D and RPGs in general
Character: One 6th level PC per player, plus two followers and six henchmen
Adventure: Fane of St. Toad, run as a one-shot (although it took us two sessions to finish it; this was the second session, with 3 new PCs.)

Here's how the session broke down according to my notes during play:

2 - 3:15; making characters, recapping the last session, interrogating captives, formulating a marching order & plan for how to approach the Fane
3:15 - 3:35; enter the dungeon, conduct exploration
3:35 - 4:10; combat #1, fireballing scores of giant toads and putting the survivors to the sword (35 minutes)
4:10 - 4:20; exploration and planning
4:20 - 4:32; combat #2, melee against the toad god (12 minutes)
4:32 - 4:40; exploration
4:40 - 4:45; combat #3, encountering toads, identifying them as poison, sealing them off with a web spell to avoid melee (5 minutes)
4:45 - 4:50; exploration
4:50 - 4:52; combat #4, encountering toads, sealing them off with a web spell to avoid melee (2 minutes)
4:52 - 4:55; exploration
4:55 - 4:56; combat #5, encountering toads, sealing them off with a web spell to avoid melee (1 minute)
4:56 - 5:00; packing up treasure, leaving dungeon
5:00 - 5:25; combat #6, toad statue animates, we escape and return to slay it (25 minutes)
5:25 - 5:45; searching remnants of temple, working out consequences of adventure, discussing the session

Overall we spent 80 minutes out of 225, or 37% of the session, resolving combat sequences. We engaged in six combats, with an average duration of 13 minutes each.

I'll take similar notes the next time I play 4E, but one thing that I can already see will be different is the average duration. I've never seen 4E give players an ability that let the entire party nullify an encounter that would have been a meaningfully challenging fight. Once or twice as a DM I've hand-waved the resolution of an encounter I thought could not threaten the party, and as a player I've enjoyed a skill challenge to avoid combat with an obviously superior force, but the lack of a potentially combat-nullifying spell like web has a definite effect on how long it takes to play out each combat and the number of combat situations that can occur during a session.

[calithena]

Thanks tavis! Interesting to see this kind of breakdown.

[tavis]

I wound up playing 3.5 before 4E. It was in some ways an atypical session, but outliers are data too!

Details for comparative purposes:
Rules: 3.5 core books plus classes from Complete series and spells and magic items from their respective Compendiums
Interpretation: By the book approach, miniatures used, official errata (e.g. Divine Power) and/or house interpretations (e.g. polymorph) included sparingly
Players: Four, all with a high level of 3.5 rules mastery
Character: One 21st level PC per player
Adventure: Climax of Paizo's Age of Worms adventure path, run as a campaign from first level over a period of four real-world years (and just over one game-world year)

I didn't note the start time very accurately, as a lot of combat-related activity (spell preparation and buffing) took place before we officially started rolling dice.

7 - 9; players arrive, discuss situation and plans, negotiate allegiances, sell own souls to Mephistopheles for equipment, work miracles to regain spell slots, prepare spells, cast buffs, plan attack

9 - 1:26; teleport into combat, fight risen god and its lieutenant

Overall we spent 226 minutes out of 346, or 65% of the session, resolving combat sequences. We engaged in one combat, although it had distinct phases (struggling to survive the enemy's original attack, driving off one of the two major opponents, pursuing and nullifying the other one).

The unusually high PC level of this game, and its nature as an uber-boss fight, contributed to an unusually long combat duration - although I think it's at most an exaggeration of the basic nature of 3.5 fight resolution. Note that this is the fourth or fifth time we've attempted to fight this enemy under similar circumstances; this is a combat we've kept coming back to and running away from. Even though it took many, many play hours (and I sometimes thought the campaign would never end as a result), I enjoyed the challenge. The details of what happened during those 4+ hours of fighting were dynamic in a high-magic way; lots of mazes, dimension doors, walls of force, counterspell duels, Mordenkainen's disjunction attempts, revivications, etc. Resolving the effect of these spells is a highly technical procedure, but this group is good at it and IMO it leads to a climactic battle that feels like modern fantasy literature (e.g. Glen Cook or Steven Brust); similar 4E combats length feel like a modern action movie, with lots of movement and explosions but relatively little situation-changing magic.

[settembrini]

In AD&D 2e, high level fights can last nearly as long as 3.5 ones of similiar level. Anectodtal evidence:

We played through Kingdom of Ghouls (2e), the characters being around 12th level. Many big fights with lots of things going on, many opponents, many effects.

I´d say those 12th level AD&D 2e combats were 150% more awesome, but just as slow as their 3.5 counterparts.

The grand feast hall in "Against the Giants / Hill Giant part" took 5 non-rules savvy AD&D 1e players 1hour and 45 minutes:

hofrat.blogspot.com/search?q=gary+con

[tavis]

I finally got around to taking notes in a 4E game.

Details of the session for comparative purposes:
Rules: 4E, including classes from the PHBII and homebrewed races
Interpretation: Rules as written, although adherence is not fanatical (e.g. the DM realized late in one encounter that he'd been forgetting to use one of the monster's sneak attack ability)
Players: Four, all with at least a year's worth of regular 4E play & substantial 3E experience before that
Characters: One 2nd level PC per player, plus a ranger's animal companion & a shaman's spirit companion
Adventure: Sixth or seventh session of an ongoing homebrew campaign

Here's how the session broke down according to my notes during play:

7:30 - 8:30: waiting for last two players, recapping last session, going over changes to our characters
8:30 - 9:10: recapping with whole group, setting the scene; using tracking & the hand of fate ritual to decide where to go next
9:11 - 10:07; combat #1, 6 rounds of fighting against two skeletons and three wights (44 minutes)
10:08 - 10:19; finding a place to take a short rest, exploring a room, opening a chest, heading out of the dungeon
10:20 - 10:53; combat #2, 3 rounds of combat against 2 wraiths and a specter, specter escapes and PCs run away from wraiths (33 minutes)
10:54 - 11:03; taking a short rest on the spot, finding a place to hole up for an extended rest, setting up watch schedule
11:04 - 11:40; combat #3, 6 rounds of combat against 2 wraiths and 2 zombies who attack halfway through the night (36 minutes)
11:41 - 11:50; cleaning up, scheduling next session, socializing

Overall we spent 113 minutes out of 200, or 56% of the session (once all players were present), resolving combat sequences. We engaged in three combats, with an average duration of 38 minutes each.

This group has a total of seven players; when all of us are at the table, my sense is that combat takes maybe as much as twice as long. This session was unusual in that we got in three fights in a session (two is more typical), and also that we ran from a fight - I haven't seen that happen in 4E before.

One thing that's striking about these notes is how much of our play time is devoted to the logistics of resting. Part of this is narrative (we want to find a place in the game-world that we can defend & that we think will be safe from attack), and part is mechanical (allocating encounter-based healing resources). This factor was highlighted in this session because we were besieged by undead, making overnight rest risky, but I think that worrying about how & where we'll take our post-combat rests is present in every 4E session.

[chronoplasm]

Were you using primarily Monster Manual I monsters, or Monster Manual II monsters?
This is important as it seems that WotC has realized they made a mistake the first time around by giving the monsters to much HP and it was making combat too grindy.
By comparison, the MMII monsters, most notably the solos, have fewer hit points to make combat go faster. It makes a world of difference.
This is why, whenever I DM, and I use monsters from the MMI, I halve their hit points. The combat still takes a while, but it goes much more quickly in comparison.

[tavis]

I think these monsters were MMI, but can't be sure; our DM runs from a laptop, so I can't see what books he has open, and I suspect he often changes the description of the monsters we encounter (e.g. we fought some carnivorous crabs that I'm pretty confident were a reskinned rat swarm).

It'd be great if you could note some combat times from an encounter using your half-hit-point rule (or get a player to do it - I know I have enough else to keep track of when I DM). Do you increase monster damage as well?

[chronoplasm]

I only increase damage for elites and solos when they are bloodied and shift gears into their "angry boss mode". Otherwise, no, because I tend to use monsters that are 2-3 levels more powerful than the party; my encounters are dangerous enough as they are.

I'll try to record encounter time the next time I DM.
The last game I played had somebody else DM'ing, but he kept the monsters the same as they were in the book. Encounters in that game did take a long time, granted. If I had to estimate, I'd say they were about twice as long as what I'm used to.