I’m not really a fan of combat, because it takes forever. I’m fine with it when it is during a long session, like a 4 hour session, rather than a 2 hour session, where it takes the entire session to complete it.
It's the main part of D&D, like 95% of the game rules are about combat. There are probably other better TTRPG systems for you out there if you don't enjoy the combat element. Inevitably, being a turn based system with multiple players, it just has to take a bunch of time.
It’s more of I think it shouldnt take the entire session to finish, and the DM has you do it every session.
How long is "a session"? There should be other bits to D&D. Combat is main reason to use 5e, it's true, but meat has to have gravy. I'm curious why combat is taking an entire session, though. We have only short sessions, perhaps an hour and a half to two hours, but we'll have at least some roleplay and multiple (albeit short) combats. I've never had a single encounter last an entire session - even when we've had short sessions even by our standards. Something isn't adding up.
Probably because every combat encounter is deadly. That either means there's a ton of monsters, which takes forever to resolve, or the monsters are really strong, which means everyone has to make their decisions perfectly or die, which takes forever to resolve.
I'm absolutly on board with this last sentiment.
It seems to take the same amount of in-game time to burn through the day's xp budget regardless of the session length. If you choose to have 3-4 medium/hard encounters per session, you'll probably need two or three sessions to complete the equivalence of one in-game day. Whereas, should you choose one absolute whomper of a deadly encounter, it will probably be the only combat encounter of the game day, as the PCs will most likely be at, past, or near death's door and need a pick-me-up, but will only require one session to resolve.
Your game's pacing and environment will likely drive the number of encounters that you have in any given in-game day.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
It seems to take the same amount of in-game time to burn through the day's xp budget regardless of the session length.
I don't agree, though it depends on the degree to which you do theater of the mind, because any time you are breaking out the battle map that's an extra 15-30 minutes of setup. However, even without that, because of how adjusted xp work, more smaller fights take more time.
Let's say for simplicity you're just throwing equal-CR monsters at a party of 4. To fill out a day's budget, you can use 6 encounters of 1, or 2 encounters of 2, or 1 encounter of 3. The latter two choices have fewer total hit points of monsters to chew through, and because area effects exist, you also go through those hit points faster. You're likely to take a bit more time resolving every person's turn, but it doesn't make up for the second option being something like half as many total rounds of combat.
It seems to take the same amount of in-game time to burn through the day's xp budget regardless of the session length.
I don't agree, though it depends on the degree to which you do theater of the mind, because any time you are breaking out the battle map that's an extra 15-30 minutes of setup. However, even without that, because of how adjusted xp work, more smaller fights take more time.
Let's say for simplicity you're just throwing equal-CR monsters at a party of 4. To fill out a day's budget, you can use 6 encounters of 1, or 2 encounters of 2, or 1 encounter of 3. The latter two choices have fewer total hit points of monsters to chew through, and because area effects exist, you also go through those hit points faster. You're likely to take a bit more time resolving every person's turn, but it doesn't make up for the second option being something like half as many total rounds of combat.
So, the statement is less about how long it takes you at the table and more about how many of these encounters one might be able to afford during an in-game day. If, say a party were dungeon delving and had 10-15 areas of light resistance to work out, one might expect that to take a couple, maybe three sessions. But the PCs will have only experienced one to three hours of in-game time. And by the end, will potentially need to sleep off their boo-boo's. On the other side of that, if you throw out a punishingly lethal encounter the PCs will have only needed less than a minute of in-game time to nearly, mostly, or all-the-way become unalive and need to sleep off the dent in their skull. They likely won't be doing any other successful encountering that day and will be the only encounter for the session.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
A character gains uses of things like spells as he levels up. At a certain point you have too many of them to be able to blow them all in just one fight even if you try. And that point is different for different classes but none of them take more than, say, 5 levels to get there. A 5th level spell user has 9 spells for crying out loud. That's a long, long combat, wouldn't you say? A party of 4 against a single boss; if you count the boss's legendary actions as turns, that's between (6x9=54) and (8x9=72) turns of play just to run out of spell slots. (Even if you don't, it's 45 turns.) Assuming you cast a spell every single turn. At level 5. And it only goes up from there.
I don't know about any of you, but I'd much rather break up 60 turns of combat across multiple different battles, than have to marathon them all at once.
In a campaign, I like to have different "modes" of adventuring days. These modes might shift during or between sessions, but reflects a shift in gear/pressure on the group:
- Coasting: Probably only 1 or 2 encounters in a day. The party is reminded that there are creatures out there, but they are on top of it. Well supplied, resting. This can be common for generic travel between important locations. These sessions also tend to be more RP heavy ones.
- Sidequest: Break off from main story arches often include local situations or locations where it ramps up to 4-6 encounters. There's often one of those signifcantly more dangerous than others. Ideally, these fit into a single session (4 hours), but that isn't always the case.
- Full danger: Something big is going on - and it is dangerous. Multiple (1-3) large scale encounters before there's an opportunity for a short rest, followed by another 2 cycles like this. Often pushing through the night into next day without an option to long rest. This drains the reserves and forces to party to rely in ingenuity, gear, potions, and scrolls to make it through. I often start pushing in exhaustion in situations like this as well as they are designed to push the party to the limit.
By cycling these modes, I try to provide something for different play styles, and a sense of different levels of threat in the world at different times. It's tricky to balance the full danger mode, and sometimes have to be done more fluid if a particular encounter really drains them more than anticipated (bad rolls, mix match of group skills and monster features).
I like between 6-8 encounters in an adventuring day or 3-4 deadly ones that last at l'est 4-5 rounds, less for easier encounters and more for harder ones. Climatic fight should be challenging with one or more characters dying or dead and which could last longer than 6-8 rounds.
I like between 6-8 encounters in an adventuring day or 3-4 deadly ones that last at l'est 4-5 rounds, less for easier encounters and more for harder ones. Climatic fight should be challenging with one or more characters dying or dead and which could last longer than 6-8 rounds.
That's a lot of combat for four hours. I wouldn't be able to manage that with my group.
Oh no an adventuring day is not necessarily happening in a single session, it can take less or more sessions to complete an adventuring day. I rarely run that many easy encounter in a day though as a DM i prefer difficulty variation to change tempo so it usually always end up less than that due to different encounter difficulty. If i sums up i generally average 3-5 encounters / day and sometimes less or more.
The questions posed are difficult to answer numerically, as my true preference is for variety. I believe that a typical Adventuring Day (i.e. the space between long rests) is at its best when combat encounters within it vary widely, from nuisance 'chaff' encounters with low-rent wandering/random monsters to drawn-out slugfests against multiple waves of mooks to lethal duels against powerful foes. My loose preference is for longer encounters that allow for greater opportunity for tactical gameplay and decision-making, as well as encounters that force the players to think outside of the Attack Action, but if every encounter was a 6+-round brainteaser even I'd get tired of it. Short, snappy fights where the PCs walk over some unfortunate mook are a good palate cleanser between big, chunky, meaningful battles, and can serve as a way of showing how far the PCs have come. Or, in the case of overwhelming enemy odds, how far the PCs have to go.
The only one I can answer with certainty is the Climactic Battle question, and that one's easy. A Climactic Battle is at its absolute best when the PCs didn't know they were going to win it right up until the HDYWDT moment. Climactic Battles should be tense sphincter-clenching nail-biting affairs where every whiffed roll is agonizing and every successful (friendly) saving throw is cause for spontaneous cheering. The PCs should never feel in control of such fights, and if they get out of it in any condition except beaten shitless and at the end of their rope, it wasn't climactic enough.
The reason why so much of Curse of Strahd feels so harrowing (as well as a lot of early Descent into Avernus) is that it's spending a lot of time in that third mode. It's not giving you time to rest. Fitting for the atmosphere those adventures are trying to evoke. Characters are less powerful because they have less access to their powers.
Something like Storm King's Thunder spends more time in the first mode. You're in towns, on roads, or aboard vessels, and nothing is forcing you to overextend yourself. It's almost cozy, between dungeons. And you enter the harder modes on purpose, knowing that's what you're doing.
I like variety too. I think the midpoint around which it should oscillate is probably harder than most people think they want. But that's just one person's opinion.
Still haven't answered the poll yet. I'm not sure what numbers I want to commit to.
I'm absolutly on board with this last sentiment.
It seems to take the same amount of in-game time to burn through the day's xp budget regardless of the session length. If you choose to have 3-4 medium/hard encounters per session, you'll probably need two or three sessions to complete the equivalence of one in-game day. Whereas, should you choose one absolute whomper of a deadly encounter, it will probably be the only combat encounter of the game day, as the PCs will most likely be at, past, or near death's door and need a pick-me-up, but will only require one session to resolve.
Your game's pacing and environment will likely drive the number of encounters that you have in any given in-game day.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
I don't agree, though it depends on the degree to which you do theater of the mind, because any time you are breaking out the battle map that's an extra 15-30 minutes of setup. However, even without that, because of how adjusted xp work, more smaller fights take more time.
Let's say for simplicity you're just throwing equal-CR monsters at a party of 4. To fill out a day's budget, you can use 6 encounters of 1, or 2 encounters of 2, or 1 encounter of 3. The latter two choices have fewer total hit points of monsters to chew through, and because area effects exist, you also go through those hit points faster. You're likely to take a bit more time resolving every person's turn, but it doesn't make up for the second option being something like half as many total rounds of combat.
So, the statement is less about how long it takes you at the table and more about how many of these encounters one might be able to afford during an in-game day. If, say a party were dungeon delving and had 10-15 areas of light resistance to work out, one might expect that to take a couple, maybe three sessions. But the PCs will have only experienced one to three hours of in-game time. And by the end, will potentially need to sleep off their boo-boo's. On the other side of that, if you throw out a punishingly lethal encounter the PCs will have only needed less than a minute of in-game time to nearly, mostly, or all-the-way become unalive and need to sleep off the dent in their skull. They likely won't be doing any other successful encountering that day and will be the only encounter for the session.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
A character gains uses of things like spells as he levels up. At a certain point you have too many of them to be able to blow them all in just one fight even if you try. And that point is different for different classes but none of them take more than, say, 5 levels to get there. A 5th level spell user has 9 spells for crying out loud. That's a long, long combat, wouldn't you say? A party of 4 against a single boss; if you count the boss's legendary actions as turns, that's between (6x9=54) and (8x9=72) turns of play just to run out of spell slots. (Even if you don't, it's 45 turns.) Assuming you cast a spell every single turn. At level 5. And it only goes up from there.
I don't know about any of you, but I'd much rather break up 60 turns of combat across multiple different battles, than have to marathon them all at once.
In a campaign, I like to have different "modes" of adventuring days. These modes might shift during or between sessions, but reflects a shift in gear/pressure on the group:
- Coasting: Probably only 1 or 2 encounters in a day. The party is reminded that there are creatures out there, but they are on top of it. Well supplied, resting. This can be common for generic travel between important locations. These sessions also tend to be more RP heavy ones.
- Sidequest: Break off from main story arches often include local situations or locations where it ramps up to 4-6 encounters. There's often one of those signifcantly more dangerous than others. Ideally, these fit into a single session (4 hours), but that isn't always the case.
- Full danger: Something big is going on - and it is dangerous. Multiple (1-3) large scale encounters before there's an opportunity for a short rest, followed by another 2 cycles like this. Often pushing through the night into next day without an option to long rest. This drains the reserves and forces to party to rely in ingenuity, gear, potions, and scrolls to make it through. I often start pushing in exhaustion in situations like this as well as they are designed to push the party to the limit.
By cycling these modes, I try to provide something for different play styles, and a sense of different levels of threat in the world at different times. It's tricky to balance the full danger mode, and sometimes have to be done more fluid if a particular encounter really drains them more than anticipated (bad rolls, mix match of group skills and monster features).
I like between 6-8 encounters in an adventuring day or 3-4 deadly ones that last at l'est 4-5 rounds, less for easier encounters and more for harder ones. Climatic fight should be challenging with one or more characters dying or dead and which could last longer than 6-8 rounds.
How long are your sessions?
Between 4-6 hours why?
That's a lot of combat for four hours. I wouldn't be able to manage that with my group.
Oh no an adventuring day is not necessarily happening in a single session, it can take less or more sessions to complete an adventuring day. I rarely run that many easy encounter in a day though as a DM i prefer difficulty variation to change tempo so it usually always end up less than that due to different encounter difficulty. If i sums up i generally average 3-5 encounters / day and sometimes less or more.
The questions posed are difficult to answer numerically, as my true preference is for variety. I believe that a typical Adventuring Day (i.e. the space between long rests) is at its best when combat encounters within it vary widely, from nuisance 'chaff' encounters with low-rent wandering/random monsters to drawn-out slugfests against multiple waves of mooks to lethal duels against powerful foes. My loose preference is for longer encounters that allow for greater opportunity for tactical gameplay and decision-making, as well as encounters that force the players to think outside of the Attack Action, but if every encounter was a 6+-round brainteaser even I'd get tired of it. Short, snappy fights where the PCs walk over some unfortunate mook are a good palate cleanser between big, chunky, meaningful battles, and can serve as a way of showing how far the PCs have come. Or, in the case of overwhelming enemy odds, how far the PCs have to go.
The only one I can answer with certainty is the Climactic Battle question, and that one's easy. A Climactic Battle is at its absolute best when the PCs didn't know they were going to win it right up until the HDYWDT moment. Climactic Battles should be tense sphincter-clenching nail-biting affairs where every whiffed roll is agonizing and every successful (friendly) saving throw is cause for spontaneous cheering. The PCs should never feel in control of such fights, and if they get out of it in any condition except beaten shitless and at the end of their rope, it wasn't climactic enough.
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I think overchord is doing it right.
The reason why so much of Curse of Strahd feels so harrowing (as well as a lot of early Descent into Avernus) is that it's spending a lot of time in that third mode. It's not giving you time to rest. Fitting for the atmosphere those adventures are trying to evoke. Characters are less powerful because they have less access to their powers.
Something like Storm King's Thunder spends more time in the first mode. You're in towns, on roads, or aboard vessels, and nothing is forcing you to overextend yourself. It's almost cozy, between dungeons. And you enter the harder modes on purpose, knowing that's what you're doing.
I like variety too. I think the midpoint around which it should oscillate is probably harder than most people think they want. But that's just one person's opinion.
Still haven't answered the poll yet. I'm not sure what numbers I want to commit to.
i like combat. But after the second hour i want to wrap it up and continue the story
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I'm in a campaign rn where my dm and I are trying to solve a mystery but i still get some combat