Rocket Launcher Tag vs. Padded Sumo.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:59 am

Okay Denizens, here's a part of the edition war that interests me in the abstract, so I'd like to hear some thoughts from alla yinz:

In a combat-focused RPG how long do you think a fight *should* last? How many rounds, how much in-game time, how much actual realtime out of the game session? Why?

Should all fights take about the same amount of time to resolve, or should some be longer or shorter? If so which should be longer/shorter and why? Should fights where the group of PCs takes on a single powerful antagonist take the same amount of time as fights where the group of PCs take on a roughly equal number of roughly equal-in-power-to-each-PC opponents and/or fighter where the group of PCs take on vastly superior numbers of much-weaker-than the PC opponents? Why or why not?

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:07 am

Fighting a single monster and grinding through a pile of hit points is probably more boring than fighting a horde and hacking through a pile of monsters, so fighting many small things can take longer than fighting one big thing.

Fights shouldn't all last the same amount of time.

Depending on what you want out of your game, each person should get to declare more or fewer actions. A game about political intrigues of 18th-century aristocrats can probably resolve fights duels with an initiative roll to see who can draw their pistol first. A game about heroic swordfights should probably involve more decisions. Games that use filler fights need shorter fights than games that don't.

For a D&D genre game, probably no more than three rounds for a single monster. Two rounds would work, too. One-rounding a boss monster doesn't have the same sense of accomplishment. Maybe five to eight rounds for a pure horde fight.

People deliberately playing turtle characters can have longer fights, of course.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:40 am

5-6 rounds a fight seems a fair amount of time with varying degrees based on the situation. If the party has gotten together to form the penultimate plan or its just a bunch of mooks they need to kill at the front door before the alarm can be raised 1 or 2 rounds. If its a normal fight with a sufficiently challenging but still comparatively weak foe 3-5 rounds. Anything at the party's level 5-6 rounds. Final fights, dramatic fights, etc should take up to but not over 10 rounds.

I don't like 4e's padded sumo approach because you're fighting one in every room. I wouldn't mind it if only the BBEG or their Dragon class minions had a bit of padding. But mooks an nameless characters should drop like flies before the PCs at every level while providing a mook level challenge. More trained minions should be able to lightly slap the PCs' chests but still fold once pushed. The Dragon class minion/cohort/black knights should put the PCs on their toes. And the Main Villains should be a true test of endurance and skill on the PCs

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:44 am

5 on average.

Exceptional Fastest Encounter: 3 turns (of whatever timeframe)
Exceptional Slowest Encounter: 10 turns (of whatever timeframe)

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:24 am

sigma999 wrote:5 on average.

Exceptional Fastest Encounter: 3 turns (of whatever timeframe)
Exceptional Slowest Encounter: 10 turns (of whatever timeframe)

I agree with this, though I would add that 10 turns would be for things like multiple waves of bad guys and horde fights. I could also see a 1 round fight, but I would like that to be something that was at least partially planned beforehand. Combat should take 10 minutes to an hour in out of game time. Exceptional fights could be faster, but I never want to see something slower.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:45 am

sigma999 wrote:5 on average.

Exceptional Fastest Encounter: 3 turns (of whatever timeframe)
Exceptional Slowest Encounter: 10 turns (of whatever timeframe)

Yeah, that's about right.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:22 am

Akula wrote: I agree with this, though I would add that 10 turns would be for things like multiple waves of bad guys and horde fights. I could also see a 1 round fight, but I would like that to be something that was at least partially planned beforehand. Combat should take 10 minutes to an hour in out of game time. Exceptional fights could be faster, but I never want to see something slower.

Right, I had that in mind too... a rare battle that perhaps PCs were unprepared, or woefully outmatched, yet proceed to fight anyway.
Ideally they would run, but whatever; they fought, they somehow beat it, but it took too fucking long.

As for the 1-round, it should be a once-in-a-campaign planned event.
Otherwise the NPCs will be pulling that shit too much.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:32 am

I think 4-6 rounds is a decent number. Everyone gets a decent amount of chances to affect the fight but its a small enough number that designing the game for interesting tactics isn't too hard. The longer fights should be the climatic ones, whether its against the barbarian horde or the Dragon isn't important.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:53 am

The ideal combat length is going to depend on a couple of things:

How long before the PCs are "mopping up" or spamming the same maneuvers because they've run out of other options?

This is a big concern in 4e. Basically, if you spend more than a couple of consecutive rounds at the end spamming your favorite at-will power, combat's going to be boring. This is why WotC's failure to figure out monster HP correctly is a big deal. In 4e, even high-level combat shouldn't last more than about 8 rounds because of the number of encounter and at-will powers you get.

What kind of game are you running?
If you're into Hack 'n' Slash, combat can last longer because that's all the game's about. There's no point in hurrying the end of a fight because all you're going to do is immediately get the PCs into another fight.

If, OTOH, you're into advancing a cooperative storyline, you want combat to be shorter, both in game time and real time. After all, the quicker combat is resolved, the more you can advance the plot.

Now, the funny thing is, I'm not sure where D&D really fits into this equation. It's historically been a hack 'n' slash oriented game, but one where you're expected to complete a particular sequence of encounters (the "dungeon") in a reasonable amount of time. The classic "dungeon-crawl" paradigm creates a real tension in this area.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:36 am

The other concern is how long each person's actions will take. I'd personally rather each acting participant in a combat to take a short time conclude their actions quickly. Multiple attack/target resolution needs to be quicker so everyone else isn't sitting around for ages waiting for their turn. If turns feel shorter it is fine for there to be more of them. But waiting for one person to make seven attack and damage rolls (especially when you know there are 4 more doing the same) is more tedious than even spamming the same action over and over

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:46 am

I always suggest using multiple dice for attack routines. as long as the person is familiar with their bonuses then things should work out a bit faster.

violence in the media · Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:15 pm

I'm all over the map on this one. I think there should be some fights that are won in the surprise round, and other fights that should be running battles that rage through multiple rounds and rooms.

The God of War series of games is a pretty idealized example of this, where you can occassionally leap on a mook and immediately shove your sword through it's skull, you have fights against managable numbers of enemies, sometimes you have the hordes of enemies endurance challenge to plow through, and the boss battles are fucking epic.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:21 pm

I know what you mean! I took a look at a made adventure (not published) a few years ago that had a model of a giant or something rampaging through the city and because the adventure was a low level one you the PCs had to go through stages of weakening it before dealing the killing blows. It was structured in the adventure how it was supposed to go but I ended up scrapping it and letting my players do the job as they saw fit.

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:24 pm

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:The ideal combat length is going to depend on a couple of things:

How long before the PCs are "mopping up" or spamming the same maneuvers because they've run out of other options?

This is a big concern in 4e. Basically, if you spend more than a couple of consecutive rounds at the end spamming your favorite at-will power, combat's going to be boring. This is why WotC's failure to figure out monster HP correctly is a big deal. In 4e, even high-level combat shouldn't last more than about 8 rounds because of the number of encounter and at-will powers you get.

This. A fight can go on as long as it is not boring. When a fight is reduced to simple grinding with basic attacks and everyone knows how and roughly when it will end the fight has gone on for too long.

That's why I am leaning towards Rocket Launcher Tag - padded sumo is just too predictable.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:14 pm

On the other hand, fighting large numbers of critters in a battle results in a death spiral for the opposing side.

I really do not care for D&D's paradigm that fights should generally be to the death. Once you get an opposing force to around half-strength that's about when enemy forces should surrender or the battle should end in a rout. Unless your party is in similarly a bad shape, which is rarely the case, you're just wasting time on a forgone conclusion.

Monsters that don't surrender or run away should be less durable than those that do. Seriously, a zombie or a golem should go down like a chump once its buddies are missing.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:51 pm

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:Now, the funny thing is, I'm not sure where D&D really fits into this equation. It's historically been a hack 'n' slash oriented game, but one where you're expected to complete a particular sequence of encounters (the "dungeon") in a reasonable amount of time. The classic "dungeon-crawl" paradigm creates a real tension in this area.

While it is no doubt that D&D became a combat oriented game it is not clear that it was originally intended to be so. Non combat encounters were a major part of the initial feel of the game; going through wilderness, searching for stuff, etc. Combat was the most “detailed” because it was the most potentially complex with the other parts easily done with simple rules. Remember the original AD&D rules had weapons vs. armor class tables, facing rules, a percentile system for non weapon combat, etc. While there wasn’t an over arching story line most combats ended with searching and mapping and then more exploration.

Heath Robinson · Post by **Heath Robinson** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:19 pm

tzor wrote:While it is no doubt that D&D became a combat oriented game it is not clear that it was originally intended to be so. Non combat encounters were a major part of the initial feel of the game; going through wilderness, searching for stuff, etc. Combat was the most “detailed” because it was the most potentially complex with the other parts easily done with simple rules. Remember the original AD&D rules had weapons vs. armor class tables, facing rules, a percentile system for non weapon combat, etc. While there wasn’t an over arching story line most combats ended with searching and mapping and then more exploration.

Dude, Chainmail was a wargame.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:20 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:On the other hand, fighting large numbers of critters in a battle results in a death spiral for the opposing side.

I really do not care for D&D's paradigm that fights should generally be to the death. Once you get an opposing force to around half-strength that's about when enemy forces should surrender or the battle should end in a rout. Unless your party is in similarly a bad shape, which is rarely the case, you're just wasting time on a forgone conclusion.

Funny thing is, D&D used to do this. 1st edition and 'basic' D&D fights could hinge heavily on Morale checks. 2nd had it to a certain extent, but it largely went away in 3rd and apparently never occurred to anyone for 4th.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:44 pm

I think that rounds really don't matter so much in and of themselves. The actual amount of realtime devoted to combat in a session is probably the primary consideration for me.

I tend to game in 4-7 hour sessions. - and my group tends to be not all that focused on the game - these are social events with beer (and sometimes harder stuff) involved. If folks don't get to swap comic book, chat about nerd stuff and order chinese which will show up in the middle of the fight the gathering becomes less fun overall.

Any fight that takes more than a single session is really impractical, as the table is also used for other games during the week. Sure it's possible to use digital pictures to record the terrain and unit placement and to write down all totals, but the week (or two) between sessions greatly strains my group's immersion and tactical focus.

Furthermore, any fight that takes up a whole session had best be a big deal fight, something that concludes a quest, character hook, or plot arc. And by "takes up the whole session" I mean is takes up enough that there is not time for another fight - and since even in my current heavy-combat low-plot 4e dungeoncrawl game there's a notable amount of time devoted to non-combat activities like mapping, healing, looting strategizing, that's usually going to boil down to most fights that take more than half the session.

So for my tastes and my current group, the maximum time a fight should take is one full session of 4-7 hours, and anything that takes even half of that time had best be a big deal sort of fight. And as my group is more relaxed than focused, it's probably best to plan towards the low end, looking at around a 4 hour maximum and no more than about 2 hours for standard fights.

Now working backwards to rounds:

In a group with 3 players and a DM - that's 4 people, and a 2 hour fight yields 30 min of realtime for decision making and digression for each of them. If standard fights take 3 rounds, that gives each players 10 min to plan and execute each of their turns. If standard fights instead take 10 rounds, that gives each player only 3 minutes to plan and execute each of their turns - which is generally adequate if they have been paying attention prior to their turn and are aware of the relevant rules and bonuses for the actions they attempt, but starts to get tight if they are a new player, over-beered or have to re-calculate bonuses.

But if the same group goes up to 7 players and a DM, then the same 2 hour fight yields only 15 min of realtime for decision making and digression for each player. If standard fights take 3 rounds, that only gives each player 5 minutes to plan and execute each of their turns. If standard fights instead take 10 rounds, that gives each player only 90 seconds per turn - and to even do that means you're gaming with table-ettiquette such as: DM with a stopwatch, snooze-lose, touch-move, always go by the bonus on your sheet, always roll all dice at once, and NFL-style instant reply pay-to-play limitations on rules lookups.

Those timeslices and logistics are pretty clear cut, and they point out that long fights are more of an issue with larger groups, which seems to weigh heavily against the Padded Sumo side of the scale.

However, rocket-launcher tag has a less clear cut problem. It's not the mathematic realities of turn-taking that become a limit here, it's the subjective feelings of individual players. If standard fights take 3 rounds or less, then in a 3-player + GM group, it will usually take only about 9 rounds for the PCs to win, and each PC will usually get about 3 actions. However, if an individual player is savvy or lucky enough to have their chractr perform at double average effectiveness on the first two rounds (due to criticals, vulnerabilities, well-placed AoOs, planning or just min-maxing) they've accomplished 4/9ths of the fight, single-handedly defeating roughly half of the opposition, and this can happen before
before some of the other characters have even gotten their second action. In a system where this sort of swingyness is common (most RPGs I've ever played) and where it can take a round or more just to get into position for combat (most RPGs I have ever played), this can and does lead to alienation by the players of the other characters. "What am I even doing here if the mage can just fireball them all before I get into reach?"

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:51 pm

Even 2 hours for a single fight seems ridiculously long to me. Perhaps it was growing up with 1st/2nd edition, but big fights should take maybe an 45 minutes to an hour, with standard fights taking no more than half that.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:04 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:I think that rounds really don't matter so much in and of themselves. The actual amount of realtime devoted to combat in a session is probably the primary consideration for me.

I agree, although with the caveat that performing the same action 50 times in a row is boring, whether each "round" takes one second or 5 minutes.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:51 pm

I played a game where the average combat took 3-5 hours to resolve. I never want to have to do that again. It did teach me to be ready for my turn when it came up. Generally with all my rolls done and witnessed so I could just tell the GM my actions and numbers.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:18 pm

Voss wrote:Even 2 hours for a single fight seems ridiculously long to me. Perhaps it was growing up with 1st/2nd edition, but big fights should take maybe an 45 minutes to an hour, with standard fights taking no more than half that.

23-30 minutes for a fight? Really?

How many players do you have, and how quickly do they take their turns? Are you using minis/terrain or are you using completely abstract positioning? Is everybody in your group already very familiar with the system and good about knowing their relevant bonuses and how their new maneuvers/powers/spells work? Are you all hardcore focused on the game with zero digressions?

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:24 pm

Voss wrote:Even 2 hours for a single fight seems ridiculously long to me. Perhaps it was growing up with 1st/2nd edition, but big fights should take maybe an 45 minutes to an hour, with standard fights taking no more than half that.

Yeah, 2 hours for a fight should be really rare IMO, except for maybe the final boss showdown at the end.

Sma · Post by **Sma** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:33 pm

I'm with Josh here, but would aim for even shorter amounts of realtime to resolve a fight.
For a group of 4 players with a quickly drawn sketch for a map and no counting of squares for positions I'd like the following:

Overcoming a few pushovers (Beatcops, Gangers, some Goblins or animal intelligence threats with no special powers, trapmonsters) should be done in 10-20 minutes and should not require real tactical finesse since they mostly serve to show off how awesome the characters are. These fights are comparatively rare so if neccesary they might take up to 30 minutes but that starts to strain the time budget.

Facing real threats should take no more than 40 minutes. These should be the bread and butter fights that work better with smart tactics, but still run the risk of incapacipating a player if he decides to play dumb. Gangers with magic & matrix support, Monsters guarding an entrance, equiv CR opponents

Fights that were worked up either because they end a 5+ session adventure, took up a fair amount of planning to set up, should still try to be over before 90 minutes are up. These are massive undertakings and should be the outlier.

These times should take into account that one of the four players will always be distracted, and everyone might be either tired or slightly drunk.

For the pushover fight I'm fine with not everyone getting to act at similar effectiveness, but all other fights need to take setup times (move into position, draw weapon etc...) into account. Off the hip 2 rounds seem fine (setup & oneshot, or two hindering attacks), giving 2 minutes to each player (twice that for the GM since he tends to control more than one character) after the overhead of initiative/suprise and getting the dice ready.

Normal fights could take 3-4 turn depending on if you'd like to give a player an extra minute to act in the face of a more difficult challenge or you want to keep the time at 2 minutes per player, or add more time to asses the more challenging situation.

Boss fights should allot a slightly longer time for each player, and even more for the GM. So going with 60 minute fight, you'll still want to keep the fight to 3-5 turns. Keeping the options simple for each character would allow for a bigger number of turns, while keeping the duration of the combat stable.