Since the end of my last game I’ve been thinking a lot about the pace of combat, sessions and campaigns. Wile I strongly prefer sandbox style games where outcomes are dictated solely by player choice I’m slowly warming the the idea that taking some responsibility for tempo is important to better myself as a DM.

This realization has been jumbled up over the past few weeks with thoughts about my player survey results, dice systems, RPGs and more. I’m left with questions.

• Is the d20 system too pass/fail?
• Is it fun to miss rolls?
• Should I run 5E since my players like it¹?
• Can I run a 5E I actually enjoy?
• Can 5E combat with 7 players fit into a 10 minute round?²
• Do I want to continue developing my own setting?

I went into the session before last of Jeff’s game with all of this on my mind. That night I watched Bryan fail every roll. As a fellow player I was on edge since Bryan’s failures and successes impact the party’s survival. As a DM all I could think about was how frustrating it must be for Bryan to miss all night.

I think this is an experience I could only have as a player. It’s influenced my thinking and research for the week prior to this post.

Since the pace of sessions and campaigns comes down predominantly to how I think about and prepare games I’ll address those elements elsewhere. The rest of this article is about the speed of combat.

The speed of combat comes down to two factors. How complex are the rules? How quickly can the players and DM execute their turn given those rules?

For the sake of the rest of this discussion let’s grant that we’ll continue to play some flavor of D&D which means that on each round of combat the player may hit or miss and that hitting is more fun than missing. Given these assumptions the variable we’ll want to control for is time. How often will the player have the opportunity to roll and hopefully hit. Lets call this Time To Next Attack, TTNA.

Let’s also assume the ideal length of time for the execution of a single combat round is ≤ 10 minutes² making our maximum TTNA 10. With 7 players each would need to take their turn in about 1 minute leaving the DM with 3 minutes to handle the monsters.

Is this possible in 5E?¹ Maybe³. Under the above ideal conditions a TTNA 10 combat lasting 10 rounds would take an 1 hour and 40 minutes. Ouch!

Considering the conditions of my last 5E game—5E RAW using Fantasy Grounds with 7 players—a TTNA 10 seems breakneck. Unfamiliarity with Fantasy Grounds, technical issues, the complexities of 5E and the need for enough monsters to challenge 7 players leads to rounds closer to TTNA 15 – 20. That’s 2.5 to 3 hours for a 10 round combat. Double ouch!

Here I had to ask myself, “How can I make this go faster?” I remembered videos I’d seen in the past about this and turned to Dungeons Craft for advice.⁴

For those of you not inclined to watch the videos I’ll sum up. If you cut a bunch of rules out of 5E and add some cool extra dice combat plays much faster. It sounds fun.

But if there’s something I learned about myself over the course of writing this blog it’s that I prefer systems that I can add to instead of systems I have to subtract from. So instead of running out to the store for some fresh sharpies to fix the problems in the 5E PHB I’m going to look at achieving a TTNA 10 in other D&Ds.

I ran my last game using AD&D and did my best to do initiative as described in my article AD&D for 5E Players: Combat, but Mostly Initiative. A typical round started with me asking, “Archers are you going to shoot, fighters are you going to swing, casters are you going to cast?”. It may seem onerous to set up but but after you play with the same group for a while it’s fairly quick. I think it’s fair to say we averaged a TTNA 10 during that game.⁶ Which is still an 1 hour and 40 minutes for a 10 round combat.⁵

And still that’ not fast enough for me.

A few years back I ran Caves of Chaos for some friends using the Basic rules. Initiative in Basic is simple. Roll d6 for both sides, high roll goes first, ties go simultaneously. Rounds go in the same order each time; Movement, Missiles, Magic, Melee. When I ran those combats (in person) I’d simply say, “You need to hit AC 5,” and let the players go at the same time.

I think we can agree that if a human can process 2 or 3 players rolling dice at the same time software will handle simultaneous rolls at least as efficiently. Given this I think a TTNA as low as 5 is quite possible.

Modern D&D certainly provides the players a lot of fun options but the exercising of those options comes at a cost in time. When it comes to controlling the pace of combat I can’t see a better way of making it faster than moving to a simpler D&D.

A Funny Thing Happened

While I was writing this post Dungeon Craft released a new video that makes a similar point. Watch it here Former D&D Lead says Bonus Actions suck. I have opinions.

My Answers

• Is the d20 system too pass/fail?⁶ Maybe
• Is it fun to miss rolls? No
• Should I run 5E since my players like it? Maybe
• Can I run a 5E I actually enjoy? No
• Can 5E combat with 7 players fit into a 10 minute round?(1) No
• Do I want to continue developing my own setting? Maybe

Foot Notes

1. I made the decision to stop running 5E a while back but that came with a large dose of guilt because my players like it. Due to that I’ve been considering running 5E again.
2. In my Combat Deep Dive survey the players all indicated they’d be willing to wait up to 10 minutes to take their turn in combat. Keep in mind the 10 minute round is an arbitrary guess at what we think our limit of patience is.
3. Admittedly this is a rough estimation based on my experience running 5E for various groups for 9 years. Given 7 in-person players with expertise in 5E a TTNA 10 is quite possible. Given 7 players who aren’t experts and need to ask, “How do I do that with the software,” is quite a different story.
4. Mostly older Dungeon Craft videos, The Rules I Don’t Use, The Rules I Use and The Problem with Crunch
5. Not accounting for the lower hit points for characters and monsters which reduced the likelihood of 10 round combats to begin with.
6. I’d also like to run Vaesen and Mothership.