“Combat Takes Too Long!”
You Say That Like It’s a Bad Thing
Here I go again. Falling down the rabbit hole of D&D complaints. This one isn’t even exclusive to 4th edition.
Combat takes too long!
Breaking out a battle map slows everything down!
D&D was best when it was theater of the mind!
Counting squares is too slow, can we just use ranges instead?!
It seems the holy grail of roleplaying game design is to make combat run as quickly as possible. But, if combat is so horrible, then why are we playing the game in the first place? If we are having fun, then who cares how long the combat takes?
Now, I can understand some constraints for a board game where you want to have a total runtime of 30 minutes to an hour at most. But we are not talking about a board game. With D&D, it is a badge of honor to brag about how you have been part of a campaign that has been running for years.
The first season of Critical Role had 115 episodes and ran for more than 2 years. Seasons Two and Three each had more than 120 episodes and ran for more than 3 years!!
And these are not piddly 1 hour episodes. Each episode of Critical Role clocks in at a minimum of 3 hours. That is, on the low-side, more than 360 hours of game play per season. If you are looking for a comparison, the entire Game of Thrones saga was told in 73 hours!!!
And we are going to seriously complain because a combat encounter took 15 minutes!??!
So why all this hate about lengthy combat?
Let’s take a look…
After this message…
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Let me start off this rant, er…conversation, by sharing one of my crowning achievements as a Dungeon Master.
Several years back, when OldeGreybeard was still young and clean-shaven, I was running Storm King’s Thunder at a game store. There was a combat encounter early in the adventure that set the stage for what was to come. I planned it all out. Maps. Scenery. Minis. The whole deal. As a DM, I am always nervous about whether the players will enjoy what I had planned and I knew this would not be a quick encounter.
Within the first fifteen minutes or so of the session, the combat had begun. This involved a couple groups of goblins, some archers with flaming arrows on a wall, a grain silo on the verge of exploding, and obstacles in the form of trees and fences. Halfway through the encounter, reinforcements showed up that changed the nature of the battle. Some enemies surrendered. Others fought to the death. The players were using every tool available to them to survive.
And, just like that, three hours had gone by. This single combat encounter had taken the entire session. And it was amazing. They players loved it and I still think back on it as one of the most fun encounters I have been a part of.
This is not to say that all of my combat encounters are worthy of write-ups in Dungeon Magazine. I have had my fair share of clunkers. But I think it is important not to generalize.
Combat is not bad because it is long. Combat is bad, when it is bad.
For those wondering, in just a minute I will start singing the praises of 4th edition tactical combat, but let me first take a moment to tick off all the OSR loyalists out there.
Theater of the Mind Combat is the Worst Combat.
Ooo. I know. Hot take. Yell at me, constructively, in the comments. But what I really mean is that theater of the mind has the most potential to create bad combat.
When you play theater of the mind, you have to generalize a lot of the things that can make combat interesting—specifically, terrain and distances. You must limit the amount of stuff on the battlefield because there is only so much people can be expected to keep track of and visualize. So you end up with a watered-down encounter that could have been amazing on a map, but is just meh in your mind. Sure, you got it done in two minutes, but is the goal to go fast or to have fun?
Before you stone me, there is nothing wrong with theater of the mind. It can be done very well. And groups that use it extensively can certainly learn how to make it work for really complex encounters. Sometimes the situation is such where you do not need a map and you can provide all the necessary detail through descriptions.
It has its place, but it is often offered up as this alternative to using a battle map that makes the game better. But, theater of the mind is not some magic solution that makes bad combat suddenly become good. Use it when it makes sense and use a map when that makes sense.
But remember that a bad encounter will still be a bad encounter no matter how you run it.
Okay. Let’s talk about 4th edition tactical combat.
There are a lot of things that can make combat good, but bad combat essentially boils down to a single reason. It is boring.
Why was my three-hour combat encounter so much fun? Because there were a lot of elements that the players had to navigate. There were terrain challenges. Multiple groups of enemies. The risk of an explosion that could wipe everyone out. I even had some of the enemies not be as zealous as the others and they wanted to surrender and even fight alongside the party. There was a lot going on, but not in a confusing way.
Everyone in the party had something they could sink their teeth into. Everyone had to work together. The circumstances changed during the fight. Players had to strategize with each other. Teamwork was critical. At no point did this encounter devolve into two creatures standing in one place hitting each other with a weapon until one of them died.
4th edition, here it comes, is excellent at all of this. Terrain. Traps. Hazards. The structure of these elements in 4e allows them to be easily added to the encounter. Movement that requires shifts to avoid attacks requires players to be more mindful of their actions. Powers mean players are rarely just swinging a weapon. There is always some sort of tactical edge they are looking for. It was built for the battle map and it excels at it.
Whether the encounter is an epic that consumes the whole session or a run in with some goblins, use all the tools available to make it interesting first. Don’t worry about how long it takes.
For my final twist, I should reveal that the example encounter I mentioned earlier was actually played using 5e. While 4e has all the tools needed to make combat of any length amazing, interesting combat is possible in any game.
Those complaining that combat takes too long are fixated on the wrong issue. The joke with D&D is that it is a game where a three-day journey takes 10 minutes and a 10 minute fight takes 2 hours. Don’t hate on it. Lean into it and focus on making them the best 2 hours of D&D you can imagine.
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Yeah boring combat like I think wet noodle combat is what is terribly unfun. Part of 4e's charm was that your attacks did stuff in addition to rolling your d6 for damage, that way when you roll the 1 for damage at least you got something else out of it. The most painful combat is one where it's all but won but everyone is rolling low and just sorta waiting for the enemy to die.
My best gaming experiences were with whiteboards which are probably just cheapo versions of maps and minis. Never liked grids because there's no killjoy like, "Oh, sorry, you're one hex away compared to your movement" "Huh? Ok, let me recount...." like just let the player engage the enemy or get behind cover already.
I've been DMing long campaigns myself and i agree. DnD 5e combat can be slow but a lot of times the boredom comes from a boring encounter.
Flat terrain, predictable enemies and events.
A lot of this falls to the DM's preparations.
Sometimes a player does take too long making choices and bogs down the rhythm there could be.
In most cases the system isn't the issue, the story is or the players are.