Over so fast


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On another thread a few players have said that combat normaly only last 4 rounds or so and i was wondering if thats the norm for other groups
As it seems a bit to quick to me

Scarab Sages

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I wish combat would last 4 rounds.

The groups I'm in, most times the bad guys are dead before they get their second action.


If you want one to last longer, stagger things by not putting all of your pieces on the board at once. Have reinforcements arrive from another location drawn by the noise in round three, etcetera.


In my table, a normal combat normally will be 2-4 rounds. I have seen some appropiate CR encounters on 1 round, and some last more than 6, but those extremes are rare. Sometimes on 3 rounds a combat will not be finished yet, but al least it will be clear who is winning.


For the most part, 3-4 rounds seems to be the norm for me, but on high levels, if things goes unexpected, it could last to 10, or even more rounds.


Three round sis normal, occasional battles go on much longer, and some are over instantly. IRL, most spontaneous fights end in 20 seconds.


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In my experience in all of the games I've run or played in for my entire gaming career (35 yrs), combats lasting more than five rounds are uncommon, and combats lasting more than ten rounds are virtually unheard of.

The vast majority of combat lasts from three to six rounds, with the majority of those tending to be mop-up after the third or fourth round with the outcome already decided.

It is much more common for combat to be over in two rounds than it is for combat to last more than six.

Usually if combat lasts more than four rounds it's because reinforcements have arrived during the fight.

Our group is not a bunch of power gamers, and we do run commercial modules about 50% of the time, but I've never noticed much of a difference in combat between the commercial stuff and our home-brewed stuff.

The one caveat I'll put out here is that at least half of our gaming group are pretty savvy wargamers who understand basic tactics and we've got a couple of players who are superior wargamers who understand and can employ synergistic tactics that include force multipliers, concentrated firepower and battlefield control. In most cases the only time we really find ourselves in trouble is if we have been ambushed or misunderstood the power of an enemy.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

1. Buff/Move Round
2. Rocket Tag Round
3. Them or Us Round
4. Mopping Up Round

Yeah, seems about the norm for my games.

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

In the groups i'm in combat is usually about 4-6 rounds, sometimes longer, but only because whenever I am remotely near a d20, attack rolls never get higher than a 4.

Therefore combat consists of everyone whiffing at each other until the spellcasters can deal enough auto-hit spell damage to kill the enemy.


It depends on what I have in mind when I design a combat encounter, but 3-6 rounds is what I aim for in non-story battles, in ambushes I spread the enemies out and they flee when defeat is certain, but story(important) battles I design with low hp minions to drain some actions from the PCs.

As a player; we did once finish the "huge" climactic final battle in the surprise round+first two player rounds with some lucky rolls(triple crits with an empowered 'scorching ray'[cold] agianst an effreti) - the session ended about two hours before planned.

So planning isn't everything.


The only time that I recall a PFS combat scenario taking more than 4 rounds was one where the enemy was separated from us by a chasm, and we had to fight our way past summoned monsters in choke points. If my wizard had been high enough level to have flight, our if I had brought in my jumpy ninja,I could have probably shut the combat down a couple rounds earlier.

This is one of the reasons that standard summoning annoys me; burn a full roundto bring something out when the combat may be over in two rounds.


ericthetolle wrote:


This is one of the reasons that standard summoning annoys me; burn a full roundto bring something out when the combat may be over in two rounds.

Druid shamans can summon their preferred animal type in a standard action. But more generally, my druid summons quite a bit. She has a lesser rod of extend so her summons last twice as long (up to third level anyway). So we scout and she summons her animals in advance of combat. This has lots of benefits, not the least of which is that it gives the party more creatures to attack in a surprise round.

The best implementation of this I recall was the time she summoned a couple of rhinos out of hearing of a dragon and then we started combat with two charging rhinos... Good times.


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Action Economy really dictates a lot of why some combats are over so fast(yeah yeah, we all know this). I've seen too many DM's just toss one big bad "boss" encounter at the players. The players, 90%+ of the time, simply overwhelm the encounter by having so many actions; simultaneously buffing, attacking, defending, healing, etc, while the BBEG gets to maybe move and attack onces or twice. A common mistake is to ramp up the CR of the BBEG, and you wind up with an un-hittable wall that one-shots the PC's.

Just adding a couple mooks/thugs/henchman can do wonders to make encounters last a little bit longer. Anything that soaks up a PC's action, prolongs the lifespan of the BBEG.

That said, I still put the occasional single-monster fights to my group. But, I already know ahead of time that this will be over soon. Sometimes you want quick, flashy encounters, to keep the blood pumping, keep the xp coming, keeps the players involved, and uses up some of their precious resources.... *evil grin*

If every encounter was a 10+ round all-out battle-royale, with tons of thugs, the game would drag. Gotta switch it up from time to time.


It my experience it depends on the amount of defenses present on both sides. If both bunches are defensively strong, then it can drag out. There won't be a lot of hits or spells getting past SR. However lots of people build without defenses so you end up with pure rocket tag, and combats are over in a flash.

Of course it can also just come down to the dice deciding for things to drag out. I've seen that as well.


4-5 for us.

I actually had my players on the run with sweaty handfuls of dice for one encounter (that took place in a volcano) that lasted 2 minutes in-game.

Then a chase scene running from lava occurred.


Depending on the intended challenge for the encounter(s), 4-5 rounds may be "about right" or "too long". I think it's a good idea, at all levels, to every once in awhile throw in a ridiculously easy encounter. The party are heroes, a cut above the common man (at least in my consideration and campaign world). This means that a level 1 Fighter is going to be vastly superior to a veteran soldier; a sergeant of the royal guard would give him a run for his money, but in general, a sergeant of the royal guard isn't a commoner, whereas your average footman is. The level 1 Fighter may have started his/her life out as a commoner, but their training far exceeds that received by your average member of the local army. A footman is trained in the use of a couple weapons at best, enough to melee once units crash together, and to possibly shore up a line of pikemen. Cavalry is skilled with the use of weapons from horseback, as well as how to ride a horse and properly wear armor appropriate for the horse (to be honest, plate armor seems like it would be murder on a horse, but I suppose a heavy war horse is appropriate), but that doesn't mean they can pick up any weapon and use it with equal proficiency. Your mileage may vary depending on how historically accurate you want to be; in your campaign, level 1 Fighters may be equivalent to your run-of-the-mill soldier, and the sergeant may be closer to a 10th level Fighter. A lieutenant may be in the low to mid teens, and a general may be a 20th level Fighter.

I try not to design my worlds around "level zones". Sometimes a dragon is sleeping far beneath the ground not far from where the 1st level party is adventuring, and if they happen to go through the right tunnels, they may find themselves in over their heads.

Likewise, sometimes a band of kobolds may have set up a small cavern base to raid local villages, and may not know a 14th level band of adventurers tends to move throughout the area to keep things under control when they aren't off gallivanting across multiple realities. The party won't get any XP if they run up against these kobolds, and the whole "nest" of them may be taken out by a fireball thrown by a petulant Wizard who's irritated that he/she was bothered in the first place, but it keeps the world feeling more "real" (as much as a fantasy world can), and lets the players get off on the use of their power every once in awhile. Much like high-level players on a PvP-oriented realm in an MMO, sometimes you just want to go lay waste to something that you know hasn't the slightest chance in the Nine Hells of resisting you.

I would say that if you aren't dealing with a party of munchkins, a CR-appropriate encounter would, in general, take 4-5 rounds to resolve.


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It should be noted that most of the encounters in our groups last 4-6 rounds because that's the way we like them.

I do not enjoy two hour encounters, except for rare and special circumstances where the battle is truly epic. And the more that happens, the less epic it feels when it does.

As a GM I could certainly do any number of things to make combat faster or slower. I've gotten to the point that I almost unconsciously arrange combat so that most are short and to the point, with the odd running battle or BBEG encounter taking longer just to spice things up a bit.

A typical party in our group is five PCs and one or two NPC combatants (a cohort, animal companion, eidolon, etc.) So figure six creatures to manage. If the enemy is roughly the same number of combatants, that's 12 creatures to get through. Let's say that the GM is experienced and can run the NPCs three times as fast as the PCs. In general each PC needs at least a minute, sometimes two to get through their turn. Let's say 1.5 minutes.

Four rounds then becomes 4 * (6 * 1.5 + 6 * .5) minutes of pure combat. That's 48 minutes of combat. Even if we drop it to 1 minute per player, that's still 32 minutes of combat.

My goal in a 5 hr gaming session is two short and one medium encounter, so figure almost two hours of pure combat, with three hours for recovering HP, distributing loot, investigating, role playing, resting, shopping, etc.

It feels about right to me. So that's probably why it ends up that way.

Grand Lodge

Unless the map is huge and/or the PCs and NPCs are severely restricted in movement, most fights tend to last just a handful of rounds. There are exceptions, but on average I'd say 5-6 rounds, with most over in 3-4.


d20/D&D3/PF combat is VERY swingy. As Gorbacz says, it's rocket tag; whoever goes first and drops a big spell (let's be honest, it's always a spell) will win.

Scarab Sages

Zhayne wrote:
d20/D&D3/PF combat is VERY swingy. As Gorbacz says, it's rocket tag; whoever goes first and drops a big spell (let's be honest, it's always a spell) will win.

No

The groups I'm in, it is the barbarians consistently one-rounding everything.

Silver Crusade

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You're both wrong. The first one to throw the gnome wins.

Scarab Sages

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Gorbacz wrote:
You're both wrong. The first one to throw the gnome wins.

Umm....

I'm usually the one playing the gnome......

There will be no throwing of gnomes.


What if you throw the gnome into a bag of devouring? Can we all Scooby-Doo laugh afterwards?


Yeah. Wizards're more efficient when they make their BSF's able to slaughter everything.


I ran the DPR numbers for most of the level 1 iconics and NPC codex pregens against CR1 and CR3 opponents.

Most of the full BAB classes took out CR1 enemies in about 2 rounds and CR 3 enemies in 6-8 rounds. Most of the 3/4 BAB classes took 3 and 11-13 rounds respectively. With their best DPR, I.e. smiting, power attacking, TWFing, sneak attacking, etc.)

If you assume a party of 1 primary combatant, 2 secondary combatants and a support/wildcard character (your archetypical fighter, cleric, thief, magic user group) you come up with:

CR = APL goes down in 1 round (3/6 + 2/6 + 2/6 = 7/6 HP taken out in 1 round)

CR = APL +1 goes down in 3-4 rounds (3/24 + 2/24 + 2/24 = 7/24 HP/round = 4 rounds to kill if the mainliner would kill it in 8 rounds. Or 2/12 + 1/12 + 1/12 = 4/12 = 1/3HP/round for a 3 round kill with someone who can kill it them self in 6 rounds.)

So, with some (massive*) assumptions, it's reasonable to think that the game was balanced for 3-4-ish rounds of actual combat (maneuvering into position will extend this in unpredictable ways) in mind as "challenging" encounters.

*Assumptions: 1.) That the game is balanced around groups of 4 and the NPC pregens and iconics are at the intended power level; 2.) That the ratio between DPR and Monster HP remains constant; 3.) That the designers wanted to keep the length of fights constant as characters leveled; 4.) Probably tons of other things that I'm assuming under the hood but can't think of consciously.


Tirisfal wrote:
What if you throw the gnome into a bag of devouring? Can we all Scooby-Doo laugh afterwards?

Ruh Roh.


4 rounds give or take, occasionally shorter if it's a few weak creatures. The biggest notable exception was my most recent two games, at the bottom of the temple of elemental evil. 8th level party, with enough gear for 13th level characters. Versus: 3 or 4 hill giants, 3 ettins, 8 gargoyles, 14 bugbears, around a dozen ogres, a CR 8 mystic theurge, a CR 8 wizard, a CR 8 cleric, and a CR 7 caster of some sort.

Thanks to a scroll of Wall of Force, that was two combats of CR 13 or so. (otherwise, more like CR 16 with a retreat after a few rounds) That took two full 4 hour sessions of a little over 10 rounds each. Once in a great while that sort of thing is fine, but I'm glad it doesn't happen on a regular basis.


3-4 rounds sounds about right.

We recently had one that lasted 7 rounds, but that was because I was like "My Barbarian has a Fort save of +26 when raging vs spells, I can take this Stinking Cloud" and I rolled a Nat 1 on the save. =/

It ended in 2 rounds after I stopped puking my guts out, mostly because of our two major damage dealers I'm the only one with Pounce (the Alchemonkmagighter was having issues because the spellcaster guy kept running away, and the guy kept rolling like 17+ on all his saving throws vs everything, once the Sorcerer stopped puking HIS guts out).

But that's a severe rarity on top of a rarity. If Zix had gotten off all of his attacks without getting shafted by good saves from the guy or the caster had passed his Fort save (he failed by 1, but it was like minimum rounds) or the Dire Tiger combo (Druid and AC) had had better Attack/Damage rolls, it would've been over in 3-4 again.


Under three rounds is a waste. At that point, why bother with the setup? I like 4-6 rounds, and I don't mind ten if it can stay dynamic.


It has been my experience that most players greatly overestimate the number of rounds of combat they just went through. I have had some situations where I'll ask the group how many rounds and I'll hear "I don't know, a dozen?" when the answer is five, maybe six.

I suspect a lot of people who think their combat takes a lot of rounds might be surprised if they actually count them in game.


I think a lot of people go by "When was the last time I acted?" and sometimes they'll have a slight memory lapse when they're taken like an AoO or have to make a bunch of saves in a round and assume another round has passed. (I do this too sometimes)


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tony gent wrote:
On another thread a few players have said that combat normaly only last 4 rounds or so and i was wondering if thats the norm for other groups

Absolutely not--4 rounds is way more than I usually see.

I would say 2 rounds is probably the most common duration. 1 and 3 are about equally likely after that. 4 is pretty rare, but it has happened. I've never seen a fight that didn't involve reinforcements/mid-combat ambushers last more than 5 rounds.

Single enemies (boss type enemies and the like) never last more than 2 rounds. GMs whose single enemies last longer have cheated extensively to get that result (which is their right, but still). I don't bother, every "boss" has minions or I accept that he will die quickly.

Rocket Tag is definitely more of a sprint than a marathon.


My PF group encoutnered this just last night. Went up against a single, big bad monster on a narrow bridge. Party spellcasters buffed our Barbarian to ridiculous extremes(Keen weapon, Haste, Bless, Enlarge, etc) and they nearly womped this thing in one round. Only took two rounds of attacks from the barbarian(two misses), along with one arrow from the ranger, and this beast(4 CR's higher than party average) went down. My character(in medium armor) wasn't even able to get up to the fight, before the thing went down.

This was an encounter in a printed module, not the DM's design, but I'm hoping the DM takes some mental notes.


It's been too long since I've gamed with my group, but we usually see combat over in 3 rounds. Unless there are a lot of mooks.

I don't mind short combats when they're not major encounters. I prefer major and boss encounters to go for more than 4 rounds though. Mainly, this is because my BBEGs and Dragons (the trope, not the creature, though sometimes it is) throw expendables (minions) at the party.

That said, I prefer whatever feels more 'right and cinematic'. Oh, high leveled group wanders across some goblins. Goblins are going splat. Same group wanders into the BBEG's main chamber, expect it to be cinematic-ally climactic and exciting... And last about 6 to 10 rounds, depending on rolls.

Then again... I may just be miffed because my group tends to already know what they're doing by the time their turn comes up. Sooo.... "Alexis, your turn!" "Fireball the rampaging rhino-orc!" "Joey, your turn!" "I snipe Killyall the Almighty from the shadows!". Very little "What am I doing now?" time.

Silver Crusade

Before I took over GMing my current group, 11 round combats was the average. The old GM liked throwing APL +6 encounters at us as like candy. Most encounters were more like APL +8 or 9. I sort of got tired of it and offered to take over as GM.

Now that I have taken over, after GMing 1 session, 2 rounds seems normal. 4 Rounds for more creatures or a lot of misses. 6 if the party is getting destroyed. I hope to keep combat short and move the story along more than have the players fighting.


One round combats? Is your GM named Carebear? Monte Hall? Or just lacking for how to set up a fun tactical fight?

Owner - House of Books and Games LLC

All of the above. I've had combats last upwards of 20 rounds, and combats last 1 round.

This weekend, I believe a shipboard combat (3 werewolves and 8 wolves vs. the 4 PCs and a half-dozen crew) lasted something like 11-12 rounds. I'd have to check my notes to be sure, but as I recall there was probably something like 3 rounds before combat started as the distance closed on the river, and then probably 8 rounds of combat before they freed the surviving wolf and tied up the remaining, unconscious werewolf.

An earlier combat with the same 4 PCs vs two phase spiders probably took 10-12 rounds; again there were several rounds before combat where they knew *something* was going to happen, and then there was a lot of readying of actions during combat for some indiscernable reason :)

I like encounters to have a lot going on so they're interesting, and I like the opponents, just like the PCs, to have more than one initiative grouping. So, for example, on the ship, I had one count for the wolves, one count for the leader werewolf, one for the two lesser werewolves, and one for the crew, all in addition to the four PC initiative counts.

If it had just been a pack of wolves, I'd probably have split the wolves into multiple groups, each with their own initiative. Seems a lot more realistic to me than having, say, 12 wolves all somehow mystically acting in unison :)


Seeing all these stories seems to confirm my experience that there is no such thing as a 1 minute fight anymore, not without staggering the arrival of reinforcements and additional sub-bosses or the actual boss(es). Has anyone ever tried doing something special with boss fights to make them last longer, like custom templates to make them harder to hit / shut-down / kill? Or something so that you have to fight the boss in phases? If so, how did that work?


Cerberus Seven wrote:
Seeing all these stories seems to confirm my experience that there is no such thing as a 1 minute fight anymore, not without staggering the arrival of reinforcements and additional sub-bosses or the actual boss(es). Has anyone ever tried doing something special with boss fights to make them last longer, like custom templates to make them harder to hit / shut-down / kill? Or something so that you have to fight the boss in phases? If so, how did that work?

Cerberus, I routinely apply templates, including custom templates to bosses and mini-bosses. I also routinely re-skin creatures so that they are impossible for the party to recognize without a successful knowledge check. And on top of that I create my own custom monsters from whole cloth.

But I don't do any of that to "make them harder to hit / shut-down / kill". I do it to provide an appropriate challenge for the team. I guess I have been GMing for so long that it is almost unconscious behavior for me to balance my encounters. Sure, I sometimes misjudge, but mostly I get it just about where I want it.


I'll chime in and say, yeah most fights are over in 3-5 rounds unless the GM goes through a lot of effort to drag them out.


Adamantine Dragon wrote:
But I don't do any of that to "make them harder to hit / shut-down / kill". I do it to provide an appropriate challenge for the team. I guess I have been GMing for so long that it is almost unconscious behavior for me to balance my encounters. Sure, I sometimes misjudge, but mostly I get it just about where I want it.

Yeeeeaaaahhh, I wouldn't have specified those as a goal except that, with the groups I run in, those things are necessary to make bosses challenging because not living past one round = no real fight. It might be indicative of how we're doing something wrong, but that's the long and short of it for our extended gaming group. Heck, sometimes our GMs just assign arbitrary hit point totals to extend the fight about because no amount of advanced template + max HP + buff spells + etc will do the job to make the grand villain and his trusted lieutenants last more than 12 seconds against the concentrated fire of the heroes.


Cerberus, I would love to observe such a session to see how your party is doing such an awesome job of taking down bosses. My group is not filled with power gamers, but we've got some pretty effective fighters in it, including a fairly optimized 2HF barbarian. Our combats aren't generally over in one round and I don't generally have to pour arbitrary hit points into my monsters to keep them alive long enough to provide a challenge. Impossible to say what's going on at your table, but it seems odd.


Adamantine Dragon wrote:
Cerberus, I would love to observe such a session to see how your party is doing such an awesome job of taking down bosses. My group is not filled with power gamers, but we've got some pretty effective fighters in it, including a fairly optimized 2HF barbarian. Our combats aren't generally over in one round and I don't generally have to pour arbitrary hit points into my monsters to keep them alive long enough to provide a challenge. Impossible to say what's going on at your table, but it seems odd.

Yeah. Odd is typically the flavor of the day, in one variety or another. Some people consistently roll very high on attack rolls (we've checked their dice, all legit, it's inexplicable), one group plays with a weird set of item creation changes, another team is pretty close to what base-line is expected to be but has fantastic offense capabilities, it's all over the map. There's also the long list of house-rules we have, but I don't think any of those do much, if anything, for us offense-wise.

There was a tiny bit of hyperbole in my post. Not much, but some. Basically, add another few rounds to the time-frame I gave for most fights against 'bosses' where such templates and other custom modifications are done. In some rare instances, those fights have gone on for 7-8 rounds. Where they AREN'T done, well, off the top of my head...

-there's our current Sunday game, where a kind of weird, home-brewed gunslinger/arcanist class is regularly slaughtering things because advanced firearms are a thing, decent group buffs abound, and good wealth level is had by all. we played a module meant for a few levels above us and the anti-paladin outsider riding a giant, evil space bat was dead by the end of round 1. maybe it was round 2, I forget but I'm honestly sure it was no later than that.
-end of book 5 of Carrion Crown, up against three mediocre bosses at once. not counting their reinforcements that showed up which we forced to take a detour because yay Wall of Force, I think all three of them went down in 2-3 rounds until it was just mopping up time. they weren't weak, this is just the group with an extra NPC and two front-liners that roll crazy good on a consistent basis. also, alchemist bombs in a full-attack action and self-buffed accuracy, that helped.
-we just finished up this weird pearl-obsessed necromancer fight in Jade Regent last night that, for all intents and purposes, was over at the end of round 2. he didn't roll badly or act stupidly, either, it's just that our front-line stomped him as per normal while the support neutralized the heck out of his shadow assassins.

There's other examples, it's just that these are the ones that come to mind right now. Not saying we don't get the snot beat out of us at times, 'cause we definitely do. It's just that we tend to pull out all the stops on bosses and our GMs tend to like to ramp up the difficulty in anticipation in a kind of weird, stuttered arms race. Between generally having more players and a higher point-buy than the APs / modules assume and having a few players who are practically Neo hooked up the Matrix where knowledge of what's in the SRD / supplemental materials is concerned, bosses just generally need a bit of a hand to be, well, bossy against us.


Home Brew:
Give things more hit points, or just have more of them.
Create obstacles, and choke points.
Use darkness, invisibility, smoke, water, ledges, etc.
Target weak saves, use auras that force saves; consecrate, etc.
Make use of alarms, and surprise.

PFS:
Not nearly as much that you can do.
Play up.
Limit the table to 4 players, or 3 + one GM played NPC.
You max hit points for NPCs….If the players agree.
Some of the APs are no cake walk: Thorn Keep comes to mind.
The later season modules offer better challenges. YMMV.


My GM typically will either double or triple a boss' health while increasing his minions health a slightly smaller amount. All in all it tends to create fun and challenging combats that last around 8-10 rounds.


Havoq wrote:
Target weak saves, use auras that force saves; consecrate, etc.

Wouldn't that make combat even shorter?

Someoneknocking wrote:
My GM typically will either double or triple a boss' health while increasing his minions health a slightly smaller amount. All in all it tends to create fun and challenging combats that last around 8-10 rounds.

I don't think that is very fair to martial classes. And it does nothing to prevent SoL spells.


Lemmy wrote:
Havoq wrote:
Target weak saves, use auras that force saves; consecrate, etc.

Wouldn't that make combat even shorter?

I was thinking that GM should...not the players. :P


Artanthos wrote:

I wish combat would last 4 rounds.

The groups I'm in, most times the bad guys are dead before they get their second action.

We don't have powergaming, some optimisation and low magic, and we easily have 3-6 rounds on average.

Rocket tag is for fools that don't enjoy the thrill of a good (dirty) fight.

Splat them by waving your weapon or spellhand once, and the loot won't feel so great or deserved.


Havoq wrote:
I was thinking that GM should...not the players. :P

Still makes the combat end faster... It just change the final result.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm all for enemies fighting intelligently, I just don't think targeting weak saves will do anything to make combats last longer.


Cerberus Seven wrote:
Seeing all these stories seems to confirm my experience that there is no such thing as a 1 minute fight anymore, not without staggering the arrival of reinforcements and additional sub-bosses or the actual boss(es). Has anyone ever tried doing something special with boss fights to make them last longer, like custom templates to make them harder to hit / shut-down / kill? Or something so that you have to fight the boss in phases? If so, how did that work?

I had a boss fight once that employed a few different tricks, that I was pretty happy with:

*spoilered for length*

Spoiler:

It was the finale encounter of a Ravenloft adventure I was running. The "boss" was an unkillable, Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers-type thing carrying a meat cleaver the size of a great axe.

It had the "Deathless Warrior"(automatically restored to full HP if it falls to 0hp, or takes 1 minute if reduced beyond -10hp) and the "Bending the Land"(creature is always at a minimum fixed distance from prey, regardless of how fast/slow it appears to move) properties from "Van Richten's Guide to the Walking Dead." Basically, HP damage was not going to defeat this monster. The players were given several clues throughout the adventure on how to deal with him, two of the biggest being that Cold-elemental damage frightened him(even though it technically didn't harm his undead body) and he could not stand seeing his own reflection. Any sizable mirror could effectively paralyze the creature, giving the party ample time to subdue it if need be.

The creature had chased the group though a large house, leading to a large master bedroom and a dead-end. In the bedroom, stood a fairly tall dressing mirror. One of the party members get the brilliant idea to run up and smash the mirror... It actually gave me a pause. Apparently, their idea was to break the mirror and grab a smaller sliver to use against the beast. The rest of the party moaned and eye-rolled at the endeavor.

I allowed the player to spend a round searching for and grabbing a sizable piece of intact mirror to use, but due to it's size, the player needed to get right in front of the monster to effectively use it(and not get cleaved in half). They were able to do so, barely, and they eventually subdued the beast with multiple chains, burying it in a metal casket with a mirror fixed inside of the lid.

Still one of my favorite "alternate strategy" encounters.

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