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Three hours!? :O Wow, those are some stubborn peasants.
I tend to run 4-5 hour sessions, so most of my groups get through 3 combat encounters if there's little in between them.
If there's more non-combat stuff in between, or if one of the combat encounters is a boss fight, then we'll get through 2 rather than 3.
The CR of the monsters is important too - I've had one fight take a whole session if the enemy is a Balor avec minions, for instance.
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every encounter seems like a boss fight. and every boss fight my pc fears death.
Is this fun for you? Because if not, whether it's the game's default is sorta irrelevant, you should confront your GM with the fact that things aren't fun for you. That's way more important than how 'normal' the situation is.
It's also not really very normal, but that's not actually the problem here. Lots of good play styles aren't normal per se. The issue is that you're not happy. I advise presenting it in those terms.
We usually get through 2-3 fights in one three to 3 and a half hour session. Taking that long to convince the peasants to back down seems very odd though. I probably would have KO'd them with nonlethal damage out of frustration after the first hour.
As others have noted, you don't seem to be having fun. It's probably best to have a talk with the other players and the DM about this. If the other players aren't having fun either, that's an even bigger issue that needs to be addressed.
I usually hand-wave unimportant combats. ("After a few rounds, you've beaten up or chased off the thugs, you've taken one prisoner, and you're now asking questions. Make an Intimidate check, and take a +4 bonus.") I usually just have the bad guys run if the fight goes poorly for them.
It sounds like you and the GM have different expectations of play-style. I'd recommend you and the GM meet outside the game to discuss.
Depends on the content of our session. We frequently have RP sessions where there isn't any combat but there may be many skill checks involved. There are also sessions where most of the cards are on the table and all that's left to do is dungeon crawl - the last one had somewhere around 15 encounters with no long rests between to recover, and in fact my character had been awake for a day and ran a very long gauntlet the day before and was fatigued for a little over half of it. Most session, though? I'd say 8-10 encounters, and we play from 1pm to 6am and sometimes later.
I usually hand-wave unimportant combats. ("After a few rounds, you've beaten up or chased off the thugs, you've taken one prisoner, and you're now asking questions. Make an Intimidate check, and take a +4 bonus.") I usually just have the bad guys run if the fight goes poorly for them.
That's too railroady for my tastes, but to each their own.
Are the fights taking a long time because of multiple waves of minions? Because of individual boss enemies who are hard to hurt? Awkward terrain slowing things down?
Or do the battles only last a few rounds, but still take hours to resolve? If so, is it particular players who are taking a long time, or the GM?
session?i am wanting to know the norm. every sesion my group has only one fight which always seem higher lvled then we are but against a group of lvl three peasants it took us 3 hours to convince them to surrender,run or die. should it take 3 hours(rl time) to convince peasants that are three lvls lower then the PCs is my dm making stuff harder then it should be?
Wow
Sounds like the opportunity for an epic roleplay session.
It really depends, we've killed bosses in under a minute of real time before and fought common bandits and goblins for over an hour on different occasions, it comes down to how well we and the enemies roll, how many enemies there are, takes far more time to roll for a dozen goblins than the boss and his bodyguards, and also a lot on what we have access to and how dangerous the enemy are, a horde of low level goblins might die in seconds to the wizards fireball, but if he doesn't have that or wants to save it and we have to kill each one individually then that's a lot of rolling and a lot of chances to roll badly and miss.
well at this rate we won't reach the princess in time to save her from the dragons tower if we have to battle ever tom, dick, and harry. we come across every 30 feet the princess will die of old age before we get there and 4 years of rl time has gone by in rl. then we would spend the next 2 years rl time trying to get out of the town. think of it like being in a cave in Pokemon with your lvl 80 Charmander and every step you take your being attacked by lvl 1 zuebats and you have run out of repels and pikachu has died of old age so your in the dark. pointless and time consuming. but it's the only game in town so you got to do it.
You sound from this post of yours and the next to be bitter, and I'm inclined to believe it's justified. However there are some questions that were asked that need to be answered in order for us to help.
From what I understand you face a small group of weak enemies once per session, and spend 3 (ish) hours killing (or whatever) it.
Question 1: Is this an accurate assessment, or have I misunderstood?
Question 2: How strong is your system mastery, and do you feel like you are 'qualified' to make optimization judgements, and judgments of what is something's cr (like you know most of the stat block in bestiary 1 say)?
Question 3: How many turns (approx) does the typical combat take?
Question 4: How many players, and who (including the GM) takes the longest to complete their turn.
Question 5: What is the level of optimization in the team?
Question 6: (Super important question) To what degree is or is not the GM adversarial, i.e. does he view the game as him vs the PC's?
My group is pretty roleplaying intensive, so we rarely have more than one major, if any, combats in game. We've had sessions where dice were never rolled at all, just roleplaying. I try to make the fights they do have exciting and memorable, though.
Depends on the challenge, depends on your character optimization. I ran 16 (easy/quick) encounters in one 4 hour slot. That was the upper limit and it was insane. Normally it would be 2-4 encounters in a 5 slot, which is must more memorable.
Your GM sounds like he's trying to make everything "epic". Every encounter/fight doesn't need to be a slog and you don't have to roleplay every item acquisition for the game to be entertaining. I had a GM like this once, where everything we did was "wrong" and everyone was better than us. This may or may not be the case, but you should talk to your GM and if the game isn't to your liking, I wouldn't waste your time. Find another group or play Pathfinder Society.
I usually hand-wave unimportant combats. ("After a few rounds, you've beaten up or chased off the thugs, you've taken one prisoner, and you're now asking questions. Make an Intimidate check, and take a +4 bonus.") I usually just have the bad guys run if the fight goes poorly for them.That's too railroady for my tastes, but to each their own.
Why take 45 minutes of precious play time to slug it out it out if it's a CR-2 encounter and there's no chance the PCs will lose?
If I do choose to hand-wave a combat, I will ask the players their intent: Are they planning to take prisoners? Will they let bad guys run away or will they chase down any runners? Those actions may require some skill checks or something. It really depends on how crucial the fight is to the overall story and/or if the players become invested in the scene and want to play it out.
Rather than the full hand-wave, I might borrow a mechanic from a rules-lite game and say something like, "Okay, you win. Roll to see how awesome you are."
My regular players are usually much more interested in RP and story development than with tactical combat and rolling dice. We sometimes go four or five sessions without a combat. If I were to have a different set of players who were all about the slugfest and found RP boring, then I'd focus on combat. It all depends on the kind of game my players and I are looking for.
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with how intensely the game is focused on rolling and how everyone else is not very focused on roleplaying. i used to be the kind of guy that was always approached by young adventurous npcs seeking quests while in the bars. now to liven things up a little i've become the more active roleplayer.
Again, this sounds like a clash of preferred play styles. You prefer more RP and less dice, while your GM seems to really like running challenging tactical combat.
Are the other players enjoying the game? If so, then this group might not be for you. If they are likewise bored/frustrated, then you should talk with the GM to see if he's willing to change how he runs things.
Or, maybe you should take over the GM duties.
Remember: Pathfinder is a game and its purpose is to have fun.
Bottom line: If you're not having fun, why keep playing?
i don't know we fought at least 14 dwarven peasant 4 of which where archers the rest had 1d6 dmg weapons. the time before we face some sort worm monster with at least a hundred wolves. no matter the situation we are always outnumber.
The combats are likely taking so long because there are so many opponents. I am surprised that the GM even wants that many NPCs in a battle at the same time.
PFS scenarios generally have three to four encounters and run from four to six hours. Some of them do run long, but many can be done in the four hour time period. Most battles are done in four or less rounds of combat.
If all of the battles are against hordes of opponents, there are some things the group can do to better handle it. The wizard should be taking battlefield control spells like Grease, Create Pit, etc in order to block opponents from coming in on all sides. Might want to look at the Cleave feat, since that would allow you to hurt more than one opponent a round. Smokesticks can be used to prevent archery attacks.
Any encounter with more than half a dozen opponents does tend to slow down combat a lot. The rules system is more on a tactical level -- one on one combat rather than army vs army.
2-3 fights in thrice that many hours four our group.
Okay given that you have around 70 ish hp I'm guessing you are around level 8-9 given that you are an alchemist. If you are wearing heavy armor lvl 3 peasants (commoners technically) should have only been able to hit you on a natural 20. Losing 34 hp in a single round in this situation should have been nearly impossible, even if they all targeted you. They should nearly be auto hit, and auto killed. Given your answers to my questions The GM has fallen into a trap I've seen others fall into: PC vs. GM. The only times I've dealt with this it has ended with me parting ways with the GM. So I'm not really a good source for advice on this subject.
That said I suggest you look over the bestiary and npc rules and really get familiar with what a critter is expected to be able to do, so if the GM is fudging everything you will know and you can bring it up with him.
What I recommend you do is have a conversation with everyone there, and explain your concerns once you have a better grip on what's going on (mechanically). Ask the GM what he wants out of the game and explain what you want, explain that you don't appreciate his npcs taking the spotlight, etc. Warning this could end badly.
I usually hand-wave unimportant combats. ("After a few rounds, you've beaten up or chased off the thugs, you've taken one prisoner, and you're now asking questions. Make an Intimidate check, and take a +4 bonus.") I usually just have the bad guys run if the fight goes poorly for them.That's too railroady for my tastes, but to each their own.Why take 45 minutes of precious play time to slug it out it out if it's a CR-2 encounter and there's no chance the PCs will lose?
If I do choose to hand-wave a combat, I will ask the players their intent: Are they planning to take prisoners? Will they let bad guys run away or will they chase down any runners? Those actions may require some skill checks or something. It really depends on how crucial the fight is to the overall story and/or if the players become invested in the scene and want to play it out.
Rather than the full hand-wave, I might borrow a mechanic from a rules-lite game and say something like, "Okay, you win. Roll to see how awesome you are."
My regular players are usually much more interested in RP and story development than with tactical combat and rolling dice. We sometimes go four or five sessions without a combat. If I were to have a different set of players who were all about the slugfest and found RP boring, then I'd focus on combat. It all depends on the kind of game my players and I are looking for.
If it's a fight the PCs have no chance of losing, then it won't take 45 minutes. If they're so much stronger than them then they should be able to defeat an individual in a round or two and route the rest shortly after.
Player agency and choice is the only thing Pathfinder has above video games, if I didn't care about it then I'd play skyrim or wow or whatever's popular now.