On my last session of d&d combat took too long and I had to apologize for it to my players. One player, who is a Pathfinder 2e player, said it’s nothing compared to long fights he had in that system, where between party of high level casters, boss, minions and enemy spellcasters, he would be waiting a whole hour for his next turn. I certainly want to at least have one Pathfinder 2e campaign among options to present to this group after we finish current one, so how much is this a general problem and not his group’s problem and are there some ways to avoid this long combat?

  • Khrux
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    41 month ago

    I’m only talking from watching PF2e actual plays and playing a lot of 5e but I’d say PF2e combats would run 1.2x longer under the same conditions as a 5e game.

    I’d say DM style is easily the biggest influence, I’ve played in games where a one hour combat is the significant boss battle of a campaign, but rules for 6 rounds, and I’ve played in games where a 6 hour battle may be normal, potentially with as few as 4 rounds passing (the latter one absolutely does kill me though, I think my character in that game has actually developed to avoid a fight because I dont want the faff). I’d say DM style can influence a combat length by 3x or more.

    Similarly an understanding of general efficiency in combat from the players too can half a combat length pretty easily.

    I wouldn’t worry about it extending the game length, any extra time is pretty negligible compared to steps you can take to stop the time of combat unraveling.