Encounters per Session?

[yellerSumner]

Well, obviously it depends on the length of the session.

The DMG says most groups get though one encounter in an hour, but I was wondering if anyone could confirm that now that 4e's been out a while.


I'm going to run the adventure in the back of the DMG for a group that hasn't played 4e.  We'll be hanging out together for a couple of days, but I don't think we'll be filling up that whole time with D&D.  I'm trying to figure out if I should prep some encounters from KotS or one of the Dungeon adventures or if Kobold Hall will be enough.

[brislove]

i'd say thats fairly accurate. usually an encounter takes 30-45 minutes, and then there is always some chatting ect that goes on between fights, not to mention the looting time, and traps.

[Runestar]

The time taken is more or less the same as compared the 3e. Only difference is that there are more rounds, but each round passes more quickly.

[Jaerc]

I'd agree with 45 minutes, if everyone (including the DM) is on the ball.

[Kuroimaken]

It's a fairly accurate description, though my group occasionally takes longer (up to an hour and a half) or shorter (about half an hour) depending on how tough the encounter is.

Depending on group size, this can vary. We play with four guys (one being the DM), so maybe we go through encounters more slowly because we don't have the manpower to mow down the enemies.

[Darius Stronghand]

Sounds right.  The 4e campaign I play in has had 5 encounters so far.  The fast ones took around 30 minutes, while the longest one took around an hour and a half.  (Granted, with many distractions.)

[Ieniemienie]

there are about 5-6 encounters in an adventure (RPGA). the normal time for an adventure is 4-5 hours. I played one which lasted 8 hours though...

[Sinfire Titan]

5 encounters a day in 4E? My party barely even makes it through 2 before we run out of time. It would help if we could stop getting distracted by Tekken/Xbox Live, but even then the combat runs for an hour at the least (the shortest one we've had was a solo Kobold, who went down in 2 turns).

[Darius Stronghand]

Resilient little bugger

[Banor]

In the 5 RPGA games I've ran, there was 2-3 combat encounter with 2-3 skill challenges. So 4-6 encounter (counting skill challenge) is pretty accurate

[Ieniemienie]

I just realized that for a group of well-experienced players who know exactly what their character can do and what their options are in an adventure, the adventure should take 4 hours. In reality this leads to 6 hour sessions.

[atanakar]

After 6 sessions totaling close to 42 hours I can safely say that encounters in 4E last longer.
I run a group of 5 (experienced) players which is the average according to DMG.
One epic battle lasted 2 hours because 50% of the party keep missing their rolls badly...
Typicaly our 7 hours sessions have 3 encounters mixed in with segments of role-playing.

IMHO this comes from the fact:

• Each side (PC/Creatures) have 3 actions each per round
• Monsters have more HPs than before
• Monsters have special abilities that hinder PCs strategies

I've come to terms with this. I now reduce all encounters by one or two levels/creatures from the guidelines in the DMG.
Combat is fun but one does not want to spend more than 50% of game time on battles ... gets boring.

[veekie]

Mostly the hp and the reduced damage on the PC side I think, those kinda slow stuff quite a bit. Maybe if you used a larger proportion of minions to regular opponents? Should speed things a good bit.

[Jaerc]

Honestly, I believe that things should not take as long as some posters have experienced. When you warm up to the system a bit more, you'll likely find that speed of comba encounters increases dramatically.

[X-Codes]

I've come to terms with this. I now reduce all encounters by one or two levels/creatures from the guidelines in the DMG.
Combat is fun but one does not want to spend more than 50% of game time on battles ... gets boring.

This idea may sound good, but it's honestly somewhat flawed.

1) If you cut XP proportionally, then you're not really making combat shorter, you're just breaking it up into smaller chunks that may or may not make the game easier for the PCs in the long run.

2) If you don't cut XP at all when doing this, then you just plain are making the game easier for the PCs in the long run, and considering the fact that the game really isn't that hard for a decent party to excel at already that's not a good move.

Furthermore, you really can't judge it by the first few encounters.  Above all, it's a new system.  The first few encounters of a new system will be slow because the system is still being learned.  You either have to get your PCs on the ball fighting the fight if they want to have fun playing the game, or, if they're not willing to do that, then either they're having fun already playing the game in an unfocused manner or they're uninterested in the game.  Those may or may not be problems depending on your interpretation.

Also, 4e suffers a little from "shit happens" syndrome.  In my last session playing my wizard, all my d20 rolls are as follows: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 7, 17, 17, 20.  We were fighting dwarves and they were wedged in a doorway, so I was trying to Thunderwave them out of the way so our front-line could charge in and surround them.  Even when I used my Wand Mastery to enhance one of the attacks, I only managed to hit with the power once (on a different attack, not the Wand attack).  With a couple more hits the battle would have gone very differently.

[Ieniemienie]

Honestly, I believe that things should not take as long as some posters have experienced. When you warm up to the system a bit more, you'll likely find that speed of comba encounters increases dramatically.

From my 10 (RPGA) sessions I've had thus far, I can definitely see the difference between experienced and newby players, and the difference between former 3.5 players and new-to-dnd players. In both cases, familiarity with 4.0 reduces combat time and thus session time significantly.

god I hate thise newbies who are calculating that same +6 to hit every time they make an at will attack 

[veekie]

The simple way is to get them to write down the precalculated values for each stat based attacks with their main implement, that way they only need to recalculate for exceptions. If you want to be thorough, get their base attack bonus(stat+level+permanent effects) and their armed one(the same + weapon/implement).

It's not like they have more than 2-3 types of ability scores used in their attacks.

[Ieniemienie]

The simple way is to get them to write down the precalculated values for each stat based attacks with their main implement, that way they only need to recalculate for exceptions. If you want to be thorough, get their base attack bonus(stat+level+permanent effects) and their armed one(the same + weapon/implement).

It's not like they have more than 2-3 types of ability scores used in their attacks.

thats why I get annoyed when they dont see the logic in their attacks....

[veekie]

Hence the need to enforce writing down of common bonuses until they know enough not to need holding hands.