Quote Originally Posted by Vectros View Post
I ask this, since there's a player who's saying it's dragging out too long. I'm a fan of combat-it's my favorite of the three "pillars", so I'd say it make sense my sessions might have a bit more than average. But I don't think I've been over the top. Today's session went for about 3.5 hours-I didn't keep tabs on the exact time, but I think combat lasted around 1.5 hours. The session cut out a bit early-there wouldn't have been any more combat.

So in a typical 4 hour session, is 1.5 hours too much? What would be your lower and upper limits?

While I'm at it, this same player tends to complain about the...style of combat. He asks that I nerf the HP of mooks so they're 1 shot to shorten combat, doesn't want his character to die (unless it's a big boss encounter), and doesn't want large numbers of enemies...and also thinks a lone boss is a bad idea. I kind of agree on the last point, but feel he's maybe being a bit picky...
Hi!

Honestly, 1.5 hour seems a bit much to me, but it depends on too many factors to really give a proper opinion.

My gut would say though that what matters is not the "real" time but the "time as felt by players".
If your player feels the combat takes too much time, maybe it is not because the fight in itself is too long, but because you or your players take too much time deciding what to do each round and making the rolls, so that he feels more the botherdom of dice rolling and "mechanics management" much more than the excitation of that big fight!

For a more generalistic answer, I'd say that usually in sessions, I try to never go beyond 30 mn per encounter, and no more than 2 encounters at most. Often I make one "mind theater" to make it quick or creative, sometimes both.
Only on some occasions in a specific sessions do I use the drawed map, but in these times it is usually the one big fight that can easily go past 1 hour (never more than 1h30 though).

Yet again, it's very difficult to argue which duration is the correct one. It depends very much on factors such as...
- is it an important fight for the story?
- do players in general like to be creative?
- do you as a DM tend to be as strict as possible, or do you allow yourself leeway when players have a nice idea?
etc etc...

In short, my advice would be: ask your player what precisely bothered him and made him feel that way, and ask your other players if they share this opinion.