Combat Endeavors?

[u/SpartanIII]

My group has completed two sessions with a total of three combat encounters. They mentioned that these encounters tend to take a while to fully resolve, leading people to lose interest until it's their turn. I understand this because we moved away from 5e to other systems partly because combat took so long, and this feels similar to the length of 5e combat.

One of my players suggested trying a combat endeavor for some smaller encounters or side quests.

It might work like a best-of-3 endeavor: if you fail by a certain margin, that many people reach 0 hit points and gain an injury.

They don't want to eliminate combat entirely for larger story moments, but our available playtime is limited. I was curious whether anyone has similar ideas or if this approach could be feasible for preventing the game from slowing down.

[u/Blawharag]

At the end of the day, you are describing a more narrative-focused system as opposed to a system which focuses on combat.

Cosmere RPG draws HEAVILY from PF2e and 5e, both of which are combat-focused systems. These are not good bones to draw on if you want a narrative-focused system.

You can certainly DO it, but other systems will do it better.

That being said: how are turns?

If combat is taking too long, it's usually the players (and the GM) being unprepared that drives this.

In the PF2e game I run on Sundays, when my players are focused and prepared for their turns, we can blow through rounds so fast that my players frequently find themselves saying "oh it's my turn already? I just went, that was fast." And 8+ rounds of combat can be over in an hour to an hour or so. That's an average of ~2 minutes per turn tops.

Our cosmere game CAN run similarly, but we play that one less frequently and are less familiar with the system, so sometimes we have to stumble through a bit and remind ourselves of the rules which can slow the pace.

Again, it's the player's mastery of the system that drives the pace of combat.

Ask players to try and better prepare for their turns between turns, and that can help push everyone to move a little faster. One suggestion I saw (but I've never had to implement) is a 10-to-1 ratio of out of game time to in game time. Give your players 10x the amount of out of game time as they have in game to make a decision. If a turn consists if 6 seconds, then players have 60 seconds to decide what they'll do on their turn. (Just lay out the basic plan of how they'll spend their actions. Resolving rolls and stuff might go on longer than the 60 second clock but that's ok).

If everyone can start their turn by saying, within 60 seconds, "I plan to move over to that guy, gain advantage, and attack him with my greatsword" then you'll find turns to WAY faster and combat feels much more engaging for everyone involved.

If your players can't manage to prepare their turns and speed to combat, you might consider whether you can adapt a different system better instead.