Are fights supposed to last long?

[Leander.quest]

Are all fights supposed to last long? I'm level 3 so far, got to the goblin village, found the mill...decided to sneak in and stop the windmill...shortly before the goblins' attack I climbed the ladder and expected an easy fight with highground and...weak goblins.

What happened was that I did not hit well despite highgrounds, but weak goblins hit me with their tiny bows from the ground...same for mages...that hit me although I was high above.

Luckily, the worgs are unable to climb...one goblin had grease...so I kept falling...I attacked the goblins that climbed the ladder up...and shoved them down, but the champion shoved Shadowheart down....she had 1 hp left and was unconscious...

Later I covered the floor with slime, set it on fire...and forgot that Shadowheart was there.... :(

I managed to win the fight, but it took an hour or longer...with just 3 party members and they missed attacks, needed turns to heal wounds etc.

I feel like a complete fool for my lack of fighting skills.

[Papa Nurgle]

That is still pretty early in the game and frankly early level characters are fairly weak in DnD as well as BG3. A lot of that area can be done with skill checks like persuasion and deception. That is how i got by there being so many goblins to deal with. Later on it isnt that bad but early fights will get rough if you fight too many at one time like the mobs of goblins

[wendigo211]

Below level 5, I let Astarion snipe his way through most encounters, so they could take a while. After level 5, most encounters should take about 1-3 rounds depending on how many resources you want to burn in a fight.

[Tachyon]

I didn't even have to fight in that village. I used dialogue options and was able to freely move around.

[.?]

At the beginning low HP and low AC combined with the fact that throwables and elemental arrows do so much aoe damage makes the game a bit difficult. And to top it off enemy turns tend to clump together meaning they can at times alpha one or two of your characters off the field before you can heal.

[Hafforr]

you do not even need to fight them using illithid dialog powers. but if you do ...... just kill the leader and the rest run away.

[❃ Galiäna Krüger ❃]

How long and short of each combat is up to you how to execute your planning.

The shortest battle I have to do is 0.05 second with 2 strategically placed oil barrel + smokepowder plus one smokepowder bomb arrow to light 5 enemies up all at once, chain reaction of burns and fall damage from barrel exploding. The battle ends before even begins really.

[nazerick]

Well sounds like you had a learning experience . Learning how to set up fights takes a while. You have to think strategically. If you ever do that fight again either use grease/oil to make them fall all over themselves or maybe a create water spell comboed with a lightning spell and you will have a lot easier time there.

Of course you could have just tried talking it out. Works surprisingly well there.

[Moyocoya]

Personally, I approach combat like a game of chess or go. What's fun for me is thinking, and finding the best possible combination of moves. So I take all the time I need to prepare for a fight and to fight it. It doesn't bother me at all if it lasts a long time.

[ShadyLurker]

Originally posted by Leander.quest:

Are all fights supposed to last long? I'm level 3 so far, got to the goblin village, found the mill...decided to sneak in and stop the windmill...shortly before the goblins' attack I climbed the ladder and expected an easy fight with highground and...weak goblins.

What happened was that I did not hit well despite highgrounds, but weak goblins hit me with their tiny bows from the ground...same for mages...that hit me although I was high above.

Luckily, the worgs are unable to climb...one goblin had grease...so I kept falling...I attacked the goblins that climbed the ladder up...and shoved them down, but the champion shoved Shadowheart down....she had 1 hp left and was unconscious...

Later I covered the floor with slime, set it on fire...and forgot that Shadowheart was there.... :(

I managed to win the fight, but it took an hour or longer...with just 3 party members and they missed attacks, needed turns to heal wounds etc.

I feel like a complete fool for my lack of fighting skills.

AN HOUR?!? Skill issue for sure...

[Leander.quest]

Thanks!

Originally posted by Tachyon:

I didn't even have to fight in that village. I used dialogue options and was able to freely move around.

They saw Shadowheart and let us into the village...and trolls don't attack us either...but I didn't like the goblins around the windmill so I wanted to free the gnome and stopped the windmill...then they attacked me.

[Cooperal]

Largely depends how long you take making your turn, but I think from level 5 onwards you will find things starting to get less frustrating as your stats grow, you gather more gear with side benefits and you pick up more ways to control your situation.