Suddenly, Players 3 and 4 enter a chamber and get into a fight with a hive of spiders. Players 1 and 2 are approximately 600 feet away in a totally different area of the dungeon. If Players 1 and 2 can only run 60 feet per round, how many rounds will it take them to get to their party members 3 and 4?
Pst. Answer: 10 rounds.
Can I tell you? This is a moment for excitement. [...]
In a movie this would be exciting, sure. And if you've had countless such tabletop experiences, then I'm glad for you. But in my experiences as a player and those of fellow players/those I've DM'd? Party members being 10 rounds away almost always just sucks. Usually they won't be able to reach the combat before the enemy or their other party members die, so effectively these 2 players are forced to watch everyone else play for the entire combat. Which can last from 30 minutes to over an hour depending on how slow the players/DM are. Even 4 rounds away is on the edge of being enjoyable - that's still a long time to be not actively participating in the combat.
At least in tabletop the DM could make something up on the fly and have monsters simultaneously attack the far-away party members, for a tense split party fight. This can't be done in BG3 however, and being forced to take my turns because the game put me in combat even though I'm a lightyear away? Nah.
