How do you describe your combat?

[dreaded_beast]

What descriptive phrases do you use for a hit, miss, and critical?

Hit:
Your blade connects
You smash into your enemy
You get them in the chest

Miss:
You leap out of the way
You duck
It hits your shield

Critical:
Your blade nearly cleaves it in half!
You nearly knock it's head clean off!
You hear bones snap as it spits out blood!

I found myself near the end of the session starting to get lazy. I started resorting to saying "Hit, 3 points of damage. Miss. Miss. Hit, 2 points of damage."

Hopefully, getting a list of things to say to make combat more descriptive will prevent me and maybe others from falling to that old stand-by.

 

[punkorange]

I unfortunately normally do the "you miss" or "you hit. damage?" My group doesn't seem to mind, but I think it would only be that much better if I was more descriptive.

A good list would help me out a bit.

 

[Mixmaster]

Baseball terms kind of work for us:

Hit
There's a shot!
Strike to the Chest!

Miss
That's a bit outside!
Low and away!
In the Dirt (missile fire)

Crit
Blast to Right - Trouble!
This has been Crushed!

 

[caudor]

I encourage my players to make shouts and cries during battle. Works rather well. My favorite player-supplied comment was: I'll show you my ID card man!!

I try to keep things interesting with a few comments here and there:

- Your mace strikes the Kobold with dull thonk, leaving him momentarily disconcerted.
- The giant wheezes for just a moment, spits some blood, and glares down at your angrily.
- The zombie gurgles one last time before falling; dust swirls as it hits the floor.

Of course, I do have to use game talk as well. OK, make a spot check. But when possible I try to add a little flavor.

 

[punkorange]

I generally find that if I try to describe too much, then my players try to look past it.
DM: Your mace connects rather hard with the man's jaw, staggering him back a step or two.
Rogue: If I hit him in the head and knocked him back, couldn't he get like a penalty to his next attack.
Fighter: Yeah, and I think I should get an AoO on him as he staggers.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Really there is just to much combat to be really descriptive about every blow.
I describe crits, fumbles, killing blows and if the monster or character takes a (subjective) Whalluping.

usually its: hit 5 dmg, miss, hit 12 dmg, you sword is deflected just a hair from the enemy cleric, off some kind of mystical protection. (missed by 1 pt due to circle prot good). miss, hit 6 damage, You strike him in the (roll hit location) left leg and it nearly comes off as he crumples to the ground. Hit location has no game effects, I just have it on hand for fuller descriptions of death blows and crits. (taped to screen)

I try and describe important moments, but have no aplogies for turing the middle of combats over to pure mechanics. BBEGs always get death scenes, mooks sometimes.

 

[Afrodyte]

I generally prefer to let the players describe the effects of their success or failure. It's more entertaining for them that way.

 

[DarkMaster]

Hit for 15 points of damage on:

The 1st level wizard with 5hp: the blade goes through his neck killing him on the spot

the 10 level fighter with 100+hp : While exchanging blow with your enemy, he had an opening to your neck, but you came out with a in extremis parade and the blade didn't even touched you.

miss: the wizard. with an unbelieavable luck the soldier trying to strike multiple time wasn't able to get you and your rudimentary block were enough to protect you that round.

the 10 level fighter: In a nice exchange he wasn't able to find a hole in your defense.

 

[caudor]

On thing I might add (if you do decide to add flavor to the combat)--

Adding flavor has worked well for me so long as I didn't get too specific when it comes to the nature of the injury or attack. For example, saying something like: 'blood splatters as you cleave off its arm' or 'your blade sinks into his chest' has come back to haunt me.

Try to describe the events with flavor in preference to detail.

Finally, if your players seem to be OK with the 'you hit, roll damage' approach, there is nothing wrong with that either. Fun is fun.

 

[Zuoken]

For my past Conan game, I've tried to describe things in as cinematic a style as I can.

Examples...

Slashing... "In a massive all-out attack you wield your greatsword with the force of a giant, hacking the enemy barbarian into two uneven and bloodied halves."

Piercing (readied action against charge)... "The enemy Pict hurls himself towards you in a maddened rage, skewering himself on the greatsword that you bring to bear at the last moment."

Bludgeoning... "You wield your greatsword like a metal club, bashing it repeatedly into your foe's side until you hear the satisfying crunch of bone and broken ribs."

In case you couldn't tell, those were all either criticals or killing blows .

You should focus on doing what is best for your campaign. It might be helpful if the players started describing their attacks in a little more detail (like "I swing my club at my opponent's ugly face!" instead of just "I attack.") so you could elaborate a little more, but you shouldn't feel like you have to. If you don't want the game's focus to be on combat, then don't make it that way! That's the best advice I can give you.