D&D General Ending the Slog

[Micah Sweet]

Slightly topic-adjacent, but this just occurred to me somewhere else, and I thought it might be relevant.

One of the issues with combats that drag on too long is that, if a fight is interesting and balanced when everyone is active, then it becomes unbalanced as soon as someone drops. In order to prevent that tipping point from happening in the first round, monsters are designed to withstand multiple rounds of focused fire before dropping; but since they have so many HP, it takes just as long to go through each one of them as it does to go through the first one, except the exciting part of the fight is already over.

One way to prevent tedious combat is to ensure that enemies die in quick succession, by preventing focus fire. If the whole party isn't attacking the same enemy at the same time, then the enemies don't need enough HP to withstand that assault for multiple rounds, and all of the enemies should die in rather quick succession since you're whittling them all down at a constant(ish) rate. At least in theory, that means the whole fight should stay interesting, because the fight is over shortly after the enemies lose action advantage.

The hard part is figuring out how to encourage spreading out, when focusing fire is so obviously the way to win. I figure you could probably do it by assigning penalties to every attack in the round, past the first, against the same target. It would probably take a bit of testing in order to get it right, though.

While that would be mechanically interesting, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, how would you answer your players when they ask what the penalties are for. I suspect, "it makes combat more interesting all the way through" may not cut it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

While that would be mechanically interesting, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter, how would you answer your players when they ask what the penalties are for. I suspect, "it makes combat more interesting all the way through" may not cut it.

The penalties are supposed to represent getting in each other's way, as you all try to maneuver your attacks into a small geographical area. I mean, there's a reason why skirmish combat doesn't devolve into focus fire in real life; and while I suspect that has more to do with real people not requiring ten hits to drop, giving people a reason to not focus fire should end up more "realistic" in the end, in addition for making better gameplay.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The penalties are supposed to represent getting in each other's way, as you all try to maneuver your attacks into a small geographical area. I mean, there's a reason why skirmish combat doesn't devolve into focus fire in real life; and while I suspect that has more to do with real people not requiring ten hits to drop, giving people a reason to not focus fire should end up more "realistic" in the end, in addition for making better gameplay.

Would it work that way with range attacks? How about if you use a grid? I just think a lit of players would balk at a rule intended to lengthen the time it takes to take an enemy down.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Would it work that way with range attacks? How about if you use a grid? I just think a lit of players would balk at a rule intended to lengthen the time it takes to take an enemy down.

I don't think it would fly as a house rule for an existing game (because it would seem too adversarial, regardless of which balance measures are in place), but if you present a new game where that happens to be the rule, I don't think there would be that much opposition. Even if that rule applied to ranged attacks (where it would be harder to justify), or on a grid (where you can see whether or not anyone is in the way).

 

[Imaculata]

Whenever a fight takes too long, I usually have the monsters either flee, surrender, or I have something entertaining happening that conveniently kills a few of them off.

Sometimes I even do the exact opposite, and have a very tough and scary foe enter the fight, to mix things up. Or I throw a complication into the fight. I tend to design my battles in ways that allow me to bring complications easily into play. I also provide my players with environmental factors that allow them to more easily dispatch foes.

 

[Coroc]

It happens in every edition, though some are more prone to it than others.

What do you do, as DM, when it is clear that a combat has become a slog.Maybe everyone's dice are cold, or maybe the terrain and numbers and types of enemies limit option. or maybe the characters are either out of big hit resources or trying to save them for a future encounter. Whatever the cause, the combat has turned into a boring slog of swings and misses and hit point attrition.

What do you do?

I am generally loathe to just hand wave a victory until it is completely clear the PCs have won, just because dice are swingy and players make strange decisions and in a resource management oriented game what happens in this combat can have a significant impact on what follows. But that said, there is a point when I just "call it" for the PCs. That point is usually later than I should have for all the reasons I just mentioned.

The times I experienced that often was back then with 2e (w/o Darksun!) due to high AC and only hitting on a 17-20 e.g.

It was like : PC roll / miss , Mob roll / miss, PC roll / miss and so on. Real good thing back then were morale rules and the advice to fudge a little as the dm if necessary.

That's what made 2e Darksun so refreshing, fighter types could have 20+ STR and the AC was bad. Combat ran down much faster, almost like 5e.

With 5e I refuse to fudge as the DM, and the situation of a slog never came up and probably never will.