Less rolling

[bestone]

Well i've noticed one thing about 3rd, contrary to what it apparently "should be", i dont find it faster than any previous version. Mayhaps at low levels, but i just find higher level combat drags on and on, and the actual fighting takes up most of our gaming session.

So i was thinking of ways that one could lessen the amount of dice rolled, and would like some input on what you all think before/if i put them in my game.

Opposed rolls- On things like trips and grapples, you roll a d20, then you roll another d20, and its opposed by a third d20, thats 3 rolls, i was thinking you could just roll once, and have the other player roll thier opposed roll. Then you have to both beat them, and be able to hit thier ac on your one roll. Poorly worded i know, so heres an example

Scenario a)

Warrior tries to trip rogue, rogues touch ac is 15, the warrior rolls his d20 and gets a 14
The rogue rolls his opposed roll and his total is 17. The warrior has +2 bab, so 14 becomes a 16, which hits the rogue (beating his touch ac of 17). However the 16 doesnt beat the rogues 17, so he fails his trip.

Scenario b)

Warrior tries to trip rogue, rogues touch ac is 15, the warrior rolls his d20 and gets a 14
The rogue rolls his opposed roll and his total is 14. The warrior has +2 bab, so 14 becomes a 16, which hits the rogue (beating his touch ac of 17). This time the warrior's 16 beats the rogues total of 14, so he is tripped.

Not elegant, but removes one die roll

Another thing i was thinking of doing, is average damage for monsters and npc's, and let the players choose it at thier option. (rounding up)

anyone else have methods for quickening combat?

 

[Bacris]

Average damage is good when you have a large number of folks, but bad if you have to deal with Damage Reduction or Energy Resistance. And, really, it should be round down, otherwise, it's statistically better for the players to use (since 3.5 becomes 4, so now there's only a 33% chance of rolling better on a d6, which is the most prevalent damage die).

I like the idea for a single die roll for Opposed checks.

 

[Celebrim]

The problem with the single die roll is that with only one random factor, more outrageous results are more likely. Special manuevers will become much more powerful. Take for your example your trip scenario. If I roll a '20', I get to keep my 20 for all the rolls I would have otherwise thrown. Instead of having a one in 400 chance of rolling a 20 to hit and a 20 on my trip attempt, I have a one in 20 chance. On the other hand, low rolls usually won't be any worse because a '1' probably wouldn't 'earn' the oppurtunity for additional rolls anyway. The net effect is probably going to be that its easier to trip, disarm, grapple, etc. It won't break the game or anything, but consider yourself forewarned.

anyone else have methods for quickening combat?

As a DM, I have alot of methods for speeding up things without necessarily changing the mechanics. One thing I do that has worked really well since 1st edition is that I mass roll dice. In mass combat, I have 9 (or so) d20's (black, grey, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, white), which I can easily order by color at a glance (basically the spectrum), and I toss these all at once. I then simply tick off each D20 as I need it.

When a player is making iterative attacks, I make them do the same thing, with a preagreed upon order (by color) so that they can't arrange the throws in the most favorable order.

Another issue I've ran into is that some players are just really slow when it comes to adding up thier 'to hit modifiers' and seem to run through a check list every freaking time they roll the dice, then double check it, then search around thier character sheet for additional modifiers. Again, something that has worked well for me since 1st edition is keep the players commonly used modifiers on a notepad beside me and just have the players report the result of thier roll, and not the total once modified. This also tends to cut down on cheating (adding a bonus that they don't have, always reporting a roll of 16 or better regardless of the real roll, etc). It's not an issue for all players, but if you find you're having problems with players that can't do thier own math it may help.

One option in changing the rules that will impact you less than dropping the attack die roll is dropping the opposed roll. Instead of actively opposing an opposed roll, assume that the defender always rolls a 10 whenever an opposed roll is called for. So essentially, you'd have to beat 10+the opponents grapple bonus. This is basically what you assume on the defenders opposed 'defence roll' (armor class) in order to cut down the number of rolls (D&D avoids even having a defence roll in this way) necessary to decide whether some one hits something else. There will be an impact on play to have less randomness, but most of the time it won't be a big one.

 

[bestone]

Thanks for the input both

To celebrim - Thanks, im gonna put it in to test it out for a bit, but i'll let my players know its temporary. I never looked at it the way you laid it out, so if it is to overpowering i'll just remove it.

Yeah i mass roll dice too, i think thats a necessity

hrmm, thanks for the input, im thinking about that assumed 10 one

 

[mhensley]

Opposed rolls in combat definitely need to go. Here's an idea. We already have a different AC for touch and flat-footed. Why not have more? There should be a Trip, Disarm and Grapple AC's as well. One roll and you're done, just like a normal attack.

After doing a little math, here's a way to do this for Grapple. Your Grapple score is your attack modifier and your Grapple AC is equal to Touch AC + Grapple + 5. The only difference between a Grapple attack and a normal attack is that a natural 20 is not an automatic success.

Example Grapple AC's-

Kobold- 13
Orc- 19
Ogre- 25
Purple Worm- 49

 

[hong]

Opposed rolls in combat definitely need to go. Here's an idea. We already have a different AC for touch and flat-footed. Why not have more? There should be a Trip, Disarm and Grapple AC's as well. One roll and you're done, just like a normal attack.

After doing a little math, here's a way to do this for Grapple. Your Grapple score is your attack modifier and your Grapple AC is equal to Touch AC + Grapple + 5. The only difference between a Grapple attack and a normal attack is that a natural 20 is not an automatic success.

Example Grapple AC's-

Kobold- 13
Orc- 19
Ogre- 25
Purple Worm- 49

Ooo, I like this.

 

[Celebrim]

Opposed rolls in combat definitely need to go. Here's an idea. We already have a different AC for touch and flat-footed. Why not have more? There should be a Trip, Disarm and Grapple AC's as well. One roll and you're done, just like a normal attack.

After doing a little math, here's a way to do this for Grapple. Your Grapple score is your attack modifier and your Grapple AC is equal to Touch AC + Grapple + 5. The only difference between a Grapple attack and a normal attack is that a natural 20 is not an automatic success.

Example Grapple AC's-

Kobold- 13
Orc- 19
Ogre- 25
Purple Worm- 49

I might play out reasonably at high level play, where characters can be expected to overcome just about any touch AC. At low levels of play it makes it somewhat easier to grapple something that is quite agile but which is small and weak. For example your system makes it quite easy to grapple a Fine Dex 20 fey creature, which would have a touch AC around 23 but a grapple AC of like 8.

On the whole though, I think that the system is the best thought out suggestion so far. Making the defense roll passive is usually the better first option, and this does it in a pretty elegant way.

If I may make a suggestion though, the grapple AC should be the touch AC or the grapple AC - which ever is higher. This makes dodgy things hard to grab but once grabbed, they have a hard time fighting back because of thier poor grapple attack bonus.

 

[trav_laney]

I also hate how combat can bog down the gameplay. These are a few tricks that we use at my table:

1. Multiply dice rolls. Instead of rolling six d6's, we roll one and multiply the result by 6.

2. Static initiative. Everyone rolls initiative once per day, and they keep that initiative result until they rest. Characters who do not like their result can "adjust" their Initiative by using a readied action in the next battle.

3. Two dice, one throw. Whenever a character makes an attack, he throws the damage dice at the same time as the attack rolls. The results are announced in-game like this: "My rogue moves to flank, and makes a single attack with his short sword. He hits armor class 16. If that's good enough to hit, he deals 4 points of weapon damage and 12 points of sneak attack damage." Obviously, different-colored dice are imperative.

4. Average hit points. Whenever a character levels-up, he gains the average hit points per level (instead of rolling). These results are always rounded down for gameplay, but the decimal points are still recorded...much like having one-half of a rank in a skill. (Okay, so this really doesn't apply to combat. But I was on the subject of shortcuts, and well...)

5. If I am running combat with a horde of monsters, I don't roll all of their initiatives. I make one roll on d20, and add each monster's Init bonus to the same roll. For multiple monsters of the same type, I adjust the result by +/- 1 from monster to monster so that I don't have to deal with identical initiative scores...otherwise, in the event of a tie, the one with the highest dex goes first.

These are the only ones that we are using in our game at the moment, but I am always looking for new shortcuts. And I absolutely love mhensley's suggestion for making Grapple, Trip, and Disarm ACs. Pure genius! I'd like to see a similar mechanic for opposed caster checks...maybe a Spellcraft DC to dispel or counterspell?

 

[mhensley]

I might play out reasonably at high level play, where characters can be expected to overcome just about any touch AC. At low levels of play it makes it somewhat easier to grapple something that is quite agile but which is small and weak. For example your system makes it quite easy to grapple a Fine Dex 20 fey creature, which would have a touch AC around 23 but a grapple AC of like 8.

On the whole though, I think that the system is the best thought out suggestion so far. Making the defense roll passive is usually the better first option, and this does it in a pretty elegant way.

If I may make a suggestion though, the grapple AC should be the touch AC or the grapple AC - which ever is higher. This makes dodgy things hard to grab but once grabbed, they have a hard time fighting back because of thier poor grapple attack bonus.

I don't doubt that this system would break for some cases. Let's take a look at your example to see if it works right. Say an Orc is trying to grapple a Grig by the RAW. A Grig has a Touch AC of 16 so the chance of the Orc hitting it is 45%. The Orc's Grapple is +4. The Grig's is -11. The Orc's chance of winning the opposed grapple is around 96%. So, the Orc's total chance of successfully grappling a Grig is about 43%.

The Grig's Grapple AC would be 16 - 11 + 5 = 10. An Orc would have a 75% chance of hitting that, so you're right - that is too easy. Your solution of using whichever is higher, Touch or Grapple, works perfectly though. Thanks!

 

[mhensley]

1. Multiply dice rolls. Instead of rolling six d6's, we roll one and multiply the result by 6.

My first thought was to dislike this idea because it nerfs the dependable average damage you get from the dice pool. But you know what? Averages are boring. This makes the results way more random and extreme, and extremes are where the fun is. I like it.