D&D 4E Simple, Elegant 4E PbP rules for combat..help me out with this.

[FormerlyDickensC]

I've been wracking my brain for a while to come up with a set of simple simple rules to run 4E combat on PbP.

Basically, I want a system where the players can use a normal 4E PC but an entire combat encounter lasts only a 2-5 posts by each player on average. Boss fights and such would be more complex and longer perhaps.

Essentially, I will trying to think of a way to distill it all down to a skill challenge. Now, 4E is really ALL about movement around the battle mat..and all of that will be lost in implementing such a rule system as I describe. But that is okay bc that is what PbP is NOT all about.

Also, players would spend less time tweaking PCs for combat and more for roleplay and non combat encounters. Hopefully. But I don't want to lose all of the combat stuff that goes into building a PC.

So, I'm thinking the system will be based on successes and failures. The more failures, the less XP. Enough fails means death or TPK. I was thinking that the PCs would use powers/attacks like skills in a skill challenge. And I want to account for innovative ideas and aiding each other, etc. through bonuses or extra successes.

Prob wont want to include damage rolls. This type of combat would also include a lot of minion play. Not sure I want to have to roll for the monsters (opposing side) or just have it based on the players' rolls.

I read this post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...44-play-post-house-rules-d-d-4th-edition.html but its not really what I'm looking for. Has anyone thought about this?

Please throw some out some of your own ideas here, and experiences, etc. I think the simpler the better, but I want the system to be able to take advantage of some of the combat build options out there.

 

[Alex319]

Well, you might be getting a little ahead of yourself in terms of talking about "running combat like a skill challenge." I'm not sure you want to start reworking the entire combat system unless you need to.

When I give advice about house rules, the first thing I always start with is "Clearly state what your goal is." As I understand it, your goal is to reduce the amount of time it takes to run a PbP combat. To do that you need to do the following:

1. Reduce the number of posts necessary for each player.
2. Reduce or eliminate ordering constraints on the players' posts.

To achieve these objectives, you'll need to do the following:

1. Make it as easy as possible for players to calculate the effects of their own actions, to reduce the number of go-arounds between the players and the DM.

2. Reduce or eliminate dependencies of one player's actions on another, like powers that give bonuses to other players or strict initiative orders.

3. Significantly reduce or eliminate "interrupt" style actions.

---

As I understand it, it also seems that you want to avoid reliance on the map. Do you see this as a primary objective, or do you just think of it as a side effect of the changes you are proposing?

Anyway, let's start from how it works now and see what changes we need to make.

Suppose we were to use the current combat system, but take out OAs and interrupt powers, and instead of the regular initiative order, there's just one initiative for the PCs and one for the monsters, and PCs just go in whatever order they post. You would also have to let the PCs know what the monsters' defenses are so they know whether they hit and they would know how to resolve their attacks. Then each PC as well as the DM only has to post once per round, and you can knock the length of each combat down by, say, decreasing monster HPs but increasing their attacks, so that could get you down to 2-5 rounds per combat, one post per round, no ordering constraints, you've got it.

Since we wouldn't have OAs, we would have to come up with some other method for battlefield control. Let's say each square of movement in an opponent's threatened space costs triple, or something, so that people could still block each other (like what OAs are supposed to do) but doesn't require any interrupting of a player's move.

So, would that work? And if not, what do you think would need to be changed?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Maybe another possibility would be to retain the rules in essence as they are now, but with a bit more flexibility allowed in terms of what the PCs actually end up doing. So everyone could describe their actions at the start of the round and then the DM would just have to do a bit of interpreting. The main issues would be cases where the tactical situation changes significantly before someone gets to do whatever they described (like the target of their attack moves or dies or something).

In a lot of cases the DM can extrapolate from what the player intended to accomplish. Maybe the monster he was going to swing at died and he can just use that attack against another monster of the same/similar type that is next to it or moves up to take its place. OAs don't seem to me to be too much of an issue since the DM can simply do those himself. It is rare that a PC would want to NOT take an OA and there is no choice of what to do, it is a melee basic attack.

In our m20 PBP game we all just describe what we're going to do for the round, roll a to-hit die if we're atacking and appropriate damage dice in case we hit. The same could be done in 4e.

Interrupts are the most likely thing to cause extra back and forth, but again usually you can anticipate the likely need for them, so if a wizard has shield he can always tell you "I'll use shield if the big monster hits me" or something like that. It will cover MOST cases.

Lengthy combats then are the one remaining potential issue. There are a few answers for that. Proper encounter design can help a lot. Soldiers, elites, and solos are the most likely monsters to last a long time in combat, especially if they are plus level encounters. Avoiding those will help a lot. Or some of those monsters can be cut down in hit points. DM actions with the monsters can also make a big difference. There is generally that point where any monster will pretty much know it is beaten. Either having such monsters flee or surrender makes sense at that point. Some 4e DMs also have found that it makes sense to just declare that last soldier monster dead by fiat once the outcome is a forgone conclusion.

I'm not sure just doing those things will be enough, but it would be an interesting experiment.

As far as maps go you might try attaching a map to emails. You could use maptool to set up a map and then do a capture of the map window view after each round and attach it to your email. Anyway, those are all things I'd be tempted to try as a first cut.

 

[King Nate]

Maybe another possibility would be to retain the rules in essence as they are now, but with a bit more flexibility allowed in terms of what the PCs actually end up doing. So everyone could describe their actions at the start of the round and then the DM would just have to do a bit of interpreting. The main issues would be cases where the tactical situation changes significantly before someone gets to do whatever they described (like the target of their attack moves or dies or something).

In a lot of cases the DM can extrapolate from what the player intended to accomplish. Maybe the monster he was going to swing at died and he can just use that attack against another monster of the same/similar type that is next to it or moves up to take its place. OAs don't seem to me to be too much of an issue since the DM can simply do those himself. It is rare that a PC would want to NOT take an OA and there is no choice of what to do, it is a melee basic attack.

In our m20 PBP game we all just describe what we're going to do for the round, roll a to-hit die if we're atacking and appropriate damage dice in case we hit. The same could be done in 4e.

Interrupts are the most likely thing to cause extra back and forth, but again usually you can anticipate the likely need for them, so if a wizard has shield he can always tell you "I'll use shield if the big monster hits me" or something like that. It will cover MOST cases.

Lengthy combats then are the one remaining potential issue. There are a few answers for that. Proper encounter design can help a lot. Soldiers, elites, and solos are the most likely monsters to last a long time in combat, especially if they are plus level encounters. Avoiding those will help a lot. Or some of those monsters can be cut down in hit points. DM actions with the monsters can also make a big difference. There is generally that point where any monster will pretty much know it is beaten. Either having such monsters flee or surrender makes sense at that point. Some 4e DMs also have found that it makes sense to just declare that last soldier monster dead by fiat once the outcome is a forgone conclusion.

I'm not sure just doing those things will be enough, but it would be an interesting experiment.

As far as maps go you might try attaching a map to emails. You could use maptool to set up a map and then do a capture of the map window view after each round and attach it to your email. Anyway, those are all things I'd be tempted to try as a first cut.

This is pretty much how I run my PBP and it seems to work just fine. You can see how it works for yourself, just check out the link in my sig.