Novas and Workdays, Big Fights and Little Fights

So keying off some comments [MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION] made in this thread, I had the following 'modular' idea:

So, there are now two types of combat encounters: Big Fights and Little Fights.

Little Fights: These fights are 'taking out a goblin sentry', 'fighting two town guards', or 'fighting a handful of bandits' (scaled out to an appropriate level). These fights:
1) Use only resources that are always available, or that are abundant enough to not be exhausted in 1-2 encounters.
2) Use simple combat rules- only a move and an attack per round, maybe.
3) Don't use any power, spell, etc., that requires a battle grid. You can use one if you like, but it's fine without it.

Big Fights: These fights are 'boss' fights- dragons, evil warlords and wizards, etc.
These fights:
1) Use big, splashy, powerful player and NPC resources that are only available during Big Fights.
2) Are centered around enemies that are scaled to be hard to put down in a few rounds- they can't be stunlocked to zero, etc. There may be a few 'lesser' creatures in the room, but the focus is probably on a BBEG (Elite, Solo, whatever you wish to call them.
3) Feature powers, spells, etc., that really should be used with a battle grid. You can not use it if you have a religious objection to squares, but it works much better with it. Much better.

The DM decides if an encounter is a Big Fight or a Little Fight. That determines what powers/resources PC's have available, and lets them know the scale/scope of the fight.

If you want a low-rules, quick style of play: all fights are Little Fights.
If you want a 4e style of play: all fights are Big Fights, but you may need to shepherd your resources a little bit more (i.e., AEDU-style)
If you want to have several small encounters as you move through an environment, followed by a big boss battle at the end: several Little Fights followed by one Big Fight.

In a mixed fight world, players have no incentive to rest after killing one goblin, because they know they will get new resources (recharge plus new, Big Fight-only) & powers once they hit the Big Fight. Little Fight-only games are essentially 1/2/3e style games- you have a pool of resources that gradually diminishes, and then you rest at the end of the day. Fights are quick, and maneuvers and in-combat tricks like dropping chandeliers on people or tripping them with sticks are handled by the DM's judgement. Big Fight-only games move you solidly back into 4e territory. For a mixed game, Big Fights can be treated as 'pushing yourself past your normal limits', 'bullet time fights' (tip o' the hat to [MENTION=44243]Shadeydm[/MENTION] for that phrasing), whatever.

Thoughts?

ComradeGnull said:

If you want a low-rules, quick style of play: all fights are Little Fights.
If you want a 4e style of play: all fights are Big Fights, but you may need to shepherd your resources a little bit more (i.e., AEDU-style)
If you want to have several small encounters as you move through an environment, followed by a big boss battle at the end: several Little Fights followed by one Big Fight.

In a mixed fight world, players have no incentive to rest after killing one goblin, because they know they will get new resources (recharge plus new, Big Fight-only) & powers once they hit the Big Fight. Little Fight-only games are essentially 1/2/3e style games- you have a pool of resources that gradually diminishes, and then you rest at the end of the day. Fights are quick, and maneuvers and in-combat tricks like dropping chandeliers on people or tripping them with sticks are handled by the DM's judgement. Big Fight-only games move you solidly back into 4e territory. For a mixed game, Big Fights can be treated as 'pushing yourself past your normal limits', 'bullet time fights' (tip o' the hat to @Shadeydm for that phrasing), whatever.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Yes mixed fights are when things get tricky. We know rules/editions that work for big fights and little fights. But having a system that does both requires mechanics that only kick in or operate under some circumstances.

I think action points are good example of something that could narrate or make a plausible story that only become under some conditions of being threatened by a obvious challenge. Or maybe action points could be keyed off an especially heroic action in combat. Or maybe some kind of recharge mechanism may be required.

More generally I think D&D moving forward needs some sort of recharge mechanism to act as a carrot for PCs to push on - either within a rolling fight of a series of waves of enemies - or more generally within a dungeon crawl context. Milestones were a half hearted attempt in 4th to provide this kind of incentive.

[MENTION=6685694]ComradeGnull[/MENTION]

For me, there are a number of problems this automatically raises.

The first is the general assumption that Little Fights mean non-important resources and Big Fights being 4e's AEDU. If anything my preferred style is that all fights (I mean actual, not potential) are important and possibly deadly. This COULD be against a big bad boss, or it could be against some toughs in the local bar. For me the game is more interesting when both are a challenge and when both can have resources expended against them. If anything it adds a cool factor when players break out impressive, showy or powerful moves against the thugs in order to earn some respect or reputation. This system proposed doesn't do it for me in that regard.

Next, I think that if you DO have big fights, with an AEDU system as you propose, that you'll need a number of rules to deal with how to implement them properly. A lot of what the AEDU crowd likes is the balance, if the game isn't built with that balance to start then it is immediately going to give them big problems. I think very few people look to AEDU primarily for the power upgrade.

Lastly, which slightly relates to my first part, the little fights don't work for me. You say 'use only resources that are always available'. I'm assuming you mean abilities or powers that are always available but more often than not the coolest effects in my games are non-power or ability related. Instead they are the ones that are earned, bought or prepared. These extra tricks are often more powerful and they are certainly not available constantly.

Also, not really related to your idea but you propose that little fights don't need battle grids but big fights do. I think that is false. Play-styles and preference for theatre of the mind or the battle grid has very little to do with powers available to the players during different fights. Some players or groups prefer one method or another and liking AEDU or having only unlimited resources has nothing to do with that.

ComradeGnull said:

So keying off some comments

The DM decides if an encounter is a Big Fight or a Little Fight. That determines what powers/resources PC's have available, and lets them know the scale/scope of the fight.

Click to expand...

This is something which I think would bother me. Similar reasons are why -as a player- I was sometimes unhappy with skill challenges. If my character has a resource I can use, I feel I should be able to use that resource when I want to choose to use it; not have the game mode dictate to me whether or not I can use it.

Johnny3D3D said:

This is something which I think would bother me. Similar reasons are why -as a player- I was sometimes unhappy with skill challenges. If my character has a resource I can use, I feel I should be able to use that resource when I want to choose to use it; not have the game mode dictate to me whether or not I can use it.

Click to expand...

I like the idea of the set-pieces and the smaller fights, but if 4e's martial powers only being usable 1/day destroys the game for some people because it is too hard to imagine, then this is even more difficult to see as non-gamist.

As for the quoted comment, Johnny, what resources could you use in a skill challenge that you wanted to?

renau1g said:

I like the idea of the set-pieces and the smaller fights, but if 4e's martial powers only being usable 1/day destroys the game for some people because it is too hard to imagine, then this is even more difficult to see as non-gamist.

As for the quoted comment, Johnny, what resources could you use in a skill challenge that you wanted to?

Click to expand...

As a player, I've been in a few skill challenges where using a power would have solved the obstacle the party faced without needing to roll -assuming I understood what was explained to me about the situation correctly. However, I was instead pushed into using the skill challenge mechanic because the DM wanted to do a skill challenge. On this forum and others, I've seen that method be put forward as a solution to some problems as well.

There were times -as a player-that I felt my character was broken into three parts when playing 4E: combat, skills, and everything which fell outside of those two. Sometimes, it seemed as though which part of my character I was allowed to use to solve a problem would depend upon which mode of play the DM would decide I was in. There were times when the different pieces would overlap, and I thankfully did play with some DMs who were proficient enough in skill challenges to show me what good can come out of them, but there were still times when what my character was able to do seemed more dictated by artificial limits built into the game rather than what made sense to me. I enjoy the idea of skill challenges, but not the implementation.

Tovec said:

For me, there are a number of problems this automatically raises.

The first is the general assumption that Little Fights mean non-important resources and Big Fights being 4e's AEDU. If anything my preferred style is that all fights (I mean actual, not potential) are important and possibly deadly. This COULD be against a big bad boss, or it could be against some toughs in the local bar. For me the game is more interesting when both are a challenge and when both can have resources expended against them. If anything it adds a cool factor when players break out impressive, showy or powerful moves against the thugs in order to earn some respect or reputation. This system proposed doesn't do it for me in that regard.

Click to expand...

"Non-important" is not necessarily meant to mean 'non-threatening'- just balanced around a different standard of power and level of detail. Dying in a 'trivial' fight is perfectly fine, and even particularly appropriate for a certain style of play You would also still be free to build 'high threat' or 'low threat' fights in either mode; it's just that the expectations about what types of abilities would come into play in each situation is different. You could still do something showy in a 'Little Fight' to freak out the locals- this is still D&D, and you can still have mages shooting magic bolts, warlocks blasting, fighters maneuvering, etc., just using ad-hoc adjudication rather than a tightly defined system of powers.

For example, you are almost certainly going to want to build out a major, adventure-ending fight in a very detailed way (if you're the type that plans adventures). On the other hand, if combat with a particular set of NPCs is neither central to the adventure nor a particularly likely scenario, you might prefer just to have simple stats and say 'if a fight happens, it happens'. The dragon at the end of the dungeon gets a Big Fight; the tavern brawl the night before you set off for the dragon's lair, instigated by a player deciding at random to start throwing mugs at fellow patrons, is a Little Fight. On the other hand, a level 3 player randomly challenging a Storm Giant mercenary to a dual might also be a Little Fight, despite the high risk.

Alternatively if you and your players want a highly tactical barroom brawl, it can be a Big Fight- it will just be more time consuming to resolve.

In general, I would map Big Fight more to 'fight where the NPC has tactics substantially beyond 'hit them' and the PC's have a high chance of having prepped specifically for this fight'.

Next, I think that if you DO have big fights, with an AEDU system as you propose, that you'll need a number of rules to deal with how to implement them properly. A lot of what the AEDU crowd likes is the balance, if the game isn't built with that balance to start then it is immediately going to give them big problems. I think very few people look to AEDU primarily for the power upgrade.

Click to expand...

Are you saying these rules would need to be substantially different from the current set of 4e rules, or that you need rules for defining the abilities used in a Big Fight? I would certainly expect those powers to be defined completely in the rule set, rather than built out from it. Certainly there needs to be much more detailed rules to balance the two types of encounter- this is obviously more a sketch of an idea that seemed to have potential than anything. I can understand feeling that you would need to know more specifics to judge the merits of the idea, but I don't really have any for you, unfortunately.

Lastly, which slightly relates to my first part, the little fights don't work for me. You say 'use only resources that are always available'. I'm assuming you mean abilities or powers that are always available but more often than not the coolest effects in my games are non-power or ability related. Instead they are the ones that are earned, bought or prepared. These extra tricks are often more powerful and they are certainly not available constantly.

Click to expand...

'always available' was maybe a poor choice of words; maybe 'have traditionally always been available prior to 4e' would maybe be better. I would certainly include in that single-use or limited use magic items or limited use gear (caltrops, etc.). The idea is that during the small fights you operate in a more traditional pre-4e mode; when you enter a big fight, all of your regular small fight resources (including toys like magic items, pets, etc.) are still available, you just also pick up your set of Big Fight resources. Balance on this front would certainly be tricky.

Also, not really related to your idea but you propose that little fights don't need battle grids but big fights do. I think that is false. Play-styles and preference for theatre of the mind or the battle grid has very little to do with powers available to the players during different fights. Some players or groups prefer one method or another and liking AEDU or having only unlimited resources has nothing to do with that.

Click to expand...

I agree it's a stylistic choice, and I was careful to word it as to make either case optional. However, in practice I think there are few people who are playing an AEDU-style game without some kind of grid, and the assumption of the grid being there makes it much easier to define effects and powers in a way that doesn't slow down play too much. Certainly playing using the 'Small Fight' toolkit with a battle grid wouldn't be at all out of the ordinary. Part of the point of the two styles of fight, referring back again to the thread that kicked off this idea, was that the level of tactical detail provided by the 4e abilities having the background assumption of gridy-ness is attractive to some people for high-importance encounters, even if they don't want it every time they roll initiative. The two styles of fight are not only to provide different schema for balance (or non-balance) and style, but also to provide different levels of detail. I can see wanting to separate those things out, but in practice I think that takes us into a realm where D&D hasn't really explored very well- whereas this is intended to be built on top of two familiar systems.

Johnny3D3D said:

As a player, I've been in a few skill challenges where using a power would have solved the obstacle the party faced without needing to roll -assuming I understood what was explained to me about the situation correctly. However, I was instead pushed into using the skill challenge mechanic because the DM wanted to do a skill challenge. On this forum and others, I've seen that method be put forward as a solution to some problems as well.

There were times -as a player-that I felt my character was broken into three parts when playing 4E: combat, skills, and everything which fell outside of those two. Sometimes, it seemed as though which part of my character I was allowed to use to solve a problem would depend upon which mode of play the DM would decide I was in. There were times when the different pieces would overlap, and I thankfully did play with some DMs who were proficient enough in skill challenges to show me what good can come out of them, but there were still times when what my character was able to do seemed more dictated by artificial limits built into the game rather than what made sense to me. I enjoy the idea of skill challenges, but not the implementation.

Click to expand...

I can definitely understand that feeling, and the idea of wanting your character to be 'consistent' through all areas of play- some people really dislike the idea of any area feeling like a 'mini-game' rather than part of a coherent system.

I think the idea of not being able to use powers- particularly as they were defined in 4e- in a skill challenge (or other resources) is silly, and counter to the traditional way the game has been played. It sounds, to be honest, like poorly educated DM'ing as much as anything else (my biggest complaint against 4e, I would say, has as much to do with its presentation as anything about its specific rules- some people got the impression that a certain playstyle was 'required' or 'official' and that deviations from it- particularly ones that were clearly supported by the rules but not made explicit- was 'wrong'). To be clear, in what I am proposing, all your abilities would be available everywhere, except for a small set of specifically combat-oriented tactical abilities that would come out only in particularly significant fights.

There is something irreducibly gamist about having a specific set of powers that apply only in Big Fights. Definitely. There are ways to justify it in-world that I think work better than the 4e justifications- that the Big Fight represents a slowed-down, 'bullet time' version of a regular fight, that Big Fights are typically fights that PCs are specifically preparing for, that they are higher-stakes than ordinary fights, and the characters access untapped reserves of power- whatever. However, I also know that those explanations will not ever be sufficient to certain players.

The game is at the end of the day a game, and everyone has their own threshold for where things becoming insufficiently 'realistic' for it to be a barrier to their enjoying play. To me, this solution is appealing because I actually like both 4e and pre-4e styles of play and I can accept a certain amount of 'gaminess' if it achieves the end of giving me options that encompass both. I also am struggling, as the discussions about 5e move forward, to figure out other ways to reconcile the advantages of both styles of play into one game. Maybe the truth is that they don't both fit.

l liked the detail level, in general, provided by 4e, but found it exhausting having to break it out for every combat. Combats got too long as DMs tried to make every encounter utilize terrain and battlemap features that kept powers interesting, and this lead to the feeling that focus was being drug disproportionately to combat. Some of this, just like your skill challenge problem, stems either from bad DM'ing or poor presentation of the rules (i.e., you don't have to make every encounter use the full XP values worth of creatures for that encounter level- you can spread them out into multiple smaller fights).

What you appear to be doing is telling the players how to manage their resources. You're afraid that they will use up big spells on lesser encounters, so you're only given them these powers in significant encounters.

I thoroughly dislike this.

Perhaps one could go a bit in the direction of the old TORG system. It differentiated between standard and dramatic encounters. TORG used a deck of cards, the so-called drama deck. One card was drawn each round, determining which group had initiative, what kind of action were easier this round and which ones harder.

The cards showed separate and distinct information for standard and dramatic encounters. In dramatic encounters the villains more often had initiative and more special effects (two turns instead of one, special bonus to something, setback for the PCs) favoured the villains.

Rules and resources where the same for both types of encounters, but in dramatic ones the cards were literally stacked against the PCs.