Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[malraux]

As a thought, one of my (admittedly slim) hopes for the Castle Ravenloft and Dragon Dungeon board games coming out is that they will offer a slimmed down and faster combat mechanic for DnD for use in minor fights. I'm not sure if it would work, but might be cool to have distinct rules for fast resolution combats for less important fights and the full blown rules for when the details of the fight matters.

 

[xechnao]

With respect, it seems to me that you might be confusing, "RPGs need..." with, "I prefer RPGs have...".

RPGs are an outgrowth of wargames. There's loads and loads of folks who seem to like the tactical wargame aspect - killing things and taking their stuff.

There is still some confusion here. What I am saying is that killing things and taking their stuff can be done either with wargaming techniques or with rpg techniques. Roleplaying killing things and taking their stuff mechanically evolved from wargames as wargames are based on some simulation idea of combat. Roleplaying killing and taking stuff has been a success because of the simulating combat aspect and not because of purely the gaming aspect. There are thousands of games but D&D players are not interested in them. They are interested in fantasy combat mostly. So you cannot say that rpgames need to necessarily follow the gaming mechanics of wargames. Besides they are different as games. In wargames you play against another player on equal terms. On rpgs the gaming situation is totally different.

 

[The Human Target]

I guess that an archer ranger is the closest thing to a "simple" class that you can get in 4E. As long as they can remember quarry and prime shot, they should be fine. An archer ranger is what I made for my wife when I tried to get her to play LFR. Alas, she never did.

I think you can also make really simple rogues as long as the person can grasp flanking all the time.

 

[maddman75]

Had a thought when reading this discussion, especially the bits about design goals.

4e is meant to last 4-5 rounds for a combat. But if there's an error in PC tactics or GM encoutner setup or just bad/weird dice rolling, it can turn into a slogfest. How do we fix this?

We force it to go 4-5 rounds. Lets establish 4 rounds as the baseline. Maybe there are some unstable creatures that will only go three rounds, or some hardliners that will go 5 or 6. But for most creatures, that's all they've got. After that, its either fight or flight.

One PC will roll an Intimidate check at the beginning of round 5. If he beats the average/leader's will defense, the bad guys run tail and run. If he does not, then they go into a berserk rage, believing this to be their blaze of glory. All standard monsters become Minions with 1 hit point, though they still roll damage normally. They lose all encounter and recharge powers and deal increased damage (I want to say doubled but I'd have to test it a bit).

Thoughts?

 

[Votan]

I am absolutely certain as well. I played in such a game last night.

For those interested in modifying combat in 3e-ish D&D, Codex Martialis is a fantastic system that captures individual tactics very well without using a grid.


RC

Sadly, it only seems to exist as a PDF. :-(

 

[AllisterH]

I honestly dont think it is possible to have a mini-less combat system IF you have at least two of the following assumptions and it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with powers or feats specifically (although powers and feats can encourage it)

1. Multiple ENEMY combatants versus PCs.

2. Flanking

3. Opportunity attacks

Basically, a combat system that has more of those 3 features will automatically be more mini-prone than a system that has fewer.

One of the things I noticed personally when we switched from 1e to 2e was that with the loss of the emphasis on henchmen/followers, there was less combatants to track. Throw in that in 2e we didn't track facing or bothered with mob rules and a 2e DM doesn't need to know WHERE the enemies precisely are (other than for spell area effects)

Simply put, once a DM has to know where upwards of 10 combatants are (5 PCs + 5 enemies), the battlemap comes up.

I mean, we could even see this in 2E once Combat and Tactics came out. The introduction of flanking and opportunity attacks means that a 2e C&T game is even more likely to require minis than the latter edition 3e.

 

[Dausuul]

I honestly dont think it is possible to have a mini-less combat system IF you have at least two of the following assumptions and it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with powers or feats specifically (although powers and feats can encourage it)

1. Multiple ENEMY combatants versus PCs.

2. Flanking

3. Opportunity attacks

I ran 3E with all of those things and no minis, and it went perfectly fine.

 

[AllisterH]

I ran 3E with all of those things and no minis, and it went perfectly fine.

How?

If you're running multiple combatants and you need to know where person X is, do you actually keep track of all people in your head?

Person X is always moving around the battlefield trying to get out of being flanked, avoiding opportunity attacks and positioning themselves to flank an enemy.

I can see this being done with say one NPC versus 4 PCs as that is really only 5 combatants to track and given that two of the PCs are probably spell slingers who aren't in melee range...but 10 combatants?

(unless nobody actually MOVES from where they start, then yea,I could see how that would be done...)

 

[xechnao]

How?
I can see this being done with say one NPC versus 4 PCs as that is really only 5 combatants to track and given that two of the PCs are probably spell slingers who aren't in melee range...but 10 combatants?

The ability to get flanked or not is ermm... an ability. Which means it is dependant on skill and luck by some measure. Which you can define. Same regarding ability to coordinate people or break coordination of people. You can abstract really everything. There are no problems in abstracting everything that battleboard turn-based positioning can provide. Moreover by using an abstract system you can define and insert more things into the equation (in theory infinite). In practice it will depend on game design.

 

[MrGrenadine]

As a player.... nothing pissed me off more than a 1 or 2 round fight against a big bad. That's the soul of anticlimax. Might be a nemesis we've had for a long time, might be a monster of legend... and it dies to a bad saving throw in round 2 before half of the players have had time to do anything cool.

True, but a DM isn't just a rules adjudicator and reader of boxed text--a great DM is a great storyteller as well, and understands the basics: character, plot and pacing.

In other words, roll the BBEG's save behind the screen, and instead of announcing to everyone the number and declare the fight over, tell the group that although the casting of the spell felt right, something has gone wrong--the villain isn't dead/unconscious/incapacitated as expected, just severely injured/weakened/slowed...and angry! Fight on!