Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[AllisterH]

You can to a point.

I'll give a good 4e example, one powers does 10 damage, slide 5. The other does 10 damage, -4 to attacks (save ends).


In the first power, I attack and do damage. I then immediately use my slide effect, and then resolve any situations that reside from that (such as getting thrown into a fire or something).

This either requires some good imagination or a battle board if you want the power to be effective, however, there is no ongoing tracking to worry about. You resolve the power and never think about it again.


The 2nd power requires ongoing thinking. The -4 to attack rolls has to factored in to the attacks (including OAs). The saving throw has to be remembered, and any saving throw bonuses/penalties applied. And if the saving throw fails, the power is tracked over several rounds.



If you use a battle board (which I would guess most 4e players do) then the first power gives you more than just a swing and damage but the amount of tracking required is very small. The 2nd one however requires a much larger investment in tracking.


That to me is a key division in tracking mechanics. Even you have effects that are instantaneous they can provide diversity without largely increasing the brainpower required to implement them into the game. Its the ongoing effects that generally increase tracking.

Interesting example...

One thing I notice though is that the former power more likely will require the use of a battlemap so that you know where you currently are (and everyone else is) and where BEST you want to slide said target.

Whereas the latter example doesn't actually require a gameboard. You just need some way to track it, most likely by a simply crib sheet.

(You can also have a third option. Swing and do damage. So it would be attack for 12 pts of damage and the tactical consideration would be what would be the best of the 3 current choices.)

 

[xechnao]

...

I do not agree with this. The battleboard gives information regarding squares. But you still have to track what powers/resistances you have regarding squares and what square related powers/resistances your enemies have. Without a battleboard you could lose the information regarding squares (and thus need to provide some alternative information) but you could make up for it on the second part:
if the information you have to provide in the first part can make the second part so intuitive that your players need not have to track things there.

Also you do not need to have imagination. With a set of proper rules that you have to answer you can be guided figure out as much info as necessary for doing any action. If these rules are intuitive and properly designed they wont be a major hassle. And as mentioned above they can create as much an intuitive environment as you want for the second part of the process.

 

[Stalker0]

I do not agree with this. The battleboard gives information regarding squares. But you still have to track what powers/resistances you have regarding squares and what square related powers/resistances your enemies have.

As I mentioned, a battleboard is needed to easily deal with scenario 1. However, the difference is that the tracking is handled immediately as part of the action. If you do have slide resistance, then we deal with it as part of the slide.

The reason I find these kind of things easier to track is that everything is dealing with the same thing at the same time all at once. Right now we are talking about sliding a guy...so everything involving sliding is on the table. The DM and players know to be thinking about sliding. We take care of it, then we stop thinking about sliding.

In the second example, I give the guy a -4 to his attack rolls. Then on a players turn, he begins movement. So the table is thinking about movement right then and there. But that movement triggers an OA. Now the table starts thinking about that OA, the DM starts looking up the attack values and any extra benefits it might add. But now that -4 comes into play, so people are thinking about that to. And once all of that is resolved we go back to the movement, which might have its own set of bonuses and rules.

In my experience, people are able to track things well when its one thing at a time, its when you pile up things that it gets tricky. When things tended to be compacted like example 1, they are easier to deal with then scenarios that affect lots of other scenarios.

 

[Stalker0]

With a set of proper rules that you have to answer you can be guided figure out as much info as necessary for doing any action. If these rules are intuitive and properly designed they wont be a major hassle. And as mentioned above they can create as much an intuitive environment as you want for the second part of the process.

This I will disagree with to a point.

RPG systems are a balance of:

1) Creativity (variability)
2) Balance
3) Ease of Use
4) Speed
5) Realism

The reality is that each factor can reduce some of the others. The more options a game has, the less easy it is to use, etc.

Since most rpgs are pen/paper, we have to rely on humans to run the subsystems. Well we humans are only so good at that, the ruleset has to be much much simplier than if a computer is running it. Once example is lighting. Computers are very good at setting up lighting as someone moves through terrain, its very accurate and fast. When humans have to describe it, its a lot more difficult.


So while we can always look for better rules, there is a limit on what the rules can model. You can't mimic the complexity of gurps with the rock/paper/scissor model of live WOD, etc.

 

[xechnao]

...
In my experience, people are able to track things well when its one thing at a time, its when you pile up things that it gets tricky. When things tended to be compacted like example 1, they are easier to deal with then scenarios that affect lots of other scenarios.

Ahh ok. But I am not entirely convinced. Say that you want to slide someone to some square or move your pawn to one. To make this choice you have to think about what may happen next. For example: can some enemy move and flank me where I am going? So you kind of pre-track things.

But this thing regarding growing piles of things to track with time passing is not relevant to whether you are using a battleboard or not. Even if you do not use a battleboard you can design a game where this does not happen. And have it have as many options and choices to make as you wish.

 

[xechnao]

This I will disagree with to a point.

RPG systems are a balance of:

1) Creativity (variability)
2) Balance
3) Ease of Use
4) Speed
5) Realism

The reality is that each factor can reduce some of the others. The more options a game has, the less easy it is to use, etc.

Since most rpgs are pen/paper, we have to rely on humans to run the subsystems. Well we humans are only so good at that, the ruleset has to be much much simplier than if a computer is running it. Once example is lighting. Computers are very good at setting up lighting as someone moves through terrain, its very accurate and fast. When humans have to describe it, its a lot more difficult.


So while we can always look for better rules, there is a limit on what the rules can model. You can't mimic the complexity of gurps with the rock/paper/scissor model of live WOD, etc.

Keyword is intuition. You have to design rules that run on intuitive guidelines of people's own assumptions. So the game is powerful not because of your own rules but because of all the rules people already understand and know by their own. It is not easy: you have to insert in your design one strong parameter: communication design to speak to people's own resources and what you can make out of them: the ability to make use of them.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Can't give you XP Stalker, but you make a very good point. It seems to me you could get an intricate and crunchy ruleset but by limiting the outcomes to the immediate you could cut down on all the 'in your head' type book keeping that was so annoying in 3E and still bugs a lot in 4.

Cheers.

 

[Raven Crowking]

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

Strangely enough, I have no problem with a system that allows me to use all three without a grid.

Heck, I was able to do that with AD&D 1e.


RC

 

[MerricB]

Strangely enough, I have no problem with a system that allows me to use all three without a grid.

Heck, I was able to do that with AD&D 1e.

I believe it can be done. Indeed, I do it with 4e.

However...

...either it requires the DM to make a virtual grid in his head, or...
...occasionally it won't make sense if the DM were to try to plot out the movements of the opponents.

In the first case, you're still using miniatures, but just in the "blindfold chess" manner.

In the second case, you can formulate some simple rules to allow those three things to occur. To give an example - which is a fairly good representation of how I might do it, although the first case describes my "combat without 'real' minis better" - you can call each PC to be "adjacent" which can then (with a shift) be upgraded to "advantage" and finally "flanking". Or they can forgo the shift and just move to flanking... albeit with an opportunity attack allowed.

Exceptions can be added: you can't move to "advantage" when the monster has two of its allies adjacent to it. However, there is a basis of a system there that allows combat without minis and with a certain abstraction of movement.

Whether this is actually desirable is another matter entirely.

It should be noted that in AD&D, by my reading of it, characters really have two states: engaged in melee or not (although disengaged includes range to the opponents). Once you're in the melee... getting out is quite unlikely. Mostly you pick an opponent and trade blows until one is dead - with missile attacks hitting random targets in the melee (DMG pg 63)... and the choice of initial opponent in melee may well be random as well (DMG pg.73)

Cheers!

 

[Raven Crowking]

My experience suggests that your expectations of the limitations of gridless combat are overstated. YM probably V, though.


RC