Why Must I Kludge My Combat?

[maddman75]

Silly question, but exactly how do you determine that the person is beside you IF you have about a dozen "people" involved WITHOUT a grid.

To me anyway, this is no different than FLANKING in that you actually NEED to know the precise location of people involved otherwise you're just using DM FIAT to say, "ok, you two are beside each other and get a bonus".

That said...I would be surprised if the Cinematic system would be faster (an earlier concern) than either 3e or 4e since a player would be looking at 4 plus options at their turn which means they would need to actually think about what was the best option.

Okay, the Scooby Gang is walking through the Graveyard on patrol when the gang of vampires they've been hunting come out of the shadows. Two each charge in on Buffy and Angel. Two more come up from behind, one goes for Giles and Cordelia and the other tries for Xander and Willow.

The vamps attacking Angel and Buffy each get a +1 to their Combat score, while the White Hats (regular folk) of the group get a +1 to the vamps they are fighting. The GM can easily note on his scratch paper who is fighting what vampire, and for Buffy to say "Alright, I've dusted my two I'm gonna go help Xander and Willow' there's not really very much to figure out. Exactly how far away they are from each other and what angle they are at isn't important.

The game has other things to make it go quickly - the bad guys don't roll, Drama Points can help you set things up tactically rather than do them on a grid - Willow spends a Drama Point so that the vamp is standing right in front of a sharp tree branch, and Xander tackles him onto it. The moves that a character likes are pre-calculated on the character sheet, and aren't hard to do on the fly.

The fight described above would take maybe 10 minutes real time to resolve. No minis, no grid.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Even a crunchy simulationist system like GURPS can use gridless combat. If you use GURPS basic then you still have a gritty system without all the minis or maps required.

 

[Dausuul]

I can see it.

The change in base sizes from 3.0 to 3.5 was mostly designed to make grid combat easier and more sensible. (I personally never liked the implied facing of long miniatures, but that's neither here nor there.) It also made miniature production easier; standardized round bases of a few set sizes are a lot easier to produce than a wide variety of ovals.

-O

There's a difference between "mini-friendly" (reducing the difficulties and problems involved in playing with minis) and "mini-centric" (changing the design in ways that create problems when not playing with minis).

 

[Hussar]

Okay, the Scooby Gang is walking through the Graveyard on patrol when the gang of vampires they've been hunting come out of the shadows. Two each charge in on Buffy and Angel. Two more come up from behind, one goes for Giles and Cordelia and the other tries for Xander and Willow.

The vamps attacking Angel and Buffy each get a +1 to their Combat score, while the White Hats (regular folk) of the group get a +1 to the vamps they are fighting. The GM can easily note on his scratch paper who is fighting what vampire, and for Buffy to say "Alright, I've dusted my two I'm gonna go help Xander and Willow' there's not really very much to figure out. Exactly how far away they are from each other and what angle they are at isn't important.

The game has other things to make it go quickly - the bad guys don't roll, Drama Points can help you set things up tactically rather than do them on a grid - Willow spends a Drama Point so that the vamp is standing right in front of a sharp tree branch, and Xander tackles him onto it. The moves that a character likes are pre-calculated on the character sheet, and aren't hard to do on the fly.

The fight described above would take maybe 10 minutes real time to resolve. No minis, no grid.

But, from what you've described, there is zero tactical thinking involved.

This is pretty much how things worked out in my 1e and 2e games as well. The monsters match up with the PC's, when a PC or a monster drops his opponent, he moves on to the next one.

In your example, the only actual tactical thinking going on is spending a drama point.

How is that tactical depth?

Now, I'm totally not saying it's not fun, I like playing this way too. But, it's certainly not tactical IMO.

Sorry, having a hard time finding the June 2009 Scott Rouse post which makes this far more explicit.

I'd be interested in seeing this.

WOTC brought out Chainmail in 2000 but didn't really seriously get into producing minis until a few years after that with DDM in 2003. If 3e was meant to be a vehicle for selling minis, to the degree you appear to be claiming, why did they wait almost four years to get serious about selling minis?

Claims that 3e and then 4e D&D was designed to sell minis seems about as valid as saying D&D (any edition) was designed to sell graph paper.

 

[maddman75]

But, from what you've described, there is zero tactical thinking involved.

This is pretty much how things worked out in my 1e and 2e games as well. The monsters match up with the PC's, when a PC or a monster drops his opponent, he moves on to the next one.

In your example, the only actual tactical thinking going on is spending a drama point.

How is that tactical depth?

Now, I'm totally not saying it's not fun, I like playing this way too. But, it's certainly not tactical IMO.

The combat maneauvers provide a decent amount of tactical depth.

For starters, Buffy can go right for the stake through the heart. If the vamp is weak enough and she rolls good enough, it could go down right off. Or, she could punch it a couple of times first to soften it up. Staking does about the same as a dagger, but if 5x that damage would kill it, vamp is dust. If not, it just takes regular damage. Or she could go for a kick, which is harder to land but does more damage. Or go for a sweep kick or knockout, which is harder still but can disable a foe.

The less heroic characters have many choices too. They could spend a DP to do something like described above, or team up and hope for some lucky shots, or go help the hero to get them a teamwork bonus. And there's no 'feats' where the combat moves are concerned. Anyone can try to do a leg sweep or a stake through the heart.

There's a strong tactical element to the game without going to miniatures, its just a different sort of tactics.

 

[Jhaelen]

As levels rise in 3e, combat takes significantly longer than it does in previous editions, and there were quite a few threads that discussed this. In fact, so pervasive was this problem that one of the early design goals of 4e was to speed up combat. The later decision to change this design goal to instead slow down combat is one of the factors in my decision to give 4e a pass.

That's totally incorrect, though, as you probably full well know.

I cannot remember if one of the design goals ever was to actually speed up combat (but it may well have been), but it doesn't really matter, either.

What they DID do is speed up a combat turn. Overall combat length measured in real time did not change noticably but combat _feels_ faster because everyone gets to act more often. Triggered actions and granting other players bonuses and extra actions also mean that players stay focused on the action when it's not their turn.

Even more so than it was in 3e, combat in 4e is a mini(!)-game within the role-playing game. If you don't enjoy this mini-game it's obviously not the system for you. If you do, however, it's great.

I can certainly say that my 3e group are enjoying 4e a lot. Even the players who don't care about combat all that much, agree that 4e combat is fun. It's more tactical than 3e combat and requires (and rewards) better teamplay.

We recently had a 3e combat btw. that took a whopping 10 hours to finish. The combat lasted for 8 turns before the main opponent (a beholder) withdrew. EL and effective party level was 15.

I don't think a 4e combat would ever take that long - especially not a combat that takes (only) 8 turns.

 

[Dausuul]

Grids and boards are handy when creating tactical games, because they provide a large array of options - which of these 400 squares do I want to occupy? what route do I want to take to get there? - in a compact format that is very easy for human beings to grok. Millions of years of evolution as savannah-dwelling predators have given us an intuitive understanding of how to maneuver in two dimensions. (Contrast the difficulty we have when aerial combat comes into play and we have to maneuver in three.)

So it's a challenge to design a game with a strong tactical element (built into the rules, as opposed to created through player and DM improvisation) without a grid. But it's certainly doable. The obvious comparison here is Magic: The Gathering (or any CCG). M:tG has a lot of tactical options despite not having a game board per se.

Claims that 3e and then 4e D&D was designed to sell minis seems about as valid as saying D&D (any edition) was designed to sell graph paper.

The way I see it, 3E was not designed to sell minis, exactly... but it was designed to cater to the type of gamer who buys minis, since those gamers spend ten times as much as everybody else. Hence things like system mastery.

 

[Imaro]

The combat maneauvers provide a decent amount of tactical depth.

For starters, Buffy can go right for the stake through the heart. If the vamp is weak enough and she rolls good enough, it could go down right off. Or, she could punch it a couple of times first to soften it up. Staking does about the same as a dagger, but if 5x that damage would kill it, vamp is dust. If not, it just takes regular damage. Or she could go for a kick, which is harder to land but does more damage. Or go for a sweep kick or knockout, which is harder still but can disable a foe.

The less heroic characters have many choices too. They could spend a DP to do something like described above, or team up and hope for some lucky shots, or go help the hero to get them a teamwork bonus. And there's no 'feats' where the combat moves are concerned. Anyone can try to do a leg sweep or a stake through the heart.

There's a strong tactical element to the game without going to miniatures, its just a different sort of tactics.

Yep, Runequest 2 with it's combat maneuvers provides tactical depth without a grid as well... or Exalted with it's charms. I definitly don't think a grid is necessary for tactical depth in combat.

 

[Shazman]

What they DID do is speed up a combat turn. Overall combat length measured in real time did not change noticably but combat _feels_ faster because everyone gets to act more often. Triggered actions and granting other players bonuses and extra actions also mean that players stay focused on the action when it's not their turn.

I don't really think that the combat trun has been sped up, though. More decisions to make, more concern about forced movement and where to place you mini or powers, more conditions to track, more actions to consider (most people in 3.5 only worried about move, standard, or full-round actions) plus many times making multiple attacks with bursts and blasts means that 4E turns can easily take just as long or longer than in 3.x. Even if they are shorter for many people, they are only marginally so. Slightly shorter rounds plus doubling the number of rounds equals much longer combat.

 

[Imaro]

I don't really think that the combat trun has been sped up, though. More decisions to make, more concern about forced movement and where to place you mini or powers, more conditions to track, more actions to consider (most people in 3.5 only worried about move, standard, or full-round actions) plus many times making multiple attacks with bursts and blasts means that 4E turns can easily take just as long or longer than in 3.x. Even if they are shorter for many people, they are only marginally so. Slightly shorter rounds plus doubling the number of rounds equals much longer combat.

Yeah I agree. Of course the problem is that many people will tell you that if these things are slowing your 4e game down, it's not the rules that are at fault but instead that it is some form of user error when implementing these things.