D&D 5E Removing the HP Bloat

[Blue]

3. Magic kills. Sleep can actually affect things. In 1E, the average ogre (4d8+1) had 19 hit points. Sleep actually had a 50/50 chance of working. In 5E, it won't work until you get the ogre down 30 hp or more typically. Well, people might cry out "NO way! Casters would be too powerful!" accept they aren't since they will also have fewer hit points and be just as vulnerable to enemy casters as their opponents are to them.

With the very few exceptions that have HP thresholds, the only spells that care about HPs are damaging spells. Spells that do damage become much more effective than spells that debuff or crowd control (dead is the best condition to inflict) so all that casters do is the same thing as weapon wielders - inflict damage. This makes magic much more mundane than before.

 

[Blue]

This may be controversial for hardcore sim types- but if the PCs are having a dramatic battle, stakes are high, they are low on spells, HP, etc and the in game fiction and fun would be better served by the Fighter slicing clean through the throat of that Marilith on his successful attack rather than going through the motions of another round and whittling down those last 25 HP -I go with the dramatic ending- either I, or depending on the player, have them describe that final slice/cut/thrust. 180 HP, or 150 HP for the Marilith- who cares.

This is a great technique, I like it a lot.

Get rid of cyclic initiative- nothing is more boring/makes combats drag as players tune out until their turn. Roll it each round on a d6 or d10, no modifiers, and then when it's your Players turns jump back and forth as the in game fiction dictates.

I've found having to re-poll each player every turn both adds length to combats, and also breaks any flow / kills inertial. We just use cards / clothespins and just constantly move - there's no gap between players or between rounds and it's all very smooth - plus everyone know when they are up next so they have their action ready.

In addition, one of the things D&D 5e does in it's streamlining is that there are a number of spells and effects that last "until the start|end of your next turn" which assume that each other creature will have exactly one action during that time. Not more, not less. Because of how redoing initiative interacts with that streamlining (instead of a proper duration), this has a lot of ripple effects and unintended consequences in 5e.

 

[cbwjm]

I've found combat can take quite a while to get through as well, my friends and I met for a few hours a couple of weeks ago, the session picked up at the start of a boss battle and it took almost the entire session (around 2 hours after taking out the random convo we always have) to complete it. 5 level 4 PCs so it isn't like they have a plethora of options to consider.

I have been experimenting with minion rules to both help speed up combat by being able to drop minor enemiers easily and also give that epic feel of wiping out multiple enemies. Might give the mook rules from 13th age (I think) a go and see how that works since I think that will be easier to use.

 

[Blue]

Biggest thing I'm looking at? PCs will start the campaign with their HP set at 3rd level (IE Max HD+CON mod, half HD+CON mod, half HD+CON mod) and then it never goes up.

At higher levels, this makes all spells that deal direct damage so much more effective than any other spells on them. Considering that players will usually only have 2-3 decent saves and the rest don't go up with level, and now their buffer of HPs do not go up by level, it means there is literally no scaling to protect against many damage spells - which are scaling by spell slot. You'll quickly get back to save-or-die for damage spells, often in area of effect, followed not long after by just-die, where even making your save doesn't reduce the damage enough.

 

[Prakriti]

So, why am I doing this? BECAUSE COMBAT TAKES WAY TOO LONG! The culprit? Hit point bloat (IMO anyway).

Agreed 100%, especially in higher levels. My solution is a little different, though. I don't like asking the players do anything out of the ordinary -- I prefer to keep my changes behind the scenes to give everything the veneer of officialness. So while I halve monster HP, as you do, I do not halve PC HP. Instead, I double monster damage. This has the same effect as halving PC HP, but it doesn't require the players to opt in to any homebrew nonsense.

Also, even though the results are the same, my solution makes the world feel deadlier, whereas your solution makes the players feel weaker. You can imagine which option players prefer.

 

[Bacon Bits]

So, one of our players ran his next session in our CoS game. I will give you a run down of our two battles (which took just over one hour each to play out).

PCs:
3rd level Ranger (UA Beast Master, AC 18, 24 hp)
3rd level Bard (College of Swords, AC 15, 25 hp)
4th level Paladin (homebrew Death Oath similar to Death Domain cleric, AC 17, 33)
3rd level Warlock (Hexblade)/ 1st level Sorcerer (Shadow Magic, AC 18, 24 hp)

versus:

#1.; 4 Dire Wolves (Note, paladin and sorlock were both 3rd level here, not 4th.)

then

#2: 6 Scarecrows

The Dire Wolves battle took 5 rounds and the Scarecrows battle 6 rounds.

Are these unreasonable? Not IMO. Yet the monsters didn't die in 2 or 3 rounds, did they? No.

So, how are YOU (for those who say they are and monster die too quickly) doing it?

I think 5-6 rounds is about par for a Deadly encounter. However, I can't imagine either of these combats taking more than 30 minutes from rolling initiative to the last opponent falling.

Honestly, I still can't conceive of a combat taking 4 hours unless something really strange was going on like a dynamically shifting environment.

I know that you run a lot of house rules based on your posts to other threads. What house rules are you using? Are you using Greyhawk Initiative, weapon speed, flanking or some other house rule that might add to the administrative overhead of the combat? Are you using miniatures or theater of the mind? How experienced are you and your players? Are you playing in person at a table or are you on like Roll20? Are you using any digital tools as DM? Are you flipping around the monster manual or do have a way to have all the monster listings at your fingertips? Do you have children or the television on or lots of texting or other frequent interruptions/distractions during play? Are your players descriptive, or do they just say, "I attack the guy in front of me again!" and roll a die?

 

[Blue]

One of the things I did to encourage faster play was to limit table talk and to encourage people to roll ahead if they could. For the guy that was slow at math (he ran a fighter) I had him use average damage (round up) and we just worked out a little chart for him. We did the same for spells that had a lot of damage die (i.e. meteor storm).

You've got a good point about lots of small things to en-quicken everyone's turn. Charts with the math worked out. Two players in a game I'm in love spell cards - no flipping. Knowing when you're on-deck and planning your action.

One of my characters in a 9th level barbarian with a flametongue glaive the DM gave me and PAM. So I can do different damage for rage, no rage, flaming (the bonus action to ignite often doesn't happen until later in combat) or not, critical (with barbarian's Brutal Critical feature), and then the bonus action butt-end attack with a different damage die. I have a quick chart of my damage for the different cases and weapons, I have color coded dice for normal vs. fire damage, and when I roll my attack I roll my damage dice at the same time - plus I have already separated out pile of "it's a crit" for me to roll and add in. Even with up to three attacks and various complexity, it runs smooth and quickly.

It's funny - one game where everyone's turn took forever, one of the elements was self-reinforcing. Because it took forever to get back to your action (we had one very slow player), some players would check out and not be following along, so they'd need recaps which means it took even longer and then other players would end up checked out because it took so long, until everyone needed a recap and it was one action every half an hour.

But in the games I play now, each player's turn is sub 1 minute, sometimes <30 seconds, and because of that everyone stays on target and not checking their phones or whatever, which means they are ready and things stay speedy. So there's a cascade effect to everyone buying into the small optimizations to speed their turn.

 

[Blue]

So, one of our players ran his next session in our CoS game. I will give you a run down of our two battles (which took just over one hour each to play out).

PCs:
3rd level Ranger (UA Beast Master, AC 18, 24 hp)
3rd level Bard (College of Swords, AC 15, 25 hp)
4th level Paladin (homebrew Death Oath similar to Death Domain cleric, AC 17, 33)
3rd level Warlock (Hexblade)/ 1st level Sorcerer (Shadow Magic, AC 18, 24 hp)

versus:

#1.; 4 Dire Wolves (Note, paladin and sorlock were both 3rd level here, not 4th.)

then

#2: 6 Scarecrows

The Dire Wolves battle took 5 rounds and the Scarecrows battle 6 rounds.

Are these unreasonable? Not IMO. Yet the monsters didn't die in 2 or 3 rounds, did they? No.

So, how are YOU (for those who say they are and monster die too quickly) doing it?

This is good information. Let us examine the first battle. Four simple opponents - no casting etc. A save to be knocked prone, but something players should quickly understand the mechanics of. Took five rounds, which at "over an hour" means that each round of combat took at least 12 minutes.

Single attack for all but the ranger. Bard has decision points of cast or attack, and if attacking if to flourish, but that's not crazy. Paladin if they hit can decide to smite - again, not long.

If you consider the DM running the straightforward foes quickly, say taking as much time as two PCs for all four monsters. (Likely a move and single attack roll each with animal-level tactics.) That's 6 "PCs" worth of time, so works out to an average of 2+ minutes per turn. I'd consider vets with characters this low of a level taking 30-60 seconds a turn, and "that guy" who reworks his attack and damage math every single time taking 2-5 minutes for a turn.

Now, it could be that there's wonderful amounts of narrative going on with it. Or fun hazards and terrain. But if not, I'd take a look into suggesting speed-ups for the players to help them complete their turns faster. Because regardless if combats are taking too many rounds, there's just as big an issue with how quick they are taking their turns. And those long gaps between actions really feel like forever to players.

 

[Weiley31]

Man, if HP is that much of a slog, what do ya do when your PCs face off against the Boss Encounter that has two health bars of HP?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Something else- You might want to steal the escalation die mechanic from 13th Age. It's super simple, inserts seamlessly into 5E initiative, and it will shorten combats as the PC's increasingly hit more often as the combat goes on- Also great to give badass "boss" monsters and up the tension on the players. (also having special monster abilities trigger when the die reaches "X"). I use a foam D6 about the size of a Rubix Cube on a tall candlestick/candleholder

Interesting idea. I would be more inclined to boost damage instead of hitting though since with BA hitting isn't typically hard (easily better than 50/50 in most cases).

Just some thoughts.

You may want to take a look at how long everyone is taking for their turns. These are low level characters (and relatively simple monsters) so why is it taking over two minutes on average for each person to act? (4 players plus the DM, 5 to 6 rounds, over one hour per encounter.)

The casters have a handful of spells and the warriors have a single attack (two if dual wielding). Even the monsters are pretty straight forward.

These are not insanely complicated characters (or monsters). They have a fairly limited number of options at their disposal in any given round. 2+ minutes is a very slow turn unless someone has a bunch of options to choose from (analysis paralysis).

Additionally, I would suggest mixing up your encounters a bit. For example, instead of 4 dire wolves you could have used 2 dire wolves and 2 bugbears (who were riding them or using them as a distraction or whatever). That'll make the fight more dynamic. For example, the dire wolves have pack tactics, so hopefully you weren't bothering with the trip check during the encounter if it wasn't going to matter anyway. But with the bugbears, it suddenly does matter! Additionally, bugbears are significantly lower HP but higher AC than the wolves, meaning that the players have strategic options to divide and conquer.

I realize you are using a module, but using a bunch of the exact same monster is rarely all that interesting (and hasn't ever been). Variety is the spice of life and all that...

The time each player takes is a while for a couple of them. Although not "newbies" anymore, they aren't really experienced either. I know what most of my spells do, I know tactics, etc. from years of playing other editions. So, some of the time is them deciding on spells and other things.

As for the module, one of the other players is running it, not me or our normal DM. This was only his 4th time DMing and it went pretty well. I am helping him as "co-DM", keeping him on track and helping him with rulings, etc. That adds a little time, as well.

But, this is still a bit issue (the time, I mean) when our regular DM is running the game. So, while it might be factor, I know it isn't all there is too it.

Agreed 100%, especially in higher levels. My solution is a little different, though. I don't like asking the players do anything out of the ordinary -- I prefer to keep my changes behind the scenes to give everything the veneer of officialness. So while I halve monster HP, as you do, I do not halve PC HP. Instead, I double monster damage. This has the same effect as halving PC HP, but it doesn't require the players to opt in to any homebrew nonsense.

Also, even though the results are the same, my solution makes the world feel deadlier, whereas your solution makes the players feel weaker. You can imagine which option players prefer.

LOL SO TRUE! Sigh... Yeah, I could do that. It means they players don't have to do anything, but the result is pretty much the same (my way gives the players a bit more HP than half, but close enough).

The only thing that is sort of weird about it is how the numbers work out. For example, an orc does 9 damage on average. Changing that to 18 doesn't work the same because at 1st level PCs won't have more than 16 HP or so (18 hp is impossible for level 1 PCs). So, while normally a PC could have 12 hp or more and the 9 damage wouldn't kill him, you way doesn't accomplish that.

Maybe I could give PCs their normal hp + their CON score? I'll have to look at the numbers more closely.