D&D General Structural Flaw of the D&D Combat System

[M_Natas]

Making fights more cinematic/exciting is one of the reasons that I changed the 0HP rules to have the "Slowed" rather than "Unconscious" condition when at 0HP (and the condition remains until PC makes a DC19 Con save while they are above 0 HP). What this has meant for big combats is that there is usually at least 1-2 PCs with the condition at the end of the fight, making the party scramble to both keep them alive and still inflict damage on the monsters. Cinematically, this models the bloodied combatant who keeps on fighting while at the edge, and has made big fights all the more exciting.

In the new campaign I just started I'm using the ThinkDM Death saving rules: Death Saves Revived
We will see how that goes.

 

[M_Natas]

Just a thought but a player might use lower level spells/abilities to burn through legendary resistances and then unload the nukes.

My campaigns usually run in the lower tiers, where there aren't many creatures with legendary resistances. But I could build something similiar for lower tier monsters, where they have some king of absorbing armornthat absorbs the first 3 attacks or so, no matter how much damage they do, before the armor gets destroyed. That would create something akin to legendary resistance, but it happens automatically and not when the monster wants to do it.

 

[M_Natas]

I thought resource management and attrition was the whole point of D&D combat?

Over an adventuring day, yeah, but on the encounter level, the optimal strategy (outside of legendary resistances) is to use up all of the ressources you are willing to spend at the beginning and than slug it out with cantrips and attacks, which frontloads encounters.

 

[M_Natas]

This is exacrty what the escalation die in 13th Age is designed to affect.

I looked that one up now. It is very simple, so it would fit easily into 5e evennwithkut change.
For my taste a little to simple, but I will try it out and see how it feels.

 

[Larnievc]

fir which they where underleveled

Probably this is part of the issue. For me if the fight gets to the dull spot I contrive to end it early. And there’s a million way to do that.

More than four rounds is enough for me.

 

[dave2008]

After playing RPGs for several years and attempting to design my own adventures, RPG systems, and homebrew rules, I've noticed a structural flaw in D&D combat that detracts from the excitement: the suspense curve is inverted. The optimal strategy for a D&D fight is to inflict as much damage as possible early on to quickly kill the monster(s), and the rules make it very easy to do so.

As a result, players tend to use their biggest resources, such as high-level spells and limited-use abilities, as early as possible if they perceive the monster as a threat. They try to avoid using any limited resources if they think the monster(s) pose no threat. This leads to front-loaded (boss) fights where all the big cool stuff happens at the beginning, and if the fight drags on, it devolves into a slugfest where the characters spam cantrips and make normal weapon attacks. The dragon, for example, often gets killed by a normal melee attack or an eldritch blast rather than the lightning bolt or the fighter's eight attacks with their action surge.

This is often less true for monsters, as they usually have recharge abilities for their big attacks.

As a result, the suspense curve for players is inverted because if they don't use the optimal strategy, the fight becomes more challenging for them.

To make (boss) battles more exciting and to encourage players to use bigger abilities later in the fight, we need to change something on the design level. One possible mechanic that came to my mind involves giving classes abilities or feats that charge up during combat. For the first two or three rounds, a character would engage in mundane activities like making normal attacks or using cantrips, charging up their special ability. Then, on round three, they can use their special ability to inflict more damage. They must then recharge again. This would create a dynamic where the fight starts small and ends big, rather than vice versa.

I have provided some examples as a proof of concept, but they are not perfect or balanced yet. They are merely intended to illustrate what I envision:

Fighter:
So, let's say a fighter has a special attack called Coup de Grace. It is a special attack, that targets a weakness of a creature, doing double the damage on a hit.
It would read something like that as rules:

Charges:
When you just take the normal attack action (including extra attacks) on your turn, you get a charge point (name is up for debate). You can accumulate charge points up to an maximum equal to your proficiency bonus.
You can spend Charges to activate special abilities as a bonus action:
True Strike (2 Charges):
You studied the movement of your enemy. All the attacks of your next attack action have advantage.
Coup de Grace (3 Charges):
You figured out the weakness of your enemy. You are able to attack the creatures weak spots. Until the beginning of your next turn, that creature is vulnerable (taking double damage) on all attacks from you.

Wizard:
Charges:
When you only cast cantrips on your turn and no leveld spells, you get a charge point (name is up for debate). You can accumulate charge points up to an maximum equal to your proficiency bonus. You can spend Charges to activate special abilities as a bonus action:
Overpowered spell (2 charges):
The next spell you casts counts as a level higher.
Adapted spell (3 charges):
You figured out the vulnerabilities of the enemy creature. It gets vulnerability against the next spell you cast against it.


With such rules in play, without changing anything else, suddenly it makes sense use the big abilities later in the battle and not at the beginning, so you don't start the fight with an explosion but end it in one.

The biggest problem I see so far is, that it collides with Kipoints and sorcery points pretty hard. Especially the sorcery points of the sorcerer take up a similiar design space.

What do you guys and girls think? Is this something feasible? Did somebody try something similiar? Does somebody has developed other solutions?

As @mamba mentioned the escalation die mechanic from 13th Age might be what your looking for. The game math is built around monsters being stronger than the PCs. Then there is an escalation die (d6) that starts at 1 and counts up every round. You add that die number to the PCs attacks (maybe damage too - I don't remember). So the PCs are more likely to hit and damage the longer the combat goes. So you can nova 1st round if you want, but it is less likely to succeed than if you wait to round 4,5, or 6.

 

[dave2008]

I looked that one up now. It is very simple, so it would fit easily into 5e evennwithkut change.
For my taste a little to simple, but I will try it out and see how it feels.

Just be aware that the 13th Age math is built to use the escalation die, 5e is not. If you want to use it, I would suggesting upping monster defenses, maybe +1 per tier or a flat +2 or +3.

 

[Enrahim2]

I find it a bit amusing that D&D appear to have the quality that in all it's iterations the most fun way to play it was not the one it was designed for.

TSR era D&D was designed for a dungeon crawl suspence curve with encounters as quick events along the way, the boss fight at the bottom as the  twist, and the heroic escape through wandering monster filled tunnels with the loot but no resources as the frantic climax.

However most players seemed to think it more fun to play it as a mainly freeform fantasy storytelling game.

Then 3ed came along with its game designed to sell booster packs for a  deck character construction game where the main focus was to get an interesting interplay between players' out of session planning and the climax of seeing how those plans played out at the table.

However most players seemed to prefer playing it as a somewhat structured storytelling game.

Then 4ed came along, designed as an encounter focused game, complete with mechanics for heating things up once the participants hit bloodied.

However these strong mechanics for having long cool battles sucked time from what most players wanted - storytelling. So many stayed behind rather playing the deckbuilder that were less in the way of their storytelling. And those that went to 4ed appear to mostly think the best way to play it is mostly freeform storytelling with a big climatic combat every few session.

Then we have 5ed where my impression is that the idea was mainly "OK, just let us make a stew of everything people say they like from the past, design be damned". Hence we sit with a game that isnt really designed for anything, but incidentaly appear to be the most suitable version of D&D for what most people want to play.

------------

I am hence unsure if the lack of escalation can be considered a flaw. Yes, cinematic climatic combat encounters certainly is better with it. But any such mechanics adds complexity to the game that is not needed for one round blast away the enemy showing how cool we are before continuing the story encounters. And my gut feeling is that it is this sort of encounters that is the bread and butter for the way most like to play...

 

[dave2008]

When I last ran 4e, I experimented with giving the PCs the recharge mechanic for their encounter and daily powers. At the start of each of their turns, a player could attempt to recharge a spent encounter or daily power. IIRC, I made it so an encounter power recharged on a 5 or 6, while a daily recharged on a 6 only.

We found it a lot of fun. I'm not sure how it would work in 5e, but I do wish something like that was built into the system already.

We made a house rule and let players spending healing surges to recharge encounter (1 surge) and daily powers (2 surges). We do something similar in 5e with HD

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, but 5e is definitely a lot of things ut it is not grim life or realistic. 5e is super hereo in fantasyland. It seems more cinematic than earlier editions to me.
And so having structually anticlimactic battles is ... sad. Like, in the last campaign I DM'ed the group had to lead a city under attack against an amphibious attack with a big kraken. So that had some set pieces fights against smaller scale enemies inside the city, using up some ressources and then they went after the kraken, who destroyed most of the fleet defending the city already, leaving the characters as the last line of defense. So far so good. A battle with rising tensions, very cinematic and now we are reaching the climax, the final encounter if the battle.
Our characters on their small ship against a freaking Kraken (fir which they where underleveled) - so they make the only sensible thing that makes sense in 5e - the go in the first rounds NOVA on the Kraken, using up the highestspell slots and rare and very rare single use magic items (like a candle of invocation to open a gate to summon the god they are allied with).
And in the End, the Kraken gets killed by a cantrip, because by then everybody was drained.
The whole battle started strong and ended on a cantrip, because in the End that was the only thing left, the characters could do. Cantrips. Very anticlimactic. Very uncinematic.

If I would redo the battle now, I would change some things- if I would do it RAW, I would maybe create a magic item for the group, that they would need to charge during battle, that can ensnare the encounter or at least quicken it, so that it doesn't end in a cantrip slugfest.

Maybe I just play with different people, but I could see a fair amount of tension in the Kraken fight. Kind of "Crap, we threw everything we had at it including summoning a freakin' god and it's still stands? Holy ..." followed by a great deal of cheering when it finally goes down.

So maybe the problem isn't that they killed it with a cantrip, maybe the fight dragged because it was too static?