Is Losing your Turn The Worst That Can Happen

[jdrakeh]

It's not necessarily the worst thing, but it can lead to other bad things (character death among them) and, in such cases, it can absolutely be the worst thing.

 

[Krachek]

I think it depends on the table turn time.
Loosing a turn when it take 30 mins or more to make a table turn is lamely long.

 

[TiQuinn]

This comes up in threads now and again, and recently someone said they would rather their character die than be denies their turn multiple rounds in a row.

Is that a general truth, do you think? Do you think most players think losing their turn in combat is the worst/least fun effect? And do you feel that way as a player? What about as a GM?

Personally, I think it's overstated. Yes, it sucks. So does losing a turn in Monopoly. Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

But I think the larger problem is the speed of turns overall, and that has an impact regardless of whether you lose a turn or not. I've been in games back in the 3rd edition days where I didn't lose my turn but it still took nearly 10 minutes to come back around to me. I think the loss of a turn is a symptom of that larger problem - games that don't move fast enough as you add greater complexity to the combat system.

 

[aco175]

Is it the same as, oh my God, missing with an attack roll and then sitting until my next turn.

 

[aco175]

I do remember a convention game years ago where my PC was held on the first round of the end fight and I had to just sit and watch the last hour of the event since there was no save each round like most spells today. That did kind of suck.

 

[Morrus]

This comes up in threads now and again, and recently someone said they would rather their character die than be denies their turn multiple rounds in a row.

Is that a general truth, do you think? Do you think most players think losing their turn in combat is the worst/least fun effect? And do you feel that way as a player? What about as a GM?

I’m not sure you can have less fun playing D&D than by not playing D&D. Spending 45 minutes watching your friends play D&D probably isn’t the funnest fun time ever.

 

[Pedantic]

Is it the same as, oh my God, missing with an attack roll and then sitting until my next turn.

I don't actually think that is the same. The bit that's frustrating isn't the lack of outcome, it's the lack of agency. It's one thing to make a decision or take a risk that doesn't pay out, it's quite another to not get to make a decision at all.

 

[Reynard]

I’m not sure you can have less fun playing D&D than by not playing D&D. Spending 45 minutes watching your friends play D&D probably isn’t the funnest fun time ever.

If every turn takes 22.5 minutes, I'm not sure anyone is having fun.

 

[Deset Gled]

This comes up in threads now and again, and recently someone said they would rather their character die than be denies their turn multiple rounds in a row.

Well, the first big thing to address here is the difference in the thread title and this sentence. Being denied too many rounds will always a problem. People want to play the game, not be a spectator.

OTOH, if losing a (one!) turn is seen as a major, really big, horrendous, terrible punishment, then I generally think the system is the bigger problem.

IMNSHO, a single turn should be a relatively little amount of action. Rounds should also be fast. And while actions should be meaningful, they should not be so meaningful that an entire combat is directed by the person who acts first. In a perfect game for me, losing one turn should be seen as a significant annoyance/loss/punishment, but not too big of a deal. Certainly not so big that anyone gets upset. If a game gets to the point where losing a single turn effectively takes the player out of the entire combat (or out of gameplay by more than ~5 minutes), that's a problem.

D&D has had mission creep with this multiple times. One of the things that I see with 5e is that it feels like there are currently an order of magnitude more spells that are bonus actions or reactions than when the game was first released. I hate when casters go nuclear, but I hate it even more when they can go nuclear by casting multiple spells in a round. The same thing happened with 3E. When the game was first released, action economy was extremely important (we're not going to talk about Haste ). But by the end of 3.5e there were immediate actions, swift actions, and a whole lot more going on in a single turn.

Of course, there's a social aspect to this as well. If every player is actively planning their turns and goes quickly, rounds will move faster. If every player stops to review a spell, measure distances, and ask questions for their turn, it will slow things down more. If you have to call a player back into the room because they're in the kitchen grabbing some Cheetos and a Mountain Dew when their turn comes up, there's not much any game system can do to help improve the situation. Maybe that player is the rare case where someone does deserve to be denied their turn until they manage to sit down at the table. YMMV.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

It sucks but it's not nearly as bad now that they changed death/dying to death saves. It was the worst when you got knocked out in 3.5 and had -7 Hp and had to sit there for the rest of the combat, waiting for it to end. Maybe you'd get to make a death save to stabilize every round. Maybe someone would heal you and do not quite enough healing to revive you. But really, you could be out of the game for an hour or longer. We made a house-rule that let you stay conscious when in negatives so you could act with extreme penalties. It was dangerous to do so but it was an option, at least.

Getting held sucks and it was worse in previous editions but, in 5e it's not a big deal since there are SO many ways to counter it. Make your save, attack the target so they are forced to make a concentrations save. Honestly, I don't know why people go on about Hold Person. If you get held, and your team isn't trying to smack the spellcaster over and over to force a concentration save, then your team is partially responsible for the fact you've been sitting out for too long.

I know that this thread came out of the gold dragon banishment thing. I could see that fight as being potentially frustrating. More for the fact that you get banished, spend three rounds moving back to the combat and then getting banished again.

It would be neat if you could have the choice of losing something important in order to break an enchantment. Maybe you lose access to a character ability for the day, or are slowed to 10 feet and suffer -5 to all attacks until the enchantment is done...then you'd have the choice. But it would need to be a heavy enough penalty to not make it an automatic choice when you failed a save.