D&D (2024) Is Combat Tedious on Purpose?

[Minigiant]

When I'm on a train and I'm in the game design mode I dabble with The little simple RPG my family runs when they play together.

In it a character doesn't simply attack.

The character when you attack or cast a spell targeting someone has to choose whether they are attacking, aggressively, defensively, tactically, or recklessly (or cowardly).

There's a Rock Pape Scissors element to it. And different fighting styles and other elements favor certain attack types. So it keeps you engaged even if you're just attacking because you might want to switch styles to not get caught at the wrong time.

No tedium there. Other subsystems.... Eeerr

 

[Kromanjon]

From my perspective you were the one missing points by overlooking what I had said. So, I needed to be very direct and clear to prevent that.

Direct and clear can be done in a polite manner.

So... your character stays home and becomes a baker, and hopes the sourdough starter doesn't get any ideas?

No. My character finds another solution or, at least, changes the odds for the better if nothing else works.

Except I had specifically noted the issue of repetition arose in situation in which the player lacked useful choices. Cosmetic solutions do not change that situation.

So, if I’m getting this right useful choices prevent repetition. I agree. But I feel that descriptions, even though they don’t offer mechanical advantages, can also break the monotony. This is my personal opinion. I’m not dictating anyone else’s truth.

It is hard to see how telling me what I want is not personal, nor intentional, but having made that point I can let it go.

You are free to quote where I told you what you want.

 

[jgsugden]

While I don't disagree with you here, the DM-side risk in planting those seeds is that one might get too attached to watching them grow even if-when the players want to chop 'em down and develop a different story.

We both agree that this is entirely under the control of the DM, right? While you might have this problem, you could also have the DM suddenly turn into a cannibal and eat the players. In my experience, that comes up far more often if I didn't have a good lunch.

What I find is truly cool - and it's happened to me a few times over the years - is when hindsight shows something that was never intentional in the first place can serve to tie a bunch of otherwise disparate elements together.

Even something as simple as the same wandering monster coming up by random chance in the same area every time the PCs pass through can point to there being more involved than at first met the eye. As in, why have they randomly met Hobgoblins the last four times they went near those woods? What are my dice trying to tell me here?

This is a bit of revisionist history, right? There was no connection until the players saw it and drew it, and then you as the DM validate and build around it?

That approach does come with the risk of unintended results. For example, they identify the hobgoblins occurring over and over as a pattern and then you give merit to the observation by building upon it on the fly ... and then realize that what you build contradicts what you have built elsewhere or what might be written into the module you purchased to run? This can happen in any game, but if you're building your core story lore around it, it can end up being a bigger issue.

 

[Staffan]

Another game where a variety of actions in combat are strongly incentivized by the rules is TORG: Eternity.

T:E is calibrated so that, barring shenanigans, it's going to be fairly common that PCs hit their opponents, but those hits will usually just be regular successes, and in most cases that will just lead to the enemy taking some shock points (if you take enough you'll be KOed, but you'd need to be hit several times for that to happen. If you get a Good or Outstanding success on your attack roll (5 or 10 points over the needed result) you get +1d6 or +2d6 (exploding) to damage, which significantly increases the chance of Wounding the opponent. For most opponents, a single Wound will take them out of combat, but "main characters" will be able to take more.

You also have four different "Interaction Attacks" available: Maneuver, Trick, Taunt, and Intimidate. These are ways to debuff your foes, either making them Vulnerable (opponents get +2 to attack them) or Stymied (they get -2 to do stuff). These can stack to Very _____, increasing the modifier to 4. You'll also note that Trick is based on Mind, Taunt on Charisma, and Intimidate on Spirit, so a character without talent for fighting (low Agility) can nonetheless contribute using these skills. Initiative works so that either all PCs go followed by all villains, or vice versa, so barring shenanigans the PCs can go in whatever internal order they wish. so Adelaide can Taunt the villain making them Vulnerable, thereby providing an opportunity for Belvedere to stab the villain with his sword and put some serious hurt on the villain.

In addition, the game uses a variety of cards, notably Drama cards. Drama cards can provide pretty strong bonuses to various actions, and the way to get more is to use Interaction attacks at opportune times. So what happens is that some PCs spend time setting the enemies up with Interaction attacks, then they do some card trading so the designated hitter will have pretty big chance of actually hitting the enemy and dealing some serious damage.

 

[Lanefan]

So... your character stays home and becomes a baker, and hopes the sourdough starter doesn't get any ideas?

Not at all. The character still goes out in the field. However...

It isn't like the player has a choice to never get attacked, except by never going adventuring at all. The game has combat rules, so we ought to concern ourselves with how they turn out when they are used.

...it (and the party it's in) then proceeds to do everything it can to solve problems, defeat challenges, and complete missions without getting into combat; and if-when it has no choice but fight it does - when possible - everything it can to tilt things in its favour, preferably before the fight begins.

Instead of fighting the gate guards and likely alerting the whole place to our presence, we sneak past them on the way in - and again on the way out.

Instead of fighting the Ogre and maybe getting squashed like little bugs, we feed it and (maybe with magical help, maybe not) befriend it and maybe even get it working for us instead of against us.

Instead of facing the BBEG undead Wizard in a firefight, we try our best to use stealth and dirty tricks to destroy him before he even knows we're there.

 

[Lanefan]

We both agree that this is entirely under the control of the DM, right? While you might have this problem, you could also have the DM suddenly turn into a cannibal and eat the players. In my experience, that comes up far more often if I didn't have a good lunch.

Errrr...how did this get to DMs eating players?

I think I missed a leap of logic somewhere.

This is a bit of revisionist history, right? There was no connection until the players saw it and drew it, and then you as the DM validate and build around it?

Call it revisionist if you like. I call it a happy accident, that there's a pattern where none was intended and I can now build on that pattern.

That approach does come with the risk of unintended results. For example, they identify the hobgoblins occurring over and over as a pattern and then you give merit to the observation by building upon it on the fly ... and then realize that what you build contradicts what you have built elsewhere or what might be written into the module you purchased to run? This can happen in any game, but if you're building your core story lore around it, it can end up being a bigger issue.

Indeed. But something simple like maybe there's a secret enclave of Hobgoblins in that forest (thus explaining their seemingly-constant presence there) shouldn't be that hard to work in, and if it gives me another adventure to run I count that as a bonus.

But yes, I try to be careful (as in, I'm highly cognizant of) not to rewrite history or override anything already established. For example, if it's already known that the forest is a generally peaceful and well-explored place then even though Hobgoblins have been met there numerous times I'll just have to leave it as bad luck and random chance.

 

[Umbran]

...it (and the party it's in) then proceeds to do everything it can to solve problems, defeat challenges, and complete missions without getting into combat; and if-when it has no choice but fight it does - when possible - everything it can to tilt things in its favour, preferably before the fight begins.

D&D (and other traditional games) is/are well known to produce grindy combat EVEN AFTER efforts to do what you describe there.

Not that players are always given ample opportunity to make preparations and pick their own ground, so to speak. Nor are GMs incentivized to make such efforts effective. But even if those go well, the grindy end-result still happens often enough that it is a well-known trope.

Maybe blaming the players for the resulting mediocre play experience is easy, but is also misses what can happen in play as a result of the rules design.

 

[GrimCo]

5e is setup to provide challenge trough the grind. Monsters have inflated HP so they stay longer, and they are designed like that to slowly chip away at PCs expendable resources and not go down too fast.

 

[Lanefan]

5e is setup to provide challenge trough the grind. Monsters have inflated HP so they stay longer, and they are designed like that to slowly chip away at PCs expendable resources and not go down too fast.

Which would be fine if the PCs' resources were in fact expendable and able to be chipped away at, but the concept is undermined by a) their ability to recover those resources far too quickly and easily and b) some of those resources never diminishing (e.g. cantrips).

 

[overgeeked]

Which would be fine if the PCs' resources were in fact expendable and able to be chipped away at, but the concept is undermined by a) their ability to recover those resources far too quickly and easily and b) some of those resources never diminishing (e.g. cantrips).

The only real way to mitigate this in 5E seems to be Safe Haven resting. You simply can’t take a long rest outside of a designated safe have and short rests take 8 hours and are interruptible.