I don't see it as taking more swings, I see it as taking more effective swings. I just don't think the best fighter in the world should be fumbling every 30 seconds of combat and I don't enjoy a game that does. Doesn't mean it's wrong for you and yours.
D&D (2024) Is Combat Tedious on Purpose?
- Thread starter MGibster
- Start date
I don't see it as taking more swings, I see it as taking more effective swings. I just don't think the best fighter in the world should be fumbling every 30 seconds of combat and I don't enjoy a game that does. Doesn't mean it's wrong for you and yours.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Because popularity is what every defender of 5e specifically uses as their defense thereof.
Because unpopularity is what every attacker of 4e specifically used, and still to this day uses, to justify its exclusion from the Big Tent Edition.
Because people continue to insist that the beautiful thing about D&D is how it embraces a wide variety of things, that it's not exclusionary but rather inclusionary, and the preferences you speak of are the opposite of inclusionary.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
They could be inclusionary. You just have to provide multiple options in the books. Or WotC could just pick a side and run it all the way through with full transparency. 4e more or less did that, and even though I didn't and don't like the side upon which they came down, I respected it and still do. This is why I still feel doing a proper 6e would have resulted in better games and, in the long run, happier fans.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
You may or may not have noticed that one of the things I specifically advocate for, on the regular, is the option of novice levels, specifically designed to fulfill the needs of old-school style fans who are really jonesing for that full "genuinely ZERO to hero" experience.
I entirely agree with you that a proper 6e--which takes lessons from 5e, 4e, 3e, and the OSR movement--would be a better choice. But that's not what WotC has decided upon, and frankly, I think the wisdom (or lack thereof) of their choice will become quite apparent in the next 4-5 years. Reboots, whether they're full editions (like 5.5e and 3.5e) or merely an "alternate entry point" (like Essentials, and arguably some of the late 2e stuff), never last any longer than the original, and usually less.
I will also note, Lanefan has very specifically spoken of wanting to set the baseline difficulty pretty much at the absolute maximum that D&D has ever had, simply because it would be easier for him because then he wouldn't have to sell his players on that high-difficulty experience. He has further said that whether this drives people away or not isn't his concern--which is why I called it exclusionary.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
I mean, my preferred game runs that way as well, but you're right that only that would be exclusionary.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Only if you decide to design it that way. You present this as a guaranteed, absolutely-must-happen kind of thing, but...it isn't. Backgammon and Monopoly contain dice. Those dice never do anything more (or less) dramatic than moving you around on the board--the closest to "something extreme occurring" is being sent to jail for getting three doubles in a row, and even that is hardly an "extreme" occurrence.
Just because the dice are present, doesn't mean extreme results HAVE to happen. You need to explain why having any source of randomness guarantees hyper-extreme results--and you're gonna have a tough time explaining something that simply, flatly, isn't true.
Well, since I reject the idea that that possibility is guaranteed unless the designer specifically chooses to add it on top of choosing to include dice (or other randomness), this conclusion does not follow.
Not even slightly would I have said that. Because you are (pretty blatantly) comparing apples to kumquats.Not sure how much you follow baseball, but...
Last season the Chicago White Sox were a bad team. Historically bad. If memory serves, no other team in MLB history has lost as many games in a season as they just did. There's every reason to expect they'll be just as bad this year.
At the same time, the LA Dodgers were a very good team last year; and have since if anything become significantly better.
By your logic here, were the White Sox and Dodgers scheduled to play each other during the coming season a Dodgers sweep would be a foregone conclusion, so why even bother playing those games?
It just don't work that way.
Before a battle begins, nothing is a foregone conclusion. Before a sport match begins, nothing is a foregone conclusion.
I'm talking about situations like "the PCs are all at full health, they have defeated 90% of the enemy force, the remaining combatants genuinely cannot do enough damage to take down any PC even if they crit on every single attack" level stuff. Things where it is literally, completely JUST a procedural thing to wrap up. It saves everyone's time and energy to just skip the two or three turns of attacks and be done with it--perhaps roll to see if anyone might get hit and the piddly-nothing damage they'll take, if nickel-and-dime bean-counting matters that much.
And, further, it is NOT fudging to call a fight early when it's clear the PCs have simply, outrightly won and all that remains is cleanup duty. Fudging is done in secret. That's the whole point. With fudging, you genuinely need to never reveal that you've secretly altered the game to be what you wanted it to be, rather than what the rules actually said would happen, because if players found out it would ruin the emotional impact of the situation and make everything feel contrived.
Calling a fight early is not, and cannot be, fudging--because you have to do it openly. There's no other way to end the fight without, y'know, telling the players that you're ending it there because it isn't worth the effort to grind through it.
Furthermore, separately from the above, doesn't this position you're taking here conflict with another you've taken before? Specifically, you have (IIRC more than once!) mentioned your annoyance with modern D&D fans' failure to consider retreat as a valid option. By what you've said here, that should never be even a consideration--since there's always a chance of victory, the party should never surrender and never retreat, no matter what. Yet I know that's not what you believe; you very much think retreat should always be an option the party is willing to consider. That, too, is an example of ending a combat early--just one fully under the players' control.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Every 30 seconds?
Oh yes, of course, you're thinking of 5e's very short rounds.
And I do see it as the warrior is taking more swings in the same amount of time, as in the weapon is literally moving faster due to repeated practice and familiarity.
That said, 30 seconds in 5e is what, 5 combat rounds? If you're using fumble on nat. 1 and the fighter's getting 4 attacks a round then sure, on average you'll see a fumble every 30 seconds. However, 1-in-20 is far too frequent for both fumbles and criticals; there needs to be a confirm roll of some sort to reduce the frequency and thus make both into more stand-out occurrences.
I just ran a session that had one fumble in it: someone trying to shoot a bow while being carried in flight by someone else managed to nick himself for one whole point of damage. The same archer had the previous round rolled a critical hit in the same situation (which is why he tried again despite warnings that what he was doing carried a higher-than-usual risk of fumbling); the odds of getting a crit one round and a fumble the next in our system are mighty low (in this particular case they were 1-in-1608 if my arithmetic is right), but he did it.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
As I just posted, tonight I saw a series of rolls occur that on average would happen only once in every 1608 attempts. That to me counts as extreme odds.
Extreme results might never happen, You could play all your life and never see that one-in-a-million sequence of rolls someone else saw the second time they played.
But that they might never happen in one's experience doesn't deny the possibility of their happening.
If before a battle begins that same state exists, where the PCs are at full pop and the enemies are only 10% of what they might have been, then by your own logic (bolded above) it's not a foregone conclusion.
Also, it is never the case that "the remaining combatants cannot possibly do enough damage to take down any PC", because as long as even one opponent remains fighting there is still a chance - however small - that an extreme series of good rolls by it and awful rolls by the PCs will see it prevail. Sure the odds might be lower than one-in-a-million, the point is that they are not zero.
To me, openly altering the game is the same as secretly altering it: you're denying something the possibility of occurring in favour of something else occurring. Whether or not the players know about it is, for these purposes, irrelevant.
There's a huge difference between having your foes try to retreat from the battle in-character (meanwhile allowing the PCs to react in whatever manner they see fit) and simply declaring "the combat's done, they ran away" without any chance given to shoot them as they leave or chase them down or even follow them to see where they go.
Even worse would be declaring "the combat's done, they're all dead" when the foes were fighting to the death (let's say they were mindless zombies or something), as this much more obviously denies the chance for something extreme to happen.
As for when the PCs are the ones getting clobbered, the concept of player agency dictates they can make their own decisions as to whether to retreat or surrender or fight to the death or whatever; and if they did decide to fight to the death I assume that would be played out in full in any case, largely in long-shot hopes of that miraculous series of rolls occurring that bails the PCs out.
GrimCo
Hero
@Lanefan
Just to clarify, you play 5e, right? Since this is tagged as 5e, not general, i would assume we all talk about same edition.
I mean, everyone is free to do at their table what they like. That's the beauty of this game. We all technically play same game, yet with house rules, every table practically plays their own version of their game.
I get it, you like to play it to the end and see what the dice will tell. If your group is having fun playing that way, kudos. For my group, playing combat for extra rounds just so we can confirm with dice that players will indeed win, is waste of time. Especially if they can win with just basic "i attack, i hit/miss, do or don't do damage, next". Wasting time on that isn't fun for me as a DM or as a player. That's why, we zoom out from combat minigame and end combat with narration. I played enough 1-2h long grinding encounters where we chipped away slowly against enemies that posed little threat ( back in PF1 days when it was possible to have so high defense that enemies could hit you only on 20). Personally, when that happens, i tend to start scrolling on my phone.
If pc-s are at 100% and opposition is at 10%, i wouldn't even call for initiative roll. Just ask players to describe what they do and go on with it. Sure, once in a blue moon, you can have PCs roll all bad, DM roll only crits. But in most cases, it will just end up being round or two of meaningless combat.
As for fumbles, i think we dropped those about 15+ years ago. I recall vaguely from 3.5 days, reflex save on nat1 to not lose weapon.
Also, you said, there is always next session. Which is true. But for some, when that next session will be, can vary. When there is very good chance to have 3-4 weeks between sessions, and sessions with limited time and hard cut off time, then those extra 15-20 minutes wasted on playing out already won encounter can be spent on something more productive.
Just to clarify, you play 5e, right? Since this is tagged as 5e, not general, i would assume we all talk about same edition.
I mean, everyone is free to do at their table what they like. That's the beauty of this game. We all technically play same game, yet with house rules, every table practically plays their own version of their game.
I get it, you like to play it to the end and see what the dice will tell. If your group is having fun playing that way, kudos. For my group, playing combat for extra rounds just so we can confirm with dice that players will indeed win, is waste of time. Especially if they can win with just basic "i attack, i hit/miss, do or don't do damage, next". Wasting time on that isn't fun for me as a DM or as a player. That's why, we zoom out from combat minigame and end combat with narration. I played enough 1-2h long grinding encounters where we chipped away slowly against enemies that posed little threat ( back in PF1 days when it was possible to have so high defense that enemies could hit you only on 20). Personally, when that happens, i tend to start scrolling on my phone.
If pc-s are at 100% and opposition is at 10%, i wouldn't even call for initiative roll. Just ask players to describe what they do and go on with it. Sure, once in a blue moon, you can have PCs roll all bad, DM roll only crits. But in most cases, it will just end up being round or two of meaningless combat.
As for fumbles, i think we dropped those about 15+ years ago. I recall vaguely from 3.5 days, reflex save on nat1 to not lose weapon.
Also, you said, there is always next session. Which is true. But for some, when that next session will be, can vary. When there is very good chance to have 3-4 weeks between sessions, and sessions with limited time and hard cut off time, then those extra 15-20 minutes wasted on playing out already won encounter can be spent on something more productive.
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