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

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

The dice coming up as those specific numbers is an uncommon result. That, you are correct, is unavoidable.

Making that uncommon result be an extreme event within the fiction, however, is NOT unavoidable. That's a choice that is purely elective. Rolling 00 twice on two d100s is a rare event--one in ten thousand!--but it is a designer choice to make that event be super awesome or super awful. It could just be somewhat cooler or somewhat harmful, or just another possibility among many.

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.

No, it isn't. Sorry. You are making mountains out of molehills. I don't accept this argument. "Lower than one-in-a-million" is effectively nonexistent, since this kind of "alright, let's wrap this up, it's done" sort of thing definitely doesn't happen every fight. Let's, generously, say that it's 1 in 10 million, and assume that only, say, one in ten fights even prompts that response. That would mean you'd need to fight A HUNDRED MILLION COMBATS just to see that fluke chance happen once, on average.

I'm not even sure there have been a hundred million combats fought in 5e. I certainly do not believe that there have been a billion.

Hence, if this is a pattern that would only have deprived around 1-10 people this experience, ever, across the entire ten-plus-year history of 5e? Yeah, I don't really see that as being a meaningful concern. Given it's saving (at least) hundreds of thousands of hours of play-time across all the other cases, yeah, I think that "maybe, possibly, 10 people ever in the whole game got deprived of this experience" is a perfectly reasonable price to pay for nearly everyone getting a significant boon out of it.

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.

Absolutely the hell not. The secrecy is the thing that makes fudging awful and utterly unacceptable. When alterations are made in the open, people have a chance to resist, to dispute, to say "hey, no, I want to play that out" or "yeah, let's just move on, it'd be boring to slog through pointless rolls." In other words, exactly the thing you go on to complain about in just a bit--that the PCs don't get a chance to react. Fudging never gives the players a chance to react. Doing things openly and explicitly not only does do that, it also gives players the chance to evaluate whether the DM really listens when they dispute a choice the DM has made.

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.

Whosoever said "without any chance given to shoot them as they leave or chase them down or even follow them to see where they go"? Nobody I can see. I absolutely would not ever say that, so I don't know who you're arguing against, but it isn't me.

Wrapping up a battle when the result is clearly a foregone conclusion is simply saying, "We could do the tedious bookkeeping, but instead, let's just agree that the obvious result happens and move on to the next interesting thing, unless someone objects." And, naturally, "the next interesting thing" would be (a) determining if anyone managed to run or not, and if so, (b) giving the PCs a chance to follow. If nobody managed to run, then it's a matter of whether the PCs interrogate or just shoot to kill.

You could at least try for a charitable reading, you know...

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.

Again, why are you assuming some diktat from on high, a DM sweeping away any notion of player participation or agency? I have never advocated for anything even remotely like that, and I know you know this. I am if anything rabidly against such behavior, and have gone on record about it several times.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

Perhaps you consider this to be "the beauty of this game." I do not. House-rules absolutely have a place in D&D. But if absolutely everyone is playing games nearly unintelligible with one another, it's a disservice to both the players and the hobby-in-general. It balkanizes us, rather than uniting us.

(To be clear, other than this one bit, I fully agree with pretty much everything else you said. This was just the bit I definitely don't agree with.)

 

[AlViking]

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.

Every 30 seconds in 5, but it's still every half dozen rounds for many versions of the game. As far as how many swings the character is making, that goes back to Gygax's description of combat as a number of feints, parries and blows that have no chance of landing if memory serves.

On the other hand a fumble while trying to do something extremely difficult is different than fumbling just because you roll a 1. Under certain circumstances I'll still tell someone what they're doing is extremely difficult and that there will be a cost for failure if they roll low enough. If the chance of a fumble are low enough and need to be confirmed somehow it just became overhead that didn't add enough to the game for me. We don't have as much time to play as I would like anyway so I decided to drop it. That and I never figured out a good way for spellcasters to fumble that didn't just harm characters other than the caster.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Perhaps you consider this to be "the beauty of this game." I do not. House-rules absolutely have a place in D&D. But if absolutely everyone is playing games nearly unintelligible with one another, it's a disservice to both the players and the hobby-in-general. It balkanizes us, rather than uniting us.

(To be clear, other than this one bit, I fully agree with pretty much everything else you said. This was just the bit I definitely don't agree with.)

I would rather that every group play their own game the way they like than be united under a rule set that doesn't make them happy.

 

[GrimCo]

Perhaps you consider this to be "the beauty of this game." I do not. House-rules absolutely have a place in D&D. But if absolutely everyone is playing games nearly unintelligible with one another, it's a disservice to both the players and the hobby-in-general. It balkanizes us, rather than uniting us.

(To be clear, other than this one bit, I fully agree with pretty much everything else you said. This was just the bit I definitely don't agree with.)

I wouldn't go so far as to say they are nearly unintelligible with one another. House rules are there mostly for people to tailor base game more to their desired experience. But unless they seriously alter core mechanics, they are still just variations on base 5e. If you learn to play RAW 5e, you can quickly jump in into pretty much any group that plays it and adopt to house rules in a blink.

Honestly, don't see how it's disservice to the players. Could you maybe elaborate what you meant?

 

[Lanefan]

@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.

Though the thread is tagged 5e both the root topic (draggy combat) and the points I've been trying to make (randomness can produce extremes) are edition-agnostic.

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.

And that's fair. That all* the WotC editions give stupendous amounts of hit points to everything - PC and monster alike - is, I think, the root problem here. They do it to make combat more predictable/less swingy but at cost of making it tedious.

The WotC editions also give characters far more in-combat options - and thus players far more in-combat choices to make - whcih also makes it more tedious.

While one can argue the second of these may or may not be a worthwhile tradeoff, I posit the first most certainly is not.

* - exception: 3e at the very lowest levels.

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.

And that's exactly my point: those once-in-a-blue-moon moments have to be given a chance to occur.

I mean, if the situation was reversed and it was the PCs at 10% while their foes were at full pop, would any DM stop combat and simply describe what the opponents do? No. They'd let the combat play out just in case the PCs were able to catch lightning in a bottle and have a blue moon show up. Why not give the foes-at-10% the same chance?

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.

Fair again. My background is regular weekly sessions with skipped sessions a rarity; if a game was as unpredictable as yours seems to be I'd likely bail out and find something more reliable.

 

[Voadam]

* - exception: 3e at the very lowest levels.

?

3e (and similarly 5e) PCs have max hp at 1st level unlike 0D&D, Basic, or AD&D. Basic and OD&D also had smaller PC HD.

3e (and similarly 5e) monsters have con bonuses (and in 3e potential toughness feat, or construct/ooze bonus hp) and skeletons and zombies in 3e have d12 HD unlike 0D&D, Basic, or AD&D which just have HD.

The number of HD for a number of things also tends to go down the farther back in editions you go. 5e Balor has 21 HD, 3.5 Balor has 20 HD, the 3e and 2e Balor have 13, and the 1e and OE Balor have 8HD.

 

[Lanefan]

Every 30 seconds in 5, but it's still every half dozen rounds for many versions of the game. As far as how many swings the character is making, that goes back to Gygax's description of combat as a number of feints, parries and blows that have no chance of landing if memory serves.

I follow the same logic.

On the other hand a fumble while trying to do something extremely difficult is different than fumbling just because you roll a 1. Under certain circumstances I'll still tell someone what they're doing is extremely difficult and that there will be a cost for failure if they roll low enough. If the chance of a fumble are low enough and need to be confirmed somehow it just became overhead that didn't add enough to the game for me.

1-in-20 is far too frequent, and a confirm roll takes three seconds provided it's a fixed value (for us, it's 1 on a d6).

We don't have as much time to play as I would like anyway so I decided to drop it. That and I never figured out a good way for spellcasters to fumble that didn't just harm characters other than the caster.

Some less-harmful ideas for caster fumbles:

--- something gets bungled in casting, the spell does nothing but the slot is still expended
--- the spell completely misses its intended targets along with everything else and goes off at some random harmless point nearby e.g. your fireball goes off 80 feet up in the air or your hold person just paralyzed a nearby boulder
--- the spell goes off in a much weaker form than expected e.g. your spectacular-looking fireball only does 1 point damage or your hold person only paralyzes the target's arm
--- you drop or spill your components pouch (or holy symbol, or spell focus) and have to spend the next round scooping it up

My preference, though, is wild magic surges; these can be anything from highly beneficial(1) to highly deadly(2) to amusing or silly(3) to straight reversal of the spell's intent (common if applicable) to messing with the range-area-duration (4) to just plain random(5)

Examples and relative frequency:
(1 - very rare) Summon a divine immortal who will aid you to the best of its ability for X-amount of time
(2 - very rare) Summon a demon or devil lord who shows up in ill humour and wants to kill everything it sees
(3 - common) Someone in the room* breaks into a Monty Python silly-walk and can do nothing else for the next minute
(4 - uncommon) The spell's duration is doubled or its range is halved or its area is changed, etc.
(5 - common) Memory glitch, cast a different spell rolled randomly from your prepared list (or from your spellbook, whichever)

I've seen all of these listed examples occur. Our wild-magic page is here in case you're interested in a deeper dive:

http://www.friendsofgravity.com/games/commons_room/dm_stuff/dm_wild-magic.html

* - this is a key thing: surges should affect friend and-or foe alike.

 

[Lanefan]

?

3e (and similarly 5e) PCs have max hp at 1st level unlike 0D&D, Basic, or AD&D. Basic and OD&D also had smaller PC HD.

Indeed, but my experience with low-level 3e found combats were pretty much just as fast and lethal as they were in 1e: the extra hit points were largely cancelled by the extra damage everyone could give out.

At higher level the combats became much slower but only a bit less lethal.

The number of HD for a number of things also tends to go down the farther back in editions you go. 5e Balor has 21 HD, 3.5 Balor has 20 HD, the 3e and 2e Balor have 13, and the 1e and OE Balor have 8HD.

That's just it: the numbers get smaller, which makes the combats both faster and swingier - hot or cold rolling has a much bigger impact.

 

[GrimCo]

Though the thread is tagged 5e both the root topic (draggy combat) and the points I've been trying to make (randomness can produce extremes) are edition-agnostic.

Draggy combat is more 3.x/PF1 thing. It's been good 13 years since i last play 2ed AD&D, but from memory, even mid level combat (7-9) wasn't very long. Low level combats were usually very short. If you are playing wizard, they are even shorter ( someone sneezes at you, you are dead).

And that's fair. That all* the WotC editions give stupendous amounts of hit points to everything - PC and monster alike - is, I think, the root problem here. They do it to make combat more predictable/less swingy but at cost of making it tedious.

It also prevents PCs dropping dead after one solid hit, so it makes low levels less frustrating.

The WotC editions also give characters far more in-combat options - and thus players far more in-combat choices to make - whcih also makes it more tedious.

While one can argue the second of these may or may not be a worthwhile tradeoff, I posit the first most certainly is not.

* - exception: 3e at the very lowest levels.

More options makes it more fun. If all you have is basic attack, round after round, long combats became very boring very fast. But if you have some cool options, that can mitigate some of tediousness.

I would argue that both are good things. High leathality of pre WoTC is maybe fun for some, but trade off is that people don't invest in their characters. Even giving name to 2ed 1st level wizard or thief is investing too much, since there are high chances he will not live long enough to reach level 2, let alone coming up with interesting backstory. Still fondly remember my lv 4 wizard with 11 HP that died from 2 goblin arrows

And that's exactly my point: those once-in-a-blue-moon moments have to be given a chance to occur.

I just don't find juice worth the squeeze. But if you like it, good for you

I mean, if the situation was reversed and it was the PCs at 10% while their foes were at full pop, would any DM stop combat and simply describe what the opponents do? No. They'd let the combat play out just in case the PCs were able to catch lightning in a bottle and have a blue moon show up. Why not give the foes-at-10% the same chance?

I would and i had. If they just got beat up to the brink of death and run into fresh set of opponents, that means they made serious error in judgement. Depending on type of enemy, they got options. Once they ran into soldiers from opposing faction, so they just surrendered and became POW. Other time they ran into bunch of ghouls. I graciously let them narrate their own last stand ( i asked them what they wanna do, they decided to stay and fight, knowing it will be TPK, no question about).

Fair again. My background is regular weekly sessions with skipped sessions a rarity; if a game was as unpredictable as yours seems to be I'd likely bail out and find something more reliable.

I'm playing with this group for almost 17 years. It's just that phase of life when free time, specially personal free time, is luxury. We are at 50% session cancellation this year so far. While i and all the guys in group love gaming, there are other free time activities that are higher up on the priority list. Internal joke is that we just need to wait about 10 more years, then all our kids will be preteen/teens and we'll have more time for regular play.