D&D 5E 5/30 Q&A: Charm, Chases, and Combat Free

[GX.Sigma]

Woot!?!? Was I asleep for a decade? I remember only 4 editions...

Warder

Well, it depends how you count.

Gygax/Arneson (0e/WB/3BB)
Holmes (Basic)
Moldvay/Cook (B/X)
Mentzer (BECMI/RC)

AD&D 1e
AD&D 2e
3e
4e

Of course, some groups of those might count as only one edition, and some editions might be split into sub-editions. Perhaps time is a more useful metric. Let me rephrase that statement.

Round-by-round initiative was standard for about 26 years. Individual initiative was only standard for about 13 years. Hardly sacred.

I am certainly not advocating against rolling initiative each round (neither in favour of it, actuaaly).
What I was trying to say :
Combat is built upon the assumption of having each party/individual acting back and forth with a precise measure of what they can accomplish on their turn. It doesn't work very well when the actors are running and/or playing hide and seek. Cycling Initiative makes it imposible, random initiative makes it clunky I would say you need another system to handle this kind of flow, and I bet it would need to be quite abstract (and can thus be resented as an immersion-breaking minigame).

That's true enough. I don't think chase rules need to be very detailed, though (at least in a sandbox capacity). A simple percentage chance, or opposed d20 checks, modified by speed, relative group size, terrain, and so on, would suffice.

 

[1of3]

To make fleeing more interesting, change the Hustle action so that it involves a STR check and a variable amount of movement.

 

[Cyberen]

It's certainly a step in the good direction.
I don't think it would be enough to handle a good game of hide and seek .
You would either have to go very sim-heavy, including things like facing rules, or go abstract and use some kind of skill challenge framework.

 

[GX.Sigma]

To make fleeing more interesting, change the Hustle action so that it involves a STR check and a variable amount of movement.

Adding a die roll doesn't help. Chases are just fundamentally uninteresting.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I can see the logic, here. While I loves me some mechanical subsystems, it's true that (a) these can be easy to add later, and (b) they can take the place of something that has more traditionally been served in D&D by exposition.

A chase or an investigation doesn't need its own rules. While I don't see how combat rules work for a chase scene (perhaps HP representing endurance?), I do see how exploration works for an investigation (clues are essentially "secret doors" that you discover).

 

[Quickleaf]

Adding a die roll doesn't help. Chases are just fundamentally uninteresting.

I can see the logic, here. While I loves me some mechanical subsystems, it's true that (a) these can be easy to add later, and (b) they can take the place of something that has more traditionally been served in D&D by exposition.

A chase or an investigation doesn't need its own rules. While I don't see how combat rules work for a chase scene (perhaps HP representing endurance?), I do see how exploration works for an investigation (clues are essentially "secret doors" that you discover).

I think it's easy to dismiss these things (chases, investigations, infiltrations, heists, etc) as uninteresting or on the periphery of important stuff, because D&D has never really suitably addressed them in its rules/guidelines before (skill challenges being the closest). In the past these things were handled with DM fiat.

However, having run some great chase scenes and investigations (using adopted rules, not DM fiat), my understanding is that there is a unique appeal to these kinds of scenes. For example, while using the exploration rules/guidelines, players are feeding their curiosity about what lies around the next corridor or across the next overland hex. Exploration is not mainly about tactics/strategy (combat), negotiating (interaction), solving puzzles with clues (investigation), using terrain (chases), creating an elaborate plan and adapting to complications (heists), etc. Its mainly about discovery thru decisions and dice-rolling. This is distinguished from an investigation where gathering the clues isnt that main challenge - the main challenge is in interpreting those clues, resolving seeming impossibilities, and deducing what really happened, who is responsible, etc.

 

[delericho]

Gygax/Arneson (0e/WB/3BB)
Holmes (Basic)
Moldvay/Cook (B/X)
Mentzer (BECMI/RC)

AD&D 1e
AD&D 2e
3e
4e

Surely that's 6 vs 2?

Round-by-round initiative was standard for about 26 years. Individual initiative was only standard for about 13 years. Hardly sacred.

That's true; 'individual' initiative is not sacred. It is better, though.

(Oh, also, a nitpick: the dichotomy really isn't "round-by-round" vs "individual", since 2nd Ed featured individually rolled round-by-round initiative as one of the options. Round-by-round vs cyclic, perhaps?)

 

[delericho]

Adding a die roll doesn't help.

Agree.

Chases are just fundamentally uninteresting.

Disagree.

The issue with chases is that they really depend very heavily on having a prepared environment, so that the parties involved in the chase can make choices as they go. A simple footrace across a featureless plain will of course be dull - resolve it with a single opposed die roll and move on. But a race through a city, where there are multiple possible routes, where the parties involved can choose to take greater risk for greater speed (or not), and where other complications frequently appear... that has the potential to be interesting.

But it really does require that the DM be prepared. And it's also something that would hugely benefit from support within the rules - simply sticking it into the combat subsystem is not sufficient.

 

[Dausuul]

I found that rather weak: combat itself is an immersion-challenging mini game, as are the exploration rules, etc. So it's just the transition from one immersion-challenging minigame to another.

The problem with minigames is when they evolve their own rules that only apply within that minigame, so entering the minigame requires a context switch. For example, in 3E (if I recall correctly) it was against the rules to ready actions outside of combat/initiative order. That creates an artificial boundary between "combat" and "everything else," which challenges immersion and invites players to take metagame actions to manipulate where they are on that boundary. Even worse is when you have two different mechanics to handle the same action depending on which minigame you're playing.

The designers should try to avoid such boundaries. If the systems are well designed, the minigames blend seamlessly into each other and into pure narrative. You could have a situation where the rogue is exploring a hidden room, trying to find the treasure (exploration minigame), while the rest of the party keeps the monsters busy (combat minigame). Once in a while the wizard might cast a spell to help the rogue, or the rogue might take a crossbow shot through the secret door at a target of opportunity.

Chase scenes are an excellent example of why this is important. Chase mechanics must integrate smoothly with the combat system, for this simple reason: Chases are part of combat! Sometimes one person is running away while another is fighting to cover the first one's escape. Sometimes the running person is not trying to flee combat altogether, but just wants to get some room before turning around to rain spells. Sometimes the party's heavy fighter will try to run down the fleeing foe, while the archer stands still and shoots arrows. If the chase mechanic requires the group to stop using combat rules and start using a different set of chase rules, it's a badly designed mechanic.

 

[GX.Sigma]

That's true; 'individual' initiative is not sacred. It is better, though.

Why do you think it's better? I find it slow, artificial, annoying to track (often impossible, with how big combats can be in DDN), flow breaking, and ultimately boring.