D&D 5E 5E and Sense of Accomplishment

[Blackbrrd]

I agree that limiting options does speed up turns.

On the other hand, I am quite sure that there will be many more options available in the player's handbook and the DMs guide when it is launched. (probably more feats, more maneuvers, optional tactical rules, etc.)

I am interested to find out if using the options will slow down the game.

Also, we haven't really seen the final math for monsters. If ACs and HP go up, we might see a little slow down. How much? Can't tell. Generally, I've been adding HP to the monsters in my sessions and sometimes I give them better armor. If it has slowed down the game, we haven't really noticed.

More feats and maneuvers won't necessarily slow down the game. Optional tactical rules very likely will slow down the game. Since those rules are optional, you can tailor them to the group you are playing with.

If you want a story-focused game you can keep the game light, if you want it more combat focused you can pile up on optional rules. 3e or 4e wasn't built in this manner, they just assumed you would run a "default" game.

I think they did a very good move with optional tactical rules. As a DM, I will probably run it on a per-encounter basis. Small random encounters with just the basic rules, while the boss fight with the full tactical rules. Sure I could have house-ruled this in 3e, but I do think this will work out better. (In 4e, I haven't even thought about house ruling the combat rules. They game is so tied to the grid and it's interrupts and all that it would just be too much work).

 

[MortalPlague]

I ran a 4 hour session at PAX 2012, with the very early playtest rules. We were using the Blingdenstone adventure. I added a short interlude at the beginning of things to let the PCs meet each other and get a sense of the situation before entering the ruin proper. Then my PCs tackled two full 'adventures', and were halfway through the third when our time ran out (and thus the whole rest of the House Center attacked them in a huge, epic battle royale to finish things out).

I love that 5th Edition lets me get through so much content without feeling rushed, while still having some excellent combats. It's slowed down a little from the early stuff, but I can still reliably do a lot of adventuring in a 4 hour session. And the sense of accomplishment is great.

 

[Raith5]

It's not just the amount of options, however. It's also the TYPE of options. Options that can be used to interrupt other people's turns take longer to resolve. Abilities that require specific activation and adding of numbers also take longer to resolve. A feat that permanently adds +2 to damage takes almost no time to resolve. An ability that allows you to use a spell slot to add +hit and +damage takes a while because now you have to consider whether you have the actions in a combat to use the feat, which spell slot you think you can lose without causing a problem, and whether it is worth it to add the extra damage..

I agree with this. However, Interupts that only do damage or affect a roll are not a real problem IMO (and they make combat more fluid and realistic). However, effects that control the movement of others can be an issue. I find that fighters can really slow combats down.

I certainly agree that many 3rd and 4th ed feats/powers/spells with small effects were contributors to slowing down the resolution of combat.

I still think the biggest issue with 4th ed fights is that monsters have too many hit points compared to damage that PCs do. Unless the PCs use dailies, action points and (most importantly) get crits, combats can really drag on. Effects like weakness and creatures being insubstantial can also exacerbate this problem.

 

[Rhenny]

I still think the biggest issue with 4th ed fights is that monsters have too many hit points compared to damage that PCs do. Unless the PCs use dailies, action points and (most importantly) get crits, combats can really drag on. Effects like weakness and creatures being insubstantial can also exacerbate this problem.

Good point. The 7th level 5e warrior wielding a great axe, great sword or maul, attacking 2 times in a turn and crits on 18-20 can really speed up combat.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I can't speak as to 4E, but in PF there is a certain type of player who takes pleasure in stacking bonuses and buffs to trivialize otherwise hard encounters. I'm not knocking that playstyle--it's legit, and a lot of people really enjoy it. But those people probably won't dig 5E: I think it's fair to say that the latest playtest packet seems designed purposely to curtail this kind of play.

Otherwise, I'd say that 5E provides more sense of accomplishment; at least it has for our group.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I agree with this. However, Interupts that only do damage or affect a roll are not a real problem IMO (and they make combat more fluid and realistic). However, effects that control the movement of others can be an issue. I find that fighters can really slow combats down.

I think pretty much any interrupt disrupts the flow of combat and can break people's train of thought. Breaking someone's train of thought can mean it takes a couple of seconds to remember what you were doing. These seconds add up. However, I agree ones that just do damage are much faster than ones that can actually stop you from doing what you were about to do.

I still think the biggest issue with 4th ed fights is that monsters have too many hit points compared to damage that PCs do. Unless the PCs use dailies, action points and (most importantly) get crits, combats can really drag on. Effects like weakness and creatures being insubstantial can also exacerbate this problem.

Although I agree with this, removing this effect can cause another problem. The reason the numbers got set to that in the first place is because of how many DMs were complaining that monsters in previous editions didn't even get an action some of the time and certainly not enough actions to seem dangerous the rest of the time.

It's certainly a tradeoff. I've found many monsters die in one round of combat in 5e that had a list of cool abilities but never got to use any of them. This caused my players to go on and on about how they defeated the big nasty guy without him even doing anything. Which made them insufferable braggarts to everyone they met. It was a little frustrating from the other side of the screen as well given I was looking forward to a cool combat and got a massacre. Maybe some of the changes in the final numbers will fix this. However, I think you always have one or the other...either combats are going to take a while or monsters are going to die like chumps.

 

[Rhenny]

It's certainly a tradeoff. I've found many monsters die in one round of combat in 5e that had a list of cool abilities but never got to use any of them. This caused my players to go on and on about how they defeated the big nasty guy without him even doing anything. Which made them insufferable braggarts to everyone they met. It was a little frustrating from the other side of the screen as well given I was looking forward to a cool combat and got a massacre. Maybe some of the changes in the final numbers will fix this. However, I think you always have one or the other...either combats are going to take a while or monsters are going to die like chumps.

I have felt this too. That's why I have generally given the monsters in my games more hit points. It will be a real balancing act to find the sweet spot for the more fearsome monsters - and this might be a trade-off that all DMs will have to deal with depending on how fast they want their combats to play.

I do like that it is something that can be adjusted though...perhaps guidelines in DMG could help too.

 

[MerricB]

It's certainly a tradeoff. I've found many monsters die in one round of combat in 5e that had a list of cool abilities but never got to use any of them.

Mike Mearls posted that monster HP are higher. "Core rules are pretty similar. Mostly tweaks to monster HP (went up), added warlock and sorcerer, and balanced out classes." So, some of them might not die so easily.

That said, any group who manages to take down the Lich Tarul Var in Dead in Thay will have a real sense of accomplishment...

Cheers!

 

[Melkor]

Playing 5e is like playing 2e, combats aren't the center of the edition, but they can be big and complex or small and fast as you wish.

I wouldn't call it better for accomplishing longer story, simply because in some games you don't have a story per say, what I would call it is being better at tailoring the game to your liking, you can have more exploration, interaction and combats in the same session, and you can change the ratios of those three to your liking

Warder

I completely agree with this, and it is one of the big things that encouraged me early in the 5E playtest.

My same group has played sense some of us were in junior high back in the 80s. We are going on 25 years of gaming together, and in our old 2E games (which remain the best and most consistent campaigns we played), the speed of combats would allow us to accomplish a lot more during a given session of play. We were never able to get there with 3E/3.5 or 4E.

We would get through one of two encounters in a game session, and have to call it a night. Although some of those were extremely satisfying and fun, the overall sense of accomplishment we got from the long campaigns we played in 2E was much more satisfying.

 

[Raith5]

Although I agree with this, removing this effect can cause another problem. The reason the numbers got set to that in the first place is because of how many DMs were complaining that monsters in previous editions didn't even get an action some of the time and certainly not enough actions to seem dangerous the rest of the time.

It's certainly a tradeoff. I've found many monsters die in one round of combat in 5e that had a list of cool abilities but never got to use any of them. This caused my players to go on and on about how they defeated the big nasty guy without him even doing anything. Which made them insufferable braggarts to everyone they met. It was a little frustrating from the other side of the screen as well given I was looking forward to a cool combat and got a massacre. Maybe some of the changes in the final numbers will fix this. However, I think you always have one or the other...either combats are going to take a while or monsters are going to die like chumps.

Good point. I should add that I dont mind the bosses having lots of hp - I just remember that high in heroic tier and paragon tier that everything non-minion seemed to have a ton of hp. In Epic 4th ed there are raft of spells and powers that increase damage across the board, so it doesnt seem to be an issue.

With reference to the inability of monsters to use their abilities, this bleeds into the issue that beset Solo monsters in 4th ed with regards to Stun etc and I can say that I think one of the best ways to address this is enable big monsters to have multiple actions at different times/ immediate actions when bloodied/ interrupts etc. Aside from not needing a small mountain of hp it also makes the combat more fluid/ unpredictable.