5e combat system too simple / boring?

[pepticburrito]

Doing a backflip off a chandelier to land and stab an orc versus walking up and saying "I attack" are definitely differences in flavor, but ultimately both are pretty much mechanically the same darn thing. You can describe the differences however you want but both are 1d20+5 attack for 1d8+3 damage with no extra riders and that is why A LOT of people play spellcasters or Battle Masters.

There's no flavor in the fact that the action economy in 5e allows for more player agency in 5e than it does in 3.5/3.75. There's no mechanical equivalent in 3.5/3.75 to what I described, you'd just be told by the DM that it's impossible to do it. A second level 5e rogue can take it even further and disengage as a bonus action as he swings by his target.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Doing a backflip off a chandelier to land and stab an orc versus walking up and saying "I attack" are definitely differences in flavor, but ultimately both are pretty much mechanically the same darn thing.

Within the granularity of the system, anyway. In 3.5, there's a difference between moving your speed and attacking, and tumbling half your speed and attack - the latter doesn't provoke. And, 3.5 typically used minis & a play surface, so you might find yourself in a situation where, because of how everyone's positioned and the room is set up, you can't reach a target by moving & attacking without provoking, but you can make a tumble check to get to the same target by passing 'through' an enemy's square - so you make a tumble check, and maybe describe it as a backflip off the chandalier, or maybe not.

If you're running the same scene TotM with no tumbling rules, you can just move & attack, because who know if there's a 'safe path' to the enemy. You can describe it how you like. It doesn't matter.

You can describe the differences however you want but both are 1d20+5 attack for 1d8+3 damage with no extra riders and that is why A LOT of people play spellcasters or Battle Masters.

IMHO, all the real fun to be had in 5e is on the DM's side of the screen. But, yeah, casters' are your second-best bet.

5e doesn't have detailed rules telling you exactly what you can do and when exactly when you're allowed to do it. This allows for far more complex combat than 3.5/3.75 ever allowed.

Actually 5e does have rules telling you exactly when you're allowed to do things. They're actually pretty tight. You act on your turn. Outside that, you get /one/ reaction. Period. And, if you want to use magic, 5e does have detailed rules telling you exactly what kind of magic you can do and how often you can do it.

Imagine that you're on a raised part of a ship deck playing a pirates campaign. There is a rope loosely "tied" to a pole. You want to do what they do in pirate movies. Grab on to the rope (use an object), swing (use movement), attack, keep swinging (use rest of movement), then let go of rope (no action required). In 3.5/3.75, you'd be told you can't do that because the rules force a specific way of playing.

In 3.x/PF, you'd roll Tumble (DC 15 to swing past the enemy, 25 to swing through his square) to swing up to half your speed in a situation like that. Whether the DM let you attack and keep going is another question, given the nature of swinging from a rope, it'd seem reasonable (yeah, 5e is not the first edition were DMs had to make rulings, just the one where they have to do it every time), of course, if you had Spring Attack, no problem, and you might not even need the Tumble, since you already avoid provoking.

In 5e, you can't necessarily do any of that, the DM has to rule whether you can and whether and how hard any rolls you need to make may be. Your first level fighter might be able to pull it off without making a check (if you're sitting at my table, for instance), while another DM might make it too difficult for your 9th level Rogue with Expertise in Accrobatics to even bother trying. That's actually a strength of 5e, because it lets each DM run with the tone he wants from the game. Not that you can't do that sort of thing in any game, but 5e practically begs you to.

In 5e, you're limited by your imagination.

If you're the DM. Otherwise you're limited by the DM's imagination, and his opinion of you & your imagination...

Some people lack imagination.

Some people resort to insults.

 

[iserith]

In 3.5/3.75, you'd be told you can't do that because the rules force a specific way of playing.

That's just a sign of a poor or inexperienced DM in my view, one who is treating D&D as a board game with prescriptive rules (you can only do X) instead of an RPG with largely descriptive rules (you can use the mechanics to resolve uncertainty in X, if you want).

 

[JohnAMaddox]

In a recent game I had rolled poorly and ended up on the ground. What my character did then

 

[Unwise]

Without special DM effort to spice them up combats in pretty much every system are either tactical, but too slow, so they end up boring and taking a long time, or too simple so boring but taking a short time. I'll take boring and quick, it helps get on with the rest of the game.

 

[Jessica]

The wargamer side of me is okay with long but mechanically engaging combats. Back when I played miniature games(Warmahordes, 40, WHFB), playing three to five 1-2 hour games in a day was definitely a thing. Back when I was in Iraq in 2008-2009, I spend the entire year playing PbP forum PvP games of 4e on RPOL. By the time I redeployed I got my Eladrin Wizard from level 1 to level 23-ish. I love long combats that make me squeeze my mind grapes.

 

[Condiments]

Without special DM effort to spice them up combats in pretty much every system are either tactical, but too slow, so they end up boring and taking a long time, or too simple so boring but taking a short time. I'll take boring and quick, it helps get on with the rest of the game.

Why even simulate combat in such detail then? Even with 5e's combat being quick, if you run multiple combats during a session in the middle of an adventure(which is implied by the game's balancing) its going to eat up a lot time.

Given some time and thinking, 5e's combat isn't necessarily "bad" it just almost entirely reliant on the DM to create interesting combat scenarios. Putting together good monster synergies and environments makes for great fights, but it requires a DM knowing his stuff. I've run some great combats that my players really enjoyed using a grid, that usually force movement on the players. I still struggle with making good combat scenarios as a new DM. It would almost be worth starting a new thread pooling our knowledge together on how to make good 5e fights.

 

[Unwise]

[MENTION=6802006]Condiments[/MENTION] One of the things about 4th edition D&D was that combat was all about set-pieces. You never had a random encounter, or a fight in a square room, or an open field. Every fights was on a sinking ship, around a faulty portal, during a tower collapse, in an elemental magic node, in an inn that is on fire etc. This was necessary as it could not do quick fights well and the highly tactical nature of the abilities worked well with environmental and weird effects and effort in drawing a map etc meant it was not worth it for small encounters.

As a DM, I loved moving to 5th, since I could put in small or simple fights that were over quickly enough to not be a drag and required no preparation. The thing is, I think I am relying on this quickness too much. I think I need to dip back into the 4e mindset and start making set-piece encounters again. The difference is, now in 5e, I can also do the little fights in between the epic ones. So now castles actually have wandering guards, small guard posts etc, not just the lord and his guards waiting in the cursed throne room around the unstable mystic portal.

 

[Condiments]

@Condiments One of the things about 4th edition D&D was that combat was all about set-pieces. You never had a random encounter, or a fight in a square room, or an open field. Every fights was on a sinking ship, around a faulty portal, during a tower collapse, in an elemental magic node, in an inn that is on fire etc. This was necessary as it could not do quick fights well and the highly tactical nature of the abilities worked well with environmental and weird effects and effort in drawing a map etc meant it was not worth it for small encounters.

As a DM, I loved moving to 5th, since I could put in small or simple fights that were over quickly enough to not be a drag and required no preparation. The thing is, I think I am relying on this quickness too much. I think I need to dip back into the 4e mindset and start making set-piece encounters again. The difference is, now in 5e, I can also do the little fights in between the epic ones. So now castles actually have wandering guards, small guard posts etc, not just the lord and his guards waiting in the cursed throne room around the unstable mystic portal.

I started DMing tabletop almost a year ago, and really had no prior experience before that. I was the one person in my group of friends that was going to put forward the effort to create a game. I've learned a ton in the last year that I've been DMing, and I'm a big fan of 5e in most of its aspects besides combat where I'm mixed. I remember playing combats and being really bored, and I think that may have extended to my players as well. Everything else is great, with it being so light on rules, I've been able to do some crazy situations on the fly. The best combats have really been related to set piece battles. Like my players holding off an undead horde on a fraying bridge while spine devils assault them from behind trying to toss them to their doom while they try to escape, an arena battle against enemies with class levels where pillars lining the field would periodically light up with electricity before exploding, a battle on top of and inside a building against archers and a tiefling sorcerer who then summoned a fire elemental to chase the ranger while engulfing all the building around it in flames, etc. Turned based combat really shines in these situations, otherwise it feels like the players running at the enemy exchanging damage.

Its just that these types of fights are kind of hard to do if you don't know what you're doing(which I don't).

 

[Rhenny]

[MENTION=6802006]Condiments[/MENTION] One of the things about 4th edition D&D was that combat was all about set-pieces. You never had a random encounter, or a fight in a square room, or an open field. Every fights was on a sinking ship, around a faulty portal, during a tower collapse, in an elemental magic node, in an inn that is on fire etc. This was necessary as it could not do quick fights well and the highly tactical nature of the abilities worked well with environmental and weird effects and effort in drawing a map etc meant it was not worth it for small encounters.

As a DM, I loved moving to 5th, since I could put in small or simple fights that were over quickly enough to not be a drag and required no preparation. The thing is, I think I am relying on this quickness too much. I think I need to dip back into the 4e mindset and start making set-piece encounters again. The difference is, now in 5e, I can also do the little fights in between the epic ones. So now castles actually have wandering guards, small guard posts etc, not just the lord and his guards waiting in the cursed throne room around the unstable mystic portal.

I feel the same. Because some 5e fights can be simple and others can be more set piece/complex, l feel more freedom as DM. I'm also able to use variety to spice up the campaign and keep players guessing. If they start a small fight with some guards, if they aren't quick and quiet, they may draw the attention of nearby foes. After fighting a grand set piece encounter, a small group of scavengers might show up while the party is resting, and depending on what they are and if they surprise the group, this can lead to some interesting outcomes. I'm finding that the ability to throw easy, medium, hard, deadly at any time is more exciting than when pcs are expecting balanced and challenging encounter after encounter.

To me, the decision to use a fireball to kill 15 kobolds so that the threat is ended in 1 round rather than saving the spell slot and fighting it out for 3 or 4 rounds is just as meaningful as making other tactical decisions in a longer set piece battle. I like to look at the chain of possible encounters as both a player and a DM when I make decisions so even easy encounters have their place and become meaningful.