AD&D weapon speed vs 5e turn based combat?

[cavetroll]

Make sure your players want that much longer to resolve kind of combat.

I think you misunderstood the thread. I'm looking trying to find ways to improve 5e combat, including streamlining it to be faster while at the same time examining alternatives to making the combat so linear.

I can't speak to other peoples experiences, but our 2e battles were far faster than 5e to complete each round, but we weren't just picking up 10th level characters, the players played characters they knew intimately from level 1.

 

[nevin]

honestly the only thing i've found since 2e to speed up games is a trick one of my old DM's used. 2 min hourglass. He'd tell us to roll initiative, start going around the table. number one what do you do. if they couldn't decide in 2 min, they went to the bottom of the round and next guy up. If they couldn't decide the second time around in 2 min they lost thier combat round. It is amazing how much this speeds up any edition.

 

[Sir Brennen]

wow players never exceeding con score reminds me of a straight roll 3d6 per stat in order game we tried once. made it about 4 session we had fun but it was brutal and the table decided to go back to something more heroic.

Well, The Fantasy Trip is actually one of the first to have point buy character creation in my recollection, so that wasn't too random in that regard. Advancements do include the ability to increase your actual abilities, like STR (which was also your hit points), but still unlikely to be over 20, and that's after a long period of play.

Weapons do about the same base damage as D&D equivalents, and armor mitigates damage (at the expense of movement and Dex, which is your attack roll.) And magic can help, too. On the other hand, a lucky attack roll (using 3d6) could do double or triple damage.

This makes the tactical aspect more important, because the characters are so fragile.

Mörk Borg, on the other hand, leans heavily into the random nature of old school games. It's not uncommon to have a starting character with 1 hp. But it's also a darkly humorous game where character deaths are pretty much expected if you're not extra careful. And sometimes even if you are. But it's really easy to roll up another character (aka, a scumborn) and get back into the action.

And I've had a lot of fun playing all these games. Which is why, rather than complicate 5E D&D initiative, I'd just play something different if I have a taste for something more or less complex.

 

[cavetroll]

Overall, though, the big "Nope" for me is the pre-turn declarations. The ability to decide what you're going to do on your turn based on the current battle conditions, not what they were at the start of the round, is what actually makes for more tactical play IMO. And without declared actions, the rest of the proposal falls apart.

The issue though is that with 10 people in battle in 5e its like chess, everyone move is stopping to think about every single possibility based on positioning, and everyone is waiting on that one person.

In 2e the DM could poll everyone for their action and collect them as each person decided, all players are thinking at the same time, a much more efficient use of time.

Look at any movie with general melee, everything is happening at the same time, two people might stab the same enemy simultaneously.

But I agree 5e is more tactical/strategic, which is preferable over realism.

Perhaps a compromise is rolling a d6 for initiative (plus modifiers) and everyone that has the same initiative roll, act simultaneously, creating more chaos and confusion (potentially two combatants can kill each other on their turn).

 

[Greggy C]

What if you speed up each round, so instead of 6 seconds, its 3 seconds and on your turn you can either
1) melee/ranged attack
OR
2) move up to half your speed
OR
3) cast a fast spell/other action
OR
4) start a slow spell that completes on your next round
OR
5) complete a slow spell/action that you started last round

that way you can't do kiting as easily and people are less overwhelmed by too many things to do on their turn.

 

[Rune]

honestly the only thing i've found since 2e to speed up games is a trick one of my old DM's used. 2 min hourglass. He'd tell us to roll initiative, start going around the table. number one what do you do. if they couldn't decide in 2 min, they went to the bottom of the round and next guy up. If they couldn't decide the second time around in 2 min they lost thier combat round. It is amazing how much this speeds up any edition.

For, say, a four person party, that’s up to 8 minutes per round. Plus the time it takes to resolve all of those actions. Plus all of the NPC actions. That does not sound like a quick combat to me. In any edition.

Nevermind that some players simply will not be put on a clock like that. Or will not be able to think past their stress if they are. In my experience, timers actually make analysis paralysis worse. Although, admittedly, I’ve never tried it with such a generous limit.

The main slow-down of combat is the character sheet. In olden days, most of what you wanted to do (if you weren’t a spell-caster) came out of your imagination and built upon a few pretty basic abilities.

Nowadays (and, really, since Skills & Powers/Combat & Tactics), players are encouraged to find their answers on the character sheet. That takes time. They must decide between options. That takes time. They must be filled in on what they missed because they were scanning their character sheets and trying to decide between options. That takes time.

Frankly, that’s not going away without a major overhaul. But here’s an easy thing that does speed things up (through a general streamlining and by encouraging players to pay attention):

Opposed initiative checks. And only when it’s relevant.

Combatants do what they’re going to do and if the timing of it conflicts with someone else’s thing, the dice decide which happens first. It’s simple. And it works. (Also, it’s less predictable than cyclical initiative, but that’s an unrelated bonus.)

 

[Staffan]

How about instead of rolling for initiative, everyone declares their intended actions and target, and there is just a predetermined order of actions e.g.
1) Readied missile weapons triggered (first attack)
2) Melee (first) attacks if no distance to travel (melee weapons have their own order e.g. long reach goes first)
3) Fast spells
4) Melee (first) attacks with movement to get there
5) Medium spells (plus movement)
6) Melee remaining attacks
7) Slow spells
8) Any remaining attacks/actions if you didn't get to do yours
9) Any remaining movement

The Swedish game Eon does a similar thing, but not quite that detailed. In Eon, each combat round has three phases: Ranged, Melee, and Magic. At the start of each round, everyone involved in combat chooses which phase they will act in, but the exact action comes later.

In the ranged and magic phases, turn order is handled via a simple opposed roll for the Reaction stat (basically the same as an initiative roll). In melee, it works a little differently. Instead of looking at the whole battle as one thing, each engagement is treated separately. When two combatants enter melee with one another, they roll Reaction to see who becomes Attacker and who becomes Defender. These designations affect what options they have. Notably, only the Attacker(s) can attack, and only the Defender needs to defend. Normally, a successful defense leads to becoming the attacker next turn, but a defender can choose to be extra defensive which gives them a bonus to their defense roll but they need to score a better than normal success in order to take over the attacker role. A defender can choose to counterattack, which is harder than a normal defense but automatically leads to becoming the attacker the next turn.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The correct use of weapon speed in AD&D (1E) was just to break initiative ties - which, because the initiative roll was a d6, was only going to happen 1 round in 6. It was also used in a really clunky way to decide initiative when a melee weapon was comparing to a spell being cast. It wasn't like every round you roll initiative, add weapon speed, and lowest result goes first. It was more complicated and less influential than that.

 

[aramis erak]

That sounds like an evil home brew rule.

It isn't. It's how it worked RAW. Which is why almost everyone ignored it. It slowed things down, made PCs engaging in combat take bigger risks.

It's different but not nicer in AD&D 1E... (DMG 66)
Lowest intiative+WSF goes first.
If A faces B and A's initiative is half or less of B's, or at least 5 under, they get 2 attacks. Under by 10? 3 attacks against B. BEFORE B can attack back.

DOesn't apply when charging, tho.

 

[Greggy C]

Btw is 5e combat a rip off of Dark Heresy 1st edition which came out in 2008? The combat round seems almost identical.