An Indecent Proposal

[Negflar2099]

I've been running a 4th edition game since it came out and while I love the system I have run into the same snags other people seem to be running into, namely combat (which should be exciting and fast) is running slow and boring. I've been all over the boards and read everything and tried everything to fix this but combat still runs slow.

Recently a player of mine expressed her frustration at the speed of combat. She pointed out that the big stumbling block seems to be the time it takes to do the math and it got me thinking, why does D&D combat feature so much math? Does it have to? Compare D&D to almost any other game involving dice (such as Craps). When you roll the dice in Craps you know right when it comes up if you've won or not. You know right when you look at the dice.

That's not true in D&D. In D&D the dice comes up say 13. Then you add some modifiers and tell the DM you rolled a 25. Then he says you missed, but then you remember the +2 your Warlord buddy gives you and so it's really a 27 and then the DM says you hit. But then you have to roll damage and until you do you don't really know how well you hit. You might do max damage and then that's a great hit or you might do minimum damage and not so much (or something in between). I think that's even why Crits are so exciting, because when that 20 comes up you know right away that you hit and exactly how much damage you did. Very exciting.

So that got me thinking has anyone proposed we eliminate some of the in-combat math? Why not eliminate the damage roll for instance? Every attack would do average damage (or max damage if it's a crit). That way you would know exactly how much damage an attack does without needing to roll it.

The other idea I had was telling the players exactly what they need to roll on the dice in order to hit the enemy before they roll the dice. So a player might say "I'm targeting AC with a +7 attack." Then I'll say "Okay you need a 12 or higher in order to hit." They roll the dice and know right away if they hit or not, the second the dice hit the table.

Now I know that some people would say that's giving away too much information to players, but remember I wouldn't tell them the defenses ahead of time. All I'm telling them is what they need to roll with this specific attack. Sure a clever player can just do the math and figure out the defenses but they can do that already so what's the big deal? Under this system I would just be telling them the target number they need to roll before they roll. That's all.

Has anyone tried these systems? I'm aware I'm probably proposing something that's been proposed before, so I'm asking, are there any snags that I don't see?

 

[JoeNotCharles]

I play with published defenses in a PbP game so that players can tell immediately if they hit without waiting for the DM to post. Works fine.

Doing average damage with a hit has been proposed, but you have to update any rule that involves rerolling damage dice, such as the Brutal property.

 

[Joseph Rossow]

Here are a couple things that helped me:

1) I didn't use a battlegrid. Whenever someone had a power that "shifted" people around, I instead gave a very cinematic description.

2) I started using "uber-minions" which is to say, I said that some monsters didn't take damage, but instead took a certain number of hits to defeat. Most "regular" monsters quickly became 3-hit monsters (you hit them three times and they die). On the one hand, perhaps died quicker than they should have, but on the other hand, combats were shorter and I got to use more monsters during those combats.

EDIT: I forgot this one.

3) I ask players to roll attack and damage at the same time. It saves time on having to track down dice and make a second roll.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The math itself isn't what slows down combat. We rolled a die for damage and added modifiers in 1E and Basic D&D too. The slow part comes from figuring out which situational modifiers apply when and agonizing over every square of movement because a wrong step will trigger yet another attack to stop and resolve, etc.

4E combat is not designed to be quick. It is supposed to take up the bulk of playing time, otherwise the published modules wouldn't have so many combat encounters.

 

[MichaelSomething]

It helps if you do your math before the game starts. Take a few minutes to write down what your regular attack total is and all the modifers for it. It also helps to make crib notes of all your powers or at least your at-wills.

 

[Dannager]

Exactly: have your math done ahead of time. Combat speed up drastically if the players aren't having to do math every time they roll a die. This is what power cards are for. If situational modifiers are in play, have the other players help remind the active player of them. This keeps them engaged and watching what's going on.

Also, and I'm not sure if this is one of the problem's you're experiencing, but make sure everyone is preparing their actions ahead of time. If you get to their initiative and they look at the battle map for the first time since their last turn, they're probably doing it wrong.

You're absolutely right. Combat should be fast-paced and exciting in 4e. There's no reason why it can't be.

 

[Alan Shutko]

Even with precalculation, the numbers are a lot bigger than they used to be. I have a 9th level Ranger, and while I roll both attacks and damages at once, it can take a while to tally, esp. with a crit. Add in something like brutal accuracy, and you've got a half dozen dice and double-digit bonuses. My mental math isn't as fast summing something up to 72 as it was in previous editions where most attacks were in the teens.

 

[mach1.9pants]

We have a white board with all combatants AC and NADs on it, helps a bit. But it is still slow. I have decided it is because we don't play enough (so the guys don't know their powers of the back of the hand; real life gets in the way) and the grid/movement thing means a lot of discussion/decision to get the best advantage.

Oh and the HP were to high, but that is easily fixed!

 

[Bold or Stupid]

For average damage, Brutal shifts the average up by 1 per point. so d12 do 7.5 not 6.5.

 

[Skallgrim]

The math itself isn't what slows down combat. We rolled a die for damage and added modifiers in 1E and Basic D&D too. The slow part comes from figuring out which situational modifiers apply when and agonizing over every square of movement because a wrong step will trigger yet another attack to stop and resolve, etc.

4E combat is not designed to be quick. It is supposed to take up the bulk of playing time, otherwise the published modules wouldn't have so many combat encounters.

The situational modifiers do take time to remember, and mental energy. Our group keeps forgetting them a lot. I'm thinking of basically handing out different colored poker chips with numbers on them at some point, or something. If the cleric gives the ranger a +2 to hit, he gets a +2 chip in one color. If someone lays a penalty on you, you might get a -2 chip in another color.

I'm open to ideas and suggestions on this from other people, both for quicker resolution in game, and just for not forgetting. I don't honestly know if people are even forgetting their bonuses or their penalties more (like the Throw Caution to the Wind ranger).