Back to the Three Type of fights

[Minigiant]

So as I went through the rooms of the caves with my robo-party, I realized the three types of fights appeared in full force.

1) The Squash Match

The caster takes off his championship belt, drops a spell, the target is hit or fails the save, and the fight is practically over.

Basically someone uses one of their strongest offensive features and finishes the fight quickly.

2) The Slugfest

Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack. Attack.

Basically no one spends resources on the combat (because they ran out, are saving them, or think the fight is easy) and simply attack enemies until the foes are all dead.

3) The Martial Art Piece

I strike. You defend. You control. You heal.

Basically everyone actively jumps into a role to minimize resource costs.

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In Squash Matches, you spend offensive class feature resources (spells, channel divinity, lucky actions).
In Slugfests, you spend hit points (longer fights with no tactics).
In Art Pieces, you spend defensive class features and brainpower... and time.

Squash Matches are the Wizard's and Pelor Cleric's domain. The Rogue and Moradin Cleric could help out but it most costly and weaker with their resources. The Fighter can't squash fights until higher level I suppose. It is more swingy than 4E, more like high level 3E.

The Fighter excelled in Slugfest do to his high damage and damage on miss. The Moradin cleric and Rogue were good too with there high AC and situational damage. Felt old school.

Art Pieces let everyone shine as it is more 4E like. But it requires DM fiat to support the style (quick ways to grant adv for the rogue, having enemies stick to the cleric, items to stunt on, improvised attacks) and certain groups of enemies.

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For the most part, it is the blaster casters choosing when to drop a bomb and having it work. If the spell fails or isn't casted in the first place, it turns into a slugfest unless the character spend defensive resources or improvise to use tactics.

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Now the question.
Do you like this the return of full force swingy or smashy fights?
Do you prefer one type over the others?

 

[Uller]

For our first playtest session, we had 3 fights. All involved a well timed spell and/or a well placed big damaging attack to turn the tide in the party's favor. Two of the three fell to slug fest style fighting. The last fight had one PC nearly dead.

I don't know what you mean by "back to" 3 types of fights. What other types are there? 4e has these types of fights too....the main difference we noticed is how much faster and deadlier the fights are and that D&D is back to a sense of building foreboding as hitpoints dwindle away with no good way to replace them....exactly as it should be for low level characters.

 

[howandwhy99]

#1 is to be expected with the magical artillery brought to bear.
#3 is highly tactical play, bought this does not require pre-scripted maneuvers or "powers" to be tactical.

#2 is boring to me and I see as either a problem with the game, the players, or both. Hack & Slash is mind numbingly dull attrition gaming and isn't very inventive or imaginative at all IMO.

How do we get out of #2?
They are on the right track, but are unwilling to give up their bread and butter. Selling you an option, a power, you can attempt to do anyways only makes publishers money. We need to continue to open up the idea of "Do Anything" first, but then work that idea into strategic and tactical play. The custom powers emerging from that inventiveness will occur due to habituation anyways. But we could do with demonstrating that through play without all the skills and feats, etc., clogging our mental "options" space up front.

 

[nnms]

#2 is dealt with by morale rules and using the terrain properly.

If you have a group of monsters and the party engages them and starts to slowly win in a attrition slug fest, the monsters need to leave at least some of the time. The monsters probably have friends elsewhere in the dungeon and should probably run for safety. This radically transforms what the PCs need to do to deal with the new situation.

Similarly, if it's the PCs that are slowly losing the attrition battle, something drastic needs to happen. Either bring some artillery to the fight or start to withdraw. Even if you are pursued, you may be able to reform in a corridor and have your freshest and strongest warriors fight only a few of the enemy at a time until the tables are turned.

Which brings us to terrain. The Caves of Chaos are full of 10 foot wide passages, junctions and rooms of various sizes. Sometimes the thing to do is to poke the hornet's nest and then withdraw, using the terrain to turn a bad situation into a great one.

I played 4E rather extensively from Keep on the Shadowfell up to the end of 2011. Since then I've been playing Basic D&D. The type of thinking when it comes to a combat is totally different. There is no "encounter area" that you have to stay inside. The encounter is not a unit of game time that must contain everything related to the resolution of the fight. Even late 3.x had a leaning towards set piece tactical encounters that are simply not related to the type of exploration based play that is in a old module like B2.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And you've just explained clearly something I've realised is wrong with the fighter.

The fighter
1: Can not really contribute to a Squash Match other than as a warm body
2: Isn't noticeably better at slugfests than the Cleric of Moradin. Yes, he does more damage (even with Crusader's Strike) - but the Moradin cleric protects others instead and a pair of them would make a really obnoxious wall.
3: Isn't noticeably better at tactical combat than the Cleric of Moradin for much the same reason - and if the rogue reliably gets advantage in combat the level 2 or higher rogue moves up into the same league as the fighter.

 

[Lanefan]

I prefer all three fight types in varying amounts at varying times. Every battle should be - or have the opportunity to be - different.

Nothing wrong with some serious hack and slash now and then - gives the warrior types a chance to do what they do best: break heads.

Lanefan

 

[Invisible Stalker]

I like all kinds of fights.

If it's a squash match, I'll use my Summon Road Warriors spell.

 

[pemerton]

For the most part, it is the blaster casters choosing when to drop a bomb and having it work. If the spell fails or isn't casted in the first place, it turns into a slugfest unless the character spend defensive resources or improvise to use tactics.

If this is true, what happened to "the fighters are best at fighting"?

 

[Minigiant]

If this is true, what happened to "the fighters are best at fighting"?

The fighter is best at fighting.... but there has to be a fight to be hard first.

Charred corpses and half dead burning warrior don't fight back much.

 

[pemerton]

I'll put it another way - if the main determinant of how a fight plays out is what the spellcasters do, that seems to mean that they are the best at fighting.