Bringing Back the Fighting Man

[grimmgoose]

But if a hundred orcs is an encounter which presents three 8th level fighters a similar challenge that 10 orcs did at 2nd level, and can be resolved in a reasonable period of time?

Yeah, that'd be about two hours, assuming we're all blazing-fast

I get that it's "cool", but there are some things better described narratively to get to the stuff that's worth spending the time at the table. That's obviously going to vary from party to party.

We did Curse of Strahd, and there's an encounter that

Spoiler: Curse of Strahd Spoilers

pits the party against a ton of Twig Blights

. The group did this towards the end of the campaign, so they were about level 9. All in all, it took about an hour and a half to finish the fight.

At the end of each session, we do "stars and wishes"; basically what was your favorite and least favorite thing about the session. The consensus was, "I wish that fight had been a single roll, or skipped". There was no tension. It was "fun" for about two rounds, but the lack of threat made it boring.

I agree that sometimes it can be fun, narratively interesting, and mechanically challenging. I think that's pretty rare, though.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, that'd be about two hours, assuming we're all blazing-fast

I get that it's "cool", but there are some things better described narratively to get to the stuff that's worth spending the time at the table. That's obviously going to vary from party to party.

We did Curse of Strahd, and there's an encounter that

Spoiler: Curse of Strahd Spoilers

pits the party against a ton of Twig Blights

. The group did this towards the end of the campaign, so they were about level 9. All in all, it took about an hour and a half to finish the fight.

At the end of each session, we do "stars and wishes"; basically what was your favorite and least favorite thing about the session. The consensus was, "I wish that fight had been a single roll, or skipped". There was no tension. It was "fun" for about two rounds, but the lack of threat made it boring.

I agree that sometimes it can be fun, narratively interesting, and mechanically challenging. I think that's pretty rare, though.

Oh, sure! The mechanics need to support it!

I remember a similar fight against an undead horde (hundreds of skeletons and zombies) which one of my groups played through in 3rd ed which was really epic in concept, but which in play turned into an hours-long slog.

5E and 3E both have the issue that monsters generally have enough HP that even low level chumps are not guaranteed to be one hit kills.

4E addressed this with Minions.

In Chainmail where the precursor of the "sweep attack" rule originated, Heroes and Superheroes threw 4 or 8 d6s for their attacks like a larger number of regular troops, and those attacks were speedy to resolve because there were no HP. Just compare unit type to unit type to see what # or greater you needed to roll on those d6s to cause a hit, which was mostly just a casualty (you might need multiple simultaneous hits against a tougher target, but there was no hit or HP tracking round to round).

In OD&D and 1E, where there were "Sweep attack" rules, 1HD monsters had few enough HP that between magic weapons and strength bonuses, you'd normally be getting one hit kills on eligible targets.

My B/X house rule for them explicitly skips damage rolls. Just roll the appropriate number of d20s, count hits and remove casualties. For that exact reason.

 

[darjr]

Obviously, the overall context of the rules matters ... but that seems a bit much!

(Yes, misses happen more often, but once fighters start getting bonuses from magic items and so on, I'd be concerned with how this would play out. I'm not saying I'd be per se against it, but it feels like this wouldn't work, and I'd have to know more about how it actually plays out.)

It’s FMC Basic

FMC Basic by Traverse Fantasy

Personal house rules for FMC

traversefantasy.itch.io

 

[Lanefan]

Oh, sure! The mechanics need to support it!

I remember a similar fight against an undead horde (hundreds of skeletons and zombies) which one of my groups played through in 3rd ed which was really epic in concept, but which in play turned into an hours-long slog.

5E and 3E both have the issue that monsters generally have enough HP that even low level chumps are not guaranteed to be one hit kills.

4E addressed this with Minions.

In Chainmail where the precursor of the "sweep attack" rule originated, Heroes and Superheroes threw 4 or 8 d6s for their attacks like a larger number of regular troops, and those attacks were speedy to resolve because there were no HP. Just compare unit type to unit type to see what # or greater you needed to roll on those d6s to cause a hit, which was mostly just a casualty (you might need multiple simultaneous hits against a tougher target, but there was no hit or HP tracking round to round).

In OD&D and 1E, where there were "Sweep attack" rules, 1HD monsters had few enough HP that between magic weapons and strength bonuses, you'd normally be getting one hit kills on eligible targets.

My B/X house rule for them explicitly skips damage rolls. Just roll the appropriate number of d20s, count hits and remove casualties. For that exact reason.

For me the biggest mechanical issue arises when, in a system like ours that has possible fumbles, any swing can potentially (if rarely) cause the attacker to break a weapon or have some other calamity occur. As such, it's essential that every swing gets played out and that seemingly minor combats don't get skipped or hand-waved; because even the most trivial of combats can have long-term consequences if you're unlucky.

Never mind that even in what seems like a trivial combat the foes can get lucky and string some criticals together, turning what on paper was a cakewalk into a desperate fight for survival.

Related, but tangential: one thing that's always bothered me (and in our crew I'm not alone in this) about how D&D handles damage is that with enough bonuses from strength, magic, etc. you end up with what seems a ludicrous situation where someone with, say, +10 to damage does either no damage at all or at least 11 points. There's no middle ground where that attacker can hit for just a 3-point nick or graze, and that just ain't realistic.

Our solution: if you roll minimum damage (as in, 1 on any single die, 2 on 2 dice, etc.) you add all your bonuses and then roll a die of that size to determine what you actually did. Thus, in the above example the attacker would roll a d11 and that would be the damage actually dealt. And yes, this very intentionally means that a +3 weapon can still on occasion only do 1 point of damage.

 

[Mannahnin]

For me the biggest mechanical issue arises when, in a system like ours that has possible fumbles, any swing can potentially (if rarely) cause the attacker to break a weapon or have some other calamity occur. As such, it's essential that every swing gets played out and that seemingly minor combats don't get skipped or hand-waved; because even the most trivial of combats can have long-term consequences if you're unlucky.

Which is one reason why I've gotten away from those sorts of rules. Even apart from the perennial issue of crit fumbles ironically punishing the characters who are best and most skilled at melee.

This feeling of being compelled to play out a long, sloggy, un-fun fight in the name of a principle which isn't necessarily serving a better game. I'd rather adjust the rules to make such fights more fun and engaging and entertaining. I do like the idea of incorporating some random chance of weapon breakage into some games, though. I'm just pretty sure fumbles aren't the best way to do it.

Never mind that even in what seems like a trivial combat the foes can get lucky and string some criticals together, turning what on paper was a cakewalk into a desperate fight for survival.

Which is what I was talking about in terms of the mechanics supporting it, and whether the math is flat enough that the orcs actually represent a threat rather than a foregone conclusion.

 

[Lanefan]

Which is one reason why I've gotten away from those sorts of rules. Even apart from the perennial issue of crit fumbles ironically punishing the characters who are best and most skilled at melee.

Casters can fumble with their ranged spells too.

This feeling of being compelled to play out a long, sloggy, un-fun fight in the name of a principle which isn't necessarily serving a better game. I'd rather adjust the rules to make such fights more fun and engaging and entertaining. I do like the idea of incorporating some random chance of weapon breakage into some games, though. I'm just pretty sure fumbles aren't the best way to do it.

A weapon breaking at an inopportune moment can change a combat. And if you don't do it via fumble rules, how do you determine when it breaks?

Which is what I was talking about in terms of the mechanics supporting it, and whether the math is flat enough that the orcs actually represent a threat rather than a foregone conclusion.

Even if a combat looks like it'll be a foregone conclusion 99% of the time I'm still going to play it out because of that other 1%. And sometimes that 1% can be a doozie, says he; remembering one supposedly-cakewalk combat - a well-equipped 4th-5th level party of 7 or so against about a dozen wandering 0th-level bandits - that ended up with one PC breaking a very expensive magic weapon and another PC dead before the remaining bandits gave up and ran away.

 

[Mannahnin]

Which is one reason why I've gotten away from those sorts of rules. Even apart from the perennial issue of crit fumbles ironically punishing the characters who are best and most skilled at melee.

Casters can fumble with their ranged spells too.

I'm sure. That's even more of the same problem. Fumble mechanics punish people for doing the thing they're supposed to be good at.

Unless you include some sort of mitigation mechanic to factor in skill. Delta's old crit rules from 2012, for example, include the victim getting a save vs. Petrification to negate the crit or fumble, which means higher level characters suffer from them less. Which helps, but I'm still not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. Whether the reward is worth the extra time and dice rolls.

My current crit and fumble house rules for B/X are:

Crits and Fumbles:
20 to hit = +1 damage, OR deal normal damage and you may declare a cool situational effect- disarming, knocking a foe back or prone, overbearing, etc. If the effect is particularly devastating, I may grant the victim a save vs poison/death to avoid. I do not use fumbles on a 1 (it’s just an auto-miss), though I may narrate amusing fumbles for hapless bad guys.

I normally also just rule the enemy defeated if the 1 extra HP would do it. No screwing the players by letting them choose wrong in that situation.

A weapon breaking at an inopportune moment can change a combat. And if you don't do it via fumble rules, how do you determine when it breaks?

That's a good question. Still working on the best solution. Fumbles with a skill-mitigation rule like Delta used are one option.

This feeling of being compelled to play out a long, sloggy, un-fun fight in the name of a principle which isn't necessarily serving a better game. I'd rather adjust the rules to make such fights more fun and engaging and entertaining.

Even if a combat looks like it'll be a foregone conclusion 99% of the time I'm still going to play it out because of that other 1%. And sometimes that 1% can be a doozie, says he; remembering one supposedly-cakewalk combat - a well-equipped 4th-5th level party of 7 or so against about a dozen wandering 0th-level bandits - that ended up with one PC breaking a very expensive magic weapon and another PC dead before the remaining bandits gave up and ran away.

Right, I'm saying this is a mindset I've gotten away from. My players and I shouldn't be wasting precious table time slogging through a non-entertaining fight out of a misguided dedication to the 1% chance that it will turn out surprisingly and be fun. That's getting priorities backwards. Better to adjust the mechanics to make such fights more enjoyable the other 99% of the time, or to skip them.

Obviously your mileage may vary, and if your table is happy, more power to it!

 

[Cruentus]

This feeling of being compelled to play out a long, sloggy, un-fun fight in the name of a principle which isn't necessarily serving a better game. I'd rather adjust the rules to make such fights more fun and engaging and entertaining. I do like the idea of incorporating some random chance of weapon breakage into some games, though. I'm just pretty sure fumbles aren't the best way to do it.

The biggest issue I've encountered with skipping long, sloggy fights (and I did that several times in 5e with a T1-2 party, where I just knew the encounter in the adventure wouldn't do anything), is that you then don't have any resource depletion. How do you handle that? Is it just time wasted by the party?

If I fight out the encounter, I'm likely to hit at least a couple of times, take off some HP, or the party casts some spells, etc. (I'm coming from an OSE perspective). Those resources aren't as easy to recover in older games, and may end up mattering. Any suggestions?

 

[Mannahnin]

The biggest issue I've encountered with skipping long, sloggy fights (and I did that several times in 5e with a T1-2 party, where I just knew the encounter in the adventure wouldn't do anything), is that you then don't have any resource depletion. How do you handle that? Is it just time wasted by the party?

If I fight out the encounter, I'm likely to hit at least a couple of times, take off some HP, or the party casts some spells, etc. (I'm coming from an OSE perspective). Those resources aren't as easy to recover in older games, and may end up mattering. Any suggestions?

A very good question, and I think this is one of the common complaints about 5e. Even in tier 1, there's already enough HP inflation that it can get a bit sloggy. This is one reason I switched to the "a long rest is a week, a short rest is overnight" variant midway through the last 5E campaign I ran, because resource depletion was too little, especially for the random wilderness encounters I wanted to include.

With OSE I don't think this is usually an issue, because resources are more limited and fights normally resolve faster. So there's less slog and higher stakes inherently.

I introduced a "sweep" house rule for Fighters and demi-humans (possibly other fighter-like classes if I were to introduce them) specifically to make encounters with large numbers of humanoids quicker to play and resolve, as well as just to make Fighters and quasi-Fighters a little more badass.

Is slog an issue you've run into much with OSE?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

.... great conversation, but it does feel weird posting in this thread.