Combat in your game

[ForceUser]

We use:

A whiteboard for tactical maps
D&D Minis for monsters & NPCs
Painted metal minis for PCs
1" square wooden blocks for building structures
Chessex wet erase mat or Tact-tiles for terrain maps/battle grid
Colored stones for armies of mooks

 

[MerricB]

We use:

A whiteboard for tactical maps
D&D Minis for monsters & NPCs
Painted metal minis for PCs
1" square wooden blocks for building structures
Chessex wet erase mat or Tact-tiles for terrain maps/battle grid
Colored stones for armies of mooks

Sounds like a nice set of gear to use!

Cheers!

 

[ForceUser]

The group finds that combat slows way down with the minis. Of course we have also stripped down the combat rules to make them run faster. We prefer the chaos of combat (for good and for ill) to running a tactical miniatures game.

So, nope, no minis, counters, or battleboards.

I'd hate to play a fighter in such a campaign! A lot of 3E combat relies on knowing where you are specifically in relation to your opponents so you can know whether it's best to fight defensively or charge, whether you are in an opponent's threatened space, whether you make or provoke attacks of opportunity, whether you can use Cleave or how many foes you can use Whirlwind Attack on! How do you decide which foe it is most advantageous to Dodge? For that matter, how do you know where to place your fireball so it hits the most bad guys possible without hitting your allies? How do you know how many allies are in range for haste or mass cure serious wounds? How do you know how far away you are from the Big Evil Guy and whether or not he's in range of your spell? How do you know where to take a 5-foot step so you can cast a spell without casting defensively or provoking an attack of opportunity?

And on, and on...

I can't see divorcing 3E from the tactical system. Other game systems & previous editions of D&D, sure, combat is easily resolved abstractly. But in 3E the position & distance of foes on a battlefield is everything to determining success or failure. Without using a battle grid it just sounds so...arbitrary.

 

[MerricB]

I can't see divorcing 3E from the tactical system. Other game systems & previous editions of D&D, sure, combat is easily resolved abstractly. But in 3E the position & distance of foes on a battlefield is everything to determining success or failure. Without using a battle grid it just sounds so...arbitrary.

It was just as arbitrary in earlier editions of D&D without miniatures, I assure you. Although fireball is the big offender, you might also want to see the 1E rules for shields in the DMG.

Of course, D&D 3E makes use of the battlegrid/miniatures to a greater extent than earlier versions, but without miniatures you need the DM and the players to have a good understanding of how they want combat to run.

I have no problems running 3.5E combats with or without miniatures - and I assure you that those grid-intensive feats are still extremely useful - but most of my players definitely prefer seeing the miniatures on the table.

Cheers!

 

[Wombat]

I can't see divorcing 3E from the tactical system. Other game systems & previous editions of D&D, sure, combat is easily resolved abstractly. But in 3E the position & distance of foes on a battlefield is everything to determining success or failure. Without using a battle grid it just sounds so...arbitrary.

**shrug**

It's what works for our group. We haven't convinced a lot of others, but that's fine, too.

The point for us is the combat often is arbitrary, if you are in it, and the overtly tactical level seems artificial. But like I said, this is strictly for our own tastes.

 

[Haradim]

Our combats are almost entirely verbal, though we do drag out a whiteboard occassionally.

We usually don't have any room for minis/maps even if we were inclined to use them.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It was just as arbitrary in earlier editions of D&D without miniatures, I assure you. Although fireball is the big offender, you might also want to see the 1E rules for shields in the DMG.

That's what always sucks about non-miniatures combat. You say "I fling a fireball and hit as many as possible", and the GM says "OK, you get three of them".

And then all of them charge the mage at the back of the party.

Etc. etc.

If your DM has a head for keeping this stuff straight, you do well. If he doesn't, it may seem like the combat is simpler and easier to you, but to the DM I almost guarantee that he's got no frigging idea what's going on, and is being constantly amazed that you accept the stuff that he's making up.

 

[MerricB]

If your DM has a head for keeping this stuff straight, you do well. If he doesn't, it may seem like the combat is simpler and easier to you, but to the DM I almost guarantee that he's got no frigging idea what's going on, and is being constantly amazed that you accept the stuff that he's making up.

As a DM with 3E, I usually was playing "blind chess", that is, I'd have a mental battlegrid in my head. However, with lots and lots of combatants, my rulings became a lot more arbitrary...

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Incidentally, has your way of running combat changed over the years?

Cheers!

 

[ForceUser]

As a DM with 3E, I usually was playing "blind chess", that is, I'd have a mental battlegrid in my head. However, with lots and lots of combatants, my rulings became a lot more arbitrary...

Cheers!

Exactly. A grid of some sort, even if it's just a piece of graph paper with pencil marks, is a requirement for playing fair in 3E. If my DM arbitrarily decided every variable of the battlefield on the fly I'd feel cheated of the opportunity to Do Cool Stuff Within The Rules (tm). I want to see the disposition of allies, enemies & terrain clearly on a grid before I decide what I'm going to do on my turn. It would drive me nuts if my DM just said, "There's a couple guys on your left and a few more down the hall running toward you. What do you do?" No, no...give me distances, movement rates, dimensions of the battlefield, enemies' distances from each other; where can I 5-foot step to set up a Cleave opportunity? Where can I position myself so I won't get flanked? I want to know this stuff.

Caveat: to each his own. I'm not attacking anyone. I just know that I played with a GM who ran his game off the cuff for years, and while combats were exciting at first, after a while I became frustrated with his inability to clearly describe what exactly was going on, especially in big battles. I made him draw me maps.