D&D General Didn’t Mike Mearls propose a one-roll combat encounter?

[Dungeonosophy]

I was trying to find where Mike Mearls (AFAIR) proposed a way to resolve entire combat encounters in D&D with just a single roll. Does anyone remember that, and where that quote is posted?

 

[overgeeked]

I was trying to find where Mike Mearls (AFAIR) proposed a way to resolve entire combat encounters in D&D with just a single roll. Does anyone remember that, and where that quote is posted?

I remember a tweet where he took a poll about whether people wanted a faster combat resolution mechanic. I don't remember seeing an actual one-roll resolution mechanic. That would be awesome.

Lots of games have something like that. It could be something as simple as make one attack each. The monsters make one attack each. Calculate all the hit points lost. And done. Wrap things up in a big hurry and not waste an hour or more on rolling dice for a foregone conclusion of a fight. Combat as group check, basically.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I remember a tweet where he took a poll about whether people wanted a faster combat resolution mechanic. I don't remember seeing an actual one-roll resolution mechanic. That would be awesome.

Lots of games have something like that. It could be something as simple as make one attack each. The monsters make one attack each. Calculate all the hit points lost. And done. Wrap things up in a big hurry and not waste an hour or more on rolling dice for a foregone conclusion of a fight. Combat as group check, basically.

(bold added)

I don't know, if that is your take on combat why bother even rolling at all? If the foregone conclusion is the PCs winning (which IMO pretty much is the case 95+% of the time), then what is the point?

To the extreme end, you then have to ask why are you even playing? You might as well just sit around and take turns telling stories to each other or making them up collaboratively.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't know, if that is your take on combat why bother even rolling at all?

Because it's fun to be surprised. That's what the dice are for. I don't know what should happen, so roll to find out.

If the foregone conclusion is the PCs winning (which IMO pretty much is the case 95+% of the time), then what is the point?

Exactly. Why bother with an hour of endless rolls just to get to the foregone conclusion? Just make one roll each and skip to the end. A string of great rolls by the monsters and crap rolls by the PCs will give you that roughly 5% of the time the PCs don't simply win. Anything more than that is pointlessly drawing things out for the sake of drawing them out. Skip it.

To the extreme end, you then have to ask why are you even playing?

For everything else. Literally everything else. Exploration, roleplaying, playing to find out, social interaction, surprise, friendship, world-building, etc. Sorry. I just find combat to the single most boring part of the game.

You might as well just sit around and take turns telling stories to each other or making them up collaboratively.

If you'd like. But I'm not here for a story game or telling collaborative stories, I'm here to play a game. Set in a fictional world. If there's any story to be had it evolves naturally out of the interaction between the players, their characters, the world and monsters as run by the DM, and the roll of the dice. I don't buy into the notion that the DM is some grand storyteller and the players are there to either screw up the DM's story or to passively be told a story by the DM.

 

[Li Shenron]

I like the idea of a group check.

Normally I run combat encounters in details because I like having to make tactical decisions every round. But I ALSO usually run exploration, social interaction, travel and downtime in details.

Sometimes there can be a case where things aren't interesting enough in any one of those pillars, and glossing over could be better than a tedious repetition of the same rolls. Most people would choose a summary trapfinding resolution over a long sequence of identical checks for every tile in the floor, so if you expect a certain battle to be a sequence of "fighter swings sword, rogue shoots arrow, wizard casts cantrip", why not a single group check.

 

[Shiroiken]

I don't know, if that is your take on combat why bother even rolling at all? If the foregone conclusion is the PCs winning (which IMO pretty much is the case 95+% of the time), then what is the point?

By design, almost every combat favors the PCs. Otherwise the party would lose half the time, and no one wants that. However, there's resource loss in almost every combat, which is what the dice and party tactics determines. This would simply remove the party tactics from the equation, leaving it purely to chance. Interestingly, this could solve the issue some have with getting enough encounters per long rest, since you could have 4-5 of these followed by 2-3 real combats.

 

[Composer99]

I'm not sure, but if Mearls did, he might've done so in one of his Happy Fun Hour videos.

To the best of my understanding those are no longer on YouTube, though?

 

[JarooAshstaff]

Why not double down and just roll one dice to see if you finished the adventure.

Then go play a game you like.

 

[Horwath]

Why not double down and just roll one dice to see if you finished the adventure.

Then go play a game you like.

no need for roll at all.

Just compare your attack bonus +10 vs target's AC. same for saves and ability DC's

 

[tetrasodium]

Why not double down and just roll one dice to see if you finished the adventure.

Then go play a game you like.

Don't forget to toss in a "I help with that" for advantage too.