D&D 5E Dilemmas and decisions - an experiment in melee combat choices

[RangerWickett]

One of my ongoing frustrations with tabletop RPGs is that characters in melee combat almost never have meaningful tactical choices. You typically just make a roll and hope you hit for damage. Battlemaster fighters get a few more choices, but what's lacking is a back and forth when an enemy makes a particular style of attack that makes you want to change your own tactics, which then makes him change his tactics, and so on.

Well, here's my quick proposal to make fights more interesting.

Your attacks each create a small dilemma for your opponent to resolve on their next turn. I haven't playtested this to get a proper balance, but ideally I want it to be a real decision how to react to each dilemma. Everyone uses these rules - PCs, NPCs, monsters - though if there's a horde of foes, the GM should probably just say they all pick 'Drive' to keep combat moving.

Five Attacks
Every time you spend an action on your turn to make one or more attacks, choose one of the five following effects. This effect is in addition to whatever attack you make, and happens even if you miss.

• Assault. You wind up for a devastating attack next turn. Until the end of your next turn you cannot make opportunity attacks. However, attacks you make next turn deal an extra damage die equal to the weapon's base damage.
• Bind. You restrict one of your foe's weapons. Choose one weapon your target wields. Until the end of your target's next turn, if he attacks you or anyone within your reach with that weapon, his attack roll takes a -2 penalty and even on a hit only deals half damage.
• Careful. You get your bearings. If you don't take damage before the start of your next turn, you get temporary hit points equal to your level. On your next turn, you take a -2 penalty on your attack rolls, and even on a hit you only deal half damage.
• Drive. You have superior positioning unless your opponent moves out of reach. If your opponent ends his next turn adjacent to you, you get a +2 bonus to attack him on your next turn. You cannot make OAs against your opponent if a given 5 feet of movement takes him farther away from you.
• Evade. Until your next turn, whenever you're attacked as a reaction you can move 5 feet. If this moves you out of reach of the attack, you are treated as if you have cover. If you move into total cover relative to the attacker, the attack misses.

The Assault attack poses the dilemma: strike him while he's vulnerable, or do something defensive because you know the next attack is dangerous.

The Bind attack encourages foes to switch weapons or just punch a foe or start a grapple or back off.

The Careful attack invites your opponent to do whatever they can to injure you, even if there are other foes you are more dangerous.

The Drive attack poses the dilemma of whether to stand in an advantageous position or withdraw. Since your opponent cannot OA you, withdrawing may seem like a no brainer, but you need to be careful not to get backed into a corner. It promotes the classic fencing style of back and forth movement.

The Evade attack poses the dilemma of how to keep you from getting out of reach. If they're by cover, how do you maneuver to keep them from ducking behind a wall? If they're in the open, do you grab or shove them (cover doesn't help against opposed Athletics checks), or go target someone else?

Note that the first attack of any engagement will always be unmodified. All these attacks change the parameters of what happens next turn. I know this sounds a bit weird, but I want to playtest this and see if it makes combat more engaging if you have an inkling what your opponent is going to do next turn.

 

[Wulffolk]

I like the premise. I agree that D&D could use some more tactical choices in combat. The lack of meaningful choices is the main reason that I NEVER play pure Fighters. I always need some other option or resource to manage for me to be interested.

 

[Immoralkickass]

There are a few problems though.

Bind: I have trouble imagining how does this work without disarming the target's weapon. Hold his blade with your (possibly bare) hand? So does it require a free hand? Anyway, disarm is better.

Careful: The thing about actions in combat is that they have to be able to be used out of combat as well. Before combat starts, obviously you didn't take damage before the start of your next turn, so you can gain the temp hp, which lasts... forever? Basically start every fight with temp hp. But forget it, who wants to deal half damage? Go HAM, or go home.

Evade: In plain English, there is hardly any difference in meaning between this and Dodge, and Dodge looks better. I'd take Dodge over your Evade anytime.

Overall, not much of a dilemma for me, as I'd take Assault over the other 4 anytime. Best debuff is the Dead debuff. DPS FTW.

 

[RangerWickett]

These are in addition to your attack. If you disarm you need to spend an action disarming. Bind lets you hit for damage and also impede their attacks.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

I've noted the same difficulty with tactical combat. The way I tried to address it was to find a way to expand on reaction abilities, since some classes/builds use them like hot cakes while some may never see the need. The very name suggests that you are reacting to what an enemy is doing and adjusting as you can.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Note that the first attack of any engagement will always be unmodified. All these attacks change the parameters of what happens next turn. I know this sounds a bit weird, but I want to playtest this and see if it makes combat more engaging if you have an inkling what your opponent is going to do next turn.

What about characters who alternate between attacking and doing other things? Careful seems like the obvious choice if you're planning to cast a spell next turn.

Aside from that, the big problem I see with this option (aside from general complexity and slowing things down) is that it forces you to commit ahead of time or else risk losing the entire benefit. Once you have an Assault effect in place, the fighter would be a fool to not follow it up with Action Surge for extra greatsword attacks on their next turn. Of course, then the enemy attacks and Binds your greatsword (at no cost or risk to themself, as far as I can tell), so you're left with a much more complicated equation to try and puzzle through.

I mean, if your goal is just to add complexity, then I can't imagine this failing to do that. I'm just not sure that the pay-off is worth it. I mean, complexity is usually a bad thing when designing the game - it's usually the price you have to pay in order to add customization or verisimilitude or such things.

 

[Li Shenron]

It's a very interesting idea, but honestly I already had some difficulty reading these options, that I don't know how I could manage running them in a game... what makes them difficult is mainly the fact that they don't only affect your current turn and your opponent's next turn but also your next turn. Clearly this is kind of the point of the system, but I could forsee a mess when you have to track which action was taken by every PC (and maybe also every monster) at the previous round.

 

[RangerWickett]

What about characters who alternate between attacking and doing other things? Careful seems like the obvious choice if you're planning to cast a spell next turn.

Aside from that, the big problem I see with this option (aside from general complexity and slowing things down) is that it forces you to commit ahead of time or else risk losing the entire benefit. Once you have an Assault effect in place, the fighter would be a fool to not follow it up with Action Surge for extra greatsword attacks on their next turn. Of course, then the enemy attacks and Binds your greatsword (at no cost or risk to themself, as far as I can tell), so you're left with a much more complicated equation to try and puzzle through.

I mean, if your goal is just to add complexity, then I can't imagine this failing to do that. I'm just not sure that the pay-off is worth it. I mean, complexity is usually a bad thing when designing the game - it's usually the price you have to pay in order to add customization or verisimilitude or such things.

I honestly wasn't thinking of 'adding' this to D&D so much as taking the core engine of 5th edition, stripping out all the classes, and using this as the baseline for a new combat system. So this is the complexity. It wouldn't be added on top of existing classes.

Perhaps each player would have a stack of five cards - ABCDE - each a different color. On their turn they'd pick a card when they announce their action, and if they pick Bind they choose which enemy it applies to. So you can cast a spell and still wind up for an attack on your next turn. Or maybe I'd tweak the mechanics a bit so they have some sort of effect if you're doing magic.

 

[Sunseeker]

Perhaps each player would have a stack of five cards - ABCDE - each a different color. On their turn they'd pick a card when they announce their action, and if they pick Bind they choose which enemy it applies to. So you can cast a spell and still wind up for an attack on your next turn. Or maybe I'd tweak the mechanics a bit so they have some sort of effect if you're doing magic.

Isn't that basically how 4E At Wills work?

Not that I'm complaining, I loved 4E.

 

[Satyrn]

It's an interesting idea that would be worth trying out and tweaking.