D&D General Discuss: Combat as War in D&D

[AbdulAlhazred]

Exactly, and IMO this steep power curve (or narrow challenge band, to use your term) is a very serious - almost fatal - flaw in 3e and 4e design.

I mean, a game where Merry and Eowyn can't punch above their weight to bring down a Ringwraith isn't a game worth playing.

Ehhhhhh, this is your analysis from a specific perspective. That's OK, but I would say:

1) 3e and 4e are totally different games, with vastly different design goals. As I see it the problem 3.x/PF/etc has is that it wasn't designed with enough focus on GAME. A HUGE mistake was made, basically. 3e's job was to rewrite 2e and turn AD&D pea soup muck 'rules' into something that was extensible and realistically playable as-written. Most of the approach seems to have been to try to create a more 'realistic' core, or at least a more 'procedural' one in which most of what would happen in the action at the table could be referred in a general sense to the rules and some mechanic applied to it. I guess they simply didn't get as far as "does this mechanic actually work to produce a playable game?" From what I've heard they basically playtested in a small closed group who's approach was to take 2e characters and material and translate them to 3e and see how it played. Apparently nobody thought to then start a 3e campaign and see how it would evolve, because if they had, and had they done so with their eyes open, they would have run into a lot of bad problems. The result of all the bad problems is, 3e really is NOT extensible, because it is broke at the core. 3.5 attempted to fix it, but it was way too little.

So, maybe it is fair to say that 3e has a 'narrow challenge range', though I would go with the more severe "Except below 7th level or so, challenges DON'T WORK AT ALL in 3e."

2) 4e, with its total focus on game and playability, IMHO cannot really be tarred with this criticism. The design FUNDAMENTALLY presupposes that challenges are dramatic tools and automatically provides for the PCs to triumph as the default, assuming the players want to and actually try. In 4e a Ring Wraith, appearing in the night on Weathertop, would be a level-appropriate creature, part of a level appropriate encounter. I'm not sure what level I would assign to the hobbits at that point, I don't think that is an easy question, but clearly it was a highly difficult (say level + 5) encounter. Maybe even higher, as it was the result of failure in at least one SC and thus made more difficult than normally likely! Honestly, I wouldn't even handle it as combat, given all the factors, but I would just remind you that the Ring Wraiths didn't seem to really have a fixed level of power, even in the original story. They were animated by the will of Sauron, and their abilities waxed and waned as his focus was on them, and as his fortunes rose and fell. All of the Nine together, fully mustered for war and at the focus of their master's attention would be immensely powerful. A single, or a few, Wraiths, operating far from their master's power base and without his principal attention were weak enough that fire and a prayer to Elbereth drove them off temporarily.

I think it is perfectly feasible for 4e to present the above, whereas a game like 3e would find it antithetical to its central design thesis and mechanics. The 4e version would be perhaps a level 6 undead lurker (or just a part of an SC without needing a stat block as such). The same being, might appear at the head of an army as a powerful paragon solo monster, finally being defeated only by the coordinated action of two higher level PCs and a lot of their followers and minions (or again, as an SC).

It is fair to say that 4e handles combat and similar stuff more in an 'action adventure' mode than in a literary "battle of good vs evil" mode. So it isn't the best game to do an LotR kind of scenario, but not because of 'narrowness of challenge rating'. Honestly, how wide is the challenge rating of an orc in AD&D? 5th level PCs will basically laugh at orcs. Yeah, 100 orcs is problematic in mostly a logistical sense, but as actual combatants they're basically worthless. I don't see much of a 'wider challenge range' there. Maybe a tiny bit, but again 4e handles that by having several differently leveled orc stat blocks to play with.

 

[Xetheral]

I think where you are going wrong is only approaching these terms from the players perspective. That is - the players can treat combat as war or combat as sport. I’m saying this is only half the picture. We also have to consider how enemies are approaching combat. When combined we actually end up with 4 possibilities.

Player/Enemy
CaS/CaS - typically referred to as combat as sport
CaS/CaW - this would be a more survival focused type game
CaW/CaS - this yields the special forces style strategy game
CaW/CaW - this is what I’ve been talking about here and it’s more of a heavy weight punch and counterpunch style game

many people view the term combat as war as describing the CaW/CaS split above.

I think you're introducing an additional level of analysis that isn't present in the common understanding of CaW and CaS.

In my experience the labels focus on table expectations for the players, letting them know whether the expectation is that they try to trivialize encounters in advance, or whether the expectation is that they fight encounters as presented by the DM.

Your additional level of analysis is interesting, but I think it misses the point of CaW and CaS as descriptive labels that help communicate and set expectations at the table by describing a fairly fundamental difference in playstyle.

 

[FrogReaver]

There's a very significant correlation between campaign difficulty and deadliness. Leaving aside outliers (like a campaign where death isn't typically on the table for reasons) an easy game is FAR less likely to result in a TPK than a hard campaign.

That counter argument only works if TPK isn’t a foregone conclusion. They assertion is that TPK is guaranteed to eventually occur in both and so The liklihood of a tpk cannot be used as a measuring stick for difficulty when that liklihood is 100% in both situations.

your counter argument is putting the cart before the horse so to speak by assuming that tpk is not a forgone conclusion.

 

[Fanaelialae]

That counter argument only works if TPK isn’t a foregone conclusion. They assertion is that TPK is guaranteed to eventually occur in both and so The liklihood of a tpk cannot be used as a measuring stick for difficulty when that liklihood is 100% in both situations.

your counter argument is putting the cart before the horse so to speak by assuming that tpk is not a forgone conclusion.

Apart from a railroaded conclusion, or an infinitely long campaign where TPK is guaranteed simply as a consequence of infinite opportunity for TPK, I don't see how that's possible. The former isn't really in the spirit of CaW (since nothing the players do can impact the outcome), whereas the latter is purely imaginary.

In reality (assuming death is possible), you are far more likely to experience a TPK in a hard game than an easy game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Define 'viable'. Is it the delicious salsa that builds up between the claws of small cats due to characters not having enough HP to exist in a stiff wind?

Also define 'commoner' in 4e. I don't remember them being statted, mostly because a traditionally statted commoner is basically a water balloon filled with blood and shame.

LOL, well said. There CANNOT BE a definition in 4e of 'commoner' because power levels in 4e are based on dramatic function of a character, not on some imagined 'power ladder' that is theoretically rooted in some idea of who 'should be' stronger than someone else in a fantasy world. There's nothing wrong in 4e with the GM making a peasant who is the 7th son of the 7th son, and magically endowed with a karmic destiny that makes him a paragon character (more likely to be a PC but not mandated).

 

[FrogReaver]

I think you're introducing an additional level of analysis that isn't present in the common understanding of CaW and CaS.

In my experience the labels focus on table expectations for the players, letting them know whether the expectation is that they try to trivialize encounters in advance, or whether the expectation is that they fight encounters as presented by the DM.

Your additional level of analysis is interesting, but I think it misses the point of CaW and CaS as descriptive labels that help communicate and set expectations at the table by describing a fairly fundamental difference in playstyle.

What I’m pointing out is that a game described as CaS or as CaW can be ran vastly different ways depending on whether enemies use CaS or CaW.

my initial premise focuses on what it would be like if enemies engaged in CaW - and most counterpoints to that have shades of enemies not being ran with the CaW mindset - or only introducing threats attacking the PCs in ways that would qualify as a CaS encounter.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Saying a TPK is eventually inevitable under CaW isn’t a stance about its difficulty. You are trying to shift the conversation into being about easy and hard and that’s fine but - you can have an easy campaign that inevitably ends in a TPK and also a hard campaign that does the same.

see the issue with that framing?

Wait, I never said anything about TPK being inevitable under CaW. I think you may have conflated what I was talking about with something someone else said. I agree that there's nothing about CaW that makes TPK inevitable.

Either CaW or CaS can be so difficult that TPK is inevitable, or so easy that a TPK is nearly impossible. However, I expect that the majority of games don't fall at either extreme.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think there's a large difference between a steep power curve and impossible odds.

I should remind people that I've been running a 3e campaign for years now in which the players are always up against foes that are two challenge ratings higher than would be considered level appropriate. And yet they always punch above their weight.

I run my games to be deadly at higher levels. My villains DO treat this as a war. They lay ambushes and attack the players with superior strength and numbers. And yet no deaths yet. They are nearly level 20, and our last session was the closest we've ever come to a pc death.

What did it take? Several guards of the same level as them (lvl 18), a few paladins (lvl 20), a few priests with instant death spells (lvl 20) and a gargantuan stone construct (CR 22) with 5e style special attacks.

When other DM's hear about my campaign, they are shocked how tough I make my fights.

But there's more to it than that. I carefully consider the capabilities of the players when creating encounters and I include strategic options that would allow them to turn the odds more in their favor.

In a game where combat is treated as a war, it is all about strategy. And so a DM needs to design the battles in a way that includes many strategic options. You never know what the players will pick up on, but you don't want the fights to be unwinnable. As long as there are lots of options, the players are free to be creative in their approach, which is a lot of fun.

For me this is a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about. You call it 'CAW', but then you speak about how carefully crafted each encounter is to provide opportunities for the players to exercise 'strategic options' (you don't really get into how this works or what they are) in order to redress any imbalance. You seem to equate 'CAW' pretty much with bad odds using the CR rating system too, and finally you invoke 'ploys' and 'strategems' like ambush and similar scenarios as providing this tone. I don't really see this style as less 'forced' or 'arranged' than would be a style where the opponents are simply level-appropriate tough monsters that the party fights in a more 'arena-like' string-of-encounters fashion similar to most modules and such.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes. Although I did say it was extensible to the whole adventuring day.

But you're right about "Encounter as Challenge". Somewhere between reading the thread and posting the reply I'd realised that "Encounter as challenge" was a better term, but then forgot that when it came to actually writing.

Would you say that 'exploratory play' vs 'directed play' might be a viable distinction? In exploratory play the primary goal IS exploration. That is mostly what happens. This is the case in classic Gygaxian play where the PCs explore the dungeon maze, or the wilderness hex grid. Finding things is the main activity, and the challenges are logistical "do we have enough torches" and environmental "did we see the pit trap before someone fell in." Combat encounters in this mode of play are at best gambles where you figure fighting is cheaper than some other course of action, or is the only option for environmental reasons (IE you need to get to the next room through this one).

Directed play is more a sequence of set piece encounters and focuses mostly ON the encounters. There may be multiple paths, and they might even be picked directly or indirectly by the players (either in the guise of their PCs or perhaps in a more 'meta' way depending). The trappings of exploration often exist and can be used to choose paths, but overall the challenge level is about the same however you go, and the goal is to have fun experiencing the encounters. Modules are pretty much like this, there is one main line of advance for the party, overall, and a specific goal, though there are a few (mostly early low level modules like B2) which are more exploratory.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think there are some misunderstandings in regards to combat as war, when it comes to game balance and encounter difficulty. Combat as war, simply means that some of the opposition in your campaign strategizes. They plan each attack against the players thoroughly with the intent to win (whatever the winning condition may be), while possibly working with finite resources and intel. It also means that the players need to strategize in order to be victorious. In other words, it is a different approach to running a campaign/adventure, with more focus on strategy.

What combat as war is not, or does not have to be, is a meatgrinder. It doesn't mean the difficulty of the fights is any harder or easier than normal D&D encounters. The same balancing should still be considered by the DM. Combat of war describes merely the approach to combat by the players and their adversaries.

Combat as War can be used on a grand scale, where both the players and their enemies command large armies, or on a small scale, where one villain simply commands a small band of minions. It can be used for a short adventure, or for a campaign that lasts several years.

A DM who runs their campaign with Combat as War, seeks a more realistic/strategic approach to combat. They probably will include a few key elements in their campaign:

-Acquisition of war assets / building an army / building ships / obtaining better weapons
-Conquest of land and/or import buildings
-Securing of alliances / diplomacy / politics
-Gathering of Intel / espionage
-Strategic deployment of all of the above

That focus on strategy makes a big difference in terms of survivability. I've seen lots of times in CaW games where a player will say "this might be a bad idea that will probably kill me, but I think if I do X I can keep this from becoming a TPK" or similar only to have everyone pull their trump cards & go all out while using every strategic hook they can yank this instant to make sure everyone survives resulting in a party of players surprised nobody died. By the same token I've seen players time & again do things so far into awestruck wtf levels of nonstrategy that would result in a CaW game where a player says "your on your own, I don't have enough heals to fix stupid" or similar only to wind up on the Nth time completely shocked that they somehow died with a table of players expressing similar levels of shock and regret that "there was nothing we could do".

It becomes substantive in system design. 5E was built on an idea of modularity, it takes ideas from many playstyles and tries to deliver a neutral position. Since neither CaW or CaS is heavily implied in the system, its fairly easy to push it in one direction or the other. This sort of compromise zone is great for some folks and very meh for others. That takes you to systems like 4E and PF2 which are heavily based in CaS design. Now to get a CaW experience you are working hard against the design decisions of the system. Which pushes some players away from that particular system, and pulls in others.

Actually, 5e does a lot to force CaW towards CaS. Things like the deliberate miss on things like flanking & facing joined with the near total removal of movement based AoOs that once allowed players monsters to setup a zone of control that could not trivially be bypassed without potentially serious cost & risk of getting trapped is a huge blow. The ease of recovery coupled with the overuse of concentration keeping players from being able to go all out in an emergency knowing it might cost them later ensures that players are pretty much always going to be at the same point on the power scale no matter how much they are willing to burn & makes certain that going all out probably won't cost them later.

For all the talk 5e makes about the simplifications allowing the gm to be more flexible with the type of game they want to run, 5e itself applies a great deal of pressure working to enforce a one true way of gameplay leaning pretty far into CaS with the "modularity" omissions that would enable those other styles as a more complete/supported style making that pressure all the more obvious.