Evocative Combat

[Arc]

Some of the things we do to help:

1. Declare actions ahead of time. Everyone states what they are going to do, round robin. This acts as an overview of the round to come, reduces decision-making time during the actual round, eliminates actions that cause someone to have to do something else, and gives everyone an idea of what they need to roll ahead of time.

2. Everyone rolls at the same time, where that is actually possible. Most of the time, it isn't possible, because of the way combat flows in D&D, but when it is, it is a huge time saver.

3. We get all of that out of the way FIRST. We do description SECOND, and all together. It is an interesting effect, but the "reward" at the end of each round, even though it is actually less quantity, seems to be of higher quality, and has more narrative flow to it.

All the 3e/d20 games I've played have done "action by action" decision making, rather than "declare before you go." For the most part, it seems like the "action by action" system makes high initiative less useful (ie, you go first in the first round... but after that, it's just cyclic). However, how do you deal with the problems of the "declare at once" system? Mainly, does it seem like the DM changes his NPC and monster actions based your declared plan? It seems to me that that was always a big problem in 2e, where there was almost always a cry of "if you hadn't known I was going to do ___, ___ wouldn't have done ___"

 

[Evilhalfling]

I encourage evocative combat by stating up front that stupidy is encouraged in combat - running across the horse's back and jumping over its head to land on enemy with both feet? DC 10 balance check, +2 hit(monk unarmed)
want to push the burning body of the minotaur into the cleric to ruin his spells? touch attack - will do fire damage to him & you and force concentration check and burning check.
I will add descriptions for crits, fumbles and deathblows usually.
but like others the middle of a fight is normally all gamespeak, I think it heightens the importance of the final blows- I also have a simple hit location chart used only for death blows and crits that do a high percentage of remaing hp.

I will also skip over the end of a fight, killing the last remaining peon or the badly wounded single enemy surrounded by PCs? "You mow him down in a spray of blood as his last weak blows slide off your armor" dice rolling is not always nessary, esp if it the last combat of the day and the healer is waiting.

 

[tauton_ikhnos]

However, how do you deal with the problems of the "declare at once" system? Mainly, does it seem like the DM changes his NPC and monster actions based your declared plan? It seems to me that that was always a big problem in 2e, where there was almost always a cry of "if you hadn't known I was going to do ___, ___ wouldn't have done ___"

This isn't a problem with declare at once. It is a problem with GM trust.

And the GM declares actions right along with the players. That helps, I am pretty certain.

 

[Faerl'Elghinn]

Want combat to be evocative? Simple. Add words like "Fireball" and "Magic Missile". Plenty of evocation there...