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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arilyn" data-source="post: 9715967" data-attributes="member: 6816042">Of course there are classes dedicated to combat. You need them because combat as a fail state does not mean you can completely avoid it. You will get noticed, fail in your negotiations, etc. The point is you want to have things in your favour as much as possible. If you have to fight, set things up to give your party an advantage. And sometimes your negotiations will mean your party promises the lizard folk that they'll get rid of the spiders, for example. Sometimes your party might feel its worth tackling that wraith to get the treasure. And yes, these types of things can come up in 5e. The difference is, in 5e, you can get away with just charging in most of the time. There are no guarantees that'll work in an OSR game but that doesn't mean you won't occasionally try it! Because fights tend to be short and brutal, if you come up with a clever plan to bypass, trick or bring the whole cave down on the "boss" it will not feel anticlimactic. The GM will not feel disappointed that the exciting final battle was just totally averted. There is a constant risk vs.reward going on in OSR games and in well designed scenarios, there will also be cool things to interact with. Clever play often brings in odd items or quirky magic items you never thought would actually ever be used. All of these examples can absolutely occur in 5e games but characters in 5e have a ton of cool abilities designed for combat that you'll want to show off in long dramatic fight scenes. I'm playing in a Daggerheart game right now and the long cool engaging combat is expected and a ton of fun. There's not a ton of flash in an OSR fight, except maybe from a spell or magic item. The fighter just gets the job done or the thief sets up a perfect backstab from the shadows. Avoid combat as much as you can in an OSR game but know that you'll not be completely successful.</blockquote>

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