How did you avoid spamming attacks in 3e combat?

[el-remmen]

And I have not seen anything in 4e that prevents/discourages this.

I'm not sure I get what you mean here. . .

Also, despite the topic drift, I could have sworn this thread was about 3.xE.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

If you reduce all the choices to math, then making the choice seems easy - but the game isn't about the math - it is about the events/encounters that are being played through and what they might require or inspire. . .

It's true that periodically we would choose other options. It's not like grapple and disarm were NEVER used. But they were only either used when:

a) It was a special circumstance where we weren't trying to kill the monsters(about 5% of our battles)

b) A new player who hadn't figured out the odds yet

It's just that in the average D&D campaign plot there simply isn't much reason not to kill(or knock unconscious) monsters. Take, for example the following plots:

-A group of insane followers of a very powerful god want to resurrect him and destroy the world. You must stop them. They are insane and can't be reasoned with. They summon powerful unintelligent creatures and demons to protect them.

-Powerful archmage wants to rule the world, you need to find the 7 parts of a powerful artifact which is the only way to defeat him. They are hidden in ancient dungeons filled with undead, constructs, oozes, and animals.

-Goblins are attacking nearby villages, the local lord hires you to go to their camp and kill them all so they no longer pose a threat.

I just don't see a situation in those cases where(when it does come to combat) you'd NOT want to attack to do damage. The only reasons I could come up with are personal ones for the characters involved. Things like: "I never kill someone until I've disarmed them and offered them a chance to surrender." I can see roleplaying reasons. But no real practical reason except in rare circumstances. I've seen encounters where there'd be an enemy wizard who had hundreds of hitpoints but only one good attack and it was from a wand. In which case, disarm is a good idea. But it happens so rarely. Because wizards are the most likely to die to damage(due to low AC, low hitpoints). This makes the very enemies it is best to grapple and disarm the ones that it is even BETTER just to attack for damage on. And you'll find that being dead causes people to drop their weapons and stop casting spells just as effectively as a disarm or grapple.

As I said, I could see role playing reasons for using combat maneuvers. However, I could see those characters being constantly picked on by my players if they joined our group. Anyone who makes up a character who is suboptimal is often made fun of or complained about. Things like "I can't believe you are playing a character who refuses to do damage. You realize I almost died this session because you didn't attack that monster. If you were playing a better character, we'd have a much easier time. Maybe you could have your character slowly realize that his vow is endangering his friends and that by not attacking the monster you are actually hurting people. Then he can change his mind about his vow and help us kill the monsters."

 

[Scribble]

Tell that to everyone who expounds the virtues of Castles & Crusades.

For some, the concept of an RPG that is slightly "incomplete" is appealing. They feel like they have room to put their own mark on things. 3e was a closed system; to add anything, you had to double check and see what breaks. C&C is open; add what you want since we gave you just a skeleton anyway. 4e is somewhere in the middle; somewhat open (not every combat maneuver is detailed) somewhat closed (...except for those to which there is powers assigned).

This probably describes me very well.

I like the balance and basic structures 3e brought to the table, but missed the openness 2e (and before) had with the system.

 

[Lacyon]

The problem I see with this analysis is that it assumes the tactical goals of the combat are always kill everyone and everything, and while I admit that can often be the case - it does not need to be, and often most encounters (I run) have a mix of goals, either intentional to the scenario, or based on the desires of specific characters' goals, ethos, prediclection, speculation, desire for information, curses, promises, incomplete information or caution, etc. . .

If you reduce all the choices to math, then making the choice seems easy - but the game isn't about the math - it is about the events/encounters that are being played through and what they might require or inspire. . .

The math still has an impact, though - in Majoru's example, striking for nonlethal damage is still more likely to succeed than most of the other options without the feat, and is again somewhat likely to end the fight in one stroke whereas the others do not.

I mean, you can come up with plenty of scenarios where the options work well, but the chance that getting hit by an AoO will completely disrupt what you're doing and deal damage and even if that misses, failure on the maneuver results in the opponent counter-maneuvering for free make it so that situations where it's actually a functional option often feel either forced or contrived; i.e., we're in a scenario where only disarming the guy will stop him because his weapon is too badass for us to handle, or we're in a fight with tiny creatures with awesome AC/HP so grappling them actually makes sense. It's not an insurmountable problem, but it's there.

This fades somewhat if characters start taking the feat(s), but can lead back to the original issue of spamming because the character got so much of a boost from that feat (as much as removal of AoO, +4 bonus on opposed check, removal of counter-maneuver option) that the maneuver starts to become the default option, especially if he's got any other bonuses (such as from flails, magic item properties, additional feats, etc).

 

[billd91]

Arguably "Big Six" didn't come up as an issue in 1e/2e because they just were not that significant - and there may have been a wider range of general fun magic items available for people too, perhaps.

They were quite significant in 1e/2e, it's just that the strategy of getting and improving them was never attainable because magic item creation was such a hassle. With 3x's easy-peasy magic item creation rules and the scalability of the items from a reasonably affordable start, they became a dominating strategy.

(Generally I found 3e seemed to have fewer low level interesting items to give to party members - but that is probably mostly an artefact of the 'expected wealth by level' and the way that various magic items were graded as anything else).

It's an artifact of expected wealth by level and the pricing out of items to support the magic item creation rules, I think. Easy creation of items caused the designers to skew a lot of items pretty high in expense even though certain items really weren't that powerful or, if powerful, were unlikely to really break a campaign. Multi-power items particularly suffered compared to the cheaper, simpler "Big Six".

 

[el-remmen]

It's true that periodically we would choose other options. It's not like grapple and disarm were NEVER used. But they were only either used when:

a) It was a special circumstance where we weren't trying to kill the monsters(about 5% of our battles)

b) A new player who hadn't figured out the odds yet

It's just that in the average D&D campaign plot there simply isn't much reason not to kill(or knock unconscious) monsters. {snip}

I guess we can just chalk it up to differences in playstyle, then. . . In my games, the most common foes are humans (or other sentient races) with a sprinkling of "monsters" in order to keep them monstrous and awe-inspiring.

The PCs often call for people to surrender, take prisoners, interogate, etc. . .

Looking back at my current campaign, the combat encounters have been:

- A bar brawl against drunk and surly locals

- Against normally peaceful lizardfolk who have a human captive. How do they save the captive, not raise the ire of the LF tribe and get the bottom of the confusion? The fight had an on-going negotiating factor, fighting to subdue and confusion between the PCs are to how to handle it.

- Against twistedly transformed foes that exploded into a caustic burst a round after death, requiring careful strategy in fighting them and being able to get out of the range when one was defeated.

- Against a hopping/flying small dragon that would swoop in for attacks and then move away again.

- An ambush against a band of goblins and wargs in a wooded and hilly area, where they could afford to let none get away, requiring them to chase down the foes that fled and could lead them into their own possible ambush.

- A combat against skeletons in a room with an evil magic stone pulsed with evil energy causing vile damage every few rounds.

- A running battle fleeing on horseback from a bulette

- a fight against guardians of tower seeking to keep the PCs from entering, but not using lethal force, led to both a fight to subdue and lots of grappling and bullrushing and overrunning to get past the obstacles.

- A fight against a possessing shadow creature that used your own allies and companions against you.

- A battle in a shrine to a dark insect god that required navigating a maze of hedges to find the summoning circle where a young boy was tied to be the meal for the fiendish giant preying mantis to be summoned, where flanking archers atop tall stone pillars made movement dangerous.

- A battle in the treetop platforms of a bandit hideout, where bullrush was very useful in getting rid of foes by making them tumble over the side.

Etc . .. etc. . .

 

[Stoat]

Also, if you want to capture and interrogate an evil cultist/goblin/thief, you can just drop them below 0 hits and stabilize them before they hit -10.

In my 3.X games, it was very common for the players to search the battlefield for incapacitated survivors to interrogate. A quick heal check, a tap from the old WCLW, and you've saved yourself the trouble of having to grapple, disarm, trip or subdue your foe.

 

[Noumenon]

All the combat maneuvers make great AoOs. You don't mind taking a regular hit for 10 damage as long as you get where you're going, but with the combat maneuvers you never even get there, as you or your weapon is on the ground next to the fighter.

It is true that there is not much point grappling something you could auto-hit and kill that round. However, the other 4 out of 5 rounds in the combat, grappling something stops it from attacking your friends, and hitting it does nothing.

I'm not sure whether it's fair to count the AoO against it. I usually take the right feat and the right weapon to use combat maneuvers, just like I would take proficiency in an exotic weapon before I used it.

 

[AllisterH]

Wasn't the Big Six due mainly to the fact that players could actually choose their magic items and not actually have to spend major campaign time to create items?

I mean, if somehow we had a wealth by level table for 1e/2e, I'm almost positive that players would ignore the "decanter of endless water" style items for the girdle of giant strength....

 

[el-remmen]

Also, if you want to capture and interrogate an evil cultist/goblin/thief, you can just drop them below 0 hits and stabilize them before they hit -10.

If you can risk killing them, this works.

Though in my own game, we've houseruled using the heal skill to bind wounds to take 1 minute (or 5 rounds with one or more people aiding you).

And the PCs have never seen a wand of cure light wounds, let alone made one - but that is b/c of stylistic features of the homebrew.