D&D (2024) Is Combat Tedious on Purpose?

[payn]

Absolutely.

Now, how do we make a D&D that can support people who feel like a nut, and people who don't, at least at separate tables?

That's the conundrum I'd like to solve. I've seen enough truly clever game design over the years to believe there are solutions--but they'll be non-obvious in most cases.

Oh wouldnt we all? I think the modular design approach from NEXT would do this, but we all know that never materialized. So, instead we got a D&D that kinda, sorta, does what folks want it to do but you gotta work for it. Even then, its not very satisfying, but its the one thing that will get everybody to the table.

 

[Lanefan]

It'll probably be...a very long time. But if I do finish them, I'll share them here on ENWorld.

I will say, the way SCs should be implemented is often far removed from how WotC actually implemented them in a lot of the early/easily-accessible adventures. Which is an eternal frustration for me, because SCs can be really really great. When done well, they're memorable and exciting and offer a spectrum or space of possible outcomes, rather than the stupid yes/no binary that so many WotC adventures inflicted upon players.

So, if that criticism is mostly "WotC-written SCs usually suck, so I'd prefer not to have that happen", then believe me, I'm right there with you.

One example I can recall is in the WotC adventure Marauders of the Dune Sea. At one point in this adventure the PCs have to enter and navigate through a permanent sandstorm in order to reach some important bits of the adventure. The module wants to concatenate this whole sandstorm sequence into a single Skill Challenge; when I ran it I split this sequence out into a series of more detailed steps each requiring some sort of roll - more opportunities for them to fail, sure, but also more opportunities for interesting and-or unexpected things to happen (but none did; due to their rockin' dice rolls they sailed through the sandstorm with nary a hitch anyway).

I'm reluctant to include fumble tables because fumble tables are extremely unpopular in general, but I could see that as an opt-in branch that could apply either way. Given my proposed idea of making it so it's quite possible to do nearly all combats as "Skirmishes"--to evoke more of an old-school feel--this is actually a good point I really should've already considered. This is part of why I enjoy engaging with folks whose playstyles are orthogonal to my own. They remind me of design needs I'm likely to forget because they aren't my design needs.

The way I see it, fumbles are a necessary balance against criticals. Take out crits and fumbles can go as well, but personally I'd see that as a negative change.

I could see this being implemented as a mix of "harsher consequences" rules (including things like fumble tables, Dark Sun-style wilderness survival challenges, and lingering injuries) that DMs could elect to use or not use, whether on a case-by-case basis or universally for a campaign, and being a tad more rigorous about Skirmishes.

Lingering injuries opens up the whole realm of resting and non-magical hit point/injury recovery; and I wish you luck in sorting that lot out to anyone's satisfaction.

Sure. That is, as always, the kicker. But, in general, I aim to identify things that are hard for a DM to develop on their own, but easy to deviate away from (in the sense of game design, not in the sense of persuading players*) once they exist. Hence why I would want a generally pretty reliable monster-building and encounter-building system, because such a thing is very difficult to will into existence out of whole cloth, but very easy to simply ignore, or only pay attention to when you feel like it, if it is already present.

For this I'd take a very light touch. General guidelines, and leave it there.

In 1e, all the DMG gives you is a list of monsters by level and some ideas for wandering monsters, after which you're kind of on your own. The good part of this is it forces a DM to learn on the fly by trial and error; the bad part is that this trial-and-error piece isn't warned about anywhere in the books.

Any hard-coded CR or encouter-building system is going to run aground hard on the fact that no two groups are the same, in either party make-up or player strengths-weaknesses; meaning an encounter designed as a stiff challenge for, say, a 6th-level party might wipe out one 6th-level group while another might stomp all over it without even working up a sweat. Here, the DM-side trial-and-error piece extends to figuring out a) what the players are capable of and b) how (or even if) to adjust if for example the players bring a well-rounded party vs a party of all the same class.

But, as a converse (since the above is an example where "what would be hard for DMs to develop themselves?" favors my interests, rather than opposing them), slow and methodical levelling is hard to wrangle out of a system that is fast and chunky. Not impossible, but certainly of loosely-comparable difficulty to wrangling reliable monster/encounter building out of the steaming pile that was 3e's monster design, for example. Hence the need for "novice levels" and incremental advancement; these directly implement a way to slow levelling down almost indefinitely, while still giving clear and measurable progress, and giving some of that "I want to feel like my growth is organic" feel that some players really really love.

2e made ultra-slow levelling work OK, maybe there's ideas there to mine?

 

[Lanefan]

Only if that PC rolled well in play or char op.

Maybe it was just my experience, but I found players tend to tune out and actually add drag to any tedium if they roll some wimp that they are forced to make a fighter or a wizard who rolled up learned obscure spells.

Different players and-or expectations than I've seen, I suppose.

Here, sometimes those sub-optimal characters become their players' favourites and they'll do anything to keep them going. I've had-been-done this myself as a player; I've also rolled up hopeless characters I didn't care about and for those, once they get into play I just try to lead them to a more memorable/entertaining death than merely being shot by the third guard on the right.

Had to drop out of a group of an Old School RPG once because half the players must have punched a witch and kept rolling up just awful PCs who'd fail and die and they'd stop getting engaged because their characters stunk. Then anytime they did roll well, the stinkers next to them would botch up teamwork and get the decent PCs killed.

Botching the teamwork is almost SOP here.

 

[Minigiant]

Oh wouldnt we all? I think the modular design approach from NEXT would do this, but we all know that never materialized. So, instead we got a D&D that kinda, sorta, does what folks want it to do but you gotta work for it. Even then, its not very satisfying, but its the one thing that will get everybody to the table.

I don't think a modular design approach is needed.

5e just needed to have more space and restrict themselves less heavily to tradition..

It's like how a ton of DMs boost 1st level HP as a house rule in many OSR, OS+NS mix, and older edition games rather than the games do it as a core rule.

5e could have been designed so combat past the first few level isn't so hyper focused on lengthy singular methods that extend repetitive turns into tedium unless the DM prevents it.

But it didn't because that wasn't a traditional. So now you have traditional PCs running modern mechanics in tedious rounds of combat like the Weapon vs Armor we ran from.

 

[Lanefan]

Exactly.

Some players find the above stuff exciting. They feel motivated to prove that this stinker will survive, or they laugh off the death and look forward to whatever new ridiculous shenanigans the next garbage character gets up to. It sort of threads between black-comedy slapstick (in an "America's Funniest Home Videos" way) and the thrill of fluke heroics.

<hand goes up>

Count me as one of those players.

 

[payn]

I don't think a modular design approach is needed.

5e just needed to have more space and restrict themselves so heavily to tradition..

It's like how a ton of DMs boost 1st level HP as a house rule in many OSR, OS+NS mix, and older edition games rather than the games do it as a core rule.

5e could have been designed so combat past the first few level isn't so hyper focused on lengthy singular methods that extend repetitive turns into tedium unless the DM prevents it.

But it didn't because that wasn't a traditional. So now you have traditional PCs running modern mechanics in tedious rounds of combat like the Weapon vs Armor we ran from.

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Our combats lasted 10-20 mins until level 10. Then, they lasted 15-40 min. They go by like a breeze, but they are repetitive.

Modular design would allow you to fix the somehow tedious combat you have yourselves into a way that isnt so tedius. I cant begin to understand what that would need to be, but its the idea behind modular design. Clearly, the amount of light between us though demonstrates no simple math fix or bound adjustment would suit us both.

 

[Minigiant]

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Our combats lasted 10-20 mins until level 10. Then, they lasted 15-40 min. They go by like a breeze, but they are repetitive

In 5e, my combats stopped lasting 20 minutes unless it was a blatant attempt to burn resources with boring monsters and boring tactics where one side just melted the other.

Modular design would allow you to fix the somehow tedious combat you have yourselves into a way that isnt so tedius. I cant begin to understand what that would need to be, but its the idea behind modular design. Clearly, the amount of light between us though demonstrates no simple math fix or bound adjustment would suit us both

Modular design would have been nice

But it really isn't the only cure.

5e's Combat is really just off by a few numbers here and there and a few aspects of designed altered and treated more seriously. But it would have vibes against tradition.

2024 fixed a bit but making monster and PCs hit harder. Because no one really cares if you change and giant's or demon's damage drastically or give them a ranged attack. You can shift a lot on the monster side before the pitchforks and angry signs come out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think a modular design approach is needed.

5e just needed to have more space and restrict themselves so heavily to tradition..

Treating 5.5 like a proper 6e would have been the way to do that IMO.

 

[payn]

In 5e, my combats stopped lasting 20 minutes unless it was a blatant attempt to burn resources with boring monsters and boring tactics where one side just melted the other.



Modular design would have been nice

But it really isn't the only cure.

It is a better option for everyone becasue there is no single cure.

5e's Combat is really just off by a few numbers here and there and a few aspects of designed altered and treated more seriously. But it would have vibes against tradition.

2024 fixed a bit but making monster and PCs hit harder. Because no one really cares if you change and giant's or demon's damage drastically or give them a ranged attack. You can shift a lot on the monster side before the pitchforks and angry signs come out.

You keep saying this like its objectively true, despite numerous folks saying that's not it at all.

 

[Umbran]

I guess my next question would be, is it possible to make combat exciting through narrative while still just using the same attack and roll for damage sequence?

That depends what you mean by "through narrative".

It might help to look at other games for this.

Take one of the simplest games out there - Fate Accelerated Edition. In FAE, there's to basic actions in combat, that are most relevant to this discussion - you can Attack, or you can Create An Advantage.

(folks who know FATE know where I am going with this, and can skip it)

If you Attack, there's an opposed roll. Typically your attacking trait plus 4dF (a dF produces a -1, 0, or +1). Whoever scores higher wins, and does Stress (the game's form of damage) to the other. You can just attack each other back and forth, and eventually someone will win - typically whoever has the higher attacking trait, but it can swing a little with luck.

But like in D&D, this isn't terribly interesting.

Thus, you can Create an Advantage. The Advantage can be pretty much anything you can think of. Say, you want to toss sand in your opponent's eyes. You roll to Create the Advantage "Sand in their eyes". If you succeed, you can get a +2 on another die roll for which that makes narrative sense that it would help. YOu could, say, throw Sand in their eyes, then get a +2 on your next attack. Or some other party member can get that +2, as they are transferrable advantages.

The typical way to beat a tough foe in FAE is to have the party build a bunch of narratively appropriate Advantages, and then someone who is good at fighting uses several of them at once (they add together) to generate a very high Attack result, and do a load of stress all at once.

So, the way to win is to build up the action with advantages, and then use them to beat the enemy.

In a sense, this is tactically uninteresting - each thing is really just a +2. Generate enough of them, and you win. But it is tied to narrative in an entertaining way. And the GM almost never has to say "no, you can't create that advantage", because they are all worth the same amount, so no one of them is going to break anything.