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

[payn]

Draggy combat is more 3.x/PF1 thing.

Nope, its called rocket tag commonly.

 

[el-remmen]

I'm with @Lanefan on this one, and always play out combats. As a player I really dislike when the DM decides to just narrate the end of a combat they assume the PCs will win and as a DM I enjoy the potential unexpected outcomes from swingy dice. Then again, I never see combat as "a waste of time" anymore than any other in-game activity can be.

Of course, I may be an anomaly, since I run damn good combats my players love and it has been one of the things people in games I've run have been complimenting me about since 2E days (and throughout 3E and now 5E).

 

[AlViking]

Draggy combat is more 3.x/PF1 thing. It's been good 13 years since i last play 2ed AD&D, but from memory, even mid level combat (7-9) wasn't very long. Low level combats were usually very short. If you are playing wizard, they are even shorter ( someone sneezes at you, you are dead).

It also prevents PCs dropping dead after one solid hit, so it makes low levels less frustrating.

More options makes it more fun. If all you have is basic attack, round after round, long combats became very boring very fast. But if you have some cool options, that can mitigate some of tediousness.

I would argue that both are good things. High leathality of pre WoTC is maybe fun for some, but trade off is that people don't invest in their characters. Even giving name to 2ed 1st level wizard or thief is investing too much, since there are high chances he will not live long enough to reach level 2, let alone coming up with interesting backstory. Still fondly remember my lv 4 wizard with 11 HP that died from 2 goblin arrows

I just don't find juice worth the squeeze. But if you like it, good for you

I would and i had. If they just got beat up to the brink of death and run into fresh set of opponents, that means they made serious error in judgement. Depending on type of enemy, they got options. Once they ran into soldiers from opposing faction, so they just surrendered and became POW. Other time they ran into bunch of ghouls. I graciously let them narrate their own last stand ( i asked them what they wanna do, they decided to stay and fight, knowing it will be TPK, no question about).

I'm playing with this group for almost 17 years. It's just that phase of life when free time, specially personal free time, is luxury. We are at 50% session cancellation this year so far. While i and all the guys in group love gaming, there are other free time activities that are higher up on the priority list. Internal joke is that we just need to wait about 10 more years, then all our kids will be preteen/teens and we'll have more time for regular play.

Your players surrendering sounds familiar. A couple of sessions ago they had just got done with a fight when some soldiers entered an adjacent room. I thought they would just listen in because there was no imminent threat but nooo. They rushed into combat and got their asses handed to them. They ended up surrendering or it likely would have been a TPK. Fun times.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah, it's a contentious title, but we're living in a post-social media world where click bait titles are how you get views. But let's start from the beginning. Is combat in 5th edition tedious? After a few weeks of running it with the players moving from levels 1 through 4, I can safely say, yes, combat is a bit tedious. Between movement, bonus actions, actions, and keeping track of everything, including spell effects and weapon masteries, I'm finding combat, something that should be the highlight of D&D, to be a grind.

I haven't played 5.5e, so I don't know how weapon masteries impact combat. That said, I do find 5e combat tedious, but not because of the things you list. I find it tedious because the game is balanced around hit point bloat and resource attrition. If it were balanced differently, I would enjoy it more.

 

[Maxperson]

If they fight smart a small army of regular soldiers should be a threat to a dragon. If an army can't even hit a dragon then it seems like every kingdom would be ruled by dragons.

I disagree. That's what heroes, adventurers, PCs and high level(equivalent) NPCs are for.

 

[Maxperson]

According to the actual 5e rules, twelve CR 2 creatures vs 5 level 6 characters would be not only deadly, it would be well beyond deadly, over double deadly in fact.

Maybe, maybe not. There's this vague, "When making this calculation, don't count any monsters whose challenge rating is significantly below the average challenge rating of the other monsters in the group unless you think the weak monsters significantly contribute to the difficulty of the encounter."

Now, is 4 levels below average "significantly below?" Who knows. Maybe. Even if it's not, though, the danger doesn't go from 0(not including the monsters due to significantly below) to full just because it's above "significantly below." 4 levels beneath the party will still count less than full.

A dozen CR 2 monsters against a level 6 party might not even be deadly, but we have no real way to measure how much danger they pose, because 5e is designed to be frustratingly vague.

 

[GrimCo]

Depending on multiple factors, dozen CR 1/4 creatures can be deadly to level 6 party. Goblins are specially nasty. Shoot, move, hide. Rinse and repeat. On the other hand, put them in confined quarters without space to maneuver, and level 6 party wipes them out in round or two.

 

[aliothelf]

I think 5E Combat is tedious, and when you add the bunch of "safe" mechanics added to it, it becomes irrelevant. By safe I mean, the mechanics like sculpt spells that safeguards the PCs from friendly fire, the mechanics that when you fail you still do damage, and the new and absurdily badly designed weapon mastery mechanics.
There's also the stupid Legendary action mechanics that intruduces stops and go, and which make little sense to me. If you wanted to make high CR monsters less vulnerable to the ganging-up mono-tactic, just make the monster better, with a ton of area attacks per turn that can outdo the PCs advantage in action economy or some penalty when multiple combatants are bunched close to each other.
I find combat as uninteresting as having some bags of Hit points you have to wear down, which becomes easy because it is really easy to hit, and even if you don't hit, you still can put some damage, with very little variation in tactical play.

 

[DragonLancer]

That's interesting because we're finding the 2024 combats to be much more enjoyable and thrilling than anything that Pathfinder or earlier editions of D&D had to offer. Combats go quite quickly and Legendary actions give a more suspenseful aspect.

 

[Lanefan]

That's interesting because we're finding the 2024 combats to be much more enjoyable and thrilling than anything that Pathfinder or earlier editions of D&D had to offer. Combats go quite quickly and Legendary actions give a more suspenseful aspect.

Are you finding any significant difference/improvement in the 2024 version of 5e vs the 2014 version? If so, how so?