D&D 5E Is D&D combat fun?

[Lanefan]

Related question: what makes a monster fun or not fun in combat?

Thinking about newly announced statblock format and looking at various 3rd party ideas (tome of beasts, "action-oriented" monsters), it seems that people like monsters to have several special abilities that have a discrete tactical effect--imposing a condition, area of effect vs single target, teleportation/movement, enabling allies (giving extra turns, using reactions), particular damage types, legendary/lair actions.

What sort of abilities make a monster inherently more interesting when it comes to combat? Conversely, what's the minimum viable monster? AD&D statblocks were very simple, and generally a monster had one special thing that they did at most. Same with osr games obviously. So what kind of monster design makes combat fun, for you?

Good questions.

For me, to be fun/interesting a monster or foe* has to at least appear to be capable of laying a world o' hurt on one or more PCs if not dealt with quickly and-or wisely. That can come from sheer brute-force damage, from a known or rumoured save-or-die ability, from being sneaky enough that the PCs never know where the next attack is coming from, or similar.

A monster or foe having lots of different abilities, while interesting on paper, isn't often much use in play in that there's usually not enough time for those abilities to come into play before the PCs swarm it or immobilize it or otherwise deal with it.

Flip side: the minimum viable monster is anything that makes the PCs sit up and pay attention even if it's a false threat. Build up the tension properly and the sudden appearance of even a single Kobold with a crossbow can scatter a powerful party and get them burning all kinds of resources.

* - or a group of them

 

[Lanefan]

Fun abilities is tough: I think novelty is probably the best you can do, but that's very relative. What's new to me may be old hat to you. This is why monsters with one signature ability tend to be more fun than ones with no special ability, or ones who use standard features. The stick out.

Unfun is a little easier to nail down: enemies that either remove pc's from the fight, or take too much of the same action to defeat.

Bags of hit points are only bad if they have too many hit points. If the best option is to just attack, it should take about three rounds of that to take the monster down. If it's round six and the players are still just attacking because nothing else is worth doing, it's a boring fight and you should probably wrap it up. (4e was really bad at this, but 5e largely avoids this issue.)

Features that cause players to lose turns (as in multiple turns, though even losing one turn can be annoying) are almost always un-fun, and monsters that are immune to a class's core feature are almost always bad design. That's why so few things are generally immune to Sneak Attack these days. Features/spells can be situational, but pc's should almost always be able to contribute. Once in a while is fine, but keep it to a minimum.

Problem there is if a monster or foe can't either a) take PCs out of the fight one by one so as to improve its odds, or b) have enough hit points to allow it to survive a while, how can you make it tough/scary enough to be worth the effort? Sure, some monsters e.g. Giants can be made scary simply by their brute-force damage-dealing potential, but that doesn't work for everything.

The players (via their PCs) have to feel like they're losing sometimes (even if they aren't), or there's no excitement. Losing is by definition unfun, which means yes: combat won't always be fun all the time.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Problem there is if a monster or foe can't either a) take PCs out of the fight one by one so as to improve its odds, or b) have enough hit points to allow it to survive a while, how can you make it tough/scary enough to be worth the effort? Sure, some monsters e.g. Giants can be made scary simply by their brute-force damage-dealing potential, but that doesn't work for everything.

The players (via their PCs) have to feel like they're losing sometimes (even if they aren't), or there's no excitement. Losing is by definition unfun, which means yes: combat won't always be fun all the time.

A point. I think there's a difference in the fun of being beaten by losing all your hit points and the fun of being removed from the fight by one bad (less than a 16) roll on the dice, though. Basically, save-of-wait makes for bored players.

As for the hit point thing: the monster isn't scary because you need 6 turns to kill it. It's scary (or not) because it migth kill you first. If it can't kill you, more hp makes it less scary.

 

[el-remmen]

1. I can't believe this thread is still going!

2. The quote below makes me want to start a new poll asking "Is one turn really all that valuable that losing one to have to do anything but you'd most want to do is a bummer/unfun?"

Features that cause players to lose turns (as in multiple turns, though even losing one turn can be annoying) are almost always un-fun,

This is building on the frequently expressed idea that "no one ever disengages because it wastes a turn."

 

[el-remmen]

Losing is by definition unfun, which means yes: combat won't always be fun all the time.

Losing isn't always unfun. It just depends on what losing looks like in any given scenario.

 

[Lanefan]

A point. I think there's a difference in the fun of being beaten by losing all your hit points and the fun of being removed from the fight by one bad (less than a 16) roll on the dice, though. Basically, save-of-wait makes for bored players.

And I set that expectation right up front: that there's inevitably going to be times when, as player, you're going to be out of action for a while; for any of a host of different reasons. To cover this off I also often allow players to run two PCs at once, so if one's down or away there's still the other.

As for the hit point thing: the monster isn't scary because you need 6 turns to kill it. It's scary (or not) because it migth kill you first. If it can't kill you, more hp makes it less scary.

Yet this runs hard aground on the combat-is-a-slog issue, doesn't it? If it needs 6 rounds to kill the foe and each round is taking half an hour to play through, isn't any mechanism* that sorts it out in three rounds an improvement, even if it means a higher risk level for the PCs?

* - one such that I've seen presented here numerous times for both 4e and 5e is to simply halve the hit points of everything in the game - PCs, monsters, the lot of 'em. Though this makes combats shorter it also makes them swingier and therefore riskier, and players often aren't willing to accept that added risk.

 

[Malmuria]

Features that cause players to lose turns (as in multiple turns, though even losing one turn can be annoying) are almost always un-fun, and monsters that are immune to a class's core feature are almost always bad design. That's why so few things are generally immune to Sneak Attack these days. Features/spells can be situational, but pc's should almost always be able to contribute. Once in a while is fine, but keep it to a minimum.

This is where I stumble with monsters. It would seem that conditions and damage type (and associated resistances, immunities, vulnerabilities) are key design aspects of wotc editions (brought over from magic the gathering, as this article describes). Yet, bringing them into play, at least on the monster side, appears as unfun. That is, imposing a condition, or a monster that has immunity to certain damage types, renders characters "useless" at least for a round, and that is to be avoided. Yet, if you don't give monsters those types of abilities, they seem boring.

 

[Lanefan]

This is where I stumble with monsters. It would seem that conditions and damage type (and associated resistances, immunities, vulnerabilities) are key design aspects of wotc editions (brought over from magic the gathering, as this article describes). Yet, bringing them into play, at least on the monster side, appears as unfun. That is, imposing a condition, or a monster that has immunity to certain damage types, renders characters "useless" at least for a round, and that is to be avoided. Yet, if you don't give monsters those types of abilities, they seem boring.

My take is that if a player can't handle their PC being useless for a round or two then that's someone I don't want at the table whether I'm DM or fellow player; and I'd wonder how well said player would deal with other games - and there's a lot of 'em - that incorporate skip-a-turn mechanics.

 

[el-remmen]

This is where I stumble with monsters. It would seem that conditions and damage type (and associated resistances, immunities, vulnerabilities) are key design aspects of wotc editions (brought over from magic the gathering, as this article describes). Yet, bringing them into play, at least on the monster side, appears as unfun. That is, imposing a condition, or a monster that has immunity to certain damage types, renders characters "useless" at least for a round, and that is to be avoided. Yet, if you don't give monsters those types of abilities, they seem boring.

I am imagining this scenario:

Player A (using his magical flaming sword): I hit AC 17 for 24 points of damage.
DM: While your sword clearly strikes the stony creature, for a moment your blade flame seems to waver. It seems like you may have done no damage at all.

If the player is like "Holy crap! this is serious! We need to think about how to hurt this thing!" they are my kind of player. If they are like "THAT SUCKS! You nerfed what my character is best at and/or what I like the most! <sulk>" Well, I might suggest they need to find another game that more fits their style (with the good faith assumption in this scenario that the DM is not making all the PCs best abilities always not work or singles our this player unduly for such results - let's assume that's not the case, b/c that is a different discussion).

 

[Swarmkeeper]

2. The quote below makes me want to start a new poll asking "Is one turn really all that valuable that losing one to have to do anything but you'd most want to do is a bummer/unfun?"

This is building on the frequently expressed idea that "no one ever disengages because it wastes a turn."

Do it!
I'll hold my answer until then.