Keep out of combat in D&D? Why?

[Drammattex]

Hi Merric.

For me, it had to do with my evolution as a role-playing gamer. In the early days (Keep on the Borderlands, then BEMCI, and AD&D), my experience was the same as yours. We only ran away if we had one hp left, and sometimes not even then.

But by the time I went to college, I was tired of the same old progression of goblins & kobolds at 1st level, then gnolls, hobgobs, bugbears, then ogres & trolls, etc. I started introducing other creatures into the world that were just a fact of life (bullettes and aurumvoraxes, for example). You could encounter these things in the wild at 1st level. If you didn't avoid them, you were essentially telling the DM "I want to fall on my sword, please."

So for me it started as an attempt to make the world more dynamic, to say "You don't need to stab everything in front of your face." This made the game a little more complex as different challenges were presented before the PCs.

 

[Korgoth]

I wouldn't claim that old school play avoids combat. I'd claim that "skillful" old school play avoids combat.

The decision for or against combat is a strategic one:
Can we avoid it?
If we join battle, can we win?
What are our chances of winning?
If we win, what do we get out of it?
Can we defeat this without the risk of fighting?

If you stand to gain nothing (like with a wandering monster or something that clearly inhabits a dead-end room with no treasure) then avoid combat if possible.

If you do stand to gain something (treasure or maybe access to other areas via this location) then is it something to be overcome through combat, or can it be defeated some other way? Monsters can sometimes be tricked, misdirected, bargained with or otherwise neutralized without the risk of combat.

Sometimes combat is the choice that must be made. But it's not what old school play actually rewards.

So far in my Empire of the Petal Throne game (exploring the Jakalla underworld), the only combat that has taken place was the result of a failed/doomed negotiation, and it would have been a TPK but for the evil high priest blowing his save versus a scroll of petrification (that the party just gained that session as a result of solving a riddle).

 

[Keefe the Thief]

D&D is a combat game, first and foremost.


In fact, in the current edition, it is ridiculous to stay out of combat, because combat is pretty much all there is. 4e makes a great gods'-eye-view tactical miniatures game -- you have hordes of options on how to strike various targets, how to outmaneuver them, how to play the odds of hits points versus damage, etc. If you like combat, D&D is for you.

Thus staying out of combat in 4e is probably a silly concept. The game is utterly designed around combat, so why bother?

I have these psychic powers that tell me you neither like nor play 4e.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I think this is one of the big divides between old school and new school thinking.

Old school: Monsters are traps.

New school: Traps are encounters.

 

[justanobody]

Just read the first few posts, but will answer what I think to be the question asked.

You don't need to kill everything to get the XP for it, so you didn't need to engage in senseless combat just to gain a level, further the story, or get the treasure.

There were MANY other avenues of completing the tasks at hand and combat was the last resort.

If you are sent to end the threat of the red dragon, you might not have to kill it, but convince it to come to terms or even leave the area to satisfy your mission/quest. You never know when that thorn you pull out of the lions paw will be able to be cashed in little mouse.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Heh...Another one that disbelieves that by RAW, OD&D and 1E were supposed to be levelling as fast as 3e/4e.

Given that this was a stated goal of the 3e designers, that the WotC survey suggested that levelling was slower in 1s and 2e than it is under 3e, and given that a tournament progression doesn't equal normal gameplay (where only a modest fraction of treasure was typically found (again IAW the WotC survey, which surely must be more accurate for broad trends than either my, your, or Quas' anecdotes), yes, I am another one that believes OD&D and 1e levelling were generally slower.


RC

 

[Remathilis]

Perhaps its generational, but I started in 2e (after a quick and torrid affair with Rules Cyclopedia D&D) and found the following true of my games as well as most, if not all, of the people I played with*

1: Combat was an enjoyable premise. While not every game had to feature it heavily (or at all), a combat typically was something fun to do.

2: Combat was typically between roughly even sides. Hence the world GAME in Role-Playing Game, as apposed to "Fantasy World Simulator". It meant adventures for 1st level PCs feature kobolds, 6th level feature gnolls, 10th level feature giants, and 15th level feature demons. That's not to say all fights were fair, or even winnable, just most DMs I knew didn't throw unreasonable challenges at PCs, because if they did, they knew that was the end of the campaign, and they'd rather avoid pointless TPKs in order to keep a game going.

3: Combat was the primary method of acquiring XP. There was no GP = XP in 2e on, so they only way to gain XP was to fight monsters and gain story/RP awards. You avoided a fight because you thought it was death, but avoiding many fights meant stagnant level growth.

4: A later feature (D&D 3e and on) was that we didn't have a lot of small combats, but a few meaningful ones (this came from the sheer amount of time needed to run 3e combat). This lead to fights that were hard, but winnable (see 2) and not a lot of random or pointless encounters. A foe too hard was wasted breath. A foe too easy was wasted time. Hence, most DMs didn't bother with fights unless they were interesting and worthwhile fights.

5: We mostly were self-taught DMs, and we learned a lot from modules. Most of the modules I fondly recall (White Plume Mountain, Keep of the Borderlands, Shattered Circle) were combat heavy. When in Rome...

6: Our groups tended toward heroism, not selfish mercenary-ism. Sure, we had an occasional cynical merc, but most of our group liked heroic knights, paladins, rangers, clerics of righteous deities, and even honorable thieves. As such, we did use smart tactics (ambushes, terrain advantages, wolf-pack tactics, etc) but if there was a dragon terrorizing the countryside, you damn well knew we were going to fight it, not head to the next country.

7: (Here it comes). Most of my generation was raised on video games, particularly JRPGs (Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, etc). Running from monsters in those games was a stupid thing to do, since that was the ONLY way to gain XP/GP. (Running in FF often cost you GP). As such, when you got into an encounter, you fought it, since that was how you advanced.

FWIW, we never used mercenaries/henchmen/followers either, and most of our group cared nothing for followers you gained at 9th/10th level. We were adventurers and heroes, and enjoyed that style of game.

 

[Mallus]

Combat was typically between roughly even sides. Hence the world GAME in Role-Playing Game, as apposed to "Fantasy World Simulator". It meant adventures for 1st level PCs feature kobolds, 6th level feature gnolls, 10th level feature giants, and 15th level feature demons.

I seem to recall that all of my old 1e modules I bought where labeled "An adventure for characters level 5-8" or "An adventure for characters level 10-14". Not a single one of them was labeled "An adventure for characters whatever level they happen to be when they stumble into this mess".

 

[MerricB]

Just a note on levelling: Gary explicitly said in an early "TSR" or Dragon article that a PC should reach "Name" (9th) level after about a year of play (40-60 sessions), and gain about 2-3 levels a year beyond that.

3e/4e have a slightly faster level-gain for low levels, but not that much more.

The game was designed with you gaining XP from treasure. I'm sure you can have lots of great games without that rule, but it isn't how the game is designed.

Cheers!

 

[Lord Xtheth]

When I first got into the game I had this DM that wouldn't award XPs for anything other than killing the monsters. We could sit and play in character all night and there wouldn't be any reward what so ever. In my earlier days, this was verry depressing. Why play a game when there's no incentive? It's like taking the "cards" out of Risk, or the "Pass go, Collect $200" out of Monopoly. So there birthed the idea of "Kill everything and take it's stuff!"

Now a few editions have passed by with all games I played as a kid, and as a DM I LIKE awarding things as much as posible. Everything from good backstory to good roleplaying to killing everything and taking it's stuff.

However, somewhere deep inside me, theres still a little voice that screams in frustration whenever combat is avoided, whether by choice or being forced to for character safety.