Legends and Lore - What Can You Do?

[DEFCON 1]

I believe that splitting movement and attack into separate rounds does not actually solve any problems, other than having individual player 'turns' come faster. However, the amount of time that will be spent all told will not be any less. Whether you move and attack at the same time, or move and attack with two minutes between them (while other PCs go)... the amount of time actually doing your actions of moving and attacking do not change.

And in fact... it might actually take longer, because the smaller you break a player's action segments up... the more chances you have of having players not paying attention to what's happening on the board and thus needing to spend more time flipping through their sheets deciding what to do when its their turn. If you have move and attack together... the player will look through his options for both at the same time. Whereas if you split them up... he'll spend some time ramping himself up to find a move action (or equivalent) on his sheet, then next round spend time ramping up to find an attack action on his sheet. It's like traffic lights: the longer a light stays green, the more cars can get through... because every time you have to get cars ramped up from a stopped position to finally moving takes more time and slows down the entire process, resulting in less cars getting through the light.

The only real way to speed a player's actions up is to lessen the amount of options a player has to choose from on his turn. The less options he has... the less hemming and hawing he has to go through to determine what would be the best tactical decision to make... and the faster he can choose something and just do it. Thus the reason why high-level games can get so unwieldy is because there are just too many options for a player to look through and choose from: 2-4 daily powers, 3-5 encounter powers, 2-3 at-wills, 1-8 magic items with abilities, 2-10 feats with power options... each PC has a sheet of like 10 to 20 things he needs to look through each and every round. THAT'S what takes so long.

(The irony being that it is a common refrain from many players here on ENWorld that they wish feats did NOT give just static numeric bonuses because they aren't 'exciting' and the possibly increase game unbalancing... and yet those are the most helpful ones in terms of speeding up the game, because the numbers are automatically baked in and thus its one less option for a PC to think about and consider on his turn.)

 

[TerraDave]

Better column this week.

....

Honestly, 4e has the right mix of action types, and the right amount of stuff you can do each round. Where it goes wrong is that there are too many fiddly options, there are too many reactions/counters/counter-reactions, and there is too much micro-management of conditions, saves, power recharges, and so on.

...

And too many hit points.

Also agree that this column is better, as it actually says something.

One issue that I have noticed in various games is that some players always take a certain amount of time on their turn. No matter how much or little they have to do. They just sit there for a bit then do it. I think the advantage of multiple actions is to just let them do what they want and not drag it out as they keep reiterating.

It also makes the action economy a little better. You are basically rationing out attacks and giving space for other actions.

 

[kitsune9]

Is it me, or do the questions from the mini-surveys seem to have built-in bias in them? Like the first question--Speeding up play is a good thing? Why would I not want to answer with a 5?

I don't know. Any biostatisticians who develop surveys care to weigh in on my assessment? Is there bias?

 

[Balesir]

Up to half move+ major action
Up to full move + minor action
Double move

OK, but how is this radically different from "a Standard action and a move"? 'Move and attack' is two actions, however you want to parse it - calling it a "combined action" is just semantics.

I think just having Standard, Move, Free and Opportunity actions would be the optimum simplification. It seems to me pretty much everything could be fitted into that.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't think the single action--attack, move, or do something else--is a good option. In a phased combat system (as anything with rounds will be), it is already too easy to lessen the effects of movement. In reality, short of a packed ancient or medieval melee army formation, movement is critical. It would certainly be critical in the kind of things that D&D typically models.

Now that doesn't mean that movement has to be an action. It does mean that if movement is an explicit action, it should be independent of the "standard" action. Or you could abstract the movement some other way. The former is better for a miniatures focus, and the latter is probably better to get away from miniatures. (I'm sure this consideration is at least sensed, and thus biases answers somewhat. )

I'd be fine with a two action setup: Standard and Move, with things like drawing weapons getting rolled into Move and drinking potions rolled into Standard.

I'd also be fine with an abstract move that is narrated and/or semi-mechanically handled with "positioning" based on speed, initiative, etc.

A possible hybrid variant of ExploderWizard's option would be to make the moves by side and leave the attacks as individual things. That is, you state your positioning intents as a group. Have some kind of positioning/initiative combined roll to shake out how well you did. Then go around the table with a single action for your attacks (or any alternate uses for the action).

Drawing weapons and other objects can be abstracted into the movement. Drinking potions or throwing that dagger in your off hand can be fall-back options when the positioning didn't work out this round. Or maybe you can have short-range charges and/or delays (with penalties) to cut down on the wasted "attack" options. In any case, you'd probably want some kind of limited interrupt/reaction movement to create a more dynamic feel, but you might get a lot of (feel) mileage out of a little movement, if all the regular movement was abstracted more. (For example, in the 4E model, a push 1 effect on an attack power isn't all that, unless you've got hazardous terrain or sustained effects nearby, or can setup flanks. But in a positioning model, then attack, blasting everyone back might give them penalties when they come at you from out of distance, or avoid such a penalty for an ally.)

 

[LostSoul]

I wonder how much time it will really save. If all of the PCs act at the same time before the enemies act I don't have to worry about the enemies moving out of position between Bob's turn and mine. But I'll still need to wait and see how successful Bob's action is before I decide how to act. And if there the players discuss which party member is going to act first in each of their rounds, that'll slow things down as well.

In my experience, it saves a lot of time.

The way it works is that you don't wait until Bob completes his action before you say what you're doing; everyone says what they're doing, then everyone does it. Like this:

Bob: "I'll charge the orcs and hold them back."
Carol: "I'll shoot the orcs with my bow, trying not to hit Bob. I guess I'll aim for any flankers."
Dave: "I'll start casting Flaming Sphere and drop it behind the front rank."

Then you roll the dice and see what happens.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Ugh... Monte missed the actual problem. The primary cause of combat slow down is not the number of actions, it is the number of choices and the complexity of those choices.

 

[the Jester]

If D&D goes to a one-action-per-turn system, I think it's important to also make firing ranged attacks into melee difficult again.

3.0 did this right, imho, but I'm also of a mind that we ought to get rid of another layer of complexity (I favor ditching feats). Archer specialists should be able to mitigate the penalties somewhat, but not entirely.

 

[ExploderWizard]

"It also resulted in likely more realistic total combat lengths, with typical fights lasting a few minutes as opposed to a few seconds."

I think Mr. Cook has confused cinema with reality, here. When people fight with deadly earnest, with deadly melee weapons, fights probably don't take minutes unless there are tens or hundreds of people involved.

Yarp. Small scale melee combat is fast. This is an aspect of combat that GURPS really does well.

In my experience, it saves a lot of time.

The way it works is that you don't wait until Bob completes his action before you say what you're doing; everyone says what they're doing, then everyone does it. Like this:

Bob: "I'll charge the orcs and hold them back."
Carol: "I'll shoot the orcs with my bow, trying not to hit Bob. I guess I'll aim for any flankers."
Dave: "I'll start casting Flaming Sphere and drop it behind the front rank."

Then you roll the dice and see what happens.

Exactly.

Ugh... Monte missed the actual problem. The primary cause of combat slow down is not the number of actions, it is the number of choices and the complexity of those choices.

This is also an astute observation. In addition to paring down the action types and ditching individual turns, the character sheet as a confusing multi-page options menu needs to go also.

Wow, this streamlining talk is making a fast paced D&D look more and more like Moldvay basic.

Not a bad thing IMHO.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

The best thing by far that can be done to speed up combat is ditch the whole individual turn thing. Return to a simple die roll per side. The My turn/Your turn model is not only slower but tends to reduce engagement with the situation as a whole. Yeah you can pay attention when its not your turn but just knowing that there are maybe six other people who have to move, do an action, do a minor action and one of those is the DM and he/she has to go through this for 12 bad guys! .

As much as I hate the thought of it, its easy to see why the turn system contributes to the board game mentality and why some players would whip out angry birds while waiting for a turn.

Letting players perform thier actions freeform as a group combined with each player doing a single action can really speed things up. No more having to wait and see what Bob does on his turn to find out what options you have. Everyone does something on group initiative then the DM does likewise for the opponents.

This doesn't match my experience. We often had situations where the players entered in an "iterative" mode when planning their actions:

"I'll charge the biggest hobgoblin."

"No, wait, I want to cast a Fireball."

"Hmmh, but when can my thief hide in shadows to sneak up to the ogre?"

"Okay, I'll wait for your Fireball and charge the biggest standing enemy afterwards"

"No, wait! Can I reach the ogre with my fireball, too?"

.. and so on.

Granted, the players are (may be) more involved, but this system doesn't make for a faster turn-around time for great, important fights.

But as I'm starting an online 1e game in the near future my memory will have to face a reality check.