Jacob Lewis
Ye Olde GM
This is an idea I've been working on the last few days. I have not been able to playtest except at home, and it may be a while before this pandemic lets us out of the house again. So I'm sharing this here to see if some of you out there would like to play around with it and see what happens. I'm not looking for debates or arguments based on game preferences, edition shaming, or the usual tomfoolery that evolves here. If you cannot be constructive, critical, and polite, then you will be ignored.
Or at the very least, be funny and/or entertaining! We can all stand for some levity.
I've been looking for ways to make game play more efficient during combat in Dungeons & Dragons (5e). In my experience, players are always waiting for their turn to come around while other players are making decisions, throwing dice with nothing to show for on a miss, and falling asleep while the DM rolls for every monster on the board and performs basic math at a lethargic pace. (And might I add, how great is D&D that we put up with this for decades?) This flaw in design has been persistent in every edition of the game, some worse than others. But what can be done about it that doesn't require rewriting the core mechanics of the game itself?
Identifying The Problems: There's a few factors here at work. For starters, there's a lot of dice rolling that needs to take place on every turn. Assuming that each player has more than one attack, or an opportunity to make a skill check or saving throw, everyone with a player character sheet in front of them can expect to roll 2 or more d20s on their turn. This isn't always an issue, but what happens when the players roll too low to hit or do enough damage to change the board? "Nothing" is the answer you're looking for. Which means the group has another round to go through and hope for better results.
But let's not forget the Dungeon Master, who decided to throw a swarm of orcs at the party for an epic battle for fun! He's regretting that decision by round 2 when the party fails to take down most of the enemies due to a run of bad dice rolls, leaving him to make attack rolls for 20+ mooks. That's after he decides how to move them around, decide what each one is going to do, provided they have more than one option. All the while, he is still taking the time to mark down their hit points, their conditions, who did what, etc.
Finding Solutions: Looking at other systems, it is interesting to see how some modern games have evolved. Dungeon World, in particular, has some very good ideas. Not the least is the idea of using a player's roll to determine if the monsters hit back. There's some other good stuff there, of course, but a lot of it would fundamentally change the game being played and, well, you might as well just play Dungeon World. Not a bad idea but it doesn't fix anything if people want to play D&D, right? Moving on.
If you're not familiar with the system, let me give you a super-brief primer. You roll 2d6, and when you score 10+, you succeed. If you roll 7-9, you succeed but there is a complication. In combat, it usually means that the monster finds an opening and gets to attack at the same time as you do. Below that... well, best not to dwell on it because its just bad. But the point is that no matter what you roll, something happens! If you roll poorly in D&D, you just make people wait longer to resolve whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.
The Challenge: So here's a list of criteria that I want to meet with this idea.
The Solution(?): There are two parts to this. For the first, I went back to my favorite edition (4e) for inspiration: Minions.
Minions were introduced as a role for monsters so that heroes could face multiple enemies that were mechanically simple to run, easy to knock down, and still posed a viable threat. It wasn't perfect. I mean, a group of frost giants with only 1 hit point was a hard pill to swallow. But from a game design standpoint, it worked. And my encounters were better with them, and my players loved them.
Now, I'm not trying to introduce the 1-hit point mini-monster into the current game. I think that the idea of the minion must be reimagined and made better to fit with the current rules. Minions themselves had their own special rules that did not follow the logic of the other game monsters, so why not continue with that line of thinking for 5th Edition rules?
And this enables the second part of the solution, which introduces an alteration to the existing rules without changing the whole game--these rules will only apply for monsters specifically designated as minion types! If done right, these new minions will work perfectly with the existing rules, will be easy to create from regular monsters, and do all the other stuff I hoped to accomplish in my list.
Creating Minions: Creating a minion should be easy. We're not going to reinvent the wheel here. Just pick an existing monster you think will appear in a group to threaten your party, like goblins or bugbears. The only numbers we're going to change are the hit points and damage. Using their static number listed, divide by the number of minions you want in a group.
1. No initiative
Minions do not act on their own turn. They only react to the players, or move at the end of a combat round.
2. Easier to hit
A player who misses an attack roll by 5 or less can still choose to hit the minion, but gives the minion an opening to strike back. The minion does automatic damage to the character first based on his damage rating (no rolls needed). The minion must be able to target the character (i.e. must be visible, in range, etc.)
3. Still dangerous
If the player misses an attack roll by more than 5, then the minion automatically damages the character as above.
4. 1s and 20s
If you roll a 20, the minion's hit points drops to 0. On a 1, the minion scores double damage on the player.
And that's it. Easy enough?
The Assignment: This is all very straightforward and theoretical. In my limited playtest, it seems to work great. I know it will take more than a cursory glance and several more playtests to discover any shortcomings or problems at different levels of play, rules, etc. I'll take any feedback, but I'm hoping for others to try this on their own to discover where there is room for improvement, and of course to hear other experiences and insights.
Or at the very least, be funny and/or entertaining! We can all stand for some levity.
I've been looking for ways to make game play more efficient during combat in Dungeons & Dragons (5e). In my experience, players are always waiting for their turn to come around while other players are making decisions, throwing dice with nothing to show for on a miss, and falling asleep while the DM rolls for every monster on the board and performs basic math at a lethargic pace. (And might I add, how great is D&D that we put up with this for decades?) This flaw in design has been persistent in every edition of the game, some worse than others. But what can be done about it that doesn't require rewriting the core mechanics of the game itself?
Identifying The Problems: There's a few factors here at work. For starters, there's a lot of dice rolling that needs to take place on every turn. Assuming that each player has more than one attack, or an opportunity to make a skill check or saving throw, everyone with a player character sheet in front of them can expect to roll 2 or more d20s on their turn. This isn't always an issue, but what happens when the players roll too low to hit or do enough damage to change the board? "Nothing" is the answer you're looking for. Which means the group has another round to go through and hope for better results.
But let's not forget the Dungeon Master, who decided to throw a swarm of orcs at the party for an epic battle for fun! He's regretting that decision by round 2 when the party fails to take down most of the enemies due to a run of bad dice rolls, leaving him to make attack rolls for 20+ mooks. That's after he decides how to move them around, decide what each one is going to do, provided they have more than one option. All the while, he is still taking the time to mark down their hit points, their conditions, who did what, etc.
Finding Solutions: Looking at other systems, it is interesting to see how some modern games have evolved. Dungeon World, in particular, has some very good ideas. Not the least is the idea of using a player's roll to determine if the monsters hit back. There's some other good stuff there, of course, but a lot of it would fundamentally change the game being played and, well, you might as well just play Dungeon World. Not a bad idea but it doesn't fix anything if people want to play D&D, right? Moving on.
If you're not familiar with the system, let me give you a super-brief primer. You roll 2d6, and when you score 10+, you succeed. If you roll 7-9, you succeed but there is a complication. In combat, it usually means that the monster finds an opening and gets to attack at the same time as you do. Below that... well, best not to dwell on it because its just bad. But the point is that no matter what you roll, something happens! If you roll poorly in D&D, you just make people wait longer to resolve whatever it is you're trying to accomplish.
The Challenge: So here's a list of criteria that I want to meet with this idea.
- I want to make D&D combat more efficient, more fun.
- I want to reduce the amount of rolls the DM needs to make. Don't make players wait!
- I want bad rolls for players to do something so its not just a meaningless roll. Keep players engaged!
- I want it to still be D&D, and not some knock off of another system.
- and I want to do it without introducing too many fiddly bits or changing the game entirely.
The Solution(?): There are two parts to this. For the first, I went back to my favorite edition (4e) for inspiration: Minions.
Minions were introduced as a role for monsters so that heroes could face multiple enemies that were mechanically simple to run, easy to knock down, and still posed a viable threat. It wasn't perfect. I mean, a group of frost giants with only 1 hit point was a hard pill to swallow. But from a game design standpoint, it worked. And my encounters were better with them, and my players loved them.
Now, I'm not trying to introduce the 1-hit point mini-monster into the current game. I think that the idea of the minion must be reimagined and made better to fit with the current rules. Minions themselves had their own special rules that did not follow the logic of the other game monsters, so why not continue with that line of thinking for 5th Edition rules?
And this enables the second part of the solution, which introduces an alteration to the existing rules without changing the whole game--these rules will only apply for monsters specifically designated as minion types! If done right, these new minions will work perfectly with the existing rules, will be easy to create from regular monsters, and do all the other stuff I hoped to accomplish in my list.
Creating Minions: Creating a minion should be easy. We're not going to reinvent the wheel here. Just pick an existing monster you think will appear in a group to threaten your party, like goblins or bugbears. The only numbers we're going to change are the hit points and damage. Using their static number listed, divide by the number of minions you want in a group.
Example 1: Goblins have 7 hit points and do 5 damage on a hit. If we want a group of 3 goblin minions, divide by 3 and round down. So each goblin will have 2 hit points and do 1 point of damage on a hit.
Example 2: Bugbears have 27 hit points and do 11 damage on a hit. A minion group of 3 would have 9 hit points each, and do 3 damage. Or a pair of minions could have 13 hit points and do 5 damage each.
This is all you really need to create larger numbers of mooks for your heroes to tear through. They don't have any special abilities or powers like their standard brethren. They are the rank and file, filling a role and working together as a unit under the leadership of their betters. And here is where the special rules come into play:1. No initiative
Minions do not act on their own turn. They only react to the players, or move at the end of a combat round.
2. Easier to hit
A player who misses an attack roll by 5 or less can still choose to hit the minion, but gives the minion an opening to strike back. The minion does automatic damage to the character first based on his damage rating (no rolls needed). The minion must be able to target the character (i.e. must be visible, in range, etc.)
3. Still dangerous
If the player misses an attack roll by more than 5, then the minion automatically damages the character as above.
4. 1s and 20s
If you roll a 20, the minion's hit points drops to 0. On a 1, the minion scores double damage on the player.
And that's it. Easy enough?
The Assignment: This is all very straightforward and theoretical. In my limited playtest, it seems to work great. I know it will take more than a cursory glance and several more playtests to discover any shortcomings or problems at different levels of play, rules, etc. I'll take any feedback, but I'm hoping for others to try this on their own to discover where there is room for improvement, and of course to hear other experiences and insights.
