D&D 5E Making Combat Mean Something [+]

[Flamestrike]

This I don't mind; as it's what the characters would naturally want to do, I can't blame them for wanting to do it.

It's the worst one of the lot.

Classes in 5e are balanced around a 2-3 short rests per long rest resource recovery frequency.

Single encounter adventuring days favor long rest classes (Casters, Paladins) and punish Short rest classes (Warlocks, Monks and Fighters). You want to be encouraging the PCs to do several encounters per long rest, and not encouraging them to abuse the 5MWD.

 

[TheSword]

Martials are forced to make attacks at disadvantage, and attacks against them are at advantage (and they're most likely the ones being targeted being the front liners), Rogues are denied sneak attack, while casters can cast all spells (other than those with attack rolls) no problem at all?

Id suggest 'while at 0 HP you cant cast spells and...


Martials get more HP than casters, and tend to lose them quicker (being frontliners) so another rule that hurts them disproportionately.

Another rule that heavily impact martials more than casters. Casters don't care about 5 levels of exhaustion; they can still cast spells just fine. 'Half movement and HP and Skill and attack rolls at disadvantage' don't really bother Wizards at all, whereas it's crippling for a martial PC.

In addition to punishing martials disproportionally over casters, it pushes your PCs into abusing the 5MWD and constantly seeking to long rest after every single encounter. No martial will want to continue after copping levels of exhaustion, and no PC will want to enter any combat with less than Max HP to avoid getting crippled.

The end result of that of course, is martials again get left behind in the dust as casters get repeated single encounter adventuring days.

I feel like there are some pretty serious ramifications to your proposed HR that you might be missing here.

Martials HD is proportional to their HP so they heal hp faster than a wizard. Yes they will get injured more potentially if they wade into combat but the structure of the combats will be such that a wizard isn’t safe at the back because in a lot of cases there is no back. This will be a dynamic city adventure not dungeon crawling.

Even if this isn’t the case the wizard will die if the martial dies so they are faced with the choice of support the fighter or fail. Caster v martial arguments always ignore the idea that both are on the same team and have the same goals.

As a person who has played casters a lot I dispute your assertion that half move, disadvantage on ability check, saves and attacks rolls, or half hit points don’t bother a caster. It might not stop them casting spells but they are dead if they get taken down to 0 hp again.

The 5MWD isn’t an option in these adventures. If the party decide to head off and rest for a day in a lot of cases things will be out of their hands.

Casters won’t get to nova because unlike the martials their spells are also being consumed outside of combat.

Last point - surrendering, calling a truce or running away may be a viable option now when the alternative is much worse.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This campaign won’t be the typical dungeon crawl hack and slash. Combats will be rarer - one to three per day.

This strikes me as reflecting overweening confidence in participating in combat. Characters do not have enough HP to risk one combat a day if they have any say in the matter, let alone three. You'll be lucky if you see one combat every several sessions with these rules--or else you're going to have near-constant turnover of characters.

Many critical hits, especially at low levels, can drop someone to 0 from full or near-full health. This turns many critical hits into a minimum 1-in-6 chance of instant death. Since Exhaustion stacks, it could go much higher very quickly. As long as you're aware of what this does to combats, and cool with a near-guaranteed high body count and/or players who adamantly refuse to enter combat unless you contrive to ensure they cannot do so, then I'm certain these rules will achieve your end of "making combat mean something," for a given definition of "meaning."

 

[TheSword]

It's the worst one of the lot.

Classes in 5e are balanced around a 2-3 short rests per long rest resource recovery frequency.

Single encounter adventuring days favor long rest classes (Casters, Paladins) and punish Short rest classes (Warlocks, Monks and Fighters). You want to be encouraging the PCs to do several encounters per long rest, and not encouraging them to abuse the 5MWD.

I think you’re missing the premise. I’m not going to artificially insert more combat into the adventures in order to make short rest classes shine. It’s an investigation based urban campaign. I don’t care if the warlock or the monk is disproportionately affected. Don’t play a warlock in this campaign if you don’t like it.

Players won’t know if there is going to be a single encounter or not. So if they go nova then they deal with the consequences. Adventures will be driven by events not by which door the party choose to open.

To be clear in a typical 4 hours session for me there’s probably a 25% chance of a player dropping to 0 hp. What is important is that in any encounter a character might drop to 0 hp.

 

[John R Davis]

Any time a PC goes to 0 hit points I have them roll on a critical wound table. One just lost a hand. They have learned to fear going to 0 HP.

Poor useless Grave clerics.
I do like a complex combat system but I like DND for it's simplicity. I guess you'd need to tweak healing/recovery systems to match

 

[Flamestrike]

Martials... will get injured more potentially if they wade into combat

Or in other words 'do their jobs'.

As a person who has played casters a lot I dispute your assertion that half move, disadvantage on ability check, saves and attacks rolls, or half hit points don’t bother a caster.

It's not that it 'doesnt matter' for casters. It' that martials get EVERYTHING from attack rolls and skill checks and movement. That's what they do. Every single round, they're making multiple attack rolls, being targeted by multiple attack rolls, and when not in combat they rely on skills.

A caster gets his potency from casting spells that force other creatures to make saving throws. Movement penalties matter less when you can teleport, or fly. Skill checks to do things matter less when you can cast a spell and avoid that skill check (or simply get your familiar to do it for you).

You could literally play a Wizard to 20th level, never make a single attack roll, and kill more things than your party Martial.

The 5MWD isn’t an option in these adventures. If the party decide to head off and rest for a day in a lot of cases things will be out of their hands.

So you're going to force the PCs to push on with an adventure, with the martials at disadvantage to attack rolls (denying Rogues sneak attack) and disadvantage to all skills, and at half HP and movement?

Meanwhile the casters can Fireball, Hypnotic pattern, Magic missile, Heat Metal, Animate Objects, Wall of Force, Dominate person, Hold Person, Sleep, non attack roll damaging cantrips etc etc etc and able to Teleport via Misty Step etc with impunity?

Who would you rather be playing in the above; the Wizard (disadvantage to attack rolls, half HP, disadvantage to Skills) or the Rogue and Fighter?

Who does the rule hurt the most?

 

[TheSword]

This strikes me as reflecting overweening confidence in participating in combat. Characters do not have enough HP to risk one combat a day if they have any say in the matter, let alone three. You'll be lucky if you see one combat every several sessions with these rules--or else you're going to have near-constant turnover of characters.

Many critical hits, especially at low levels, can drop someone to 0 from full or near-full health. This turns many critical hits into a minimum 1-in-6 chance of instant death. Since Exhaustion stacks, it could go much higher very quickly. As long as you're aware of what this does to combats, and cool with a near-guaranteed high body count and/or players who adamantly refuse to enter combat unless you contrive to ensure they cannot do so, then I'm certain these rules will achieve your end of "making combat mean something," for a given definition of "meaning."

I don’t except your premise as per my previous post. The chance of falling to 0 from a crit hit may be there, but the reality with a party of four it doesn’t happen very often. I have a group of experienced (dare I say too experienced) players they don’t (generally) make bad choices and fluff decisions. Characters are dropping to zero in 25% of sessions at most. Add in the reduced number of combats, this is a balancing mechanism to add danger where it otherwise wouldn’t exist.

 

[Flamestrike]

Combats will be rarer - one to three per day. With most adventures to have 1-3 combats potentially.

Sounds like the perfect situation to use Gritty Realism rest variant.

It does everything you want it to do (slows down healing, makes every loss of HP more dangerous), while also not overly punishing Martials.

You could combine it with 'If your HP reach 0, for each X full points of damage remaining, you incur a failed death Save. If your failed death saves ever equal 3, you die'.

X equals Con score, plus (1 for every d8 HD you have, 2 for every d10 HD you have, and 3 for every d12 HD you have).

 

[TheSword]

Or in other words 'do their jobs'.


It's not that it 'doesnt matter' for casters. It' that martials get EVERYTHING from attack rolls and skill checks and movement. That's what they do. Every single round, they're making multiple attack rolls, being targeted by multiple attack rolls, and when not in combat they rely on skills.

A caster gets his potency from casting spells that force other creatures to make saving throws. Movement penalties matter less when you can teleport, or fly. Skill checks to do things matter less when you can cast a spell and avoid that skill check (or simply get your familiar to do it for you).

You could literally play a Wizard to 20th level, never make a single attack roll, and kill more things than your party Martial.



So you're going to force the PCs to push on with an adventure, with the martials at disadvantage to attack rolls (denying Rogues sneak attack) and disadvantage to all skills, and at half HP and movement?

Meanwhile the casters can Fireball, Hypnotic pattern, Magic missile, Heat Metal, Animate Objects, Wall of Force, Dominate person, Hold Person, Sleep, non attack roll damaging cantrips etc etc etc and able to Teleport via Misty Step etc with impunity?

Who would you rather be playing in the above; the Wizard (disadvantage to attack rolls, half HP, disadvantage to Skills) or the Rogue and Fighter?

Who does the rule hurt the most?

You’re speaking from a theoretical position not a realistic one. The caster, on zero hp, with 3 levels of exhaustion and still in combat is not going to be throwing fireballs and drawing attention to himself. He’s going to be trying to get to a place of safety and healing himself because otherwise he’s going to die… if he doesn’t and carries on fighting and does, well that’s on him. The martial I would imagine will do the same. The principle of characters still getting to act on 0 is that they become less of a priority for the remaining characters who can act without the pressure of getting bodies away.

The wizard isn’t going to be throwing those kinds of spells around for at least the first half of the campaign, and some never.

If the party fight as a team we may find the wizard standing over the fighters prone body trying to defend him.

 

[TheSword]

Sounds like the perfect situation to use Gritty Realism rest variant.

It does everything you want it to do (slows down healing, makes every loss of HP more dangerous), while also not overly punishing Martials.

You could combine it with 'If your HP reach 0, for each X full points of damage remaining, you incur a failed death Save. If your failed death saves ever equal 3, you die'.

X equals Con score, plus (1 for every d8 HD you have, 2 for every d10 HD you have, and 3 for every d12 HD you have).

I’m not a fan of gritty realism healing because it just slows down time, it’s the equivalent of just packing more into a day artificially. I don’t like the fact that long rest abilities only kick in once a week.