D&D 5E (2014) [Ro3 4/24/2012] The Action Economy of D&D Next

[Ratskinner]

I'm not concerned about the speed of play... I'm more concerned about what each player can do on his turn.

Yes, speeding actual gameplay up will help ameliorate some of the problems (by having turns come up really, really quickly so there's less downtime)... but that doesn't change the fact that WHAT a player gets to do when his turn comes up is going to be 50% movement and 50% attacking for mobile PCs, and 100% attacking and 0% moving for frontline ones. And since the attacking is traditionally the "fun" part of the turn... mobile PCs are only having fun 50% of the time (even if that time moves pretty quickly).

When you have both a Standard action and a Move action in your turn... a mobile character gets to do both each and every turn. They still get to have the "fun" part every time their turn comes up. Sure, the frontline character ends up "wasting" a Move action each turn because he never moves... but because moving isn't fun anyway, it doesn't MATTER to the player that he's "wasting" it. He's still getting to attack every round and the "lost Move action" is an afterthought.

That's my only concern by merging the Standard and Move into one single action per turn. The mobile PC potentially loses half his attacks compared to the frontliner.

Don't you think that if a player chooses to play Mr. Mobile, that he must think that moving around is fun, too? I mean, your concern is based on the theory that attacking is fun and moving/position is not. Certainly that's something that varies from person to person, and up to them upon character creation. My guess is that Mr. Mobile's player would be perfectly happy with fewer attacks, especially if those attacks had bonuses attached to reward all that moving around and positioning.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Don't you think that if a player chooses to play Mr. Mobile, that he must think that moving around is fun, too? I mean, your concern is based on the theory that attacking is fun and moving/position is not. Certainly that's something that varies from person to person, and up to them upon character creation. My guess is that Mr. Mobile's player would be perfectly happy with fewer attacks, especially if those attacks had bonuses attached to reward all that moving around and positioning.

Comparatively? No, I don't. Not most of the time. I don't believe it's the movement itself that is the fun part, but the resulting attack said movement sets up.

Now if what you say in your final sentence ends up being true... that the mobile PC attacks less but gets much bigger bonuses when he finally does... then yes, at that point I think you're right on the money. There would definitely need to be a compensation for giving up 50% of your attacks, and having those remaining attacks get more bonuses and/or higher damage might be a way to do that. That's definitely a way they could make it work.

The only downside though in that regard is that your mobile PCs are now doing more "burst" damage (to use an MMO turn of phrase-- which has nothing to do with the 4E Close or Area "Burst" type of attack.) Rather than a steadier stream of continual damage over the course of a combat, you have these bursts of massive damage that makes the combat more "swingy". Which is fine to a certain extent... it's the kind of thing the game has always had to deal with with certain Save or Die spells, or critical hits, or the like... but it does make game balancing a bit more difficult. It's harder to determine the threat level of a monster who barely ever hits, but when it does it instantly kills you, for example.

Basically all I'm thinking is that at the end of the day... is the merging of the paired Standard/Move actions down into a single action really worth the small amount of time you might end up saving? That, I don't know. It's the kind of thing that will have to be sussed out during playtesting. If it works out, great! But I do see some possible speed bumps along the way is all.

 

[Incenjucar]

Comparatively? No, I don't. Not most of the time. I don't believe it's the movement itself that is the fun part, but the resulting attack said movement sets up.

Nah. The act of being able to move in crazy ways is itself entertaining. It's like how people like all those movies with flashy acrobatics when just walking would do as well.

 

[GX.Sigma]

If you have to either move or attack on your turn... that means that the more mobile attacker ends up attacking only 50% as often as the frontline melee attacker.

Granted. Move or attack sounds like a pretty bad idea. Who's talking about move or attack?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Granted. Move or attack sounds like a pretty bad idea. Who's talking about move or attack?

That was based off of one of Cook's possible ideas mentioned above that a PC would only get a single action each turn.

 

[Janaxstrus]

That was based off of one of Cook's possible ideas mentioned above that a PC would only get a single action each turn.

He said:

One of the things we're trying to do is streamline the player's turn a bit while still letting the player do something significant each turn. As of right now, we have a system that states that on your turn you can take one action, and then move up to your speed.

Not or.

 

[Redbadge]

Right, we've been discussing some of their pretty wild hypotheticals; i.e. one (and only one) action a turn, or possibly, movement plus one action a turn (however, to speed up play these "standard" actions include drawing a weapon/opening a door, as well as attacking).

However, it looks like they are settling on one standard action, one move action, and one or more free/minor actions. Of course the only difference between this system and 3.x/4e is that instead of various types of actions being codified in the rules, the DM gets to choose whether or not a PC action is classified as standard, move, or minor/free.

I guess the theory is that with this system, the players won't try to do as much on their turn as possible, and that debate amongst players/DMs will not arise during play about the categorization of options, and that play will move much faster if the players don't already know what is possible on their turn without consultations with the DM (which may or may not include sprinklings of common sense about the economy actions, either from the players or the DM).

IMO, the system where they are at now (as I understand it) will not result in any of things. It's much more interesting to discuss the extreme hypotheticals (including attack then move), instead of discussing the merits of this new and different system which isn't new and different at all.

 

[Redbadge]

He said:



Not or.

In one of his discussions, Monte Cook did indeed say:

How much simpler it would be if you just did one thing on your turn. If things worked that way, there would be no need to categorize actions. You would attack or move or cast a spell.

Obviously, they've moved away from this recently. Probably, for the exact same reasons that DEFCON1 has espoused.

 

[DEFCON 1]

*EDIT* RedBadge beat me to the response. Thanks!

Not or.

Actually, most of the discussion of this sort was based upon the Monte Cook Legends And Lore article that RedBadge posted the link to, wherein Cook said "How much simpler it would be if you just did one thing on your turn. If things worked that way, there would be no need to categorize actions. You would attack or move or cast a spell. The game could then be generous with stuff that "didn't count," like drawing a weapon or item, opening a door, and so on."

His attitude might've changed since then, but at least that was the talking point we were going on about.

 

[Ratskinner]

Granted. Move or attack sounds like a pretty bad idea. Who's talking about move or attack?

I was, actually. It can work out pretty well, if the rest of the rules are "aware" of it. That is, I wouldn't just take 3e and say "you only get one action per round." It runs very quickly, actually.

I doubt that its going to be the way 5e does it, but it came up in conversation. If 5e did go that way, at least for the basic game, I'd (likely) be happy. I'm all for faster and simpler. However, its not anything close to a deal-breaker for me.