Speeding up combat: Ditching the Damage rolls.

[Thadeous]

Today we posted and article over at This is My Game all about trying to speed up 4E combat by rolling less, and I thought I would jump on the EN forums and ask you guys if you have any thoughts about it? Any great tips for speeding up combat with out losing the excitement of it? Here is the article in question: This is My Game Ditching the Damage Die Roll

T.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I've tried ditching damage rolls before and found it just made combat too ho-hum. Players were too much like "Well, I know he's just going to do 5 damage..."

As often stated, I've found that the biggest contributor to combat slowdown is players hemming and hawing over what power to use on their turn. There doesn't seem to be any fix for that but experience.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

In our campaign, (we're at level 19 now), we've been doing a couple of things to speed up the action:

1. Our DM tells who the next 3 players are - tells them to be ready.

2. Some of us have started pre-rolling damage. For my Avenger,
who crits a lot, this is very helpful. Right before the start of the session,
I have one other player watch as I roll out 1w, 2w, 3w hits, as well as
hits if I crit, covering my main weapon, my offhand weapon, and my
holy implement. I still do the attack roll to see if I hit, taking that out
really removes the excitement. This has helped a lot though, its gone
from the DM getting a dmg total in 5 seconds, to him rolling his eyes
and saying, "call NASA" when I critted.

In my limited experience, its cross-talk at the table among the players,
as well as a player not knowing what they are gonna do (you know
you're in for it when the DM calls their name, they look up from their
laptop or whatever and ask where they are standing), that really slows
combat down.

HTHs.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

As often stated, I've found that the biggest contributor to combat slowdown is players hemming and hawing over what power to use on their turn.

The problem with that formulation -- "what power to use" -- is that it is an oversimplification. In 4e, there is also which enemy to attack, where to move to, whether to shift and achieve a suboptimal position or move and risk an OA, whether to use an action point, whether to toss in a minor action power, which ally to heal or grant a saving throw to or give a bonus to, and more. Most importantly, because 4e combat is so tactical, the set of choices that appear optimal when you are 3 slots down in the initiative order can change utterly and completely by the time your actual turn comes up.

I'm not saying that hemming and hawing never happen. It's just that all of the shortcuts are full of pitfalls. Attempts to "streamline" combat to speed things up can easily turn into "steamrolling" your best tacticians' capabilities.

 

[Destil]

Seems to me the goals are at odds here. Are you trying to speed up combat, or are you trying to make near hits/misses more indicative of damage? Especially with all the fiddly +1s and +2s to hit, I can see this not helping combat speed.

 

[BobTheNob]

We use an ipod app for rolling damage (dice for the d20's though...I think players like the "feel" of throwing the dice) as it allows use to type in entire formulas, then roll.

Last night, an epic tier fight, we had a rogue crit an I was sitting there calling out formula "Ok, you do...hey! start the dice app!...ok...26 plus 4d6 plus 40 plus 3d4 plus 3d8". Sounds alot, but thanks to the ipod rolling app, things were much simpler. Again, computer age to the rescue (no aspect of our game lacks a software tool).

But I do agree with earlier posts, the bog down is the time players take to formulate their turn.

 

[ggroy]

We tried this before in one 4E session. We used full damage on a hit, and double full damage on a critical hit.

It turned out to be kinda boring, despite speeding up combat. The players actually like rolling for damage.

More generally, if one wants to incorporate to-hit and damage into a single d20 roll, it would involve redesigning the combat rules significantly. For example, the amount rolled over the AC/fort/ref/will could be correlated to some amount of damage. This would probably require a completely different set of formulas for the player and monster hit points. (By then, one isn't really playing "D&D" anymore).

 

[Aulirophile]

Roll damage and the +hit at the same time (particularly relevant to blasts/bursts). Also have an order for blasts/bursts. My group uses ROYGBIV. From the first target each color of d20 applies to the target in that order (white and black are tacked on at the end). Then as you ask the DM "Hit?" he already knows the damage. Crits are resolved after, if any happened.

Honestly I find basic math slows the game down more then anything outside of the guy who needs to debate aloud his whole God damn turn (for people like that get an egg timer). My group solved this by rolling in front of me, because I take basically zero time to add up dice and I have their modifiers memorized. Phone apps solve the problem equally well I imagine.

 

[Mengu]

Another contributor to time sink is figuring out all the conditional modifiers.

Half-orc Ranger rolls and hits: "Hunter's Quarry is 2d8. Target's a humanoid so I add +3 from Ruthless Punisher. I'm bloodied so that's an extra 2d6 from battlecrazed bastard sword. Enemy is bloodied, that's another +2 from gauntlets of blood, and another +5 from the Shaman's Panther. No adjacent allies, so that's a +5 from Called Shot. What am I forgetting? Oh yeah the Paladin's Wrath of the Gods is going, that's another +6. Is that it? No wait, I just got bloodied for the first time this encounter, so there's another +5 from Strength of Pain. What's that total now?"

Math wiz: "54 I think"

DM: okay, he is teetering.

Half-orc: Was it close to going down? Wait let's add it again to make sure I didn't miss anything.

DM (rolls eyes): Oh, look at that, it decides to keel over dead from the wind. Let's see who's next on initiative.

 

[OnlineDM]

After reading Geek Ken's post on Thadeous's blog, I was inspired to reply with a blog post of my own. As it turns out, several other folks on this thread are of the same opinion as I am: The time-consuming part of combat is players (and the DM) deciding what they want to do, not rolling the dice and doing the math.

I say this in part because we use MapTool for my online Friday night game, which means that the computer does the math for us. I also say it because I've noticed combats being longer now that the PCs are 8th level compared to when they were 1st level. What's changed is that they have far more options at their disposal now than they did back then.

It takes time to mull over your options and make a decision, but that decision process is what I think a lot of people find to be fun about combat in 4e. They LIKE the tactics. Speeding up combat without taking that process away seems like it would be extremely difficult.