D&D General Structural Flaw of the D&D Combat System

[DND_Reborn]

What do you guys and girls think? Is this something feasible? Did somebody try something similiar? Does somebody has developed other solutions?

I disagree with your premise. It is illogical not to use the biggest "bang for the buck" ASAP in hopes of ending the combat quickly. The sole exception comes when judging threat level. You want to use the biggest feature that is needed to accomplish the goal of winning the fight.

The suspense is always present IME. Early on, when stronger features are used, do they carry the impact you hoped for? If yes, YEAH! If no, oh crap... now what!? When features are expended and HP lessen, the suspense is still there. Will that final sword swing or eldritch blast finish off the dragon before its turn comes up? If we fail, will its breath recharge and could we possibly survive it yet again!?!

Now, if you want D&D to be like DBZ with characters and monsters "charging up" (come on Goku, enough already!!!), then your approach is fine, certainly. There are a number of ways to accomplish it, but for myself it would have to make sense; and that is where I see problems personally.

Finally, the suspense increases with each combat as features become more and more depleted. The risk elevates, especially for harder encounters.

 

[overgeeked]

After playing RPGs for several years and attempting to design my own adventures, RPG systems, and homebrew rules, I've noticed a structural flaw in D&D combat that detracts from the excitement: the suspense curve is inverted. The optimal strategy for a D&D fight is to inflict as much damage as possible early on to quickly kill the monster(s), and the rules make it very easy to do so.

As a result, the suspense curve for players is inverted because if they don't use the optimal strategy, the fight becomes more challenging for them.

“Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.”

Players Like To Optimize The Fun Out Of A Game.


The solution: design the game in such a way that the optimal strategy matches the fun you want to see in play. Design the game so that the optimal strategy gives you the excitement curve you're after.

To make (boss) battles more exciting and to encourage players to use bigger abilities later in the fight, we need to change something on the design level. One possible mechanic that came to my mind involves giving classes abilities or feats that charge up during combat. For the first two or three rounds, a character would engage in mundane activities like making normal attacks or using cantrips, charging up their special ability. Then, on round three, they can use their special ability to inflict more damage. They must then recharge again. This would create a dynamic where the fight starts small and ends big, rather than vice versa.

The quick and dirty version of something like this is to limit characters abilities in some way. So they're forced to ramp up. If the PCs have access to big bad dailies on the first round, they will nova on the first round. So keep those tucked away. But players will complain about this to no end.

Maybe something like no spell slots are available that are greater than the round of combat you're in -1? So round 1, only cantrips. Round 2, cantrips and 1st-level spells. Round 3, cantrips, 1st-, and 2nd-level spells.

Players complain about anything that restricts them from the baseline assumptions, so flipping it around to some kind of bonus would elicit fewer complaints. The game 13th Age has escalation dice, which gives you a flat bonus based on the round you're in, but that's kinda dull and wouldn't prevent PCs from going nova.

You could also try to engineer boss fights in stages, like JRPGs. Give them different immunities, resistances, and weaknesses based on the stage. Let your players know you're doing this and sign post the hell out of those changes so they know what works and what doesn't.

 

[mamba]

I find it a bit amusing that D&D appear to have the quality that in all it's iterations the most fun way to play it was not the one it was designed for.

TSR era D&D was designed for a dungeon crawl suspence curve with encounters as quick events along the way, the boss fight at the bottom as the  twist, and the heroic escape through wandering monster filled tunnels with the loot but no resources as the frantic climax.

However most players seemed to think it more fun to play it as a mainly freeform fantasy storytelling game.

I am not sure it was designed as a dungeon crawler. It was a wargame at the level of individual units and the first adventures were dungeon crawlers, but that changed with Tracy Hickman at the latest, still during the 1e days.

It supported dungeon crawling, but I am not sure that was the design focus. I am not even sure I would call 1e designed. To me 3e was the first actually designed version, the ones before were organically evolved / mutated / hacked together more than designed.

Then 3ed came along with its game designed to sell booster packs for a  deck character construction game where the main focus was to get an interesting interplay between players' out of session planning and the climax of seeing how those plans played out at the table.

However most players seemed to prefer playing it as a somewhat structured storytelling game.

so it was played essentially like later 1e and most of 2e was

The char construction part to me was not so much design choice as a consequence of wanting to sell supplements, and arguably 2e did this more with all the Complete Handbook of X stuff

Then 4ed came along, designed as an encounter focused game, complete with mechanics for heating things up once the participants hit bloodied.

However these strong mechanics for having long cool battles sucked time from what most players wanted - storytelling. So many stayed behind rather playing the deckbuilder that were less in the way of their storytelling. And those that went to 4ed appear to mostly think the best way to play it is mostly freeform storytelling with a big climatic combat every few session.

I think 4e is the first one where game design and what players wanted actually clashed, at least for a large enough percentage, others loved it for those changes

Then we have 5ed where my impression is that the idea was mainly "OK, just let us make a stew of everything people say they like from the past, design be damned". Hence we sit with a game that isnt really designed for anything, but incidentaly appear to be the most suitable version of D&D for what most people want to play.

by basically returning to what 1/2/3e did, so it again gets played more or less like any version before it

I am hence unsure if the lack of escalation can be considered a flaw. Yes, cinematic climatic combat encounters certainly is better with it. But any such mechanics adds complexity to the game that is not needed for one round blast away the enemy showing how cool we are before continuing the story encounters. And my gut feeling is that it is this sort of encounters that is the bread and butter for the way most like to play...

I am not sure it is needed either, I understand wanting a climactic end fight, but that to me is more about encounter design and barely making it than trying to funnel chars to do things in a certain way to build to a climactic last round where they can use their superpowers.
It is climactic for barely making it, not for reversing the sequence in which events during the fight happen

 

[Enrahim2]

I am not sure it was designed as a dungeon crawler. It was a wargame at the level of individual units and the first adventures were dungeon crawlers, but that changed with Tracy Hickman at the latest, still during the 1e days.

Hi! I appriciate your long reply! You are presenting a couple of historical notes I feel like I should expand on to prevent confusion.

Some of the mechanics was taken from wargames, but from what I have heard about the designer's games they were very much dungeon crawls. Gygax is legendary for his dungeons, and it appear Arneson also was focusing heavily on that style around the inception of D&D (Reactions to OD&D: The Arnesonian Dungeon) The dmg focus on dungeons also should be a quite strong indicator. And maybe the strongest evidence that the game indeed has a strong design for that style is that those actively seeking out this style of play still flock to this ancient system despite decades of attempts of improving on it. On the flip side I have never heard of anyone going to D&D to experience a single figure wargame..

What the Hichman revolution did was making it more apparent that the game was more fun for most when not played the way it was designed to be played, and that was what most of my post was about

The char construction part to me was not so much design choice as a consequence of wanting to sell supplements, and arguably 2e did this more with all the Complete Handbook of X stuff

Yes, 2ed absolutely tried. But it was a weird experience, as the core system (essentially unchanged from the first publication) really weren't made for it. 3ed was designed from the ground up with this as a primary focus.

I think 4e is the first one where game design and what players wanted actually clashed, at least for a large enough percentage, others loved it for those changes

I think there was a clash before as well. The thing with 4ed was that that clash was so obvious, especially when contrasted with 3ed. I think a large part of 5eds runaway success is that it managed to identify and remove a lot of the stuff that clashed with the storytelling style of play from the editions before 4ed.

 

[mamba]

Some of the mechanics was taken from wargames, but from what I have heard about the designer's games they were very much dungeon crawls. Gygax is legendary for his dungeons, and it appear Arneson also was focusing heavily on that style around the inception of D&D

agreed, I just do not see it as designed for this purpose and see it more as a well supported play style.

It imo was just as suitable for what arrived with Hickman, it’s just not what the first adventures were about

The dmg focus on dungeons also should be a quite strong indicator. And maybe the strongest evidence that the game indeed has a strong design for that style is that those actively seeking out this style of play still flock to this ancient system despite decades of attempts of improving on it.

for its simplicity/ rules light approach and lethality, not because it does dungeons better than 5e (unless you like tracking rations, water and torches and consider it an essential part rather than a nuisance)

On the flip side I have never heard of anyone going to D&D to experience a single figure wargame..

don’t think there are many players for that to begin with

What the Hichman revolution did was making it more apparent that the game was more fun for most when not played the way it was designed to be played, and that was what most of my post was about

I guess we simply differ in emphasis here, I see it as as suited to that as dungeon crawls, so I do not see it as designed around dungeon crawls

I think a large part of 5eds runaway success is that it managed to identify and remove a lot of the stuff that clashed with the storytelling style of play from the editions before 4ed.

I see it more as a return to 2e and 3e and a repudiation of the 4e design principles

I guess you can say it cares less about resource tracking (by giving players powers that make this unnecessary / obsolete), which is a good thing in my book

 

[FallenRX]

That was 40 years ago.

Resource management was abandoned in the mid-80s in favor of scripted set-piece scenes that form a coherent pre-written story.

The situation that players throw out all their best abilities at the start of a fight and then go through less and less powerful and interesting option comes from the simple fact that they don't need to save anything for later and that they have the confidence that they can not lose the fight. If they play really poorly, the GM will fudge things so the pre-written story can continue as the script demands.

Everything is completely different when the PCs have to fight for their lives and also will have to fight their way back out of dangerous places. There is a tension and hesitance to use all your best powers at the start because you really might need them later. As the fight progresses and things don't look good, using the really powerful guns now instead of saving them for later becomes increasingly attractive and ultimately urgent. We won't be able to fight our way back up to the surface if we die right here and now.

The great majority of problem with D&D is that it stopped wanting to be a dungeon crawling game 40 years ago, but also always wanted to maintain the appearance of still being the same game.

"Resource management was abandoned in the mid-80s in favor of scripted set-piece scenes that form a coherent pre-written story."
Ah so leave resource management and meaningful strategic decision making on engaging with a environment and the mosnters in it for....Railroad, and scripted preset stories....also forced into big fights, since that is the only meaningful point of the game...

Oof.

 

[GrahamWills]

On adapting the Escalation dice from 13th Age to other D&D systems: The advice I've seen is that on the first round the players roll at -1, then each subsequent round their bonus goes up. For me, I'd prefer to see it a little more extreme and also -- I don't like penalizing players, even if it's mathematically the same as enhancing monsters. So my "anti-alpha-strike" suggestion would be:

First round: all monster defenses and saves are at +2
Second round, no modifiers
Third round, all player attack rolls and spell save DCs are +1,
4th round, all player attack rolls and spell save DCs are +2,
... up to a max of +4

I've run a lot of 4E campaigns and also played in them to know that alpha-striking really does take away the fun, even for the players. We abandoned one epic level game because we established an optimum strategy that rarely failed; Rogue with huge movement speed does path of the blade (4 attacks) with a couple of feats allowing him to shift monsters when hit, action points to recover the ability and does it again. Warlord takes their turn and gets him to do the same thing twice more for 16 total attacks with daggermaster crits. Whatever is left has been pushed 3-4 spaces around the field and is ready for a caster to area burst into death.

It was fun the first few times, but then it wasn't. The OPs concern is real -- you do need to find a way to make alpha strikes a good option rather than a no-brainer. If I had to path of the blade at -2 effectively, i might wait a bit and try something else first ...

 

[Blue]

I looked that one up now. It is very simple, so it would fit easily into 5e evennwithkut change.
For my taste a little to simple, but I will try it out and see how it feels.

Ran a several year 13th Age campaign, Escalation die works great. First round it doesn't exist, comes out at the start of 2nd. We had a nice huge d6 and went form there.

Now, the monster math for 13th Age starts biased towards the monsters. And saves are 4e style where it's hitting a Save DC, so they are also affected. In D&D you would make that all monster AC and Saves (including not listed ones) are around +2 higher. So PCs effectively start at -2 and end at +4.

This also avoids grinds - when combat wear on the PCs get more effective at mopping up the last foes standing.

13th Age also uses the mechanic in other ways. Some monster abilities aren't usable except when the Escalation die has reached a certain number, or is odd, or whatever. These enhance usage even more, but aren't necessary for the basics. There's one or two creatures that also steal energy or whatever that can inhibit the Escalation Die from advancing. Really scary.

Oh, a very few foes get to add the escalation die as well - dragons, likely your BBEG. When they meet them, players panic. From experience.

 

[Arilyn]

And devils use the escalation die in tricky and annoying ways. Really scary!

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

@M_Natas, one system that achieves something close to what you want and can be added to 5e fairly simply is the the bloodied condition from 4e. In fact, this is already implemented in A5e (LevelUp).

Basically at 1/2 hit points you have the bloodied condition. The condition doesn’t do anything itself, but PC and monster traits and abilities trigger when you or a creature are/is bloodied. So halfway through the battle there is a (or can be) dramatic shift in the battle.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I am not sure it was designed as a dungeon crawler. It was a wargame at the level of individual units and the first adventures were dungeon crawlers, but that changed with Tracy Hickman at the latest, still during the 1e days.

It supported dungeon crawling, but I am not sure that was the design focus. I am not even sure I would call 1e designed. To me 3e was the first actually designed version, the ones before were organically evolved / mutated / hacked together more than designed.

1e had so much... cruft and weirdness in it that it was easy to miss the dungeon-crawl pieces.
I think if you started with B/X, it was hard not to see the Dungeon-crawling front and center.