D&D (2024) Survey Launch | Player's Handbook Playtest 5 | Unearthed Arcana | D&D

[Asisreo]

I don't think its the resolution of the effects that are the most time consuming, barring very complex effects, but I think the biggest form of time-loss, especially the unfun kind, is making the decision in the first place.

A wizard that really knows their spells and know their rulings like the back of their hands can make pretty snap decisions even when things change just before their turn. But a wizard that doesn't know their spells very well or get common rulings wrong alot can slow down play.

A fighter has way less decision points in combat, and their decisions don't need to take much into consideration.

If a wizard is fighting against a dumb ogre, they might want to target intelligence saves or wisdom saves. Likewise, if they're fighting a fellow caster, they might want to go for constitution or dexterity.

A fighter will fight relatively the same way regardless of what their enemy looks/acts/seem like and the stats of the enemy matter much less.

 

[mellored]

Can you explain how a fireball affecting 4 targets takes significantly less time to resolve than 4 melee attacks? Is it the 3 extra damage rolls?

That
and retargeting after each attack
and the fact that fireball doesn't target 4 every round
And action surge.

Not including masteries.
Or haste.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Can you explain how a fireball affecting 4 targets takes significantly less time to resolve than 4 melee attacks? Is it the 3 extra damage rolls?

Sure. GM rolls 4 d20s, sees who passes and fails, wizard is rolling damage already, says total, DM jots that down (or half the number) next to each enemy.

4 melee attacks requires more call and response between DM and player, often 2 or 3 decisions regarding who to attack and what class or subclass features to use or not, etc, but even just the attacks themselves assuming no secondary choices takes a little less time than each save, while the damage part takes just as long but is done more times.

And again, my point is that increasing the complexity of each of the fighter’s attacks will be noticed. It’s not a nothing add.

And the mastery system means that eventually all fighters have to make choices for each attack regarding which mastery to use. Adding even more to that, for all martials, would be adding complexity to every attack, as if fireball required individual damage rolls and a secondary save for each target.

 

[Incenjucar]

That
and retargeting after each attack
and the fact that fireball doesn't target 4 every round
And action surge.

Not including masteries.
Or haste.

I mean we can use other spells like Eldritch Blast or combinations of spells if you want to start complicating things with additional effects. I'm just trying to figure out a baseline here.

So retargeting and rolling extra damage?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That
and retargeting after each attack
and the fact that fireball doesn't target 4 every round
And action surge.

Not including masteries.
Or haste

Subclass/feat features, etc. it can be very quick, and it can be very not.

 

[tetrasodium]

Can you explain how a fireball affecting 4 targets takes significantly less time to resolve than 4 melee attacks? Is it the 3 extra damage rolls?

caster says "I'm going to fireball this area". GM picks up a handful of d20's with one for each monster & tosses them down. GM looks at the d20's & says these ones pass these ones fail while the caster is rolling the damage dice they already had set aside. Meanwhile every single turn from the fighter looks similar to this one from Alice.

 

[Mistwell]

I don’t understand how you could need more time to resolve fireball. Saves take trivial time, as does rolling damage.

For us it's usually lining up the position to avoid some things and hit other things It can take forever.

 

[Mistwell]

caster says "I'm going to fireball this area". GM picks up a handful of d20's with one for each monster & tosses them down. GM looks at the d20's & says these ones pass these ones fail while the caster is rolling the damage dice they already had set aside. Meanwhile every single turn from the fighter looks similar to this one from Alice.

It almost never plays out like that for us. It's almost always a long discussion about whether you can hit three or four targets, not hit allies, not burn up the papers on that desk in the process, etc..

And then the 25% of the time where the answer is "Yes you will hit an ally or that thing you didn't want to burn up" the caster says OK nevermind I will pick another spell. And MORE time is wasted waiting around for that.

Meanwhile the fighter runs in, hits the same target over and over until it goes down, and bobs your uncle.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It almost never plays out like that for us. It's almost always a long discussion about whether you can hit three or four targets, not hit allies, not burn up the papers on that desk in the process, etc..

And then the 25% of the time where the answer is "Yes you will hit an ally or that thing you didn't want to burn up" the caster says OK nevermind I will pick another spell. And MORE time is wasted waiting around for that.

Meanwhile the fighter runs in, hits the same target over and over until it goes down, and bobs your uncle.

Man it’s been years since I’ve had a fighter player like that.

But it illustrates another point. That player probably doesn’t want round by round choices added to their fighter character.

 

[Incenjucar]

Thanks for the replies! It's interesting, and seems like for at least some tables and builds, the fighter's concept of being simple (at least in combat) ended up failing?