D&D 5E "When DMing I Avoid Making the PCs have 'pointless' combats." (a poll)

[Tonguez]

Im taking pointless to be ‘off theme’ in as much as it doesnt fit the overall plot and setting beats being established. eg if the adventure is exploring a haunted castle in the dark forest PCs wont suddenly get attacked by a Yrthak for instance - of course a Yrthak might get reskinned as a giant hell bat which serves as the Vampire lords mount)

I’ve taken to using Fronts for random encounters, so I get to have a thematic list to draw on which, though they are still rolled as random, also get to shift the setting landscape somehow

 

[TheSword]

Combats that don’t feature some form of jeopardy are pointless. If the foes can’t hurt you in any meaningful way the combat is one sided and pointless.

Fights can certainly be uneven but if they are little more than a sparring match or the equivalent of a parent taking a plastic sword off a child then they aren’t doing what I want combat to do.

If you want folks to find out about a zombie as a clue, then roleplay it. There’s no need to roll initiative. That’s tedious, time consuming and uneccessary.

 

[Charlaquin]

Combats that don’t feature some form of jeopardy are pointless. If the foes can’t hurt you in any meaningful way the combat is one sided and pointless.

But unless they only have one combat between long rests, any harm done (or resource expended) is meaningful because it makes the next one that much harder.

 

[TheSword]

But unless they only have one combat between long rests, any harm done (or resource expended) is meaningful because it makes the next one that much harder.

Not if that resource is renewable, or negligible.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It boils down to what "pointless" means. I don't have pointless combats, but the "point" may only be to act as a spacer in the flow of the narrative.

Combats that don’t feature some form of jeopardy are pointless. If the foes can’t hurt you in any meaningful way the combat is one sided and pointless.

That would be most fights then.

 

[TheSword]

It boils down to what "pointless" means. I don't have pointless combats, but the "point" may only be to act as a spacer in the flow of the narrative.

That would be most fights then.

Yeah. Unfortunately I’m feeling that with 5e more and more. I really don’t have an answer.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not if that resource is renewable, or negligible.

It being renewable only matters if you can renew it before the next combat. Not sure what resource you can expend in combat that’s negligible.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah. Unfortunately I’m feeling that with 5e more and more. I really don’t have an answer.

Look for a "point" that isn't "jeopardy".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not sure what resource you can expend in combat that’s negligible.

Anything that can be recovered by resting.

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't this really cash out as "true" though? You choose to play by rules which make it so there is no such thing as a pointless combat. Therefore, you DO avoid having pointless combats. You just make the choice earlier in the process, at the level of choosing the rules to play by, rather than at the level of crafting the combats themselves.

Perhaps; but if one defines pointless (or not) as whether a combat advances the story (or not), as many seem to, then in my case the statement is and remains false: I do not specifically avoid non-story-advancing combats.