D&D General Why are we fighting?

[Minigiant]

I wonder if monsters would run someone through if they get downed….

Like on a medieval battlefield, would you deliver a killing blow or let the enemy crawl away to engage someone else?

I am thinking you would deal a killing blow unless someone else was bearing down on you. If we play monsters that way, still no thrill? If getting downed = death I am not seeing how things would be boring

I think the base assumption in D&D is that if the fight isn't almost lost for one side, then someone is always bearing down on you.

So you'd only deal killing blows on nonthreats unless they could become threats again, you hve no better options, or you are being vindictive.

Now because down isn't automatically death and healing is easy in 5e, intelligent enemies would see any downed PC as still a threat.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don’t think so. I’m looking for narrative and mechanical solutions to narrative and mechanical problems.

Honestly I feel like most of 5E's problems in the area you're describing could be solved with:

1) Lower monster HP by like 25-33%.

2) Up monster damage by like 10-20%.

3) Make in-combat-usable healing spells heal for like +100% more but also eat an HD each time a target gets healed.

4) Bring back morale checks in some form (Worlds Without Number has a good approach IIRC) to prevent most fights dragging on. Hell take a leaf out of Warhammer's book and have Undead begin to "disintegrate" if they're losing too.

 

[overgeeked]

I wonder if monsters would run someone through if they get downed….

Like on a medieval battlefield, would you deliver a killing blow or let the enemy crawl away to engage someone else?

I am thinking you would deal a killing blow unless someone else was bearing down on you. If we play monsters that way, still no thrill? If getting downed = death I am not seeing how things would be boring

Do that and give a lot of monsters disengage so they can keep the battle moving around and you kinda solve two tangential problems.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The issue with hit points is, focus fire is always going to be the best option in D&D combat, because its the fastest way to reduce the threat. If, for example, PC-like NPCs had reasonable hit points, the PCs would just pick one and tear them to pieces in round 1.

I find that melee NPCs need enough defences (including hitpoints ) that they can act at least once even under focus fire. You have to at least match the action economy of the party for at least a round and remain in touch for another.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The issue with hit points is, focus fire is always going to be the best option in D&D combat, because its the fastest way to reduce the threat. If, for example, PC-like NPCs had reasonable hit points, the PCs would just pick one and tear them to pieces in round 1.

That's not a problem.

You just have more of them if that seems like a problem. You can only focus fire so many people so fast.

You create a problem by going the opposite way, because then every enemy becomes a dumb giant bag of HP.

From a wider perspective, every single game I've ever played, TTRPG or video game, which actually had interesting combat, "normal" monster could get focused-fired extremely rapidly, because this allows them to also have interesting/dangerous abilities and appear in numbers.

Whereas tons of the most boring, annoying, and eye-roll-inducing games I've played featured enemies who were giant bags of HP, esp. as it requires them to be fairly ineffectual because otherwise they're OP. There's literally no inherent virtue in a monster surviving multiple rounds.

 

[Minigiant]

4) Bring back morale checks in some form (Worlds Without Number has a good approach IIRC) to prevent most fights dragging on. Hell take a leaf out of Warhammer's book and have Undead begin to "disintegrate" if they're losing too.

Native mortals waver then rout
Undead crumble then disintegrate
Constructs depower then shut down
Extraplanar outsiders destabilize then are banished

 

[Argyle King]

Again, I'm not seeing this.

A party between 5th and 10th generally does about 25 hp/PC/round. Give or take. Meaning that you can pace your encounters pretty easily. By 11th level, that increases to about 35 hp/PC/round. Again, if you have 5 PC's, then they're doing about 150 points of damage per round. Again, combats shouldn't be lasting much more than 3-4 rounds.

Which is where the problem with morale and running away comes in. If combat ends after 3 or 4 rounds, there's almost no time between failing morale and all dead.

For me, what I've seen is that higher level 5e combat tends to have 2 modes: either 4E bags of HP in which the players already know they've won or 3E rocket tag (depending on whether the players have the right items to face something).

The most egregious example I've anecdotally seen of this was Curse of Strahd during the few times I played through it in Adventurer's League. Strahd himself was a cakewalk, but the jackal-headed demon in an earlier encounter nearly TPKed the party in the first round. This was the case in multiple groups.

Maybe some of the newer products have adjusted this. I honestly can't say because I haven't played much of the new stuff.

FWIW, levels 5-10 aren't what I consider to be higher level.

Overall, it's my opinion that some core design choices for 5E could have been done differently, so as to facilitate a combat experience which is less dry.

I think it's great that 5e tried to incorporate pieces of all the previous editions. I'm just not sure that I understand (or agree with) the pieces which were chosen or not chosen. I'm not even entirely sure that I understand how those choices were made.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Native mortals waver then rout
Undead crumble then disintegrate
Constructs depower then shut down
Extraplanar outsiders destabilize then are banished

I like this a lot.

 

[Tonguez]

I’ve been using 5-room dungeons and since Lair Actions were introduced, I've been thinking that encounters should be designed as Lairs, albeit that certain lairs might just be a decorative hallway with the objective of “get to the exit”.
As lairs the monster is just one tool the DM has to block the PCs reaching the goal alongside terrain features, skill checks, diversions, monsters, traps and puzzles. The challenge is achieving the rooms objective rather than being momster focussed

 

[Andvari]

Both of those point straight at the underlying problem: allowing turn-based combat rules to overwrite realism.

Particularly in the second example. Realistically, if a PC takes the time to make an attack of opportunity that PC is then left behind by the fleeing foe and - assuming speeds and stamina are equal - the foe can never be caught as it'll have about a five-foot lead.

The combat rules are for resolving combat and use a turn-based system for the sake of sanity. So we shouldn't be too surprised when they don't resolve other situations well. I don't know if the 5E DMG suggests when to move from combat rules to evasion rules, but it would probably be helpful to DMs if it did.

Anyway, I have been thinking a bit on codifying simple evasion rules for my Pathfinder 2E game. Evasion is 2 steps while transitioning from combat to evasion is 2 additional steps.

Moving from Combat to Evasion
1. Combatants who have reached the edge of the combat area (determined by the GM), can, on their next turn, declare to flee, leaving combat.
2. Combatants near the escape route can, on their turn, choose to pursue, also leaving combat.

Evasion
1. Pursuers make Athletics checks against the Athletics DCs of evaders they are chasing.
Pursuers can close to melee range and take an action against an evader whose DC they succeeded against. Evaders are flat-footed to pursuers.
2. Pursuers make Fortitude saves against the Fortitude DCs of evaders still able to escape.
Evaders fail to escape pursuers who succeed.
Evaders whose Fortitude DCs were not beaten escape.

Bonuses and penalties can be applied to checks depending on various factors, such as speed differences between pursuers and fleeing creatures, distance between the parties when chasing starts, or clever moves on either part. If moving through an area full of obstacles, Acrobatics might be used instead of Athletics, etc. Creatures in combat may also still be able to make ranged attacks against fleeing creatures, depending on distance and line of sight. If a pursuer takes the Grapple action or otherwise immobilizes a fleeing creature, I would start a separate combat between those two. Any other pursuers automatically catch up. You could also add in critical successes and failures - such as perhaps two actions allowed on a successful Athletics check.