D&D 5E Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a forum issue. (In my opinion)

[GMforPowergamers]

While they've added more and more non-combat rules, they've also added more and more combat rules. The number of combat rules has vastly increased and the non-combat ones have increased slightly.

I never thought about it that way...

The percentage of combat rules has actually increased with the more recent editions.

I'm not sure that's true... but for the sake of argument I will say maybe...

I know that the amount of time spent on combat has increased over the editions. We finished combats in 5-20 minutes in 2e. It takes 60-90 minutes to finish a combat in 3e or 4e.

3e were the quickest combats we ever saw... we had 5-20 min average in 2e as well and 60ish sounds right for most of 4e... but I think we had a lot more less then 5 min fights in 3e then more then 60 in every edition combined...

3e had a lot of fights end before everyone took there first turn (witch almost never happened in 2e and only happened 5 fights in 4e...and those were in a row...)

To me, that shows an increase in the focus of combat since now it takes up more of a session to run a combat and you spend more of your time dealing with combat.

My group found because fights took so long we tried to avoid them more... much less likely to pick fights and much more likely to try to find away around it.

Also, when people make up characters they spend more time thinking of how their character will perform in combat than they did in ages past. When I made up a 2e character, my thought was "Ok, I'm a fighter, I'm going to use a longsword in battle." In 4e, I have to pick the right combat feats, the right powers to have the best synergy with one another and the right weapon to qualify for the powers and feats I want. If I'm higher level, I have to choose appropriate magic items that synergize with my feat and power selections.

I agree between 2e and 4e... but that mostly started in 3e for us... hell those annoying 'builds' that people would plan 10 levels ahead for started for us right around 3.5... "Well I want X and Y feats and both have prereeq feats and stats and then I want this prestige class..."

4e saw again less then 3e with less multi classing we had a lot of "oh I want X epic destiny, but there was no building to it... just het the level.

That's kind of my point, but condensing it to easy and quick rules and taking up half the space, you are losing rules. By making them simpler, you are likely reducing the focus and detail of combat. One will have to be sacrificed for the other.

I think in some ways simpler more condensed rules can be better for combat... we will have to just agree to disagree...

But we're already had a year long playtest of rules that I like. We don't need another year of playtests on another set of rules with more non-combat content. Nor could WOTC survive another year without putting out a product.

well first if WotC took 5 years off D&D I bet they could live off novel, board game, and misc (like those pdf sale and ddi) for a while just making very little profit... and if you recoupled it they could do so for ever because magic brings in more then you could ever dream D&D could...

Yes, and it prevented new players from buying them. WOTC has said explicitly that the reason they separated the classes in the Essentials books into 2 books is to keep the page count down and therefore the price.

I will say what I said back when 5e playtest started... you need a more basic book. a soft cover player's guide with 4 classes and 3 races basic equipment and rules only... then the big advanced players guide and DMG

It's the number one reason I have heard given to me when new players come up to me at games days and say "I'd like to play, but I can't afford 40 dollars for a book, is there something cheaper I can buy?" Those are people who don't even want a MM or DMG they just want to know the rules so they can show up for things like D&D Encounters and Living Forgotten Realms.

My FLGS that ran both encounters and LFR had 3 or 4 of us with all the books, two of us with laptops for character builders... no newbe needed to buy anything... so I don't know I never heard that. I don't doubt you just not what I'm used too.

There's no way to prove this. You'd have to have the ability to know every game of D&D that was happening everywhere and film it all. Since that's impossible, I can only guess.

yup my point.

However, I do have a vast amount of experience with D&D.

me too

Way more than most people do.

um back to unknowable...

This has a lot to do with the fact that I've traveled extensively and played D&D with people everywhere I've traveled.

ok I know a lot of people that's true for...

I specifically go to conventions and lived for a year in another country and had to make all new D&D friends there.

when we started back in high school it was just 5 or 6 of us and 3 of them were brothers... my freshmen year of college we opened a RP club at the college and meet a lot of people that was true for... in fact I think that your 'credentials' makes you only slightly above average...

However, it's been my experience that in terms of pure time using the rules, the combat rules are always used the most. A large number of people run dungeon crawls almost exclusively.

wow, I have been to at least 7 Cons(most more then 3 times) I have been to Gen Con 8 times since my first trip in 2000 I have played and run in 3 states not counting Cons, and I found Most people HATE dungeon crawls in less it is only a one off...

When an adventure consists of "You open the door, there are 12 orcs, roll for initiative." there are very few other rules used ever.

before I posted I called the 3 players I know who have played with the most number of people... none of us think that as the 'average' experience...

My friend Chris was in the Military for ever... he was in Germany playing D&D in the 90's and in Africa at the turn of the century. I meet him in 2004 He now lives here in the states and is retired but works for a government contractor... he travels all over the world some times for months at a time... he has played in 5 different countries and every time zone in the US... he is one of those 3 players I checked with...

Skill Tricks seemed like a good idea at the time. However, most of the skill tricks were still combat oriented or more useful in combat than they were outside of combat. "Demoralize multiple foes in combat simultaneously" and "Successful feint allows you to avoid attacks of opportunity" certainly aren't non-combat abilities.

well the best system are things that can be both... let me have my choice...

Same with Utility powers. The average one gives you temporary hitpoints, lets you shift 10 squares to avoid OAs, or heals an ally. None of which are non-combat abilities.

yea it felt like all the fighter ones were like that...one of my complaints... until we got skill powers and themes to make up for it...

Non-combat abilities are things like "You can stay at inns for free", "You are always given an invitation to the ball if you are in town", and "You can use the resources of the thieves guild in any city you go to". There have been nearly none of these abilities in any edition of D&D. I'm glad D&D Next has a couple of these, but I'd hope not to go too much further in that direction.

Non combat abilities can also be hide in plain sight, and fast talking, and find information, and stiring speech.

And I'm glad for that. D&D went too far in that direction. I've been playing D&D Next for over a year now. When you said "more noncombat" I assumed you meant starting with D&D Next as the baseline then going further to the non-combat side.

I want just a bit more then it has now... but I agree 5e is shapeing up nice right now...

 

[Marshall]

Honestly, I think the difference is rather semantic. Primarily about combat is pretty much the same as being about combat. Since his post was pretty much just an agreement with mine, to the point where he used my example of dancing in football, I can say that I don't think it matters if it is just primarily or completely about combat. It is still about combat.

Except that all of Mistwells points are still correct. No one has ever claimed that D&D is only about combat.

Are there other aspects to the game? For sure. Just like there are other aspects to football other than just scoring. You sometimes need to worry about the cost of jerseys and recruiting the right people to play on the team. Those are aspects of football and important. However, when most people think about football, it is primarily a game about a team attempting to get a ball across a line. You can have fun playing football without ever scoring a point. Heck, you can forfeit every game by never showing up and simply enjoy dressing up in jerseys and calling yourself a football team.

Are you doing it wrong? Well, I'm sure some hardcore football fans would say absolutely yes. Those who are less competitive or simply don't care that much would say that you can do whatever you want to do, it's your team. If you're having fun who is anyone else to tell you what to do?

Yes, you are doing it wrong. Or more accurately, you arent doing what you say you are doing. If you're just dressing up and calling yourself a football team, you're not a football team. You're a costume party. If you're lining up and running plays in on a field, you're trying to score a point(as an aside, you're terminology isnt clear on which 'football' you're referring to). Whether you care what the outcome of the game is is irrelevant to you actually playing the game.

Back to the point of D&D, You cant play D&D without combat. Period. End of Story. If there is no combat or threat of combat, there is no D&D going on. Eventually, you're going to have combat. The best you can do avoiding combat is to hire proxies to do it for you(then why arent you playing the proxies?) and end up a group of Elminster like NPCs running the world from the background.

Again, there is no such thing as a non-combat class. Even 3e commoners get BAB and HD. Aside from that, when the Orcs raid the village they dont look at the commoner and say "You're a non-combat character. Move along." The same goes for the Buffing Rogue and Healing Druid listed earlier in the thread. You can pretend you dont participate in combat, but the Zombies will still eat your brains.
Those NPC clerics that are pillars of their community that go around blessing babies and casting CLW and Cure Disease all day? They still all have Heavy Armor Prof and swing a mean Mace.

Bringing up Wallflowers and Method Actors as examples of those that dont want to participate in combat doesnt actually prove or disprove anything. Wallflowers dont care if their PC is ineffective, true. They also dont care if their PC is effective. Creating what are effectively trap options for PCs that do want effective characters doesnt improve the system. Method Actors want to act out a role, having their acting actually be representative of what their character can do, and actually giving them some guidance on what that is, should improve their enjoyment of the game.

The core game, I agree IS about combat.

ahem, sorry for using you're post to rant at....

 

[Marshall]

I think I'm going crazy....

OK, WHY IN THE HECK WOULD IT MEAN THAT?????

A game can care about combat balance, and a system of judging how difficult monsters are and have interesting things for people to do in combat AND have a system to judge how social interactions work and have interesting things for people to do outside of combat...

Its more that there seems to be a consensus that having good combat rules precludes good roleplaying. From experience, its more a time constraint in game than a rules constraint, but thats the perception.

I agree that we should have both. At least try for both.

WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK IT HAS TO BE ONE OR THE OTHER?? WHY NOT BOTH?!?!?!?!?

In 4e we have 4 combat roles, Striker, Leader, Defender, Controller it defines what type of cool things you do. What if they weren't linked to class directly... I could play a Rogue Controller or a Fighter Leader or a Wizard Striker... Now imagine we had backgrounds and themes to do more social and interactive things...

Because you get more options and better class design with a tight theme as to what you're trying to do. Basically what you're saying above is to just rename the "power sources" in 4e Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Rogue and make all the various classes under them into sub-classes focused on a Role....Oh, wait. Thats what they are trying to get away with in 5e without having to use the 4e terminology...and doing a poor job of it.

 

[the Jester]

Because there simply is not enough time and resources to do both.

Why not? Says who?

As for time, how long has 5e been in development, and just how long do you think it would take to create a good set of exploration and interaction rules? As as for resources, just how many pages are you thinking we need for good interaction and exploration systems? Are you thinking they are going to be hand-inked with liquid gold or something? How can there not be enough resources? I'm not even sure what that means.

The 5e designer have said, over and over, that they're taking their sweet time and making sure that they get it right. They've also said that the public playtest ended early, which means that they expected it was going to be a longer process overall. So I think that we have a fair amount of evidence putting your "not enough time" assertion, at least, in doubt.

I'm prepared to say the same. If you are using D&D for a game of which combat is a minor part, almost incidental, then you are using the wrong set of rules for that game. You can do it, but there are better rules sets. You could use D&D for large scale combats too, with hundreds or thousands of participants; but again it would be a very bad set of rules for doing that.

It's all a matter of taste. There is no one true way to play D&D. Low (or even almost no) combat campaigns exist and run just fine. The point of the game is to have fun, so if they're having fun, they are certainly not using the "wrong" set of rules for the game. The systems people enjoy are, simply put, a matter of taste, not objective fact.

That said, are there rules that might serve e.g. mass combat needs better? Sure. But if the group hates them and their D&D leads to armies, it isn't doing it wrong- it's just doing it the way they want.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

3e were the quickest combats we ever saw... we had 5-20 min average in 2e as well and 60ish sounds right for most of 4e... but I think we had a lot more less then 5 min fights in 3e then more then 60 in every edition combined...

Honestly, I have NO idea how that is even possible. It takes us longer than 5 minutes in 3e to roll for initiative(after all, you needed to set up the minis on the battle map, the DM had to draw the room, put down all the monsters, describe the monsters, deal with monster knowledge rolls, roll for initiative for each monster, looking up their individual modifiers. Then you'd need to ask every player for their initiative and write them down. If you were using a magnetic init board, you'd need to reorder the participants in order of initiative to make it easier to run the rest of the fight.)

I can only assume you fought combats with an EL way below your level or you only played low level games. We had one character who was a Whirling Dervish who took nearly 10 minutes to play his turn alone(I attack with my first attack, I power attack for....let's go with 3. It is my primary weapon, I currently have Greater Magic Weapon on it so it's now a +4 weapon, also the Bless bonus, and...yes, I have flanking from my current position so that makes my bonus...+17, that means I get a 34 to hit. That hits? Alright that means I do 1d8+12 +6 for the power attack, +4 for the Bard song, +1 for Prayer, ok, that's 22 points of damage. I then move to here, which means I have to Tumble past 3 enemies. Watch me make my 3 tumble checks: 22, 17, 18. Those all make it. Now my second of 5 attacks...)

3e had a lot of fights end before everyone took there first turn (witch almost never happened in 2e and only happened 5 fights in 4e...and those were in a row...)

I agree. However, rounds took less time in 4e and in 2e. An average round in 3e takes 30 minutes. So battles that are over in a round still take 30-40 minutes. Trust me, I ran Living Greyhawk for years. I'd run 3-5 5-hour long adventures per week. You could time them like clockwork: 3 battles at an hour long each with 2 hours of roleplaying in between. We'd finish at the 5 hour mark almost always. Battles vary, but when you had 3 battles in an adventure, they'd almost always average out to an hour.

My group found because fights took so long we tried to avoid them more... much less likely to pick fights and much more likely to try to find away around it.

That certainly didn't happen to me. Most battles were unavoidable. They were monsters that guarded the treasure the PCs wanted or were in a hallway that they needed to walk through. The couple that could be avoided the PCs wouldn't avoid. They wanted the XP and according to the rules you need to defeat the enemies to get XP. Plus, what was the point in having all these cool combat moves if they couldn't show them off?

I agree between 2e and 4e... but that mostly started in 3e for us... hell those annoying 'builds' that people would plan 10 levels ahead for started for us right around 3.5... "Well I want X and Y feats and both have prereeq feats and stats and then I want this prestige class..."

4e saw again less then 3e with less multi classing we had a lot of "oh I want X epic destiny, but there was no building to it... just het the level.

Yep, glad to see the end of "builds"

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Honestly, I have NO idea how that is even possible. It takes us longer than 5 minutes in 3e to roll for initiative(after all, you needed to set up the minis on the battle map, the DM had to draw the room, put down all the monsters, describe the monsters, deal with monster knowledge rolls, roll for initiative for each monster, looking up their individual modifiers. Then you'd need to ask every player for their initiative and write them down. If you were using a magnetic init board, you'd need to reorder the participants in order of initiative to make it easier to run the rest of the fight.)

Including this, yes, this lengthens even curbstomp battles.

I can only assume you fought combats with an EL way below your level or you only played low level games.

I disagree. You can sometimes end an encounter with a single spell, although that usually requires poor saving throw rolls on the part of the enemy. You could also do this with high damage optimization for martial characters (eg cheesy archer build, cheesy rage-pounce-barbarian build in Pathfinder, etc).

Poorly-designed encounters make this easier. A single very powerful monster can be dropped by a single spell, even with SR and high saving throws, if it rolls badly on a save. (Or even not badly, because cheesy high save DCs are quite possible.) This is extremely unlikely in 4e, if only because solos are always at least somewhat lockdown-resistant (but often don't have enough of this).

We had one character who was a Whirling Dervish who took nearly 10 minutes to play his turn alone(I attack with my first attack, I power attack for....let's go with 3. It is my primary weapon, I currently have Greater Magic Weapon on it so it's now a +4 weapon, also the Bless bonus, and...yes, I have flanking from my current position so that makes my bonus...+17, that means I get a 34 to hit. That hits? Alright that means I do 1d8+12 +6 for the power attack, +4 for the Bard song, +1 for Prayer, ok, that's 22 points of damage. I then move to here, which means I have to Tumble past 3 enemies. Watch me make my 3 tumble checks: 22, 17, 18. Those all make it. Now my second of 5 attacks...)

You have two things going on there:

1) A time-consuming PC. A druid that summoned stuff would take even more time, but this guy gets to move and take full attacks.

2) The player didn't seem to be that good with the math. Also, I'm pretty sure you need to declare Power Attack before making any attacks, and it applies to all. I use a paper character sheet and simply note down temporary modifiers (eg Greater Magic Weapon) but I don't think electronic character sheets are capable of this, and some of my players don't even use scrap paper or bring pencils to the game. Needless to say, that will make the game take longer.

I'm actually pretty bad at math, but with a few weeks' practice I now roll the attack and damage dice simultaneously. That's a bit of a bigger issue in 3e with iterative attacks. (My last Pathfinder character was a druid, and all attacks had the same attack bonus when wildshaped. I took feats to ensure this so I wouldn't slow down the game.)

I agree. However, rounds took less time in 4e and in 2e. An average round in 3e takes 30 minutes. So battles that are over in a round still take 30-40 minutes. Trust me, I ran Living Greyhawk for years. I'd run 3-5 5-hour long adventures per week. You could time them like clockwork: 3 battles at an hour long each with 2 hours of roleplaying in between. We'd finish at the 5 hour mark almost always. Battles vary, but when you had 3 battles in an adventure, they'd almost always average out to an hour.


That certainly didn't happen to me. Most battles were unavoidable. They were monsters that guarded the treasure the PCs wanted or were in a hallway that they needed to walk through. The couple that could be avoided the PCs wouldn't avoid. They wanted the XP and according to the rules you need to defeat the enemies to get XP. Plus, what was the point in having all these cool combat moves if they couldn't show them off?

I believe the rules say you get XP for defeating the encounter. If the encounter was to get loot, and you sneaked past the guards and got the loot, you should get full XP. On the other hand, if the point of the encounter was to kill something, and you avoided that, you shouldn't get the XP. I don't think it's rules that promote killing, it's the plot.

And yes, many players, myself included, like combat and so won't avoid encounters unless fighting is both mechanically and plotly (a real word, honest!) a bad idea.

Yep, glad to see the end of "builds"

4e has builds. Any game where you gain levels (or equivalent) and have the ability to choose what you gain from those levels have builds. Never mind prestige classes, as soon as feats were introduced into 3rd Edition playtest, builds arose.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Honestly, I have NO idea how that is even possible. It takes us longer than 5 minutes in 3e to roll for initiative(after all, you needed to set up the minis on the battle map, the DM had to draw the room, put down all the monsters, describe the monsters, deal with monster knowledge rolls, roll for initiative for each monster, looking up their individual modifiers. Then you'd need to ask every player for their initiative and write them down. If you were using a magnetic init board, you'd need to reorder the participants in order of initiative to make it easier to run the rest of the fight.)

well it sounds like you did a lot of things we didn't... no minis were used until the last 6 months of 3.5... so no battle map no minis, just DM describe and say Roll intiative... then I would lay my D20's out with the modified number (at higher level 2d10 for numbers of 20) then I would say "Anyone before my XX" and if so we would jot down (sometimes me sometimes another PC doing it) then they would tak there action... set up and roll less then a minute most of the time...

I can only assume you fought combats with an EL way below your level or you only played low level games.

we used to throw CR 15's at single digget level parties... we almost never did low EL...

We had one character who was a Whirling Dervish who took nearly 10 minutes to play his turn alone(I attack with my first attack, I power attack for....let's go with 3. It is my primary weapon, I currently have Greater Magic Weapon on it so it's now a +4 weapon, also the Bless bonus, and...yes, I have flanking from my current position so that makes my bonus...+17, that means I get a 34 to hit. That hits? Alright that means I do 1d8+12 +6 for the power attack, +4 for the Bard song, +1 for Prayer, ok, that's 22 points of damage. I then move to here, which means I have to Tumble past 3 enemies. Watch me make my 3 tumble checks: 22, 17, 18. Those all make it. Now my second of 5 attacks...)

wow our devish normaly was more of I roll X +y hit Z didthat hit? yes, ok my damage was XXX, I move and tumble past and made the DC, then rolled X +y hit z did that hit? way under tne minets... did you guys really call every bonus every time? Most times we just called I hit an X....

I agree. However, rounds took less time in 4e and in 2e. An average round in 3e takes 30 minutes. So battles that are over in a round still take 30-40 minutes. Trust me, I ran Living Greyhawk for years. I'd run 3-5 5-hour long adventures per week. You could time them like clockwork: 3 battles at an hour long each with 2 hours of roleplaying in between. We'd finish at the 5 hour mark almost always. Battles vary, but when you had 3 battles in an adventure, they'd almost always average out to an hour.

I don't belive anyone with any experience with there characters takes so long...

That certainly didn't happen to me. Most battles were unavoidable.

In all my years role playing I've only found a few dozen unavoidable encounters...ever

They were monsters that guarded the treasure the PCs wanted or were in a hallway that they needed to walk through.

if all that is there is treasure, most of the time you could either curb stomp them or trick them or negotiate with them or sneak past them or anything else... if it is only money do those monsters really want to throw there lives away? DO the PCs?

The couple that could be avoided the PCs wouldn't avoid. They wanted the XP and according to the rules you need to defeat the enemies to get XP.

I've so very rarely heard someone say that... I mean you get XP or not, do you guys go looking for fights just for money and XP??? that sounds like the worst Murder hobo jokes???

Plus, what was the point in having all these cool combat moves if they couldn't show them off?

when you need them they are there...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

4e has builds. Any game where you gain levels (or equivalent) and have the ability to choose what you gain from those levels have builds. Never mind prestige classes, as soon as feats were introduced into 3rd Edition playtest, builds arose.

It's not that there are or are not builds, it's how involved they are...

in 2e you could play a fighter and say "Ill take bladesx3 then specialize at level 1 and master at level X and high master at level Y and Grand master at level z"

in 3e you could say "I'll pick power attack and expertise both at level 1 and cleave at 2nd and imp disarmarm at 3rd" witch sounds a lot like 2e, but you could also "I want these 3 prestige classes and the best way to get to them is to multi fighter monk and sorcerer...

in 4e you can still like 2e and the first 3e example, but not get up to the second 3e example...

 

[pemerton]

Here's my real issue with RPGs that are highly focused on combat:

There's better ways for players primarily interested in combat to "get their fix" than trying to shoehorn their prerogatives / imperatives into a roleplaying session.

<snip>

D&D was originally a "gamist" game. It's evolved over the years to incorporate more narrativist and simulationist tendencies, but at it's core, it's still a largely gamist enterprise. The problem is, gamists don't need D&D and wargames anymore like they used to.

(1) Why aren't gamist RPGers as entitled to play RPGs as anyone else?

(2) I don't understand why you think that combat, as a site of dramatic conflict, is of interest only to gamist RPGers. Burning Wheel and The Riddle of Steel are two games - and I'm sure there are others I'm not familiar with - which make combat a pretty central site of dramatic conflict, but are manifestly non-gamist in their aspirations. (And interestingly Jake Norwood, the authoer of The Riddle of Steel, writes the foreword to the latest edition of BW.)

The problem is that there's a shift, and a NECESSARY one I might add, going on in the RPG world. If D&D is becoming less and less relevant in the RPG scene, it's because the gamists no longer need it to get the same fix they can get elsewhere.

<snip>

In today's world, RPGs' "raison d'etre" is to provide an imaginative experience BEYOND the confines of purely gamist combat needs.

Failure to recognize this reality is Wizards of the Coast's truest hindrance.

<snip>

With this in mind, it is absolutely no surprise to me that "modern" games are incorporating more and more narrativist mechanics and playstyles

Huh? D&D wrote the least gamist edition of D&D ever - namely, 4e - and the edition of D&D with the greatest extent of "narrativist" (= non-process sim, FitM?) mechanics - still 4e - and is now trying to recover from the experience! I don't think they're going to go down that path again, and insofar as the 4e experiment was a commercial failure, it shows that the D&D audience is not interested in the sort of game you are describing.

 

[HeroForge]

I think you're right. A player is typically not comparing his character to the others, he's typically comparing it to an ideal in his head. Nor are most players keeping score in terms of how effective their characters are or how much time they get in the spotlight.

Agreed. I wouldn't want to play in a group where people's motivation was being 'in the spotlight.' Dungeons and Dragons is a storytelling game, not a strict turn-based strategy (there are enough tabletop options that do work that way it that's what you're looking for!).