Wrong facts about D&D3 combat?

[Beginning of the End]

As I've said (and I notice you've not taken into account) its not "roll, hit/miss, damage, repeat" that is slowing down combat, its mass-bull-strengthed, enlarged, polymorphed, hasted PCs making full attacks with 2-handed power attack while their summoned monsters move into flank and make full attacks, and oh, did I mention I have a quickened fireball?

+4 Strength (+2 damage, +2 to hit)
+2 Strength (+1 damage, +1 to hit), -2 Dex (-1 AC, -1 Reflex), -1 to hit, -1 AC; increase size category (reach)
+1 attack, +1 AC, +1 Reflex; 1 extra attack on full attack

2-handed power attack = -X to hit, +2X to damage

I timed myself on the rule look-ups and the math. The polymorph depends on what you're shifting into, but that's just a matter of swapping ability scores. It took me four minutes.

So even if ALL OF THAT was done to me in a single round and I hadn't bothered to either look up the spells as they were being cast or to note the changes as they were happening instead of waiting until my turn to figure out what my stat block looked like... Well, I'm still not quite figuring out where the 10-15 minute turn is supposed to be coming from.

It surely can't take you that long to roll dice, can it?

(And surely you're not re-calculating your stats every time you roll them, instead of actually keeping track of them? I can see how that kind of silliness would waste a lot of time. But it makes about as much sense as keeping separate track of every wound you've sustained and then adding them all up every time you get hit again to see if you're going down or not.)

In short, make combat more like 4e.

During our playtests we found 4E combats to be incredibly tedious. Fewer meaningful options, less powerful attacks, and enemies with more hit points all added up to longer and more boring combat.

I can see how it might save resolution time if you're of the "I need to recalculate my combat bonuses every time I roll an attack" school of play, but for us the fact that 50% of combats ended in tedium was one of the major turn-offs of 4E play.

"Padded sumo wrestling" was pretty much our experience.

 

[Bullgrit]

So am I making up the fact that my mid-level 3e combats took forever, or am I simply wrong about it?

I think you are either wrong in your time estimation, or you are playing in a manner that is so alien to me that I can’t understand your statements.

If it regularly takes me just 5 minutes to get in and out of the cafeteria next door, I’d have a hard time appreciating your complaint that it takes you 90 minutes to get your food. You may be completely honest with your complaint, but I think you can understand how I just couldn’t understand it.

I think that’s what’s happening here. Either one of us is mistaken, or we’re doing something extremely different from one another. Our ways/styles/groups are just so different that we’ll never understand the other’s experiences.

Bullgrit

 

[Obryn]

If it regularly takes me just 5 minutes to get in and out of the cafeteria next door, I’d have a hard time appreciating your complaint that it takes you 90 minutes to get your food. You may be completely honest with your complaint, but I think you can understand how I just couldn’t understand it.

I think that’s what’s happening here. Either one of us is mistaken, or we’re doing something extremely different from one another. Our ways/styles/groups are just so different that we’ll never understand the other’s experiences.

Well, I find it completely reasonable to think that our playstyles are significantly different.

There are differences in group composition, group size, organization, types of encounters, numbers of foes, numbers of spellcasters, spellcaster preparation, conjurations, henchmen, animal companions, character optimization, character complexity, number of non-core sourcebooks, and so on.

Given all these variables I'd find it very hard to believe we'd have identical experiences.

-O

 

[billd91]

See, it's statements like this that make me wonder if people are just saying things without really knowing the reality they're talking about. I mean, 10-15 minutes for one player to resolve his turn? Why would you play with people like this? I can create a base (sans magic items, and non-optimized) 20th level character in 15 minutes.

Bullgrit

I can say that I've taken 10-15 minutes for my turn, but then, I'm the DM and I may have a lot of monsters to move around and a power or two to look up. But if a player with 1 PC, even with animal companions and summoned monsters, were taking that long regularly, I'd be asking them to be a bit more prepared with their plans, notes, and get on with it, already! Some kind of timer would soon be in order if efforts were not made to speed up.

I will make allowances for long turns if there are rule questions and a particular interpretation of the rules must be made.

 

[Arnwyn]

Is my group, are my games the anomaly, or are the “accepted facts” of the edition wrong for you, too?

The "accepted facts" on 3e that I see some people splurt out here at ENWorld just end up with me rolling my eyes (and it's not just in the areas you listed).

Needless to say, these purported "facts" are wrong for me and my group. (And we play all levels, though 8-14 is our favorite.) (I don't deny that some people must have experienced these "facts" for themselves - but their experiences are so strange and... 'unfamiliar'... to me that I can only shrug, dismiss, and move on.)

 

[Reynard]

On length of turns: is perhaps motivation a key factor here, even more than system? If you have a group of hardcore players, say, that know the rules of the game as well as the options available to their characters, and that have a vested interest in keeping the game moving (whether to get to more combats or advance the plot or some combination thereof), then chances are their turns will be over very quickly, even in complex situations (they've got their buffs pre calculated, their summons already set up, their next action already decided upon). If on the other hand you've got casual players or new players who don't know the rules, who aren't focused and/or who haven't done any preparation, rounds can drag.

On long combats: the first 3E game I ran where the PCs reached 20th level they engaged a pit fiend and his minions in Astral Space. The adventure was supposed to be the springboard to Epic plane hopping adventures. When we hadn't finished the fight after over 6 hours of play time, we abandoned it and never returned to the campaign.

 

[Jhaelen]

As I've said (and I notice you've not taken into account) its not "roll, hit/miss, damage, repeat" that is slowing down combat, its mass-bull-strengthed, enlarged, polymorphed, hasted PCs making full attacks with 2-handed power attack while their summoned monsters move into flank and make full attacks, and oh, did I mention I have a quickened fireball?

Exactly. The 6 hour combat I mentioned was obviously an extreme example:
- In that combat in every round at least one participant was casting dispel magic on someone.
- At least six creatures were summoned. Near the end of the combat the boss polymorphed into a red dragon.
- One of the spellcasters specialized on conjuring zones (like Evards's Black tentacles, Acid Fog, etc.).
- two combatants had the hide in plain sight ability
- The terrain was pretty complicated (a village) so there were lots of discussions about movement, especially since the later part involved aerial movement (3d combats are fun!).
- There were lots of low level minions (as mentioned above: it was a village!)
etc.

All of this on top of the problems I already mentioned, of course.

Naturally, I do not plan to repeat the experience.

 

[Mournblade94]

So can I. I use the DMG chart or PHB2.

As I've said (and I notice you've not taken into account) its not "roll, hit/miss, damage, repeat" that is slowing down combat, its mass-bull-strengthed, enlarged, polymorphed, hasted PCs making full attacks with 2-handed power attack while their summoned monsters move into flank and make full attacks, and oh, did I mention I have a quickened fireball?

The problem is the in 3e, casters have so many options to break the round-structure (summoning) or so many mathematical adjustments on the fly (Bob, you're a Hill Giant now) that the game crawls from sheer info lag. And that doesn't even begin to cover immediate actions (oh, he attacked Bob? I get a free attack now!) or other out-of-turn actions (Fireball? I counterspell it!)

I have a way to fix it. Remove summoning, animal companions, and polymorph. Turn all buff magic into direct combat numbers (+1 to hit) not ability score changes. Remove iterative attacks. Simplify all spells and powers down into 10 lines and put them on index cards. Dispose of occasional modifiers. Remove duration counting, make effects last all fight, save ends or 1 round. Simplify status conditions (nauseated? What's that do again?) and fix those long, difficult hard-to-resolve combat maneuvers like bull-rush and grapple.

In short, make combat more like 4e.

Right who needs those items you have eliminated anyway! Yes 4e is simpler because it eliminates alot of factours. IF i take sugar out of a recipe I can make any food flavourless.

I have a better idea. Just play warhammer fantasy roleplay. It eliminates all of that as well, and its better than 4th edition.

Fortunately I think 3rd edition fighting is great. $th edition is more like a grind.

 

[Obryn]

Fortunately I think 3rd edition fighting is great. edition is more like a grind.

Oh, that's clever! I so see what you did there! You were talking about 4th edition, and then you noticed that the $ symbol is just shift-4! So you can cleverly imply that, you know, 4th edition is all about money!

How insanely brilliant and insightful!

Next, maybe you can start replacing S's with $'s, too! They look similar, so I think it would be a great way to make a point!

-O

 

[Darrell]

I'll second this. It amuses me how many people call Bo9S broken for even daring to narrow the gap in effectiveness between a high level warrior and a high level caster.

Only thing is, there are also people who feel that it's the caster who's 'broken,' and would rather narrow the gap by de-powering the high-level spellcaster, instead of powering up the high-level warrior. In that viewpoint, Bo9S attempts to fix a broken class by breaking another.