Yeah boring combat like I think wet noodle combat is what is terribly unfun. Part of 4e's charm was that your attacks did stuff in addition to rolling your d6 for damage, that way when you roll the 1 for damage at least you got something else out of it. The most painful combat is one where it's all but won but everyone is rolling low and just sorta waiting for the enemy to die.
My best gaming experiences were with whiteboards which are probably just cheapo versions of maps and minis. Never liked grids because there's no killjoy like, "Oh, sorry, you're one hex away compared to your movement" "Huh? Ok, let me recount...." like just let the player engage the enemy or get behind cover already.
I subscribe to the guidance from page 7 of the 4e DMG, "Remember that the 'right way' to play D&D is the way that you and your players agree on and enjoy."
Depending on the table and the situation and how rigid we want to be with the rules, I will hand wave a lot of things in the interest of maximizing the fun. 6 squares away from being in range, but only 5 squares of movement. That's fine. Just do it. 11 points of damage, but the monster had 12 HP left. Yeah. it's dead.
The rules are there to provide some structure and facilitate amazing moments, not get in the way of them.
The games you're in sound like hearty fun. The most glorious critical damage is the one that kills, the lamest the one that really seemed like it should have. Really makes me wonder if Gm's should learn storytelling first before rules as opposed to rules first then making a story around it.
🪄Good article. I started playing D&D in 1974, but before that, I played board wargames in the 1960s and then GRT for WWII* 🪖(eventually called Tractics), which, while it had complex calculations by a judge, was exciting. What made it so? The surprising scenario, hidden movement, and detailed adjudication meant gamers did not fully know what was going on until it was over. The anxiety of waiting was not bad; certainly not boring. 😅
Have you ever been in an accident where time seemed to slow down? Is that adrenaline? I don't know, but most of us can appreciate the effect.
*We used miniatures and a 6x10’ sand table as described by Gygax’s IW article in 1970. While the sand terrain was easy and quick to shape, I think the miniatures may have been more appropriate as generic, requiring less talent but looking ambiguous. 🎱Otherwise, modeling can become a separate hobby, crowding out the game playing.
🪄Good article. I started playing D&D in 1974, but before that, I played board wargames in the 1960s and then GRT for WWII* 🪖(eventually called Tractics), which, while it had complex calculations by a judge, was exciting. What made it so? The surprising scenario, hidden movement, and detailed adjudication meant gamers did not fully know what was going on until it was over. The anxiety of waiting was not bad; certainly not boring. 😅
Have you ever been in an accident where time seemed to slow down? Is that adrenaline? I don't know, but most of us can appreciate the effect.
*We used miniatures and a 6x10’ sand table as described by Gygax’s IW article in 1970. While the sand terrain was easy and quick to shape, I think the miniatures may have been more appropriate as generic, requiring less talent but looking ambiguous. 🎱Otherwise, modeling can become a separate hobby, crowding out the game playing.
i'm very pleased to comment again in your substack.
Combat can feel slow in every game, especially when player doesn't know their power. The best way i have found to make combat feel great is have any combat be meaningful to the player, so no random casual goblin wolf etc or very seldom, and make fight tell some stories, with dialog during the action and monster reacting in a "realistic" way like escaping or reacting to player action.
The Hp can be a problem, but that depend by your character power and build, but i greatly miss 4th system to build fight
That is a great point. The odd random encounter is good to show that there is more going on in the world beyond the player's adventure, but the players will be much more invested in the combat when they have a connection to what is going on. This can be either because it is part of the quest they are on or it has a connection to one of the character's backgrounds or something else. But, most definitely, make them care about why they are in the fight and it will be a much better experience no matter how long it takes.
Maps and minis are the best. In the campaign I’m running there is plenty of role playing but I don’t need a bunch of rules for that… I‘ve been a DM since 1982. 4th edition combat is great and if you make it interesting players will love it. One way to shorten it up is to make the monsters hit harder but have fewer hit points like they started doing in MM3. Also you can have defeated monsters surrender which is also more logical that a goblin chief fighting a losing battle to the bitter end.
I am a visual person so the maps and minis are ideal for me. Even for a basic encounter, just having the map makes it much more interesting.
I also always think it odd to have monsters fight to every last Hit Point when all their allies are already defeated. If it is the boss or some high-level associate that is super loyal to the cause, then maybe. But not every low-level soldier is going to have that same devotion.
Sure. Characters can also force a bloodied monster to surrender with an Intimidation skill check vs the monster’s Will (+10 because hostile) even in combat.
Combat is bad when you wait too much for your turn. WotC changed the turn structure with 3e and it has this consideration that needs to be accounted: how long do you wait between each turn. Now, as you can guess, blaming only 4e for that is nonsense. Every post-2000 edition has this problem.
The problems specifically with 4e are: HP Bloat and too many out of turn actions. These manifest as levels go up, so at level 1 everything works fine. The community discussed about them a lot, we have charts and everything. Problems that I would LOVE to have solved in a new edition that would be basically 4e improved. Yet, that's not what we got with 5e.
In the end, I loved 4e because they were cooking something special and unique, and it was fun while it lasted, before the execs scuttled the edition and the new designers went backwards instead of forwards. Alas, the stuff that could have been...
Anyway, I thought a lot about turn structure and how to shorten the waiting time in combat, and there's a lot to talk about there, but the bottom line is, WotC never did anything to deal with that, except that in 5e monsters are so weak they die before players get bored, or even before they can act. The few experiences I had with 5e were not positive in that regard.
Meanwhile, the coolest combats I ever ran were with 4e. Funny that.
In the end, Theater of the Mind and grid combat are all about personal preference. Really, people just want to justify their tastes as the best. Note that playing with a map was very much encouraged in TSR-editions, and 3e made it official (the 3.5 core books explicitly said you need a battle map). Take that what you want.
I do agree that the HP in 4e were a little excessive initially. They fixed some of that in MM3. I tend to just cut the monster HP in half.
I think the out of turn actions are actually a good thing that keeps the players engaged. If I take my turn and then just have to wait until my next turn before I can do anything, then I will easily drift away into my own thoughts. But if I have reactions that I can take and I am positioned for possible Opportunity Attacks, then I will need to stay involved even when it is someone else's turn.
Yeah boring combat like I think wet noodle combat is what is terribly unfun. Part of 4e's charm was that your attacks did stuff in addition to rolling your d6 for damage, that way when you roll the 1 for damage at least you got something else out of it. The most painful combat is one where it's all but won but everyone is rolling low and just sorta waiting for the enemy to die.
My best gaming experiences were with whiteboards which are probably just cheapo versions of maps and minis. Never liked grids because there's no killjoy like, "Oh, sorry, you're one hex away compared to your movement" "Huh? Ok, let me recount...." like just let the player engage the enemy or get behind cover already.
I subscribe to the guidance from page 7 of the 4e DMG, "Remember that the 'right way' to play D&D is the way that you and your players agree on and enjoy."
Depending on the table and the situation and how rigid we want to be with the rules, I will hand wave a lot of things in the interest of maximizing the fun. 6 squares away from being in range, but only 5 squares of movement. That's fine. Just do it. 11 points of damage, but the monster had 12 HP left. Yeah. it's dead.
The rules are there to provide some structure and facilitate amazing moments, not get in the way of them.
The games you're in sound like hearty fun. The most glorious critical damage is the one that kills, the lamest the one that really seemed like it should have. Really makes me wonder if Gm's should learn storytelling first before rules as opposed to rules first then making a story around it.
I've been DMing long campaigns myself and i agree. DnD 5e combat can be slow but a lot of times the boredom comes from a boring encounter.
Flat terrain, predictable enemies and events.
A lot of this falls to the DM's preparations.
Sometimes a player does take too long making choices and bogs down the rhythm there could be.
In most cases the system isn't the issue, the story is or the players are.
🪄Good article. I started playing D&D in 1974, but before that, I played board wargames in the 1960s and then GRT for WWII* 🪖(eventually called Tractics), which, while it had complex calculations by a judge, was exciting. What made it so? The surprising scenario, hidden movement, and detailed adjudication meant gamers did not fully know what was going on until it was over. The anxiety of waiting was not bad; certainly not boring. 😅
Have you ever been in an accident where time seemed to slow down? Is that adrenaline? I don't know, but most of us can appreciate the effect.
*We used miniatures and a 6x10’ sand table as described by Gygax’s IW article in 1970. While the sand terrain was easy and quick to shape, I think the miniatures may have been more appropriate as generic, requiring less talent but looking ambiguous. 🎱Otherwise, modeling can become a separate hobby, crowding out the game playing.
🪄Good article. I started playing D&D in 1974, but before that, I played board wargames in the 1960s and then GRT for WWII* 🪖(eventually called Tractics), which, while it had complex calculations by a judge, was exciting. What made it so? The surprising scenario, hidden movement, and detailed adjudication meant gamers did not fully know what was going on until it was over. The anxiety of waiting was not bad; certainly not boring. 😅
Have you ever been in an accident where time seemed to slow down? Is that adrenaline? I don't know, but most of us can appreciate the effect.
*We used miniatures and a 6x10’ sand table as described by Gygax’s IW article in 1970. While the sand terrain was easy and quick to shape, I think the miniatures may have been more appropriate as generic, requiring less talent but looking ambiguous. 🎱Otherwise, modeling can become a separate hobby, crowding out the game playing.
i'm very pleased to comment again in your substack.
Combat can feel slow in every game, especially when player doesn't know their power. The best way i have found to make combat feel great is have any combat be meaningful to the player, so no random casual goblin wolf etc or very seldom, and make fight tell some stories, with dialog during the action and monster reacting in a "realistic" way like escaping or reacting to player action.
The Hp can be a problem, but that depend by your character power and build, but i greatly miss 4th system to build fight
That is a great point. The odd random encounter is good to show that there is more going on in the world beyond the player's adventure, but the players will be much more invested in the combat when they have a connection to what is going on. This can be either because it is part of the quest they are on or it has a connection to one of the character's backgrounds or something else. But, most definitely, make them care about why they are in the fight and it will be a much better experience no matter how long it takes.
Maps and minis are the best. In the campaign I’m running there is plenty of role playing but I don’t need a bunch of rules for that… I‘ve been a DM since 1982. 4th edition combat is great and if you make it interesting players will love it. One way to shorten it up is to make the monsters hit harder but have fewer hit points like they started doing in MM3. Also you can have defeated monsters surrender which is also more logical that a goblin chief fighting a losing battle to the bitter end.
I am a visual person so the maps and minis are ideal for me. Even for a basic encounter, just having the map makes it much more interesting.
I also always think it odd to have monsters fight to every last Hit Point when all their allies are already defeated. If it is the boss or some high-level associate that is super loyal to the cause, then maybe. But not every low-level soldier is going to have that same devotion.
Sure. Characters can also force a bloodied monster to surrender with an Intimidation skill check vs the monster’s Will (+10 because hostile) even in combat.
Combat is bad when you wait too much for your turn. WotC changed the turn structure with 3e and it has this consideration that needs to be accounted: how long do you wait between each turn. Now, as you can guess, blaming only 4e for that is nonsense. Every post-2000 edition has this problem.
The problems specifically with 4e are: HP Bloat and too many out of turn actions. These manifest as levels go up, so at level 1 everything works fine. The community discussed about them a lot, we have charts and everything. Problems that I would LOVE to have solved in a new edition that would be basically 4e improved. Yet, that's not what we got with 5e.
In the end, I loved 4e because they were cooking something special and unique, and it was fun while it lasted, before the execs scuttled the edition and the new designers went backwards instead of forwards. Alas, the stuff that could have been...
Anyway, I thought a lot about turn structure and how to shorten the waiting time in combat, and there's a lot to talk about there, but the bottom line is, WotC never did anything to deal with that, except that in 5e monsters are so weak they die before players get bored, or even before they can act. The few experiences I had with 5e were not positive in that regard.
Meanwhile, the coolest combats I ever ran were with 4e. Funny that.
In the end, Theater of the Mind and grid combat are all about personal preference. Really, people just want to justify their tastes as the best. Note that playing with a map was very much encouraged in TSR-editions, and 3e made it official (the 3.5 core books explicitly said you need a battle map). Take that what you want.
I do agree that the HP in 4e were a little excessive initially. They fixed some of that in MM3. I tend to just cut the monster HP in half.
I think the out of turn actions are actually a good thing that keeps the players engaged. If I take my turn and then just have to wait until my next turn before I can do anything, then I will easily drift away into my own thoughts. But if I have reactions that I can take and I am positioned for possible Opportunity Attacks, then I will need to stay involved even when it is someone else's turn.