Hi, so I've been watching and reading a lot of Stranger Things, including their new Hellfire Club nove,l and I noticed that in that graphic nove,l the combat they played was very fast and specific. Now I don't know if this is either the edition or just for the plot. My question is, if it isn't the edition of Dungeons and Dragons used, which is 1st ADND I'm pretty sure is the rigt termonology, are there any DND like rpgs with faster combat?
There are any number of fantasy RPGs with faster combat. D&D is well-known for having extensive combat mechanics throughout all its editions. (5e is probably faster than 4e, and slower than anything pre-3e, but none of them have ever been fast.)
(There are also games with way heavier combat mechanics than D&D has ever had.)
However, for anybody to suggest an appropriate game for you, we need to know more about what you want to keep from D&D.
For instance:
Is a fantasy game without classes an option? How about one with much lighter-weight classes?
Is the ability to level up from relatively weak to incredibly powerful a thing you want, or is a flatter advancement scheme ok?
How important is combat to you as part of the game?
How important is roleplaying?
Etc., etc.
With no information, I would suggest looking at Daggerheart, but I have neither played it not read the rules. (I just know it's D&Dish and built on the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics.)
(Somebody's likely to come along and suggest various "OSR" games that are built on top of D&D rules from the 70s and 80s. I would regard those suggestions with skepticism; unless they've radically reworked the combat rules, they're not giving you much of a speedup. Combat dragged in the old days.)
I thinking of a more combat dedicated game, my players really love combat, the level system to be a flatter advancement scheme although you gain more abilitys when you level up, and classes that offer a wide range of different abillitys unlike how Wizard, Sorcerors and Warlock kind of share the same old wizard with small changes, probably more classes than DND has and a lot more class features for each level up to make even the higher levels make the characters powerful. Although maybe not too powerful. I hope that convoluted mess of what I just said was of any help, but thank you anyway, and if you can help further, I would much appreciate it.
EZD6. Somewhere on youtube a guy ran the same campaign using both 5e and EZD6 and the latter was about 6X faster. I played a 10 month campaign in EZD6 and it went smoothly. We would have 4hr sessions where we started in location A, went on a shopping trip, went to location B and had an epic battle, then back to A for a long rest. The same activities would have taken weeks in 5e. There are classes, but after character creation there is no leveling. Instead, you gain more power through items. The book could have used another round of editing.
There is a system called "Nimble 5E that i am told is much faster and more streamlined combat wise, but no personal experience with it.
DungeonWorld has pretty swift combat as well, but it feels a little truncated to me.
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He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player. The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call To rise up in triumph should we all unite The spark for change is yours to ignite." Kalandra - The State of the World
The issue that you'll find is that 5e mechanics aren't bloated - they're taking that amount of time not because of wasting time but because it takes that long to get that crunch sorted. There are faster games, but they'll only be faster because they're trimming mechanics etc which means less crunch. That's absolutely fine if that's the balance you're after (I personally prefer other games that happen to have faster combat at the expense of being simpler mechanics in combat), but it will be a compromise. I only bring that up because the OP mentions that they still want combat-centric - that's going to be compromised in order to make it faster. The games I refer to have focuses away from combat, which is why they can afford to have lighter combat mechanics that speed things up.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
There is a system called "Nimble 5E that i am told is much faster and more streamlined combat wise, but no personal experience with it.
DungeonWorld has pretty swift combat as well, but it feels a little truncated to me.
Nimble is basically just modifications and streamlining for 5e that make it much faster, although it went a bit too far, IMO. It does have one GLARING issue: It uses a mana system to cast spells that leave high-level wizards with half as many spell slots as they should have.
I thinking of a more combat dedicated game, my players really love combat, the level system to be a flatter advancement scheme although you gain more abilitys when you level up, and classes that offer a wide range of different abillitys unlike how Wizard, Sorcerors and Warlock kind of share the same old wizard with small changes, probably more classes than DND has and a lot more class features for each level up to make even the higher levels make the characters powerful. Although maybe not too powerful. I hope that convoluted mess of what I just said was of any help, but thank you anyway, and if you can help further, I would much appreciate it.
Then you're in contradictory territory. 5e's terribly slow combat, despite it being streamlined, stems from a large number of bespoke rules and safety nets that apply to the whole process. Spell lists are stupidly massive, with some spells being incredibly convoluted in practice. Worst offender are saving throw spell AOE spells, because of how many dice rolls they generate, in turn because almost every enemy is going to be its own unit. And the spell itself is either "save or suck" or half damage, meaning you wasted your resources and time if most roll good, or lots of condition tracking or damage applying if they don't.
My DM has been DMing for years, and only just now figured out you can convert some mobs into a swarm as a solution to large monster groups. 5e doesn't have a rule for this, because its presumes you know how to design encounters without these issues. The table top roots really do explain why the rules are they way they are; and also why people to run home games wrong for it, as its not like a video game. Video game methodology doesn't work. The homogenizing of spell casters (and half casters.... and martial subclasses) into the Wizard box is also an effort to try and stream line the game further. But it falls apart when Wizard is by far the worst offender of the game's issues, directly due to the spell list.
Spell casting in Modern DnD is a bloatfest. Spells are barely power balanced within core. The moment you expand out into the supplementary material from other books, its the wild west. Theres a spell for everything, half of them are too low level of a slot for what they do, and spell casters want access to as much as it can get. For what its worth, martials are fast in combat. How many attacks can you make? Roll dice. Anything hit? Roll damage. Boom, done! But the moment you start bringing in complicated sub class abilities, or worse, subclass spell casting, even the Martials and half casters get dragged down into the book keeping hell. 5e is not worst the game for this, but nowhere near decent if you're wanting speed.
aaaaaa
The above rant is intended to convey the nature of the problem... as you're going to need this information if you intend to shop around for other systems. From a design perspective, fast and crunchy are opposite ends of the spectrum. You can't have a ton of options on hand without players getting bogged down in choice paralysis, order of operations, and litigation/debates on what something means.
For example, based on your description, Pathfinder 2 is probably the best recommendation.... but theres still a problem. Despite it being better organized, combat is still slow if your players don't memorize their own ability lists. And that list is going to be a lot larger, regardless of class. I love PF2, but I am under no illusion about its speed; as a combat encounter can still run 1-2 hours because it still based underlying war gaming roots DnD is. PF1 is literally a fork of DnD 3.5. And PF2's biggest changes are breaking everything down into modular components so you can mix and match, and moving to an open 3-action economy. But depending on the group, PF2 has a lot less full stops due to rule litigation, since the PF2 rules adhere to a consistent framework and actual examples/guidelines for resolving edge cases.
If you really want fast combat, you should probably go with a narrative focused system, or a narrative dice system. These are fast because they're basically GM fiat by design. There are rules, but outcomes are highly interpretive and the play space is malleable to accommodate that. Edge of the Empire (aka Starwars RPG) uses a nullification method on a vaguely "6 up" threshold for all competitive factors. That means you assemble a large dice pool based on your skill level and bonuses, and add additional dice based on difficulty and hindering factors, and roll all of it at once. Helpful dice contribute to success, hindering dice cancel successes out. If you have at least one success at the end, you marginally accomplish what you set out to do. Every additional success over that adds to "the general degree of success" and fuels sub rules like extra damage and triggering special abilities. The GM then interprets everything other than the damage numbers, and uncancelled hindrances can complicate your otherwise successful action. Movement and Distance is completely abstract, making it one of the games where a grid map is of no help. Even the use of a visual map can be a problem, since the concept of "20 meters" has no rules associated with it. "Can I move to here?" - Answer: GM fiat or roll a dice pool to navigate obstacles. This is marginally faster....... but it heavily relies on the whole group's ability to do their own book keeping. There are no classes in this game per say.... its a base career that sets your starting skills, and series of talent trees. You can take learn multiple trees over a life time from any career group; with the only differentiating factor is how much XP it costs to do so. Turns "can" be faster due to fewer dice rolls; but predicated on your players memorizing their skill sets, and the descriptions associated with it. The moment the player forgets, and has to look up something, the game is just as bad as 5e for combat speed. Or worse, a power gamer figures out a long string combo, and their turn takes over a minute to resolve everything.
Next is maybe Dagger Heart. Rules light, highly interpretive. But it requires a group of players who can think and describe things, and enough restraint to not try to do overly convoluted actions every turn. Classes have fewer features in terms of "number of distinct things to put on a list", but it also means less book keeping.
2d20 systems from Modiphius. Cut down dice rolls "X down" on a set of d20s, and number of successes to beat a difficulty number. Distance is abstract, skill investment lowers your "X down" value, and the given setting will bolt on secondary rules. Classes exist, but like Edge of Empire, mostly exist to define your starting skills and abilities. Fallout is the only game under this system I have any first hand knowledge of, so I don't know how much different settings can modify the working rule set.
Warhammer 40k: Wrath and Glory. This system stands out from the other 40k RPGs (which are either d20, or d100s) in that they use an all d6 dice pool that roughly mimics the tabletop game. Distance is abstract, and the official adventure modules are notorious for having effectively useless maps. Was created for Theater of the Mind style play from what I've been told. Skill tests are all "5 up" verses a Difficulty number. Combat uses the same approach. Skills increase your dice pool, armor increases the DN to hit the wearer, weapons have fixed damage values (which can be boosted with enough successes), Wounds and Shock are your HP analog, and there is a resilience mechanic that can redirect damage to Shock in order to extend your life but makes life harder until you can recover it. Classes are all based on the table top units, there are 3 game difficulty scales that determine how dangerous/type of enemies you encounter, and each class is its can of worms. For example.... Psykers are magic user equivalent, but any time they use their powers, it has a chance of backfiring and hindering EVERYONE. They can also be irresponsible and amp up their powers, but doing so also increases the chance of it going horribly wrong. Adding to this is a set of personal and group resources, aka the titular Wrath and Glory. Wrath lets you reroll and is per player, while Glory is bonus dice you add to a roll and is shared by the group. Another big differentiator from other RPGs is that there is no initiative. Each side takes turns picking one of their units to act, until everyone has a chance to act in that round. If the numbers are lop sided, the side with left over units continue going until all their units get to act, then it goes back up to the top of the round and each side takes turns again. As for player death, if you hit your wound limit, you go down. While down you can only take ONE of a limited set of actions, and have to roll for an injury. If you roll bad, or take hits involving critical injuries, you get a permanent traumatic injury that debilitates you in some way. You can mitigate traumatic injuries between adventures with augemetic body parts, but the total traumatic injury count is actually what kills your character for good. The game itself is intended to be lethal, so losing characters is a common occurrence given enough time.
If you want Mid-Fantasy the Warhammer Fantasy (they argue over which edition, but just pick 4th, since its easiest to find). Dice rolls are a two part system. d100, X down based on your skill level, and these generate successes at and every 10 under your skill value. This is known as degrees of success, and more degrees in either direction increases the magnitude of your success or failure. Combat is done through opposed tests (attack/defense), and whoever has a higher success level wins. Meaning if you both roll bad, whoever rolled least bad comes out on top for the interaction. This game is also very lethal by design (much like the setting), so death and dismemberment is very common, and combat can swing pretty hard as units are side lined or killed. Careers in this game are a combination of bonus points for investing in certain skills, and a talent tree. There's also a job advancement if you start at lower tier difficulty, you can invest XP to go up to a higher career, but I forget what the direct benefits are off hand.
Next system is Lancer. We don't talk about Lancer.
From here on out its mostly generic systems and "insert licensed show skinned over a generic system" games. If you want a hot mess with some half way interesting ideas, theres the Robotech books from Palladium.
I thinking of a more combat dedicated game, my players really love combat, the level system to be a flatter advancement scheme although you gain more abilitys when you level up, and classes that offer a wide range of different abillitys unlike how Wizard, Sorcerors and Warlock kind of share the same old wizard with small changes, probably more classes than DND has and a lot more class features for each level up to make even the higher levels make the characters powerful. Although maybe not too powerful. I hope that convoluted mess of what I just said was of any help, but thank you anyway, and if you can help further, I would much appreciate it.
Then you're in contradictory territory. 5e's terribly slow combat, despite it being streamlined, stems from a large number of bespoke rules and safety nets that apply to the whole process. Spell lists are stupidly massive, with some spells being incredibly convoluted in practice. Worst offender are saving throw spell AOE spells, because of how many dice rolls they generate, in turn because almost every enemy is going to be its own unit. And the spell itself is either "save or suck" or half damage, meaning you wasted your resources and time if most roll good, or lots of condition tracking or damage applying if they don't.
My DM has been DMing for years, and only just now figured out you can convert some mobs into a swarm as a solution to large monster groups. 5e doesn't have a rule for this, because its presumes you know how to design encounters without these issues. The table top roots really do explain why the rules are they way they are; and also why people to run home games wrong for it, as its not like a video game. Video game methodology doesn't work. The homogenizing of spell casters (and half casters.... and martial subclasses) into the Wizard box is also an effort to try and stream line the game further. But it falls apart when Wizard is by far the worst offender of the game's issues, directly due to the spell list.
Spell casting in Modern DnD is a bloatfest. Spells are barely power balanced within core. The moment you expand out into the supplementary material from other books, its the wild west. Theres a spell for everything, half of them are too low level of a slot for what they do, and spell casters want access to as much as it can get. For what its worth, martials are fast in combat. How many attacks can you make? Roll dice. Anything hit? Roll damage. Boom, done! But the moment you start bringing in complicated sub class abilities, or worse, subclass spell casting, even the Martials and half casters get dragged down into the book keeping hell. 5e is not worst the game for this, but nowhere near decent if you're wanting speed.
I have to disagree about basically everything you say here. Spell lists aren't that bloated, and even if they are, spell lists have less than zero impact on combat speed. What combat spells are convoluted to the point of slowing the game down? Prismatic Spray? AOE spells really don't slow things down. You just figure out where you're casting it, tell the DM which enemies are targeted and the save type, and then you and the DM roll the dice. Typically, the longest part is the DM updating monster health.
How is D&D 5e more bloated spell-wise than 3.5e, where each option for Enhance ability and Bigby's hand were their own spells, and there were like 5 different cure/inflict wounds?
I have literally never seen an official martial subclass with features complicated enough to bog the game down.
Those were actors performing from a script, it has nothing to do with actual gameplay.
Like Critical Role and the Various other actors on Youtube. As far as ADND First edition is concerned, Combat is no more faster or slower than it is today
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Hi, so I've been watching and reading a lot of Stranger Things, including their new Hellfire Club nove,l and I noticed that in that graphic nove,l the combat they played was very fast and specific. Now I don't know if this is either the edition or just for the plot. My question is, if it isn't the edition of Dungeons and Dragons used, which is 1st ADND I'm pretty sure is the rigt termonology, are there any DND like rpgs with faster combat?
Those were actors performing from a script, it has nothing to do with actual gameplay.
Yeah, I know, I'm just seeing if there's anything that has fast combat.
There are any number of fantasy RPGs with faster combat. D&D is well-known for having extensive combat mechanics throughout all its editions. (5e is probably faster than 4e, and slower than anything pre-3e, but none of them have ever been fast.)
(There are also games with way heavier combat mechanics than D&D has ever had.)
However, for anybody to suggest an appropriate game for you, we need to know more about what you want to keep from D&D.
For instance:
With no information, I would suggest looking at Daggerheart, but I have neither played it not read the rules. (I just know it's D&Dish and built on the Powered by the Apocalypse mechanics.)
(Somebody's likely to come along and suggest various "OSR" games that are built on top of D&D rules from the 70s and 80s. I would regard those suggestions with skepticism; unless they've radically reworked the combat rules, they're not giving you much of a speedup. Combat dragged in the old days.)
I thinking of a more combat dedicated game, my players really love combat, the level system to be a flatter advancement scheme although you gain more abilitys when you level up, and classes that offer a wide range of different abillitys unlike how Wizard, Sorcerors and Warlock kind of share the same old wizard with small changes, probably more classes than DND has and a lot more class features for each level up to make even the higher levels make the characters powerful. Although maybe not too powerful. I hope that convoluted mess of what I just said was of any help, but thank you anyway, and if you can help further, I would much appreciate it.
EZD6. Somewhere on youtube a guy ran the same campaign using both 5e and EZD6 and the latter was about 6X faster. I played a 10 month campaign in EZD6 and it went smoothly. We would have 4hr sessions where we started in location A, went on a shopping trip, went to location B and had an epic battle, then back to A for a long rest. The same activities would have taken weeks in 5e. There are classes, but after character creation there is no leveling. Instead, you gain more power through items. The book could have used another round of editing.
I'll check it out, it seems exactly what I and my players are looking for. Thank you.
There is a system called "Nimble 5E that i am told is much faster and more streamlined combat wise, but no personal experience with it.
DungeonWorld has pretty swift combat as well, but it feels a little truncated to me.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
The issue that you'll find is that 5e mechanics aren't bloated - they're taking that amount of time not because of wasting time but because it takes that long to get that crunch sorted. There are faster games, but they'll only be faster because they're trimming mechanics etc which means less crunch. That's absolutely fine if that's the balance you're after (I personally prefer other games that happen to have faster combat at the expense of being simpler mechanics in combat), but it will be a compromise. I only bring that up because the OP mentions that they still want combat-centric - that's going to be compromised in order to make it faster. The games I refer to have focuses away from combat, which is why they can afford to have lighter combat mechanics that speed things up.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Nimble is basically just modifications and streamlining for 5e that make it much faster, although it went a bit too far, IMO. It does have one GLARING issue: It uses a mana system to cast spells that leave high-level wizards with half as many spell slots as they should have.
Then you're in contradictory territory. 5e's terribly slow combat, despite it being streamlined, stems from a large number of bespoke rules and safety nets that apply to the whole process. Spell lists are stupidly massive, with some spells being incredibly convoluted in practice. Worst offender are saving throw spell AOE spells, because of how many dice rolls they generate, in turn because almost every enemy is going to be its own unit. And the spell itself is either "save or suck" or half damage, meaning you wasted your resources and time if most roll good, or lots of condition tracking or damage applying if they don't.
My DM has been DMing for years, and only just now figured out you can convert some mobs into a swarm as a solution to large monster groups. 5e doesn't have a rule for this, because its presumes you know how to design encounters without these issues. The table top roots really do explain why the rules are they way they are; and also why people to run home games wrong for it, as its not like a video game. Video game methodology doesn't work. The homogenizing of spell casters (and half casters.... and martial subclasses) into the Wizard box is also an effort to try and stream line the game further. But it falls apart when Wizard is by far the worst offender of the game's issues, directly due to the spell list.
Spell casting in Modern DnD is a bloatfest. Spells are barely power balanced within core. The moment you expand out into the supplementary material from other books, its the wild west. Theres a spell for everything, half of them are too low level of a slot for what they do, and spell casters want access to as much as it can get. For what its worth, martials are fast in combat. How many attacks can you make? Roll dice. Anything hit? Roll damage. Boom, done! But the moment you start bringing in complicated sub class abilities, or worse, subclass spell casting, even the Martials and half casters get dragged down into the book keeping hell. 5e is not worst the game for this, but nowhere near decent if you're wanting speed.
aaaaaa
The above rant is intended to convey the nature of the problem... as you're going to need this information if you intend to shop around for other systems. From a design perspective, fast and crunchy are opposite ends of the spectrum. You can't have a ton of options on hand without players getting bogged down in choice paralysis, order of operations, and litigation/debates on what something means.
For example, based on your description, Pathfinder 2 is probably the best recommendation.... but theres still a problem. Despite it being better organized, combat is still slow if your players don't memorize their own ability lists. And that list is going to be a lot larger, regardless of class. I love PF2, but I am under no illusion about its speed; as a combat encounter can still run 1-2 hours because it still based underlying war gaming roots DnD is. PF1 is literally a fork of DnD 3.5. And PF2's biggest changes are breaking everything down into modular components so you can mix and match, and moving to an open 3-action economy. But depending on the group, PF2 has a lot less full stops due to rule litigation, since the PF2 rules adhere to a consistent framework and actual examples/guidelines for resolving edge cases.
If you really want fast combat, you should probably go with a narrative focused system, or a narrative dice system. These are fast because they're basically GM fiat by design. There are rules, but outcomes are highly interpretive and the play space is malleable to accommodate that. Edge of the Empire (aka Starwars RPG) uses a nullification method on a vaguely "6 up" threshold for all competitive factors. That means you assemble a large dice pool based on your skill level and bonuses, and add additional dice based on difficulty and hindering factors, and roll all of it at once. Helpful dice contribute to success, hindering dice cancel successes out. If you have at least one success at the end, you marginally accomplish what you set out to do. Every additional success over that adds to "the general degree of success" and fuels sub rules like extra damage and triggering special abilities. The GM then interprets everything other than the damage numbers, and uncancelled hindrances can complicate your otherwise successful action. Movement and Distance is completely abstract, making it one of the games where a grid map is of no help. Even the use of a visual map can be a problem, since the concept of "20 meters" has no rules associated with it. "Can I move to here?" - Answer: GM fiat or roll a dice pool to navigate obstacles. This is marginally faster....... but it heavily relies on the whole group's ability to do their own book keeping. There are no classes in this game per say.... its a base career that sets your starting skills, and series of talent trees. You can take learn multiple trees over a life time from any career group; with the only differentiating factor is how much XP it costs to do so. Turns "can" be faster due to fewer dice rolls; but predicated on your players memorizing their skill sets, and the descriptions associated with it. The moment the player forgets, and has to look up something, the game is just as bad as 5e for combat speed. Or worse, a power gamer figures out a long string combo, and their turn takes over a minute to resolve everything.
Next is maybe Dagger Heart. Rules light, highly interpretive. But it requires a group of players who can think and describe things, and enough restraint to not try to do overly convoluted actions every turn. Classes have fewer features in terms of "number of distinct things to put on a list", but it also means less book keeping.
2d20 systems from Modiphius. Cut down dice rolls "X down" on a set of d20s, and number of successes to beat a difficulty number. Distance is abstract, skill investment lowers your "X down" value, and the given setting will bolt on secondary rules. Classes exist, but like Edge of Empire, mostly exist to define your starting skills and abilities. Fallout is the only game under this system I have any first hand knowledge of, so I don't know how much different settings can modify the working rule set.
Warhammer 40k: Wrath and Glory. This system stands out from the other 40k RPGs (which are either d20, or d100s) in that they use an all d6 dice pool that roughly mimics the tabletop game. Distance is abstract, and the official adventure modules are notorious for having effectively useless maps. Was created for Theater of the Mind style play from what I've been told. Skill tests are all "5 up" verses a Difficulty number. Combat uses the same approach. Skills increase your dice pool, armor increases the DN to hit the wearer, weapons have fixed damage values (which can be boosted with enough successes), Wounds and Shock are your HP analog, and there is a resilience mechanic that can redirect damage to Shock in order to extend your life but makes life harder until you can recover it. Classes are all based on the table top units, there are 3 game difficulty scales that determine how dangerous/type of enemies you encounter, and each class is its can of worms. For example.... Psykers are magic user equivalent, but any time they use their powers, it has a chance of backfiring and hindering EVERYONE. They can also be irresponsible and amp up their powers, but doing so also increases the chance of it going horribly wrong. Adding to this is a set of personal and group resources, aka the titular Wrath and Glory. Wrath lets you reroll and is per player, while Glory is bonus dice you add to a roll and is shared by the group. Another big differentiator from other RPGs is that there is no initiative. Each side takes turns picking one of their units to act, until everyone has a chance to act in that round. If the numbers are lop sided, the side with left over units continue going until all their units get to act, then it goes back up to the top of the round and each side takes turns again. As for player death, if you hit your wound limit, you go down. While down you can only take ONE of a limited set of actions, and have to roll for an injury. If you roll bad, or take hits involving critical injuries, you get a permanent traumatic injury that debilitates you in some way. You can mitigate traumatic injuries between adventures with augemetic body parts, but the total traumatic injury count is actually what kills your character for good. The game itself is intended to be lethal, so losing characters is a common occurrence given enough time.
If you want Mid-Fantasy the Warhammer Fantasy (they argue over which edition, but just pick 4th, since its easiest to find). Dice rolls are a two part system. d100, X down based on your skill level, and these generate successes at and every 10 under your skill value. This is known as degrees of success, and more degrees in either direction increases the magnitude of your success or failure. Combat is done through opposed tests (attack/defense), and whoever has a higher success level wins. Meaning if you both roll bad, whoever rolled least bad comes out on top for the interaction. This game is also very lethal by design (much like the setting), so death and dismemberment is very common, and combat can swing pretty hard as units are side lined or killed. Careers in this game are a combination of bonus points for investing in certain skills, and a talent tree. There's also a job advancement if you start at lower tier difficulty, you can invest XP to go up to a higher career, but I forget what the direct benefits are off hand.
Next system is Lancer. We don't talk about Lancer.
From here on out its mostly generic systems and "insert licensed show skinned over a generic system" games. If you want a hot mess with some half way interesting ideas, theres the Robotech books from Palladium.
I have to disagree about basically everything you say here. Spell lists aren't that bloated, and even if they are, spell lists have less than zero impact on combat speed. What combat spells are convoluted to the point of slowing the game down? Prismatic Spray? AOE spells really don't slow things down. You just figure out where you're casting it, tell the DM which enemies are targeted and the save type, and then you and the DM roll the dice. Typically, the longest part is the DM updating monster health.
How is D&D 5e more bloated spell-wise than 3.5e, where each option for Enhance ability and Bigby's hand were their own spells, and there were like 5 different cure/inflict wounds?
I have literally never seen an official martial subclass with features complicated enough to bog the game down.
Like Critical Role and the Various other actors on Youtube. As far as ADND First edition is concerned, Combat is no more faster or slower than it is today