You are unlikely to find another system that does interesting combats meaningfully faster than D&D, most systems have combat that is either very slow or very low detail. Often much slower than D&D. However, if you want to run D&D fights that are both challenging and relatively fast, use glass cannons; for example a mage can do plenty of damage to a party, but it's unlikely to be a long fight no matter how it goes.
There certainly are a lot of systems that can make interesting and fun combat much faster than DnD, but you are right that you then loose some of the details and has to go for a more narrative style of combat. There are certainly also more detailed systems I feel are as "quick" as DnD, but this might be because I know them better, and as I said in the first post: most of these systems have kind of the same issue. They work smoothly on the lower "levels" of the game, but as players get more powerful, especially combat start to bog down.
I think one of my "problems" with DnD ironically is that it is very well put together. Every spell, power, feature etc gives you some kind of advancement in combat. It is quite well balanced as well. However it kind of "forces" a DM to use more "rules" than he necessarily wants. Take speed as an example. I usually (in other games) almost never care about a characters movement in combat. It simply usually isn't relevant, so to speed up the game, you can easily disregard it. Then if an enemy tries to flee, it suddenly is relevant. That's when you start to compare movement, because now this is a chase and not a combat. However in DnD movement is kind of "hardcoded" into every combat because some classes and features actively supports it. I don't know if that's understandable, but I've played a lot of different RPG-systems, and DnD 5E (which I'm quite new to) has some kind of "rigidity" that makes it difficult to freeform as a DM. Every small rule seems to pop back into the game because some player has some power that makes it necessary. It's actually quite fascinating.
This depends if you are playing in theatre of the mind or playing on a grid. If you are playing on a grid, you might have 30' of movement which gives your character certain options. If you are playing in theatre of the mind, you are either close enough to run up to your opponent that turn, or you aren't. Having the movement written down and available, doesn't change how the game plays out, just how the DM describes it. Some classes and races have abilities that increase their movement ... rogue cunning action allowing for bonus action dash, a monk can accomplish the same thing by expending ki, a tabaxi can run very fast for a single round ... if you are playing with any of these classes either on a grid or in theatre of the mind, the odds of an enemy escaping the party by running away are very small since the characters are faster. There is nothing wrong with that, it is part of the abilities of the character and it does affect how a chase scene might play out.
However, if by "it difficult to freeform as a DM.", you mean that the character abilities make it difficult for the DM to railroad the characters in certain ways by having the villain successfully outrun the characters without a special ability then you are absolutely right ... but the issue in this case is not the character abilities but the DM wanting to "freeform" a specific outcome irrespective of what the players can do in a particular situation. The DM sets up the situation and the adjudicates it, the players will ALWAYS come up with cool ideas that may change the outcome the DM expects or plans ... all this means is that the DMs plans have to change. It's not a big deal, maybe the former big villain becomes a senior minion because the players get unexpectedly lucky and kill him off :) ... so what. The players do not know the plot line that the DM was developing. The DM can freeform anything that the players haven't seen yet. The campaign responds and evolves in reaction to the player actions. Alternatively, if the players unexpectedly kill off a villain then the plot line shifts to any number of other simultaneously running plot lines that the DM has in mind.
In world building, try not to have ONE plot, ONE villain, ONE outcome that you expect ... have half a dozen things going on at the same time, the players encounter information or encounters that could be related to multiple independent plot lines. There could be two or more organizations working simultaneously, either together or against each other. Creating a more realistic world with multiple plot lines allows the campaign to be more fluid and to adjust to unexpected outcomes. One fundamental point is that unexpected outcomes should be expected.
In any case, the D&D movement system doesn't impose any additional encounter constraints that aren't already in any other RPG. Movement is never infinte, movement is almost never the same for every person or creature ... faster creatures will catch slower ones. Humans can't reasonably outrun a cheetah on flat open terrain. So I can't say I see the D&D movement system as any more or less rigid than any other RPG movement system. GURPS, Shadowrun, Rolemaster, every version of D&D, all of them constrain how far creatures can move and in general have abilities that increase movement .. so it seems to me that a "chase" scene in D&D would play out pretty much the same in any gaming system (at least the ones I have tried).
P.S. As for combat speed ... some of the games can be a lot slower than 5e ... AD&D had modifiers for every specific weapon trying to hit different AC targets, if I recall, Rolemaster has an immense amount of detail as well but I haven't looked at that one in a long time, Shadowrun has magic, ranged weapons, melee, firearms, totems, spells ... depending on the character there are a lot of options though character tends to limit things ... if I recall though most resolution just uses d6s so at least you aren't searching for dice :)
4e also touched a bit on the concept of action oriented monsters, which I think is as close to an evolution of 1e you will see in modern D&D as you can get. This is kind of a more complicated subject, but you can listen to Matt C. talk about it, he lays it out really well. This is definitely one thing you can do to keep your players on their toes and it actually functions on the premise and philosophy that Gygax talked about (aka players shouldn't know the rules). It's likely that if Gygax continued to be in charge of D&D after 1e, he would have eventually evolved the game into this direction.
07:25 MC: "We're DM's, we want options, but too many options, we sit there wasting time trying to find the optimal choice. And nobody got time for that. A CR10 guardian naga knows 15 spells! Yeah, that's great if I'm going to run a guardian naga PC for the next 20 hours and 10 encounters. But for one battle I can't be looking up all these spells to figure out exactly what they do so I'm making sure I'm casting the right one in the right moment!"
Oh! This! Couldn't agree more. This goes straight to my initial question. I think my "frustration" comes partly from that when the players reached some level, the only way to challenge them was that critter with far too many options to be actually "runnable" in a smooth combat. Usually I would fudge something, but as BigLizard has pointed out, by giving the PC's full insight into all rules, you then get "caught" by players for "breaking" the rules.
Looking forward to the rest of the video. I'm usually not that a big fan of MC, but here he has some really good points.
I'll have to agree to disagree with you on this one.
1) The creature has lots of options. However, the DM reads the stat block in advance, looks at the options, and has a good idea what options that NPC will use in a given situation. It just takes preparation. If you contend that D&D should be completely and smoothly playable without the DM investing time in preparation then I have to disagree with you. However, after a certain amount of experience, prep time goes way down since the DM knows generally what the spell options will do and can decide at the time without having to ponder, what exactly a creature will do.
2) The DMs choice does not need to be perfect. In fact, sometimes, depending on how the encounter is going, the DM may need to specifically make imperfect choices. It is a balancing act between a fun encounter and avoiding a TPK (unless caused by the player actions ...). A string of bad luck is not a good reason for a TPK unless the fates truly are against the party, then the DM might modify the plot into a prisoner scenario or some form of unexpected survival with consequences depending on the players and the nature of the campaign.
3) As for the "far too many options to be actually "runnable" in a smooth combat.", I've done this and watched it done often enough to know that this statement is completely false. Any creature can be run in a smooth and fun combat. I played with a group through the end of Tomb of Annihilation (tier 3 - levels 11-13 at the end), the head villain at the end has a lot of options as does the villain just before that, it is one large, extended fight and it went very smoothly when I played it with a group of 7 players and the DM. I know at least half a dozen DMs that would have no issue running that encounter, for characters at that level in a smooth, fun and enjoyable way.
The biggest factors on the DM side are probably experience with the game system and preparation while from the players it is familiarity with their characters and what they can do.
4e also touched a bit on the concept of action oriented monsters, which I think is as close to an evolution of 1e you will see in modern D&D as you can get. This is kind of a more complicated subject, but you can listen to Matt C. talk about it, he lays it out really well. This is definitely one thing you can do to keep your players on their toes and it actually functions on the premise and philosophy that Gygax talked about (aka players shouldn't know the rules). It's likely that if Gygax continued to be in charge of D&D after 1e, he would have eventually evolved the game into this direction.
07:25 MC: "We're DM's, we want options, but too many options, we sit there wasting time trying to find the optimal choice. And nobody got time for that. A CR10 guardian naga knows 15 spells! Yeah, that's great if I'm going to run a guardian naga PC for the next 20 hours and 10 encounters. But for one battle I can't be looking up all these spells to figure out exactly what they do so I'm making sure I'm casting the right one in the right moment!"
Oh! This! Couldn't agree more. This goes straight to my initial question. I think my "frustration" comes partly from that when the players reached some level, the only way to challenge them was that critter with far too many options to be actually "runnable" in a smooth combat. Usually I would fudge something, but as BigLizard has pointed out, by giving the PC's full insight into all rules, you then get "caught" by players for "breaking" the rules.
Looking forward to the rest of the video. I'm usually not that a big fan of MC, but here he has some really good points.
I'll have to agree to disagree with you on this one.
1) The creature has lots of options. However, the DM reads the stat block in advance, looks at the options, and has a good idea what options that NPC will use in a given situation. It just takes preparation. If you contend that D&D should be completely and smoothly playable without the DM investing time in preparation then I have to disagree with you. However, after a certain amount of experience, prep time goes way down since the DM knows generally what the spell options will do and can decide at the time without having to ponder, what exactly a creature will do.
2) The DMs choice does not need to be perfect. In fact, sometimes, depending on how the encounter is going, the DM may need to specifically make imperfect choices. It is a balancing act between a fun encounter and avoiding a TPK (unless caused by the player actions ...). A string of bad luck is not a good reason for a TPK unless the fates truly are against the party, then the DM might modify the plot into a prisoner scenario or some form of unexpected survival with consequences depending on the players and the nature of the campaign.
3) As for the "far too many options to be actually "runnable" in a smooth combat.", I've done this and watched it done often enough to know that this statement is completely false. Any creature can be run in a smooth and fun combat. I played with a group through the end of Tomb of Annihilation (tier 3 - levels 11-13 at the end), the head villain at the end has a lot of options as does the villain just before that, it is one large, extended fight and it went very smoothly when I played it with a group of 7 players and the DM. I know at least half a dozen DMs that would have no issue running that encounter, for characters at that level in a smooth, fun and enjoyable way.
The biggest factors on the DM side are probably experience with the game system and preparation while from the players it is familiarity with their characters and what they can do.
I'll agree we disagree here.
1) Yes preparation could help out with a critter with a lot of options. However I don't want to spend a lot of preparation on that. There's only a certain amount of time available for preparation, and I don't want to spend it all on learning 15 different spells. Besides that running one (or even worse several) such NPC's takes more time and slows down combat. That's the exact thing I'm looking for a way to counter.
2) Agrees and disagrees with this one. Yes, I try not to TPK my players, and sometimes mr. Bad Guy won't throw that last fireball just because I know he has been insanely lucky on his dice rolls etc. However, if the NPC is so "complicated" to DM that you have to go for second best choices because you just have to choose something to keep up the pace. Why have the choices? I would say it's better to then have fewer choices so you can make actually good choices that makes sense for the villain. I don't need those 10 spare spell slots for the combat, they are probably just a hindrance.
3) OK, everything is possible, I'll agree to that. Given I have all the time for preparation I need etc, etc. But honestly, have you never encountered that you throw in an enemy to the combat and later think that he had: "far too many options to be actually "runnable" in a smooth combat"? This is a problem even if you know the system by heart. Trying to keep control of an NPC with too many options, probably some minions, and then also all the different plans your players have at once. That is a sure way to a slower combat since it throws too many things into the pot to handle for the DM.
I would agree that familiarity with the system is a big factor, but I would actually say that the system itself is an even bigger one. My intention with the OP, was to see if there was some workarounds to get combats to run quicker and more smooth in DnD, or wether this is a limitation of the system I have to live with if I choose to play another campaign using it.
I would agree that familiarity with the system is a big factor, but I would actually say that the system itself is an even bigger one. My intention with the OP, was to see if there was some workarounds to get combats to run quicker and more smooth in DnD, or wether this is a limitation of the system I have to live with if I choose to play another campaign using it.
Here are my suggestions:
On the player side:
1) Encourage players to consider what they want to do before their turn arrives.
2) Encourage players to know the abilities of their character so that they don't need to look them up during combat.
e.g. damage: +stat for main hand attack, no stat for off hand unless they have the two weapon fighting style. Dueling style adds +2 damage if you are only attacking with a one handed weapon and are not holding a weapon in the other hand. The players/characters should know these things ... if they are relying on the DM to run the mechanics of their character every round then combat WILL slow down since the DM then effectively runs every character and all the players are doing is describing what they will do. If this is the kind of game you want to run then D&D is probably not the correct system to run it in.
3) Encourage players to roll attack and damage dice simultaneously.
4) Encourage players to realize that an attack roll under 8 will almost always miss and an attack roll over 20 will almost always hit. If the DM mentions otherwise for a specific encounter then ask.
5) Have players remember the number they have to add to damage for their different attacks.
6) Players should never hesitate to try cool things but the DM needs to let them know whether what they are contemplating is reasonable and then needs to adjudicate the outcome as an unbiased, independent observer.
----
On the DM side:
1) Until a DM is very experienced they need to prep encounters by reading the encounter and stat blocks for the monsters that are in the encounter. This can be less of an issue for something the DM creates themselves since they have decided the scene and what creatures are present. The DM should be familiar with what they choose to include. Published modules are a bit more challenging since the DM needs to read the encounter, the creatures, look at the stat blocks and options but also see if the encounter as written makes narrative sense. Sometimes published materials make no real sense if looked at from the perspective of the NPCs involved. Why does NPC-A choose to fight to the death at this location and time? Sometimes this makes no sense and the DM needs to modify the encounter/narrative or backstory so it makes more sense in the context of your game.
2) Prep some more? The DM really needs to know stuff. This declines over time as the DM is more and more familiar and comfortable with the material but expecting to get by with reading the game 15 minutes before and doing a smooth job of running it is unlikely. This is especially true for newer DMs who may not know the rules that well and likely haven't read more than 1/10 of the spells if that. A DM can certainly run this way and folks can have a great time but the DM will make mistakes and has to feel comfortable with changing rulings after the game when they get a chance to look up how to run it. Even the most experienced DMs will make a call that doesn't make sense from time to time and will change it after the fact.
As an example, I've been running a Dragon of Icespire Peak for a group of players. I probably took 4-6 hours reading over the module, figuring out how the pieces fit together, what the narrative is supposed to be, guessing which way the characters/players might choose to take it, how I wanted to role play several NPCs, glancing at creature stat blocks looking for special abilities or options that would make them more complicated to play and generally familiarizing myself with what the module contained. I then spent 15-60 minutes before each session going over the content I thought they were likely to reach that session. Looking at magic items, traps, what is hidden where, what NPCs are hidden where and how many, thinking about how they are likely to react to the PCs showing up, would they notice the PCs arriving, is surprise likely, how would they work togehter? After that amount of prep (for a published module), I was able to run the encounters relatively smoothly (I think :) ), social/exploration/combat and just let the game flow based on the decisions of the characters.
A new DM might need twice that or more. I might need more time if there were a lot more spell casters. The characters are mostly level 6-7 at the moment - about 1/2 the time in tier 1 and half in tier 2 so far since leveling in tier 2 is typically slower.
P.S. Two more points, home brewed encounters can take more effort to balance but the DM is typically more familiar with them since they wrote them. Second, in any encounter the DM should give some thought to how to role play the opponents. Fight and die are often not the only options. Some might choose to flee or surrender. An enemy caster might choose to try surrendering and then cast a fireball hitting themselves and the party as a final act of defiance. If done properly, these can all add fun and tension though that sort of thing may drive the characters towards a "take no prisoners" policy.
I would agree that familiarity with the system is a big factor, but I would actually say that the system itself is an even bigger one. My intention with the OP, was to see if there was some workarounds to get combats to run quicker and more smooth in DnD, or wether this is a limitation of the system I have to live with if I choose to play another campaign using it.
Here are my suggestions:
On the player side:
1) Encourage players to consider what they want to do before their turn arrives.
2) Encourage players to know the abilities of their character so that they don't need to look them up during combat.
e.g. damage: +stat for main hand attack, no stat for off hand unless they have the two weapon fighting style. Dueling style adds +2 damage if you are only attacking with a one handed weapon and are not holding a weapon in the other hand. The players/characters should know these things ... if they are relying on the DM to run the mechanics of their character every round then combat WILL slow down since the DM then effectively runs every character and all the players are doing is describing what they will do. If this is the kind of game you want to run then D&D is probably not the correct system to run it in.
3) Encourage players to roll attack and damage dice simultaneously.
4) Encourage players to realize that an attack roll under 8 will almost always miss and an attack roll over 20 will almost always hit. If the DM mentions otherwise for a specific encounter then ask.
5) Have players remember the number they have to add to damage for their different attacks.
6) Players should never hesitate to try cool things but the DM needs to let them know whether what they are contemplating is reasonable and then needs to adjudicate the outcome as an unbiased, independent observer.
----
On the DM side:
1) Until a DM is very experienced they need to prep encounters by reading the encounter and stat blocks for the monsters that are in the encounter. This can be less of an issue for something the DM creates themselves since they have decided the scene and what creatures are present. The DM should be familiar with what they choose to include. Published modules are a bit more challenging since the DM needs to read the encounter, the creatures, look at the stat blocks and options but also see if the encounter as written makes narrative sense. Sometimes published materials make no real sense if looked at from the perspective of the NPCs involved. Why does NPC-A choose to fight to the death at this location and time? Sometimes this makes no sense and the DM needs to modify the encounter/narrative or backstory so it makes more sense in the context of your game.
2) Prep some more? The DM really needs to know stuff. This declines over time as the DM is more and more familiar and comfortable with the material but expecting to get by with reading the game 15 minutes before and doing a smooth job of running it is unlikely. This is especially true for newer DMs who may not know the rules that well and likely haven't read more than 1/10 of the spells if that. A DM can certainly run this way and folks can have a great time but the DM will make mistakes and has to feel comfortable with changing rulings after the game when they get a chance to look up how to run it. Even the most experienced DMs will make a call that doesn't make sense from time to time and will change it after the fact.
As an example, I've been running a Dragon of Icespire Peak for a group of players. I probably took 4-6 hours reading over the module, figuring out how the pieces fit together, what the narrative is supposed to be, guessing which way the characters/players might choose to take it, how I wanted to role play several NPCs, glancing at creature stat blocks looking for special abilities or options that would make them more complicated to play and generally familiarizing myself with what the module contained. I then spent 15-60 minutes before each session going over the content I thought they were likely to reach that session. Looking at magic items, traps, what is hidden where, what NPCs are hidden where and how many, thinking about how they are likely to react to the PCs showing up, would they notice the PCs arriving, is surprise likely, how would they work togehter? After that amount of prep (for a published module), I was able to run the encounters relatively smoothly (I think :) ), social/exploration/combat and just let the game flow based on the decisions of the characters.
A new DM might need twice that or more. I might need more time if there were a lot more spell casters. The characters are mostly level 6-7 at the moment - about 1/2 the time in tier 1 and half in tier 2 so far since leveling in tier 2 is typically slower.
P.S. Two more points, home brewed encounters can take more effort to balance but the DM is typically more familiar with them since they wrote them. Second, in any encounter the DM should give some thought to how to role play the opponents. Fight and die are often not the only options. Some might choose to flee or surrender. An enemy caster might choose to try surrendering and then cast a fireball hitting themselves and the party as a final act of defiance. If done properly, these can all add fun and tension though that sort of thing may drive the characters towards a "take no prisoners" policy.
Thank you for your advice, I really appreciate your effort. A lot of it makes sense, although it doesn't address my initial question.
On the player side:
For the players side, I more or less agree. However, that was never part of the problem I tried to describe. My problem isn't that the players spend too long time. (OK, sometimes that happens, but that I know how to handle). I am not the one who get bored by the long fights. I have something to do all the time since I'm either reacting to a player or acting for an NPC. It's the players who gets bored because thing takes too long because I have too much to keep my hands on.
On the DM side:
1) I have GM'ed games for over a quarter of a century. Usually we play once to twice a week. I've played dozens of RPG-systems. I have of course been in touch with D&D since at least ADD, but we've never played any regular campaigns using that system. However, I would consider myself a quite decently experienced GM. I'm perfectly aware that I don't know the system 100%, but having played all that RPG, I can say that I know it well enough that this isn't the main the problem.
2) Prep more is valid. Might that is what is needed. If so, I think my answer will be that I either move to another system or simply end my DnD campaigns at around level 7 where I've seen this problem occur twice.
I usually don't play premade campaigns or things like that. Half of the fun of being a GM to me, is to come up with ideas, worlds, settings and plots. I've done this for so long that trying to run anything premade is a much larger effort than just creating it from the bottom. That doesn't mean I don't steal adventure ideas, NPC's and stuff like that, but I like to build my campaigns myself. I prefer to spend more time on what different NPC's are doing, how the world is reacting when I prep. Not trying to learn all the differenjt powers of an NPC I got no idea the players would ever even encounter.
Incidentally, it's pretty important for a DM to have a good idea of what spells do even if you don't use spellcasting NPCs, because having the PCs totally derail your plot because of an ability you didn't know they had is undesirable, and there are a lot of higher level spells that are quite good at disrupting plots. You'll simplify your campaign planning by a lot if you avoid having any classes that can prep spells, rather than having a fixed list that they only change on level-up.
Man. Reading over this thread makes me real really awful for being one of those players that really enjoys the tactical element of the game. I mean hell, every time I read a post from BL the phrase "you're having fun wrong, stop it" is forefront in my mind, but this thread is a doozy.
Okay. Just a couple of points I felt might be worth consideration, as one of those people who hates tier 1 play and loves having a profusion of options, both as a player and a DM (and who plays with a group that shares these two ideals):
1.) If combat is slow because people don't know their abilities, it's not because they're horrible people or because knowing the rules somehow makes them categorically awful as a player. There's half a dozen perfectly innocuous reasons I can come up with off the top of my head, but whatever that reason is, it means that leveling up becomes a privilege, not a right. If players aren't willing to put in the time to learn their abilities, then they don't get more of them. Everyone needs to prepare for the game, not just the DM.
2.) Put a timer on your players' turns, and inform them that if they don't declare an action and/or take their turn with expediency, their characters will take the Dodge action and forfeit their turn instead. If this gets your players feeling harried, off-balance and like they're being forced to make decisions faster than they want to? GOOD! They're fighting for their lives in most cases combat breaks out; they should be feeling those things!
3.) Edit your monster stat blocks. If you don't like how complicated a stat block is, shave it down prior to using it. You should be familiar with every single option every single critter you have at your disposal does, and at least broadly familiar with everything your players can do. If that sounds utterly ridiculous and like a complete and total unfair burden on the DM, then you may have to switch systems. D&D is heavily oriented towards the combat game and towards Power Fantasy, players and critters both are supposed to have a profusion of cool shit they can do. But knowing the basics of how to resolve everything on the field is critical.
4.) Get comfortable with telling your players "this is how we're handling it now. We'll figure out the real rules later." If stuff bogs down because you can't/won't find the rule, then make a ruling on the spot and note down finding it later. You don't need to do the full BigLizard and forget all the rules all the time because Rules Just Cramp My Style, Maaaaan(C), but if you don't like how slow stuff goes, then speed it up however you have to. Players will get it if you tell them you're going to start making rulings on the fly instead of searching for every little thing; that's the DM's job. Closely related:
4a.) Do not let your players ask if they can make rolls. BL's acting like all roleplaying is dead the moment the player knows how the system works; this is only true if you let it be. If ever one of my players says to me "Can I make an [X] roll?", my response is "I don't know. What are you doing?" In combat, action declarations need to be short and snappy, but they should still be declarations of what the character is doing. "I'm rolling to..." is incorrect. "I hack at the goblin with my longsword" or "I conjure sparks and hurl a Firebolt at the bandit" or even just "I cast Cure Wounds". The DM tells the player when and what to roll, never the inverse.
And finally: 5.) If you're honestly loving BigLizard's whole "Combat sucks, D&D sucks, leveling up sucks, rules suck, players should never ever EVER know any rules, Gygax is rolling in his graaave!" schtick, try a different system. Strongly recommend Savage Worlds; their latest edition is barely a year old and designed from the outset to be super lean, lightweight, and geared for speed and zip. Character options come one at a time; you never 'level up' and get a bunch of new stuff all at once, you simply gain an advance and get to pick one, maybe two things to incrementally improve about your character. Go snag the SWADE (Savage Worlds Adventure Edition) PDF for something like fifteen bucks and try that, instead. Sounds like it could be a lot more your speed.
Terrain can make an otherwise easy fight more interesting.
Agreed.
Combine with multiple types of enemies.
A batle against ten goblins is boring. A battle against six goblins, four with bows, two with daggers, and with 2 dire wolves, and with 2 hobgoblins is better. Place it in a narrow cave, with stalactites for archers to hide behind, and a big pit (allowing athletic PCs to jump across and look badass!) and a flickering bonfire (smoke randomly obscures a different square each round).
Combine with a ticking clock.
Behind the goblin force is an EHP doing some horrible ritual. In four rounds, the ritual will be done and bad stuff™ will happen.
Do the PCs focus missile fire on the EHP, leaving themself vulnerable to the goblins? Or do they take on the goblins, hoping to clear them out in time for them to physically rush the EHP before the ritual is finished?
The monsters know what they are doing.
If a PC is a ranged fighter, then have a couple of hobgoblins grapple the PC. Now the player has to decide between continue to shoot, at disadvantage, or drop the bow and attack in melee, or spend an action trying to escape the grapple.
There certainly are a lot of systems that can make interesting and fun combat much faster than DnD, but you are right that you then loose some of the details and has to go for a more narrative style of combat.
It's worth asking the question 'what makes combat interesting and fun, for you'? It sounds like you dislike tactical combat, in which case, D&D is really not the game system for you. In principle you can do narrative style combat in D&D, but the game system really doesn't lend itself to that, because outside of the tactical minigame, D&D is a very low resolution game system.
What I have done is pointed out the objective fact that the early intentions of D&D design was very specifically to not have tactical combat because this is the world from which designer and his gaming buddies was coming from and the creation of D&D was a direct response to the rules heavy and rules precise gaming of the games they played.
Um. TSR stood for 'tactical studies rules', and D&D most certainly did have tactical combat, it's just that it was rooted in a platoon-level wargame (about the same level as Warhammer) rather than a squad-level wargame so it was somewhat low resolution on the scale of individual characters.
That's just a silly statement, so the only option is either you accept tactical combat as part of D&D or you should just quit? The gatekeepers will never cease to amaze. D&D has originated as a game not about tactical combat, its really the reason it was created, to not have tactical combat it would be more accurate to say (though equally ridiculous) that if you like tactical combat you shouldn't play D&D. Its nonsense.
If you toss the tactical combat part of D&D, you've tossed 90% of the game. Yes, you can still play a game with the remaining 10%, but there's better choices.
There is one very simple trick you can apply, and it is very effective: add some environmental hazards to your combat. It not only forces the characters to do something new, but also enriches your encounter with more detailed texture.
In 5e for sure, in 1st edition AD&D there are no tactical rules in the players handbook and the pages that cover combat in the DMG could fit on the back of a cocktail napkin. I would challenge anyone to try to run 1st edition AD&D by the rules and be able to manage any semblance of order as a tactical game. It's physically impossible to do there just aren't enough instructions on how to do this as the assumption is that you aren't doing it.
First edition D&D is a game system that fully expected the players to bring graph paper so they could accurately map the dungeon. It's a game system with a matrix of weapon vs armor types. It's a game system where you had to measure off fireball and lightning bolt carefully on the map because lightning bolt would bounce off of walls and fry you if you didn't, and fireball was constant-volume rather than constant-radius. It's a game with published competitive modules with point systems for rating how well the players solved it. Yes, it didn't map combat on a 5' scale, but that doesn't make it not a tactical game.
You've gotten a few answers already (long vs short rest, realism, terrain effects, minions and action oriented monsters to name a few).
When the players start to get hold of a lot of powers, things will take time. Part of the problem is that while each player “only” has to know his/her powers, the GM is supposed to know all the powers for all his adversaries.
There's a bit of an illusion in the above. You don't have to know all the powers of the adversaries (though you should, since you created them). You only really need which ones are important for you. I will typically cull down a spell list a lot, and then in the course of a combat may add or create a spell on the spot if it makes sense narratively and in the flow.
I would like to add a different thought though. As characters get higher in level, they do have a lot more options, and as a DM it really hard, if not impossible to keep all of their options in mind -- so don't. Create encounters based on what's interesting for the shared story and the setting you are in. Some encounters may end up being trivial as the players come up with creative spell uses or ability choices. That's great! because it lets them feel the increase in power and makes more interesting things possible in the shared narrative. Other encounters may be insanely difficult, but you as a DM don't need to know how the characters will solve things -- they collectively are going to be more creative than you so use that to steal some of their good ideas and run with them. This requires some improv and letting go of the reigns as it were.
Finally, as the characters increase in level and influence some of the encounters won't necessarily be about "how do we kill the goblins" but "should we kill the goblins" -- what will be the ramifications of some actions. The characters slowly become power brokers and people of influence in their world as they get stronger, that means you can put them in more interesting and complicated situations -- again you don't have to write it all out and know the answer, you can just watch as they get creative.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
First of all: thanks to all of you for contributing to the discussion. Second I would say that I think that the thread now is at a point where derailment is completely OK as long as it is an interesting discussion and not only quarreling. I don't have the time to answer each of you individually, so I'll try to come with some kind of "conclusion" from what I've learned so far.
My original question was actually more or less answered quite early for my sake: The way I play RPG's it does seem that D&D has a kind of level cap between level 5 and 10. Thank you for all suggestions for making combat flow easier, but my initial frustration wasn't that the players took time, it was how I could make my job easier handling all the NPC's (in addition to the players). There has been some good advice here that I will certainly take to heart, but I'm quite sure my conclusion still is that for me, DnD is best at its lower levels.
Preparations has been pointed out by many as a solution. But here lies one of the issues where I must say that I agree with BigLizard on:
One principle discussed is the idea of preparation as a method to combat complexity, however preparation makes one major assumption about the game that is irrefutably false, which is that the DM can predict what the players will do.
In my way of playing, I present the players with a problem, and then see how they want to solve it (if they want to solve it at all). I might make a well educated guess at what will happen, but I often cannot be sure. That means that you have to "prepare" for multiple different scenarios, which quite soon gets out of hand. Just "guiding" my players into a preprepared combat wouldn't work. My players wouldn't find hat fun. They would only feel railroaded.
Some of you have also said that I might find another system. Yes, I can do that. As I've already said I've played a lot of different systems. The reason I asked the question in the first place is because I wanted to see if there were some kind of good ideas for how to get this work in DnD.
Finally I will say that it's a misconception that you either are 100% all the tactical part of DnD combat or 100% against. If I didn't find that part interesting at all, there would be no need for my original question. I got no problem with that some of us enjoys the tactical part a lot. I also enjoys part of it - if I hadn't I would as I said not have bothered to ask the question. It just takes to much time and space in my sessions, so I was asking for a way to simplify it.
Finally. Once again, thank you all for your responses. And if anyone wants to keep up what is actually a quite interesting discussion. You're welcome!
I read every word of this conversation up until post #22 and then !!! Wow !!!
My short answer to the OP is research your monsters and build their lair to take advantage of their strengths. This will make combat more interesting, usually by tapping into their spell powers, which I believe is often neglected. It will cause combat to take a while in many situations, but it can make it interesting.
But there are now several conversations, or ideas, being thrown into the mix. I don't have a problem with that because deep subjects are going to include many facets. I don't think most of the player base is interested in becoming politically active as land owners or anything else. They want to slay high CR monsters and obtain powerful magical items. Instant gratification is the rule.
I would enjoy a campaign like the sort you are discussing but I don't think the player population contains many of us. Good luck.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Interesting conversation so far. Let me just add that this has been a 'thing' in D&D since the red book. There has always been a push and pull between DMs, Players and the rules. Both in and out of combat. For my part, 5e has settled on the best balance so far but its not going to be perfect for everyone.
As for speeding combat along or making it more interesting. In my opinion the best thing you can do is limit max level. As player's gain a greater suite of abilities it takes more to challenge them. The greater the challenge to more time it takes to resolve. Simple as that. This is the same for any game involving tactics if you think about it. A game of chess can take a long time if both players are at a high level. Or even a game of Axis and Allies.
I am currently running a group of 9th level PCs and a deadly encounter easily takes 2 hours or more. Preparation and proficiency in the rules will only shave off a small amount of that time. It won't completely remove the 'greater challenge requires more time to resolve' issue. One of the biggest tricks I use to make it more interesting and save time is to have the bad guy(s) run away after a few rounds. This has the duel effect of shortening combat and establishing a recurring villain which player's always seem to like.
Let me also relate my experience with the 'Gritty Realism' rest variant. In my opinion it is no real solution to anything. In the campaign we tried it in the only thing it did was increase the time in game it took to do anything. We still took our short and long rests. It just took weeks instead of days. It didn't really change the role playing side. It just meant that going through something as simple as a goblin warren took a week or two which in turn jacks with every other mechanic in the game. You don't have to use this rule to make sure your players do some role playing. How much role playing versus combat a game has is always a function of the DM and the players interests.
Interesting conversation so far. Let me just add that this has been a 'thing' in D&D since the red book. There has always been a push and pull between DMs, Players and the rules. Both in and out of combat. For my part, 5e has settled on the best balance so far but its not going to be perfect for everyone.
As for speeding combat along or making it more interesting. In my opinion the best thing you can do is limit max level. As player's gain a greater suite of abilities it takes more to challenge them. The greater the challenge to more time it takes to resolve. Simple as that. This is the same for any game involving tactics if you think about it. A game of chess can take a long time if both players are at a high level. Or even a game of Axis and Allies.
I am currently running a group of 9th level PCs and a deadly encounter easily takes 2 hours or more. Preparation and proficiency in the rules will only shave off a small amount of that time. It won't completely remove the 'greater challenge requires more time to resolve' issue. One of the biggest tricks I use to make it more interesting and save time is to have the bad guy(s) run away after a few rounds. This has the duel effect of shortening combat and establishing a recurring villain which player's always seem to like.
Let me also relate my experience with the 'Gritty Realism' rest variant. In my opinion it is no real solution to anything. In the campaign we tried it in the only thing it did was increase the time in game it took to do anything. We still took our short and long rests. It just took weeks instead of days. It didn't really change the role playing side. It just meant that going through something as simple as a goblin warren took a week or two which in turn jacks with every other mechanic in the game. You don't have to use this rule to make sure your players do some role playing. How much role playing versus combat a game has is always a function of the DM and the players interests.
Thank you for joining the conversation and for having a very hands on answer.
Spending 2 hours on a fight is probably more than my players would enjoy, and since I don't see any obvious way to make it quicker, I think the best solution for me/us is probably to cap the levels before that happens. The other obvious solution, is of course to just use another system, but that wasn't the issue of this thread.
The 'gritty realism' insight is very well appreciated. I still think it could work better than the current system for us. In our game the players have perhaps an encounter every fourth day or so, and I usually am quite good at giving the players a time pressure, so just "resting" for a week would mean consequences. The enemies will have moved, regrouped, be in different places etc.
Just to add more on the gritty realism variant since you seem like you want to try it.
Keep in mind that this variant basically throws away the CR system. My experience is that this is more work on the DM versus less. Doing a classic 'rescue the kidnapped girl from the goblin warren' becomes pretty hard to do once all the PC class features take 8 hours rest to recover. So doing something with a time crunch will exponentially impact classes more dependent on short or long rests. Full spell casters especially will feel the pinch more which might feel unfair to those players.
Allow me to provide a few smaller changes which I have been considering for my own games.
Limit max level to 9
Any character dropped to 0hp receives a level of exhaustion. (a better replacement for gritty realism IMHO)
Once a character hits max level they may gain special abilities similar to Epic Boons in the DMG (this will mostly be a way for characters to gain access to higher level class features)
Again the concept of tournament and organized play was a TSR thing, not a design thing for AD&D hence the ever lasting inconsistency between the designers intention and the publishing of the game. Anyone who ever played in tournaments back then knows what a giant mess it was as not even the official TSR tournament managers had the foggiest idea on how to get all of the rules of AD&D to work together because in the end they were not designed to all work together, they where fragments of rules assumed to be used in specific situations and circumstances based on the DM's desire for greater or less detail in any given situation. This was something that was layered onto the game as part of the marketing concepts of trying to sell stuff, namely adventure and supplement books.
Sure, but that doesn't mean they were opposed to the original intent of the game. There's no real evidence that there was an original intent (beyond 'I want to do epic fantasy in a wargame'), the game more or less evolved by accretion on a base system of Chainmail, which was a wargame.
In any case, the concept of what is a tactical game could of course be debated, but I would argue it is when maneuvers are defined and the details of those actions matter to the outcome.
By that standard Advanced Squad Leader isn't a tactical game; my usual distinction is 'is a map important' (you can do D&D without a map, but a bunch of rules become problematic).
Broadly speaking the amount of detail given to the actions of a single unit is inversely proportional to the number of units that each side is expected to control, and D&D was based on miniatures wargaming where a significant number of figures per side was normal (and early D&D was reasonably likely to have multiple counters per player, what with hirelings, followers, and the like). There's no question that 3e and later are designed for smaller scale than AD&D, AD&D was fine with a wandering monster encounter of 2d100 orcs, but that just makes it a different type of tactical game.
Points taken. I like the idea to use exhaustion. That might work. I'm however not very concerned of the "problem" that the spell-casters will be limited. One of the problems in my games is that since there are usually only one encounter per day, they are always fully beefed up. I rather need an incentive to stop them from using their full "arsenal", at the moment it's certainly not a problem that they feel limited. Quite the oposite.
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Ludo ergo sum!
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This depends if you are playing in theatre of the mind or playing on a grid. If you are playing on a grid, you might have 30' of movement which gives your character certain options. If you are playing in theatre of the mind, you are either close enough to run up to your opponent that turn, or you aren't. Having the movement written down and available, doesn't change how the game plays out, just how the DM describes it. Some classes and races have abilities that increase their movement ... rogue cunning action allowing for bonus action dash, a monk can accomplish the same thing by expending ki, a tabaxi can run very fast for a single round ... if you are playing with any of these classes either on a grid or in theatre of the mind, the odds of an enemy escaping the party by running away are very small since the characters are faster. There is nothing wrong with that, it is part of the abilities of the character and it does affect how a chase scene might play out.
However, if by "it difficult to freeform as a DM.", you mean that the character abilities make it difficult for the DM to railroad the characters in certain ways by having the villain successfully outrun the characters without a special ability then you are absolutely right ... but the issue in this case is not the character abilities but the DM wanting to "freeform" a specific outcome irrespective of what the players can do in a particular situation. The DM sets up the situation and the adjudicates it, the players will ALWAYS come up with cool ideas that may change the outcome the DM expects or plans ... all this means is that the DMs plans have to change. It's not a big deal, maybe the former big villain becomes a senior minion because the players get unexpectedly lucky and kill him off :) ... so what. The players do not know the plot line that the DM was developing. The DM can freeform anything that the players haven't seen yet. The campaign responds and evolves in reaction to the player actions. Alternatively, if the players unexpectedly kill off a villain then the plot line shifts to any number of other simultaneously running plot lines that the DM has in mind.
In world building, try not to have ONE plot, ONE villain, ONE outcome that you expect ... have half a dozen things going on at the same time, the players encounter information or encounters that could be related to multiple independent plot lines. There could be two or more organizations working simultaneously, either together or against each other. Creating a more realistic world with multiple plot lines allows the campaign to be more fluid and to adjust to unexpected outcomes. One fundamental point is that unexpected outcomes should be expected.
In any case, the D&D movement system doesn't impose any additional encounter constraints that aren't already in any other RPG. Movement is never infinte, movement is almost never the same for every person or creature ... faster creatures will catch slower ones. Humans can't reasonably outrun a cheetah on flat open terrain. So I can't say I see the D&D movement system as any more or less rigid than any other RPG movement system. GURPS, Shadowrun, Rolemaster, every version of D&D, all of them constrain how far creatures can move and in general have abilities that increase movement .. so it seems to me that a "chase" scene in D&D would play out pretty much the same in any gaming system (at least the ones I have tried).
P.S. As for combat speed ... some of the games can be a lot slower than 5e ... AD&D had modifiers for every specific weapon trying to hit different AC targets, if I recall, Rolemaster has an immense amount of detail as well but I haven't looked at that one in a long time, Shadowrun has magic, ranged weapons, melee, firearms, totems, spells ... depending on the character there are a lot of options though character tends to limit things ... if I recall though most resolution just uses d6s so at least you aren't searching for dice :)
I'll have to agree to disagree with you on this one.
1) The creature has lots of options. However, the DM reads the stat block in advance, looks at the options, and has a good idea what options that NPC will use in a given situation. It just takes preparation. If you contend that D&D should be completely and smoothly playable without the DM investing time in preparation then I have to disagree with you. However, after a certain amount of experience, prep time goes way down since the DM knows generally what the spell options will do and can decide at the time without having to ponder, what exactly a creature will do.
2) The DMs choice does not need to be perfect. In fact, sometimes, depending on how the encounter is going, the DM may need to specifically make imperfect choices. It is a balancing act between a fun encounter and avoiding a TPK (unless caused by the player actions ...). A string of bad luck is not a good reason for a TPK unless the fates truly are against the party, then the DM might modify the plot into a prisoner scenario or some form of unexpected survival with consequences depending on the players and the nature of the campaign.
3) As for the "far too many options to be actually "runnable" in a smooth combat.", I've done this and watched it done often enough to know that this statement is completely false. Any creature can be run in a smooth and fun combat. I played with a group through the end of Tomb of Annihilation (tier 3 - levels 11-13 at the end), the head villain at the end has a lot of options as does the villain just before that, it is one large, extended fight and it went very smoothly when I played it with a group of 7 players and the DM. I know at least half a dozen DMs that would have no issue running that encounter, for characters at that level in a smooth, fun and enjoyable way.
The biggest factors on the DM side are probably experience with the game system and preparation while from the players it is familiarity with their characters and what they can do.
I'll agree we disagree here.
1) Yes preparation could help out with a critter with a lot of options. However I don't want to spend a lot of preparation on that. There's only a certain amount of time available for preparation, and I don't want to spend it all on learning 15 different spells. Besides that running one (or even worse several) such NPC's takes more time and slows down combat. That's the exact thing I'm looking for a way to counter.
2) Agrees and disagrees with this one. Yes, I try not to TPK my players, and sometimes mr. Bad Guy won't throw that last fireball just because I know he has been insanely lucky on his dice rolls etc. However, if the NPC is so "complicated" to DM that you have to go for second best choices because you just have to choose something to keep up the pace. Why have the choices? I would say it's better to then have fewer choices so you can make actually good choices that makes sense for the villain. I don't need those 10 spare spell slots for the combat, they are probably just a hindrance.
3) OK, everything is possible, I'll agree to that. Given I have all the time for preparation I need etc, etc. But honestly, have you never encountered that you throw in an enemy to the combat and later think that he had: "far too many options to be actually "runnable" in a smooth combat"? This is a problem even if you know the system by heart. Trying to keep control of an NPC with too many options, probably some minions, and then also all the different plans your players have at once. That is a sure way to a slower combat since it throws too many things into the pot to handle for the DM.
I would agree that familiarity with the system is a big factor, but I would actually say that the system itself is an even bigger one. My intention with the OP, was to see if there was some workarounds to get combats to run quicker and more smooth in DnD, or wether this is a limitation of the system I have to live with if I choose to play another campaign using it.
Ludo ergo sum!
Here are my suggestions:
On the player side:
1) Encourage players to consider what they want to do before their turn arrives.
2) Encourage players to know the abilities of their character so that they don't need to look them up during combat.
e.g. damage: +stat for main hand attack, no stat for off hand unless they have the two weapon fighting style. Dueling style adds +2 damage if you are only attacking with a one handed weapon and are not holding a weapon in the other hand. The players/characters should know these things ... if they are relying on the DM to run the mechanics of their character every round then combat WILL slow down since the DM then effectively runs every character and all the players are doing is describing what they will do. If this is the kind of game you want to run then D&D is probably not the correct system to run it in.
3) Encourage players to roll attack and damage dice simultaneously.
4) Encourage players to realize that an attack roll under 8 will almost always miss and an attack roll over 20 will almost always hit. If the DM mentions otherwise for a specific encounter then ask.
5) Have players remember the number they have to add to damage for their different attacks.
6) Players should never hesitate to try cool things but the DM needs to let them know whether what they are contemplating is reasonable and then needs to adjudicate the outcome as an unbiased, independent observer.
----
On the DM side:
1) Until a DM is very experienced they need to prep encounters by reading the encounter and stat blocks for the monsters that are in the encounter. This can be less of an issue for something the DM creates themselves since they have decided the scene and what creatures are present. The DM should be familiar with what they choose to include. Published modules are a bit more challenging since the DM needs to read the encounter, the creatures, look at the stat blocks and options but also see if the encounter as written makes narrative sense. Sometimes published materials make no real sense if looked at from the perspective of the NPCs involved. Why does NPC-A choose to fight to the death at this location and time? Sometimes this makes no sense and the DM needs to modify the encounter/narrative or backstory so it makes more sense in the context of your game.
2) Prep some more? The DM really needs to know stuff. This declines over time as the DM is more and more familiar and comfortable with the material but expecting to get by with reading the game 15 minutes before and doing a smooth job of running it is unlikely. This is especially true for newer DMs who may not know the rules that well and likely haven't read more than 1/10 of the spells if that. A DM can certainly run this way and folks can have a great time but the DM will make mistakes and has to feel comfortable with changing rulings after the game when they get a chance to look up how to run it. Even the most experienced DMs will make a call that doesn't make sense from time to time and will change it after the fact.
As an example, I've been running a Dragon of Icespire Peak for a group of players. I probably took 4-6 hours reading over the module, figuring out how the pieces fit together, what the narrative is supposed to be, guessing which way the characters/players might choose to take it, how I wanted to role play several NPCs, glancing at creature stat blocks looking for special abilities or options that would make them more complicated to play and generally familiarizing myself with what the module contained. I then spent 15-60 minutes before each session going over the content I thought they were likely to reach that session. Looking at magic items, traps, what is hidden where, what NPCs are hidden where and how many, thinking about how they are likely to react to the PCs showing up, would they notice the PCs arriving, is surprise likely, how would they work togehter? After that amount of prep (for a published module), I was able to run the encounters relatively smoothly (I think :) ), social/exploration/combat and just let the game flow based on the decisions of the characters.
A new DM might need twice that or more. I might need more time if there were a lot more spell casters. The characters are mostly level 6-7 at the moment - about 1/2 the time in tier 1 and half in tier 2 so far since leveling in tier 2 is typically slower.
P.S. Two more points, home brewed encounters can take more effort to balance but the DM is typically more familiar with them since they wrote them. Second, in any encounter the DM should give some thought to how to role play the opponents. Fight and die are often not the only options. Some might choose to flee or surrender. An enemy caster might choose to try surrendering and then cast a fireball hitting themselves and the party as a final act of defiance. If done properly, these can all add fun and tension though that sort of thing may drive the characters towards a "take no prisoners" policy.
Thank you for your advice, I really appreciate your effort. A lot of it makes sense, although it doesn't address my initial question.
On the player side:
For the players side, I more or less agree. However, that was never part of the problem I tried to describe. My problem isn't that the players spend too long time. (OK, sometimes that happens, but that I know how to handle). I am not the one who get bored by the long fights. I have something to do all the time since I'm either reacting to a player or acting for an NPC. It's the players who gets bored because thing takes too long because I have too much to keep my hands on.
On the DM side:
1) I have GM'ed games for over a quarter of a century. Usually we play once to twice a week. I've played dozens of RPG-systems. I have of course been in touch with D&D since at least ADD, but we've never played any regular campaigns using that system. However, I would consider myself a quite decently experienced GM. I'm perfectly aware that I don't know the system 100%, but having played all that RPG, I can say that I know it well enough that this isn't the main the problem.
2) Prep more is valid. Might that is what is needed. If so, I think my answer will be that I either move to another system or simply end my DnD campaigns at around level 7 where I've seen this problem occur twice.
I usually don't play premade campaigns or things like that. Half of the fun of being a GM to me, is to come up with ideas, worlds, settings and plots. I've done this for so long that trying to run anything premade is a much larger effort than just creating it from the bottom. That doesn't mean I don't steal adventure ideas, NPC's and stuff like that, but I like to build my campaigns myself. I prefer to spend more time on what different NPC's are doing, how the world is reacting when I prep. Not trying to learn all the differenjt powers of an NPC I got no idea the players would ever even encounter.
Ludo ergo sum!
Incidentally, it's pretty important for a DM to have a good idea of what spells do even if you don't use spellcasting NPCs, because having the PCs totally derail your plot because of an ability you didn't know they had is undesirable, and there are a lot of higher level spells that are quite good at disrupting plots. You'll simplify your campaign planning by a lot if you avoid having any classes that can prep spells, rather than having a fixed list that they only change on level-up.
Man. Reading over this thread makes me real really awful for being one of those players that really enjoys the tactical element of the game. I mean hell, every time I read a post from BL the phrase "you're having fun wrong, stop it" is forefront in my mind, but this thread is a doozy.
Okay. Just a couple of points I felt might be worth consideration, as one of those people who hates tier 1 play and loves having a profusion of options, both as a player and a DM (and who plays with a group that shares these two ideals):
1.) If combat is slow because people don't know their abilities, it's not because they're horrible people or because knowing the rules somehow makes them categorically awful as a player. There's half a dozen perfectly innocuous reasons I can come up with off the top of my head, but whatever that reason is, it means that leveling up becomes a privilege, not a right. If players aren't willing to put in the time to learn their abilities, then they don't get more of them. Everyone needs to prepare for the game, not just the DM.
2.) Put a timer on your players' turns, and inform them that if they don't declare an action and/or take their turn with expediency, their characters will take the Dodge action and forfeit their turn instead. If this gets your players feeling harried, off-balance and like they're being forced to make decisions faster than they want to? GOOD! They're fighting for their lives in most cases combat breaks out; they should be feeling those things!
3.) Edit your monster stat blocks. If you don't like how complicated a stat block is, shave it down prior to using it. You should be familiar with every single option every single critter you have at your disposal does, and at least broadly familiar with everything your players can do. If that sounds utterly ridiculous and like a complete and total unfair burden on the DM, then you may have to switch systems. D&D is heavily oriented towards the combat game and towards Power Fantasy, players and critters both are supposed to have a profusion of cool shit they can do. But knowing the basics of how to resolve everything on the field is critical.
4.) Get comfortable with telling your players "this is how we're handling it now. We'll figure out the real rules later." If stuff bogs down because you can't/won't find the rule, then make a ruling on the spot and note down finding it later. You don't need to do the full BigLizard and forget all the rules all the time because Rules Just Cramp My Style, Maaaaan(C), but if you don't like how slow stuff goes, then speed it up however you have to. Players will get it if you tell them you're going to start making rulings on the fly instead of searching for every little thing; that's the DM's job. Closely related:
4a.) Do not let your players ask if they can make rolls. BL's acting like all roleplaying is dead the moment the player knows how the system works; this is only true if you let it be. If ever one of my players says to me "Can I make an [X] roll?", my response is "I don't know. What are you doing?" In combat, action declarations need to be short and snappy, but they should still be declarations of what the character is doing. "I'm rolling to..." is incorrect. "I hack at the goblin with my longsword" or "I conjure sparks and hurl a Firebolt at the bandit" or even just "I cast Cure Wounds". The DM tells the player when and what to roll, never the inverse.
And finally:
5.) If you're honestly loving BigLizard's whole "Combat sucks, D&D sucks, leveling up sucks, rules suck, players should never ever EVER know any rules, Gygax is rolling in his graaave!" schtick, try a different system. Strongly recommend Savage Worlds; their latest edition is barely a year old and designed from the outset to be super lean, lightweight, and geared for speed and zip. Character options come one at a time; you never 'level up' and get a bunch of new stuff all at once, you simply gain an advance and get to pick one, maybe two things to incrementally improve about your character. Go snag the SWADE (Savage Worlds Adventure Edition) PDF for something like fifteen bucks and try that, instead. Sounds like it could be a lot more your speed.
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Agreed.
Combine with multiple types of enemies.
A batle against ten goblins is boring. A battle against six goblins, four with bows, two with daggers, and with 2 dire wolves, and with 2 hobgoblins is better. Place it in a narrow cave, with stalactites for archers to hide behind, and a big pit (allowing athletic PCs to jump across and look badass!) and a flickering bonfire (smoke randomly obscures a different square each round).
Combine with a ticking clock.
Behind the goblin force is an EHP doing some horrible ritual. In four rounds, the ritual will be done and bad stuff™ will happen.
Do the PCs focus missile fire on the EHP, leaving themself vulnerable to the goblins? Or do they take on the goblins, hoping to clear them out in time for them to physically rush the EHP before the ritual is finished?
The monsters know what they are doing.
If a PC is a ranged fighter, then have a couple of hobgoblins grapple the PC. Now the player has to decide between continue to shoot, at disadvantage, or drop the bow and attack in melee, or spend an action trying to escape the grapple.
It's worth asking the question 'what makes combat interesting and fun, for you'? It sounds like you dislike tactical combat, in which case, D&D is really not the game system for you. In principle you can do narrative style combat in D&D, but the game system really doesn't lend itself to that, because outside of the tactical minigame, D&D is a very low resolution game system.
Um. TSR stood for 'tactical studies rules', and D&D most certainly did have tactical combat, it's just that it was rooted in a platoon-level wargame (about the same level as Warhammer) rather than a squad-level wargame so it was somewhat low resolution on the scale of individual characters.
If you toss the tactical combat part of D&D, you've tossed 90% of the game. Yes, you can still play a game with the remaining 10%, but there's better choices.
There is one very simple trick you can apply, and it is very effective: add some environmental hazards to your combat. It not only forces the characters to do something new, but also enriches your encounter with more detailed texture.
First edition D&D is a game system that fully expected the players to bring graph paper so they could accurately map the dungeon. It's a game system with a matrix of weapon vs armor types. It's a game system where you had to measure off fireball and lightning bolt carefully on the map because lightning bolt would bounce off of walls and fry you if you didn't, and fireball was constant-volume rather than constant-radius. It's a game with published competitive modules with point systems for rating how well the players solved it. Yes, it didn't map combat on a 5' scale, but that doesn't make it not a tactical game.
Good day,
You've gotten a few answers already (long vs short rest, realism, terrain effects, minions and action oriented monsters to name a few).
There's a bit of an illusion in the above. You don't have to know all the powers of the adversaries (though you should, since you created them). You only really need which ones are important for you. I will typically cull down a spell list a lot, and then in the course of a combat may add or create a spell on the spot if it makes sense narratively and in the flow.
I would like to add a different thought though. As characters get higher in level, they do have a lot more options, and as a DM it really hard, if not impossible to keep all of their options in mind -- so don't. Create encounters based on what's interesting for the shared story and the setting you are in. Some encounters may end up being trivial as the players come up with creative spell uses or ability choices. That's great! because it lets them feel the increase in power and makes more interesting things possible in the shared narrative. Other encounters may be insanely difficult, but you as a DM don't need to know how the characters will solve things -- they collectively are going to be more creative than you so use that to steal some of their good ideas and run with them. This requires some improv and letting go of the reigns as it were.
Finally, as the characters increase in level and influence some of the encounters won't necessarily be about "how do we kill the goblins" but "should we kill the goblins" -- what will be the ramifications of some actions. The characters slowly become power brokers and people of influence in their world as they get stronger, that means you can put them in more interesting and complicated situations -- again you don't have to write it all out and know the answer, you can just watch as they get creative.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
First of all: thanks to all of you for contributing to the discussion. Second I would say that I think that the thread now is at a point where derailment is completely OK as long as it is an interesting discussion and not only quarreling. I don't have the time to answer each of you individually, so I'll try to come with some kind of "conclusion" from what I've learned so far.
My original question was actually more or less answered quite early for my sake: The way I play RPG's it does seem that D&D has a kind of level cap between level 5 and 10. Thank you for all suggestions for making combat flow easier, but my initial frustration wasn't that the players took time, it was how I could make my job easier handling all the NPC's (in addition to the players). There has been some good advice here that I will certainly take to heart, but I'm quite sure my conclusion still is that for me, DnD is best at its lower levels.
Preparations has been pointed out by many as a solution. But here lies one of the issues where I must say that I agree with BigLizard on:
In my way of playing, I present the players with a problem, and then see how they want to solve it (if they want to solve it at all). I might make a well educated guess at what will happen, but I often cannot be sure. That means that you have to "prepare" for multiple different scenarios, which quite soon gets out of hand. Just "guiding" my players into a preprepared combat wouldn't work. My players wouldn't find hat fun. They would only feel railroaded.
Some of you have also said that I might find another system. Yes, I can do that. As I've already said I've played a lot of different systems. The reason I asked the question in the first place is because I wanted to see if there were some kind of good ideas for how to get this work in DnD.
Finally I will say that it's a misconception that you either are 100% all the tactical part of DnD combat or 100% against. If I didn't find that part interesting at all, there would be no need for my original question. I got no problem with that some of us enjoys the tactical part a lot. I also enjoys part of it - if I hadn't I would as I said not have bothered to ask the question. It just takes to much time and space in my sessions, so I was asking for a way to simplify it.
Finally. Once again, thank you all for your responses. And if anyone wants to keep up what is actually a quite interesting discussion. You're welcome!
Ludo ergo sum!
I read every word of this conversation up until post #22 and then !!! Wow !!!
My short answer to the OP is research your monsters and build their lair to take advantage of their strengths. This will make combat more interesting, usually by tapping into their spell powers, which I believe is often neglected. It will cause combat to take a while in many situations, but it can make it interesting.
But there are now several conversations, or ideas, being thrown into the mix. I don't have a problem with that because deep subjects are going to include many facets. I don't think most of the player base is interested in becoming politically active as land owners or anything else. They want to slay high CR monsters and obtain powerful magical items. Instant gratification is the rule.
I would enjoy a campaign like the sort you are discussing but I don't think the player population contains many of us. Good luck.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Interesting conversation so far. Let me just add that this has been a 'thing' in D&D since the red book. There has always been a push and pull between DMs, Players and the rules. Both in and out of combat. For my part, 5e has settled on the best balance so far but its not going to be perfect for everyone.
As for speeding combat along or making it more interesting. In my opinion the best thing you can do is limit max level. As player's gain a greater suite of abilities it takes more to challenge them. The greater the challenge to more time it takes to resolve. Simple as that. This is the same for any game involving tactics if you think about it. A game of chess can take a long time if both players are at a high level. Or even a game of Axis and Allies.
I am currently running a group of 9th level PCs and a deadly encounter easily takes 2 hours or more. Preparation and proficiency in the rules will only shave off a small amount of that time. It won't completely remove the 'greater challenge requires more time to resolve' issue. One of the biggest tricks I use to make it more interesting and save time is to have the bad guy(s) run away after a few rounds. This has the duel effect of shortening combat and establishing a recurring villain which player's always seem to like.
Let me also relate my experience with the 'Gritty Realism' rest variant. In my opinion it is no real solution to anything. In the campaign we tried it in the only thing it did was increase the time in game it took to do anything. We still took our short and long rests. It just took weeks instead of days. It didn't really change the role playing side. It just meant that going through something as simple as a goblin warren took a week or two which in turn jacks with every other mechanic in the game. You don't have to use this rule to make sure your players do some role playing. How much role playing versus combat a game has is always a function of the DM and the players interests.
Current Characters I am playing: Dr Konstantin van Wulf | Taegen Willowrun | Mad Magnar
Check out my homebrew: Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Feats
Thank you for joining the conversation and for having a very hands on answer.
Spending 2 hours on a fight is probably more than my players would enjoy, and since I don't see any obvious way to make it quicker, I think the best solution for me/us is probably to cap the levels before that happens. The other obvious solution, is of course to just use another system, but that wasn't the issue of this thread.
The 'gritty realism' insight is very well appreciated. I still think it could work better than the current system for us. In our game the players have perhaps an encounter every fourth day or so, and I usually am quite good at giving the players a time pressure, so just "resting" for a week would mean consequences. The enemies will have moved, regrouped, be in different places etc.
Ludo ergo sum!
Just to add more on the gritty realism variant since you seem like you want to try it.
Keep in mind that this variant basically throws away the CR system. My experience is that this is more work on the DM versus less. Doing a classic 'rescue the kidnapped girl from the goblin warren' becomes pretty hard to do once all the PC class features take 8 hours rest to recover. So doing something with a time crunch will exponentially impact classes more dependent on short or long rests. Full spell casters especially will feel the pinch more which might feel unfair to those players.
Allow me to provide a few smaller changes which I have been considering for my own games.
Hope this is helpful
Current Characters I am playing: Dr Konstantin van Wulf | Taegen Willowrun | Mad Magnar
Check out my homebrew: Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Feats
Sure, but that doesn't mean they were opposed to the original intent of the game. There's no real evidence that there was an original intent (beyond 'I want to do epic fantasy in a wargame'), the game more or less evolved by accretion on a base system of Chainmail, which was a wargame.
By that standard Advanced Squad Leader isn't a tactical game; my usual distinction is 'is a map important' (you can do D&D without a map, but a bunch of rules become problematic).
Broadly speaking the amount of detail given to the actions of a single unit is inversely proportional to the number of units that each side is expected to control, and D&D was based on miniatures wargaming where a significant number of figures per side was normal (and early D&D was reasonably likely to have multiple counters per player, what with hirelings, followers, and the like). There's no question that 3e and later are designed for smaller scale than AD&D, AD&D was fine with a wandering monster encounter of 2d100 orcs, but that just makes it a different type of tactical game.
Slaine000 and BigLizard
Points taken. I like the idea to use exhaustion. That might work. I'm however not very concerned of the "problem" that the spell-casters will be limited. One of the problems in my games is that since there are usually only one encounter per day, they are always fully beefed up. I rather need an incentive to stop them from using their full "arsenal", at the moment it's certainly not a problem that they feel limited. Quite the oposite.
Ludo ergo sum!