The Gaming Den

So a thought crossed my mind on how D&D grid based combat feels static, but the fixes to make combat "more dynamic" tend to be fiddly with lots of little back and forth movement that doesn't feel worth the effort.

I figure one of the problems is your reach and the nature of turn based play, it treats the end of your movement as your dude firmly rooting himself to the ground and only hitting dudes without moving his feet.

So as a change, what if we extended the range of most melee weapons by a square/5ft?
A greatsword now has a threat range of 2 squares and can still hit adjacent, a spear has a reach of 3 but penalized for adjacent. Daggers and slams are still 1 square because of how short they are, maybe axes and maces are too if you also give it higher damage than the sword equivalent. This represents the characters shuffling around, lunging and backstepping as the battle goes on.

This also extends the reach of opportunity attacks so more of them are going off, making initial contact stickier.

So you stand even more firmly, not moving around?

Like, why not make it so you can take a full attack after a move and/or make it so you can break up your attack routine with your movement however you want (like move 10 feet, hit someone, move 10 feet, hit someone else, move 10 feet and use your last attack). You could move/attack/move or attack/move/attack or move/attack/move/attack. As long as you don't move more than your total movement, what's the problem?

deaddmwalking wrote:Like, why not make it so you can take a full attack after a move and/or make it so you can break up your attack routine with your movement however you want (like move 10 feet, hit someone, move 10 feet, hit someone else, move 10 feet and use your last attack). You could move/attack/move or attack/move/attack or move/attack/move/attack. As long as you don't move more than your total movement, what's the problem?

In ACKS, you can take a 5-foot step after each kill during a cleave sequence. You fight a lot of mobs, so it's pretty fun.

Regarding the main topic, this doesn't seem like it would change all that much. It could be interesting to model weapon reach with more granularity, though, to further differentiate a greatsword and a shortsword. That could end up with people moving around more.

SIFRP has "advanced reach rules" in which most weapons have a fixed number of squares of reach, suffer a penalty to attack rolls if used 1 square away from their exact reach, and cannot be used against targets not within 1 square of their exact reach.

While the exact maths suffers a bit from being roll & keep, it certainly made us think more about positioning.

People stand in one place because there is incentive to not move (full attacks) and there is little incentive to be in one place or another. Having larger threatened areas, and thus having more locations on the battlemat be functionally equivalent, would do nothing for the first and make the second worse.

We have games where people can pretty much attack wherever they want. And the result is that people pretty much don't care about movement at all. Most games of Shadowrun are done without having a battlemat at all, because tactical movement is essentially meaningless and no one cares.

If you want people to move around all the time, you need to give them some incentive for moving around all the time. Like having them leave little light cycle trails of threatened area behind when they move or whatever. Taking away the disincentives for movement would also help. Dropping the full attack penalty on melee attacks would be a good start.

-Username17

OgreBattle wrote: So as a change, what if we extended the range of most melee weapons by a square/5ft?

That might be an interesting hotfix for trying to making 3e melee against level-equivalent "bruiser" monsters slightly less suicidal, but it wouldn't do a blessed thing to make meleers want to move around more.

A melee specced-pc is still giving up additional attacks and provoking AoOs with any significant movement. In fact with weapons having larger reach, movement becomes more likely to provoke AoOs as weapon-using monsters now threaten more squares

deaddmwalking wrote: Like, why not make it so you can take a full attack after a move and/or make it so you can break up your attack routine with your movement however you want (like move 10 feet, hit someone, move 10 feet, hit someone else, move 10 feet and use your last attack). You could move/attack/move or attack/move/attack or move/attack/move/attack. As long as you don't move more than your total movement, what's the problem?

The "problems" with this are

1. Some players feel that they should get something for not using all of their movement. A choice between full move and no attack, partial move and partial attack or full attack and no move makes intuitive sense and looks like it's offering interesting tactical choices. You alternate approach of full move + full attack doesn't seem as balanced or interesting to the initial sniff test. Now over a decade of playing 3e games has shown that such an initial assessment is incorrect and that forcing PCs to make those trades mean that they try and avoid those trades whenever and however possible -- from static positioning and full attacks to cheesing pounce builds that hand out full move + full attack routines -- so this is really just a problem of perceptions.


2. A bit more consequential is that allowing character to split up their move and attack routines and intersperse them however is that the at-the-table accounting can slow the actual game play and even become cumbersome. If you options are A> Move then Attack or B> Attack then Move it's really easy to keep track of where you are in resolving your turn. If you can move 10" attack once, move another 5' attack 2 more times, then move 15 at the end you need to maintain counters for both total movement and number of attacks and doing so becomes more complex than tracking things in head when you have to account for potential AoOs, traps, and damage-shield effects interrupting a given character's turn at various points. This issue is not insurmountable but you have to decide if making the in-play accounting more difficult is worth the gains in combat mobility.

If you really want to make moving in combat interesting, why not just make it your attack action? https://www.atlus.com/rondoofswords/route.html

How about no attacks of opportunity / threatened squares if your character moves? More interesting tactical choice there, maybe? And it seems to fit thematically, either a character stands "rooted" and attacks anything that comes near, or the character moves around striking at specific targets.

phlapjackage wrote:How about no attacks of opportunity / threatened squares if your character moves? More interesting tactical choice there, maybe? And it seems to fit thematically, either a character stands "rooted" and attacks anything that comes near, or the character moves around striking at specific targets.

How about melee character already have no incentive to move, ever and this just makes that worse.

Anything which increases what you can do without moving or decreases what you can when you do move incentivizes not-moving. Because that is fucking obviously how incentives work.

-Username17

deaddmwalking wrote:

phlapjackage wrote:How about no attacks of opportunity / threatened squares if your character moves? More interesting tactical choice there, maybe? And it seems to fit thematically, either a character stands "rooted" and attacks anything that comes near, or the character moves around striking at specific targets.

How about melee character already have no incentive to move, ever and this just makes that worse.

Sorry, meant to include removing the no-move/full-attack requirement as well.

The "closest" solution that I ever thought of for the "problem" of weapon reaches not really feeling authentic would be to have weapons have even more limited, or seperate reach entries, for different reach bands; and use quadriculated paper where 1" = 1', and the 5' square becomes a 4' square to represent more granular weapon reach. A greatsword shouldn't have the same reach as a dagger, for example.

A small weapon like a dagger would be good b/c you could use it in a grapple or when within 1' of a enemy. While a halberd was good b/c it had a reach of 3-5' with it's axe/hook, 5-6' with its point, and 1-3' with its haft-butt; but it doesn't have a reach of "0", so it's no good if you're grappled. So a person with a reach weapon can kill at a distance, but has a worse option (basically a club) if they're close in. While a dagger is murderous if you're close in, but worthless at a distance (unless thrown).

Essentially, making combat horribly overdetailed. I never went through with it b/c it seemed like a lead balloon.

...maybe it might be what's necessary to create the "detailed combat mechanics" Frank said a fantasy heartbreaker mod of After Sundown would require. I think that he probably meant combat options, not overly detailed weapon reach rules.

The problem of turn-based games not feeling "fluid" enough is a different kettle of fish. If you want to have 'give-and-take', and creatures are making Initiative checks to see if their unspent actions from their turn can be spent in response to enemy actions.... you get the 4e situation wherein turns that basically never end due to constant interruptions. If you calculate Initiative every round, combat will always take longer because obviously calculating initiative every round will make combat slower, not faster.

That said, stuff like Attacks of Opportunity in 3e D&D, and the "Free Attacks" from creatures attempting to flee in After Sundown; are the closest to getting 'dynamic' combat. Even then, it's obvious from the fact that AoOs & "free attacks" are relatively uncommon in actual gameplay, means that the more fluid you make combat; the more players will try to mitigate fluidity being leveraged against them.

FrankTrollman wrote: If you want people to move around all the time, you need to give them some incentive for moving around all the time. Like having them leave little light cycle trails of threatened area behind when they move or whatever. Taking away the disincentives for movement would also help. Dropping the full attack penalty on melee attacks would be a good start.

-Username17

What if attacking without moving imposes a (-1? -3?) penalty (i.e. encouraging at least 5' steps even at low levels), xor you can distribute up to your full attacks per round. Perhaps with caveats such as so long as a creature doesn't move more than their Movement Speed per round, and they move at least 5' between each Iterative (but not Two Weapon Fighting) attack.

An other option: allow creatures to perform non standard actions instead of an Iterative attack, allowing them to combine combat actions; like a bullrush attack; an overrunning trip; a feinting disarm; or a grapple submission coup-de-grace (i.e. [Tome] CdG, a critical hit).

It's a well known fact that Iterative attacks weren't thought out past level 6, so allowing more options for them to be spent on might make people do more than just spam "attack with weapon."

Which, I believe is the objective of this thread; make combat have more variety of options that will actually be implemented.

Almaz wrote:If you really want to make moving in combat interesting, why not just make it your attack action? https://www.atlus.com/rondoofswords/route.html

Wow suprized I overlooked that game! Will check it out.

The problem of turn-based games not feeling "fluid" enough is a different kettle of fish. If you want to have 'give-and-take', and creatures are making Initiative checks to see if their unspent actions from their turn can be spent in response to enemy actions.... you get the 4e situation wherein turns that basically never end due to constant interruptions. If you calculate Initiative every round, combat will always take longer because obviously calculating initiative every round will make combat slower, not faster.

I think that can work if you balance things to end in a few turns, but it's tough to make that work when everyone is rolling up their own characters with different gear and it's not a skirmish game with strict points.

Skirmish games like Mordheim feel good to me with how much you can do in one turn vs how many turns finish an encounter.

Judging__Eagle wrote: The problem of turn-based games not feeling "fluid" enough is a different kettle of fish. If you want to have 'give-and-take', and creatures are making Initiative checks to see if their unspent actions from their turn can be spent in response to enemy actions.... you get the 4e situation wherein turns that basically never end due to constant interruptions. If you calculate Initiative every round, combat will always take longer because obviously calculating initiative every round will make combat slower, not faster.

I want to quibble here. While you're correct that rolling the dice and announcing initiative counts every round requires an extra step the amount of time it costs can be saved by having people engaging outside of their turn. If you know that everyone is going to take a turn before you get another chance, you have an 'opportunity' to get distracted and might start reading or getting snacks. If you're rolling every round, outside of the person who goes first, you don't know whether everyone will have an action before you take another. You could go last in Round 1 and first in Round 2.

If humans actually focused on the task at hand it would always be true that adding a step slows things down. Anecdotally, that has not been my experience.

I would probably want to do something like:

• You can only make one attack per target per round.
• Damage scales in such a way that one attack is just fine.
• Extra attacks you might get for BAB (or whatever) are made at the full bonus, but must be made at different targets.
• You can make full attacks after moving.
• Probably just get rid of AoOs (at least for moving), just for simplicity.

That would remove the two incentives of not moving for losing full attacks and drawing AoOs. Other than that, granting different maneuvers based on movement could provide incentives. Whether these are available to everyone, or granted as class features/feats is up in the air.

• Tumble - you get a better AC when you move that round.
• Juggernaut - free trip attempts on a charge.
• Spring Attack - move-attack-move to get out behind cover, attack, and get back to cover.

Perhaps giving people reactive movements, like being able to move out of a certain-sized AoE, but end up prone to prevent/reduce damage could be good.

I'd like to see a combat system that feels diverse, instead of having a master tactic that every combatant uses. In AD&D everybody moved and full attacked, and the system incentivized dual wielding as the best tactic. In 3.X, people try to stay put and full attack, upgrading this to pounce when possible, and the system incentivizes two handed weapons.

If moving more than 5' on your round gave a dodge bonus to AC, while staying put (moving at most 5') gave a shield or block bonus to AC if you carry a shield or is wearing heavy armor, you'd have the tanky characters wanting to stay in place while the agile fighters would have incentives to dash around.

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And in a tangent, the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced a game like D&D needs some kind of "parry" mechanic to be given to classes whose role is combat is "to be in the team monster's face". It's fluffed as parry, but the implementation could simply be "if the character does X, they gain temporary HP for that round" (for some X they can keep doing all day long, which can be as simple as "make an attack roll"). The problem where fighters and the like are expected to go toe-to-toe against fire giants and the like is diminished if the the PC can ignore some of the damage they will receive every round.

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Actually, since the discussion so far took this thread in a "throw your ideas to the wall and see what sticks" regarding D&D combat, I'll add another recent thought here: Changing how an attack is resolved, depending if you're attacking with brute force (adding your Strength to the attack roll) or finesse (adding your Dexterity)

D&D's current attack roll will be used for finesse attacks. Somebody wearing full plate simply deflects more rapier or dagger attacks, but the ones that connect, hurt for full damage (the assumption is that they hit an unarmored point).

Brute attacks are resolved like touch attacks: Armor and natural armor bonuses are ignored when you're trying to hit, but they become DR that the attacker will have to punch through to damage the target.

A parry mechanic was implemented in 3e by means of the "Fighting Defensively" and "Total Defence" actions; with Combat Expertise being a more powerful version of these. Race of War then made Combat Expertise available to all PCs; as well as doing the same for Power Attack.

The problem isn't that it's not there, it's that players & Mister Caverns don't make their last attack a defensive one.

If you mean some sort of opposed interrupting "Parry Mechanic", that's going backwards into 3.X Grapple mechanics territory of design. Wherein everyone involved in an action has to roll dice every round one faction of the creatures involved has their turn on the Initiative Order.

Judging__Eagle wrote:A parry mechanic was implemented in 3e by means of the "Fighting Defensively" and "Total Defence" actions; with Combat Expertise being a more powerful version of these. Race of War then made Combat Expertise available to all PCs; as well as doing the same for Power Attack.

The problem isn't that it's not there, it's that players & Mister Caverns don't make their last attack a defensive one.

If you mean some sort of opposed interrupting "Parry Mechanic", that's going backwards into 3.X Grapple mechanics territory of design. Wherein everyone involved in an action has to roll dice every round one faction of the creatures involved has their turn on the Initiative Order.

I don't want an opposed parry mechanic. The last things the game needs right now is more opposed rolls and more actions people can decide to take outside of their turns.

I want frontline classes to generate some temporary hit points every round, kind of like the Stone Power feat, but with less hassles.

Would something like the Shadowrun idea of "roll skill, enemy roll skill, who has more hits? you do your damage" be helpfull for what you want?

If player engagement is really the end goal, you could just push all rolling on PCs and all NPC antagonists would have static DCs. Like a player would roll their Armor Class Save if they were attacked just like thy would roll a reflex save for fireball, and if the players were to cast fireball on an emery the player rolls 1d20 + Spell Level + ability modifier + bonus against the enemy's static Reflex DC. But that system of acting backfires pretty spectacularly in PbP as it slows the game down to a crawl.

Hicks wrote:But that system of acting backfires pretty spectacularly in PbP as it slows the game down to a crawl.

Works pretty well the other way around, though. Players declare their actions, GM rolls all the dice and posts the results.

My understanding is that the value of having attacks of opportunity is that it allows people to prevent enemies from just running by the paladin and or instantly all surrounding him/her

atanycost wrote:My understanding is that the value of having attacks of opportunity is that it allows people to prevent enemies from just running by the paladin and or instantly all surrounding him/her

Except not really. First off, most characters only get one attack of opportunity, so if you have more than a single opponent, you can trigger the AoO and then everyone else is free to move with impunity. Further, a lot of creatures aren't particularly worried about the potential damage (which is usually low if you can't activate certain abilities) and may be negated (by high AC, defensive effects like blink, etc). And if you are hit and take damage but aren't killed, you can continue moving without provoking another attack.

In our heartbreaker you have to make a save after taking an AoO to continue moving. That helps a bit.

nockermensch wrote:I'd like to see a combat system that feels diverse, instead of having a master tactic that every combatant uses.

There are two ways to do that. RPS and synergies.

Synergies are the half-assed solution. With synergies you have stand still and attack builds and move and attack builds, both are equally viable. But each build will still have only one tactic it uses, and you're relying on your players to create a diverse group of builds.

RPS is whole-assed. You have an odd number of tactics. Each tactic has an advantage against half the others, a disadvantage against half the others, and ties with itself. This means that characters are going to change their tactics depending on what they believe the enemy is going to do. In a proper RPS setup, a single-tactic build is non-viable. Against a scissors-character, the other guys will just use rock every single time and get an easy win. Players have to mix it up.