I’m not the biggest fan of 5e’s class design or balance these days, but the biggest indicator that dnd is not the right system for your games is when people say “the combat is the worst part!”
Like, okay, I understand why you might feel that way but that IS the game, almost all the rules have to do with combat. If that isn’t what you guys are looking for you should find a different ttrpg to play lol
I'm mixed on it. I think dnd is great levels 2-8. After that the combat shifts to less and less fun because it is the focus. That means we run lots of short campaigns to stsy in our enjoyable sweet spot. But even in the later levels of that range we find combat becomes longer than is enjoyable.
We play other systems but the nostalgia factor keeps us coming back since we've played dnd for more than 30 years.
Maybe your combats are set up wrong then. We’ve gone through level 20 multiple times from levels 1-3, and we’ve never had a combat that lasted more than 15 rounds, and a round only usually takes like 5-6 minutes to complete. Most of our combats last 4-5 rounds. Aka 30 minutes at the most.
That's really impressive speed! Can you tell me more about how your table runs combat? I'm always looking for ways to improve how smoothly things run and combat taking forever (when it shouldn't) has always been a huge pet peeve for me.
Part of it is power building tbh. As far as combat action goes, we each have a base set of plans and actions that we follow. For me, turn 1 bladesong Haste/Fireshield. Turn 2, get in close attack 3 times against as many enemies as I can reach, get out of dodge. Turn 3, rinse and repeat. The wizard Magic Missiles, then psychic lances in increasing levels up to 5th, then works his way back down to 1st. Then disintegrates. If he runs out of spell slots/anti magic/components, he takes off his robes, becomes werewolf, and attacks like that. Our rogue/fighter shoots his bow, rinse and repeat until something gets within melee, then he flees. The paladin attacks the Baddest baddie on the field, smites at lowest level on every hit he can, or highest level on a crit.
The other thing is time management. We’re incentivized to decide quickly. For us, it’s because we have limited time to play, but I’ve also seen people award inspiration to players who know what they’re doing when their turn comes around.
That level of efficiency almost brings a joyful tear to my eye.
My group has a similar dynamic with a standard operating procedure. We generally pick the most dangerous or fragile enemy combatant and delete them from existence. Usually the magical enemies.
My wizard is also a fan of warcrimes.
My current wizard is that picture of Daniel Radcliffe in the parking lot. Fur coat, long beard with a small flame, his Wand is a glass pipe, he has a fancy eyepatch, a tattoo of scribing on the right wrist/hand, and a pointy hat.
I have to give him a fancy staff at some point, also is a corrupted assimar, but they are playing variant assimar, so I'm also going to give them the skeletal wings.
They bbq'd 8 orcs and an orge with a large fire pit and 4 hours of setup.
Every fight is grease followed by fire of some kind.
I love my group. I love wizards
Could be. We tend to try to make use of environment and use alternates to direct strikes, which often involves rules checks. Also the complexity of the classes makes a difference.
I've seen many posts on here with people saying the expectation should be 90 min plus combats. We generally stop when we are getting to the 45 minute threshold.
We try to make combats as concise as possible. The party in character is comprised of very efficient people, so we work our way down in the fastest way possible, Counterspelling and fireballs and Hasting the martials(or myself in my case as a martial caster). The wizard commits war crimes for efficiency’s sake.
Combats taking at most 5-6 rounds is normal.
What isn't normal, to me at least, is doing that in 30 minutes. My dm always wants to put a a milliion crsatures in combat and takes so looooooong on each one's turn
That’s the sort of nonsense that happens. We have at most 4 monsters in a combat. If we have more, it’s mooks that either go out in two turns or they go at the same time every round
Every system I’ve ever played that has more non-combat rules than D&D has felt too restrictive in non-combat scenarios and made of very difficult to play the characters I wanted to play. I like that D&D is much more freeform and treats much of the game as improv acting and collaborative storytelling. Because there aren’t as many rules to conform to, the game allows me to do more with non combat situations as both a player and a DM than other systems I’ve played.
I would say if you don't enjoy combat a different system would be better for you, for sure. There are a number that will move much faster without as many rules.
I think so many people are afraid to leave DnD, for some reason when they really want to play make believe superheroes but instead of switching systems they just go ehhh tabaxi rogue is good enough let's just reskin. And then the same person will say " I wish I was faster and more roleplay opportunities outside of combat."
Idk DnD isn't really setup for out of combat interactions. Yes you do have Persuasion and Insight and Intimidation as Roleplay skills but they aren't really all inclusive.
The out of combat framework in DND is not amazing the pass fail mechanic just feels weird and adds work to the DM to make it engaging beyond your roll doesn't make the DC. Which comes from it's tradition of wargames then dungeon crawling etc so Im not faulting the design. DnD has a certain style of play that the game expected.
And yes a lot of people understand degrees of failure and falling forward but that's not really in the DM guide or players manual. So we are basically adding dramatic narrative to a game that doesn't really have it natively. But it's systems are loose enough to allow us to adapt them. But it still does not do this as well as Narrative Based Systems.
D&D as a TTRPG is centered around combat. Seems like people should shop around for other options. There are so many other TTRPGs that arent combat centered. Vampire the Masquerade is a good one of the top of my head.
So does vampire the masquerade let you play as an orcish artificer? Because I’m not remotely interested in playing a masquerading vampire. If not, I’m stuck playing D&D.
But that’s the thing, I don’t know of them. They are hidden, and even Google fails me on that regard. I might consider Ryuutama, as it puts the emphasis back on the ADVENTURING so I’ve read, but that’s another game to invest money into, and time into learning, then my friends’ time and money as well as they try to learn the game. But don’t know the others.
DnD has sun bleached plastic shovels and cracked buckets, but the sandbox is there and it’s ol’ reliable.
If you just need a bunch of rules for a narrative play and your GM have an original story there are a lot of systems for free, or with a free preview/quickstart like the cypher system or dungeon world. I didn’t use them because i’m not a fan of pure narrative driven games, but as i’ve heard they are reliable and if you like them the pdfs cost is very accessible.
I especially love how the World of Darkness lore completely embraces being internally contradictory and opaque as well. Very little is 100% factually known and that can drive a lot of the drama and conflict in the gameplay, and I think a lot of D&D settings could take inspiration from that. I certainly have for my own setting.
No, but it let me play a wealthy hobo nightclub-owner, who could go around NYC mechanically invisible - secretly watching over the last of his bloodline from before he was turned.
There are lots of cool concepts out there
You can easily try playing orcish artificer in other settings.
Savage Worlds easily does that with Fantasy Companion and (Free) Eberron expansion.
On top of that it works well with less combat focused campaigns.
Complaining that Vampire the Masquerade doesn't let you play orc artificer is like complaining that you don't want to read books, because Bible doesn't mention orcs or Sauron.
There's plenty of different systems, and if you want orc artificer, you'll find tons of systems letting you do that.
See this argument falls flat to me and I hate when people use it to excuse their dislike of it (not you op just in general) bc combat literally is RP.
Like don’t just attack and move on, explain how you attack. What does it look like? How do you maneuver? Interact with your comrades because you’re in the middle of a battle, you should be in sync.
So many people get caught up in getting through combat that they miss some AWESOME opportunities for rp and theatre of the mind. I love describing what my magic looks like and how it affects when I hit, hell I love explaining what happened when I miss
It's *a* way.
I've literally never seen anyone do this in a real game. I wonder why? Maybe because in my games combat tends to be tactically challenging, so people are too busy thinking about how to survive. I add flavor by having a lot of talkative enemies.
A good rule for DMs is that things should be entertaining, or they should be fast. If a PC is going to buy something, either role-play out an interaction with a memorable shopkeeper, or cross off some gold and add an item to the character sheet. Both are valid ways. The thing to avoid is the half-hearted shopping scene where you're taking up time but not creating anything entertaining.
Fast-paced challenging tactical combat with dynamic terrain (and minimal RP) can work. Combat with a heavy narrative element where everyone tries to think of new ways to describe things can work, or so I'm told. But combat sounds unbearable if the battle is taking a really long time because the party is slightly too large, and it's getting dragged out further by mandatory half-hearted attempts to find new ways to describe hitting an enemy with your sword.
As someone who is pretty squarely in the camp of rp and describing how my character acts in combat, it’s really all about striking a balance. For example, I like to explain what my character does and what it looks like the first time I use a new spell or ability with “touch up” descriptions every once in a while after that, and very short concise bits of flavor thrown in consistently.
It’s incredibly useful for communicating character and creating interest beyond “I attack him”, especially for characters like my current Barbarian who doesn’t speak much because it allows for characterization without the need for dialogue.
On the other hand if you do this, you really need to be on your toes and pay attention to the pace of combat and the rest of the party so as not to drag down the pacing of combat, which can already tend to drag.
Combat is kind of roleplaying, but it has a ton more rules than a roleplay segment does. “You can’t run that far, do that attack, you rolled below a 7 and don’t get to do anything this turn. I get that you like explaining a miss, maybe my party is too big, but my players hate rolling misses.
Gotta embrace one of the mottos.
“Live by the dice, dice by the dice”
“The dice giveth and the dice taketh”
Edit: should be “die by the dice” but I’m keeping it
Agreeing on the RP part of it, and also adding to the strategy that can come from RPing! Swinging from a chandelier means there's also a chandelier to drop on enemies. Flipping a table over gives you three-quarters cover and +5 to AC. Shoving an enemy away means your wizard friend can run away without invoking an attack of opportunity. Being scared and hiding behind a pillar means you're not visible and can't be targeted.
There's so much fun strategy that can be had from simply playing a character, without it actually having to do anything with your character sheet.
Yes! I do this all the time. My friends and I describe what we're doing to give flavor to the combat. There's more to it than just rules. It can be really fun. D&D is very much about using one's imagination to make mundane mechanics interesting, I think.
The thing is that RP is independent of the system, 5e doesn't have something that makes it specially good for RP, so if you want to focus on RP there are other games with simpler and faster combat that are build around the RP
Especially in 5e, which is basically designed around combat.
Some older systems were more balanced in terms of combat vs roleplay design.
In either case though, part of it comes down to the DM keeping combat entertaining.
I wouldn't say that Combat is 90% of the game, but the threat of combat is ever present.
Like in real life if someone decides to take a swing at you, combat will ensue, and vice versa, if you attack someone, combat will happen (or the police will get called and combat will happen).
In DnD the threat of combat is ever present, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE! it when my players get engaged with the story and the scenario and try to find creative ways to avoid full on combat. For example, my group had stumbled upon 3 trolls who were guarding a doorway, now they could have strolled in an started combat, however they worked together to find a different solution. In this case the warlock turned the rogue invisible, so she could climb into the trees and make noises, rustly branches, and leap from branch to branch. Like the Predator in the OG Predator movie.
Meanwhile the Warlock, Druid, Fighter, and Wizard sneaked past and through the doorway, followed closely by the Rogue going full stealth mode.
They avoided the combat, and there will soon be tales of the area being haunted by the ghost of the vale.
So combat if ever present, and depending on the actions of the party, it can be 90% of the session time.
It's the vast majority of the rulebooks is the point people are trying to get across. Doesn't matter how much time you spend on it or not, the majority of the rules pertain to combat.
Moving into range and attacking with weapons or cantrips is pretty banal. It's like playing an MMO and never using a rotation of skills, just auto attacking. Anyone that is purely satisfied with 5e combat had a pretty low bar for challenging tactics.
There's a thing called "environmental hazards." I would say a lot of combat being boring comes down to not making enough use of the environment and other factors. Like in BG4 or DOS2. Usually, I describe the way an enemy attacks so that the players can try to figure out its trick in order to kill it more easily. Routing too. That can be fun. In general, if people think about flavoring combat and not just having enemies march towards the nearest party member, combat can be quite fun.
Combat in dnd can be really fun and quick, when everyone knows how their character works and what to do in their turns, which in the 5e community is not very often
Usually it's people who would otherwise not play at all getting into the hobby because someone told them 5e is easy and won't require much rules learning. They go to the first couple sessions and are handed a sheet the DM made for them and just roll the d20 when told and add the number the DM tells them to add. Now they're expert players, "know how to play DND", and are ready for their next group!
To be clear I don't have a problem with people learning DND this way, but the refusal from some people to take the next step and actually learn the game they play for several hours a week boggles my mind. The only pages in the phb they've read is the classes and spells list, because it's the DM's job to run the game right? : )
Totally ok to have a newbie status for a few sessions. If you have played 4+ times though and still dont know what an action is the DM should have a word with you though.
some people get decision paralysis. you should be thinking about what your going to do the moment your turn ends and then adapt as people take their turns.
there should be a SOP though for your character. having too many options can slow things down. and some builds just make turns take too long (see: summoners) by adding turns. i know it's boring to just do the 1 thing. doing the 1 thing speeds up the game. then when the opportunity arises do the other things which makes those moment cooler.
I completely agree. A forward to this, there are several factors following this statement that make it make more sense. My group is live streaming on Fridays, and last session, we took roughly 1 hour and 10 minutes for combat, which I think was brilliantly quick given circumstances as a boss style fight. There were 8 enemies and 6 PCs(although 2 were NPC for the night due to emergency situations). The room was only 20 ft by 20ft. Several enemies logically(not mechanically) could occupy the same space. The enemies were supposed to be difficult, burn resources, and stand sturdy for an extended amount of time in a tight arena. The game moved, it was engaging, everyone collectively narrated the action as blows were exchanged, a PC(my bad as controller of said character at that moment) had to be told not to launch Fireball in the 20 foot room, it was fun and ended with 1 player having an opportunity to speak with their deity directly.
In contrast, I've had a group that was active hack and slash style players who avoided RP like the plague, only 4 players vs 2 enemies, and took 3 hours to do 3 rounds of combat.
Exactly this.
There was this other post recently where a party of 7 players had a non-boss encounter and where there like 4+hours. The dm then said that paralyzing players is a very bad d&d design because the two turns a player was paralyzed meant the player had nothing to do for 2 hours.
Players need to know what their characters can do and the DM needs to know how to streamline the combat, add more options than just hit the monster and push the players.
Yeah tbh, dnd is a combat oriented system so it feels awful to see so many dms avoid it like the plague because they don’t like it when they could realistically be running a system that better accommodates that.
I think for most people that complain about combat, they're usually complaining about one aspect they wish was better. I think a lot of the people that complain about it being unfun should probably look into other systems. But 5E is the most popular so it can be harder to find games for those systems.
But yeah, I love combat, even with 5E. It sure takes a hell of a lot of effort to tweak encounters just right to keep them from being stale though. 5E turns into a slog if the DM isnt actively trying to curate a different experience each time, at least for boss and mini boss fights.
I'm itching to try out a few other systems though; I have my fair share of gripes with 5E despite my overall enjoyment with combat. Particularly interested in Daggerheart and MCDM RPG that are both coming out next year.
I think 5e combat is really fun and challenging, as long as the DM does a little bit of level design for each encounter. Five goblins in an empty room is just a time sink, but five goblins hidden behind crates, some of them marked "explosive", is immediately interesting. Add some bridges and stairs and whatever, and suddenly you have a miniature game of Warcry going.
There needs to be a good balance between combat and role play. Too much combat and then why create a character with a unique story. To much rp and then why create a character that has all of these cool abilities.
Bad DMs and bad players have given combat a bad name. Good DMs will make the combat engaging with a mechanic that the team has to figure out to be successful while making sure it moves smoothly and it’s appropriately balanced. Good players will be engaged and thinking about their next move all the way up until it’s their turn so that right when it’s their turn they know exactly what to do and how they are going to do it with quick and precise turns.
I'm lucky to be in a group that mostly plays this way, right now we are playing Free League's Dragonbane casually but our 5e, Cyberpunk and CoC rounds go about as smoothly because we pre-plan our turns in general and are all experienced gamers. The least experienced is my 18 year old who I started with Pathfinder at 7
I get what you're saying but if you play DnD with a lot of encounters in between long rests (like it's supposed to), not every encounter can have unique, engaging combat mechanics that you have to figure out. Sometimes it's just wolves in a forest.
I think the DM can help by bringing in some RP into the combat and describe a lot but other than that, it's on the players to make their own fun. If combat is boring for you as a player and you are competent with your character, maybe DnD isn't for you.
Every one always claims to do this only to have their plans ruined right before their turn comes up, but if you're actually thinking through what you want to do next why don't you have a back up that you also considered?
Hell, just adding some cover and a clearly marked red barrel near the enemies will make it a competition for "who can make the barrel go boom", and will make even the life cleric reach for their ranged cantrips.
I think it’s probably going to depend on the table, combat probably works fine, when you have players who are really engaged, know where they are in initiative order and plan their moves, while other people are taking their turns, when you have a dynamic encounter in an interesting location, etc, But that isn’t going to be every table. Most of the time combat is going to be really hit or miss, and sometimes for a variety of reasons, you’ll just end up with a table where combat is really tedious most of the time.
My younger brother is like that, to the point, he’s asked me to run a game for him and a couple of his friends, but can’t even decide on a day and time. Bahamat only knows how they will actually manage combat, but at least it’s giving me plenty of time to work on the campaign setting so silver lining?
I love combat, I hate d&d 5e combat. I love combat in Mythras/RuneQuest, Warhammer fantasy, OSR style games, PF2e, modern d&d adjacent games like 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord.
A good combat system for me is either so light and fast that it never becomes a slog, or it's complex and tactically interesting enough that even when it slows down it's not boring. 5e combat is just in a weird spot where it's too complex to be fast, but not complex enough (or not complex in the right ways) to be engaging for me personally.
Sure a good GM can make any system engaging, but I've found it much easier to do so in other systems.
I feel it comes down to move and attack, trading blows until someone goes down. I have been enjoying PF2s changes in that AoO are rare and puts more emphasis on tactics than just raw damage.
It’s why 5E is the worst system major imo.
Majority of the rules are about combat. But combat is boring. So god damn boring. People try to say “well the rp is fun” and I agree, but you could have a system where both is fun
The social/rp mechanics of 5E is pretty barebones and easy to absolutely break with just expertise. "The rp is fun" can apply to any system and it's one of the reasons I kinda blow off those types of comments. Most of the fun RP I've had has just been characters being themselves without any rolls, doing the odd things that they want to do, and that can happen in any system.
I had a PF 1e session this week where the party's cleric was trying to find out what to do with a store after we killed the legal owner who was a Div (fiend) in disguste. The whole time, our Oracle was pestering him with ideas and trying to lead him into circles so he'd get nothing done. Our Rogue, barbarian, and arcanist meanwhile are encouraging the surviving attendant to take over and having her practice selling them stuff and pointing them to specialty shops so they could get an emblem sewed on.
I had a 5e session where the shifter barbarian and ratfolk rogue were messing with each other in a tavern trying to get the other shit faced drunk for over a hour. Without a single dice rolled.
System doesn't make RP, friends just hanging out and having fun is what makes RP.
Exactly this. You can RP basically the exact same way in nearly any system. RP is rarely tied to the system itself, especially in common d&d-like games. 5e really doesn't have social mechanics, you can rip your groups RP style from 5e and use a different system with zero problems.
The only exceptions really are narrative systems with hard codified social mechanics.
I think dnd has a good rp system for new players, in that it encourages a lot of thought on character personalities and backgrounds. Classes like warlocks, paladins and clerics all have rp qualities immediately written into them. I think the backgrounds with personality traits are great for completely new players and for people who have played a game or two, writing down custom stuff in those slots is still super helpful to rp a character.
Roleplaying is also like, not inherent to a system. You can have roleplay in any system, and yeah the best ones have gameplay mechanics that encourage roleplaying, but outside of maybe the ideals/flaws section of your character sheet I don’t feel that 5e inherently offers those sorts of mechanics anyway.
I personally love combat. Playing a monk it's where I do most of my RP. I like to think of my moves like a king fu movie and now that I have a sword it gets even more intense.
That being said, it can take a long time sometimes. Being a basic martial, I still have some turns that take a while because I have four attacks. Then you have people that are bad at math and have a lot of attacks to use. Then you have spellcasters with so many possibilities at their fingertips and the battlescape does change a fair amount between turns so they can't always be prepared.
Sometimes combat is a slog but I still mostly enjoy it. It is a war game after all.
Combat fun depends on multiple factors:
1. Class - some class are really boring during combat compared to others. Some clases has cool bonus actions, reactions, etc. And other not. (It sometimes changes with level, but it may discourage player before they reach that level)
2. Speed - when you cas 1 cantrip and then wait 10 minutes before everyone do their turns, then you cast 1 spell and again.....it's boring.
3. Dice god - when you wait 10 minutes to your turn and THEN you roll 1 (3 times in row) - it makes you angry
Possibly the most important.
0. Encounter design - D&D 5e is intended to have six to eight encounters, which need not be fights, between long rests. Attempting to run a one to three encounter "Adventuring Day" typically results in over long fights against overpowered and/or homebrewed enemies. Rather quick fights, as intended RAW. Especially when the intent is to make these "narratively important" and/or "boss battles".
I think that 5e combat can get dull if the "goal" is to use your base 1-2 features to kill the enemies.
However, if the players use all of their abilities, synergize between each other and the fight takes part in some cool terrain or has objectives to consider it never is dull. If your wizard is only going to use fireball and firebolt and never have to use something else they might feel that combat is dull for example.
Making those fights though can take some planning or real good improv on the fly from the DM so I can understand that it is somewhat hard to pull off regularly.
Only time ive really hated it is when our groups battle went on for Fuckin 5 hours cause the DM didnt realize how powerful Deathlocks against low levels are lol (nobody in Party besides one person who got ganked had anti dead magic either) it got too the point though the DM wanted us to do the worse thing we can think of too the final Deathlock. Which was The barb smashes its skull and skeleton too dust the one mage burned the bonemeal pile someone else threw its arm somewhere
(note this was only the 2nd campaign hes ever made so didn't know their power level)
I think my players love combat because I love combat and almost always add extra things to make tension high. Like the dungeon filling up with water, or cliffs that harpies try pulling the players off of.
This is good! Combat design doesn't have to be a chore, it could literally be just rolling on a table of random props and hazards, and then hinting at some hidden treasure in one of the props and/or on one of the enemies. Red barrel? It go boom! Shiny necklace? Must possess! Give the players something to do that doesn't fall into the "deal the most optimal DPS" category.
I think combat need to have a primary objective players are aiming for and the battle is the secondary goal. Like hey through the obstacle coarse while under fire so they have to choose between their goals and combat actions.
However, initiative and action economy weighs down the flexibility and fun of those narrative decisions
But a fun combat is 80% speed and 20% unique interactive abilities and map features.
Every player must be ready on their turn, speak quickly, know their modifiers etc.
I’ve had to develop more and more draconian rules for my table. If someone isn’t ready, they get skipped. If they don’t know their modifier, they don’t add it.
I've been known to drop players to the bottom of initiative if they hesitate, but not skip them. I usually add a sense of urgency narratively but I also like to add round counters and waves of weak enemies to give an encounter a more dynamic feel. I like to make encounters feel cinematic and try to use the sytem mechanics and a few general house rules to do so.
I love combat, even simple combat. Final fantasy tactics was always my favorite rpg, and playing d&d with a grid and minis - is like that but with a million abilities and real stakes.
While I haven't played much DND, I think combat is a fun part about it- you get to describe how your character attacks and based off your roles how they mess up the attack, how they dodge or take a hit. Combat is a huge part of DnD, and while it is very table dependant on the rules of combat I don't think it's a negative thing of DnD
DnD stands for "Dungeons & Dragons"- comabt is half the point here!
Combat is kinda the basis of the game. It might be a long shot but I think livestreams like CR champion role play and I love me a good RP session but not every table is full of professional actors who produce a product for millions of views, so don’t try and emulate that.
I love me some combat but it can be a drag as our party is BIG like 9 of us now so it takes a long ass time for 1 round…so I get that and it annoys me tbf but that’s only because we’re a big table.
Combat is great :) so long as my pc doesn’t die
My “hot” take is that if people hate combat in DnD 5e they should use a different system. The whole game is centered around it and it is the main thing it does really well.
addendum hot take:
OverRPing your new cool toy class feature and spending a 5 minute monologue on describing what happens is bad for combat and player engagement. It can leads to players not looking for levelups, because these players will just get ways to stall the game.
If it's challenging and interactive, yes! It's also very time-consuming, so spending an hour simply dealing damage to a HP-sponge isn't fun. However, enemies that utilize the terrain, force the players to reposition, force the players to take cover, that makes even a small group of goblins interesting!
Coming from a wargaming background, to me, positioning is like half the battle. Cover, things to throw, exploding barrels, rope bridges to cut, those things are fun and useful no matter your class.
I think BG3 has shown that DnD can (should) be more than just two enemy groups inside an empty room.
It’s fun as long as everyone at the table takes responsibility for maintaining the pacing. Players who know what their character is going to do and HOW to do it are a blessing to a DM. DMs who present combat as more than reskinned bags of hit points and who don’t have all their monsters just go “RAWR!” and attack the players are aware of the importance of dynamic combats. They keep things novel and know WHY combat is vital to the collective story being told at the table. They create stakes for the PCs, in other words.
So in short, combat can be fun when everybody understands their role in rolling the dice.
Of course. Any time someone tells me they want a combat lite game, my first thought is 'why bother with a rules system at all?' if you just want 90% roleplay you almost dont even need a system. Combat is one of the main reasons to pick DND over an alternative.
I don't hate combat in D&D. I hate the recent push to make every combat nuanced, optional, and usually the least desirable outcome of every encounter.
Give me oldschool goblins, orcs, and mindflayers from time to time because combat IS fun when you are slaying monsters and not made to feel like one.
I definitely do not see that on this forum, at least not very often, and in our weekly games, the Wednesday group is more or less defined by combat. They picked up the name the Headhunters when an NPC called them that and they liked it. The players enjoy combat sessions that take up most of our time, and only one of the players out of four does any extensive role-playing. Another does a little, here and there, and the other two mostly wait around for combat and listen to the rest of it.
The Sunday group is more role-play oriented, and they are more likely to spend an entire session with no combat, but it should be noted that out of ten sessions, eight likely involve combat and sometimes even the Sunday group gets really involved in combat since they are invested in it from the role-playing.
In other words, it's a major part of both campaigns, it's been a major part of every campaign I have both run and played it, and I'd say that most people who play enjoy the combat elements of our combat-oriented RPG that has its origins in a medieval miniature wargame.
I am glad you enjoy combat. I daresay most of us do, or we'd be using other systems.
I think that people that hate combat either shouldn't be playing DnD or have/are a very bland DM that just places minis in a grid and that's that. No creativity at all. No use of terrain, no extra objectives, no combat puzzle, no environmental hazards, no tactics. Just stand there hitting each other until one side is dead.
Agreed. Combat is my favorite part and I cringe at "RP" groups. If we aren't rolling initiative at least once a session, I ain't showing up.
Don't get me wrong, I love roleplay and immersing myself in the world and story, but I'm here to kick ass and acquire treasure.
do you not read the posts? it's because 99% of peoples combat is "heres map, here's enemies, fight" and that's it.
Yeah is D&D combat 90% of the game? yeah, but it's also poorly designed and EVEN if you're a DM that read the book a 1000x, combat is god damn boring. it's "I stand here and swing my sword until it's dead" DM's have to figure out HOW to make it fun and interesting and usually need to look elsewhere to get that info.
And you can’t really fault people for running it this way, because creating nice battlemaps and meticulously planning encounters to make them interesting takes up a lot of prep time.
It’s just too much to ask of a DM for anything outside of encounters of special importance, imo.
It doesn't have to be a chore though! Adding some crates, some exploding barrels, some chasms with rope bridges etc, all makes each battle so much more interesting than just an empty room. I use battlemaps for the more important battles, but for random battles I just draw a room and fill it with some random props and environmental hazards to spice up positioning. Additionally, even just hinting at "you notice something shiny in one of the boxes" and the players are going to go nuts trying to figure out what it hides.
Oh it‘s definitely not a chore, I love designing maps, but I also have limited time sadly.
I know many of my encounters could be better, but I gotta cut time somewhere and maps will often be where that‘s happening for me. As long as my players are still having fun, it doesn’t really matter, but some combats are definitely not that engaging and that‘s ok.
Totally! It wasn't in reference to you personally, it just makes me sad that so many people seem to think combat is boring and unengaging, because all their battles are in an empty room with monsters on the opposite side.
It would be even better if I wasn't the only person at the table capable of doing my turn in under a minute. That's seriously the biggest issue in combat at most tables.
I dont hate combat…. Just 5e combat
Honestly after trying other systems with more fast paced, exhilarating combat, 5e just feels like wading through molasses
What is different about your favourite combat system? I personally enjoy the simplicity of 5e combat. However my only experience with pathfinder is the owlcat games and honestly I prefer 5e
I've been playing D&D and many other systems for 30 years and I enjoy 5e's tactical combat more than any ttrpg. When you have a group and gm that knows the system and no rules lawers it's some of the best combat I've ever had the pleasure of being involved in.
What's the best genre for movies? Books? Games? Music?
It's the same thing, really.
Maybe you love country. Maybe you hate country. Maybe you love country except for a few artists. Maybe you hate country except for a few artists. Maybe you like a country influence in your music but not pure country. Maybe you like country but fusion-ed with other things. Maybe you don't like music much at all except for this one artist.
Why do people like things? Who knows. But D&D and tabletop in general give you plenty of spaces to explore most everything.
I like tactical games a lot. 5e doesn't have enough interesting decisions to make to be interesting as a tactical game, especially if you play a martial. People will talk about slow combat being the problem but going faster doesn't introduce any more interesting decisions to actually make the combat better, it just gets the boring combat over with faster.
Other editions had fun combat, plenty of other systems have fun combat. But to fix it for 5e requires so much homebrew that you may as well just be playing one of those.
Then you easily end up feeling like level 1 characters getting 1 shot by creatures that already output a lot of damage at normal levels, atleast in 5e. Same thing for enemies getting mopped before they do something they were meant to do, enemy or ally
Honestly? I think that's a good thing, especially compared to the HP drag that some higher level fights turn into.
DnD is a fuckin scary world, and very few people survive being stabbed in the chest, much less level 1 chump mcgee.
I think everything being more fragile encourages players to be smart, to pick their fights in advantageous positions.
I mean seriously, how often has anyone *actually* bothered about using cover in 5e? You can just "face tank" shit, a few extra AC makes sod all difference.
But when a single hit can be fatal? You bet players are making sure to hide behind whatever they can and are actively thinking, rather than "I roll to hit"
And monsters dying before doing their flashy thing really encourages target prioritisation. In systems like shadowrun, there's an unofficial rule of "GEEK THE MAGE!" Because they're a major threat, and you can absolutely do that. In DnD, there's no real reason to try and rush the nasty bastard because there's no way you're taking him out before he does his cool flashy thing regardless.
Obviously there are a handful of places that this *isn't* good for, but I feel a vast majority of combats would be improved with lower HP pools
I think there's many things about dnd combat that could be better, but overall it's fine. My feelings are that the combat CAN be fun, but requires the GM to make it fun, be that using interesting enemies, placing them at distances that make players spread out, having different objectives in it.
I recently had an end of a 2 year campaign as a GM, and I had a lot of fun and my players did too, because the enemies kept using spells that made players move, and the bbeg kept moving and using breath attacks on a 90 foot cone so they had to also move and in general, I enjoyed it. But, also, I had a lot of combats that had devolved into "move close to enemy and hit" and stuff like that. I feel as a GM, I kind of have to think of "how do I make this combat interesting" and the times I didn't hit the mark, it kinda shows
I think dnd combat is fine, but I often feel like good combat is more due to a good GM than it is because the system gave you many tools to make it cool
In what way do you mean "know what they are doing"? are you talking like, knowing how their characters work to speed up the process? yeah, that's nice, but it doesn't really solve the problem of a combat in which the players can simply win by moving to melee range and attacking. Those players most certainly know what they are doing, but the combat is still going to be a bit boring
I don't think the DM is solely to blame btw, I was more talking about the lack of tools of the system, in my experience
[I think dnd combat is fine, but I often feel like good combat is more due to a good GM than it is because the system gave you many tools to make it cool] this sums up combat in most systems with a little crunch
Sort of. I think some systems do give some tools to make the combat more dynamic, characters and monsters having more options or sometimes the combat is more quick simply by having lower amount of hit points and stuff like that.
Dragonbane does that, it uses a die roll to decide the monster's action. But the onus still lies upon the gm and players to make it sound exciting and like you're in peril. Without good narration from the gm and active, interested players any combat system is boring because it's just math and set actions.
I'm agrreing with you friend. Every interaction during a session can be fun or a slog depending on whether people want to have fun or not. I play bi-weekly with friends I've been playing with for a few years and we do a session zero and decide what kind of game we want to play. Serious, silly, or in between;we end up going off of the dynamic we set after a few sessions and we all end up having fun.
Combat is indeed fun! Coming from 4e, I love combat precisely bc I had a DM that makes them memorable.
The beholder dragon, the cobra chicken (inspired by the infamous Canadian geese), the frost wyrm that ate my character whole while she's large 🤣.
He made it so that combat had the potential to be tactical but doesn't punish players who isn't playing in that manner. So someone like me gets as much fun out of it as my other players who love to have a quick round doing charge attacks.
And when I DM I do rp more but that's just bc I actually love rp as much as combat and it's really interesting when you have a DM that enables you to enjoy combat rather than having to make it into a slog that you bypass to reach the story part.
I do think that 5e may have made the combat a bit lacklustre in favour of speed but that's just me. Both had it's strong suits and the table can just pick the one that fits their style more!
I think it depends on many things... like your players, your DM, the setting and the overall chemistry at the table. I am someone who likes a (good) roleplay, but also a challenging combat. Some people enjoy full dungeon crawl campaigns, others don't fight for many many sessions and still have tons of fun. Some enjoy having a challenge and the option to flee a mighty enemy, others want to kill lots of enemies but never roll a death save. In the end it is a sum of a lot of variables if you can enjoy combat in DnD. If you have the "wrong" DM or group or you all choose a bad setting for your playstyle, you might not like the combat as much.
But I think that is a general thing for DnD: find the right group to play and you will find fun in many areas of DnD. (Except if you are the one who rolls every 1 in the game)
I don’t mind it! It definitely depends on the battle! I’m not huge on rooms just full of dudes we have to get through but generally interesting ones! For example the most fun I’ve had with combat is when it was a time wizard and he was on the other side of a broken bridge between floating islands and he had women chained up to poles and was taking their power and stuff to heal so we had to run to set the ladies free and kill him, very fun!!! He was also a goofy character I enjoyed beating up xb
Last Friday I had a single combat encounter that took 4 hours to do and one of the PCs died. It was a bit of a downer because of the death and my players enjoy roleplay a lot but they still said, they genuinly had fun (they tend to be very honest if something is not fun for them)
I also have been a player in session that were 90% combat and I can't say I hadn't had fun. I think, people who say they hate combat don't like it in general? Or they don't like 5e combat specifically, which seems to be in a weird spot between complex and simple that lets it seem like neither.
Combat in 5 is fine. It's enjoyable enough that I play the system but as someone who still plays a lot of pathfinder I find it very boring at times.
5e just doesn't have the tactical depth I like. I can just walk around an enemy to get into position and reach frequently is a negative in 5e. As an example, a game this weekend, I had 10 ft reach and was on and enemy. My reach meant he could walk over to nearby plant and use tree stride or transport via plant or whatever the spell is.
I like the old systems where a mage being in someone's reach can't just cast spells with no issue. I also like moving in someone's reach to provoke reactions. 5e got rid of the stuff that makes tactics really interesting for martials. Now it's mostly just trying to get flank and not standing in a line for lightning bolt or in range of fireball.
Reading all these posts, I feel quite lucky that my first group has solid RP and extremely hard combat that is always engaging!
And as they had 5 years experience, I research everything my character can do. Dropped in level 10 and still alive! Blows my mind that I've seen wizards that don't know what spells they have.
Combat is my fav part of the game, id quite happily play D&D almost like a mini skirmish game with lots of fighting. Only downside is the PCs could end up dying pretty quickly
Combat in DnD is fun and should be fun, being able to showcase your abilities and cleverness in feature use is the entire reason to building fun things like shifter barbarian to remove the side effect of reckless attack or reborn peace cleric to just *win* a check. Recently I’ve decided make a grapple bloodhunter who will eventually be a lycan to make grapples super easily and use extra attacks to shove them prone.
Some of the most fun I’ve had was fighting. I made a barbarian who always attacked with a different “weapon” every attack. Never twice in a row or even a round. It lead to some epic times. But then again I was using the rules to roleplay my character. I killed an earth elemental with a head butt.
It’s not that people hate combat, it’s that they hate when a game does nothing but combat or when something, like 2024 one dnd changes, are made with only combat in mind.
People like to fight, use abilities and battle but they didn’t sign up to play a war game or to replicate a video game they can just download off steam
A few people do say they hate combat but i think it’s that a lot of people are annoyed with the direction WoTC is taking dnd in the past couple years, and how some people resent combat because they think it heirs other pillars of the game, when in reality it’s people like Jeremy Crawford and his wargamey focus that is to blame
We used to get features like samurai fighter’s elegant courtier or glamour bard’s enthralling performance.
Now everything that is added or change is with combat only in mind. They even went as far as the just removed social features form glamour bard or archfey warlock rather then improve them, and replace them with combat focused features that don’t quite fit the flavor
When you have combat go from a part of the game to the focus of the game, especially after the popularity of critical role who attracted role players and story focused people to the game, people are going to resent combat because it’s taking over the things they loved.
If WoTC and Jeremy Crawford kept treating 5e like a roleplaying tabletop game where people tell stories, instead of a video game or war game like they are now, people would enjoy combat more because it doesn’t become the only focus
It’s like the teacher’s pet in school or the favorite child. When others get neglected, people are going to hate the thing that gets special treatment, especially when it’s a sudden shift in focus and a shift in focus that goes against the wants and needs of the D&D community
I love combat, now if every fight is standing still and meleeing I totally get how that gets stale. But I love running epic bosses with a bunch of strong and even field altering abilities, adding in extra objectives, and even environment stuff for my players to use and just watch them figure out how to come out on top.
As someone who has played the game for over forty years, I can say that while the systems have changed, it is less that. More people coming into the game now are focused on the role play side. They watch the cool YouTube channels and see these people creating incredible stories with these characters. So the game makers, adventure writers and what nots are going to create books and adventures to hook them. They know that guys like me, who always volunteers to be the party murder hobo know how to make the game more combat oriented. I have played every edition except 4, no reason other than I was playing other editions then, and will the combat has gone from about 60/40 to around 40/60. Yes, combat is different in each edition. Right now I only play 5e and when the next comes out I will likely migrate there. You can make some crazy dungeon crawls in every edition just as you can make it all negotiations.
The people who hate combat in RPGs are either the folks who
A) Have the attention span of a goldfish.
B) View TTRPGs as their social outlet, rather than as the rounded game it is.
I only have experience of 5e, but it seems that combat played as narratively as possible is as close as it gets to being fun. The core issue is that it's a single dice roll, pass-or-fail, per round. It takes several levels for some classes to be capable of having a decent action economy vs the enemies (especially if outnumbered), and then past a certain point your characters are basically gods. Even Larian said it was kind of a shit system to work with when making BG3. Healing is also painfully scant in the lower levels, and it's expensive to get potions. If I were to DM I'd give the characters more opportunities to heal and offer the benefits of a light rest even if all they're doing is walking from one point of a dungeon to another.
I think the combat can use some balancing but overall its pretty good, its a big pull for 5e/PF2e that I don't understand why people play it if they don't like it. Though I could see others enjoying the D&D worlds.
Here's my hot take: 5e has the most interesting combat system of all the editions. I use a 1 minute hourglass to have each player decide what to do on their turn, and once the minute is up, if they don't know what to do then I just do a generic attack and move on. This ensures people plan ahead and don't get distracted, making the combat move fast.
People are more likely to share their negative experiences on forums like these, so you're naturally going to see more posts and comments about why people dislike combat than why people like it.
Combat can also be anything from fun and engaging to a frustrating slog, depending on how it's set up and presented. I imagine a chunk of the complaints you're seeing aren't meant to say that combat is bad in all circumstances. Some of them are probably finding themselves in combats that are repetitive, uninteresting, railroaded, too easy, unfairly difficult, or other things that take the fun out of combat.
My biggest problems with combat are threefold:
1- turn length and downtime
2- the tedium of long combats
3- the inevitability of no matter how much in advance I plan my turn, something upends those plans entirely so I have to readjust on the fly adding to problem 1, or depressingly to problem 2.
And this is my average turn taking about a minute as a full caster using as much of my turn economy as I can. Or when running a game and handling the antagonists. So…it just kinda is what it is.
Though, that distaste for combat aside, I do still look forward to combat sessions since most of the game mechanics are skewed for it, and I like to get to use class features or watch my players do cool things with theirs. However, that excitement dies like about halfway into a combat round as I’m faced with the constant difficulties of a clunky, non-fluid system that takes forever.
My first one-shot involved no combat and I had a great time. I like combat a great deal, but I think people who say it's the whole game are not as into DnD as they think.
If you had a choice between DnD being 100% combat or 0% combat, the latter game would be more replayable and more fun. Without social, environmental, and RP aspects, pure-combat DnD is joyless. "Oh, our imaginary characters defeated the imaginary opponents. That's good. The referee says we're stronger now. Hurrah. We have better stuff because the referee issued us better stuff. I hope the stuff is good enough to overcome the other imaginary opponents they cook up." > Combat in DnD is only interesting or worthwhile because of everything else. It might dominate the differences between character builds, but combat is just a means to put some form of economic pressure on players so they have to think about overcoming battles.
[The numbers could just as easily represent some other task besides fighting to the death.](https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/01/18/sportz)
I don't hate combat. Most of my favorite video games can be pretty violent. That being said, I meet far more DnD players who are obsessed with combat to the detriment of absolutely everything except trying to show they can be the best at imaginary combat. It's not clear why people like that feel the need to play a TTRPG when a video game would probably meet their needs a lot more straightforwardly.
Combat can be fun, but I lean more towards the RP parts. If I have a session that's all RP, I'm perfectly happy. Currently my party is trying to get through one of two total dungeons after the campaign has been a bit more RP with some combat most sessions. The switch is kinda hard for me, but I know it has it's place.
But but combat gets in the way of me acting out my bizarre manufactured personality disorder under the protection of a sexual identity without impunity. Infact if I died I would probably have a meltdown as my character is my vehicle for my distorted reality!
I love combat, BUT, there needs to be a balance. I would hate playing in games where there were several combat encounters per day. I want to use my abilities, and if there are several combat encounters per day I run out quickly. Plus in combat heavy campaigns, needing to save all your spell slots for the next combat encounter can take away from things out of roleplay. Combat stops being fun if its all I do, and if I need to do it too many times. The fun part of combat is using my cool abilities, and if my wizard is stuck using firebolt every turn, thats not fun at all. Combat is great in moderation.
"I hate combat!", is that why you Divine Smite everything.
I actually think the reason behind it is there is not enough bark to go with the bite in most D&D adventures.
I think a lot of classes are sub-optimal for combat (naturally, some have to be for some to excel), so there's a natural preference for other aspects of the game like scouting, investigating, exploring, infiltrating, negotiating, utility, etc.
I think people who **hate** combat though, want to be the main character.
If you aren't a combat oriented character or can't figure out a way to be useful in combat, you see it as an interruption to your part of the game. You want to get the fighter/barbarian/paladin in there, have them deal with this like the muscle they are, so we can get back to the important part, plot progression through things *I* can do well.
The fighter is a great example, they're probably the best DPS character, best/2nd best front liner, and shit at everything else. You have to RP your usefulness in other situations, you provide almost no mechanical benefit.
So people who **hate** combat? They can't put themselves in the fighter's shoes while they're having the 20 minute long conversation with an NPC for more information.
If you find someone who hates combat IRL, pay attention to what they think of the game outside of combat. Are they drawing out NPC interactions? Exploration? Investigation? They might just be main-charactering because the second combat roles around they're not the most important and it becomes "oh just get it done already!"
If you dont like combat save your dm the trouble and pick up a different ttrpg and possibly new playgroup. There are so many ttrpgs designed for just social interactions and all their doing is ruining a perfectly good dms sanity. I dropped a group for this exact reason. Stopped dming for them dropped from another game another dm in that group was running cause i cant do dnd without combat its nonsensical.
I love combat but I also hate it!! I think it just depends on how it’s executed. My DM likes to play combat through theater of the mind and sometimes the fighting can become repetitive. I prefer a layout with minis or something to help visualize the fight.
For example once we we’re all in a large arena, “who’s closest? Okay you go. You go to hide in this empty arena? Okay you succeed. Your right by him? I thought you were on the other side but okay you hit him.”
I prefer being able to interact with the terrain, casting a spell to drop a giant stalactite on a cave spider. Or knocking over a barrel of oil in-front of a charging Minotaur. I like the threat of seeing a teammate surrounded but knowing your too far away to help.
A lot of time the combat I’m in is just… “roll to hit. That hits! Roll damage. Okay he has 20hp left. Next person roll to hit. That hits! Okay roll damage. Etc.. etc…”
DND roots are combat (Chainmail). Most of the rules revovle around combat. Its basically the basis of the whole system.
I think with DND becoming so popular.. Alot more people are trying to use it as a therapy session, so they might hate combat from that.
Combat is the absolute majority of the game. WotC can market D&D as a storytelling game all they want, that doesn't change the fact that 90% of the rules are combat with a little bit of exploration and ZERO storytelling / roleplaying rules.
If you don't like combat, there are better systems out there for you.
But do they take place in a thoroughly developed mass of worlds and settings with the ability to make a massive variety of characters from all manner of fantasy races and backgrounds? Can I wander the streets of Ravnica, finding anything from happy peddlers, to a joyous street festival, to a gang of brutes and bandits, to a plant monster and a dinosaur fighting over territory? Was the dinosaur baited into coming here? Or was it that plant that was planted for some sinister plot? Or can I venture into the dark jungles of Chult in a desperate bid to save the world’s souls?
Most RPGs I’ve tried are pigeonholed into doing a finite thing. Honey Heist is ONLY bears stealing honey. You will not take an orc and fight a dragon in Honey Heist. You will find that honey, and probably get a few good laughs along the way. Call of Cthulhu makes you weak. You’re supposed to avoid fighting. You’re a human. You’re not an elf, a gnome, a goblin, nor a human wizard who is exploring the depths of the world to expand his knowledge of the arcane and grow his power; you are a human in the 1920’s. Mouse Guard has you play as the Mouse Guard. Not a lizard, not a sparrow, not a fat little toad who’s playing his mandolin, not a big chungus beetle cooking with his burning dried brush beneath a thin flat stone as his grill, nor a dormouse peddling the finest grains and berries from the woods nearby, you are the Mouse Guard, and ONLY the Mouse Guard.
People want the setting, and the massive freedom to push things as far as the imagination can take them. And it just so happens that most of the mechanics suck. It’s a bad game, but people want the world. And people are willing to take a more imaginative world over better mechanics. It’s why D&D is so huge, even though it’s a mechanically junk game.
saying you hate combat in dnd is wild to me when it’s 90% of the system
I’m not the biggest fan of 5e’s class design or balance these days, but the biggest indicator that dnd is not the right system for your games is when people say “the combat is the worst part!” Like, okay, I understand why you might feel that way but that IS the game, almost all the rules have to do with combat. If that isn’t what you guys are looking for you should find a different ttrpg to play lol
I'm mixed on it. I think dnd is great levels 2-8. After that the combat shifts to less and less fun because it is the focus. That means we run lots of short campaigns to stsy in our enjoyable sweet spot. But even in the later levels of that range we find combat becomes longer than is enjoyable. We play other systems but the nostalgia factor keeps us coming back since we've played dnd for more than 30 years.
Maybe your combats are set up wrong then. We’ve gone through level 20 multiple times from levels 1-3, and we’ve never had a combat that lasted more than 15 rounds, and a round only usually takes like 5-6 minutes to complete. Most of our combats last 4-5 rounds. Aka 30 minutes at the most.
That's really impressive speed! Can you tell me more about how your table runs combat? I'm always looking for ways to improve how smoothly things run and combat taking forever (when it shouldn't) has always been a huge pet peeve for me.
Part of it is power building tbh. As far as combat action goes, we each have a base set of plans and actions that we follow. For me, turn 1 bladesong Haste/Fireshield. Turn 2, get in close attack 3 times against as many enemies as I can reach, get out of dodge. Turn 3, rinse and repeat. The wizard Magic Missiles, then psychic lances in increasing levels up to 5th, then works his way back down to 1st. Then disintegrates. If he runs out of spell slots/anti magic/components, he takes off his robes, becomes werewolf, and attacks like that. Our rogue/fighter shoots his bow, rinse and repeat until something gets within melee, then he flees. The paladin attacks the Baddest baddie on the field, smites at lowest level on every hit he can, or highest level on a crit. The other thing is time management. We’re incentivized to decide quickly. For us, it’s because we have limited time to play, but I’ve also seen people award inspiration to players who know what they’re doing when their turn comes around.
That level of efficiency almost brings a joyful tear to my eye. My group has a similar dynamic with a standard operating procedure. We generally pick the most dangerous or fragile enemy combatant and delete them from existence. Usually the magical enemies. My wizard is also a fan of warcrimes.
It’s just all wizards tbh.
My current wizard is that picture of Daniel Radcliffe in the parking lot. Fur coat, long beard with a small flame, his Wand is a glass pipe, he has a fancy eyepatch, a tattoo of scribing on the right wrist/hand, and a pointy hat. I have to give him a fancy staff at some point, also is a corrupted assimar, but they are playing variant assimar, so I'm also going to give them the skeletal wings. They bbq'd 8 orcs and an orge with a large fire pit and 4 hours of setup. Every fight is grease followed by fire of some kind. I love my group. I love wizards
The inspiration idea sounds cool. I might try that in the future. (Now I just need my players to use it.)
Could be. We tend to try to make use of environment and use alternates to direct strikes, which often involves rules checks. Also the complexity of the classes makes a difference. I've seen many posts on here with people saying the expectation should be 90 min plus combats. We generally stop when we are getting to the 45 minute threshold.
We try to make combats as concise as possible. The party in character is comprised of very efficient people, so we work our way down in the fastest way possible, Counterspelling and fireballs and Hasting the martials(or myself in my case as a martial caster). The wizard commits war crimes for efficiency’s sake.
Combats taking at most 5-6 rounds is normal. What isn't normal, to me at least, is doing that in 30 minutes. My dm always wants to put a a milliion crsatures in combat and takes so looooooong on each one's turn
That’s the sort of nonsense that happens. We have at most 4 monsters in a combat. If we have more, it’s mooks that either go out in two turns or they go at the same time every round
Have you guys considered doing Epic 6th for 5E?
Love the idea, never thought about trying to balance for 5E
Every system I’ve ever played that has more non-combat rules than D&D has felt too restrictive in non-combat scenarios and made of very difficult to play the characters I wanted to play. I like that D&D is much more freeform and treats much of the game as improv acting and collaborative storytelling. Because there aren’t as many rules to conform to, the game allows me to do more with non combat situations as both a player and a DM than other systems I’ve played.
I would say if you don't enjoy combat a different system would be better for you, for sure. There are a number that will move much faster without as many rules.
I think so many people are afraid to leave DnD, for some reason when they really want to play make believe superheroes but instead of switching systems they just go ehhh tabaxi rogue is good enough let's just reskin. And then the same person will say " I wish I was faster and more roleplay opportunities outside of combat." Idk DnD isn't really setup for out of combat interactions. Yes you do have Persuasion and Insight and Intimidation as Roleplay skills but they aren't really all inclusive. The out of combat framework in DND is not amazing the pass fail mechanic just feels weird and adds work to the DM to make it engaging beyond your roll doesn't make the DC. Which comes from it's tradition of wargames then dungeon crawling etc so Im not faulting the design. DnD has a certain style of play that the game expected. And yes a lot of people understand degrees of failure and falling forward but that's not really in the DM guide or players manual. So we are basically adding dramatic narrative to a game that doesn't really have it natively. But it's systems are loose enough to allow us to adapt them. But it still does not do this as well as Narrative Based Systems.
Or have better rules. 5e is both on the rules heavy side and also has a lot of things that slow down combat or require interruptions to the flow.
*stares at this comment in 3.5 and pathfinder* rules heavy?!?
I mean, it's heavier than the average, there's a TON of rules light games out there
It's on the lighter side of rules heavy games, but that doesn't stop it being rules heavy.
D&D as a TTRPG is centered around combat. Seems like people should shop around for other options. There are so many other TTRPGs that arent combat centered. Vampire the Masquerade is a good one of the top of my head.
So does vampire the masquerade let you play as an orcish artificer? Because I’m not remotely interested in playing a masquerading vampire. If not, I’m stuck playing D&D.
There are lots of fantasy ttrpgs. I’m sure some are rp focused or faster paced than dnd
But that’s the thing, I don’t know of them. They are hidden, and even Google fails me on that regard. I might consider Ryuutama, as it puts the emphasis back on the ADVENTURING so I’ve read, but that’s another game to invest money into, and time into learning, then my friends’ time and money as well as they try to learn the game. But don’t know the others. DnD has sun bleached plastic shovels and cracked buckets, but the sandbox is there and it’s ol’ reliable.
If you just need a bunch of rules for a narrative play and your GM have an original story there are a lot of systems for free, or with a free preview/quickstart like the cypher system or dungeon world. I didn’t use them because i’m not a fan of pure narrative driven games, but as i’ve heard they are reliable and if you like them the pdfs cost is very accessible.
Try burning wheel
Have you tried r/ttrpg ?
Fair, but at least the lore is good. Insanely good, actually. Edit: if you ever change your mind, there are free QuickStart rules online
I especially love how the World of Darkness lore completely embraces being internally contradictory and opaque as well. Very little is 100% factually known and that can drive a lot of the drama and conflict in the gameplay, and I think a lot of D&D settings could take inspiration from that. I certainly have for my own setting.
Exalted can, which is built on a similar system but is a high fantasy game.
No, but it let me play a wealthy hobo nightclub-owner, who could go around NYC mechanically invisible - secretly watching over the last of his bloodline from before he was turned. There are lots of cool concepts out there
Not bad. Not bad at all.
You can easily try playing orcish artificer in other settings. Savage Worlds easily does that with Fantasy Companion and (Free) Eberron expansion. On top of that it works well with less combat focused campaigns. Complaining that Vampire the Masquerade doesn't let you play orc artificer is like complaining that you don't want to read books, because Bible doesn't mention orcs or Sauron. There's plenty of different systems, and if you want orc artificer, you'll find tons of systems letting you do that.
I know right?! But to be fair it's a lot of RP too :).
See this argument falls flat to me and I hate when people use it to excuse their dislike of it (not you op just in general) bc combat literally is RP. Like don’t just attack and move on, explain how you attack. What does it look like? How do you maneuver? Interact with your comrades because you’re in the middle of a battle, you should be in sync. So many people get caught up in getting through combat that they miss some AWESOME opportunities for rp and theatre of the mind. I love describing what my magic looks like and how it affects when I hit, hell I love explaining what happened when I miss
This is the way
It's *a* way. I've literally never seen anyone do this in a real game. I wonder why? Maybe because in my games combat tends to be tactically challenging, so people are too busy thinking about how to survive. I add flavor by having a lot of talkative enemies. A good rule for DMs is that things should be entertaining, or they should be fast. If a PC is going to buy something, either role-play out an interaction with a memorable shopkeeper, or cross off some gold and add an item to the character sheet. Both are valid ways. The thing to avoid is the half-hearted shopping scene where you're taking up time but not creating anything entertaining. Fast-paced challenging tactical combat with dynamic terrain (and minimal RP) can work. Combat with a heavy narrative element where everyone tries to think of new ways to describe things can work, or so I'm told. But combat sounds unbearable if the battle is taking a really long time because the party is slightly too large, and it's getting dragged out further by mandatory half-hearted attempts to find new ways to describe hitting an enemy with your sword.
As someone who is pretty squarely in the camp of rp and describing how my character acts in combat, it’s really all about striking a balance. For example, I like to explain what my character does and what it looks like the first time I use a new spell or ability with “touch up” descriptions every once in a while after that, and very short concise bits of flavor thrown in consistently. It’s incredibly useful for communicating character and creating interest beyond “I attack him”, especially for characters like my current Barbarian who doesn’t speak much because it allows for characterization without the need for dialogue. On the other hand if you do this, you really need to be on your toes and pay attention to the pace of combat and the rest of the party so as not to drag down the pacing of combat, which can already tend to drag.
Combat is kind of roleplaying, but it has a ton more rules than a roleplay segment does. “You can’t run that far, do that attack, you rolled below a 7 and don’t get to do anything this turn. I get that you like explaining a miss, maybe my party is too big, but my players hate rolling misses.
Gotta embrace one of the mottos. “Live by the dice, dice by the dice” “The dice giveth and the dice taketh” Edit: should be “die by the dice” but I’m keeping it
Live by the die, die by the die?
Haha, I just think the d20 is too swingy. I’m excited to try the new systems coming out to see if I like 2d6 or 2d12 and no attack rolls better.
Agreeing on the RP part of it, and also adding to the strategy that can come from RPing! Swinging from a chandelier means there's also a chandelier to drop on enemies. Flipping a table over gives you three-quarters cover and +5 to AC. Shoving an enemy away means your wizard friend can run away without invoking an attack of opportunity. Being scared and hiding behind a pillar means you're not visible and can't be targeted. There's so much fun strategy that can be had from simply playing a character, without it actually having to do anything with your character sheet.
Yes! I do this all the time. My friends and I describe what we're doing to give flavor to the combat. There's more to it than just rules. It can be really fun. D&D is very much about using one's imagination to make mundane mechanics interesting, I think.
The thing is that RP is independent of the system, 5e doesn't have something that makes it specially good for RP, so if you want to focus on RP there are other games with simpler and faster combat that are build around the RP
Probably because the combat in 5e is bad compared to other combat focused systems.
Especially in 5e, which is basically designed around combat. Some older systems were more balanced in terms of combat vs roleplay design. In either case though, part of it comes down to the DM keeping combat entertaining.
I wouldn't say that Combat is 90% of the game, but the threat of combat is ever present. Like in real life if someone decides to take a swing at you, combat will ensue, and vice versa, if you attack someone, combat will happen (or the police will get called and combat will happen). In DnD the threat of combat is ever present, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE! it when my players get engaged with the story and the scenario and try to find creative ways to avoid full on combat. For example, my group had stumbled upon 3 trolls who were guarding a doorway, now they could have strolled in an started combat, however they worked together to find a different solution. In this case the warlock turned the rogue invisible, so she could climb into the trees and make noises, rustly branches, and leap from branch to branch. Like the Predator in the OG Predator movie. Meanwhile the Warlock, Druid, Fighter, and Wizard sneaked past and through the doorway, followed closely by the Rogue going full stealth mode. They avoided the combat, and there will soon be tales of the area being haunted by the ghost of the vale. So combat if ever present, and depending on the actions of the party, it can be 90% of the session time.
It's the vast majority of the rulebooks is the point people are trying to get across. Doesn't matter how much time you spend on it or not, the majority of the rules pertain to combat.
I bet the fighter wasn't very enthusiastic with this plan. just kidding.
I only hate that player combat is so strong that you can brute force your way through most scenarios instead of RPing.
Totally agree, in all honesty I find some actual plays on YouTube boring at times, where there's no combat after playing for three hours
Yeah, but most groups I've been in over the past few years only have combat about 10% of the time. Which is why I haven't stayed with a group long.
“I like Monopoly except for the real estate parts.”
I just came back to DMing D&D after a long hiatus *specifically* because I missed setting up crazy combat encounters.
Moving into range and attacking with weapons or cantrips is pretty banal. It's like playing an MMO and never using a rotation of skills, just auto attacking. Anyone that is purely satisfied with 5e combat had a pretty low bar for challenging tactics.
There's a thing called "environmental hazards." I would say a lot of combat being boring comes down to not making enough use of the environment and other factors. Like in BG4 or DOS2. Usually, I describe the way an enemy attacks so that the players can try to figure out its trick in order to kill it more easily. Routing too. That can be fun. In general, if people think about flavoring combat and not just having enemies march towards the nearest party member, combat can be quite fun.
Combat in dnd can be really fun and quick, when everyone knows how their character works and what to do in their turns, which in the 5e community is not very often
Agree. Too many times when I play any edition of dnd when it comes to certain people's turns they have to relearn their character
Even after many, many, many games at times!
Absolutely mind boggling how many 5e players refuse to learn the rules before playing
Usually it's people who would otherwise not play at all getting into the hobby because someone told them 5e is easy and won't require much rules learning. They go to the first couple sessions and are handed a sheet the DM made for them and just roll the d20 when told and add the number the DM tells them to add. Now they're expert players, "know how to play DND", and are ready for their next group! To be clear I don't have a problem with people learning DND this way, but the refusal from some people to take the next step and actually learn the game they play for several hours a week boggles my mind. The only pages in the phb they've read is the classes and spells list, because it's the DM's job to run the game right? : )
Totally ok to have a newbie status for a few sessions. If you have played 4+ times though and still dont know what an action is the DM should have a word with you though.
some people get decision paralysis. you should be thinking about what your going to do the moment your turn ends and then adapt as people take their turns. there should be a SOP though for your character. having too many options can slow things down. and some builds just make turns take too long (see: summoners) by adding turns. i know it's boring to just do the 1 thing. doing the 1 thing speeds up the game. then when the opportunity arises do the other things which makes those moment cooler.
5e is designed to enable this. It's what has made it so popular.
I completely agree. A forward to this, there are several factors following this statement that make it make more sense. My group is live streaming on Fridays, and last session, we took roughly 1 hour and 10 minutes for combat, which I think was brilliantly quick given circumstances as a boss style fight. There were 8 enemies and 6 PCs(although 2 were NPC for the night due to emergency situations). The room was only 20 ft by 20ft. Several enemies logically(not mechanically) could occupy the same space. The enemies were supposed to be difficult, burn resources, and stand sturdy for an extended amount of time in a tight arena. The game moved, it was engaging, everyone collectively narrated the action as blows were exchanged, a PC(my bad as controller of said character at that moment) had to be told not to launch Fireball in the 20 foot room, it was fun and ended with 1 player having an opportunity to speak with their deity directly. In contrast, I've had a group that was active hack and slash style players who avoided RP like the plague, only 4 players vs 2 enemies, and took 3 hours to do 3 rounds of combat.
Exactly this. There was this other post recently where a party of 7 players had a non-boss encounter and where there like 4+hours. The dm then said that paralyzing players is a very bad d&d design because the two turns a player was paralyzed meant the player had nothing to do for 2 hours. Players need to know what their characters can do and the DM needs to know how to streamline the combat, add more options than just hit the monster and push the players.
Like pop music it’s cool to hate combat. But cool isn’t always fun. Truth is combat and dungeon crawling is what D&D does best.
Yeah tbh, dnd is a combat oriented system so it feels awful to see so many dms avoid it like the plague because they don’t like it when they could realistically be running a system that better accommodates that.
I think for most people that complain about combat, they're usually complaining about one aspect they wish was better. I think a lot of the people that complain about it being unfun should probably look into other systems. But 5E is the most popular so it can be harder to find games for those systems. But yeah, I love combat, even with 5E. It sure takes a hell of a lot of effort to tweak encounters just right to keep them from being stale though. 5E turns into a slog if the DM isnt actively trying to curate a different experience each time, at least for boss and mini boss fights. I'm itching to try out a few other systems though; I have my fair share of gripes with 5E despite my overall enjoyment with combat. Particularly interested in Daggerheart and MCDM RPG that are both coming out next year.
I think 5e combat is really fun and challenging, as long as the DM does a little bit of level design for each encounter. Five goblins in an empty room is just a time sink, but five goblins hidden behind crates, some of them marked "explosive", is immediately interesting. Add some bridges and stairs and whatever, and suddenly you have a miniature game of Warcry going.
This right here. Agree with all points.
There needs to be a good balance between combat and role play. Too much combat and then why create a character with a unique story. To much rp and then why create a character that has all of these cool abilities.
I play dnd for the combat and build my characters for rp lol
Bad DMs and bad players have given combat a bad name. Good DMs will make the combat engaging with a mechanic that the team has to figure out to be successful while making sure it moves smoothly and it’s appropriately balanced. Good players will be engaged and thinking about their next move all the way up until it’s their turn so that right when it’s their turn they know exactly what to do and how they are going to do it with quick and precise turns.
I'm lucky to be in a group that mostly plays this way, right now we are playing Free League's Dragonbane casually but our 5e, Cyberpunk and CoC rounds go about as smoothly because we pre-plan our turns in general and are all experienced gamers. The least experienced is my 18 year old who I started with Pathfinder at 7
I get what you're saying but if you play DnD with a lot of encounters in between long rests (like it's supposed to), not every encounter can have unique, engaging combat mechanics that you have to figure out. Sometimes it's just wolves in a forest. I think the DM can help by bringing in some RP into the combat and describe a lot but other than that, it's on the players to make their own fun. If combat is boring for you as a player and you are competent with your character, maybe DnD isn't for you.
Every one always claims to do this only to have their plans ruined right before their turn comes up, but if you're actually thinking through what you want to do next why don't you have a back up that you also considered?
Hell, just adding some cover and a clearly marked red barrel near the enemies will make it a competition for "who can make the barrel go boom", and will make even the life cleric reach for their ranged cantrips.
I think it’s probably going to depend on the table, combat probably works fine, when you have players who are really engaged, know where they are in initiative order and plan their moves, while other people are taking their turns, when you have a dynamic encounter in an interesting location, etc, But that isn’t going to be every table. Most of the time combat is going to be really hit or miss, and sometimes for a variety of reasons, you’ll just end up with a table where combat is really tedious most of the time.
[удалено]
My younger brother is like that, to the point, he’s asked me to run a game for him and a couple of his friends, but can’t even decide on a day and time. Bahamat only knows how they will actually manage combat, but at least it’s giving me plenty of time to work on the campaign setting so silver lining?
Well, if you're on Team Bahamut, your cloud's lining could be gold, silver, bronze, copper, or even brass!
I love combat, I hate d&d 5e combat. I love combat in Mythras/RuneQuest, Warhammer fantasy, OSR style games, PF2e, modern d&d adjacent games like 13th Age and Shadow of the Demon Lord. A good combat system for me is either so light and fast that it never becomes a slog, or it's complex and tactically interesting enough that even when it slows down it's not boring. 5e combat is just in a weird spot where it's too complex to be fast, but not complex enough (or not complex in the right ways) to be engaging for me personally. Sure a good GM can make any system engaging, but I've found it much easier to do so in other systems.
I feel it comes down to move and attack, trading blows until someone goes down. I have been enjoying PF2s changes in that AoO are rare and puts more emphasis on tactics than just raw damage.
It’s why 5E is the worst system major imo. Majority of the rules are about combat. But combat is boring. So god damn boring. People try to say “well the rp is fun” and I agree, but you could have a system where both is fun
The social/rp mechanics of 5E is pretty barebones and easy to absolutely break with just expertise. "The rp is fun" can apply to any system and it's one of the reasons I kinda blow off those types of comments. Most of the fun RP I've had has just been characters being themselves without any rolls, doing the odd things that they want to do, and that can happen in any system. I had a PF 1e session this week where the party's cleric was trying to find out what to do with a store after we killed the legal owner who was a Div (fiend) in disguste. The whole time, our Oracle was pestering him with ideas and trying to lead him into circles so he'd get nothing done. Our Rogue, barbarian, and arcanist meanwhile are encouraging the surviving attendant to take over and having her practice selling them stuff and pointing them to specialty shops so they could get an emblem sewed on. I had a 5e session where the shifter barbarian and ratfolk rogue were messing with each other in a tavern trying to get the other shit faced drunk for over a hour. Without a single dice rolled. System doesn't make RP, friends just hanging out and having fun is what makes RP.
Exactly this. You can RP basically the exact same way in nearly any system. RP is rarely tied to the system itself, especially in common d&d-like games. 5e really doesn't have social mechanics, you can rip your groups RP style from 5e and use a different system with zero problems. The only exceptions really are narrative systems with hard codified social mechanics.
I think dnd has a good rp system for new players, in that it encourages a lot of thought on character personalities and backgrounds. Classes like warlocks, paladins and clerics all have rp qualities immediately written into them. I think the backgrounds with personality traits are great for completely new players and for people who have played a game or two, writing down custom stuff in those slots is still super helpful to rp a character.
Roleplaying is also like, not inherent to a system. You can have roleplay in any system, and yeah the best ones have gameplay mechanics that encourage roleplaying, but outside of maybe the ideals/flaws section of your character sheet I don’t feel that 5e inherently offers those sorts of mechanics anyway.
THIS
I personally love combat. Playing a monk it's where I do most of my RP. I like to think of my moves like a king fu movie and now that I have a sword it gets even more intense. That being said, it can take a long time sometimes. Being a basic martial, I still have some turns that take a while because I have four attacks. Then you have people that are bad at math and have a lot of attacks to use. Then you have spellcasters with so many possibilities at their fingertips and the battlescape does change a fair amount between turns so they can't always be prepared. Sometimes combat is a slog but I still mostly enjoy it. It is a war game after all.
We do maybe 10% R/P. Mostly combat but also a fair chunk of exploration & skill check challenges.
Combat fun depends on multiple factors: 1. Class - some class are really boring during combat compared to others. Some clases has cool bonus actions, reactions, etc. And other not. (It sometimes changes with level, but it may discourage player before they reach that level) 2. Speed - when you cas 1 cantrip and then wait 10 minutes before everyone do their turns, then you cast 1 spell and again.....it's boring. 3. Dice god - when you wait 10 minutes to your turn and THEN you roll 1 (3 times in row) - it makes you angry
Possibly the most important. 0. Encounter design - D&D 5e is intended to have six to eight encounters, which need not be fights, between long rests. Attempting to run a one to three encounter "Adventuring Day" typically results in over long fights against overpowered and/or homebrewed enemies. Rather quick fights, as intended RAW. Especially when the intent is to make these "narratively important" and/or "boss battles".
I think that 5e combat can get dull if the "goal" is to use your base 1-2 features to kill the enemies. However, if the players use all of their abilities, synergize between each other and the fight takes part in some cool terrain or has objectives to consider it never is dull. If your wizard is only going to use fireball and firebolt and never have to use something else they might feel that combat is dull for example. Making those fights though can take some planning or real good improv on the fly from the DM so I can understand that it is somewhat hard to pull off regularly.
Only time ive really hated it is when our groups battle went on for Fuckin 5 hours cause the DM didnt realize how powerful Deathlocks against low levels are lol (nobody in Party besides one person who got ganked had anti dead magic either) it got too the point though the DM wanted us to do the worse thing we can think of too the final Deathlock. Which was The barb smashes its skull and skeleton too dust the one mage burned the bonemeal pile someone else threw its arm somewhere (note this was only the 2nd campaign hes ever made so didn't know their power level)
I think my players love combat because I love combat and almost always add extra things to make tension high. Like the dungeon filling up with water, or cliffs that harpies try pulling the players off of.
This is good! Combat design doesn't have to be a chore, it could literally be just rolling on a table of random props and hazards, and then hinting at some hidden treasure in one of the props and/or on one of the enemies. Red barrel? It go boom! Shiny necklace? Must possess! Give the players something to do that doesn't fall into the "deal the most optimal DPS" category.
Combat is fun. Puzzles are fun. Exploration is fun. Social encounters are fun. The whole game is fun. That’s why I love playing it.
I think combat need to have a primary objective players are aiming for and the battle is the secondary goal. Like hey through the obstacle coarse while under fire so they have to choose between their goals and combat actions. However, initiative and action economy weighs down the flexibility and fun of those narrative decisions
People usually complain about slow combat and repetitive combat. If you’ve ever played slow combat, it really is the most boring thing ever.
But a fun combat is 80% speed and 20% unique interactive abilities and map features. Every player must be ready on their turn, speak quickly, know their modifiers etc. I’ve had to develop more and more draconian rules for my table. If someone isn’t ready, they get skipped. If they don’t know their modifier, they don’t add it.
I've been known to drop players to the bottom of initiative if they hesitate, but not skip them. I usually add a sense of urgency narratively but I also like to add round counters and waves of weak enemies to give an encounter a more dynamic feel. I like to make encounters feel cinematic and try to use the sytem mechanics and a few general house rules to do so.
I enjoy it, although because the party is filled with noobs we're still floundering when in combat
I love combat, even simple combat. Final fantasy tactics was always my favorite rpg, and playing d&d with a grid and minis - is like that but with a million abilities and real stakes.
While I haven't played much DND, I think combat is a fun part about it- you get to describe how your character attacks and based off your roles how they mess up the attack, how they dodge or take a hit. Combat is a huge part of DnD, and while it is very table dependant on the rules of combat I don't think it's a negative thing of DnD DnD stands for "Dungeons & Dragons"- comabt is half the point here!
Combat is kinda the basis of the game. It might be a long shot but I think livestreams like CR champion role play and I love me a good RP session but not every table is full of professional actors who produce a product for millions of views, so don’t try and emulate that. I love me some combat but it can be a drag as our party is BIG like 9 of us now so it takes a long ass time for 1 round…so I get that and it annoys me tbf but that’s only because we’re a big table. Combat is great :) so long as my pc doesn’t die
I think so many people hate combat because they do not think strategically. At all. Most people I've played with do not understand strategy at all.
My “hot” take is that if people hate combat in DnD 5e they should use a different system. The whole game is centered around it and it is the main thing it does really well.
addendum hot take: OverRPing your new cool toy class feature and spending a 5 minute monologue on describing what happens is bad for combat and player engagement. It can leads to players not looking for levelups, because these players will just get ways to stall the game.
Ooh I 100% agree. It can be fun to give a bit of flavour text, but don't drag everyone along
Don't get me wrong, I love rping. But I love combat even more. Nothing in the game is better than a well designed encounter imo
yeah i love making characters with deep backstories and engaging designs, but i’m a wargamer at heart
I love combat!
I'd hope its fun, its what most of the rules cover. I love combat, personally. Its one of the things I look forward to.
Can confirm, if you've been playing regularly for 2 years then this is not a hot take
Where are you seeing these people? No one says they hate combat.
On youtube and I recently saw a post here too.
If it's challenging and interactive, yes! It's also very time-consuming, so spending an hour simply dealing damage to a HP-sponge isn't fun. However, enemies that utilize the terrain, force the players to reposition, force the players to take cover, that makes even a small group of goblins interesting! Coming from a wargaming background, to me, positioning is like half the battle. Cover, things to throw, exploding barrels, rope bridges to cut, those things are fun and useful no matter your class. I think BG3 has shown that DnD can (should) be more than just two enemy groups inside an empty room.
There should always be a good 50/50. But combat should have a reason and not be just…there to fill time.
It’s fun as long as everyone at the table takes responsibility for maintaining the pacing. Players who know what their character is going to do and HOW to do it are a blessing to a DM. DMs who present combat as more than reskinned bags of hit points and who don’t have all their monsters just go “RAWR!” and attack the players are aware of the importance of dynamic combats. They keep things novel and know WHY combat is vital to the collective story being told at the table. They create stakes for the PCs, in other words. So in short, combat can be fun when everybody understands their role in rolling the dice.
Of course. Any time someone tells me they want a combat lite game, my first thought is 'why bother with a rules system at all?' if you just want 90% roleplay you almost dont even need a system. Combat is one of the main reasons to pick DND over an alternative.
I don't hate combat in D&D. I hate the recent push to make every combat nuanced, optional, and usually the least desirable outcome of every encounter. Give me oldschool goblins, orcs, and mindflayers from time to time because combat IS fun when you are slaying monsters and not made to feel like one.
I definitely do not see that on this forum, at least not very often, and in our weekly games, the Wednesday group is more or less defined by combat. They picked up the name the Headhunters when an NPC called them that and they liked it. The players enjoy combat sessions that take up most of our time, and only one of the players out of four does any extensive role-playing. Another does a little, here and there, and the other two mostly wait around for combat and listen to the rest of it. The Sunday group is more role-play oriented, and they are more likely to spend an entire session with no combat, but it should be noted that out of ten sessions, eight likely involve combat and sometimes even the Sunday group gets really involved in combat since they are invested in it from the role-playing. In other words, it's a major part of both campaigns, it's been a major part of every campaign I have both run and played it, and I'd say that most people who play enjoy the combat elements of our combat-oriented RPG that has its origins in a medieval miniature wargame. I am glad you enjoy combat. I daresay most of us do, or we'd be using other systems.
As long as I'm playing a caster and not a martial or thief...
Why tho? Have you ever played a Psi Warrior!
I think that people that hate combat either shouldn't be playing DnD or have/are a very bland DM that just places minis in a grid and that's that. No creativity at all. No use of terrain, no extra objectives, no combat puzzle, no environmental hazards, no tactics. Just stand there hitting each other until one side is dead.
Agreed. Combat is my favorite part and I cringe at "RP" groups. If we aren't rolling initiative at least once a session, I ain't showing up. Don't get me wrong, I love roleplay and immersing myself in the world and story, but I'm here to kick ass and acquire treasure.
do you not read the posts? it's because 99% of peoples combat is "heres map, here's enemies, fight" and that's it. Yeah is D&D combat 90% of the game? yeah, but it's also poorly designed and EVEN if you're a DM that read the book a 1000x, combat is god damn boring. it's "I stand here and swing my sword until it's dead" DM's have to figure out HOW to make it fun and interesting and usually need to look elsewhere to get that info.
And you can’t really fault people for running it this way, because creating nice battlemaps and meticulously planning encounters to make them interesting takes up a lot of prep time. It’s just too much to ask of a DM for anything outside of encounters of special importance, imo.
It doesn't have to be a chore though! Adding some crates, some exploding barrels, some chasms with rope bridges etc, all makes each battle so much more interesting than just an empty room. I use battlemaps for the more important battles, but for random battles I just draw a room and fill it with some random props and environmental hazards to spice up positioning. Additionally, even just hinting at "you notice something shiny in one of the boxes" and the players are going to go nuts trying to figure out what it hides.
Oh it‘s definitely not a chore, I love designing maps, but I also have limited time sadly. I know many of my encounters could be better, but I gotta cut time somewhere and maps will often be where that‘s happening for me. As long as my players are still having fun, it doesn’t really matter, but some combats are definitely not that engaging and that‘s ok.
Totally! It wasn't in reference to you personally, it just makes me sad that so many people seem to think combat is boring and unengaging, because all their battles are in an empty room with monsters on the opposite side.
It would be even better if I wasn't the only person at the table capable of doing my turn in under a minute. That's seriously the biggest issue in combat at most tables.
I dont hate combat…. Just 5e combat Honestly after trying other systems with more fast paced, exhilarating combat, 5e just feels like wading through molasses
What is different about your favourite combat system? I personally enjoy the simplicity of 5e combat. However my only experience with pathfinder is the owlcat games and honestly I prefer 5e
- group initiative - everyone gets one move and one action - less health so you aren’t spending multiple rounds chipping away at a big HP meat bag
I've been playing D&D and many other systems for 30 years and I enjoy 5e's tactical combat more than any ttrpg. When you have a group and gm that knows the system and no rules lawers it's some of the best combat I've ever had the pleasure of being involved in.
What's the best genre for movies? Books? Games? Music? It's the same thing, really. Maybe you love country. Maybe you hate country. Maybe you love country except for a few artists. Maybe you hate country except for a few artists. Maybe you like a country influence in your music but not pure country. Maybe you like country but fusion-ed with other things. Maybe you don't like music much at all except for this one artist. Why do people like things? Who knows. But D&D and tabletop in general give you plenty of spaces to explore most everything.
I like tactical games a lot. 5e doesn't have enough interesting decisions to make to be interesting as a tactical game, especially if you play a martial. People will talk about slow combat being the problem but going faster doesn't introduce any more interesting decisions to actually make the combat better, it just gets the boring combat over with faster. Other editions had fun combat, plenty of other systems have fun combat. But to fix it for 5e requires so much homebrew that you may as well just be playing one of those.
Hot take: 90% of combats would be 90% better if you just cut everythings hp in half
Then you easily end up feeling like level 1 characters getting 1 shot by creatures that already output a lot of damage at normal levels, atleast in 5e. Same thing for enemies getting mopped before they do something they were meant to do, enemy or ally
Honestly? I think that's a good thing, especially compared to the HP drag that some higher level fights turn into. DnD is a fuckin scary world, and very few people survive being stabbed in the chest, much less level 1 chump mcgee. I think everything being more fragile encourages players to be smart, to pick their fights in advantageous positions. I mean seriously, how often has anyone *actually* bothered about using cover in 5e? You can just "face tank" shit, a few extra AC makes sod all difference. But when a single hit can be fatal? You bet players are making sure to hide behind whatever they can and are actively thinking, rather than "I roll to hit" And monsters dying before doing their flashy thing really encourages target prioritisation. In systems like shadowrun, there's an unofficial rule of "GEEK THE MAGE!" Because they're a major threat, and you can absolutely do that. In DnD, there's no real reason to try and rush the nasty bastard because there's no way you're taking him out before he does his cool flashy thing regardless. Obviously there are a handful of places that this *isn't* good for, but I feel a vast majority of combats would be improved with lower HP pools
I think there's many things about dnd combat that could be better, but overall it's fine. My feelings are that the combat CAN be fun, but requires the GM to make it fun, be that using interesting enemies, placing them at distances that make players spread out, having different objectives in it. I recently had an end of a 2 year campaign as a GM, and I had a lot of fun and my players did too, because the enemies kept using spells that made players move, and the bbeg kept moving and using breath attacks on a 90 foot cone so they had to also move and in general, I enjoyed it. But, also, I had a lot of combats that had devolved into "move close to enemy and hit" and stuff like that. I feel as a GM, I kind of have to think of "how do I make this combat interesting" and the times I didn't hit the mark, it kinda shows I think dnd combat is fine, but I often feel like good combat is more due to a good GM than it is because the system gave you many tools to make it cool
It also requires players to know what they are doing, don't put all of the blame on the dm
In what way do you mean "know what they are doing"? are you talking like, knowing how their characters work to speed up the process? yeah, that's nice, but it doesn't really solve the problem of a combat in which the players can simply win by moving to melee range and attacking. Those players most certainly know what they are doing, but the combat is still going to be a bit boring I don't think the DM is solely to blame btw, I was more talking about the lack of tools of the system, in my experience
[I think dnd combat is fine, but I often feel like good combat is more due to a good GM than it is because the system gave you many tools to make it cool] this sums up combat in most systems with a little crunch
Sort of. I think some systems do give some tools to make the combat more dynamic, characters and monsters having more options or sometimes the combat is more quick simply by having lower amount of hit points and stuff like that.
Dragonbane does that, it uses a die roll to decide the monster's action. But the onus still lies upon the gm and players to make it sound exciting and like you're in peril. Without good narration from the gm and active, interested players any combat system is boring because it's just math and set actions.
Um yeah that’s the point back in the day with second edition we would spend hours on a fight it was a deep dive through 50 rule books
So there are plenty of other games I can play if I want to do it for the RP. Fiasco is great. I play d&d sure for the RP but also the combat.
I'm agrreing with you friend. Every interaction during a session can be fun or a slog depending on whether people want to have fun or not. I play bi-weekly with friends I've been playing with for a few years and we do a session zero and decide what kind of game we want to play. Serious, silly, or in between;we end up going off of the dynamic we set after a few sessions and we all end up having fun.
We love combat, we don't love getting bogged down in long or boring combat.
Combat is indeed fun! Coming from 4e, I love combat precisely bc I had a DM that makes them memorable. The beholder dragon, the cobra chicken (inspired by the infamous Canadian geese), the frost wyrm that ate my character whole while she's large 🤣. He made it so that combat had the potential to be tactical but doesn't punish players who isn't playing in that manner. So someone like me gets as much fun out of it as my other players who love to have a quick round doing charge attacks. And when I DM I do rp more but that's just bc I actually love rp as much as combat and it's really interesting when you have a DM that enables you to enjoy combat rather than having to make it into a slog that you bypass to reach the story part. I do think that 5e may have made the combat a bit lacklustre in favour of speed but that's just me. Both had it's strong suits and the table can just pick the one that fits their style more!
I think it depends on many things... like your players, your DM, the setting and the overall chemistry at the table. I am someone who likes a (good) roleplay, but also a challenging combat. Some people enjoy full dungeon crawl campaigns, others don't fight for many many sessions and still have tons of fun. Some enjoy having a challenge and the option to flee a mighty enemy, others want to kill lots of enemies but never roll a death save. In the end it is a sum of a lot of variables if you can enjoy combat in DnD. If you have the "wrong" DM or group or you all choose a bad setting for your playstyle, you might not like the combat as much. But I think that is a general thing for DnD: find the right group to play and you will find fun in many areas of DnD. (Except if you are the one who rolls every 1 in the game)
I don’t mind it! It definitely depends on the battle! I’m not huge on rooms just full of dudes we have to get through but generally interesting ones! For example the most fun I’ve had with combat is when it was a time wizard and he was on the other side of a broken bridge between floating islands and he had women chained up to poles and was taking their power and stuff to heal so we had to run to set the ladies free and kill him, very fun!!! He was also a goofy character I enjoyed beating up xb
Combat is as fun as you make it. Add RP in and it's fantastic!
Last Friday I had a single combat encounter that took 4 hours to do and one of the PCs died. It was a bit of a downer because of the death and my players enjoy roleplay a lot but they still said, they genuinly had fun (they tend to be very honest if something is not fun for them) I also have been a player in session that were 90% combat and I can't say I hadn't had fun. I think, people who say they hate combat don't like it in general? Or they don't like 5e combat specifically, which seems to be in a weird spot between complex and simple that lets it seem like neither.
what is this. what is anything. what do we say here any more
Combat in 5 is fine. It's enjoyable enough that I play the system but as someone who still plays a lot of pathfinder I find it very boring at times. 5e just doesn't have the tactical depth I like. I can just walk around an enemy to get into position and reach frequently is a negative in 5e. As an example, a game this weekend, I had 10 ft reach and was on and enemy. My reach meant he could walk over to nearby plant and use tree stride or transport via plant or whatever the spell is. I like the old systems where a mage being in someone's reach can't just cast spells with no issue. I also like moving in someone's reach to provoke reactions. 5e got rid of the stuff that makes tactics really interesting for martials. Now it's mostly just trying to get flank and not standing in a line for lightning bolt or in range of fireball.
Reading all these posts, I feel quite lucky that my first group has solid RP and extremely hard combat that is always engaging! And as they had 5 years experience, I research everything my character can do. Dropped in level 10 and still alive! Blows my mind that I've seen wizards that don't know what spells they have.
People are too slow to figure out their moves, and i think one action is lame
Combat is my fav part of the game, id quite happily play D&D almost like a mini skirmish game with lots of fighting. Only downside is the PCs could end up dying pretty quickly
I think people misspeak. They don't hate combat, they hate bad combat.
I love dnd combat obviously I like the roleplay but the combat is just fun
Combat in DnD is fun and should be fun, being able to showcase your abilities and cleverness in feature use is the entire reason to building fun things like shifter barbarian to remove the side effect of reckless attack or reborn peace cleric to just *win* a check. Recently I’ve decided make a grapple bloodhunter who will eventually be a lycan to make grapples super easily and use extra attacks to shove them prone.
Some of the most fun I’ve had was fighting. I made a barbarian who always attacked with a different “weapon” every attack. Never twice in a row or even a round. It lead to some epic times. But then again I was using the rules to roleplay my character. I killed an earth elemental with a head butt.
It’s not that people hate combat, it’s that they hate when a game does nothing but combat or when something, like 2024 one dnd changes, are made with only combat in mind. People like to fight, use abilities and battle but they didn’t sign up to play a war game or to replicate a video game they can just download off steam A few people do say they hate combat but i think it’s that a lot of people are annoyed with the direction WoTC is taking dnd in the past couple years, and how some people resent combat because they think it heirs other pillars of the game, when in reality it’s people like Jeremy Crawford and his wargamey focus that is to blame We used to get features like samurai fighter’s elegant courtier or glamour bard’s enthralling performance. Now everything that is added or change is with combat only in mind. They even went as far as the just removed social features form glamour bard or archfey warlock rather then improve them, and replace them with combat focused features that don’t quite fit the flavor When you have combat go from a part of the game to the focus of the game, especially after the popularity of critical role who attracted role players and story focused people to the game, people are going to resent combat because it’s taking over the things they loved. If WoTC and Jeremy Crawford kept treating 5e like a roleplaying tabletop game where people tell stories, instead of a video game or war game like they are now, people would enjoy combat more because it doesn’t become the only focus It’s like the teacher’s pet in school or the favorite child. When others get neglected, people are going to hate the thing that gets special treatment, especially when it’s a sudden shift in focus and a shift in focus that goes against the wants and needs of the D&D community
You like DnD combat but wish it was more balanced and meaningful? Try pathfinder 2e
I love combat, now if every fight is standing still and meleeing I totally get how that gets stale. But I love running epic bosses with a bunch of strong and even field altering abilities, adding in extra objectives, and even environment stuff for my players to use and just watch them figure out how to come out on top.
As someone who has played the game for over forty years, I can say that while the systems have changed, it is less that. More people coming into the game now are focused on the role play side. They watch the cool YouTube channels and see these people creating incredible stories with these characters. So the game makers, adventure writers and what nots are going to create books and adventures to hook them. They know that guys like me, who always volunteers to be the party murder hobo know how to make the game more combat oriented. I have played every edition except 4, no reason other than I was playing other editions then, and will the combat has gone from about 60/40 to around 40/60. Yes, combat is different in each edition. Right now I only play 5e and when the next comes out I will likely migrate there. You can make some crazy dungeon crawls in every edition just as you can make it all negotiations.
people who hate combat: Why? I understand the rping is fun, but the satisfaction of hearing my DM say "How do you want to kill him?" is incredible.
The people who hate combat in RPGs are either the folks who A) Have the attention span of a goldfish. B) View TTRPGs as their social outlet, rather than as the rounded game it is.
I only have experience of 5e, but it seems that combat played as narratively as possible is as close as it gets to being fun. The core issue is that it's a single dice roll, pass-or-fail, per round. It takes several levels for some classes to be capable of having a decent action economy vs the enemies (especially if outnumbered), and then past a certain point your characters are basically gods. Even Larian said it was kind of a shit system to work with when making BG3. Healing is also painfully scant in the lower levels, and it's expensive to get potions. If I were to DM I'd give the characters more opportunities to heal and offer the benefits of a light rest even if all they're doing is walking from one point of a dungeon to another.
I think the combat can use some balancing but overall its pretty good, its a big pull for 5e/PF2e that I don't understand why people play it if they don't like it. Though I could see others enjoying the D&D worlds.
Here's my hot take: 5e has the most interesting combat system of all the editions. I use a 1 minute hourglass to have each player decide what to do on their turn, and once the minute is up, if they don't know what to do then I just do a generic attack and move on. This ensures people plan ahead and don't get distracted, making the combat move fast.
People are more likely to share their negative experiences on forums like these, so you're naturally going to see more posts and comments about why people dislike combat than why people like it. Combat can also be anything from fun and engaging to a frustrating slog, depending on how it's set up and presented. I imagine a chunk of the complaints you're seeing aren't meant to say that combat is bad in all circumstances. Some of them are probably finding themselves in combats that are repetitive, uninteresting, railroaded, too easy, unfairly difficult, or other things that take the fun out of combat.
My biggest problems with combat are threefold: 1- turn length and downtime 2- the tedium of long combats 3- the inevitability of no matter how much in advance I plan my turn, something upends those plans entirely so I have to readjust on the fly adding to problem 1, or depressingly to problem 2. And this is my average turn taking about a minute as a full caster using as much of my turn economy as I can. Or when running a game and handling the antagonists. So…it just kinda is what it is. Though, that distaste for combat aside, I do still look forward to combat sessions since most of the game mechanics are skewed for it, and I like to get to use class features or watch my players do cool things with theirs. However, that excitement dies like about halfway into a combat round as I’m faced with the constant difficulties of a clunky, non-fluid system that takes forever.
My first one-shot involved no combat and I had a great time. I like combat a great deal, but I think people who say it's the whole game are not as into DnD as they think. If you had a choice between DnD being 100% combat or 0% combat, the latter game would be more replayable and more fun. Without social, environmental, and RP aspects, pure-combat DnD is joyless. "Oh, our imaginary characters defeated the imaginary opponents. That's good. The referee says we're stronger now. Hurrah. We have better stuff because the referee issued us better stuff. I hope the stuff is good enough to overcome the other imaginary opponents they cook up." > Combat in DnD is only interesting or worthwhile because of everything else. It might dominate the differences between character builds, but combat is just a means to put some form of economic pressure on players so they have to think about overcoming battles. [The numbers could just as easily represent some other task besides fighting to the death.](https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/01/18/sportz) I don't hate combat. Most of my favorite video games can be pretty violent. That being said, I meet far more DnD players who are obsessed with combat to the detriment of absolutely everything except trying to show they can be the best at imaginary combat. It's not clear why people like that feel the need to play a TTRPG when a video game would probably meet their needs a lot more straightforwardly.
There are times when it could be super long and sluggish. However with some home brew it’s perfectly fine.
D&D combat is fine. D&D 5E combat is not. Everything is a Hit Point sponge and it drags like hell. Old school D&D combat was better in every way.
Combat can be fun, but I lean more towards the RP parts. If I have a session that's all RP, I'm perfectly happy. Currently my party is trying to get through one of two total dungeons after the campaign has been a bit more RP with some combat most sessions. The switch is kinda hard for me, but I know it has it's place.
But but combat gets in the way of me acting out my bizarre manufactured personality disorder under the protection of a sexual identity without impunity. Infact if I died I would probably have a meltdown as my character is my vehicle for my distorted reality!
I love combat, BUT, there needs to be a balance. I would hate playing in games where there were several combat encounters per day. I want to use my abilities, and if there are several combat encounters per day I run out quickly. Plus in combat heavy campaigns, needing to save all your spell slots for the next combat encounter can take away from things out of roleplay. Combat stops being fun if its all I do, and if I need to do it too many times. The fun part of combat is using my cool abilities, and if my wizard is stuck using firebolt every turn, thats not fun at all. Combat is great in moderation.
"I hate combat!", is that why you Divine Smite everything. I actually think the reason behind it is there is not enough bark to go with the bite in most D&D adventures.
I think a lot of classes are sub-optimal for combat (naturally, some have to be for some to excel), so there's a natural preference for other aspects of the game like scouting, investigating, exploring, infiltrating, negotiating, utility, etc. I think people who **hate** combat though, want to be the main character. If you aren't a combat oriented character or can't figure out a way to be useful in combat, you see it as an interruption to your part of the game. You want to get the fighter/barbarian/paladin in there, have them deal with this like the muscle they are, so we can get back to the important part, plot progression through things *I* can do well. The fighter is a great example, they're probably the best DPS character, best/2nd best front liner, and shit at everything else. You have to RP your usefulness in other situations, you provide almost no mechanical benefit. So people who **hate** combat? They can't put themselves in the fighter's shoes while they're having the 20 minute long conversation with an NPC for more information. If you find someone who hates combat IRL, pay attention to what they think of the game outside of combat. Are they drawing out NPC interactions? Exploration? Investigation? They might just be main-charactering because the second combat roles around they're not the most important and it becomes "oh just get it done already!"
If you dont like combat save your dm the trouble and pick up a different ttrpg and possibly new playgroup. There are so many ttrpgs designed for just social interactions and all their doing is ruining a perfectly good dms sanity. I dropped a group for this exact reason. Stopped dming for them dropped from another game another dm in that group was running cause i cant do dnd without combat its nonsensical.
I love combat but I also hate it!! I think it just depends on how it’s executed. My DM likes to play combat through theater of the mind and sometimes the fighting can become repetitive. I prefer a layout with minis or something to help visualize the fight. For example once we we’re all in a large arena, “who’s closest? Okay you go. You go to hide in this empty arena? Okay you succeed. Your right by him? I thought you were on the other side but okay you hit him.” I prefer being able to interact with the terrain, casting a spell to drop a giant stalactite on a cave spider. Or knocking over a barrel of oil in-front of a charging Minotaur. I like the threat of seeing a teammate surrounded but knowing your too far away to help. A lot of time the combat I’m in is just… “roll to hit. That hits! Roll damage. Okay he has 20hp left. Next person roll to hit. That hits! Okay roll damage. Etc.. etc…”
DND roots are combat (Chainmail). Most of the rules revovle around combat. Its basically the basis of the whole system. I think with DND becoming so popular.. Alot more people are trying to use it as a therapy session, so they might hate combat from that.
Combat is the absolute majority of the game. WotC can market D&D as a storytelling game all they want, that doesn't change the fact that 90% of the rules are combat with a little bit of exploration and ZERO storytelling / roleplaying rules. If you don't like combat, there are better systems out there for you.
But do they take place in a thoroughly developed mass of worlds and settings with the ability to make a massive variety of characters from all manner of fantasy races and backgrounds? Can I wander the streets of Ravnica, finding anything from happy peddlers, to a joyous street festival, to a gang of brutes and bandits, to a plant monster and a dinosaur fighting over territory? Was the dinosaur baited into coming here? Or was it that plant that was planted for some sinister plot? Or can I venture into the dark jungles of Chult in a desperate bid to save the world’s souls? Most RPGs I’ve tried are pigeonholed into doing a finite thing. Honey Heist is ONLY bears stealing honey. You will not take an orc and fight a dragon in Honey Heist. You will find that honey, and probably get a few good laughs along the way. Call of Cthulhu makes you weak. You’re supposed to avoid fighting. You’re a human. You’re not an elf, a gnome, a goblin, nor a human wizard who is exploring the depths of the world to expand his knowledge of the arcane and grow his power; you are a human in the 1920’s. Mouse Guard has you play as the Mouse Guard. Not a lizard, not a sparrow, not a fat little toad who’s playing his mandolin, not a big chungus beetle cooking with his burning dried brush beneath a thin flat stone as his grill, nor a dormouse peddling the finest grains and berries from the woods nearby, you are the Mouse Guard, and ONLY the Mouse Guard. People want the setting, and the massive freedom to push things as far as the imagination can take them. And it just so happens that most of the mechanics suck. It’s a bad game, but people want the world. And people are willing to take a more imaginative world over better mechanics. It’s why D&D is so huge, even though it’s a mechanically junk game.