Play with smaller parties, and run encounters with fewer, but more powerful enemies instead of big hordes of weaker enemies.
Try to encourage your players to think about what they're gonna do during other people's turns instead of zoning out until it's their turn, ESPECIALLY if they're a spellcaster.
practice.
all of 's advice
stop playing with morons... okay, I'll be nice, stop playing with people who lack either the capacity or inclination to become fluent with the rules after repeated sessions.
5e combat can be pretty quick, 5-10 seconds to a turn at its fastest, especially if using a VTT with macros.
>Try to encourage your players to think about what they're gonna do during other people's turns instead of zoning out until it's their turn
Why the frick is this so hard for some people?
The only other fantasy RPG I know of that has faster combat than D&D 5e is dungeon world.
Hating popular things does not make you more intelligent or interesting.
The thing that slows combat down is players spending too much time considering their actions, not the actual system of 5e. The only way to make a faster system is to have fewer options, fewer things you can do in combat, as well as to make combat so short and the outcome so certain that you might as well just not have it.
Player timers. When it’s your turn, you have ten seconds to tell me what you’re doing or your character stands there, stunned by the chaotic clash of melee. There’s nothing wrong with putting pressure on the players.
>The only way to make a faster system is to have fewer options
That's weird, because for most characters in D&D their options are "Attack" and "Cast a Spell." Would be hard to pare it down.
>it's not the system! It's the players!
Then what the hell is the point of this thread?
5e is notoriously slow because players have a frick ton of abilities and spells and there are no less than 3 different actions they can take every turn (action, bonus action, reaction, plus free actions and special abilities that require no action or grant additional actions) add the fact that all your spells can utilize different actions and using them as a bonus or regular action can nullify the ability to actually get full use out of your turn (you cant cast two spells in a turn but you CAN cast as a bonus action then attack as a regular action. But no cantrips are useable on a bonus action dont forget it, I guarantee you will). I mean, what do you ec
Expect your players to do? The SYMPTOM is their inability to commit to a course of action in a round. The PROBLEM is your system is a massive tangle of options that should be tossed out for "one action, one move, ask the DM if you want to try more". And for that e experience, I would (and I know you're sick of hearing it but it is true) STOP PLAYING D&D.
You could just throw out all this nonsense and continue to play 5e, but the system will be terribly unbalanced and your players will be outraged. And you'd honestly do better just switching over to ANY of the multitude of other systems out there that are set up to keep combat simple and fun, rather than a 2 hour stress fest of sorting through spell indexes and flipping between class and racial features.
>Then what the hell is the point of this thread?
There is none >5e is notoriously slow because players have a frick ton of abilities and spells and there are no less than 3 different actions they can take every turn
This is only a problem if you play with brainlets. Having a bunch of options is fun and good >rather than a 2 hour stress fest of sorting through spell indexes and flipping between class and racial features.
Just write down your abilities, it's not that fricking hard
>You could just throw out all this nonsense and continue to play 5e
Name a system that is just as mechanically deep as 5e while also being somehow faster. Protip: you can't.
This. The combat is no slower than any 3.pf game. I'd argue 3.pf combat took way longer if run properly, due to the sheer amount of bullshittery that needed to be accounted for.
This is a player problem more than a system problem. Even GURPS' highly lethal combat can take a long time if the players don't know what they're doing and take forever to make a decision.
The thing that slows combat down is players spending too much time considering their actions, not the actual system of 5e. The only way to make a faster system is to have fewer options, fewer things you can do in combat, as well as to make combat so short and the outcome so certain that you might as well just not have it.
Brainlet take. It’s not the amount of options it’s the fact that everything has so much damn HP. It takes more actions to end the combat.
NTA. But what if you like something because you actually enjoy it? If it happens to be popular, so what? I like 5e. It has issues. Lots of issues. Nothing some homebrew can't fix though. But for me it's about getting together with friends for 2 to 3 hours every two weeks, maybe two or three weeks in a row if we're lucky, telling stories, and enjoying ourselves. Crunch heavy systems slog things down for us, and loose systems don't give us enough. 5e is just middle of the way enough for us. We tried older editions, other RPGs. Some work for us. Some don't.
>Nothing some homebrew can't fix though
Ah yes the classic "The game is good with mods" and "Even though I am buying/using a broken product I am going to fix it myself" >maybe two or three weeks in a row if we're lucky, telling stories, and enjoying ourselves
You can get together and tell stories with video games and movies and camping. >Crunch heavy systems slog things down for us, and loose systems don't give us enough
Fair but there are systems also that achieve this also. In fact I played other systems that strike a nice middle ground and also give new players an easier time to understand things. >We tried older editions, other RPGs
Not enough apparently.
The only people who like D&D are people who never played other systems, just enjoy the flavor of D&D even though older editions do that D&D flavor more justice or are forever players who enjoy doing broken and dumb shit and even then other systems like exalted has that covered.
>Ah yes the classic "The game is good with mods" and "Even though I am buying/using a broken product I am going to fix it myself"
It hurts that this is true with AD&D into the WotC era, only because, at least with the past three editions, the core set of rulebooks has cost about $100. You go back to Moldvay Basic D&D, you invest a lot less money, so modding is much less of a "problem."
>The only other fantasy RPG I know of that has faster combat than D&D 5e is dungeon world.
Sorry, anon, you're ignorant, and I mean it in the least offensive way possible. If you can only think of DW when looking for a game with faster combat than D&D, you simply don't know many games.
https://i.imgur.com/kDIuAZc.jpg
best way to make combat shorter i 5e?
Talk with your players and find what works best for your group. Some parties enjoy time limits on action decision, others prefer a quick-reference of the main actions available.
Also, consider using average damage for monsters.
D&D combat is such a problem that pretty much every D&D related Youtube channel has at least one video along the lines of "How to make combat better/faster/more interesting" or "how to fix combat", "how to fix bosses" etcetera.
This is, mind you, a game that is built around combat. A game that does a terrible job at the one type of situation that it devotes most of its crunch to. And it is the game you are choosing to play. So maybe, just maybe, the people telling you that the game has problem may have a fricking point, otherwise OP wouldn't have had to make this fricking thread in the first place.
there is nothing particularly fast about 5e combat. in fact combat has pretty much been slogged since 3rd, when everybody got all the options. god, i miss the days of action declaration in reverse initiative order, and action resolution in initiative order.
Monsters can take a number of hits equal to their hit dice, not hit points.
A successful melee attack inflicts one hit.
A critical hit inflicts two hits.
Sneak attack, 2 hits.
Offensive spells, 1 hit per caster level
When characters reach level 6, double the hits they do.
If you don’t know the hit dice, round the HP off to the nearest 10 and divide by 10 to get the hits.
And, make the players roll their to-hit dice and damage dice at the same time.
fighter with a greatsword and GWM and manuevers etc will hit for 25 damage, but fighter with a dagger and no bonuses will only hit for 5. Two hits from the former will not equal two hits from the latter, but by your hit system they're identical. How do you address this?
2 years ago
Anonymous
Not that hard bud. Great sword does 2 hits of damage dagger does one bit of damage mob has an odd number of hits.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Greatsword without GWM though only does 15 damage. Is it equivalent to 1 1/2 hits? At what point are you not actually making combat any shorter and just shrinking the numbers? Like it'd be faster to just average the damage rolls like monster statblocks do than to constantly translate players' expected damage to an arbitrary number of "hits"
2 years ago
Anonymous
It’s just an example. You can do average damage as well if you like because it’s the same thing with bigger numbers.
It’s kind of amazing to me how unimaginative and inflexible people get about weapon stats vs monster stats when the whole thing is arbitrary.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I was attempting to demonstrate that the granularity is what slows the game, not the actual numbers. If you shrink the numbers but keep the granularity, nothing actually speeds up. You'll need to strip the system to make what you describe actually have any effect, and at that point the old adage comes into effect.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>if we change stuff suddenly its not D&D
Bro you can swap out whatever systems you want and it will still be D&D. The publishers did it so why can’t you?
2 years ago
Anonymous
That's what I said but everybody still hates 4e, go figure
2 years ago
Anonymous
Now I'm curious to see what 4e would be like with the above hits system, since 4e monsters had hundreds of hp.
2 years ago
Anonymous
4e was vastly improved with Monster Manual 3 onward, because they just redid the HP and damage of every enemy in the game to make it more fun. Then 5e came along and went right on back to HP bloat and low damage.
For example, in the 4e monster manual the stereotypical orc was an Orc Drudge, a level 4 minion. It had 1 HP, 16 AC, +9 to hit, and did 5 damage. It was not an exciting monster.
Then in Monster Vault, you get an updated version of it in the Orc Savage. Same HP, AC, to-hit, but now it does 8 damage, or 12 damage on a charge, and when you kill it it gets to take one standard action before dying.
It's the same monster, but does anywhere between 60-140% more damage and it means that the wizard has to be a bit more cautious about casting Fireball at a mob of them because he might get charged by all of them.
2 years ago
Anonymous
I'm gonna check that out. 4e's not so bad. But what a crock that there were 3 of each type of core book. Moneygrub much?
2 years ago
Anonymous
I didn't care because I didn't start playing 4e until 2013 and just pirated everything anyway.
To keep with orcs, another good example is the original Orc Berserker vs the later Orc Reaver.
Berserker: 66 HP, 15 AC, Initiative +3
+8 to hit with greataxe, doing 1d12+5 damage or 1d12+17 on a crit. Once per battle can regain 16 HP when at half HP or lower. Not much going on.
Reaver: 63 HP, 19 AC, Initiative +7
+10 to hit with all weapons.
Battleaxe does 1d10+8 damage and he can move one square afterwards without provoking an attack of opportunity, or can throw javelins for 2d6+6 damage that also push you one square backwards.
Also can charge as a free action once per fight, and gets a free standard action when you kill it.
There's just more going on overall, and the statblock is less than half the size of a 5e one.
2 years ago
Anonymous
a good improvement for 4e is using angrygm boss monsters instead of solos
instead of being giant hp sinks that blow their action points and encounter powers at the start of the fight and get fricked by control powers, they're multiple phase fights that refresh everything between phases and use different abilities in each phase, including abilities that go off during the transition.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>But what a crock that there were 3 of each type of core book. Moneygrub much?
It was an attempt to make other books beyond the original 3 part of the "Core rulebooks" rather than them being considered supplemental books and keep the individual Core book page counts down to sensible levels for ease of sale. Each 4e class took up a massive amount of page count due to each class having "unique" powers which in effect quadrupled the already large amount of pages used for spell descriptions in other editions.
2 years ago
Anonymous
MM3 didn't really frick with HP and defenses that much, it mostly increased enemy damage by a lot. At the same time there were a lot of PC-side features that made PC damage shoot up: dragonshards, expertise feats, better powers, better striker feats like Called Shot, and so on.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>if we change stuff suddenly its not D&D
you look like a dumbass if you >greentext and then make up a point completely unrelated to what he said
converting 15 damage into 1.5 stabby points doesn't speed the game up much unless your group takes minutes to complete grade 1 math. and even then, just invest in a calculator
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah bro use average damage if that’s what you feel comfortable with. When you’re 163 hp into a 200 hp mini boss and some guy rolls 12 damage that’s real D&D for real.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It makes daggers dangerous, as they should be.
2 years ago
Anonymous
This is also a big point. Most weapons should be far more dangerous than they’re presented. Most weapons should be able to kill or severely maim a human in a single hit. There’s no reason a dagger shouldn’t have the same top end as a great sword.
2 years ago
Anonymous
In my B/X mod I've done away with AC and put in damage resistance instead, and made melee damage dice explosive.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Not to giant wall of meat owlbear, or at least not as much a sword.
The system outlined above is based off of the actual math involved in the game. It all works out roughly the same, although you do lose a bit of granularity here and there.
>Offensive spells, 1 hit per caster level >a 5th level wizard's firebolt does as much damage as 5 hits from a fighter
You didn't think this through once, did you.
Encourage players, especially at higher levels, to have a general idea of what they want to do with their turn before their turn comes. Yes, things can change depending on monster and player actions, but having a general goal before you start your turn can speed up combat drastically. Keeping turns on a time-limit might help.
Encourage players to find alternatives to combat if they don't need it. My players sent their rogue in on a very entertaining to watch scouting mission. They did some assassinations, got the info they needed for the dungeon layout, and then were able to pick encounters and complete them quickly before combat started.
Keeping things low leveled is a good way to keep combat quick too. Fewer options you have, the faster it goes. If fast combat is a goal as a DM, don't let your players go past level 6 or 7.
Otherwise, pick a new rules set that encourage shorter combats or discourages combat all together.
You want this shit to get faster??? What the frick are you doing Anon? Are you speedrunning a module or some shit? Only way you get faster than 5e combat is you dont play 5e unironically.
Group initiative, use fewer enemies, don't let the party have retainers and the most important, morale, you don't need to gamify it, just make it so when players have clearly won the enemies flee...if you do this a couple of times players will understand it and start fleeing when they are overwhelmed too
system agnostic tips: >use enemies that surrender or flee when it's clear they're losing >use small numbers of elite enemies instead of large hordes, unless the system has grouping rules >use enemies with high offenses, low defenses >write up enemy tactics ahead of time to further shorten enemy turns >have players that act decisively or put a turn timer on players
5e specific: >use the mob rules in the DMG to simplify hordes >in fact, use most of the extra combat rules in the DMG >don't use large numbers of enemies with save-or-suck effects riding on attacks >when using spellcasting enemies, just figure out what they're liable to cast ahead of time and have the spells you're using pre-calculated
Reminds me of my DM buddies. >"Why do you like this morale shit so much? I can just decide an enemy runs away." >DM consistently makes all monsters fight to the death, even ones we're trying to force to surrender
Reduce all HP 60%. Yeah even the party's.
||Play a good goddamn system that doesn't have "grindingly long boring combats" as an intentional design feature.||
DM of OP here. The two of us were talking about this one night, so here's a few more details to
1. Because I'm a dumbass, I'm working with 8-10 people per session.
2. I'm giving players a minute per turn to get their stuff done. I should probably give them a tell of how much time they have left though. Timers been behind the screen.
3. Combat is run on constitution saving throws instead of HP. Liked the concept of death spiral. No status effects like dazed or staggered though
>every melee attack is opposed. Strength/Class bonus +d20 is the roll. Higher roll wins. Damage is one equal to the roll total -armour class. Two handed weapons have +2 to damage. If you win but don't kill the enemy you can shove or dissengage.
This doubles the chance of a lethal outcome per round and removes damage rolls entirely. This should definitely speed things along and you can add in some fun things like blunt weapons always do 1 damage if you win, polearms shove further, swords can "disarm".
>dont play 5e >play at level 1-3 >only use original core book classes & races and monsters, no UA, no splat books, no other bullshit, no homebrew >if you use magic items keep them simple +1 sword nothing with any abilities that need to be thought about >Use more, weaker enemies that deal more damage >use gritty realism optional rules, make long rests 1 week and short rests 1 day (this stops long rest spam and means spells have to be paced leading to a reduction in overall complexity per combat as characters run out of spells as intended) >dont play 5e
>use gritty realism optional rules, make long rests 1 week and short rests 1 day (this stops long rest spam and means spells have to be paced leading to a reduction in overall complexity per combat as characters run out of spells as intended)
Week-long long rests are absolutely the way to go. You can space out combat further apart. Makes the game less grindy. Gives you more opportunities to have the players check out areas that aren't populated by goblins or whatever other mooks just so they can fill their diet of a certain xp per day.
I’m much happier with milestone level ups because now the only requirement from me as a player is to show up and roll dice, and wait for the DM to say I won something. It’s really relaxing.
2 years ago
Anonymous
It also incentivizes actually pursuing a goal, rather than aimlessly fricking about
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah man! Imagine roaming the lands looking for adventure, loot and hunting deadly monsters when you can just listen to the DMs AMAZEballs npcs talk endlessly until we level up!
2 years ago
Anonymous
I said "a goal". I didn't say whatever the GM happened to decide what was important. Even if none of you have any ambition beyond wealth (which would be lame, but whatever), using examples of established wealth as a milestone for leveling up (such as buying property, recieving titles, etc) is more appropriate than counting XP from kills.
2 years ago
Anonymous
nice strawman my bro. the dm can also say you level up after slaying some beasts or after getting loot or whenever they frick he feels like. I just got baited into replying I know
2 years ago
Anonymous
I was being sarcastic but ok, yes that's true. However, in practise, the whole group levels up at the same time, regardless of what each character does or how much each player participates.
Ah frick it. Why should I complain if people are having a good time
2 years ago
Anonymous
The issue of trying to punish a non-engaged player with less statistical power or loot is that, if anything, it gives them even less reason to care, as now their input is relatively less meaningful.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Which is fine, isn't it? Like maybe D&D isn't the game for them.
remove rolling
5e is already totally mindless so you might as well take out the middleman
not even a troll suggestion btw, monster manual literally includes a "lol just do average damage instead of rolling" option for everything any monster can do
You don't, have fewer combats and have them each be more involved and complex.
If a combat is so boring that you just wanna squirt through it as fast as possible, don't have it in the first place.
Find players with more than two brain cells to rub together, or aren't so anxious/autistic that analysis paralysis fricks your game up.
Just do what's cool and if it's a mistake run with it homie, damn.
I keep hearing people shit on D&D 5e but I never hear of a good answer to the question of what's an actually good combat-focused RPG where your tactics and choices actually matter as opposed to being either a minmax race for the most broken and noninteractive build, or a hyper-granular autismfest where 99% of the options are meaningless cruft.
I didn't read many replies so this may have been said.
Bring back Morale Checks: first roll on first death in enemy party, second roll on 50% casualties. Enemies should flee unless they're zealots or mindless. Half your combats will end up with someone fleeing.
Reduce HP Bloat: halve enemy HP, double enemy damage. This will encourage your PCs to attack hard and attack fast, less fricking around. Also it's more likely your PCs will get badly hurt and need to retreat themselves, speeding up encounters.
Mooks: for any enemy which is not important, they have 1HP effective. Got a goblin shaman and his 12 acolytes? The Acolytes are 1HP mooks. They die automatically in one hit. They still hit for 1d6 or 1d8 damage whatever, but they die instantly. Less HP tracking for the GM, faster for the PCs to clear chaff, PCs feel powerful and heroic.
Play a dwarf
oh you
Bases
Play with smaller parties, and run encounters with fewer, but more powerful enemies instead of big hordes of weaker enemies.
Try to encourage your players to think about what they're gonna do during other people's turns instead of zoning out until it's their turn, ESPECIALLY if they're a spellcaster.
>99
see
regarding fewer enemies.
if your group is new, have them all play fighters, just to get the rules flowing.
practice.
all of 's advice
stop playing with morons... okay, I'll be nice, stop playing with people who lack either the capacity or inclination to become fluent with the rules after repeated sessions.
5e combat can be pretty quick, 5-10 seconds to a turn at its fastest, especially if using a VTT with macros.
>Try to encourage your players to think about what they're gonna do during other people's turns instead of zoning out until it's their turn
Why the frick is this so hard for some people?
I hate to say it, but "don't play 5e" is the best way to speed it up
The only other fantasy RPG I know of that has faster combat than D&D 5e is dungeon world.
Hating popular things does not make you more intelligent or interesting.
Uh, Into the Odd? Knave? Worlds without Number? Low Fantasy Gaming? FATE? Index card RPG?
>Hating popular things does not make you more intelligent or interesting.
Makes me more intelligent than you, certainly.
The thing that slows combat down is players spending too much time considering their actions, not the actual system of 5e. The only way to make a faster system is to have fewer options, fewer things you can do in combat, as well as to make combat so short and the outcome so certain that you might as well just not have it.
Player timers. When it’s your turn, you have ten seconds to tell me what you’re doing or your character stands there, stunned by the chaotic clash of melee. There’s nothing wrong with putting pressure on the players.
This. Also use fewer mobs, make mobs flee after 50% casualties or 3 rounds.
Mobs are fine if the fricking caster remembers to take Fireball rather than being some c**t who thinks damage spells are useless.
>The only way to make a faster system is to have fewer options
That's weird, because for most characters in D&D their options are "Attack" and "Cast a Spell." Would be hard to pare it down.
are you playing without movement? and if so, do you constantly b***h that [game you played 10 years ago] was much deeper?
Movement is a thing in all of those games. Quiet down now, the adults are talking.
>Movement is a thing in all of those games
yes, including 5e
Right, so why do you give 5e a free pass for being slow as shit compared to other games with the same or more options available to players than it?
>Movement is a thing in all of those games
It doesn't have to be. It can be dumbed down to 'in melee' or 'not in melee'.
Pretending for a moment that that is really it, even having two monsters instantly doubles the choices. Three monsters means six possible choices.
And that's before addressing decision points like "which spell", or "which maneuver".
>it's not the system! It's the players!
Then what the hell is the point of this thread?
5e is notoriously slow because players have a frick ton of abilities and spells and there are no less than 3 different actions they can take every turn (action, bonus action, reaction, plus free actions and special abilities that require no action or grant additional actions) add the fact that all your spells can utilize different actions and using them as a bonus or regular action can nullify the ability to actually get full use out of your turn (you cant cast two spells in a turn but you CAN cast as a bonus action then attack as a regular action. But no cantrips are useable on a bonus action dont forget it, I guarantee you will). I mean, what do you ec
Expect your players to do? The SYMPTOM is their inability to commit to a course of action in a round. The PROBLEM is your system is a massive tangle of options that should be tossed out for "one action, one move, ask the DM if you want to try more". And for that e experience, I would (and I know you're sick of hearing it but it is true) STOP PLAYING D&D.
You could just throw out all this nonsense and continue to play 5e, but the system will be terribly unbalanced and your players will be outraged. And you'd honestly do better just switching over to ANY of the multitude of other systems out there that are set up to keep combat simple and fun, rather than a 2 hour stress fest of sorting through spell indexes and flipping between class and racial features.
>Then what the hell is the point of this thread?
There is none
>5e is notoriously slow because players have a frick ton of abilities and spells and there are no less than 3 different actions they can take every turn
This is only a problem if you play with brainlets. Having a bunch of options is fun and good
>rather than a 2 hour stress fest of sorting through spell indexes and flipping between class and racial features.
Just write down your abilities, it's not that fricking hard
> Then what the hell is the point of this thread?
Fricked if I know, I’ve never known 5e combat to actually be slow when players know what they’re doing and are engaged in the game.
>You could just throw out all this nonsense and continue to play 5e
Name a system that is just as mechanically deep as 5e while also being somehow faster. Protip: you can't.
This. The combat is no slower than any 3.pf game. I'd argue 3.pf combat took way longer if run properly, due to the sheer amount of bullshittery that needed to be accounted for.
This is a player problem more than a system problem. Even GURPS' highly lethal combat can take a long time if the players don't know what they're doing and take forever to make a decision.
Brainlet take. It’s not the amount of options it’s the fact that everything has so much damn HP. It takes more actions to end the combat.
Damn, all systems I have read and really wish I could try
>Hating popular things does not make you more intelligent or interesting.
Neither does blindly loving what is popular.
NTA. But what if you like something because you actually enjoy it? If it happens to be popular, so what? I like 5e. It has issues. Lots of issues. Nothing some homebrew can't fix though. But for me it's about getting together with friends for 2 to 3 hours every two weeks, maybe two or three weeks in a row if we're lucky, telling stories, and enjoying ourselves. Crunch heavy systems slog things down for us, and loose systems don't give us enough. 5e is just middle of the way enough for us. We tried older editions, other RPGs. Some work for us. Some don't.
>I like 5E when I change a large amount of it
So you don't like 5E.
>Nothing some homebrew can't fix though
Ah yes the classic "The game is good with mods" and "Even though I am buying/using a broken product I am going to fix it myself"
>maybe two or three weeks in a row if we're lucky, telling stories, and enjoying ourselves
You can get together and tell stories with video games and movies and camping.
>Crunch heavy systems slog things down for us, and loose systems don't give us enough
Fair but there are systems also that achieve this also. In fact I played other systems that strike a nice middle ground and also give new players an easier time to understand things.
>We tried older editions, other RPGs
Not enough apparently.
The only people who like D&D are people who never played other systems, just enjoy the flavor of D&D even though older editions do that D&D flavor more justice or are forever players who enjoy doing broken and dumb shit and even then other systems like exalted has that covered.
>Ah yes the classic "The game is good with mods" and "Even though I am buying/using a broken product I am going to fix it myself"
It hurts that this is true with AD&D into the WotC era, only because, at least with the past three editions, the core set of rulebooks has cost about $100. You go back to Moldvay Basic D&D, you invest a lot less money, so modding is much less of a "problem."
WFRP 4E? Runequest? BRP?
Don't mistake your ignorance of better games for their non-existence.
You just named three stand and present tactical combat systems that are no less of a slog than any edition of D&D.
combat in any of those systems is generally over in 1-2 rounds
I'm sorry that you have game masters who don't tune combats to be a challenge.
>LONG means HARD!
JRPGs are the other board, homosexual.
You are not intelligent to to begin with
>The only other fantasy RPG I know of that has faster combat than D&D 5e is dungeon world.
Sorry, anon, you're ignorant, and I mean it in the least offensive way possible. If you can only think of DW when looking for a game with faster combat than D&D, you simply don't know many games.
Talk with your players and find what works best for your group. Some parties enjoy time limits on action decision, others prefer a quick-reference of the main actions available.
Also, consider using average damage for monsters.
Savage Worlds.
Man who has only heard of 2 rpgs weighs in
Rhapsody of Blood where normal enemies dont even have health bars?
D&D combat is such a problem that pretty much every D&D related Youtube channel has at least one video along the lines of "How to make combat better/faster/more interesting" or "how to fix combat", "how to fix bosses" etcetera.
This is, mind you, a game that is built around combat. A game that does a terrible job at the one type of situation that it devotes most of its crunch to. And it is the game you are choosing to play. So maybe, just maybe, the people telling you that the game has problem may have a fricking point, otherwise OP wouldn't have had to make this fricking thread in the first place.
>5e
>fast combat
Get filtered. Glad that you cant ruin games for anons that actually care about the hobby. Have fun playing 5e for the rest of time moron
there is nothing particularly fast about 5e combat. in fact combat has pretty much been slogged since 3rd, when everybody got all the options. god, i miss the days of action declaration in reverse initiative order, and action resolution in initiative order.
Lemme just forward this question to /tg/ complaints department.
Get out of the house anon.
Monsters can take a number of hits equal to their hit dice, not hit points.
A successful melee attack inflicts one hit.
A critical hit inflicts two hits.
Sneak attack, 2 hits.
Offensive spells, 1 hit per caster level
When characters reach level 6, double the hits they do.
If you don’t know the hit dice, round the HP off to the nearest 10 and divide by 10 to get the hits.
And, make the players roll their to-hit dice and damage dice at the same time.
So damage Dice becomes just meaningless or what?
Rolling for damage is equally meaningless.
Ah so you don't actually understand how the system works, never mind then.
>OMG guys I hit that mob for 25 damage
>OMG guys I hit that mob for half its health
>OMG guys I hit that mob for 2 hits
Once you recognize that all of these statements can mean the same thing you will act less moronic.
fighter with a greatsword and GWM and manuevers etc will hit for 25 damage, but fighter with a dagger and no bonuses will only hit for 5. Two hits from the former will not equal two hits from the latter, but by your hit system they're identical. How do you address this?
Not that hard bud. Great sword does 2 hits of damage dagger does one bit of damage mob has an odd number of hits.
Greatsword without GWM though only does 15 damage. Is it equivalent to 1 1/2 hits? At what point are you not actually making combat any shorter and just shrinking the numbers? Like it'd be faster to just average the damage rolls like monster statblocks do than to constantly translate players' expected damage to an arbitrary number of "hits"
It’s just an example. You can do average damage as well if you like because it’s the same thing with bigger numbers.
It’s kind of amazing to me how unimaginative and inflexible people get about weapon stats vs monster stats when the whole thing is arbitrary.
I was attempting to demonstrate that the granularity is what slows the game, not the actual numbers. If you shrink the numbers but keep the granularity, nothing actually speeds up. You'll need to strip the system to make what you describe actually have any effect, and at that point the old adage comes into effect.
>if we change stuff suddenly its not D&D
Bro you can swap out whatever systems you want and it will still be D&D. The publishers did it so why can’t you?
That's what I said but everybody still hates 4e, go figure
Now I'm curious to see what 4e would be like with the above hits system, since 4e monsters had hundreds of hp.
4e was vastly improved with Monster Manual 3 onward, because they just redid the HP and damage of every enemy in the game to make it more fun. Then 5e came along and went right on back to HP bloat and low damage.
For example, in the 4e monster manual the stereotypical orc was an Orc Drudge, a level 4 minion. It had 1 HP, 16 AC, +9 to hit, and did 5 damage. It was not an exciting monster.
Then in Monster Vault, you get an updated version of it in the Orc Savage. Same HP, AC, to-hit, but now it does 8 damage, or 12 damage on a charge, and when you kill it it gets to take one standard action before dying.
It's the same monster, but does anywhere between 60-140% more damage and it means that the wizard has to be a bit more cautious about casting Fireball at a mob of them because he might get charged by all of them.
I'm gonna check that out. 4e's not so bad. But what a crock that there were 3 of each type of core book. Moneygrub much?
I didn't care because I didn't start playing 4e until 2013 and just pirated everything anyway.
To keep with orcs, another good example is the original Orc Berserker vs the later Orc Reaver.
Berserker: 66 HP, 15 AC, Initiative +3
+8 to hit with greataxe, doing 1d12+5 damage or 1d12+17 on a crit. Once per battle can regain 16 HP when at half HP or lower. Not much going on.
Reaver: 63 HP, 19 AC, Initiative +7
+10 to hit with all weapons.
Battleaxe does 1d10+8 damage and he can move one square afterwards without provoking an attack of opportunity, or can throw javelins for 2d6+6 damage that also push you one square backwards.
Also can charge as a free action once per fight, and gets a free standard action when you kill it.
There's just more going on overall, and the statblock is less than half the size of a 5e one.
a good improvement for 4e is using angrygm boss monsters instead of solos
instead of being giant hp sinks that blow their action points and encounter powers at the start of the fight and get fricked by control powers, they're multiple phase fights that refresh everything between phases and use different abilities in each phase, including abilities that go off during the transition.
>But what a crock that there were 3 of each type of core book. Moneygrub much?
It was an attempt to make other books beyond the original 3 part of the "Core rulebooks" rather than them being considered supplemental books and keep the individual Core book page counts down to sensible levels for ease of sale. Each 4e class took up a massive amount of page count due to each class having "unique" powers which in effect quadrupled the already large amount of pages used for spell descriptions in other editions.
MM3 didn't really frick with HP and defenses that much, it mostly increased enemy damage by a lot. At the same time there were a lot of PC-side features that made PC damage shoot up: dragonshards, expertise feats, better powers, better striker feats like Called Shot, and so on.
>if we change stuff suddenly its not D&D
you look like a dumbass if you >greentext and then make up a point completely unrelated to what he said
converting 15 damage into 1.5 stabby points doesn't speed the game up much unless your group takes minutes to complete grade 1 math. and even then, just invest in a calculator
Yeah bro use average damage if that’s what you feel comfortable with. When you’re 163 hp into a 200 hp mini boss and some guy rolls 12 damage that’s real D&D for real.
It makes daggers dangerous, as they should be.
This is also a big point. Most weapons should be far more dangerous than they’re presented. Most weapons should be able to kill or severely maim a human in a single hit. There’s no reason a dagger shouldn’t have the same top end as a great sword.
In my B/X mod I've done away with AC and put in damage resistance instead, and made melee damage dice explosive.
Not to giant wall of meat owlbear, or at least not as much a sword.
>all of these statements can mean the same thing
That doesn't make it a good idea, Anon.
The system outlined above is based off of the actual math involved in the game. It all works out roughly the same, although you do lose a bit of granularity here and there.
Rogue smallbow archers are OP af under this system
I don't know what those are but I assume their ranged bow attacks count as sneak attacks?
Yes
>Offensive spells, 1 hit per caster level
>a 5th level wizard's firebolt does as much damage as 5 hits from a fighter
You didn't think this through once, did you.
Band enemies together into a single entity, giving them extra attacks for each member past the first.
Play with people who have read the rules, know how their characters work, and aren't stupid.
Good luck finding a whole table of people who fir that description.
use different system.
Bring back morale rolls.
Roll morale on the first casualty and at 50% casualties. Failure indicates surrender or retreat
Encourage players, especially at higher levels, to have a general idea of what they want to do with their turn before their turn comes. Yes, things can change depending on monster and player actions, but having a general goal before you start your turn can speed up combat drastically. Keeping turns on a time-limit might help.
Encourage players to find alternatives to combat if they don't need it. My players sent their rogue in on a very entertaining to watch scouting mission. They did some assassinations, got the info they needed for the dungeon layout, and then were able to pick encounters and complete them quickly before combat started.
Keeping things low leveled is a good way to keep combat quick too. Fewer options you have, the faster it goes. If fast combat is a goal as a DM, don't let your players go past level 6 or 7.
Otherwise, pick a new rules set that encourage shorter combats or discourages combat all together.
5e combat only takes a long time because the average player has a 2 digit IQ.
Don't play 5e. Can't get much shorter than that.
Make the enemies (try to) flee or surrender if they know they can't win.
You want this shit to get faster??? What the frick are you doing Anon? Are you speedrunning a module or some shit? Only way you get faster than 5e combat is you dont play 5e unironically.
Why would you want to make it shorter?
Group initiative, use fewer enemies, don't let the party have retainers and the most important, morale, you don't need to gamify it, just make it so when players have clearly won the enemies flee...if you do this a couple of times players will understand it and start fleeing when they are overwhelmed too
system agnostic tips:
>use enemies that surrender or flee when it's clear they're losing
>use small numbers of elite enemies instead of large hordes, unless the system has grouping rules
>use enemies with high offenses, low defenses
>write up enemy tactics ahead of time to further shorten enemy turns
>have players that act decisively or put a turn timer on players
5e specific:
>use the mob rules in the DMG to simplify hordes
>in fact, use most of the extra combat rules in the DMG
>don't use large numbers of enemies with save-or-suck effects riding on attacks
>when using spellcasting enemies, just figure out what they're liable to cast ahead of time and have the spells you're using pre-calculated
>use enemies that surrender or flee when it's clear they're losing
I still never got why they removed Morale as a stat on monsters.
Because that's the kind of thin that ought to be handled on a case by case basis
Reminds me of my DM buddies.
>"Why do you like this morale shit so much? I can just decide an enemy runs away."
>DM consistently makes all monsters fight to the death, even ones we're trying to force to surrender
Sounds like a shit DM problem
Because tracking morale doesn't speed up combat.
Reduce all HP 60%. Yeah even the party's.
||Play a good goddamn system that doesn't have "grindingly long boring combats" as an intentional design feature.||
Playing a system that isn't 90% a pretty bad combat engine would be a good start.
DM of OP here. The two of us were talking about this one night, so here's a few more details to
1. Because I'm a dumbass, I'm working with 8-10 people per session.
2. I'm giving players a minute per turn to get their stuff done. I should probably give them a tell of how much time they have left though. Timers been behind the screen.
3. Combat is run on constitution saving throws instead of HP. Liked the concept of death spiral. No status effects like dazed or staggered though
Thanks anons
>Constitution saving throws instead of HP.
I'm interested. How does it work?
>shorter
>5e
how dumb are you or your players? 5e combat usually last for 1-3 rounds, 4-6 in case of a BBEG
>8-10 people
>game is for 4 to 6 player
>invites 10 people
>why does combat take so long?
Dumbass
1:10 rule
>every melee attack is opposed. Strength/Class bonus +d20 is the roll. Higher roll wins. Damage is one equal to the roll total -armour class. Two handed weapons have +2 to damage. If you win but don't kill the enemy you can shove or dissengage.
This doubles the chance of a lethal outcome per round and removes damage rolls entirely. This should definitely speed things along and you can add in some fun things like blunt weapons always do 1 damage if you win, polearms shove further, swords can "disarm".
Oh yeah forgot to say this only works if you cut HP bloat by a lot. You wont get big chunks of damage here.
stay at and balance everything around level 2. No HP bloat, no multiattacks BS
>dont play 5e
>play at level 1-3
>only use original core book classes & races and monsters, no UA, no splat books, no other bullshit, no homebrew
>if you use magic items keep them simple +1 sword nothing with any abilities that need to be thought about
>Use more, weaker enemies that deal more damage
>use gritty realism optional rules, make long rests 1 week and short rests 1 day (this stops long rest spam and means spells have to be paced leading to a reduction in overall complexity per combat as characters run out of spells as intended)
>dont play 5e
>use gritty realism optional rules, make long rests 1 week and short rests 1 day (this stops long rest spam and means spells have to be paced leading to a reduction in overall complexity per combat as characters run out of spells as intended)
Week-long long rests are absolutely the way to go. You can space out combat further apart. Makes the game less grindy. Gives you more opportunities to have the players check out areas that aren't populated by goblins or whatever other mooks just so they can fill their diet of a certain xp per day.
Or, you can just use milestone level ups
Milestone levelups are objectively superior
I’m much happier with milestone level ups because now the only requirement from me as a player is to show up and roll dice, and wait for the DM to say I won something. It’s really relaxing.
It also incentivizes actually pursuing a goal, rather than aimlessly fricking about
Yeah man! Imagine roaming the lands looking for adventure, loot and hunting deadly monsters when you can just listen to the DMs AMAZEballs npcs talk endlessly until we level up!
I said "a goal". I didn't say whatever the GM happened to decide what was important. Even if none of you have any ambition beyond wealth (which would be lame, but whatever), using examples of established wealth as a milestone for leveling up (such as buying property, recieving titles, etc) is more appropriate than counting XP from kills.
nice strawman my bro. the dm can also say you level up after slaying some beasts or after getting loot or whenever they frick he feels like. I just got baited into replying I know
I was being sarcastic but ok, yes that's true. However, in practise, the whole group levels up at the same time, regardless of what each character does or how much each player participates.
Ah frick it. Why should I complain if people are having a good time
The issue of trying to punish a non-engaged player with less statistical power or loot is that, if anything, it gives them even less reason to care, as now their input is relatively less meaningful.
Which is fine, isn't it? Like maybe D&D isn't the game for them.
Halve the HP and double the damage of monsters.
Also combat should rarely be about hitting each other until one side dies.
remove rolling
5e is already totally mindless so you might as well take out the middleman
not even a troll suggestion btw, monster manual literally includes a "lol just do average damage instead of rolling" option for everything any monster can do
You don't, have fewer combats and have them each be more involved and complex.
If a combat is so boring that you just wanna squirt through it as fast as possible, don't have it in the first place.
Find players with more than two brain cells to rub together, or aren't so anxious/autistic that analysis paralysis fricks your game up.
Just do what's cool and if it's a mistake run with it homie, damn.
I keep hearing people shit on D&D 5e but I never hear of a good answer to the question of what's an actually good combat-focused RPG where your tactics and choices actually matter as opposed to being either a minmax race for the most broken and noninteractive build, or a hyper-granular autismfest where 99% of the options are meaningless cruft.
nta and I think he's a gay, but West End Star Wars.
Make the players put their phones away.
I didn't read many replies so this may have been said.
Bring back Morale Checks: first roll on first death in enemy party, second roll on 50% casualties. Enemies should flee unless they're zealots or mindless. Half your combats will end up with someone fleeing.
Reduce HP Bloat: halve enemy HP, double enemy damage. This will encourage your PCs to attack hard and attack fast, less fricking around. Also it's more likely your PCs will get badly hurt and need to retreat themselves, speeding up encounters.
Mooks: for any enemy which is not important, they have 1HP effective. Got a goblin shaman and his 12 acolytes? The Acolytes are 1HP mooks. They die automatically in one hit. They still hit for 1d6 or 1d8 damage whatever, but they die instantly. Less HP tracking for the GM, faster for the PCs to clear chaff, PCs feel powerful and heroic.