5e: My fastest combat ever

[BerzerkerUnit]

Aloha all,

The point of this thread is the combat I ended the session with. There were 10 badguys and 3 pcs with 5 helpers and I only had 30 minutes.

Helpers and badguys used the following:

Hits instead of Hit Points, KO threshold, crit vulnerability. This is probably a granular expansion of minion rules which I liked for 4e but I think are a little too forgiving for this game. Explanations below and some campaign specific nonsense after...

Context: My Players like to roll damage. I don't think I've ever had a player not say "let me roll just to see how much" when I tell them the target can't survive their minimum damage. I stopped bothering and just let them roll anyway. That evolved into:

KO Threshold: Weak enemies have an arbitrary amount of damage that if they take in a single blow knocks them out. In this case it was 15 (compared to the base 60 of the creatures in question). The ninja PC can reliably deal 15 between his "sneak attack" and savage attacker feat.

Hits instead of HP: Foes might take 2-4 hits to KO (any more than this and you can probably just use the HP). Damage doesn't matter unless it exceeds that threshold, the 4th hit KOs them regardless.

Crit Vulnerability: A critical hit always knocks a target out.

My players are terrible at focusing fire for some reason. We've been playing together for like 4 years and they just refuse to do it. It has made countless battles slogs so I'm adjusting.

I just got done with a session. It was okay. I'm using some 1D&D stuff and a bunch of homebrew classes from OAP or myself. PCs are level 2, I'm still doing a lot of world building, I'm trying to give the PCs choices of places to be interested in so they can settle on where to focus their efforts at level 3. Rewards are bought with Prestige, you do missions for that location for prestige there, higher total prestige makes better rewards available.

Want bug inspired biotech items? Do missions for Orinoko.
Want standard magic items like an Artificer can infuse? Do missions for Mist-Haven.
Want Warlock powers? Do missions for Winefog (GOO/Fathomless) or Mpaghara Anwu (Deathless/Undead). I'm way off topic, tired.

[animorte]

I’m thinking of how I might adjust this to account for higher levels and boss vs pawns in a fight. Increase the threshold to perhaps:

• 1-2 hits for the easy folks
• 3-4 hits for mid
• 5+ hits for boss

I would cap out at 8-10 for end-game BBEG. I mean, more difficult things also just have higher AC and better saves, so this may not particularly be a concern.

I would imagine, with enough consistency, the players will start to realize how many hits it’s going to take to drop anything, so I think switching that up a little on a regular basis would help a lot.

Including your critical rule is a really good idea, but I wouldn’t expect that to work on any mini-boss or greater. Maybe count it as 2 hits for those circumstances?

Also, maybe increase the damage threshold for instant KO by PC level?

I'm way off topic, tired.

Every night when I’m scrolling back and forth, at some point I start realizing how little sense I make, often after the damage has been done.

[Yakk]

Note that focus fire being optimal is an artifact of D&D's combat engine.

It is very sensible, if you aren't metagaming the combat engine, to try to engage every foe you can. Only after doing that should you focus fire.

Because in any sensible reality, the reduction in offensive firepower from being threatened is far greater than the speed you eliminate individuals.

Modeling this is a bit of a pain. The easiest, I guess, is that if you have been in combat and not attacked or made to make a saving throw since the end of your last turn, you get advantage on everything (and impose disadvantage on saving throws). Basically, you get the benefits of being hidden.

Then spreading attacks out one per target is very optimal. You want to take the excess firepower above that and focus fire.

(If you and your target aren't engaged in combat this doesn't happen -- you have to be watching foes being threatened, and threatening yourself, etc.)

[BerzerkerUnit]

Note that focus fire being optimal is an artifact of D&D's combat engine.


Modeling this is a bit of a pain. The easiest, I guess, is that if you have been in combat and not attacked or made to make a saving throw since the end of your last turn, you get advantage on everything (and impose disadvantage on saving throws). Basically, you get the benefits of being hidden.

Then spreading attacks out one per target is very optimal. You want to take the excess firepower above that and focus fire.

(If you and your target aren't engaged in combat this doesn't happen -- you have to be watching foes being threatened, and threatening yourself, etc.)

This isn’t a bad idea and a “suppressing fire” action for secondary units/minions would be cool if I was giving my PCs buy in on the system.

But then we’re pushing farther beyond the idea of what “D&D” is. It’s a lot, and I think if you played Burning Wheel or WoD rules with Owl Bears and Gelatinous Cubes you’d still be close.

But I’m not giving my PCs buy in. I basically institute this to create a high volume force without swarm rules that I can run swiftly.

I’m also trying out a Damage Dice based assessment. System. Wildly imperfect. But here’s an example.

The PCs put damage dice in front of themselves representing damage they could do if they went all out, landed every attack and foes failed every save.

I do the same for NPCs. This allows players to get a sense of what a worst case scenario would look like and whether they want to engage or circumvent.

Example: a party of 3 5th level PCs: Fighter, Barb, Wizard could place 4d10 for the fighter (action surge with Glaive), 2d12 for the Barbarian (great axe), and 8d6 for the wizard (Fireball).

If I say there's a hunting party of 4 Orcs on horseback armed with battle axes and long bows, that might seem pretty tame, but if I then put up 8d8 and 8d6, that visually communicates there's more than meets the eye. Like these Orcs being veterans skilled in mounted combat with trained warhorses. If I put up 4d8, that indicates the orcs are standard fare that can probably be overcome easily. Such orcs would take one look at the party and possibly flee, trying to lure such a threatening force into a less tenable situation.