A common complaint about 4E is the length of fights. There are a lot of suggestions to curb combat length, but something I often see neglected is the variation in damage that PCs do. To me it has always been an odd mechanic that how well you hit has no effect on the damage inflicted. You can just barely hit a creature and max out damage, or get a solid hit (just below a critical) and flub your damage roll with a 1.
How minions deal damage has a nifty idea there. Minions do a steady amount of damage per hit. No die rolling. Perfect for the 1 hit creatures they are, but that concept of a steady state of damage output with less overhead in running them has some appeal when streamlining combats.
Another game comes to mind where damage output was less random is Star Fleet Battles. This was a tactical space combat game set in the Star Trek universe that first came out in the late 70s and hit its stride in the early 80s. What was interesting about the game was that many weapon systems had a flat damage rate, it just depended on whether you hit based on a D6 roll. Other systems (like phasers) had effectively no ‘to hit’ roll at all, they just did a random amount of damage. However the closer you were the less random the damage output was, effectively shifting a damage roll from 1-4 at long distance to 5-6 at broadside range.
What I particularly liked was that certain ranges had a sweet spot where the variation in damage output was minimized, and got better as you closed the distance. It was very predictable. Risky long range shots sniping at a target across the map was exactly that, risky and did little damage. Closer in, you could predict how much damage you could inflict (and take yourself). The game came down to pre-planning moves, maneuvering, and efficient energy allocation.
So with D&D I found it odd there is this huge disconnect with damage and to hit rolls. They are completely independant from each other. On top of that a series of rolls is needed with each effective strike. It’s a lot of manhandling of dice and steps to resolve combat. So why not consider dropping the idea of random damage altogether if fights are dragging?
Write down 4 typical damage rolls beforehand – Take the normal die roll a player would make and replace it with an average damage, or a simple mean of the potential die outcomes. Additionally make a limited damage value being 25% of the potential damage from the same die, and an improved damage value calculated as 75% of the potential damage. Don’t forget to include the max damage roll from critical hits too.
With those 4 values, add the bonuses to damage due to feats, enhancements, ability scores, etc. and you’ve got a simple list of damage numbers a PC does with each attack. If extra bonuses come in from other player’s powers they can quickly add it to those totals.
Average damage is the default – Any powers or abilities that do multiple weapon hits are just multiplied by this number, just follow up and add the various bonuses to damage from feats, etc. This is the bread and butter output from attacks.
Critical hits work as before – Roll a 20 and you max out damage. Nothing changes.
Limited Damage on an even hit – If a player scores a hit roll that evenly matchs a creature’s defense, he uses the limited damage value. Just a little variation to the damage. You barely get a hit and in turn do less than average damage.
Improved Damage at one less from a critical hit – Typically on a 19 (but may be different for some characters that can expand the range of successful critical hits), but this is a hit that would do a bit more damage from normal yet still not quite the max damage from a natural 20.
With a little prep time, the players have their turn streamlined a little. Additionally, there is a small amount of variation in their damage output. The big, and less than optimal, hits are there. More importantly, they are tied to how well you roll to hit. Also, different damage output is tied to some simple conditions (i.e. score an even hit roll with a monster’s defense and you do less damage). If anything, I think this could work out well on the DM side of the screen for handling monster damage.
I’ve yet to to try this out with my group. I expect most players will balk at the idea of dropping an opportunity to roll a damage die. I think most will still want to roll that 1D12 rather than agreeing to constantly hit at 6 damage (plus all the bonuses). Still, if combats are dragging this might be something for groups to explore.
We talked on something like this on EN World recently in the 5e section in regards to Saving Throws and Wizard spells.
ReplyDeleteWe attacked the problem from the other side and suggested getting rid of the d20 roll and just rolling damage or effect for some attacks and effects.
The reasoning being that anytime you have a second roll after the first then you are going to have a reduction in the 'enjoyment' from the first roll.
If you roll 5d6 for fireball then you can end up with a minimum of 5 or a maximum of 30.
This already gives you either a 'miss' or a 'critical hit' because you either rolled well or poorly on the damage.
The reflex saving throw roll (3e or 4e) or spell saving throw (2e) for half damage does nothing to improve this roll and does much to harm the impact of the damage roll.
If a player has already rolled 5 for damage then having the damage is not going to do anything but take a miserable effect and give it another knock.
If a player has already rolled 30 (max effect) then having the damage halved just robs the player of having been lucky on the damage roll (like having to roll to confirm in 3e critical hits).
I know it is 'herasy' to suggest prying d20s from the hands of DnD players but I think that if the damage roll was used instead of the d20 it would still give 'randomness' and speed up combat.
People like to 'hit'. It matters far less to them that the hit is for 1 point or 100 points. If you drop the d20 and just roll damage then you'll still have a fun game.
There are other ways to represent 'armour' in such a system by giving it an ability to absorb some points of damage off each damage roll.
It's an interesting idea and something taken from other wargames. The core concept would be one player attacks with a single die roll (either determining damage, or to hit), while the opposition would roll to defend (either negating or reducing damage inflicted).
ReplyDeleteIn a way, you get a nice back and forth for each action. PCs might like this as they get a chance to be more proactive with defense as they roll for a save, rather than sit there and take hits. It is a way to make fights more interactive, with everyone rolling a lot more dice than just sitting around waiting for their turn. I'm sort of torn on this though as I sort of like the idea of a unified mechanic where everyone rolls against a target defense to hit.
I think another concept to keep in mind is how spells, situations, and abilities alter the mechanics. Adding a +1 or +2 to hit rolls due to feats, magic items, etc. is a nice, tidy way to give situational bonuses. Of course this could be shifted over to 'saving throw' rolls for the defender instead (making it a -1 to defensive rolls).
It's a workaround and might make combats more engaging. Sadly, I think you'd even have more people clamoring about how 5E is further away from the older editions and something like this would be even more divisive with older edition gamers. Thanks for your input.
I think the biggest problem would be 'old' players finding a change (no d20 and no saving throw) disturbing.
DeletePersonally, the +1 or +2 modifier to a to-hit roll is much more of a problem. 3e and 4e are filled with modifiers that add on top of each other. The result is that each of those +1s or +5% quickly add up on a mechanic that is designed around 'hitting' 50% of the time.
A further problem with the modifiers are some characters tend to attract or pile up the modifiers (items, spells, feats, situations, ability scores) while others have less. This creates problems in the defense mechanic as you now have to deal with two groups with extremely different abilities. The group that has modifiers with a +10 to +20 modifier total above the other group (3e in the teens could get this way comparing a maximized fighter to a rogue or cleric).
I do like the damage dice because modifiers do not make as much of a change because hit points tend to have more room for absorption (d20 has very little room especially if you are supposed to hit 50% of the time).
I also like that eliminating the d20 save roll for 50% effect means you can lower the overall damage. You do not need to roll 10d6 to reliably get 5d6 of effect. You just roll the 5d6 of damage. This also avoids when things go really one side where the Save Fails and the Damage dice roll maximum. Gameplay can have more solid hits but no crippling impacts.
Any counter roll is the same as rolling attack and damage. You are rolling twice which dilutes the first rolls impact and encourages failure as the more common result. This is why confirming criticals in 3e was so awful. It takes a shining moment and then often takes it away from you.
Isn't there just a slight hint of magic in the air when you pick up the dice and get ready to throw them? I agree with the idea speeding up of combat, but would rather see the powers slimmed down and simplified. My players don't spend to much time rolling dice, but do spend a lot of time going over (and over) their character sheets.
ReplyDeleteThere is still some excitement there. A natural 20 is still a big hit. It's just the damage rolls that get dropped. However I agree that power glut (from magic items too) is the biggest culprit for slowing down a PC's turn. Partially the reason I advocate for players to use basic attacks and at-wills if struck with analysis paralysis.
DeleteI really like the idea of the quality of the hit determining damage, but you rarely see it. The 12° system is the first one that springs to mind, though I know I've come across one or two others. Might have to try this out next time I run a game.
ReplyDeleteTo be blunt, like some that have commented here, I doubt my players would want to drop an opportunity to roll dice. As John also commented below, DR from monsters can be a thorny issue too. However this might have some traction behind the screen for the DM. Thanks for your comment!
DeleteOne issue with a non-rolled-damage system is that defenses like Damage Reduction become significantly more annoying. Ex: if I'm doing 1d6 points of damage to a monster with DR 3/-, I'll do damage about half the time. If I'm doing average damage (3 points) most of the time, with exceptions for crits, almost-misses, and almost-crits, DR's effect is magnified significantly, dependent on the level of defense and my crit threat range. If I need an 11+ on a d20 to hit and have 19-20 crit threat, then I'm doing guaranteed 0 damage on anything from a 1 to a 17.
ReplyDeleteAlso: Adding effect to damage is one of the things I like about Traveller as opposed to d20; a better hit actually is more effective.
True, but in reality most players have other bonuses to damage due to feats, enhancements, and ability scores which are added to the average roll. I agree you'd could see some curbing to damage with monsters having DR, rarely would you see it completely negated.
Delete@Geek Ken - as my players have said many times to me, "I can take their dice when I pry them from their cold, dead fingers". I like the math of what you suggest, but my players love to roll, and hate it when I do anything that takes that away from them.
ReplyDelete@GM Dave - I'm going to have to disagree that saving throws aren't fun. Sure, they're not fun when you are the one attacking, but when you are being attacked, players like the sense that there is a last ditch thing that they can do to mitigate the harm. Rolling a die for this has an inherent drama to it as well - when we switched from 3e to 4e transitioning from saving throws to static defenses was one of the things my players really didn't like. Even if it was mathematically the same, and sped things up, they didn't like the feeling of just sitting there and taking it, rolling a saving throw made them feel like more of an active participant in the outcome.