The D&D thread

Hoss · Oct 16, 2024

Talos said:
Anyone ever try something like this? Basically "zipper" initiative. Players roll initiative as usual. Then the highest initiative rolled by a player is compared to the big bad's initiative to determine who goes first (big bad is always going to go either first or second no matter what). If there are minions, the DM doesn't roll initiative for them but manually places one after each player. Any leftover minions just go at the end.

He claims it makes initiative a little faster and manageable because you're not rolling for each monster or group of monsters, just the big bad, and then manually placing any minions. Also keeps combat more engaging and balanced because it goes back and forth rather than having situations where one side nukes the other. And prevents anti-climactic boss fights if the big bad rolls poorly and gets nuked. Now he at least gets a turn near the beginning of combat.

My campaign has been four players for the first 10 sessions, but two more players are joining next session and I'm looking at ways to keep combat manageable, fast, and engaging for the players.

I've been thinking about this. I like the result that the monsters don't all go at once. That always seemed janky. But one thing that would piss me off is if I rolled a nat 20 and only got to go 3rd. Last session we had a fight were 2 of us rolled nat 20s on the initiative. The nat 20 is already pretty much wasted on an initiative roll, but doing it like this makes the initiative roll mean even less. A good or bad roll should have consequences. If the monster rolls an 8, he shouldn't get to go second. Might as well just skip the rolling, let the players set their order and flip a coin to see if monsters or players go first.

One of the things he said he was trying to fix in the video was the casters tossing an AOE before the monsters can disperse. As a bard, it always pisses me off how everything gets to move out of range before I can hit them with faery fire. So I'm definitely not experiencing that problem.

Talos · Oct 16, 2024

Hoss said:
I've been thinking about this. I like the result that the monsters don't all go at once. That always seemed janky. But one thing that would piss me off is if I rolled a nat 20 and only got to go 3rd. Last session we had a fight were 2 of us rolled nat 20s on the initiative. The nat 20 is already pretty much wasted on an initiative roll, but doing it like this makes the initiative roll mean even less. A good or bad roll should have consequences. If the monster rolls an 8, he shouldn't get to go second. Might as well just skip the rolling, let the players set their order and flip a coin to see if monsters or players go first.

One of the things he said he was trying to fix in the video was the casters tossing an AOE before the monsters can disperse. As a bard, it always pisses me off how everything gets to move out of range before I can hit them with faery fire. So I'm definitely not experiencing that problem.

Good points. I think if that happened at my table where two players rolled 20 on init, I'd just let them go first and second then place the big bad third. But you're right that this would effectively turn most fights into a coin toss, or more accurately a Dexterity contest, for first and second place.

Maybe it's a dick move but I will probably implement this secretly and see how it goes.

Hoss · Oct 16, 2024

You could treat it like a save sort of. If you're in a monster's lair, you might need to succeed on a dc15 initiative check to go before the monster. That would make good sense.

I dunno. It is interesting, and like I said I do really like the zippering.

bigmark268 · Oct 16, 2024

So quick story, that I'm sure turn into a long one lol. I'm doing my Halloween event for this year. And it'll be a one off. Where we have to figure out why there is some kind of strange time dilation nonsense going on. So we'll eventually make our way to a corn field where we meet with a sentient but sensible scarecrow.

Then we'll meet a gold dragon thst we befriend. And we go on to strange dungeon she only discovered the night before but isn't strong enough to handle alone.

In there we'll end up fighting the headless horseman. A dullahan who's gotten so old and strong he remembered his name and has imprisoned a favored soul of grummish. Who is the ork shaman that controls this dungeon.

But the teist will be that we will pay our regular lvl 18 to 22 chars. But also at night we'll be magically become goblins. And we'll transverse the same dungeon in a different time period as those goblins.

Eventually we'll have to accomplish the same goal as each party. And then have a final fight together.

I'm going to surprise the players with a 2nd set of goblin character sheets when we come to our first night's sleep.

I'm going to do every 15min will be one day or night cycle. So we'll ne swapping off from one group to thr next.

I got a big skull egg timer with red sand to be the sands of time.

Talos · Oct 16, 2024

bigmark268 said:
So quick story, that I'm sure turn into a long one lol. I'm doing my Halloween event for this year. And it'll be a one off. Where we have to figure out why there is some kind of strange time dilation nonsense going on. So we'll eventually make our way to a corn field where we meet with a sentient but sensible scarecrow.

Then we'll meet a gold dragon thst we befriend. And we go on to strange dungeon she only discovered the night before but isn't strong enough to handle alone.

In there we'll end up fighting the headless horseman. A dullahan who's gotten so old and strong he remembered his name and has imprisoned a favored soul of grummish. Who is the ork shaman that controls this dungeon.

But the teist will be that we will pay our regular lvl 18 to 22 chars. But also at night we'll be magically become goblins. And we'll transverse the same dungeon in a different time period as those goblins.

Eventually we'll have to accomplish the same goal as each party. And then have a final fight together.

I'm going to surprise the players with a 2nd set of goblin character sheets when we come to our first night's sleep.

I'm going to do every 15min will be one day or night cycle. So we'll ne swapping off from one group to thr next.

I got a big skull egg timer with red sand to be the sands of time.

What The Hell Just Happened Reaction GIF

That sounds wild. Let us know how it goes!

Grabbit Allworth · Oct 17, 2024

I want to get an opinion from those of you who are players.

Recently, I started completely skipping combat against creatures that pose absolutely no threat to the players. I still run combat against weak creatures that have some mechanic that could be a problem, but if the creatures pose absolutely no meaningful threat to the players, I simply narrate how it plays out.

For example - my group stealthily infiltrated an area heavy with goblins, made a mistake, and got discovered. They're level 14 so even 20 goblins pose absolutely no threat to them. The group attacked and I basically narrated them wading through the goblins like a scythe and after they had killed a dozen or so, the rest scattered and/or surrendered.

Combat like that is a HUUUUUUGE waste of time because the result is all but pre-determined. I get every once in awhile players want to feel like a god and kill 5+ creatures in a single turn, but how would you guys prefer having situations like that handled?

Palum · Oct 17, 2024

Grabbit Allworth said:
I want to get an opinion from those of you who are players.

Recently, I started completely skipping combat against creatures that pose absolutely no threat to the players. I still run combat against weak creatures that have some mechanic that could be a problem, but if the creatures pose absolutely no meaningful threat to the players, I simply narrate how it plays out.

For example - my group stealthily infiltrated an area heavy with goblins, made a mistake, and got discovered. They're level 14 so even 20 goblins pose absolutely no threat to them. The group attacked and I basically narrated them wading through the goblins like a scythe and after they had killed a dozen or so, the rest scattered and/or surrendered.

Combat like that is a HUUUUUUGE waste of time because the result is all but pre-determined. I get every once in awhile players want to feel like a god and kill 5+ creatures in a single turn, but how would you guys prefer having situations like that handled?

Here's the philosophical problem with that. The way DnD is played now that's basically almost all encounters in most games (esp when you add in broken rest). Also there are a lot of players that basically are just there to roll dice now, detached from the broader concept of role playing. They just want to see numbers, I guess.

I agree with the concept and honestly that's often how it used to be played before minis came in vogue, because the narrative was carrying the momentum of the story instead of plucking minis from the board.

I think it's better to look at the overall pacing and give an encounter if it's due. Sometimes players just are doing busy work for a session (e.g. Went back to City from months ago to do some story stuff, impressing villagers, etc.). So you might have no options for a combat encounter except effectively pushover stuff. Like you say sometimes it's fun to feel powerful, so an occasional "dumb bandits attack heavily armed veteran soldiers" encounter is fine.

Also, if these are meaningful encounters (e.g. not just rolled on a table because reasons) I would consider restructuring them on the fly. Like add a big boss mob to your pile of goblins and make goblins respawn infinitely. Let them kill 30 goblins until they figure out they have to push past and kill the thing in the back. Or perhaps they have to seal off tunnels the goblins keep coming from somehow. The combat can be secondary if there's a puzzle or narrative hook.

Grabbit Allworth · Oct 17, 2024

I think I should have added more context because my games aren't run like the bullshit that gets published.

Combat rarely happens more than twice in a single game day and nearly all of them are very challenging, if not outright deadly. I got a huge compliment from one of my veteran players when he said "You've found the formula to make it seem like we're always really going to die, but we pull through." And I don't flub dice rolls.

Anyway, "filler" combat doesn't happen unless it's supported by the narrative which is why I asked the question. On the rare occasion the players engage some weaksauce shit I'd rather just say "You win, here's what happened."

In games where those kind of combats happen a lot more often, I don't think it would work because it would 'automate' too much play.

Also, if I'm wrong about wanting to narrate that kind of thing -- I'm wrong.

Grabbit Allworth · Oct 17, 2024

Sly Flourish is a fat, cuck faggot, but his book Forge of Foes is good for DMs trying to figure the math of the game out.

I'll send it to anyone that wants a copy.

Dashkett · Oct 17, 2024

Grabbit Allworth said:
I think I should have added more context because my games aren't run like the bullshit that gets published.

Combat rarely happens more than twice in a single game day and nearly all of them are very challenging, if not outright deadly. I got a huge compliment from one of my veteran players when he said "You've found the formula to make it seem like we're always really going to die, but we pull through." And I don't flub dice rolls.

Anyway, "filler" combat doesn't happen unless it's supported by the narrative which is why I asked the question. On the rare occasion the players engage some weaksauce shit I'd rather just say "You win, here's what happened."

In games where those kind of combats happen a lot more often, I don't think it would work because it would 'automate' too much play.

Also, if I'm wrong about wanting to narrate that kind of thing -- I'm wrong.

As I player I would hate having the DM just say "you win, here is what happened". Maybe have an alternative combat mode for when these easy combats come up where the players at least still get to make some sort of suggestions/interactions. A fun chart with at tiny bit of danger in it on some rolls that could be mitigated partially with a save, or get real lucky and find an item, etc., where the players can all roll dice that gives them the option to push the D100 number rolled up or down so many points to semi-choose the outcome that came up on the "quick easy combat chart"?

The chart could have a mix of things on it, with a few rare very silly or very odd things mixed in, maybe have an AI bot come up with some things if you run out of ideas, have 3 or 4 different 1 to 100 roll sheets for variety. Things like "you defeat the monsters, but one of them has a rare intelligence and secretly been reading books about adventurers and wants to change side and join your party!" or "all the monsters decided to mob-rush character X with bite attacks in desperation" or "one of your foes had a tattoo on it's back with a map to a treasure" .

You can still conclude the combat quickly without having to play it out but it gives a roulette wheel of a chance for something interesting to happen.

Palum · Oct 17, 2024

Grabbit Allworth said:
I think I should have added more context because my games aren't run like the bullshit that gets published.

Combat rarely happens more than twice in a single game day and nearly all of them are very challenging, if not outright deadly. I got a huge compliment from one of my veteran players when he said "You've found the formula to make it seem like we're always really going to die, but we pull through." And I don't flub dice rolls.

Anyway, "filler" combat doesn't happen unless it's supported by the narrative which is why I asked the question. On the rare occasion the players engage some weaksauce shit I'd rather just say "You win, here's what happened."

In games where those kind of combats happen a lot more often, I don't think it would work because it would 'automate' too much play.

Also, if I'm wrong about wanting to narrate that kind of thing -- I'm wrong.

I guess the thing is what is the narrative impetus for the pointless combat in the first place? I mean in your example why make it possible for them to fail and have to fight stuff that's so inferior?

At any time, it makes sense that a level 20 party could go say hunting for food and find a bear. To me it would be ridiculous to make them roll initiative rather than skill checks to harvest some meat or whatever. So if you're narratively letting these high level dudes roll through some level 1 goblin village, I would say it just needs different framing vs. telling them there's a combat but I'm just going to let you know what happened?

I'm not quite understanding the dilemma because DnD effectively always has mundane interactions that could in theory be skill checks but you don't because everyone is narratively on the same page. Like you don't make someone roll to climb a normal staircase, but you might if they're super drunk or lost a leg or something right?

So I would say the point of no return is if you are asking people to "change modes" by rolling initiative vs. just narrating some insignificant combat and moving to the next story beat.

Arbitrary · Oct 17, 2024

bigmark268 said:
sentient but sensible scarecrows

Guild name.

Indyocracy · Oct 17, 2024

Grabbit Allworth said:
I want to get an opinion from those of you who are players.

Recently, I started completely skipping combat against creatures that pose absolutely no threat to the players. I still run combat against weak creatures that have some mechanic that could be a problem, but if the creatures pose absolutely no meaningful threat to the players, I simply narrate how it plays out.

For example - my group stealthily infiltrated an area heavy with goblins, made a mistake, and got discovered. They're level 14 so even 20 goblins pose absolutely no threat to them. The group attacked and I basically narrated them wading through the goblins like a scythe and after they had killed a dozen or so, the rest scattered and/or surrendered.

Combat like that is a HUUUUUUGE waste of time because the result is all but pre-determined. I get every once in awhile players want to feel like a god and kill 5+ creatures in a single turn, but how would you guys prefer having situations like that handled?

So I have pulled combat short before when it was clear the party was in clean up mode on turned zombies. My players at least didn't say anything about it but you could feel an immersion break/tone shift afterwards. It may have worked better if they were prepared for it ahead of time as a possibility but I definitely have some roll players in my group so that may be the reason.

Grabbit Allworth · Oct 17, 2024

Palum said:
I guess the thing is what is the narrative impetus for the pointless combat in the first place? I mean in your example why make it possible for them to fail and have to fight stuff that's so inferior?

At any time, it makes sense that a level 20 party could go say hunting for food and find a bear. To me it would be ridiculous to make them roll initiative rather than skill checks to harvest some meat or whatever. So if you're narratively letting these high level dudes roll through some level 1 goblin village, I would say it just needs different framing vs. telling them there's a combat but I'm just going to let you know what happened?

I'm not quite understanding the dilemma because DnD effectively always has mundane interactions that could in theory be skill checks but you don't because everyone is narratively on the same page. Like you don't make someone roll to climb a normal staircase, but you might if they're super drunk or lost a leg or something right?

So I would say the point of no return is if you are asking people to "change modes" by rolling initiative vs. just narrating some insignificant combat and moving to the next story beat.

The combat itself was irrelevant, but their discovery in said location had serious consequences.

Also, I've mentioned it before (and it seemed to be largely supported here) that I don't have players roll skill checks when there's no risk of failure because it serves no purpose.

I view completely-pointless-combat the same way, but at least a couple of you don't share my perspective.

I'm reaching here, but I also think the matter of experience might be a factor on this topic. It's a FACT that far more people read about, watch videos, and theory-craft about D&D than actually play. And of those that play, only a fraction of players play regularly or for any meaningful period of time. I've always maintained that the hardest part of playing D&D is keeping a group together. VTTs have made it much, much easier, but it's still the issue.

The point of that being - players that don't regularly play place a ton of value on every opportunity to 'do' something and having combat (even meaningless combat) 'skipped' feels like being a bit cheated.

I'm not tooting my horn, but I've run 6 long-term (year+) campaigns and 3 of them have run for more than 2 years and I've learned that there is a HUGE disparity between what veterans and intermittent players value.

My group appreciated the condensed combat so they could move on to matters that were far more important. None of them wanted to waste a half hour killing meaningless goblins.

Still, I wanted to get more opinions because I haven't ever done that before. Also, don't get me wrong, I didn't come here looking to have my opinion confirmed. I'm really just a little surprised by the reasoning.

Palum · Oct 17, 2024

Grabbit Allworth said:
The combat itself was irrelevant, but their discovery in said location had serious consequences.

Also, I've mentioned it before (and it seemed to be largely supported here) that I don't have players roll skill checks when there's no risk of failure because it serves no purpose.

I view completely-pointless-combat the same way, but at least a couple of you don't share my perspective.

I'm reaching here, but I also think the matter of experience might be a factor on this topic. It's a FACT that far more people read about, watch videos, and theory-craft about D&D than actually play. And of those that play, only a fraction of players play regularly or for any meaningful period of time. I've always maintained that the hardest part of playing D&D is keeping a group together. VTTs have made it much, much easier, but it's still the issue.

The point of that being - players that don't regularly play place a ton of value on every opportunity to 'do' something and having combat (even meaningless combat) 'skipped' feels like being a bit cheated.

I'm not tooting my horn, but I've run 6 long-term (year+) campaigns and 3 of them have run for more than 2 years and I've learned that there is a HUGE disparity between what veterans and intermittent players value.

My group appreciated the condensed combat so they could move on to matters that were far more important. None of them wanted to waste a half hour killing meaningless goblins.

Still, I wanted to get more opinions because I haven't ever done that before. Also, don't get me wrong, I didn't come here looking to have my opinion confirmed. I'm really just a little surprised by the reasoning.

I mean I don't see anything wrong with your approach per se, other than curiosity about trying to figure out why you think anyone would have a problem given the example. I do think that there are more interactive mechanisms to make an otherwise pointless combat encounter more meaningful or fun, if the situation calls for it. So in that context of a pivotal story moment with low quality combat, the alternative question to me is why wasn't the encounter redone to match the import in the story?

Grabbit Allworth · Oct 17, 2024

Indyocracy said:
So I have pulled combat short before when it was clear the party was in clean up mode on turned zombies. My players at least didn't say anything about it but you could feel an immersion break/tone shift afterwards. It may have worked better if they were prepared for it ahead of time as a possibility but I definitely have some roll players in my group so that may be the reason.

I didn't pull the rug on my guys.

After the Barbarian said to the group "Fuck it, kill them and don't let anyone run" -- I literally said - "Roll init, but there's nothing here except standard goblins, you're going to roll them and might not even take a single point of damage. Do you guys want to just fast forward and I'll roll a couple morale checks to see how many die before they give up?"

The Wizard (female IRL, book smart, but kinda ditzy) said - "We can do that?" Me -- "lol, yes" Her -- "Fuck ya."

Grabbit Allworth · Oct 17, 2024

Palum said:
I mean I don't see anything wrong with your approach per se, other than curiosity about trying to figure out why you think anyone would have a problem given the example. I do think that there are more interactive mechanisms to make an otherwise pointless combat encounter more meaningful or fun, if the situation calls for it. So in that context of a pivotal story moment with low quality combat, the alternative question to me is why wasn't the encounter redone to match the import in the story?

It wasn't a planned encounter.

They're in the middle of a Drow city attempting to sneak through slave pens. They forgot that casting a spell drops invis and voila they appeared in the middle of a ton of goblins.

I did consider running a skill challenge, but it didn't seem appropriate. Apart from the combat, I did a couple behind-the-screen checks to see if any of the goblins managed to escape and rolled to see if the combat was heard. Which was almost impossible because the cleric was clever and asked if he could do something specific even if we weren't going to run through all of it. Obviously, I said yes said told the group it was a good idea that everyone should tell me one thing they might focus on. The Cleric cast silence on the area they were fighting in, the druid and rogue sniped runners while the barb and wizard just mowed them down.

Even if sentries or anyone else had heard the combat they wouldn't have arrived in the 30 seconds that the combat lasted.

How would you have handled it?

Palum · Oct 17, 2024

Grabbit Allworth said:
It wasn't a planned encounter.

They're in the middle of a Drow city attempting to sneak through slave pens. They forget that casting a spell drops invis and voila they appear in the middle of a ton of goblins.

I mean surely you could have had say a drow come upon the combat or be unseen around a corner and they have to intercept and prevent the alarm or something?

I do most of these things by feel. If there is momentum in the story, it's fine to just resolve it narratively to push on because presumably there's a more important critical point about to be reached anyway so it's just building. If it's a crucial point in the story though, I'd just raise the stakes and make them fight it out, IMO. You let them screw up, but you didn't make them clean up their mess. So you kind of resolved the tension of the mistake automatically which does feel kinda meh, IMO.

Grabbit Allworth · Oct 17, 2024

Palum said:
You let them screw up, but you didn't make them clean up their mess. So you kind of resolved the tension of the mistake automatically which does feel kinda meh, IMO.

Don't you think that's a reach without knowing exactly what happened? I didn't think this topic would follow the path it has and didn't think that giving a detailed framing of the situation was necessary.

They did screw up and they knew they did. They also knew that killing the goblins as quickly/quietly as possible and then getting the hell away from there was priority #1. Based on our conversations, there's no reason for me to believe they wouldn't have been successful. Physically going through the motion of rolling dice to hit and deal damage wouldn't have changed the outcome, at all. The only risk was being heard or seen by someone other than the goblins and the rolls favored them.

It also helps that the slave pens are in an area of the city that is essentially a farm and sparsely populated. Which is why they chose to take that path in the first place.

Palum · Oct 17, 2024

Grabbit Allworth said:
Don't you think that's a reach without knowing exactly what happened? I didn't think this topic would follow the path it has and didn't think that giving a detailed framing of the situation was necessary.

They did screw up and they knew they did. They also knew that killing the goblins as quickly/quietly as possible and then getting the hell away from there was priority #1. Based on our conversations, there's no reason for me to believe they wouldn't have been successful. Physically going through the motion of rolling dice to hit and deal damage wouldn't have changed the outcome, at all. The only risk was being heard or seen by someone other than the goblins and the rolls favored them.

It also helps that the slave pens are in an area of the city that is essentially a farm and sparsely populated. Which is why they chose to take that path in the first place.

Ok so then it didn't matter that they made the mistake? I don't understand what the point of it is then. The back and forth between players and DM creating dynamic storytelling is kind of the entire purpose of DnD. So you all were handed this set piece caused by one player's mistake, and then you auto resolved it. I think the loss here isn't that the pointless dice weren't rolled, but that a cooler dramatic scene ended up the editing room floor.

Anyway the point is there is no one answer. It's completely dependent on the context. However I err on the side of making pointless combats not pointless through other means, rather than dismissing them. *Shrug*

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