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Spicing up combat encounters

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 18:58:00 No.43337069 View Reply Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43337386 >>43342341 >>43343724

What can I do to speed up combat encounters and make battles more interesting? While offering less options, I like how JRPGs handle battle situations. Can anyone offer me some advice on this issue?

> inb4 stop playing D&D
> inb4 JRPGs suck the big one
> inb4 this is not /v/

I really don't want to hear it. JRPGs like Final Fantasy would not exist if not for Dungeons and Dragons.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:15:07 No.43337386 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43337069
Spice up encounter
>Add environment even if its just a tree or a rock, impeding movement is important and can be used by creatures to their advantage. You'll also find monsters live longer as a result
>Name at least one creature in the encounter and give them a couple traits (I personally look to FATE's aspects for all my NPCs in any system). Suddenly that generic orc becomes a character in the story and someone for the PCs to interact with.
>Think like a creature, not everyone is going to fight to the death, think about potential ways they are going to try and get out of combat or avoid it entirely.

Speed up
>Impose a turn time limit to encourage people to actually be prepared for when their turn comes up. Ideally a player should never take more than 1 minute for their turn.
>Lower HP of monsters and/or apply conditions to them before the battle. Not every monster starts the battle perfectly healthy after all.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:21:59 No.43337531 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43337698 >>43338332

Introduce "rule of cool", give higher attack bonus or just lower enemy AC altogether. halve their HP or whatever.

Rule of cool meaning "describe something cool within the realm of possibility" and give a bonus as you feel fit accordingly.

Add furniture to throw people into or chandeliers to hang from or something. Jump slash someone from jumping off a table.

Make up something like "if 2 of you can grab and enemy, the third person can Coup De Gra" it.

[spoilers]I'm not sure why you are saying you like how JRPGs handle a battle which is essentially 'whack a mole' and the exact OPPOSITE of what you want. But then say you want to speed up combat in table top games and like how JRPGs handle battles. This is very polarizing.[/spoiler:lit]

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:29:15 No.43337698 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43338566

>>43337531
Bouncing off this,

Reward clever behavior from your players and/or if they are taking risks that are in character for them (A barbarian that never backs down from a fight even if his life is threatened, a rogue who flees at the site of things going bad for him, etc). Currently with my 5e game I tend to reward inspiration for things like this and then allow them to spend inspiration to break rules for Rule of Cool reasons.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 19:55:17 No.43338332 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43339063 >>43343675

>>43337531
I guess my problem is my players often don't know what to do when their turn comes around, even if they have been playing attention. I've tried to get them interested in combat, allowing some of the rules to be bent for the sake of cool, but no dice, so to speak. I think the biggest issue is mobility, because there is often a lot of ground to be covered, so maybe I should shrink the combat encounter area so that everyone can attack on their turn, if they so choose and they don't have to eat up a turn with movement and other actions. This might make it more like JRPGs, but takes away some realism.

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO zidanedissidia.png, 577KiB, 702x770

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 20:03:49 No.43338566 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43339063 >>43339088

>>43337698
I'm still playing 3.5e (yeah, I know), so I'm not familiar with inspiration points, but I do reward certain roleplay-worthy combat actions.

Also, going back to mobility, it is hard for my combat-centric players to move around in combat. It's hard to jump across a gap, run across a rooftop and slide down a ladder in full plate and with a tower shield. One thing I don't like about JRPGs is that I can equip a warrior with the best armor and shield, but he never has to deal with the consequences of the gear.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 20:24:22 No.43339063 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43343344 >>43343606 >>43343724

>>43338332
Zidane has no tail, and those "daggers" would never fit in the sheaths he has at his waist.
>>43338566
Again, where does he keep those "daggers," as those sheaths are too small.

>inb4 he keeps his dagger in another Dagger.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 20:25:13 No.43339088 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43342345

>>43338566
>I'm still playing 3.5e (yeah, I know), so I'm not familiar with inspiration points, but I do reward certain roleplay-worthy combat actions.
Inspiration isn't points, its binary: you have it or you don't.

You can spend inspiration normally to re-roll a d20 roll and you usually gain it for role-playing your character well.

It might fit into 3.5 well.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 23:22:14 No.43342341 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43342450

>>43337069
What do you do so far?

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 23:22:18 No.43342345 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345417

>>43339088
Rerolling as a result of good roleplaying would make combat easier, but not necessarily more JRPG...

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 28 Oct 2015 23:27:15 No.43342450 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43342341
I try to make the combat areas more interactive than your nondescript dungeon corridor or battlefield plains. I also award minor bonuses due to good roleplaying, strategic thinking and the like and simply some stuff in keeping with the rule of cool.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:11:11 No.43343344 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43343476

>>43339063
>Again, where does he keep those "daggers,"
The same place he keeps his other 37,894 items: his bag of holding.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:16:56 No.43343476 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345292

>>43343344
But he is not carrying a bag, only two too small sheaths! And even if those sheaths are bags of holding, he still needs to fit them into the opening.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:22:53 No.43343606 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43343672

>>43339063
He just holds the daggers. Why would he put them away? He's in constant danger like all the time.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:26:12 No.43343672 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43343688

>>43343606
Not if you play the game right and dont be a bitch about grinding.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:26:36 No.43343675 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43343750 >>43343860

>>43338332
The way to do that is precisely slow down a bit. You sound like you rush the things and the players don't get immersed sorry if I'm grown.
Obligue the players to describe the attacks, put a better atmosferr ,make the players scared. In one game one player spotted a zombie. I told him in private that he saw a moving corpse, he was like "oh a zombie" I told him "what you would do if you saw a fucking dead body moving to you?" He acted like he was panicking and his "fear" contagied he group which putted them into immersion. Things like that its what you have to look. When the people get immersed he game flows and goes quickly

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:27:15 No.43343688 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43343672
>implying FF games require grinding.

Do you even Dragon Quest?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:28:54 No.43343724 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43339063
>and those "daggers" would never fit in the sheaths he has at his waist.
Sheath, singular, and he keeps his lucky regular dagger in it, as seen here >>43337069
Zidane only ever used 1 specific kind of special dagger in the original game.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:30:20 No.43343750 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345303

>>43343675
>Obligue the players to describe the attacks
This is always difficult. It's like, every turn, they're just like. "I slash at him again.". "Another stab." How would do you go about pushing them to describe their attacks? Doesn't it feel quite forced if you just straight up tell them to say describe more?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 00:36:36 No.43343860 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43343675
>sorry if I'm grown

Plant pls go

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:09:39 No.43345292 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43343476
It's on the back of his belt.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:10:41 No.43345303 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345324 >>43345424

>>43343750
"If your description of your attacks impresses me, they'll deal +2 damage."

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:13:14 No.43345324 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345346 >>43345564

>>43345303
Wouldn't you feel bad if there's one person who didn't get the +2 while the others did?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:15:43 No.43345346 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345375

>>43345324
No, fuck them. They need to try harder.

If you really want to go all "muh participation ribbon" on them, judge everyone by their own standards Bob who normally just says "Uhhh, I attack with my sword" might get it for "I raise my sword above my head and bring it down to hit them with it. While Alice, who is normally pretty elaborate might not get it if she just says she she does a triple back-flip and then kicks off the roof to stab at the thing's eye.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:20:17 No.43345375 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345398 >>43345600

>>43345346
That's a better solution. Now what about them taking up the hints of using the surrounding? Is that just a thing they have to know on their own?

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:23:24 No.43345398 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345444

>>43345375
Start with really obvious ways. Like they are on top of the hill and the baddies are at the bottom, and there are boulders up there with them that they could push down.

Also give the enemies ways to use the environment (that the PCs could also co-opt) and have them take advantage of it to use against the PCs

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:26:36 No.43345417 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345683

>>43342345
"More JRPG" isnt something desirable. They're THE most stagnant and uninnovative genre in games.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:26:55 No.43345424 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43345303
Almost literally Exalted.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:29:36 No.43345444 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43345398
Good ideas. Thanks.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:42:27 No.43345564 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43345324
That +2 isn't a significant enough bonus to really change things too much, but it's enough of a bonus to entice people to at least make an effort.

I'm not talking Oscar-worthy performances here, just something more descriptive than "I hit him again."

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:46:45 No.43345600 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43345621

>>43345375
In the past, I've actually labeled map features with die types. Incorporate that feature, add its die to your damage (generally limited to once per feature, of course). Usually 1d4 or 1d6, but big, explosive or otherwise impressive features had bigger dice. Just remember that some enemies are smart enough to do the same.

It's about getting the players into a habit. Positive reinforcement is the best way to do that.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:48:24 No.43345621 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43346147

>>43345600
Like Disgaea? Interesting. I've never thought about it like that. It's more of a meta thing though isn't it? Unless you pair up the die types with some form of object as well.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 02:55:55 No.43345683 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43345417
Your opinion.

Anonymous

Anonymous Thu 29 Oct 2015 03:50:15 No.43346147 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43345621
"Map features" would mean actual features on the map, not just empty squares. For example, if you see a tiny "1d8" next to the heavy bookshelf on a map, that means that incorporating that into your attack (like topping it onto a foe) would give you +1d8 damage.

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Spicing up combat encounters