Abstract combat how do you use it?

[bestialwarlust]

Without getting into the exact amount of time a combat turn/round is I was curious to see how others here utilize d&d's abstract combat nature. With hit points acting more of a pacing mechanic and the die roll representing several attacks combat leaves a lot open. Do most of your combats just play out as rolling dice and saying "hit" or "miss" or do you as a player or ref. embellish more? So long winded post I guess to ask how do you play out your abstract combats? How do you handle movement and attacks or any special maneuver in your d&d game?

[Admin Pete]

Oct 17, 2015 8:15:39 GMT -5 bestialwarlust said:

Without getting into the exact amount of time a combat turn/round is I was curious to see how others here utilize d&d's abstract combat nature. With hit points acting more of a pacing mechanic and the die roll representing several attacks combat leaves a lot open. Do most of your combats just play out as rolling dice and saying "hit" or "miss" or do you as a player or ref. embellish more? So long winded post I guess to ask how do you play out your abstract combats? How do you handle movement and attacks or any special maneuver in your d&d game?

Congratulations on starting our 500th thread! Have an Exalt!

It depends on the combat and who is fighting what. Versus an orc or goblin it is typically "hit" or "miss" or "dead", on the other hand if the opponent is a giant or a purple worm or a large troll, etc. It can be quite embelished. Same thing with skeltons on one end and a vampire or lich on the other.

We don't use miniatures and I am not much of an artist, but I will generally sketch out what is going on and then we describe movements, attacks and special maneuvers. I would very rarely measure anything out.

[bestialwarlust]

Oct 17, 2015 9:10:25 GMT -5 Admin Pete said:

Oct 17, 2015 8:15:39 GMT -5 bestialwarlust said:

Without getting into the exact amount of time a combat turn/round is I was curious to see how others here utilize d&d's abstract combat nature. With hit points acting more of a pacing mechanic and the die roll representing several attacks combat leaves a lot open. Do most of your combats just play out as rolling dice and saying "hit" or "miss" or do you as a player or ref. embellish more? So long winded post I guess to ask how do you play out your abstract combats? How do you handle movement and attacks or any special maneuver in your d&d game?

Congratulations on starting our 500th thread! Have an Exalt!

It depends on the combat and who is fighting what. Versus an orc or goblin it is typically "hit" or "miss" or "dead", on the other hand if the opponent is a giant or a purple worm or a large troll, etc. It can be quite embelished. Same thing with skeltons on one end and a vampire or lich on the other.

We don't use miniatures and I am not much of an artist, but I will generally sketch out what is going on and then we describe movements, attacks and special maneuvers. I would very rarely measure anything out.

500 woohoo! will that be a cash prize? 

I tend to stay away from miniatures also. I'm working on presenting abstract combat better to help my player(s) that have handicapped themselves with "tactical" combat of the WotC era as well as PF. For the most part I'll do the same, except when I can make it look cool, just last week one of the fighters in my group moved into a room full of creatures. Normally you have a MU throwing a fireball in feeling cool blowing everything up, but this time the fighter got the glory. They were all low HD creatures so I gave the fighter his full attack array, he had 7 rolls.

Most of them were hits, so I rolled all the damage dice, totaled them together and just spread out the damage among all the creatures. He dropped them all in the one round. I turned to the MU player and said "Fireball that!" they all burst out laughing.

In that instance I was able to point out that 1. fighters don't suck 2. "feats" are already built in as I treated the damage dealt as a bulk and spread it out among all the creatures in range, look there's your cleave and you didn't have to take a feat. I ruled that in the abstract combat round that was all possible.

[Von]

Sitting around saying "hit" "miss" etc. is anathema to me outside of a 'proper' wargame, one without any of the armchair thespianics associated with roleplaying.

Generally, players supply the first half of a sentence describing their 'attack run', dice are rolled with modifiers assigned according to the complexity of their desired outcome, and then I'll supply the rest of the sentence describing the outcome of the roll. In something as elegant as OD&D I might try for "roll then describe" with the onus being on the players to make their own fun in describing the input and outcome of their attacks. This is good for player agency and reducing the "Von loves the sound of his own voice" factor, but might not work too well at the actual table where there is an easygoing expectation of how things will work. While I believe that shoving descriptive responsibility for their characters onto the players is the Right Thing To Do, it might be an unnecessary artifice given that everyone seems to be happy with things as they are, even if what they are is Wrong.

Oh, and generally speaking we don't use miniatures or a battle mat. Occasionally a sketch map if things are complicated but mostly affairs are conducted by feel and the rule of cool. bestialwarlust gets an Exalt because he does things the same way: you don't need a stack of This and That and The Other on your sheet to barge in and kill everyone in the room, you just need it to be... the coolest thing that could happen at that moment in time.

[hedgehobbit]

I prefer to think of D&D combat as vague rather than abstract. To me, abstract is things like Conflict Points or Social Combat.

As to describing actions, I've been trying recently to focus on the big picture. So I'll resolve individual actions as quickly and tersely as possible. Once all the actions are resolved, I'll look at the totality of the results and describe the round's actions again as a group. So, if most of the PCs rolled pretty well, I'll describe the orcs falling back or if one of the PCs took a few hits, he falls back, creating a breach in the line that the zombies can pour through.

That sort of thing.

[sepulchre]

bestialwarlust wrote:

With hit points acting more of a pacing mechanic and the die roll representing several attacks combat leaves a lot open. Do most of your combats just play out as rolling dice and saying "hit" or "miss" or do you as a player or ref. embellish more?...How do you handle movement and attacks or any special maneuver in your d&d game?

So I use Chainmail's MTM, interpreting the melee rd as 6 seconds, depending on weapon class this represents multiple attempts to score a telling blow.

Gary writes, "In some campaigns the referee will keep this (hit points)a total secret informing players only that they feel "strong", "fatigued" or "very weak", thus indicating waning hit points. In other campaigns the Dungeon Master will have players record their character's hit points and keep track of all changes. Both methods are acceptable..." (35 PHB).

The secret die roll refers to the player's die roll for hit points; implying that the player would not roll his own hit points. This follows a vivid example of players being informed of lost hit points and it may be assumed dicing to score a hit in combat based on the example of play in the DMG. Hence, the descriptive approach in which scores are withheld suggests some ambiguity for just how many dice if any and by default mechanics players could have access to in the first place.

In our campaign there is rarely a dice rolled by players. Players may describe their characters initial actions and add to their description in the course of melee, however the DM is the final arbiter of the dice and thus his or her words frame the depiction.

Note: It's not that the mechanics precede the description, it is the tension between mechanics and description resulting from erring on behalf of the players and permitting the mechanics to resolve in their hands, leaves less chance for a continuity of description on the part of the DM.

[Deleted]

"Hit" or "miss" only.

Somebody starts in with the "Leaping forward I thrust my..." and I'll throw things at them.

"And then the EARS, I get the POINT, get ON with it."

Excitement in combat comes from keeping it moving fast, fast, fast. Role playing is for when you're actually interacting with a sentient creature, not simply trying to stick your sword in somebody's guts.