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LibraryOgre
2009-03-23, 01:03 AM
So, we had a bit of excessive in-combat chatter... people explaining to others what to do, based on what they, themselves, were planning, leading to very long combat... leading to a rule of 3 words out of turn, 6 words on your turn, to explain what you want other people to do. It's been a bit abused, but it has lead to less combat chatter (and, instead, people talk about other things while waiting for their turn).

However, I want to make this a little bit more complex, just because.

The rule would be that you could say a number of words on your turn equal to your Diplomacy or Bluff modifier, whichever is better; when not your turn, you could say half that.

This does a few things. The first is most noticeable in 4e; as people gain experience, they can communicate more efficiently during combat (because their Diplomacy modifier went up). It also means that leaders and other talky-types (who generally have diplomacy as class skills, and Charisma as primary or secondary attributes) would be better at directing troops than most other classes.

Just a thought, wondered what people thought about it.

Cute_Riolu
2009-03-23, 01:10 AM
There needs to be a minimum amount of words you can say, otherwise you'll have people in word debt. :P

Colmarr
2009-03-23, 01:12 AM
Perhaps a little too complicated.

Assuming you trust your DM to be even-handed, I'd go for something like the DM having the power to stop conversations once they get out of hand. It's relatively easy to do. Simply say "Declare your actions and roll the dice within 15 seconds, or your turn ends and we move on."

Saph
2009-03-23, 01:12 AM
Interesting idea. Our old DM used to do "10 words on your turn, 3 words out of it" for intra-party communication. The rule was waived if you were doing something significant (like a stand-off with the BBEG) and anything genuinely funny, but it did help cut down on the endless tactical arguments.

Downside: it means the 8 Cha Ranger actually can't speak in combat at all at levels 1-3, and it means more math.

Upside: it does make your stats have an interesting effect.

Sidenote: it would lead to amusing conversations between high-Cha and low-Cha types.

"Move over, ugly. You're blocking my space."
"..." (Sound of movement)
"I said over THERE! Are you deaf as well as stupid?"
"..." (Sound of finger being flipped)
"What was that? Oh, I'm sorry, I don't speak 'moron'. Pity you never learned words of more than one syllable."
"..." (Sound of fist hitting teeth)

- Saph

Kylarra
2009-03-23, 01:12 AM
I think hardcoding the "talking is a free action" is a bit too pedantic for my tastes. As a GM I'd simply limit the amount of time per round of combat a player has to decide or just talk to my players.

Nightson
2009-03-23, 02:02 AM
Can you say more then six words in six seconds? If so you should be able to say more then six words in a round. You can yell out things while performing other actions.

gibbo88
2009-03-23, 02:08 AM
As with the previous poster, we tend to limit it to short, concise comments about what position, distract what, that sort of thing and make anything complicated decided before combat or covering any lessons learn't after if its intricate. Its not really DM enforced, but what we understand to be "acceptable"

Suedars
2009-03-23, 03:42 AM
As a DM I normally give players about 20-30 seconds to decide their course of action (this includes discussing things with the party). Once they've decided what they do the time limit goes away and we resolve it. If they take longer the next person in the initiative goes, and they can jump in once they have things worked out. Also if they're fighting opponents that are intelligent and speak common (or whatever other language they designate they're speaking in) I'll have the opponents able to hear their spoken plans and act accordingly. This has led to interesting uses of Bluff in the past (sometimes disastrous when other party members also didn't see the real intent through the bluff).

RTGoodman
2009-03-23, 06:21 AM
Can you say more then six words in six seconds? If so you should be able to say more then six words in a round. You can yell out things while performing other actions.

Yeah, that's one thing - don't limit it by word, but instead give them their six seconds worth of speaking per turn. Technically, since all turns are happening simultaneously and we just do them as separate turns because it's easier, that means those six seconds cover both on-turn and off-turn talking.

Farlion
2009-03-23, 08:50 AM
I personally don't allow discussions during combat. All I allow is orders and yes/no answers. So if my paladin (who usually gives the orders) gives an order, then the other players can decide to follow it or not, but they can't start discussing things in the middle of the fight, unless they use a full round action and do nothing else.

As it always is with orders yelled in common, if your enemies are intelligent, they will react properly. My players started to discuss tactics beforehand and give them "codenames". This actually really gives the fights some flavor and enemies cannot react to your tactic.

But it took my players a while to notice, that if they talk during combat, the enemy is actually listening ;-D

On the other hand, I have my non professional NPCs also talk in battle, just to be fair.

Cheers,
Farlion

LibraryOgre
2009-03-23, 09:27 AM
Can you say more then six words in six seconds? If so you should be able to say more then six words in a round. You can yell out things while performing other actions.

Can you evaluate a combat situation and rapidly give concise commands and suggestions in less than 6 seconds?

Talking is easy. Knowing what to say, and how to say it quick enough to give the other person time to react in a combat situation is the hard part.

Riffington
2009-03-23, 09:59 AM
Can you evaluate a combat situation and rapidly give concise commands and suggestions in less than 6 seconds?


People with military experience do this much better than civilians. They typically have a number of shortcuts for different sorts of situations; what takes me a sentence (or paragraph) to explain may have already been condensed to a short phrase or hand gesture.

valadil
2009-03-23, 10:06 AM
I don't mind advanced tactical planning. What does bother me is that too much talking usually leads to one tactician at the table who dictates what everybody should do.

Anyway, one of my groups doesn't care too much and we talk freely. The other is anal and we're limited to 6 words/turn or 1 out of turn. What I like about this is that it forces the group to develop as a cohesive unit rather than 5 or 6 individual adventurers. We come up with manuevers and we name them. As the bard I was doing a lot of dimension door to bring the tank to the enemy. It was a decent move but not great. At some point mid combat I realized that if I had two fighters diagonally in front of me (so, at 10 and 2 oclock with the space in front of my open) I could dim door both of them into a full attack flank around an enemy. This maneuver got a name, because it was too hard to coordinate otherwise. It was so effective I started using it on my sorcerer in another game too.

Tengu_temp
2009-03-23, 10:23 AM
I never felt, and probably never will, the need to limit in-combat communication - my players can talk as much as they want during combat. I don't see how such limitations enrich the game in any way.

Paramour Pink
2009-03-23, 10:25 AM
Upside: it does make your stats have an interesting effect.

Sidenote: it would lead to amusing conversations between high-Cha and low-Cha types.

"Move over, ugly. You're blocking my space."
"..." (Sound of movement)
"I said over THERE! Are you deaf as well as stupid?"
"..." (Sound of finger being flipped)
"What was that? Oh, I'm sorry, I don't speak 'moron'. Pity you never learned words of more than one syllable."
"..." (Sound of fist hitting teeth)

- Saph

Even thought I smiled, I thought having a higher charisma meant you were less likely to talk down to others. :smallyuk:

Tengu_temp
2009-03-23, 10:26 AM
Even thought I smiled, I thought having a higher charisma meant you were less likely to talk down to others. :smallyuk:

You thought wrong. High charisma means you can make people do what you want, not that you're nice.