Fixing Rocket-tag

[JackRackham]

I had a thought recently (thanks, brain!), as I was playing ffx over again, DMing a campaign that's just levelling into the teens, and reading discussions on here. High-level combat is almost exclusively either too easy or too deadly to be really fun. PC death is one thing, but enemies seem to either one-shot party members (NOT fun) or die painfully in a round or two. E6 is out there, but a lot of classes have cool higher-level abilities that one doesn't get in E6 and nobody in E6 is killing a dragon, for example, without a Deus Ex Machina (there are other issues, not the main point). Overall E6 solves the problem of high-level play by eliminating high-level play and all the associated goodies. I want to keep all that, but deal with it better.

So, my thought was, what if one were to alter monsters such that, like in the final fantasy series, tough monsters had a butt-load of hitpoints but, compared to d&d, were less brutal on offense (capable of killing a PC over 2-4 rounds)? There are some obvious issues. These tougher enemies would have to be immune to save-or-die spells. Otherwise, they'd just be super-powered. Spell-casters would need something like reserve feats to be viable (that is, some kind of spammable blasty spell-like ability). Martial adepts might need a way of replenishing maneuvers more quickly. The charger build would need a rethink (some way to teleport 30 feet repeatedly?). Sneak attackers and skirmishers as well. Mostly though, from a DM's perspective, one would need a way to make 10-20 rounds of combat not take 3 hours. I was thinking of a system where each PC gets 15 seconds to act, or forfeits they're initiative (ie: they can act after their 15 second, but on a later initiative).

I am sincere when I say that I'm SURE there are serious issues here I've forgotten since last night and twice as many I've forgotten altogether. I'd love to hear people's thought, however. Would something like this be doable, with some tweaking? It would need playtested, for sure, and I don't thinkit's doable with anything but an eperienced party, but idk. Again, thoughts?

[Aegis013]

You've pointed out the major problem there. Combat would take 3 hours.

You don't need to rethink your strategy for most of those classes/builds. Spellcasters always have something other than their spells, even if it's just a crossbow. Chargers can withdraw to charge again another day as long as there is a Meatshield holding the creature's attention. Skirmishers and precision damage characters have to deal with that a lot of the time anyway, they usually find a way to manage.

I have no idea how this 15 second thing work. What I see though, is you're moving toward an issue 4e had originally, they made buttload of monster hit points with less attack potency and everything slowed to a crawl. Every battle was a war of attrition. It's tough to get it right, but if you have your heart set on it, more power to you.

[Psyren]

One method PF has used is to move away from actual save-or-dies and instead have "death spells" (like Slay Living) do a lot of damage instead. So you could look at the PF versions of certain spells and see if you like those better.

But this exacerbates another problem, namely that hitpoints are meaningless except for the last one. A monster (and a PC) hits just as hard as 1HP as at 100. The game depends on rocket tag and SoS/SoD to an extent because it's the best way to mitigate incoming damage.

And speaking of incoming damage, what helps Final Fantasy is that FF Healing is far more useful than D&D healing for a variety of reasons. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12203165&postcount=9) [/shamelessplug]



As far as making combat faster... can't help you there. Anything you do to remove rocket-tag will at the very least make combat slower.

[jiriku]

I find that high level play becomes less rockety as the players and DM gain more mastery and familiarity with the system. My group prefers play at levels 10-18, and we find that combats are dynamic and interesting, now that we've all gotten the hang of it. There are a handful of things that we do to make this work:

Everyone plays a T2 or T3 class, but refrains from extreme optimization (no dealing thousands of damage per round, for example). As you'll see in my sig, we've modded quite a few classes to ensure everyone can find fun options to play in this power range.
As DM, I refrain from save-or-die effects.
When building encounters, I lean towards groups of enemies with varied and diverse abilities. Their numbers allow them to absorb a lot of punishment and offer a challenge even if a PC wins initiative and begins combat with a successful save-or-die effect. Their varied abilities allow them to shift tactics and offer a challenge even if a PC shuts down their initial tactic with a well-placed battlefield control effect.
Both sides throw a lot of debuffs, recognizing that hit point damage is not the end-all and be-all of high-level combat.

[JackRackham]

I'm don't use save-or-die spells anyway. I was mostly talking about how much damage things do. They either do enough to one-shot people, or so little as to be irrelevent (like you said, only the last one counts). You can add more enemies, but combat bogs down and, again, it turns into a situation where a PC can just die in 1 round, unless the enemy is stupid. I agree the 15 second/person/rd rule needs playtested to determine if it's doable. I think it could potentially add a lot to the game in terms of urgency and spontaneity. Combat would feel more real, more like combat. Mostly, I don't like that things that SHOULD be scary die in 1 hit and that, if they don't, or if they win intiative someone's just dead. It seems to me like combat is either let-down easy, a bummer (1-shotted PC) or a grind (we have a tripper, so...). For a climactic battle, I like the feel of a final fantasy battle, where it takes an intelligent party chipping away at some powerful enemy. I just don't know if this would really work.

[Zeta Kai]

...as I was playing ffx over again...

Well then, this little project (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4260468#post4260468) might interest you...

[Psyren]

You have to remember that FF is also faster because it takes a lot of the administrative stuff out of the hands of the player(s). Things like initiative, AoEs, status effects, saving throws, grapples, splash weapons, summons etc. are resolved at lightning speed without ever needing to flip through a source book, or even roll any dice. You don't have to remember initiative order, even when a character uses a spell that alters it in some way. When a character uses an item (or even several) none of you have to update their inventory to reflect it. And when a character does something, you never have to ask to see their sheet.

FF also has much simpler combat rules. There's no line of sight or effect, no emanations or spreads, no lines or cones, etc.

So comparing the two systems straight-up is an oversimplification.

[Big Fau]

You have to remember that FF is also faster because it takes a lot of the administrative stuff out of the hands of the player(s).

And FF has a serious problem with immunities and HP totals. When a boss takes more than 16 real-life hours to kill (they stopped around the 17th hour, and it hadn't died), you know a system has problems.

[Psyren]

And FF has a serious problem with immunities and HP totals. When a boss takes more than 16 real-life hours to kill (they stopped around the 17th hour, and it hadn't died), you know a system has problems.

The only ones I have first-hand experience with are FFVI and lower to be honest. I've heard the later games have significant pacing problems but I wasn't really including them in my analysis.

[jiriku]

It definitely flows smoother when monsters are optimized for defense. The truth of the system is that it's much easier to deal damage (or things worse than damage) than take it, so most PCs at high levels tend towards being glass cannons, even if they try not to.

Advancing monsters is a good way to make that work. Most creature types gain only +1 CR per 4 hit dice added, and if you add a significant number of hit dice in this manner and allocate the new feats and ability score bumps to Dex/AC, you get a monster whose hit points, saves, and AC are very impressive for its CR, while its offensive capabilities are more comparable to a less challenging monster.

Making a monster elite is works well for this purpose too, as you can assign its highest stats to Dex, Con, and Wis for better AC, hp, and saves, but its offensive power increases very little if at all.

I'm also fond of defensive templates. The dark and shadow templates, for example, make a monster much more evasive and stealthy without necessarily improving its damage output.

[Talionis]

One of the things we used to do was change powerful spells that would normally be Save or Die to Save or lose 1/4, 1/2, 2/3, 3/4 your life. Notice those types of spells would never kill you. But they do weaken you quick. It helped to stop the one shots.

[Big Fau]

The only ones I have first-hand experience with are FFVI and lower to be honest. I've heard the later games have significant pacing problems but I wasn't really including them in my analysis.

FF12's final boss takes an hour at minimum, 13's takes 30 minutes, and 11's got sixteen bosses that take more than 20 minutes apiece (including that 16 hour one I mentioned).

Every FF game has at least one boss that takes more than 20 minutes. They've just started putting them into the main storyline to pad out the hours it takes the play the game.

[Seerow]

Wasn't the 16 hour boss in FFXI the one that they put in intending that it never be destroyed, and only when like the entire server came together did they have a shot at it... then like after 16 hours the devs rebooted the server rather than let their special boss die? Or am I thinking of a similarly ridiculous boss from a different game?

Edit: I ask because I've never played an MMO where a successful boss kill took over 20-30 minutes, and those would the hardest bosses in the game. (For example in WoW, Lich King I believe could take 20-30 minutes on a successful kill on hard mode. But most raid bosses were downed in something closer to 5-8 minutes).

And those numbers are a good 10 minutes longer than most single player boss fights, which are frequently over in 5 minutes or less, or 15-20 minutes for a particularly hard boss fight. (For example one of the hardest/highest HP boss encounters in FFVII has a 20 minute time limit. While you can get around that with materia, in general you really don't need to). Fights in tactical style RPGs (like FFT) typically take longer, but don't generate significantly longer boss fights (Indeed some boss fights are often faster due to appearing solo rather than having a whole group opposing you). Bosses in action RPGs are typically even shorter.



So yeah I'm not getting where these multi-hour boss fights are coming from.

[Psyren]

FF12's final boss takes an hour at minimum, 13's takes 30 minutes, and 11's got sixteen bosses that take more than 20 minutes apiece (including that 16 hour one I mentioned).

Every FF game has at least one boss that takes more than 20 minutes. They've just started putting them into the main storyline to pad out the hours it takes the play the game.

Isn't 11 the MMO? You can't really judge the other games with that one.

I see your point with the others though. On the other hand, the series arguably spiraled downhill since VII though.

I don't recall any bosses in 4,5, or 6 taking me anything close to an hour to beat.

[FMArthur]

Yeah, in the early ones even an optional 'super boss' was not a timesink, just a check to see if you can beat some gimmick where if you passed you won in a few turns and if you failed you died right away.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

I see SoL more often than SoD in the mid-high levels. Usually SoL can target more types of things, has more targets, comes at earlier levels, can be metamagick'd more easily, et cetera. With SoL (or no save, you lose) it's a race to see which side still has people who can contribute meaningful actions, and then the winner mops up. My experience is a bit meager at the levels where you get 9ths, though.

[panaikhan]

As a DM, I have consistantly (from 1e to 3.5/PF) given the bad guys maximum HP. This gives them at least a chance.

I know of one DM who applied the 'bonus' HP listed for monsters as their 'con bonus', i.e., applied to every HD. Now those battles took a while...