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View Full Version : Using a "narrative" combat system to speed up mook battles



Madeiner
2015-09-24, 04:15 AM
Hi there.
I am preparing for a future 5e campaign in the warcraft universe, which will feature lots of "uninteresting" combat by design, which i want to "skip".
For <reasons> i expect characters to make very long journeys, and i want those journeys to be exhausting.

Say, the characters are traveling through dangerous territory. They will probably encounter patrols. I will have them fight one patrol of orcs using the normal rules.
But then, if they have to travel a month, they will likely encounter many more. I do not want to make them fight those patrols, which are essentially easily beaten and just a road bump. However, there have to be patrols because you can't expect to meet no resistance in enemy territory as it would kill immersion.

I want to solve this with a kind of "narrative combat". Some easy, quick way to adjudicate results of a unimportant battle. Ideally a single "battle" should take no more than a minute or two. This should consume resources and have some interesting outcomes, but i don't want to use the combat rules. Something along the lines of an adventure book.

Here's an example scenario: the characters get to a giant underground room where a powerful golem stands at the far side. Before they can get there, they are swarmed by lesser creatures. I want to be able to ask how they dispatch the creatures, and one roll per character later, know how many resources they expended to beat them.
Then the "normal" combat against the golem can begin, with the characters having spent some resources.

I don't know if any games have something like this. Here's what i was thinking.

Each "narrative battle" only has one turn. Each player acts once, after the DM has described the situation.
Each player decides what kind of abilities he uses during the entire battle, and this decision influences the outcome.
Something like this..

DM - You reach a very large forge room. It is a giant room full with oversized utensils and furniture: it looks like a forge made for a titan. You can see the enemy golem slowly coming to life on the far side of the room, in the distance. You know it will take a while for it to awaken fully. Suddenly, dozens of skeleton come out from hiding and swarm you. They are mostly using melee weapons and charge at you right away, unarmored and with no thought to defense. You assess the situation: there might be some 30 or so skeletons, and more are coming from all sides. However, as they impact you, you notice they are individually weak, but they move in unison, as if controlled by some higher mind. You think this will be an average difficulty battle.

DM information

The DM knows what the skeletons will do, and cannot change tactics mid battle, same as the characters.
The skeleton, controlled by a higher mind but still stimple beings, will, in order:
- Swarm mages and ranged characters
- Melee charge any other combatant.

The DM also has a rough idea of what tactics are advantageous and what aren't. Poisoned weapons are a disadvantage, as the skeletons are resistant or immune. Area spells against 30+ creatures is a good idea.
Anything that can protect against nonmagical damage also is.
Trying to tire the enemy doesn't work, and they have better sight than the players, so hiding is probably bad, too.


- Alice: Seeing as there are so many of them, i will use my area of effect spells like fireball and lightning bolts while trying to stay as far back as i can.
- DM: Very good. The skeletons are amassed next to each other and it will be easy to hit many of them at once. This tactic is actually an advantageous one.
- Bob: I try to defend Alice as she casts her spells, so that she can fully concentrate on the spells without worrying about being attacked. I am using my mace and a shield.
- DM: Excellent! As the skeletons swarm you, you notice your mace is particularly effective against the old bones of these unarmored skeletons. This is a sound tactic.
- Charlie: I take out my bow and stand back, sniping opportunity targets.
- DM. Very well. A couple of arrows and a skeletons falls, and you do this many times.
----
Battle:

DM: Alice, you start slinging area spells at skeletons group. You roll with advantage as that is surely a powerful tactic against a swarm. You can roll <something>, with advantage.

You notice that as soon as you do that, the enemies try to focus you, as you are a powerful threat.
This would cancel out your advantage.

However, Bob is defending you, and is also using a mace which the skeletons are weak against. Bob, you can roll <something> with advantage too, as you have an easier time defending Alice when you can strike once and kill a skeleton. Also, Bob, you are countering the enemy tactics of swarming Alice, so she keeps her advantage.

Charlie, you stand far back and snipe any skeletons you lay your eyes on. This is neither a particularly effective nor ineffective tactic. However, you stand alone and one versus many, they realize you are a threat, too, and try to swarm you and your bow is ineffective at point blank range. You can roll <something> with disadvantage.

----
Results:
The dice rolls should tell us how the battle goes, and how many resources the characters have spent. Maybe we can tally up the rolls and compare to a battle "difficulty". You beat it, you only spent resources like spell slots. You fail, you still win but suffer wounds or lasting fatigue levels. You maybe can spend more resources to add up to your result, in order to avoid those wounds.
After we know the results, the DM narrates the battle conclusion and the encounter is over. The PCs have spent resources, have fought against 30 skeletons but only took a minute to do so. There are likely many other skeletons around, but the PCs can adjust their tactics and still it will take a minute.
The boss battle however, goes under normal combat rules, but the PCs will have less resources to use against it.


I need help coming up with a robust but easy system to handle all this.
Maybe some games did this already. Maybe not.
Maybe its just a matter of finding out what to roll, what "resources" are (i'm set on using HDs for this) and something interesting so that the game does not become "guess what tactics the DM says works" or "the mage can solve everything". Maybe you can roll based on the amount of resources you choose to spend, rather than on skills. But skills should still a play a role. The sword/board fighter should have higher odds at defending the wizard than the rogue, just because of his skillset.

I want to use this system for many things: fighting mooks, fighting repetitive battles in enemy territory, escaping an army, etc.
It should, however, only be used when the thing we are trying to do is not the centerpiece of the current adventure.

Keltest
2015-09-24, 04:51 AM
Frankly, I think youd be better off handwaving them as sneaking around the patrols rather than engaging them, when possible. Months and months of hiking cross country or through mountains will be plenty exhausting on its own, and taking out large numbers of patrols is just going to get whatever faction they belong to mad enough to start actively hunting for you.

If you insist on making them fight every patrol they run across, keep track of the amount of non-recoverable supplies they lose in the first encounter (arrows and the like) and tell them they employ similar tactics and similar losses as the first fight. Decrease that amount as time goes on because they will get better at it.

DonEsteban
2015-09-24, 06:07 AM
I think your onto something here, Madeiner. You might remember this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?338464-Fast-forwarding-Random-Encounters) which starts on a very similar premise. It doesn't provide any definitive answers, but there's a lot of useful advice.

The first lesson, I think, is to ask yourself if you really lose much immersion by just saying "you encounter more patrols, but you handle them equally easily. After two days you spot the Tower of Doom ahead."

If you're sure that this is not enough, make sure that the players have meaningful choices. It's super-lame to say "you encounter 2d6 patrols, everybody loses that many hit points". At least, players should have the choice which kind of resource they would like to spend. Off the top of my head those could be
- spell slots (if that makes sense in the scenario time frame)
- magic item charges
- hit dice
- gold (either in-game or as an abstraction)
- time
- exhaustion levels
- action points/inspiration
- ...

You could try to handle this as a kind of skill challenge. I'm still not very familiar with 4e-style skill challenges, but it could go roughly like this: You need 2 successes before 2 failures. The orcs are competent, so the DC is 15.
Player A explains what they do and chooses something from the "menu" of resources. Say a 2nd level spell slot for a +5 bonus. *roll... success!
Player B decides to try their luck and doesn't invest anything *roll... failure!
Player C chooses to invest 100gp for a +4 bonus. *roll... failure!
Now they need a success or otherwise Bad Things (tm) will happen, so Player D decides to invest two action points for a guaranteed success.

So what I'm saying is all you need is a menu of resources with associated bonuses (e.g. +2 for a 1st-level spell slot) and a resolution mechanic. And be sure to adjust DCs or give automatic successes for creative ideas.

One other thing you should consider while designing these kinds of challenges are consequences on the story:
- They might decide to sneak around patrols, but that costs time. 1d6 puppies are killed for every patrol they encounter. Players should be aware that these kinds of things may happen, but they don't need to know the exact consequences right away. It's enough if the characters encounter the puppy graveyard later.
- Or they may fight every patrol, but that costs hit dice. Now, they could take a long rest, but that would mean more puppies die. Or maybe now the BBG knows they're coming and doubles the guards on the walls.

Anonymouswizard
2015-09-24, 07:33 AM
Wild ORC PATROL appeared!
Command?

-Fight (roll attack check, lose ammunition/spell slots/hit dice based on strategy)
-Talk (diplomacy/decieve check to avoid fight)
-Avoid (nature check to avoid fight)
-Run (athletics check to avoid fight)

That sort of thing should work.

...Anonymouswizard threw a pokèball.
.
..
...
You caught ORC PATROL.
Give a nickname to captured ORC PATROL?

goto124
2015-09-24, 11:11 PM
> GEORGE

You have named him GEORGE!

Lvl 2 Expert
2015-09-28, 05:57 AM
I think a big question here is: will this still feel like your characters encountered an orc horde? Or will it just feel like the DM made you roll a few dice to skim down some of your resources? If you can make the situations come alive, go for it. If not, maybe just skip over as much of it as possible. If they absolutely have to encounter several roaming patrols while going to the castle, tell them they met a few, maybe let them roll ones for damages and just let them start with the interesting stuff.