How do you as a DM handle multiple Attacks?

[djreynolds]

I have my players who have multiple attacks versus one enemy to roll all attacks at once... it saves times.

So DM's, like Quintessence, who I agree with 100%, have players roll 1 attack at a time... but this slows the game down at higher levels

I often, to find a happy medium, will have players assign colored d20s to certain attacks.

This isn't a huge issue, only really to rogue/multiclasses, when determining if he hits with a sneak attack and one of those rolls happens to be a 20 and crit.

[Tanarii]

I had a response to your comment about rogue sneak attacks in the divine smite crits thread, so moving it here:

Now a question for you, if you are a rogue and are TWF and roll a 20 and 15, can you say I crit on my sneak attack, or must you decide ahead of time which attack will receive the sneak attack?

Often as a DM, I tell players to roll all dice at once if they have multiple attacks versus a single opponent.

Must they say the red 20d is my short sword and the blue 20d is my daggerIf you're rolling them both at once then they'd just need to tell you first what order they would attack in. Or for Extra Attack, which color represents the first attack (and second if a Fighter 11/Rogue X). Apply sneak attack to the first hit, because that's what Rogue players will always do if you roll them one at a time against the same target.

What do you do if one of the attacks kills the creature? Do you allow the 'second' attack to be redirected to another creature, including allowing movement in between if needed?

[Sirdar]

Quick combats are nice, but you do lose a lot of tactical options as a player.

You can't move between your attacks when you take the attack action, the Precision Attack manuever becomes a nightmare to handle and you may waste your second attack on an already dead enemy.

It can also be a problem the other way around. In one game when my DM said "The Knight attacks you twice, the first one is a hit and the second is a miss" I had to stop him because I have the option of both Riposte and Parry at my disposal. Such valuable information about the second attack gives me an unfair tactical advantage.

[djreynolds]

I had a response to your comment about rogue sneak attacks in the divine smite crits thread, so moving it here:
If you're rolling them both at once then they'd just need to tell you first what order they would attack in. Or for Extra Attack, which color represents the first attack (and second if a Fighter 11/Rogue X). Apply sneak attack to the first hit, because that's what Rogue players will always do if you roll them one at a time against the same target.

What do you do if one of the attacks kills the creature? Do you allow the 'second' attack to be redirected to another creature, including allowing movement in between if needed?

Yes, I do.

They use colored and if they kill, take that second strike and re-roll vs another.

........ or if they sprung for the pizza or beer and that 2nd hit just happened to be a 20... in that instance....

If other classes can post smite or BM post maneuvers, "like you just tripped him... are you going to trip him some more...."

There are times when say a paladin crits but holds off on using a smite... because he knows that just this regular strike is going to drop this half-dead orc.

And a question is reverse, say a fighter 11/rogue X, says his first strike will be his sneak attack and misses, since he still meets the requirements of obtaining a sneak attack do you let the others than qualify or that is how is goes?

[Tanarii]

And a question is reverse, say a fighter 11/rogue X, says his first strike will be his sneak attack and misses, since he still meets the requirements of obtaining a sneak attack do you let the others than qualify or that is how is goes?
You misunderstood. If you attack in sequence, almost all players will apply sneak attack damage to the first hit they get in a round. Unless they're fairly sure the hit will kill the enemy anyway, they almost never hold on to it in case they get a critical on the second attack. Why risk a miss for a very small chance at a critical?

Of course if the first attack misses, they don't 'lose' the sneak attack. It just rolls over to a chance to be applied if the second attack hits.

Same theory applies to double rolling at the same time. If the first attack hits, it gets the SA. If it misses, it rolls over to the second attack, then third (if one happens) if that misses. Etc. (a dual wielding Fighter 11 / Rogue X would roll 4 attacks.)

[djreynolds]

Quick combats are nice, but you do lose a lot of tactical options as a player.

You can't move between your attacks when you take the attack action, the Precision Attack manuever becomes a nightmare to handle and you may waste your second attack on an already dead enemy.

It can also be a problem the other way around. In one game when my DM said "The Knight attacks you twice, the first one is a hit and the second is a miss" I had to stop him because I have the option of both Riposte and Parry at my disposal. Such valuable information about the second attack gives me an unfair tactical advantage.

Sorry for the double post,

This is only for attacks versus one enemy for time consolidation. If you want to move ok.

This more geared to when you have multiple attacks.

And as a DM, of course I make over sites and mistakes all the time... please call me out.

Hey Stop.... I have say parry and riposte and uncanny dodge and the 1st strike he missed me and I want to use riposte because I might be able to kill him and this pending critical attack would have missed.......

If you do not call me out on this... the player next to you getting throttled by the giant will

[djreynolds]

You misunderstood. If you attack in sequence, almost all players will apply sneak attack damage to the first hit they get in a round. Unless they're fairly sure the hit will kill the enemy anyway, they almost never hold on to it in case they get a critical on the second attack. Why risk a miss for a very small chance at a critical?

Of course if the first attack misses, they don't 'lose' the sneak attack. It just rolls over to a chance to be applied if the second attack hits.

Same theory applies to double rolling at the same time. If the first attack hits, it gets the SA. If it misses, it rolls over to the second attack, then third (if one happens) if that misses. Etc. (a dual wielding Fighter 11 / Rogue X would roll 4 attacks.)

Thank you for that, I'm tired

I try to keep the game going fast, but it isn't done because I gotta work in the morning, its done so when I screw up it can get fixed

I am very player friendly, I want you to succeed

Just like on this Forum, if I'm wrong please call me out

[Tanarii]

Just like on this Forum, if I'm wrong please call me out
It wasn't about wrong, it was about our line of communication went awry somewhere. I was clarifying my intent. :smallbiggrin:

[djreynolds]

You know how monster damage is averaged, have you ever thought about just averaging PC damage?

Or is that too... robotic?

[Sirdar]

You know how monster damage is averaged, have you ever thought about just averaging PC damage?

Or is that too... robotic?

I like it - for some fights. It is not so nice if you fighting mooks with 15 hp and your average damage roll is 14. The DM could perhaps give it as an option for the players when the battle is about to start? Ask your players if they are interested in this option?

[Sir cryosin]

5e has cut down on this but there are a lot of things to consider when you make a attack. Not only that math not everyone is as fast as other people.

[gfishfunk]

Rolling attack and damage at the same time speeds up combat sufficiently. There is no need to roll two attacks with colored die and two damage with matching colors. Just making sense of it will lose a little time.

The biggest time killer is not the rolling, its the adjudicating and the occasional meandering when someone cannot remember what damage die is used. You cannot bypass adjudicating the action. You can roll damage at the same time.

[Sir cryosin]

Rolling attack and damage at the same time speeds up combat sufficiently. There is no need to roll two attacks with colored die and two damage with matching colors. Just making sense of it will lose a little time.

The biggest time killer is not the rolling, its the adjudicating and the occasional meandering when someone cannot remember what damage die is used. You cannot bypass adjudicating the action. You can roll damage at the same time.

It not the melee players with extra attacks that slow down fights. It's the spellcasters waiting to tell there turn to figure out what spell to use. And you can't blame them to much because the flow of battle changes from turn to turn. So that spell they were going to use might not be the best thing to do. You wanted to drop a fireball on that group but the fights finished off the guy he was fighting and ran over to the group you were going to drop the fireball on. Now you got to change your spell.

Now asking your players to roll damage dice with the d20. Is a way to help move combat along. But I like for my player to roll there attack one at a time. Because there are things that can happen in-between those attack rolls.

[djreynolds]

I like it - for some fights. It is not so nice if you fighting mooks with 15 hp and your average damage roll is 14. The DM could perhaps give it as an option for the players when the battle is about to start? Ask your players if they are interested in this option?

I have been toying with this idea for sometime, I'm afraid with average damage, players who have read and memorized every monster, will have at will battle master know thy enemy ability.

But in some aspects it could speed up games, but it takes the danger out of fighting gangs of low CR mooks and just the surprise of rolling 1s and the whole table laughing at you (I myself did that recently during an action surge... all 1's on 4 attacks... but the it was very funny

[VincentTakeda]

I always felt like multiple attacks per round was one of the things that borked up a game... I'm running a homebrew version of palladium's heroes unlimited where part of the homebrew is that when folks roll initiative, only the winner gets to go, and only with one attack. The 'feel' this gives to fights ends up being like a Jason Bourne or Jackie Chan movie. Lots of quick interplay. Puts a premium on folks with big initiative bonuses, but still the ratio is brought down closer to 3 to 1 than higher more ludicrous ratios that take ages to sort through.

[TrinculoLives]

I ask players to roll attack and damage at the same time, which frees up enough time for the Extra Attack types to roll one attack at a time.

In theory anyway, what actually happens as often as not is that the Fighter in the party hems and haws over his Battlemaster maneuvers while rolling attacks and damage separately most of the time.

But gosh darn, whiz-bang-kapow do I roll attacks quickly when I play as a PC, let me tell you! Rolling for large groups of mooks sure gives you the quick-roll with practice.

[BoringInfoGuy]

One of the nice things about 5e is being able to break up your move action. Stab the foe in front of you, move to the lever, flip the lever, move to the next foe, and attack, back out of fireball range. (Attack, move 10ft, object interaction, move 5 ft, bonus action to off hand attack, move 15ft).

Handling each attack individually gives you the ability to have such dynamic turns, altering your turn depending on how the dice falls. Rolling all the attacks together, unless you plan on moving would - in my opinion - keep people in the attack move / move attack mindset of previous editions.

To keep the number of rolls down, the attack and damage dice can be rolled together. If the attack hits, you already have the damage rolled. If it misses, you can ignore the damage, or use it to flavor the action description.

"Your feeble blow is knocked aside with a contemptuous smirk," for a low damage miss

vs

"You find your opening, striking hard and fast at the suddenly vulnerable neck of your foe. At the last moment, the creature stumbles back, narrowly avoiding decapitation. The creature eyes go wide in fear". High damage rolled on an attack that barely missed.

[Tanarii]

One of the nice things about 5e is being able to break up your move action. Stab the foe in front of you, move to the lever, flip the lever, move to the next foe, and attack, back out of fireball range. (Attack, move 10ft, object interaction, move 5 ft, bonus action to off hand attack, move 15ft).

Handling each attack individually gives you the ability to have such dynamic turns, altering your turn depending on how the dice falls. Rolling all the attacks together, unless you plan on moving would - in my opinion - keep people in the attack move / move attack mindset of previous editions. Your sequence for a round typically provokes 2 opportunity attacks. Attack / move or move / attack is still generally the flow of combat for melee attackers in 5e too. Except skirmisher classes of course.


To keep the number of rolls down, the attack and damage dice can be rolled together. If the attack hits, you already have the damage rolled. If it misses, you can ignore the damage, or use it to flavor the action description.

"Your feeble blow is knocked aside with a contemptuous smirk," for a low damage miss

vs

"You find your opening, striking hard and fast at the suddenly vulnerable neck of your foe. At the last moment, the creature stumbles back, narrowly avoiding decapitation. The creature eyes go wide in fear". High damage rolled on an attack that barely missed.
What's the point in keeping the rolls down if you're going to spend five times as long describing what happens with a simple melee attack. There's absolutely nothing wrong with 'you hit' and 'you miss', and it certainly saves far more time than special rolling tricks.

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(General comments)

Never understood why people recommend rolling attack and damage together. What slows down combat is not having to roll more than one attack. It's always players not being ready when their turn comes up.
An extra attacker with 3 attacks who knows what he's doing, rolling each attack individually, rolling damage separately, is far faster than the guy who dithers.

The only combat speed fix you really need it to skip any experienced player who doesn't immediately tell you what they are doing when their turn rolls around. Give in-experienced players a few seconds. Keeps combat snappy, which is what keeps players on their seat and paying attention. It also encourages players to play less like its a game of chess, and more like its actually stressful combat. And to make tactical plans in advance (gasp!). Including default tactical plans for specific situations, so they can be implemented quickly without a lot of sitting their in combat doing nothing while the enemy chews on your face.

[Drackolus]

Yeah, I have to agree that it does more harm than good. I like rolling damage at the same time, but that's mostly because I'm doing hex+eldritch blast and it lets me roll 9 dice at once. :smallbiggrin:
You can't break up eldritch blast anyway, so it's not like it effects the gameplay. I'm frequently one of the longer turn players even though I typically know what I'm going to do already just because spells take so long to resolve.
I find that when I DM, I feel like I'm the one slowing down play the most. Whether it's one monster with 7 attacks or 7 monsters with 2 attacks, it just takes a long time to do 4 player's worth of combat. It's one of the many reasons I roll seperate initiatives for group monsters (or split them into groups). Instead of one big turn, I take a bunch of little ones.

[tKUUNK]

The only combat speed fix you really need it to skip any experienced player who doesn't immediately tell you what they are doing when their turn rolls around. Give in-experienced players a few seconds. Keeps combat snappy, which is what keeps players on their seat and paying attention. It also encourages players to play less like its a game of chess, and more like its actually stressful combat. And to make tactical plans in advance (gasp!). Including default tactical plans for specific situations, so they can be implemented quickly without a lot of sitting their in combat doing nothing while the enemy chews on your face.

As long as the group has fun with this style (stressful combat vs chess: Tanarii, you nailed it there).

Another way to shave chunks of time off combat: avoid player-to-player strategic advice to whoever is taking their turn. Even if it feels like they're doing the worst thing possible. Unless they need help understanding a game mechanic. That said, short phrases shouted by your character are fine, or pointing to an enemy or object or whatever (not a 5-minute deliberation meta-jammed into one round). And keeping quiet is something I'm still improving on as a player, so trust me I'm not sitting on my high horse here. haha.

Now, I like to roll my damage dice and attack roll together, or pre-roll damage for a fireball I know my character is going to cast, etc. It flows smoothly. And as to the original post, if I know my character is just going to wail on a single enemy I would make multiple attack rolls at once, sure. Folks mentioned already that dice-rolling efficiency is probably not the make-or-break time sink for most groups; it's probably low on the time-management priority list (but it's on there somewhere).

[Tanarii]

As long as the group has fun with this style (stressful combat vs chess: Tanarii, you nailed it there).Absolutely. If you want to play combat as a chess-speed tactical mini-game, do it! But in that case, speeding up combat isn't generally a concern for anyone at the table. :smallwink:

I also have a 'table talk is in-character talk' rule, except for when it's ridiculous (joking around) or communicating something to the DM. So if players start giving tactical advice, the enemies will start countering the plans they just announced out loud to the entire battle.

[Saggo]

Never understood why people recommend rolling attack and damage together. What slows down combat is not having to roll more than one attack. It's always players not being ready when their turn comes up.
An extra attacker with 3 attacks who knows what he's doing, rolling each attack individually, rolling damage separately, is far faster than the guy who dithers.

Because it does save time, they're not mutually exclusive. It's a simple trick without any overhead, that doesn't confuse the turn nearly as much as something like rolling attacks in parallel, and you can still encourage players to not dither on their turn.

[MrStabby]

At one of my tables it is not the attacks that take time. Spells take longer but the biggest headache is movement. This probably comes from area of effect spells, playing on a grid and the mentioned combat as chess mentality. That fine calculation of position to not be in the mage's fireball radius whilst anticipating where the paladin will move to to be inside their aura by the time it is the initiative count of the enemy caster... It can be a little odd when someone charges into combat via a roundabout route in order to see more angles of what happening - that moving 10ft and attacking can be done in the same time as moving 30ft and attacking.

The other one of my tables is a different style entirely - much more RP focused. More time spent spelling out the exact insult the PC is shouting as they try and cleave the ogre in two with graphic descriptions of every step along the way.



I find threads like this interesting though as I am always interested in ways to lift some of the mechanical burden of play and to speed up steps that are not making decisions or playing the character.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Your sequence for a round typically provokes 2 opportunity attacks.

Unless either attack kills a creature, or it has already taken an opportunity attack this round.

Of course, sometimes risking an Opportunity Attack is worth it. Had a battle through a doorway. The players had the move / attack mentality, so the first player got to the door, attacked, and stayed there, blocking the doorway. Which limited what the rest of the group could do. On the hobgoblins turn, the first one attacked, then took the attack as he got out of the way. The rest of the Hobgoblins were free to wail on the player in the doorway safely.

It was an effective lesson on how 5e combat was different than earlier editions.



Attack / move or move / attack is still generally the flow of combat for melee attackers in 5e too. Except skirmisher classes of course.

Often true. But after that hobgoblin battle, the players got better at using the split movement when appropriate. Which seems to happen most combats now.


What's the point in keeping the rolls down if you're going to spend five times as long describing what happens with a simple melee attack. There's absolutely nothing wrong with 'you hit' and 'you miss', and it certainly saves far more time than special rolling tricks.

In general, I have found the DM's I have enjoyed playing with the most take a moment to give a bit more life to the combat over "you hit", "you miss", "the Orc is killed".

Still, I agree that 5 minute narrations of each hit or miss would be excessive. As I said, you can ignore the damage. Goblin 3 of 7 needs little narration. But significant battles against stronger foes should be more than a list of hits, misses, and damage. If you roll attack and damage together, then noting missed damage becomes another tool to make the epic battles FEEL epic.


----------------------
(General comments)

Never understood why people recommend rolling attack and damage together. What slows down combat is not having to roll more than one attack. It's always players not being ready when their turn comes up.
An extra attacker with 3 attacks who knows what he's doing, rolling each attack individually, rolling damage separately, is far faster than the guy who dithers.

The only combat speed fix you really need it to skip any experienced player who doesn't immediately tell you what they are doing when their turn rolls around. Give in-experienced players a few seconds. Keeps combat snappy, which is what keeps players on their seat and paying attention. It also encourages players to play less like its a game of chess, and more like its actually stressful combat. And to make tactical plans in advance (gasp!). Including default tactical plans for specific situations, so they can be implemented quickly without a lot of sitting their in combat doing nothing while the enemy chews on your face.
As someone else said, rolling attack and damage together is a simple change that does save time.

Beyond that, you have good points about play style > dice tricks on speeding up combat. Regardless of which side of the screen I am on, I dislike having players spend forever discussing what everyone is going to do each round of combat. If the characters can't stop and discuss what they are doing each round, the players shouldn't either. Of course, I also dislike absolute statements. If a group is starting a high level game, where the characters have worked together for a long time, but the players haven't, them I would expect a lot of discussion from the players as everyone learns what everyone can do, and how they may work together.

I think what is important is to keep an eye on when to speed things along, when to add more details, and find the mix that works for each individual group.

And that you do not accidentally limit player options in the name of speed.

[mgshamster]

As a DM, I ask my players to do one of two things:

1) Roll an attack die with the damage dice, together.

2) Roll all attacks first, and separate them as you see fit. Then roll all damage.

The first is obvious, but for the second, that means they roll, say, three attacks. Then they decide which one hits first, which hits second, and which hits third. And they decide if they move between attacks and which die hits what enemy.

So in the end, we use which ever method works the fastest for whichever player, while also giving the player the best advantage.

[BW022]

djeynolds,

Players at our table just roll multiple sets of colored dice -- both attack and damage. Players agree which color comes first (say red dice, then blue). In the case, of a sneak attack of similar abilities, you assume that the player will apply it to the first attack which hits. If it is something which needs to be declared, they need to say which attack (1st, 2nd, etc.) which it will be applied to.

If the player starts abusing this, there is a complex attack sequence (say trips giving advantage), etc. then I'll ask that each action be done in turn.
99% of the time, players are pretty honest.

[Asmotherion]

I have my players who have multiple attacks versus one enemy to roll all attacks at once... it saves times.

So DM's, like Quintessence, who I agree with 100%, have players roll 1 attack at a time... but this slows the game down at higher levels

I often, to find a happy medium, will have players assign colored d20s to certain attacks.

This isn't a huge issue, only really to rogue/multiclasses, when determining if he hits with a sneak attack and one of those rolls happens to be a 20 and crit.

I'm not sure what you mean by "all attacks at once". If you mean 4 d20 at once, I see no problem with it, as long as it's single target.

My favorite way to speed up combat, is to use the variant rule about average dice rolls, unless a feature relays on them (such as Great Weapon Fighting were I give a +1 to the average damage). I use them a lot on mook fights, and have my players actually roll damage on mini-boss fights minimum. This gives time to actually include fancy descriptions, that turn mundane number combat to something exciting.

[Vogonjeltz]

I have my players who have multiple attacks versus one enemy to roll all attacks at once... it saves times.

So DM's, like Quintessence, who I agree with 100%, have players roll 1 attack at a time... but this slows the game down at higher levels

I often, to find a happy medium, will have players assign colored d20s to certain attacks.

This isn't a huge issue, only really to rogue/multiclasses, when determining if he hits with a sneak attack and one of those rolls happens to be a 20 and crit.

One at a time, they might only attack that enemy once depending on the outcome. And, just to be clear, resolving an entire round of a characters attacks should only take like, 30-40 seconds.