How do I make D&D combat challenging, but not a tedious fucking slog?

How do I make D&D combat challenging, but not a tedious fucking slog?

Tell casters to hurry the fuck up. Rounds are 6 seconds not 5 minutes.

This to be quite honest family. People should be planning their move during other players' turns. Few things annoy me more in gaming than people who check out after rolling the dice and need a recap every round.
>wait what happened here?

Alternatively you could try to shift the focus away from combat, meaning less combat, and less slog. Combat should be exciting, and DnD makes it mundane really fast since everything is trying to kill you.

Don't add more rules, make enemies do crazier shit.

>The goblins fight in narrow caverns to use your size against you
>The dragon flaps his wings, blowing the party away
>The bandits attack travellers by rolling flaming bales of hay down the hill

In turn, it will inspire your players to do crazy shit. My party barred the doors to cult's church and set it on fire. They killed 40 enemies at the cost of a torch.

Had a 4E group that was awful about this. Literally what started happening:
>Wait for buddybro's turn just ahead of me
>Decide what to do tactically in that thirty seconds or so
>Do that, total time elapsed about fifteen seconds for turn, including describing effects after
>Tab over to CoC
>Play CoC for an hour and a half while the other four people in the group decided what to do, asked what their powers did, decided they wanted to do something else, asked what THOSE powers did, fell asleep, forgot what they were doing, started awkwardly hitting on each other IC in the middle of combat, etc.
>Buddybro's turn comes up again, goto 10

It regularly took two or three six to eight hour sessions to finish one combat. Then discussing what to do next was even worse.

Don't play D&D or have objectives other than kill the other side.

Don't play 4th edition.

>4e

You got meme'd

4e was especially bad for lengthy combats, but playing on computer in the middle of a game is a pretty dick move man
unless I guess it was an online game

>implying 3.PF isn't worse, especially after ~6th level

W is that you? From matts game? Because holy fuck that shit was aweful., especially when T would FLIP OUT when she wouldnt tell us a plan, an we did something different, like we were suppose to mind read her shit. Honestly 4e was a mistake to join.

Don't use minis or a map.

Play AD&D for great lethality.

Deadly combat without a tactical wargame bogging everything down makes for fast and challenging battles.

It really isn't. Unless your whole party consists of casters.

>dont use minis or maps

THIS. thsi helps so much. roleplay combat out. It wont take 5-6 hours.

I'll second this.

Never use minis in my games. I don't see the appeal. Do you want to play Warhammer or d&d?

alot of wizards shit started to move towards it for merch opportunities. Hell, 4e basically required it if you went by the books. Its a shitty concept, and the only time its appropriate is to map out the room if its complex of a vastly huge battle field.

Thats exactly why I never played 4e.

The whole miniature requirement was a total Jew move on their part and just turns the game into a tactical combat game.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with that but it's not d&d.

>Force everyone to plan their attacks before their round
>Force Martials to roll the dice before they worry about bonuses
>Force Casters to know what spells they will use
>Have encounters that require teamwork
>Make enemies do high damage
And so long as you don't spam combat, this should work fine

Fuck. That.

Level 4-12ish 3.pf is slow as fuck even when you know what you are doing. Then past that mark it's basically all rocket tag.

>tactical combat isn't D&D
Tactical combat is so D&D that the original version wanted you to use a wargame for combat.

Maybe your groups were just retarded.
Just tell everyone to think about what they will do before they do. Most of the waiting time in any RPG ever is idiots not knowing what they want to do

the problem wasn't 4e.

D&D evolved from a tactical wargame. It never was intended to become one.

I don't use minis and never will.

It already started in 3.X. 4E was merely the next step.

3.X toned down the lethality because that's critical when your system is designed to use map + minis. If you're setting up a fight that's only going to last five minutes, what's the point? So lethality needs to be reduced to lengthen fights and justify using the grid.

If you want to play a tactical skirmish game, it's great, but as an RPG it's mediocre and time-consuming. While 2e's systems may have been counter-intuitive, they worked without slowing down the game.

Wizards of the Coast is good-ish at making Magic: the Gathering, but merely passable at everything else.

Not using a map or minis makes it a pain in the ass for players to envision complex environments to exploit in creative ways. In my experiences as a player, I've preferred using maps. You know the information you have to know to make smart decisions, and you don't have to backtrack for making mistakes your character's would have.
>All right, I'm going to move up on that ridge so I'm right above the giant, and I'm going to hit him in the head.
>Uh, dude, you're 20 feet above him now. The ridge is really tall.
>What the fuck? What am I doing up here then?
>Um...
>All right, I'll keep going to the... you said there was a tree here somewhere, right?
>Yeah.
>I'm going to keep going and hide behind the tree, then.
>All right, you backtrack and...
>What? I thought the tree was ahead of me?
>No, you passed it last turn when you started heading for the ridge.
>But the tree's ON the ridge.
>No, the tree's NEXT to the ridge. The top of the tree is a few feet back from you. It's a really tall tree.
Versus:
>"Right, so that line there is a ridge. It's about 30 feet tall at the top, and it's kind of a steepish slope. That green circle there is a tree, tall enough to reach above the ridge next to it, and this"-- he places a bottlecap on the table, in front of the line --"is a pissed-off giant, at the bottom of the ridge. Roll initiative."
>it's not d&d.
>It was never intended to become a tactical wargame.
Party-based fantasy combat using miniatures IS D&D, and has been from the beginning through every editino. The only way it cannot be is if you are using a definition of "D&D" that is not consistent with any form of published Dungeons and Dragons that has ever existed, which is lunacy. If you don't like party-based fantasy combat using miniatures, that's fine, but don't claim it's not D&D.

I actually wonder how well that would go. That actually seems like a really interesting concept. have everyones actions written down for that round. Round starts, initiative makes you show your paper. You get MINOR changes on DM's discretion (i.e, you cant try and charge if your pushed off the balcony, so instead of charge you can say "break fall".). Round ens, start the 3 minute timer to write down next rounds actions.

Would probably be a mess, but it could be fun/funny and really capture the chaos of a brawl in close quarters.

A wargame with less than 20 pages of rules.

And only the "man-to-man combat" part actually applied to D&D.

OD&D is not a tactical minis game, despite using a wargame's combat mechanics.

>It never was intended to become one.
So that's why The War Machine and Battlesystem exist.

Get a couple of these. If you can't make your move in a minute the DM makes your move or lack of of move.

>only the "man-to-man combat" part actually applied to D&D.
Below name level. Once you hit name level, the mass combat bits start becoming useful.

Grid and minis are not required for any version of d&d except 4e.

If you need to keep track of terrain or object during a complex combat scenario then just use a bit of scrap paper and a pen. That's what I've always done.

OP is asking for ways to speed up combat and minis are the number one thing that slow it down to a crawl.

Sounds like a good ruleset for a one-shot campaign

4e.

You're asking for interesting combat, not fast combat.

>less than 20 pages of rules.
What version of Chainmail are you using that's only 20 pages long?

This
Also add terrain features and obstacles liberally. Nothing more boring than when every battle takes place in a flat empty coliseum environment

A diagram of complex environments is all well and good. It's very helpful.

Setting up a big grid and tracking movement and the like is not.

Star Wars FFG has the right idea. All you really need is a rough diagram of what's where, and then range bands for relative positioning. If the environment's not particularly complex, you don't even need the diagram.

Okay, fine, I misremembered, it's 44 pages. The point is: it's really short, and you only need a fragment of it for D&D.

>If you need to keep track of terrain or object during a complex combat scenario then just use a bit of scrap paper and a pen. That's what I've always done.
To me, though, this is what it comes down to: I want to represent the battlefield in a way that makes it easy for players to see what's there and how far things are apart and where in it their PCs are. It's possible to do this with a piece of scrap paper. The best way to do this, though, is by drawing on a big grid, to keep distances clear and places distinct.

It's useful to keep distances clear for the players' convenience. I played as a ranged character in a game which briefly switched to as little map-use as possible, and it really is tiring to ask again and again how far away so-and-so is, and if I can move to closer range and attack him this turn, or not. A grid provides a consistent perspective on ranges across the battlefield without making it essential to count squares to see how far away fellows are.

A piece of scrap paper is usually going to be smaller than one of those Chessex battle mats, which is what I use now. If you're drawing on a literal scrap of paper, characters are going to be close enough to each other that it might be hard to tell where things are: if a bunch of characters are bunched up, they might get confused about who is on what side of who, and so on, because all of their positions are within the same centimeter of each other On a grid where everyone occupies one grid space, per the rules, it's much easier, even with small grids.

I'd maintain that having a grid is useful for the addition of helpful information: it's possible to diagram that complex environment on a grid without tracking movement and ranges to the square religiously, and that last bit is probably the first thing I'd avoid doing if I wanted to speed combat.

Yes but it slows the game down and doesn't really add to the enjoyment I find. People tend to become too focused on the grid and the minis rather than imagining the scene in their mind's eye.

If you're playing a ranged character just ask the DM if your target is within your line of sight and in range or not. It's much quicker than counting squares on a grid.

Of course that's just how I prefer to play. To each his own.

For me the worst parts are setting up grids, handling spellcasting and player's dragging their feet.

My group generally likes maps, so the grid is hard to ditch though I get away with it about half the time now.

Spellcasting got better when I started banning the PHB at the table. Players had to either learn their shit or come up with a way to quickly reference it.

Dragging feet, I don't have a solution that's worked well in practice.

This.

Even in our 5e, completely mapless on anything but bare wilderness always ends up as 'wait where's the guy now?' 'Can we see him from here?' 'Where's (party member) again?' 'Didn't we kill that guy last turn?' etc.

Even if it's just a scrappy drawn map it's a fucking session lifesaver to have.

>People tend to become too focused on the grid and the minis rather than imagining the scene in their mind's eye.
Sure, but as the GM that's a tendency you can combat.
>If you're playing a ranged character just ask the DM if your target is within your line of sight and in range or not.
Well, yeah, that's what I had to do, with additional stipulations. For example, if there's a limit to how far you can move in a turn and still attack, usually. Handling that abstractly while also wondering if moving in this direction will enable me to attack somebody in the first place depending on half-remembered local geography turns combat into a game of 20 questions, where "Can I hit this guy?" turns into "What if I move over here? Can I hit him then? What about if I move there?" turns into "So about how far away is he again?"

Even in an ideal situation, with a grid, the player can assume a more independent role. Instead of:
>Can I hit this guy?
it can be:
>I can hit this guy, right?
The difference appears slight, but it's significant in that the player can make judgments themselves on what their character should or should not be able to do based on the environment around them. And it's worth pointing out that, on a map, asking "I can hit this guy, right?" is often just unnecessary, which saves time, especially if you have to play 20 questions otherwise. I don't know how long it takes you to count spaces, but even that's not particularly necessary if you play a little loose with range limiters, which you should.

Play. Fifth. Edition.

It's been a while since I played any RPG (a fact that I am continuously bummed about), but I do recall having problems with coming up with a plan on what my next turn will be when others are taking theirs, only for the person RIGHT BEFORE ME doing something that throws my plan A and plan B out the window, making me stumble at what I should do next.

lol

Set a IRL timer when the timer goes the monsters retreat unless it's obvious they are winning. Combat is now not a tedious fucking slog. Combat is broken up into smaller pieces and players can adjust their play style to have more IRL dps.

Set another timer if they continue a fighting pursuit, if they don't escape or get finished off by the time it goes off the enemy is promptly eliminated and replaced by a (roleplaying or exploration (an interesting version of rocks fall everything dies, example: quicksand)) encounter.

Or cut off from pursuing, like a patrol riding in seeing the PCs and starting a roleplaying encounter by asking what's going on.

Problem definitely wasn't 4E. If anything, it should have simplifed things. When you've been doing this shit for EIGHT GODDAMNED MONTHS and you don't know off the bat what your FUCKING AT-WILLS DO all TWO OF THEM, you are the problem. The only competent people at the table were me, my buddy, and the sperglord DM.

Then we got into a mass combat with forty warforged and the game actually fell the fuck apart.

Sorry, man.

How does giving every class 30 powers to choose from at level 1 simplify things?

4e combat is needlessly complex. I get that some people like a tactical minis wargame with lots of options but some of us want to just roll a d20 vs AC to attack. Keep it simple.

So, Burning Wheel?

>30 powers at level one
That makes character creation complicated, not the actual combat after you've picked your four or five daily/encounters and two at-wills.
If you don't remember what your goddamn bread and butter powers do after eight months of six-to-eight hour weekly sessions, when you have the power cards in front of you and the macros programmed in, you need to return to elementary school and commit seppuku for failing your fourth grade teachers so badly.