Current Events > DnD combat is the most mind numbingly boring thing

(+) Yeah! (+)

Is this an unpopular opinion? I was thinking maybe it's because I don't enjoy playing in general (it's all some friends want to do so I end up joining them) but the combat is especially bad. I zone out so much. It is just not engaging at all.

I've only ever watched streams of other people playing, but the combat is also where I kinda tune out barring some exceptional ones like The Unsleeping City's Titania fight.

I have played a lot of TRPGs and the edition does matter to a degree but I think D&D typically has pretty bad combat. A lot of this is due to the D20 tradition. If you roll a single D20 you have a 5% chance of rolling a 1 or a 20. That's pretty wild and can result in some randomness and depending on the edition there is little to nothing you can do to mitigate this. If you have a dice pool system (rolling a bunch of D6 for example) the distribution of results stops being linear (you are more likely to roll an average number than the maximum or minimum). A percentage system puts critical failure or success at 1% (usually rolling a 1 versus rolling a 100). Most other systems also have quite a few options to mitigate bad rolls (again though this depends on the edition of D&D you are playing). I think D&D is sort of stuck with the D20 though, so that part can't really he fixed.

Though there are definitely systems with worse combat than any edition of D&D, it's not just a matter of a D20 system.

*rolls*

Your unimaginative GM running a pre-designed module accidentally casts wild magic instead and...

*rolls*

...creates a one kilomter radius of semi-permanent dead magic in a city that is almost entirely run/made by magic, and has, *looks, very panicked at campaign notes* The Terrasque sealed beneath it by magical means, inside of said radius.

Your party is level 3.

Jokes aside, (this one relating to the youtube video/start of a series of videos I will link to at the end), combat is a thing that needs some imagination from both sides to work its best wonders. Also, be creative. Force your DM to create, so that you can create based on it. Near a cliff, try to shove enemies off it to buy time, or in the right circumstance, throw an enemy off using your own mass for a sacrifice, temporary or otherwise.

The more everything is railroaded, the less likely you can have fun with combat.

That video I promised before btw:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H-1WJtuzPg

The ways that 5e simplified combat certainly haven't done it any favors.

If all you do is like " i attack, 19 to hit, that's 11 damage", yeah that's gonna be boring

You gotta try to build a narrative with it

I think part of it is that 5e just doesn't have the most exciting combat, but there's also how rigid your DM is with what you can do. A bit of flexibility can make things a lot more interesting. And the biggest one is how quickly it moves. People taking forever to do their turns can be a huge drag.

It depends a lot on the dm and the players, tbh. If you build narrative it can be fun and engaging for everyone, but if you just do very basic combat there's a lot of just waiting around.

Even as someone who likes dnd I agree, I often play a handheld during combat (making sure to keep up with what goes on).

I don't get rollplaying (with two ls) , computer games do it so much better, roleplaying is what video games can't match

I cheat when I play Baldur's Gate. I only care about the story.

Liu_Kano posted...

I cheat when I play Baldur's Gate. I only care about the story.

There's a 'Story' option for the difficulty that makes it so your characters simply don't die. So if you don't want to mess with builds from older editions and the various ambushes the game throws at you, use that.

As for combat in the tabletop, it can help if the DM doesn't get caught up in the numbers arms-race to create hour+ length combat situations. It's okay for weak minions to be just that, weak minions, meant to be disposed of quickly and in potentially hilarious ways.