There is apparently a discussion on retreating from combat in D&D where a number of people are reported saying that trying to retreat is pointless because the monsters will always pursue and the result will be a “total party kill”. This simply is not my experience in many years of playing D&D. Retreating...
Many players and GMs seem to prefer formal rules for combat maneuvers. However, most such rules are either complex or limit what characters can attempt to do 9or both). Even the Combat Tricks/Stunts rules from my Microlite74 Extended rules are complex enough to be annoying to use in play — at least compared...
I’ve been asked to include an optional “Cleave” rule in Microlite81, preferably based on the one in ACKS. I don’t have a problem with cleaving in melee combat. If a fighter (or dwarf or other “fighter” class) kills or incapacitates his opponent, he can attack another opponent (moving up to 5 feet to...
Every once in a while I see someone posting that fighters in D&D (or in D&D Next) should automatically hit and do huge amounts of damage so they can keep up with wizards in damage output ignoring the fact they the fighter can use his damage attack over and over all day while...
The Masters Set of the BECMI version of D&D added a set of Weapon Mastery rules that provided specific rules for each weapon for five levels of weapon mastery (none, basic, skilled, expert, master). Many people considered this overpowered, but when used in play from the beginning of a campaign (instead of retroactively...
Combat Tricks and Stunts can make an otherwise boring combat more interesting, not to mention giving an advantage to those who come up with (and successfully pull off) a good one. Unfortunately, they were a bit complex to use in Microlite74, requiring an attack roll at a large minus from the attacker and...
I’ve been recently involved in a discussion about random encounters and how having encounters that are not “level appropriate” really is okay and is not unfair to players unless they never have any choice but to fight in every encounter they have. In the discussion I pointed out that random wilderness encounters could...
My post, WOTC Discovers Typical D&D Players Like Short Combats, a few days ago generated a lot of discussion both here and on Google+. I thought it might be interesting to see how long readers think the average combat in a D&D session should last. Note that I’m talking an average combat encounter...
Amazing Stories has an interview with Mike Mearls talking about D&D Next. From one of Mike’s comments it seems that WOTC has finally learned what many players have know for years: Most players like fast combats. In the interview, Mike says: What we found through the playtest process, though, was that people like...
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