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I run an intrigue-packed campaign and I want to dramatically curtail fights that last 2 or 3 hours so that we can get back to politics and role-playing. I have tried many things so I don't need obvious advice on how to quicken combat ... I just want to ask would there be any major problems if I made a house rule that a natural 20 is an auto crit and a natural 1 is a fumble (with result you get -2 AC for the rest of the combat or can only take one action, move or standard). Also after 5 rounds of combat everyone gets +2 to hit and -2 on their AC. The idea being the faster people hit eachother the more damage done and the faster the combat ends. What are the main drawbacks of such a radical house rule??? I'm sure I am missing some major potential problem. (Note: Currently the party level is 6-8)
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I just want to ask would there be any major problems if I made a house rule that a natural 20 is an auto crit
The PCs more easily fall victim to random x3 or x4 (or higher) crits. The need of confirmation rolls is a line of defense against the randomness of 20s. It benefits a high AC target, but a low AC one will profit way less. You could argue it should be that way - or that randomness is supposed to be scary.
I guess it has some positive impact on vorpal and crit fishing builds in general, too.
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If your intention is to discourage combat, there are numerous systems you can use where player characters do not gain a substantial number of hit points as they level, so every combat is one bad die roll away from being lethal to a party member. The True20 system would work well for this purpose.
Works fine for me.
Also use critical hit and fumble decks with xp bonus per card drawn. Fun times.
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Also use critical hit and fumble decks with xp bonus per card drawn.
what
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I have had this discussion with fellow players multiple times, and are strongly opposed to it.
The Critical confirmation roll is absolutely necessary IMO.
A natural 20 always counts as a hit.
Even if, mathematically, an attacker could not score a hit otherwise, such as having a total +3 attack bonus vs. an AC of 28.
The 20 being a hit allows for those "lucky shots" and general fog of war events, where anything is possible.
All good.
Now, if you make a natural 20, not ONLY a successful hit, but automatically a critical one as well, then all those less capable opponents who would not normally have a prayer of scoring a hit (other than the occasional lucky '20'), now get a critical hit EVERY time they roll that 20.
Only blind luck can give them a hit, but it's always a critical?
Under that system, the 1/4 CR zero level mook, and the 15th level highly trained/experienced fighter, both have EXACTLY the same chance of scoring a critical. Even against creatures that are waaaayyyyy out of the mook's league.
Mature Dragon? Well, the farmer with pitchfork has same chance of a critical hit, as does the mythic cavalier.
With the confirmation roll, an attackers chance of scoring a critical, (by being able to roll confirmation high enough for a regular hit) increases with their attack bonus. This makes very logical sense.
If you want to be generous, the only thing I would personally do, is give the mook a critical if they roll a 20 again on the confirmation (even if that attack roll still wouldn't hit). Hey, two 20's in a row is dang-near impossible, so why not?
Note:
I use the term mook for convenience, to represent a mathematically-challenged attacker, who has little or no chance to otherwise score a hit against an opponent.
No insult is intended for anyone who self-identifies as a mook.
For fumbles, I use the same system above, and for the same reasons.
A much higher skilled attacker should have less of a chance of fumbling an attack.
I play that, on a natural 1, it is definitely a miss. Even if a 1 on an attack roll would still mathematically be enough to score a hit.
I then have a fumble confirmation roll, and if that result would be a miss, then a fumble occurs.
I have my own list of fumble effects, roughly based on how 'much' they fall short on the fumble confirmation. At a minimum, it ends their turn, and goes up from there.
Honestly, I mostly wing it on effects, so that I can choose results that make sense, whether it be slipping prone (in difficult terrain), of losing a weapon (fighting in the rain), etc.
Again, the severity is based on how bad the fumble confirmation missed.
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For speeding up combat to eat up less time, I would ask first, what you believe is making those combats take so long?
The house rules you propose don't seem to me, to have the potential to shave off a lot of time by themselves.
Do you have some insight as to what is dragging out combat?
To figure out what to fix, properly identifying the major causes is needed.
The two major cause I've come across for such delays, (my experience, not necessarily your group) are:
* GM/Players not knowing enough about the rules/characters. Anyone having to look up things in the middle of combat (regular stuff, not uncommon ones), can grind things down pretty badly. A Gm can always familiar themselves better, to quicken things. And the players should absolutely know what their characters can do, and how their abilities, feat, spells work.
* The other big factor I've seen, is religiously using maps/minis. Certainly, they can be a major, positive addition to the game. But, setting up and moving all those pieces, maybe when it wasn't entirely necessary, slows things as well. If you can get away without them for certain encounters, or figure out ways to streamline, that can help too.
If neither of those apply in your case, what are your observations?
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If your goal is simply to speed up combat, I suggest the following (a couple of which PT already mentioned):
PLAYERS:
DM:
In my experience, it's not the number of rounds that eats up time at the table; it's more the fact that everyone's turn is dragging out.
Kirth,
Your ideas are good, if my own suggestions need to be enforced, if those are indeed the issues (and aren't being worked on enough).
I would however disagree with rolling all attack dice at once. At least not always.
When you take multiple attacks ( i.e. full attack), great cleave, and threatening multiple opponents into a account, it can muck things up a bit.
Which rolls were for which target, etc? Before, during or after spring attack? If one is a fumble (I use them), and they lose further attack rolls, which roll in the series was the nat-1?
It's actually a pet peeve of mine, since it grates on me when a player rolls 3 or 4 attack dice, and only one hit was necessary for the first target to be killed, etc.;
then they want to spread things out or change the order of actions after the fact.
If they do roll all at once, I just apply all to the first target only, even if they go down on one die result. I take it as their intention to only swing/fire at that target and nothing else.
"Well, guess you hacked the body up just to make sure...who's next in initiative?"
For speeding up combat to eat up less time, I would ask first, what you believe is making those combats take so long?
The house rules you propose don't seem to me, to have the potential to shave off a lot of time by themselves.Do you have some insight as to what is dragging out combat?
To figure out what to fix, properly identifying the major causes is needed.The two major cause I've come across for such delays, (my experience, not necessarily your group) are:
* GM/Players not knowing enough about the rules/characters. Anyone having to look up things in the middle of combat (regular stuff, not uncommon ones), can grind things down pretty badly. A Gm can always familiar themselves better, to quicken things. And the players should absolutely know what their characters can do, and how their abilities, feat, spells work.
* The other big factor I've seen, is religiously using maps/minis. Certainly, they can be a major, positive addition to the game. But, setting up and moving all those pieces, maybe when it wasn't entirely necessary, slows things as well. If you can get away without them for certain encounters, or figure out ways to streamline, that can help too.If neither of those apply in your case, what are your observations?
Thanks for your input. The thing is, I think it's simply that monsters and PCs have too many hit points. Hence my plan. An alternative could be, I guess to wipe out 25% of hit points of all PCs and monsters. Also damage resistance recently became an issue as in the last two humungously long battles they fought vampire spawn and wererats and didn't all have the best weapons (i.e. silver etc). But that wererat battle in Curse of the Crimson Throne literally took an absurdly long 2 and a half hours last week (I even cut 2 regular wererats out of the battle; party was anInquisitor level 7, paladin level 3, witch level 6 and brawler level 5; although the die rolls to hit were admittedly dreadful from the party and there was almost a TPK, finally just the paladin retainer died). Players not knowing exactly what their character can do is an issue and I have cracked down on this, so I count down 6 seconds all the time if they dawdle, but still we sometimes need to look stuff up. I guess I don't want a PC to die because of a rule mistake, but there's no way I can know every rule and sometimes I forget stuff so I tend to look it up. As for minis, I love the minis so I can't cut that, but I understand what you mean.
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Thing is, if you give your PC auto crit, you have to give it to your minion too. Ans since there's a lot more minion (usually) than PC overall, this will result in a lot more PC death overtime.
I think, not 100% sure. I've never done it with auto-crit so :S
No, you don't really have to give it to minions.
The way I run it is 20 is an auto crit for PCs and bosses *ONLY*. Minions rolling 20 are simply an auto hit. My games still have enough close calls to keep things exciting without the threat of some random mook one-shotting a PC on a lucky 20.
I don't do fumbles unless the players agree to it. Some of my players really like using them, some don't. I ask before the campaign starts and go from there. Generally, fumbles just give an appropriate penalty for a few rounds or until the PC takes an action to fix it. Slipping in blood, stuck blades, broken bowstrings, that sort of thing.
Thing is, if you give your PC auto crit, you have to give it to your minion too. Ans since there's a lot more minion (usually) than PC overall, this will result in a lot more PC death overtime.
I think, not 100% sure. I've never done it with auto-crit so :SNo, you don't really have to give it to minions.
The way I run it is 20 is an auto crit for PCs and bosses *ONLY*. Minions rolling 20 are simply an auto hit. My games still have enough close calls to keep things exciting without the threat of some random mook one-shotting a PC on a lucky 20.
I don't do fumbles unless the players agree to it. Some of my players really like using them, some don't. I ask before the campaign starts and go from there. Generally, fumbles just give an appropriate penalty for a few rounds or until the PC takes an action to fix it. Slipping in blood, stuck blades, broken bowstrings, that sort of thing.
From level 4 or 5 on, the adventurers should have enough defence mechanisms (magic etc) and sufficient hit points to absorb the odd crit from a lowly minion anyway.
This is my latest plan (but my next session as DM is not until December 9 so I can mull it over further)...
Starting Round 5: +2 to hit and -2 on AC for everyone.
FUMBLES
If you roll a 1 on an attack of manouver roll (including climb, acrobatics etc.) during combat you miss/fail and can take no further action for the rest of the round.
Make a second roll and if you fail to hit/succeed you take -2 AC for the rest of the combat (usually this is when initiatives of all players end even if you have withdrawn; although DM may make exceptions) and roll on the fumble table.
Fumble Table
1: Concussed/Confused … cannot take any action/move for the next 1-4 rounds.
2: Opponents get a free attack of opportunity even if they have already had one.
3: Hit self (roll damage with bonuses)
4: Hit nearest friend (roll damage with bonuses; if no one in range hit self)
5: Broken weapon. Magical weapons get a DC10 save, apply + modifier to roll. (broken weapon can be used as club or even to slash but is at -4 to hit and does just 1-3 basic damage)
6: Twisted ankle. Fall prone, -4 Dex (manual dexterity OK), no run and half movement for 12 hours.
7: Slip in blood or goo. Fall prone
8: Lose one’s voice until end of combat.
9: Drop weapon (or whatever one is holding; if nothing then first lose ring, second backpack)
10: Poop one’s pantaloons. Half movement until end of combat.
11-20: No further penalty above the -2 AC.
Note: If a fumble cannot apply move down to the next one (gets worse) and apply that.
CRITICAL HIT
On a natural 20 a critical hit is scored and double damage is done, with all your usual bonuses. (Remember some weapons might do a crit with an 18 or 19 too)
Now make a second roll. This acts as a confirmation roll to do a crit with certain weapons (if you rolled 18, 19 on the first roll) and also to do x3 or x4 damage with certain weapons.
If you roll a second natural 20 then you roll on the Serious Injury Table.
CRITICAL INJURY TABLE
20 Death Blow
(Slashing) Foe's head flies off in a random direction landing 3-18 foot away. (Or carteriod artery is severed, fountain of blood erupts, and foe dies within a minute)
(Piercing) Eye and brain pierced leading to instant death
(Bludgeoning) Blow forces foe's jaw upwards into lower part of brain. Foe falls to the ground, twitches for a couple of seconds and then lays still.
19 Loss of leg below knee (half movement with crutch/peg leg, cannot charge, -1 Dex, but not for manual actions; -5 ride, climb.)
18 Loss of arm (-5 climb, disable device, heal, swim; cannot use 2-handed items/shield)
17 Loss of hand ((-5 climb, disable device, heal; cannot use 2-handed items)
16 Severe blow to head; possible brain damage (in coma for 2-5 days; Fort DC15 or loss of 1 INT)
15 Loss of eye (-2 on visual perception, -1 in combat, -1 on AC)
14 Major facial scar (-1 Charisma, +2 Intimidate)
13. Severe head blow. (Coma. Make Fort DC20 roll per hour to awake)
12. Loss of ear. (Deafened for 24 hours)
11. Minor but visible facial scar. (Blinded for 24 hours)
1-10. No further penalty (bar the -2 AC)
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If you want to speed up combat, have you considered porting in the Escalation Die from 13th Age? Basically, it's a big d6 that starts at 0 round 1 and increases by 1 each round until it hits 6. PCs and certain big boss types gain a bonus to attacks equal to the Escalation Die. Gets the same idea as your "after 5 rounds, everybody gets a +2 Attack and -2 AC" but in a simpler, more streamlined way and also makes the change more gradual instead of a sudden change.
I highly recommend you make some changes to your Fumble rules. I don't personally like fumble rules (whether you have them or not is up to your group, obviously), but I'd recommend adding some changes to make it so that martial characters don't get more likely to fumble as they level up (more attacks per round = fumble more commonly). A common method of doing this is to make it so that only the first attack each round can prompt a critical failure, so a fighter with BAB +18/+13/+8/+3 can only fumble on the +18.
Also, add something so that spellcasters can get screwed over as well when they cast. It doesn't make sense that the guy who swings a sword can screw up and accidentally cut his own head off but the crazy wizard goofing around with the fundamental fabrics of reality can't screw up just as hard.
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FUMBLES
If you roll a 1 on an attack of manouver roll (including climb, acrobatics etc.) during combat you miss/fail and can take no further action for the rest of the round.
In other words, "f#++ martials". Casters never take this risk if they never cast an attack roll spell, and martials' chance to fumble increases dramatically as they get more experienced.
I also think this penalty, let alone your fumble table on top of it, is ridiculously punitive. So is the Critical Damage table, considering that affects PC's a lot more than it does enemies (who generally don't survive first contact with the PC's). It might be that you're going for a grittier and more realistic campaign, but that doesn't match up with the hokey slapstick from the fumble table.
FUMBLES
If you roll a 1 on an attack of manouver roll (including climb, acrobatics etc.) during combat you miss/fail and can take no further action for the rest of the round.
In other words, "f+!! martials". Casters never take this risk if they never cast an attack roll spell, and martials' chance to fumble increases dramatically as they get more experienced.
I also think this penalty, let alone your fumble table on top of it, is ridiculously punitive. So is the Critical Damage table, considering that affects PC's a lot more than it does enemies (who generally don't survive first contact with the PC's). It might be that you're going for a grittier and more realistic campaign, but that doesn't match up with the hokey slapstick from the fumble table.
It's a work in progress ( as stated). Don't get over-excited. Thanks for the input regarding martials. I agree. It all needs a further overhaul and could even be scrapped. The fumble table is not as critical as the ... critical table.
If you want to speed up combat, have you considered porting in the Escalation Die from 13th Age? Basically, it's a big d6 that starts at 0 round 1 and increases by 1 each round until it hits 6. PCs and certain big boss types gain a bonus to attacks equal to the Escalation Die. Gets the same idea as your "after 5 rounds, everybody gets a +2 Attack and -2 AC" but in a simpler, more streamlined way and also makes the change more gradual instead of a sudden change.
I highly recommend you make some changes to your Fumble rules. I don't personally like fumble rules (whether you have them or not is up to your group, obviously), but I'd recommend adding some changes to make it so that martial characters don't get more likely to fumble as they level up (more attacks per round = fumble more commonly). A common method of doing this is to make it so that only the first attack each round can prompt a critical failure, so a fighter with BAB +18/+13/+8/+3 can only fumble on the +18.
Also, add something so that spellcasters can get screwed over as well when they cast. It doesn't make sense that the guy who swings a sword can screw up and accidentally cut his own head off but the crazy wizard goofing around with the fundamental fabrics of reality can't screw up just as hard.
Hmm (about fumbles). After reading the last couple of posts I get what you and Athaleon are getting at. I need to seriously think over the fumble rules. I am looking for a more gritty realistic game, admittedly, as Athaleon guessed. The Escalation rule looks good. I think I will switch to that (I had considered it actually, not knowing about the game you mentioned). Good.
FUMBLES
If you roll a 1 on an attack of manouver roll (including climb, acrobatics etc.) during combat you miss/fail and can take no further action for the rest of the round.
In other words, "f%&! martials". Casters never take this risk if they never cast an attack roll spell, and martials' chance to fumble increases dramatically as they get more experienced.
I also think this penalty, let alone your fumble table on top of it, is ridiculously punitive. So is the Critical Damage table, considering that affects PC's a lot more than it does enemies (who generally don't survive first contact with the PC's). It might be that you're going for a grittier and more realistic campaign, but that doesn't match up with the hokey slapstick from the fumble table.
I am thinking of having fumbling on the first roll only. Not on each roll if a PC or creature has multiple attacks. Also, one has to confirm the fumble roll with a miss roll. Anyway, surely the +2 on attacks compensates and gives a massive advantage to martial folk. I was thinking of now introducing this attack bonus as +3 after 3 rounds rather than +2 after 5. Doesn't that balance things out. I I think Johnico's suggestion is interesting but going up to +6 is surely overkill. Anyway, action will be taken because these combats have to end quicker.
I would however disagree with rolling all attack dice at once. At least not always. When you take multiple attacks ( i.e. full attack), great cleave, and threatening multiple opponents into a account, it can muck things up a bit.
We use differently-colored sets, and keep them consistent, so that (for example) if Derek rolls 4 pairs of dice for TWF attacks, the red and yellow sets are always the first main hand and off-hand attacks, respectively, and the green and blue ones are always the next pair. It's confusing only for the first couple of times you try it, but after that we've found that the investment pays off.
Even with a single attack, to roll one die, see if you hit, then find and roll another die, is a lot slower than just throwing both at once and ignoring the damage die on a miss.
It might be that you're going for a grittier and more realistic campaign, but that doesn't match up with the hokey slapstick from the fumble table.
Agreed. If people want combat to be really deadly, there are much, much better game systems for that. D&D/Pathfinder assume that you can hack through legions of mooks all day long. That's what they're intended to do, so trying to make them grittier is to work against the fundamental intent.
Contrast with the absurdly deadly fire combat rules from Victory Games 007 game, in which fights tend play out like the big one in S2 of True Detective. ("Cover me!" - *BLAM* - dead), so the whole purpose of the game is to stack the odds in your favor until you don't run that kind of insane risk.
Thankyou for the opinions. There is no way I am changing systems. I will continue with Pathfinder. Like I said at the start, I just want to try and shorten combat, which is exactly what I will do, one way or the other or many ways. Also I am not interested in the other "ideas" put forward. I have read numerous threads on this. I already know about 99% of them and some I use, some I don't. So back to my original post ...
After listening to some excellently perceptive opinions here, I will not pursue my initial idea of maybe allowing auto crits and fumbles on a 20 and 1 with no confirmation.
I will do what I've been doing for 2 years since I started playing Pathfinder ... with crits and fumbles a confirmation roll to hit or miss is made after a 20 (18,19 some weapons) or 1 is rolled. But I will start limiting the fumble chance to the first attack of all combatants who have multiple attacks such as high-level fighters and monks, but not to MOST monsters.
The major change I will test out is what I will call the "Lucky 3" rule. Starting on round 3 and continuing thereafter all combatants will be at +3 to hit with any weapon in a combat.
Also I have changed the crit and fumble tables from what I pasted before, and instead simplified them such as -2 AC until the end of combat (not stackable) for most fumbles etc.This will also quicken combat with more people getting hit.
It's debatable whether these house rules penalize martial classes rather than spellcasters, as some have said above. Combats just end quicker and more damage is dished out by both sides equally, and although spellcasters do not fumble, they could well suffer from being on the end of a javelin hurled at +3 and if the spellcaster strays anywhere with range they would stand a much greater chance of getting smacked on round 3 and later with that +3. And anyway, if one or the other gets a slightly worse deal then so be it. The priority is simply to shorten combats.
I have already discussed it with my 5 players (four of whom have been with me for a long time) and we're going to give this a go anyway and see what happens. I might report back later.
Again thankyou. Many of the comments above helped me reach this conclusion. And I'm sorry if you don't agree with what I'm doing, but it's what I want to try out.
