u/TheUntypicalHeroes

Long, drawn out combats are boring. Button smashing the same attack each round is, too. Here's 3 tips from 13th Age.

1. Miss damage - on a miss you still deal your level's worth of damage, representing glancing blows.
2. Flexible Attacks - Make each die roll have meaning other than a binary hit/miss. Examples with situational bonuses: "on any natural even miss, add additional damage to the miss". Or, "On a roll of 16+ (and when the escalation die is at 5+) 3 allies can add 3d6 bonus damage to their next attack."
3. Escalation Die - each round of combat after the first, add a cumulative +1 to hit bonus. This bonus can be used to unlock abilities, add damage, or help speed up combat.

The escalation die and flexible attacks can be overlayed onto features, abilities, spells, etc. to further increase their potential uses. What do you all think?

Long, drawn out combats are boring. Button smashing the same attack each round is, too. Learn how to make your D&D combat better by taking 3 tips from 13th Age.

1. Miss damage - on a miss you still deal your level's worth of damage, representing glancing blows.
2. Flexible Attacks - Make each die roll have meaning other than a binary hit/miss. Examples with situational bonuses: "on any natural even miss, add additional damage to the miss". Or, "On a roll of 16+ (and when the escalation die is at 5+) 3 allies can add 3d6 bonus damage to their next attack."
3. Escalation Die - each round of combat after the first, add a cumulative +1 to hit bonus. This bonus can be used to unlock abilities, add damage, or help speed up combat.

The escalation die and flexible attacks can be overlayed onto features, abilities, spells, etc. to further increase their potential uses. What do you all think?

Long, drawn out combats are boring. Button smashing the same attack each round is, too. Learn how to make your D&D combat better by taking 3 tips from 13th Age.

1. Miss damage - on a miss you still deal your level's worth of damage, representing glancing blows.
2. Flexible Attacks - Make each die roll have meaning other than a binary hit/miss. Examples with situational bonuses: "on any natural even miss, add additional damage to the miss". Or, "On a roll of 16+ (and when the escalation die is at 5+) 3 allies can add 3d6 bonus damage to their next attack."
3. Escalation Die - each round of combat after the first, add a cumulative +1 to hit bonus. This bonus can be used to unlock abilities, add damage, or help speed up combat.

The escalation die and flexible attacks can be overlayed onto features, abilities, spells, etc. to further increase their potential uses. What do you all think?

Shadowdark TTRPG Actual Play S2 E3 Explosive Surprise. I play TTRPGs and show tools, tips, and tricks to get into the hobby, or take your game to the next level!

My favorite boss mechanic has been a post I read a while ago about paradigm monsters. they have different pools of HP, with each pool "resetting" the monster, so if they had a status condition, it's wiped clean. Each pool of HP also has it's own mechanics, actions, and style, so it acts like a multi-stage boss fight, straight out of an SNES video game.

You defeat the boss, then they rise up again and the next stage is triggered. They change form and start a new tactic. So for example, their first stage has a high AC and battlefield manipulation through things like ranged spells, lair actions, and a high movement speed, or an additional speed like climbing. It's a jungle with rising/crumbling pillars, and an ape-like boss jumping around and dodging between vines, attacking from range and not letting the PC's get to it. Minions galore! Tiny winged apes straight out of Oz, divebombing the party from everywhere all at once.

Stage two, after you defeat it, everything changes, and now it has a lower AC, less mobility, but fights up close and has multiple attacks, plus acid blood. It doubles in size as it becomes enraged and begins eating it's own minions by the handful, muscles breaking through it's leather armour, and pulsating necrotic growths glowing and leaking weird energies around it. It has a damaging aura. Eating a minion heals it and grants it another turn in the initiative order. It uses a grapple attack to throw you off the pillars and into the acid pools that are filling and rising below.

What are the coolest boss mechanics you've run?

My favorite boss mechanic has been a post I read a while ago about paradigm monsters. they have different pools of HP, with each pool "resetting" the monster, so if they had a status condition, it's wiped clean. Each pool of HP also has it's own mechanics, actions, and style, so it acts like a multi-stage boss fight, straight out of an SNES video game.

You defeat the boss, then they rise up again and the next stage is triggered. They change form and start a new tactic. So for example, their first stage has a high AC and battlefield manipulation through things like ranged spells, lair actions, and a high movement speed, or an additional speed like climbing. It's a jungle with rising/crumbling pillars, and an ape-like boss jumping around and dodging between vines, attacking from range and not letting the PC's get to it. Minions galore! Tiny winged apes straight out of Oz, divebombing the party from everywhere all at once.

Stage two, after you defeat it, everything changes, and now it has a lower AC, less mobility, but fights up close and has multiple attacks, plus acid blood. It doubles in size as it becomes enraged and begins eating it's own minions by the handful, muscles breaking through it's leather armour, and pulsating necrotic growths glowing and leaking weird energies around it. It has a damaging aura. Eating a minion heals it and grants it another turn in the initiative order. It uses a grapple attack to throw you off the pillars and into the acid pools that are filling and rising below.

What are the coolest boss mechanics you've run?

"I swing my sword at it!" (Again)

"I raise my spell tome and chant the dragon-tongue verse. Burning purple flames surround my arm, as I point at the feeble goblin and hurl a giant fire blast at his head!"

"I roll to hit. 16?"

Those are three actions, from three separate players during combat. Here's a few during exploration:

"Can I roll perception to check for traps?"

"Can I roll my left hand dexterity instead of using athletics? Because my character has a +2 to that stat, since she was raised by a one armed, one legged, burly, shifty, centaur pirate, after her parents disappeared..."

"I rolled a 16."

Now, there's no wrong way to play a ttrpg. That's what's so great about this hobby! And you can add or omit anything from any ruleset you want. And there's SO MANY TTRPGs to play! You can mix and match and create any type of game and system your heart desires.

I know you're waiting for a "but"...

Yet, there is no "but".

Better yet, there's an although.

Although there's no wrong way to play, there are more or less efficient ways to approach actions in your game.

I played baseball when I was growing up. Every time you take the field, you get a few minutes to throw the ball around and warm up. I was playing center field. And I had two outfielders on either side of me. When one threw the ball to me, I caught it. Then, I turned, and I threw the ball to the other one. When you get going, it can almost become metronomic.

So I catch, and I turn, and I throw. And on this particular throw, my teammate wasn't paying attention. And I've got a pretty athletic turn going on here. And a pretty quick release. Not to mention pinpoint accuracy. And a big, unmoving, unaware target.

I saw it happening in slow motion, but I couldn't stop it. My teammate wasn't even a deer in headlights. He never saw it coming.

So, I hit this kid straight in the neck. It was horrible. He's obviously in pain, and I check on him, and he shakes it off because he's a trooper. And I take the ball and run back to center. And I throw it the other way, right back at it. Like we never stopped. Only we did stop. Again. On the very. Next. Throw.

I catch the ball. I turn—and it was like an instant replay of the first one. BAM! Same thing. I told you, almost uncanny accuracy for a little leaguer.

Now, I didn't intend to hit this kid in his jugular, twice in a row. But I did. And I have to live with that for the rest of my life. And to this day, he can't straighten his neck more than 35 degrees in that direction (maybe).

So, actions in a ttrpg. Baseball. What do they both have in common? Intent. And approach. And that's it.

I INTENDED to transfer the ball from my glove to my hand and throw the ball as quickly as possible, straight at his glove— which SHOULD'VE been held in front of his thick, meaty neck. My APPROACH was that of a madman, possessed by the spirit of a tornado, turning and chucking baseballs like hail, mercilessly destroying all in their path.

Had I taken a different approach, such as calm and controlled—or even had a different intent, like waiting to see if my teammate was ready before throwing—then those poor, poor fans wouldn't have been subjected to a crime scene on that fateful Saturday morning.

So ttrpgs. Actions.

"Kyle, you see the goblin charging you with it's rusty dagger drawn. What do you do?"

"I swing my sword at it!" That's an action. There's implied intent. You're trying to hit it. But we can do better. How are you swinging your sword? What are you aiming at? Are you trying to kill it? Disarm it? Scare it away?

"I raise my spell tome and chant the dragon-tongue verse. Burning purple flames..." That's an action. That's a lot. We overshot it. There's nothing wrong with that, and some tables love that kind of flowery, verbose, narrative description. If that's your table, keep it going! If it's fun, keep doing it!

Yet, it doesn't HAVE to sound like that. You don't have emulate a ttrpg show where they're all professional voice actors and that's what they do. Their job is to sound like that.

Although it may be fun once in a while, it can also get tedious. Sometimes you just want to cast a spell and move on. That's ok, too.

"I roll to hit. 16?" Ok, this example...get that stuff outta here, now! Get out! Out!

So, actions: intent and approach. What and how. When you declare an action, you're describing to the person running the game what you're PC, your player character, is trying to accomplish, and you're describing how you're trying to accomplish it. And that's it.

Why's it important? If you just have an action, "I swing my sword" it might be difficult to determine what you're trying to do, which can make it difficult for the person running the game to assign odds, target numbers, or even resolve the action.

Swinging a sword's not too bad, but "I roll perception to check for traps" can be a little muddier. How are you checking for traps? Are you feeling the floor? Tapping stones with a pole? Pushing another PC in front of you?

Your approach might completely miss the trap altogether, or wind up in disaster. Or, it could perfectly reveal the trap to be disarmed. And if your action is always "I check for traps," and then you roll some dice, it could get boring pretty quickly.

"I'm throwing my powder in the air across the hall to see if it sticks to any wires that may be there. I think this place might be trapped."

Yes! Intent: checking for super thin trap wires. Approach: throwing powder. I can almost see the spy movie scene unfolding when the wires slowly become visible with a light coating of powder.

And you know what else, with intent and approach that well stated, they likely wouldn't even need to roll the dice, depending on your game system's rules. They would just find the trap wires, if there were any. But when to roll dice is a whole other topic...

"Can I roll this obscure stat instead of that one, because it's better for me?" That's actually not as bad as I'm making it out to seem. First, don't ask to roll dice. Just don't.

When you're playing your PC, you're describing what THEY do and how. There is no character sheet. No skills or abilities list. Just your PC in the fantasy world. Simply describe your intent and approach—your what and how. The person running the game will worry about the stats and whatnot. You just get in character and enjoy the world and adventure. Forget all the other sheet.

But that player WAS onto something: approach. "Can I roll this instead, because..." They knew they wanted to try something different because of their character's background. Because of their experience, and THAT'S good playing. Poor approach by the player (don't ask to roll dice), but good intent.

So our player thinks: "I know this might be an athletic situation, but I'm going to try to approach it from a Nature standpoint, because my PC's experience growing up on a farm would lend itself to corralling animals. So, I don't jump on the bull and grab it by the horns. Instead..."

And they say: "I wave my hands to the side to catch the bull's attention and show it towards the pen."

And there you have it, intent and approach. What and how.

How do you manage actions in your games? Short and snappy? Narrative descriptions? Click a button/playbook/moves? Something else!?