So, everyone says that 4e was a step in this direction already, but I’m talking about a house rule that can be applied to any edition of D&D to make it feel more like the Baldur’s Gate/D&D Heroes type games on consoles. It’s a simple rule, and it might not work (I haven’t had a chance to playtest it), but I have a feeling it might be the most satisfying in 4e, ironically. Here’s the rule:
All attacks automatically hit until a creature falls below a certain hit point threshold.
I think the threshold should depend on the average damage caused by a hit from a party member, and in 4e it could conveniently be divvied up by tier. So, let’s say 10 hp at heroic, 15 hp at paragon, and 20 hp at epic.
This rule fits in well with 4e’s focus on gamism (to use the trite GNS term). Why shouldn’t all meaningless attacks from the PC’s hit? After all, doing something is always preferable to not doing something, and it even might throw a little bone to those who want combat to be more descriptive rather than coldly mechanical (*raises hand*). After all, if you know you’re going to hit, you can worry less about fiddly bonuses and crap and give more attention to describing exactly what you want to do.
DM’s already give subtle hints to their players about the condition of their enemies, and doing so strategically can be a way for the DM to subtly weight a fight in the players’ favor without seeming like a deus ex machina. You know, if the PC’s are struggling, they’ll usually benefit from focusing attacks on a creature that’s about to go down, so it can’t attack them any more. This system is more explicit about it…if the DM is calling for an attack roll, then you know the creature is close to a goner.
The downside to applying this to 4e is that lots of the powers in 4e have to do with giving bonuses on attack rolls to your fellows. Those, obviously, would have to change or simply be avoided. An easy fix would just be to apply the same bonus to damage instead.
Damage would be the variable component, so all die rolling wouldn’t be taken out of the equation. You could even simulate the excitement of a critical hit by making damage dice explosive: if the player rolls the highest number on the die, he gets to re-roll that die and add the result to the original roll. This has the added benefit of making such hits more common the more [W]’s you have. Since those are most often Encounter or Daily powers, making them more exciting is never a bad thing.
Then, of course, landing that final blow would actually require a successful attack roll. Because of this, those “grant a bonus on attack rolls” powers might actually still be useful. In that case, how about we just flat out add bonus damage to them equal to the attack bonus? Or make them an either/or case…”you grant your allies a bonus on attack or damage rolls equal to X until the end of your next turn,” etc.
Another benefit to this system is it would alleviate some of the grind that many 4e players have experienced with the game. Combats will be quicker because damage will be meted out more efficiently, and since quick, non-deadly combats are the goal of the 4e ruleset it’s just getting rid of some of the middle man (in 4e’s case, healing surges). This system should allow even more combats in a single adventuring day.
You could also modify the system to say that a certain class of creature…solo, elite, boss…always had to be hit with a roll. That would add a sense of trepidation in the first player who started planning his damage roll only to have the DM say, “wait a minute…gimme a roll.” 
Whaddya think?
11:52 pm on December 29th, 2008 1
I think I’d just buy a game and play it on my computer or console. Since video games are so easy to get, why simulate one tabletop? As for grind, any tabeltop system that makes combat feel like a grind is doing it wrong :/ I haven’t tried 4E yet (everyone here is still 3.5) and the more I hear, the more I think that’s only to my benefit.
11:55 pm on December 29th, 2008 2
That sounds like a ton of fun! My campaign is grim and gritty and full of PC incompetence, so it wouldn’t fit with the mood, but if I were running my standard high-fantasy smashfest I’d definitely want to give this rule a whirl. I might try to work it into a one-shot at some point.
My only qualm is that combat could get boring if you spend the first several rounds doing nothing but rolling damage.. but if you have players who want to describe their attacks, it would be great. (Another reason this wouldn’t work with my group - I tried to get them to play Wushu, and one guy hated it because “There are only so many ways you can describe hitting something with a big sword.” Sigh.)
I wonder if you could alter this for less heroic games, to give the monsters more of a fighting chance while keeping the streamlined, videogame-y feel. Maybe up monster damage, so PCs have to take them down faster or risk getting clobbered themselves?
12:13 am on December 30th, 2008 3
@Viriatha: I don’t want to touch that argument, but I will say that I think you’re lucky.
@Swordgleam: If I was going to run any more 4e, this is definitely how I’d run it. In my Keep on the Shadowfell game I already houseruled Daily powers to autohit, because nothing sucks as bad as missing with a Daily (the base rules should have Dailies at least not be wasted on a miss, if not be autohit). The players loved it, because they knew that their Daily was always in their back pocket to be pulled out in truly dire circumstances…it’s like it gave Dailies a whole new dimension.
I hear you on the qualm, but I think you’ve solved it…the players have to get more interactive. The point of the rule isn’t to address boring players, though, it’s meant to smooth out combat. I *guess* some people enjoy the thrill of missing with attacks in combat, but in 4e a miss is much more frustrating than in previous editions, especially with an Encounter or Daily power. Not only did you just waste a cool power, but you’re also farther behind the grind, because hit points are so high in 4e. I mean, if every hit deals X damage and even the worst opponent has 7x hit points, every miss is just a few more minutes of real time wasted trying to take down a goblin warrior.
12:48 am on December 30th, 2008 4
I think the problem there is that time that the enemy spends alive shouldn’t be “wasted.” The goblin is still alive, and he just ran behind a rock that gives him cover. Or called for reinforcements. Or set the building on fire. If everyone is standing in static lines smashing at each other, then yeah, it’s going to feel like a grind if it takes 7 hits to take down a goblin. Something should happen each combat round whether anyone hits or not, be it enemies moving around, things happening in the environment, or even just one player making their save vs death roll.
Agree with you on missing with the Dailies. Our fighter loves using brute strike, but it misses every time. It’s reliable, so he gets to try again.. and miss again. And again. That’s just his luck.
1:54 am on December 30th, 2008 5
Hey, can I add that as the “Propagandroid Rule” on my massive house rules article on my blog? It seems like a very fine addition.
My favorite houserule for combat though is “Target Turn”. I LIKE the suspense of rolling for attack, and wouldn’t change that. What I tend to do is combine damage averaging (with a Daily max addendum) with a Target Turn houserule – so if you hit, you always roll average damage, or max damage with your dailies, and after a certain turn has passed, something will happen to speed up the fight if it isn’t won yet. Makes those less important combats still somewhat tense, but you know if it slogs too bad it’ll be cleared away.
House rules article in question is here: http://spiritsofeden.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/wyatts-4e-houserules/
7:47 am on December 30th, 2008 6
Um. No, that’s not for me, thank you. I can see why it would fit in some groups and styles of play and that’s cool, but my gut feeling (and I have a rather large gut) is that this would make the first part of combat less fun, and the second part of combat more random, while at the same time causing more house rulesry and complications that I want to think about mid-game. What about area effect attacks? What about Powers that explicitly grant a bonus to hit? What about Power Attack-like Feats that allow the player to reduce their chance to hit but increase their damage? If you’re auto-hitting, Feats like those become meaningless opportunities to meta-game, and that’s never a good thing. What about tactical play that encourages players to use Aid Another or Warlord’s Powers to improve chances to hit a slippery foe? Heck, what about Marking?
Just strikes me as a rather large change to solve a small problem; if you want to encourage players to actually role-play their combats then award generous attack and damage bonuses if they do so. Anything from +2 to +10 is good, with the occasional “Wow! Ok, you auto-hit this round!” tossed in for good measure.
Thought provoking, but sorry, not for me.
8:56 am on December 30th, 2008 7
“the base rules should have Dailies at least not be wasted on a miss, if not be autohit”
I’m pretty sure that all the Daily Powers have some (lesser) effect even on miss.
10:17 am on December 30th, 2008 8
While I realize that the whole point was to be more like a video game, my mind just can’t get past the fact that this would make monsters easier to hit when they are fresh and more difficult to hit after they have taken a beating.
12:11 pm on December 30th, 2008 9
I can’t say that I would ever use this rule. Auto-hits until a certain hp amount makes no sense to me. You start every combat as a master swordsman, completely unable to miss anything that comes at you, but the second you see a little blood you forget all of your training and are now capable of missing?
If you want auto-hits, then it should either be an all-or-nothing setup, or it should be rewards that the players receive for special actions or RP that they do.
Even in video games you are able to miss your attacks. Static hits and damage belong in games like chess where you want to know the exact outcome of your choices.
There’s nothing stopping your players from describing their actions in detail with rolling for their hits, and you only thing you actually gain from auto-hitting is the time it takes to roll a die. You can describe your miss just as easily as you can a hit, and it’s no harder to describe a near (or far) miss than it is a solid hit. Adding misses in there actually adds some flavor to it.
Unfortunately, I don’t really have any solid suggestions for making it feel more like a video game. Use of Power Cards might get you a little closer as you’re not constantly referring to your character sheet and what have you, but I don’t know that you gain much ground that way either.
While 4e is similar to a video game in many respects, it’s still a ttRPG, and as has been mentioned before, you’ll notice that a lot of video games are actually becoming more like D&D than the other way around. What we are beginning to see here most recently is more a merging of the two as you can see in the many similarities between D&D and World of Warcraft. One of the biggest differences between D&D and video games in the past was that VG’s typically offered a way to insta-heal such as sleeping in inns/tents or using special items or locations for the same; this has now been psuedo-simulated via use of Healing Surges.
The only thing that really sets the two apart now, other than the obvious of one being imagination based and the other visual, is save points and/or the option to pick back up where you left off when you died. Typically if your D&D character dies, then he’s dead for good unless you have the insane gold to resurrect them.
Looks like I found my suggestion after all. There you go! If you want to make D&D more like a video game, then allow your characters to resurrect themselves free of charge. Instead of making them pay gold to come back to life, give them the option of either losing experience, taking ability score penalties for a time, or taking an experience penalty for X Encounters or until a certain amount of experience has been missed.
12:17 pm on December 30th, 2008 10
@Wyatt: Feel free to add the rule to your compilation. I’d also suggest you take a look at the House Rules compiled over at the Gamer Dome Wiki for inclusion, as there are some good ones there as well.
@Greywulf: Keep in mind that while I wandered off into 4e land quite a bit, this house rule could be used with any version of D&D. Each might have its own problems to deal with, but it’s not all about marking and “my butt spotlight gives you +2 bonus to hit” type powers.
@Josh: Sure, it would definitely do that. Another way to look at it would be that it makes the first part of combat about players using their cool powers to maximum effect and the second part of combat tense and unpredictable…creating a climax effect of sorts.
12:21 pm on December 30th, 2008 11
@Psynister: Good input. No doubt this house rule, like all rules, wouldn’t be for everyone. And I’m not even sure it’s for me, since I haven’t playtested it. Your suggestion would certainly make D&D more like a video game as well.
1:22 pm on December 30th, 2008 12
Well, I suppose I would have to ask the question, “Why do you want to make 4E like a video game?” While many comparisons have been made between games like World of Warcraft and 4E Dungeons and Dragons, it’s still two separate types of experiences. While I enjoyed WoW (while I was still playing it), the lack of the ability for a player to contribute to the creativity of the experience eventually put a damper on it for me.
A table top RPG, on the other hand, lends itself to creativity and a social experience you don’t get talking to people through a headset. Even a game as codified as 4E D&D will give you that.
Good post (and excellent feedback from the previous posters), but I’ll keep my video gaming and table-top gaming separate.
1:19 pm on December 31st, 2008 13
[...] a 4 hour game involved one 2-hour combat session (no wonder I got bored?) But on the other hand, The Gamer Dome recently posted ideas for making 4E more like a video game. He said one advantage of this idea was: [...]
7:31 pm on June 21st, 2009 14
We recently dove into the D&D 4e system after trying out a couple other RPG systems. In our first encounter we spent 3 hours just waving our swords around some hostiles. Most rolls required a 15 or higher, so we were doing essentially nothing well over 80% of the time (we were rolling really poorly as well). Everyone completely tapped their limited-use powers with no effect. The enemies weren’t having much more luck than we were.
What’s the point of playing for 3 hours if nothing happens? Coming from a system where you *hit* 80% of the time, this felt like the battle that never ended. We’re trying to find a way to fix this problem because if we don’t, the adventure is probably dead in the water.
So thanks for this suggestion. It will give some clout when presenting it to the DM.
11:42 pm on June 30th, 2009 15
[...] have to spiral out of control like they have in recent years. Second, missing attack rolls sucks, as I talked about previously. I would much rather have characters hit most of the time and worry about describing the coolness [...]