How realistic is Dungeons and Dragons combat?

hahahaha foolish bandit you think you can defeat me shadrick or versus he the mighty adventurer well sir i shall show you critical hit in the head dead that's how you must stay in the adjacent square um couple of questions first uh who are you this strange ethereal voice character sky you know i can't i don't know i don't see you the game master what is a game master basically i'm like you know the god of this world i control everything fair enough okay then our next question why do i have to stay in the adjacent five foot square i i technically didn't even step look look when i moved foot still there and hit uh why i don't like the rules what do you mean you don't make the rules you just said you're effectively the god of this world i am god of the kindness i'll change the rules what are you kidding me yeah sure like next time i give you a skill check or a savings for you just say i made it up you i try so hard at this you have no idea and you please just right back to my face without giving a proper gratitude at all do you need a mountain dew yes and now you have civils [Music] greetings i'm shad and it is table top time oh well wrong channel go check out tabletop time if you're interested in seeing me get up to some role-playing shenanigans which is very related to the topic of this video and that is how realistic is dungeons and dragons con combat but before we go there i want to let you know that you can actually get a free audio book i love audio books i've listened to them for ages well before they became a sponsor of this channel but now they are and they're sponsoring this video and seriously this is a great deal and it's just gotten a lot better because with the holidays upon us audible is offering a new membership plan for just 4.95 a month for the first six months and after that it's just 7.95 a month the retail cost of some of these audiobooks is 20 and sometimes 30 dollars but with the monthly credit you get with your audible subscription you can get 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checked that out well might i suggest dragons of autumn twilight the first book in the dragonlance series dragonlance in case you didn't know is based on dungeons and dragons fantasy it even has some of the classic dungeons dragon spells in the book with of course the classic fantasy races and what i say classic dragonlance is one of the grandfathers of you know modern classic medieval dnd fantasy by now it's absolutely awesome if you haven't tried it out or you can try for free now okay it's that simple just go to www.audible.com forward slash shadowversity or if you're in the u.s your text shadow diversity to 500-500 so thank you for audible for sponsoring this video so a very fair question to ask in regards to the context of this video is why i even bother why is this important because the rules as are for combat in dungeons dragons they obviously work and they've worked for many years and i know because i played dnd for ages started with first edition advanced under dragons 3.5 was my jam fourth edition i didn't even get into and i hear fifth edition is pretty darn good and so clearly it does the job what it needs to because this is a game it's not necessarily meant to reflect real life but there's an important caveat there and in regards to role-playing you are taking the role of an adventurer and you often like to act out what they're doing but even more so you like to think of creative unique ways to win against your opponents and in regards to combat that's actually a really fun satisfying thing to think of what if i did this to try and give myself an advantage to beat a difficult foe and it is profoundly disappointing when you think of something that logically in the real life you should be able to do you know the limits and lengths of your own physical abilities and especially for someone who might be even more physically inclined than you the adventurer you're role-playing we've all seen some olympic level athletes do some pretty amazing things so we know what a human of this level can generally do and if you think of something that is creative and you technically it should easily be able to be done in the real world and then you are denied because the rules simply don't allow it that is profoundly dissatisfying like massively so and i actually think there is a hole in the rules now i'm using dodgers dragons the primary point of reference and this is really just looking at d and d rules but having said that a lot of the limitations that i'll be pointing out here are reflective in a lot of other role-playing games and so it would make sense if i point out or give suggestions of ways to improve it to make tabletop role-playing game combat more realistic and therefore more satisfying to give more options to the players to think of creative ways to win against their opponents but thing is i've already done that i with my brother jazza you might know him from the youtube channel jazza have actually made our own role-playing game addressing many of the problems that we have found in classic role-playing games like dnd making combat more satisfying and realistic and so as the point of reference for certain improvements i probably will be actually referencing some of the rule examples that we have in cogent role play as an example of how things can be improved upon and you don't need to do it the way that we've done it in our own role-playing system but maybe as inspiration to make some homebrew rules for d d to fix up some of these holes or even in their own systems that you're doing okay so dungeon dragons from fundamentally functions are like that the adventurer has control of a five foot radius around them this technically means when you look at the rules specifically that no one can pass this area without encountering you and that that actually makes sense okay because i have pretty i can reach anywhere around me pretty quickly but when it comes to combat this is where things get a little interesting the dungeons and dragons combat rules state that if you're using a medium or even a large weapon that doesn't have reach you can only attack people who are in the adjacent five foot area to you or essentially five foot distance from you that's interesting now as someone who has studied a bit of swordplay throughout my life uh if i so i will use boromi here as an example and if i was to fight someone this close this is profoundly dangerous okay in actual fact when you're facing off against an opponent in swordplay specifically and this is before you actually get engaged in the bind or you're doing a movie because when you do that yes you can end up much closer like the five foot distance here but when you're just facing off opponents being ready to offend one another it's actually around ten foot like literally from here to here and just to point this out i will you know stand here okay and bring in a opposing version of myself just over in that square now if we're in this square and we lean forward a bit look how close our swords are coming to one another okay this is the area of danger as soon as you get this close suddenly not only can you hit them but they can hit you very quickly and so when you're facing off against an opponent this is actually the standard range that you usually operate in and so just in the basic stances of your opponents five foot adjacent is way too close in real life no no uh like i said it's actually more you know distance to ten feet the next oddity in the dungeon dragons rules is the uh rule that you can only attack opponents five feet away from you with weapons that don't have reach so let's let's just double check this and this is with a one-handed weapon not even a long sword which is longer if the dungeon and dragon's rules were more realistic they would actually allow you to attack opponents 10 feet away from you even if you don't have weapons with reach but what if you do have a weapon with reach all right i have a pole arm specifically my sword staff prop that i made for my video on the sword stuff okay uh it's an actual real weapon so first of all just without even moving yeah definitely i can hit strike the opponent 10 feet away what if i go an additional one foot and from here just lunging absolutely you can actually without moving out of you know well when i say out of okay i consider this a lunge and not necessarily a step i would say a step is when you actually step okay because your other the the back foot is not moving from position and when you lunge to strike your opponent hang on i didn't lunge far enough then but you can do it so lunge look at that so much easier right my foot didn't move by keeping this back foot planted i technically haven't moved out of that square but what about great swords because i have always made the contention that great swords in the dungeons dragons rules don't actually operate the way they do in real life real great swords are long okay particularly long and therefore should have the quality or the weapon characteristic of reach and like for just hitting people 10 feet away from you cake eases anything it has not even with much of a lean but what about the you know weapons that really have reached like the long sword stuff that i showed with that that could actually hit people 15 feet away from you well i think it can but this one is debatable because for me to reach you know that opponent i'm gonna have to have my back foot really on the edge of the square here and do a very large lean but i can absolutely strike him still keeping myself technically in this square so yeah i actually think great swords should definitely have reach especially if there are other weapons that have reached that of similar size like this is the length of standard spear okay it's not as long as the sword staff but the great sword is very close in length to this and yeah i could absolutely hit my opponent with this keeping my foot in this back square and so i think the actual ranges is that standard weapons can hit opponents 10 feet away from you and reach weapons can hit opponents 15 feet away from you i'm happy to acknowledge that that point can be debated a little if you interpret the rules to mean that you can't attack anyone without most of your body being in the adjacent square well then it's true when i'm using a weapon without reach and standing in the square 10 feet away i need to lunge moving most of my body into the square that is five foot away from the opponent to hit them even though i can plant my back foot and not move it out of the square that is ten feet away from the opponent but because most of my body is essentially in the square that is five foot away that could be interpreted to mean that i am technically in the square that is five foot away and not ten foot away from the opponent so i think that is a legitimate and fair argument but my point about being out of strike opponents ten foot away from you with weapons that don't have reach and not fully moving out of the square that is 10 foot away still stands there should be some type of allowance for adventurers that are using weapons without reach to hit opponents 10 foot away from you without technically moving out of that square that is 10 foot away and this then increases if the weapon has reached to 15 foot away from you because it literally physically can be done in the real world the next thing that i want to point out is how easy it is to move just five foot i mean it's not that when you're fighting you're like and now i'm here you can shift five foot distance with a single step that quickly and back and how quickly did that take it's like barely even a second right and so with that in mind i actually think moving to the adjacent square in a combat round should be a free action almost and when you attack someone even if you're say a square distance from them at 10 feet when you attack you have the option of either moving into the adjacent square or remaining in this square makes sense point of clarification in dungeons and dragons 3.5 you can move five feet as a free action to attack an opponent 10 feet away from you and not necessarily use up any of your movement distance but the point i'm making here is that you should have the freedom to remain in the square that was 10 feet away from you because you can attack people 10 feet away from you while keeping a foot in your starting position without actually having moved fully into the square closest to the combatant in dungeons and dragons fifth edition this is a little bit different when looking through the rules it really does seem like if you want to attack someone 10 feet away from you and remain in the same square from which you started you would need to move 5 foot closer to the opponent attack them and then 5 foot back to the square you started from using up 10 feet of your 30 foot movement distance in the round i was saying before if you are this close to your opponent it is a dangerous distance which is true but it's not to say you can't fight your opponent be in the bind even grapple and do things being this close no absolutely you can do it and you can switch around doing you know lots of different attacks right here okay and you can defend yourself adequately enough it's just a lot more difficult because it is so easy to hit your opponent right here but no you can engage in combat at that distance it's just when you are facing off before you get really close and start to do some actions the center distance and comfortable distance the measure in which you you know keep to your opponent is around this 10 foot and just while i think of it i generally prefer meters over feet uh i think feet is a little antiquated i know i'm such an elitist right but for a setting that's based around medieval like themes especially dungeon dragon something like that uh using feet and inches is far more appropriate because meters didn't exist back then and technically did feet really exist in the same way no they use different measurements about feeding is more appropriate it just fits a little better so that's why i'm perfectly fine in doing five foot ranges and stuff like that for this video because in the context of d d role playing games and all that stuff uh the next thing i want to point out is that whenever i change my kind of ensemble i do get a lot of questions as to where'd you get that shot yeah because sometimes people like it and you know the this new gambeson is from steel mastery i think it's pretty darn cool what that's why i got it option to remove sleeves and so when it's a blazing hot day like this i can remove the sleeves and wear something a bit more airy because you might also notice i'm wearing a fake chain mail printed shirt and pants and these are my own design you can actually i sell these you can get them through my teespring store i design them and print them on a full print t-shirt thing and for when it's really hot like this something like this is brilliant and it isn't a perfect analog of course doesn't compare to the real thing but the real thing is so darn heavy especially in weather like this i'd have heat stroke by now i'd be so exhausted and so it serves its purpose and i think it's really cool so if you're if you're interested chain mail print t-shirts pants also hoodies my teespring store link in the description and of course still mastery for the gamersen which is cool and as well audible the sponsor of this video as i mentioned because if you do the old one you can get something for free which is awesome all right then how would these realities actually come into you know the gameplay of the role-playing game itself and well what if you have a something barring your path that spans about five feet could be a small stream it could be a couple things in the way and the fact or notion that you can't still hit your opponent someone 10 feet away from you is contradicted by physical reality you can actually do it and so if the player says what if i just lean or reach really hard the answer saying are the rules don't allow it it's very unsatisfying because that's not what you can do in reality and i personally think game masters should always be open to having exceptions and rules for stuff like this that are just logical and to reward player creativity the next really odd thing about dungeon dragon's combat is the idea of the round order now technically a round is supposed to last six seconds and within that six seconds you can move 30 feet uh do an attack or an action it can vary and depending on what level you can actually get away with more attacks in the round first of all let's challenge the idea of moving 30 feet in six seconds so 30 feet would be 5 10 15 so i would get to this square and then 20 25 and 30 and that would be my range of motion in six seconds so let's listen one two three four five six oh so at a casual pace yes so i think that is actually mostly realistic and if you're sprinting you can move double the distance which works quite well but what doesn't work well is that the round operates in a successive order between whoever is engaged in the round so if i'm in this square and i move to attack and then move back to this square which is my full range of movement and a single attack well then technically i'm not standing here for another six seconds for my opponent to do whatever they're gonna do and then for the next person around to do what they're doing and so on and so forth and i'm just kind of standing here now i understand this is a gameplay mechanic and we see it in video games all the time but for role playing game you can do it in such a way in which it's not unrealistic it'll take too long to explain it in detail but just briefly the way that we've tackled it and say cogent role play is that everyone's actions happened at mostly the same time in the round and we do that by having a mechanic called the combat role and in your role you say what you're going to do which is going to technically happen at the same time other people do it and if you are lower on the initiative order opponents can say what they're going to do in response to what you're going to do at the same time to try and stuff up your actions because if they have high reflex they can react to what you're trying to do and that's one of the benefits of reflex and so if i wanted to jump on the table and my opponent has a higher reflex he could say i'm going to run to the table and flip it over and so all the players are technically declaring what they're doing in the say at the same time and then they do what is called a combat role which stands as their role for the entire round and against every other opponent's combat role and so even if i'm getting attacked by multiple opponents i don't need to make successive roles to adjust for them all combat role technically stands for your quality of actions throughout that entire space of time against everyone and it works really well we've played tested at heaps on tabletop time and is brilliant and as more realistic and satisfying as a result so instead of movement i hit you it's your turn you can try and hit me oh you missed my turn oh double hit ah haha now you're a bit more damaged your turn it plays out far more realistically but this isn't to say you should go check out cogent roleplay i i i suggest you do i think you'll get a kick out of it but it's also a way to demonstrate that it can be done more realistically in dnd and in any role playing system you might be developing fighting multiple opponents is a very interesting thing when you try and visualize how it must play out according to dungeon dragon's rules and it again comes off as very unrealistic and unsatisfying because if you have your primary opponent and say you know you're in the adjacent square and you attack them and then the other opponents are attacking you either you're standing there doing nothing and let it bouncing off your armor or if you do a more kind of interpretive way of looking at the armor class and so if they hit under 10 that would be a miss because the base armor class is 10 if you have a dexterity bonus if they hit within the range of your dexterity bonus you dodge and if they hit within the range of your armor as it goes up it would bounce off the armor and so there are interpretive ways you could be doing this you could be doing that trying to dodge but with how long the rounds could technically play out because every single person's move should by the rules stand for six seconds it just comes off feeling very janky and awkward and it's always kind of annoyed me that you couldn't just do one wide sweep and try and hit multiple opponents around you and look you can do it with certain feats in dungeons and dragons but even a noob who should be able to just do a wide slash to offend a wider area and so again this is one of those things that logically you should be able to do even if you're a level one noob but the rules say you can't which is annoying a point of reference that i'll now demonstrate from cogent role play and again this is just an example to perhaps give you inspiration but also to show you that the system that my brother and i made actually works really well is that your single combat role for the round if it is higher than a certain number of opponents that are attacking you you can technically damage them if your combat role was high enough regardless of your level and this very much depends on your opponent's combat role because they're all kind of rolled to kind of play out at the same time there are exemptions when things have to play kind of one after the other but everything essentially tries to play at the same time which makes the round dynamic and also the descriptive way of just the role play really engaging and fun and so if you get a really high combat role and this opponent and your two other opponents got really low combat roles the points where you get what's called a an advent or victory level and depending on the victory level you can choose to trip to damage to do any number of things so you could say if you've got enough of an advantage against all your opponents to trip them all up you could say all right because you've got a high enough roll then you can say add the descriptive kind of element to it which gives you really engaged in the role play you could say you just went down you did this wide sweep knocking at all your opponent's feet and afraid of the blade they either jumped not tangled over or you hit with the flat and you knocked them all over in that single round with one action and so this single combat role can actually be applied to multiple actions in the round and it plays out awesomely oh and just the important caveat that i was demonstrating from cogent role play is that uh if your combat role was only better than say this opponent and your two other guys beat your own combat role then you can adjust the descriptive way in which you describe how the round played out or the game master gets to do it but you can say you got a really good strike against this opponent but because your role wasn't high enough to say damage these guys they're attacking you but say they didn't get high enough to do a victory level against you so again you described in the narrative saying you're able to dodge move around or duck the opponents or after you attack you're able to sweep down and block and so it becomes a far more narrative driven type of role-playing and it's a lot of fun i kind of jumped the gun a little bit because jazza and i were intending on announcing this a little bit later but because it integrates so well with the subject of this video it's too much of an opportunity to let pass by and it's that jazza and i have been working on something really huge we will be rolling out the beta of cogent role play in the most cool awesome way than i think anyone is expecting when jazza and i revisited cogent we both realized how great a rule system it really is it is so simple and streamlined yet satisfies even the most demanding of role players to give you all the options and tools you need to do anything you want and that flexibility is held within a simple versatile and structured rules system that is really satisfying so much so that we kind of feel this could be the role-playing game of the next generation and there are a number of things that we've always focused on making it as accessible as possible and one of the big things that we've done from the very get-go even with the alpha release is that we've always made the call rulebook completely free and now we have devoted hundreds of hours and spent thousands of dollars on making it even more accessible than ever before and we are actually developing an app an actual app where which will have the entire cogent rulebook completely for free and so you can go to the rules and everything is here you can go to um you know the challenge levels get all the information that you need and this is just the scratch of the surface we plan to integrate dynamic character sheets cross rinsing so you can just if you need to look up a rule one you know touch and bang it'll take you to where what rule you need you'll be able to make all the roles that you need to in the game through the app is also you could play the whole game with this app and we're going to be making it available completely for free there's a little bit more polishing that needs to be done on it okay and we want your help in rolling out the beta of cogent role play and so if you're interested in giving it a go the alpha rule book is still available at cogentrollplay.com you can go download it for free get involved in the community we're launching a cogent role play discord server where you can give us feedback and updates and how you're going and we can also test things with you for the rollout of the beta that's also going to be coming out on the app as well and so this is hugely exciting sign up for updates at cogentrollplay.com as well and make cogent role play possibly could we one of the best most accessible versatile dynamic tabletop role-playing game systems in the world and so there we go and as you've probably been able to tell let me just get that in there uh i have one or two pet peeves with the dungeon dragons combat system but this is not to say that the system doesn't work it does okay and i'm not saying that every rule should be thrown out and even though i was giving a comparison to other role-playing systems that i feel address the things that you can do you know in the kind of what could a person actually do in these situations i feel it does address it better i think there are some little small tweaks that you can give to the d d rule system to make it work a little bit better like the range in which you can actually hit opponents how it addresses multiple opponents and turn order is always a tricky one but as i said i'm not saying you should throw out all the rules okay and it's a game you'll have fun with it regardless but you know i think giving more options to the players to being out giving them the option to be able to explore all the possibilities that should logically be available to their characters is a really good move and so this is just kind of like i said a bit of a demonstration to show some of their weaknesses and bit of holes here and there of how realistic the dungeon dragons combat system really is so thank you for watching i hope you have enjoyed and of course i hope to see you on the next video on shadowversity so until that time [Music] farewell [Music] you

Channel: Shadiversity

Views: 661,078

Keywords: dungeons and dragons, dnd, d&d, combat, round rpg, roleplaying, role playing, pen and paper, tabletop, game, video, fantasy, medieval, adventure, adventurer, knight, knights, sword, swords, miniature, warhammer, gaming

Id: UPBYRJUYPRU

Length: 27min 43sec (1663 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/moreat10]

Can you summarise for those of us who don't have 27 minutes to sit around and watch the video?

[u/The-Silver-Orange]

I quite like Shad, but he sure can waffle. Saying the same four different ways to make sure you get the point.

[u/BlueFenixPC]

His early points about reach seem to have merit and there is an obvious argument to be had that combatants want to engage in advantageous situations, the greater distance so you are safer while threatening your opponent.

The point about how the limitations of the rules are not the same as physical real world limitations feeling disappointing also has merit. If I, a not very athletic human can lunge and hit a target, or with a quick jump hop a decent stream without falling in, why couldn't my 8ft. tall barbarian Goliath not be able to beat an Olympic long jumper even easier.

His later on ramble about how the initiative system in D&D says that each turn is 6 seconds is just wrong, the entire round takes place in 6 seconds. PCs/monsters aren't taking their turn, attacking moving, and then waiting as time passes by isn't how it is done, but the system doesn't have a system he suggests that everyone declares actions in order before dice are rolled to counter peoples actions.

Considering everything, I agree it's not realistic, but I agree even more so with his own first point, the game has existed for decades with these rules and it has worked so very well that there doesn't need to be these great change.

Final conclusion, Shad makes some good points but needs an editor who can trim some of his ramblings/correct factual errors.

[u/GreaterHorniedApe]

How realistic is D&D combat? Not very if you just look at the bare rules. It's a set of rules to try and make a balanced turn-based minigame, set inside a larger narrative game. But the narrative context is an important part.

I found the first 10 minutes of the video too annoying to finish tbh. Messing with the rules all the time, it's worse then the Free Parking rule on Monopoly: you never know what game you're playing damn it.

Combat in 5eis both simultaneous and turn based. First 10 seconds of the video isn't a good advert for it because the attacked creature is static. The narrative aspect of the game means that the defender tries to avoid the hit (AC isn't just armor it includes dex to dodge an attack). The implication is the defender steps back within his 5ft square, drawing the attacker into the adjacent square fully, and then as the attacker recovers from the swing they are open to an opportunity attack if they step back into the original square.

Combat is both simultaneous and turn based, so at the same time but slightly ahead or behind the action (based on initiative order) the defender also takes their turn. They may have already moved and, being higher in initiative, seen your initial moves and be ready for the attack, or be about to move moments afterwards to flank and make an attack themselves. The narrative implication is the defender is a dynamic body, and has their own mind and goals potentially unknown to the attacker. This limits your total freedom of action somewhat (Reactions do it explicitly). Again, because this is a feature of this narrative game as a whole, it's not reasonable to 'kite' in melee unless you have character features that allow it. That's why the opportunity attack rules and bonus action disengage features exist. Describe what you like, as cool as you like, but if you were close enough to attack with a melee weapon then stepping back to make space always puts you in a vulnerable position (unless you have Features).

Meh. It's all in how you describe it, I don't see the point is wasting turns on sparring just narrate the sparring for flavor as part of the Action.

[u/LegitimateCoffee]

If you were to take a look at HEMA sparring matches, it certainly looks to me like the combatants are within 5ft of each other during the heat of the engagement. It makes me think that Shad is confusing touching with hitting. A hit represents more than just physical contact, it represents a strong blow that overcomes the opponents defenses and draws blood. Standing far away from your opponent and trying to tag them is hardly going to give you many opportunities to meaningfully hurt someone who is not looking to get a sword in their chest.

Also, can't Battlemaster Fighters make lunging attacks? 5e's stinginess with maneuvers aside, you can hit someone 10ft away with an arming sword.

[u/NODOGAN]

Anyone got a summary? the "how realistic" title in an imaginary game with monsters, magic & super-powers really doesn't catch my interest.

[u/medium_buffalo_wings]

His entire premise seems to ignore the fact that the characters can move. His example of attacking further than 5 feet away involves him moving to do just that.

I'm not entirely sure what his point is. The rules do exactly what he is complaining about already.

[u/geomn13]

Simple response. The area that a creature controls represents the area that it can hit and do a damaging strike without moving from a single spot. If you include movement into the attack without moving from the square to increase reach then mechanically you are effectively describing the Lunging Attack battlemaster maneuver.

[u/TheOnlySir_Scribbles]

Are we ignoring that to make the 5 foot lunge, the majority of his body leaves his current square? He is really stretching in this video, literally and figuratively. Also his point that most sword fights don't happen within 5ft of each other because it's dangerous, but to actually do any damage you have to come closer, which he admits. Yeah no, he's wrong here.