Simplifying Dungeons and Dragons Combat

Combat in D&D can take forever to get through. If you don't get to play for long (I run a campaign every week but we only play for 2 hours) then your classic Kobold Caravan Attack might just eat up all of your time.

My group enjoys the story elements of D&D so I came up with a way that allows everyone to use all of their spells and cool gear with minimal dice rolling.

Our first and only step that matches the rules as written is to get your players to roll to attack.

Player

• Choose what you're attacking
• Choose your weapon
• Roll 1d20 and add your modifiers

Now comes the funky bit. Your player just rolled an 8 to hit one of those darn Kobolds. With an AC of 12 this attack isn't going to do anything.

But wait...

Even a level 1 character is vastly more skilled in combat than some untrained farmhand. They are unlikely to miss a strike, right? So I reckon this Kobold is gonna get injured.

When the roll isn't too far from the AC I will reduce the enemy to half hit points. Maybe the player missed a lunge for the heart, but they did sever an arm.

When they roll the AC or higher (in this case 12), our intrepid adventurers will outright kill the poor Kobold.

But if their roll is below half the enemies AC, they're out of luck. This results in no damage being done, and they might even provoke an attack.

(high quality drawing)

When you set up an encounter with big enemies, it wouldn't make sense for them to be taken out by one arrow to the chest.

We're still going to judge how much damage is done based on the roll, but it's going to vary in severity.

Below half AC - You miss. "The troll notices you trying to slash at it's ankles and tries to sweep you with it's foot."

Near AC - You hit and do a bit of damage. "Opening the Achilles tendon, the troll roars in pain." It loses 20% of it's health. If this attack was done near the end of the fight, this could be the final blow that brings the troll to it's knees.

Just above AC - This hit does maybe 40% damage to the troll. "Your sword plunges deep into the calf of the troll, sending blood shooting out across the battlefield."

Critical Hit- Early in a fight, a roll of 20 could do 50% damage. But after a while, rolling a crit will allow the player to do a Finisher. I let my players describe how they want to kill the enemy in as much gruesome detail as they like.

For small enemies, I generally roll their attack on the same die. I decide a bit of strategy for the group (i.e. the barbarian just killed the chief, the rest of the Kobolds are going to want revenge and all attack them) and see if the roll is high enough.

If the roll would hit, I use the average damage as shown in the Monster Manual and the player will lose that much HP. If it misses then the players won't take any damage.

But maybe the troll slams it's fist into the ground where the Rogue just was. There's still going to be some effect to the player, whether that be getting knocked down or the dust filling the air disorients them slightly.

And remember as the DM, if you don't want the Druid with 1HP to die, you can make the numbers up.

For big, fun spells I'll get the player (or a spell casting NPC) to roll all of the dice.

If you party's Wizard wants to cast fireball with a level 5 spell slot, they want to see the damage they will do. Let them roll 10d6 and watch the chaos unfold.

It's always fun rolling huge amounts of dice, and if they all land on 6? Everyone at the table is gonna go nuts.

So what we've done is nearly eliminated all of the dice rolling and HP tracking in D&D combat.

This speeds up combat as there is less maths to do for all involved and your players generally just need 1d20 to do anything they need.

It's not pure and does remove the allure of collecting equipment, but by doing this your loot can have more magical effects instead of a simple +3 to hit.

Hopefully you found this helpful and use some of my ideas to change how you run combat encounters in your own game.