House Rules to Simplify/Speed up Combat

[kjandreano]

I was wondering what sort of House Rules GMs out there have to simplify / speed up Hero System combat.

 

[Cloppy Clip]

I'm not sure if this would count as a full house rule, but one thing that's helped us is putting the rules aside if we don't care too much about the result. HERO has a lot of rules to resolve almost any situation you can imagine, but if everybody's happy to agree on an answer we can just go with that instead of rolling it out. So if somebody takes a big hit we might say they get knocked back "this far" rather than rolling for knockback properly. If somebody disagrees we can always use the rules to decide what it should really be, but a lot of the time nobody cares enough about whether it should be 14m or 16m or what have you. This means we tend to spend more time on the parts of a fight the players are invested in, which keeps the game flowing and people's enthusiasm up.

 

That said, that's more ignoring the rules than a house rule per se. I'd be interested to hear what tweaks people have made to the game.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Make a hit list and stick to it, list everyone in order of dex and speed.  I used to use the GSPC combat program and it worked like a charm, but I am guessing the newer programs are even better.

[Duke Bushido]

Mook Sweeps.

 

There is a really interesting thread on this topic from a year or so ago (I think it was a year).

 

If I can find it I will link it.

 

 

[Rich McGee]

6 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Mook Sweeps.

 

There is a really interesting thread on this topic from a year or so ago (I think it was a year).

 

If I can find it I will link it.

 

 

Is this thread what you're thinking of?

[Duke Bushido]

5 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

Is this thread what you're thinking of?

 

It Actually isn't, but it is a pretty solid one;  thanks!

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah there are tricks to make fights with agents/goblins/mooks faster and easier.

 

The classic is to assign each one a number of hits they can sustain before they drop: 1-2 for the regulars, 3 for the sergeant types.  No matter how hard the hit is, they take two hits, they drop. 

And don't let bad guys recover unless they are important or have a role to play.  Once they go down, they stay down.

Treat stuns as knockouts for all but important enemies.

No power pool changes unless you have the powers written up in advance.

If someone can't figure out what to do in 30 seconds, they hold and go to the next on the hit list until they figure out what to do.

 

Really familiarity with the system is the biggest key: if everyone knows their character and what they are doing, it goes smoother and quicker.

[LoneWolf]

I have to agree with only allowing prewritten powers for any VPP.  That is the only way I will allow a character to VPP that can be changed during combat.

 

The best way to speed up combat is for the GM to be organized.   Having the needed information on the combatants so you don’t have to go digging around for it when something takes a hit is a good start.  Using tools to do much of the work can also speed things up.   Spreadsheets and small programs to handle the details can be a valuable resource.  
 

[Hugh Neilson]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

And don't let bad guys recover unless they are important or have a role to play.  Once they go down, they stay down.

Treat stuns as knockouts for all but important enemies.

 

I personally dislike "different rules for PCs", but my equivalent is that the NPCs are generally far less committed (stubborn?) than PCs. Recovered with 4 STUN after PS12?  Glance around;  looks bad for our side?  Time to slip away, not rejoin the fight.

 

It's hard to say how to speed it up without knowing what is slowing it down.  Players struggle with adding up all those dice?  Standardize some at 3.5 STUN and 1 BOD (best to knock off even numbers of dice) and only leave a few to roll. 

 

Player struggles with changing OCV/DCV?  Put a list of common configurations together (max OCV, Max DCV and standard use of each typical power or maneuver.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I personally dislike "different rules for PCs", but my equivalent is that the NPCs are generally far less committed (stubborn?) than PCs.

 

Sure, you can define it however you want, but in the source material, when mooks go down, they stay down.  Are they playing possum so Mr Terrific doesn't punch them in the teeth again?  Do they creep away into the night?  Whatever.  They aren't getting back up to keep fighting, and this simulates that effect.

[DentArthurDent]

We kicked around the idea of combining the “to hit” roll with the damage roll.  Make your to hit roll by 2 and do 2 points per damage die.

We never used it in game (It’s too much fun rolling 14 dice.) (It’s also more fun collecting all those dice.) but it would speed things up quite a bit.

[Rich McGee]

17 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Really familiarity with the system is the biggest key: if everyone knows their character and what they are doing, it goes smoother and quicker.

Think that's a truism in every game system.  Can't count the number of times I've people grousing about crazy long combats in System X taking up the whole session when I was in a campaign of the same game that had run a while and our combat completion times were half what theirs were.  Familiarity counts for a lot - not just with the system, but with your team/party/squad.  When you know what everyone's abilities are from experience it's a lot easier to decide what you need to be doing on any given turn to work like a well-oiled combat machine.

[Hugh Neilson]

I recall looking at a Supers game years back where combat seemed really long and realizing that, if I reduced every villain's defenses by about 10 and added 3 DCs to their attacks, combat would go a lot quicker.

 

If your game features 12d6 attacks and 30 - 35 defenses (no one likes being stunned or one-punched), combat will take a long time.  Take the villains designed on the same model, bump their attacks to 15d6 (so they average another 10 or so STUN) and drop their defenses to 20-25 (so they also take about 10 or so more stun) and combat will go faster.

 

How many average hits will it take to KO an opponent?  That number will drive length of combat.

[LoneWolf]

In all honesty I don’t want combat to be simplified.  If that is what I am looking for I will play a different game.  The reason I play the Hero System is I like the tactical flexibility of the system.  I don’t want the game reduced to roll to hit, and damage.  I want to be able to dodge and block and perform risky high damaging strikes and all the other things that Hero System allows. That being said speeding up combat is a completely different issue.   To me that is what people should be focusing on.   Since the math seems to be the main thing that slows down combat speeding that up is where we should be focusing.     

 

Rolling dice and figuring the results seems to be one of the biggest time traps in the game.  Working with larger numbers usually slows down people's calculations.  For most people it is easier to figure out 7-5 than it is 37-12.   When you add in multiple steps it gets even worse.   Rearranging some of the formulas can speed things up.  The formula to figure out the odds of hitting is OCV +11 – DCV, but if we change it to OCV- DCV +11 it will speed thing up for most people.  For example, if I have an OCV of 15 and my opponent has a DCV of 12.  Using the traditional formula, you get 11+15 =26, 26-12=14.  Using the one I suggest you have 15-12=3, 3+11=14.   The end result is the same, but you are using smaller numbers.  If your players have had a few drinks or are tired helps even more.

 

How you count dice can also speed things up.  Figuring out the BODY does not need to be complicated.  Just roll the dice and ignore everything but 1 and 6.  Count the entire die that have 1 or 6 and find the difference.  If there are more 1 subtract that amount from the number of dice you rolled, if there are more 6 add it.  After that start sorting the dice in groups that equal 10.  For example, pair a 6 with a 4 and set those slightly apart.  Continue doing so until you have nothing left that can be added together to equal 10, and then count the rest. Now you simply count the number of groups and add the last result.

 

When dealing with the targets DEF a way to speed it up is to count out the targets DEF and then count what goes over.   This can be combined with the method above.  Doing this you would still sort the die in groups of 10 until you get to near the targets DEF and then use individual die to equal the DEF.  After this count the remaining and that is what the target takes.   For example, if the target has 12 DEF and took a 10d6 attack, pull off 12 (probably a group of 10 and a die with 2), then start grouping the remainder of the die by groups of 10.  Count the groups by 10 and add the remaining die.

 

Many of you are already doing these things, but someone new to the system might not be.  This sounds complicated but in reality, it is very simple.  This works best if all the stats are known to both player and GM.  If you GM likes to keep the stats of your opponents a mystery or is using some other method for combat it does not work as well, or the GM needs to do all the work.    
 

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

In all honesty I don’t want combat to be simplified.  If that is what I am looking for I will play a different game.  The reason I play the Hero System is I like the tactical flexibility of the system.  I don’t want the game reduced to roll to hit, and damage.  I want to be able to dodge and block and perform risky high damaging strikes and all the other things that Hero System allows. That being said speeding up combat is a completely different issue.   To me that is what people should be focusing on.   Since the math seems to be the main thing that slows down combat speeding that up is where we should be focusing.    

 

True.  If the goal was to simplify it, toss a coin.  Heads we win, tails we lose

Or make it a skill check - "well, you guys are quite a bit tougher, so you win on a 14-".

 

Added granularity slows down combat. 1e D&D (just stand there toe to toe) was a lot simpler, but a lot less fun.

 

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

Rolling dice and figuring the results seems to be one of the biggest time traps in the game.  Working with larger numbers usually slows down people's calculations.  For most people it is easier to figure out 7-5 than it is 37-12.   When you add in multiple steps it gets even worse.   Rearranging some of the formulas can speed things up.  The formula to figure out the odds of hitting is OCV +11 – DCV, but if we change it to OCV- DCV +11 it will speed thing up for most people.  For example, if I have an OCV of 15 and my opponent has a DCV of 12.  Using the traditional formula, you get 11+15 =26, 26-12=14.  Using the one I suggest you have 15-12=3, 3+11=14.   The end result is the same, but you are using smaller numbers.  If your players have had a few drinks or are tired helps even more.

 

We had a player years back who was very math-challenged.  We built a grid.  3-18 on one axis (what he rolled), and a spread of possible OCVs based on his character's abilities on the other.  The grid set out the maximum DCV he would hit.

 

 

The 10s trick is so ingrained I don't even think to suggest it any more. Our math-challenged player buddied up for counting.

 

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

When dealing with the targets DEF a way to speed it up is to count out the targets DEF and then count what goes over.   This can be combined with the method above.  Doing this you would still sort the die in groups of 10 until you get to near the targets DEF and then use individual die to equal the DEF.  After this count the remaining and that is what the target takes.   For example, if the target has 12 DEF and took a 10d6 attack, pull off 12 (probably a group of 10 and a die with 2), then start grouping the remainder of the die by groups of 10.  Count the groups by 10 and add the remaining die.

 

Keeping defenses evenly divisible by 10 makes this a lot easier. Divisible by 5 is an option; a bit tougher.

 

Actually, if you really want to reduce adding dice, focus your game less on defenses and more on damage negation!

 

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

Many of you are already doing these things, but someone new to the system might not be.  This sounds complicated but in reality, it is very simple.  This works best if all the stats are known to both player and GM.  If you GM likes to keep the stats of your opponents a mystery or is using some other method for combat it does not work as well, or the GM needs to do all the work.  

 

Typically, the GM will be among the most familiar with the system, so that helps. The GM can also implement tricks that players need not follow, like using averages for most dice in an attack so the villains get less volatile damage, but less GM dice-counting.

 

One easy change, especially for players who struggle with "low roll is good"...

 

Make high rolls to hit superior. The attacker rolls and adds OCV.  The defender is hit if that total exceeds DCV+10.  Get DCV+10 on the sheets instead of base DCV.  This would need a different critical system if you're using "roll half", but the system isn't really designed for criticals, and a need to halve the rolls only adds more math issues.

 

 

 

Edited January 21 by Hugh Neilson

[BoloOfEarth]

For  mooks / minions / agents, I combine groups of them into single meta-characters for combat purposes, with higher stats based on how many "doublings" they have.  So an 8-man group of agents has 3 Doublings (2 x 2 x 2) and gets +3 OCV, +30 STUN, and +3 DC on attacks, but only rolls once to attack and do damage.  As they lose STUN, their numbers are halved and their OCV and damage drop appropriately.   I have different rules for dealing with AoE attacks, odd attacks, and so on. It requires the GM to do a little work, but some of that can be figured out beforehand, and the work you have to do on the fly is more than balanced out by not having to track and roll for 8 different characters every time their Phase comes around.  

[Ninja-Bear]

One thing that helps is that if you have an experienced player have him help the less experienced player while combat is going on with other players. Minimize optional rules. Optional rules are great if everyone is comfortable with them however extra rules usually result in extra rolls which results in extra time. And for a very controversial suggestion, keep a tight control on Speed-have all PC’s have the same Speed and adjust villains as needed.

[Jkeown]

We use FoundryVTT. The Unofficial HERO implementation is quite nice, even if it does not yet handle Healing and some other stuff. Our house rule is "If Foundry Doesn't Handle It... Cheat. If Cheating Doesn't Help, Cheat With Both Hands."

 

Works for us. Check local listings.

[Duke Bushido]

"cheat with both hands" has now become part of my lexicon.

 

 

Thank you, Sir.

 

As to speeding up combat:

 

The ideas suggested above (particularly "remember that villains aren't here for some greater-than-themselves" type motivation and are thus not realistically likely to willingly fight to a knockout, given as how that is synonymous with capture) is one that doesn't get repeated often enough.  Same with intentionally keeping defenses near average damage for the campaign (a but above; a bit below--  sure.  Variety is allowable and fun, but stay near the average damage roll for the average DC attack in use.

 

One That never gets suggested, but speeds things along really quickly is that defenses do not (or perhaps only Resistant Defenses do) protect against STUN damage.

 

Low-level mooks and mid-level agents will either drop out or just plain drop considerably quicker, and even your PCs will put a lot of thought into their "should we just slug it out" decisions.

 

I am not saying that this is good because villains will fall faster.  Combined With "villains aren't stupid enough to fight until they are KO'ed," and combat will fall off sooner as villains, now in more pain and aches than ever before, decide the time to go gas come sooner than they might have before.

 

In all cases, though, like Hugh, I find not letting defenses creep too far above the midpoint of average damage results in shorter combats yet retains all the options, maneuvers, and complexities you heart desires.