What’s Wrong with D&D 4E Combat? How Does Enhanced 4E make it Better?

Combat in D&D 4E is Just Too Slow

So in Enhanced 4E we make DnD 4E combat faster. In our testing, the Combat in Motion ruleset increased the number of melee attacks per round by nearly 50%, meaning more opportunities to strike and do damage, and faster resolution of melee confrontations. Ranged attackers were also able to fire in circumstances where they would not have had opportunity to do so under the standard D&D 4E rules alone, making the shots they could take more effective.

Other actions documented in Combat in Motion empower entire forces to act at once. Multiple actions can be made in rapid succession on a single turn.

However, the rules of Combat in Motion have an even greater impact upon the perception of game speed. Much of player frustration in combat can be attributed to the impotence players feel while other players or monsters are taking turns. Even when a player is attacked directly in standard 4E, that player can do nothing. Each player simply waits passively (and too-often, inattentively) while time slowly drags on---until that brief moment arrives once again when he or she can take another turn.

Combat in Motion empowers all players to act at almost any time on any turn---not by adding any more immediate or opportunity actions to the game---but by giving players the flexibility to choose when to take the actions they already have.

When players are involved in the entire combat round, they perceive themselves as active participants at all times---no longer passively waiting through most of the game for their turns to arrive. The time between turns matters far less.

Enhanced4E: Combat in Motion for 4th Edition D&D---patience is no longer required.

Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion is available in print and eBook formats from Enhanced4E.com and is now also available from DriveThruRPG.

1 New D&D 4E Motion State

A Revolutionary Concept in Miniature/Token-Based Tabletop War-Gaming

Combat in Motion for D&D 4E is a book chock full of innovation. One feature stands out as perhaps the most revolutionary concept the book contains: The mechanisms for modeling the uninterrupted movement of creatures through multiple turns using only stationary miniatures.

In table-top, melee combat games, miniatures or tokens mark the locations of creatures in combat. Generally speaking, each creature moves in space only when its token is physically moved by a player. The constraints of turn order would appear to make it impossible to model seamless, uninterrupted motion. Instead, each creature may move from one spot to another on its turn---stop there while other creatures take their turns---and then move again if the player so chooses when its next turn arrives. Each move begins at a stop and ends at a stop.

Now it is true that players may still imagine a creature represented by a motionless token to be moving furiously toward some farther destination; rules are no limitation on the imaginations of players. However, absent rules to model its movement, this imagined motion has no impact on the creature. It may as well be standing still.

Now some tabletop games are explicitly dedicated to modeling constant motion. In a game like Wings of War, the miniatures always represent moving aircraft engaged in swirling three dimensional dogfights, even when these miniatures are apparently stationary.

However, Enhanced 4E is unique in that its stationary miniatures or tokens sometimes represent creatures that are motionless and sometimes represent creatures that are still moving. Creatures alternate between these motion states depending on circumstance. When a creature’s motion state changes from motionless to in-motion, the way in which the creature interacts with its surroundings also changes.

In Enhanced 4E, a miniature “in-motion” marks the approximate location of the corresponding creature, as that creature moves rapidly toward an intended destination. Enemy’s giving chase find that target more difficult to hit with close and melee attacks and the creature also may escape the explosive effects of area attacks positioned to its rear. Most attacks made by the creature itself are far less accurate.

Most interesting, the creature is subject to momentum that carries over from one action into another and from one turn into the next. A creature completing an action in motion begins its next action in the same state, subject to the same penalties and the same benefits (including increased potential speed). The effect, however, is to blur the lines between turns. Chases and races can be much more easily and intuitively simulated with pursuers following hot on the heels of fleeing adventurers, or adversaries racing furiously to grab the golden idol.

To purchase your copy of Enhanced 4E: Combat in Motion, visit Enhanced4E.com. Available in both print and eBook editions!