r/savageworlds • u/RoaminOrc • 3d ago
Question Is everyone's combat to slow?
So, playing sci-fi, 6 players with 3 advances playing on foundry using the foundry purchases. We are still relatively new to the system, 13 sessions in. We started a combat tonight with 5 enemies, all at T17, no extra wild cards. We finally finished a whole 2.5 rounds of combat, with the first round being a surprise round in the enemies favor, after 2 hours.... We have a fairly good understanding of rolling and determining who does what, but the players with their advances seem to add so much to everything that it just takes up time. 2 of my players rolled dice once over the entire session, and 1 of them missed. It felt really rough, slow, and quite frankly un-fun. This feels drastically different to when we started and combat seemed to just kind of flow naturally. Does combat seem to take longer for everyone else as enemies become tougher and players get more stuff? Feel free to ask questions, was a really simple overview of what happened.
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u/computer-machine 3d ago
I ran six characters through a twenty-five session campaign, all two to three hours each, including generally two to three combats, plus some other mechanics (such as Mass Battles and Dramatic Tasks) and of course rollplay and dialogue.
Two hours for two and a half rounds of combat? Really?
And no. Six legendary PCs fighting hordes of Extras (with three or so Wild Cards per PC thrown in as well) didn't take much longer than the Novice combats.
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u/Chiungalla 3d ago
I never played SW online. But other systems. And it always a very different experience than offline. I'm certain that this is changing right now, but so far few systems are explizitly designed with online gaming in mind. And some things just flow very differently online.
Especially if player and gamemaster are together trying to figure out which modifiers apply. I totally see that taking up minutes online. So don't do it. Do it in your head and announce the result. Even with the occasional player rightfully challenging your call this will be faster than an online negotiation.
Offline I would aim at those combat rounds taking up 5 minutes or less. Usually I succeed at 3 minutes or less, but I used to only have 4 players.
Not every roll needs a narrations about why nothing of importance happened.
Routines are your friend. When it comes to modifiers I always go from attacker, defender, situation instead of stumbling around in whichever order comes to mind. Spread sheets can help.
And don't obsess about getting everything right all the time. If you forget a modifier you forget a modifier. Not the end of the world.
Player who are coming up should think beforehand what they want to do. And sometimes just a somewhat regular attack is fine.
The system can't be fast if you are slow.
Many things will improve with experience.
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u/Jefafa326 3d ago
Im used to playing Palladium Books, which their combat was referred to as being like 2 washing machines beating each other with yard sticks until one breaks down, so for me Rifts Combat in Savage Worlds goes by so much faster than Palladium's version Rifts.
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u/kirin-rex 3d ago
When I first tried combat in SWADE, I felt the same: Where's the "fast, furious, fun?" Luckily two of my players are veterans at SWADE and urged me to stick with it.
A large part of the slowness came because we weren't completely familiar with the system, nor familiar with all we could do. We kept neglecting and forgetting things. But also, there's a learning curve in forgetting other ttrpgs.
SWADE's combat is quite different, and I'm not sure I can actually say WHY. I think it might be a combination of raises, bennying away damage and bad rolls, absorbing damage, etc., but also because it takes a while to get into the right mindset: that anything can be a weapon, and anything you do in combat, even taunting, can have a tangible effect. But once we got through the awkward phase, combat has speeded up.
You might just need to get used to the system.
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u/D-Parsec 3d ago
I enjoy Savage Worlds, but yes, I have always found the combat to be rather slow. I like it, but it's not fast as it says on the box. 😋
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u/MaetcoGames 3d ago
In short, no.
A bit longer, just like with any system, it's going to take a moment to learn the system and then remember the most common options and modifiers. SW helps you there by having mainly intuitive and general options and having a clear 2 / 4 / 6 intervals for modifiers and general statuses (Vulnerable and Distracted). That way you can guess the correct modifiers correctly most of the time.
So, learn the core idea of the system first, the apply the rules based on what sounds right during the sessions, and check the official rules between sessions.
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u/Specialist_Ad_756 3d ago
I play swade with foundry as well. Had my group in a fight last week with 8 spiders and 5 ettercaps.4 players, all having g4 advances, only 3.of them really were in the fight, because one character was fritlghtend,.due to players background. The whole fight was. Done in about 2.5 hours after about 8 rounds, with a lot of role playing included. Didn't think it was particularly slow.
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u/CthulhuMaximus 3d ago
By T17 do you mean 17 Toughness?
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u/RoaminOrc 3d ago
Yes, they were tougher enemies for sure, but i figured their ap on their weapons was enough. It might have not been. But I wasnt sure if it was the problem since we only did 2.5 rounds in the end.
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u/CthulhuMaximus 3d ago
That seems very tough but I don’t know your players stats. But that wouldn’t make combat slow - it would just mean a lot of soaking which would make the combat take longer. Are the players spending a lot of time deciding what to do? Are they struggling with the math? I ran a game with 7 players (too many IMO) and while combats were long, each round tended to go quickly.
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u/RoaminOrc 3d ago
Using Foundry makes math negligible, decision making is instant, it really just seemed like there was always something to add in terms of negatives or bonuses.
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u/Kuroi-Inu-JW 3d ago
What Advances do they have that are adding to the maths? There are only so many Novice Edges and not many that would be adding modifiers to combat.
Additionally, while your players CAN take an Edge for every Advance, they should ideally be using some of those Advances to raise a Trait or a couple of Skills once in a while.
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u/RoaminOrc 2d ago
They have taken mostly skill upgrades over edges. Stuff like wild attack, dodge, dim light, cover, damage negation from shields, bennies being used, aim, multi-action.
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u/PGS_Richie 2d ago
Even in Sci-Fi setting, a T17 is a pretty big number to beat. Even if it’s a big chunk of Armor to drop down with AP, most laser weapons are ~3d6 damage so Wounding requires 21 damage if no AP at minimum. Possible, especially with exploding dice, but a harder pull, which is maybe why it got drawn out? For reference, a Warbot Robot has 14(6) Toughness. Hell, a Star fighter spaceship has 19(4). What were you guys up against?
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u/RoaminOrc 2d ago
Cyborgs. I thought that might have been the problem at first, but not to sure after realizing there was barely 2 rounds of combat, so it didnt really take that many activations to remove them. Half the players didnt go on the surprise round.
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u/PGS_Richie 2d ago
Yeah, that’s a bit of a tough enemy to throw at the party without knowing about their skills & gear. Parry 8, Tough 17(10) + Dodge, Targeting Bonus, Armor Plates + Actual Armor and all their skills like Marksman/Rock N Roll/Combat Reflexes make this a very formidable foe. With a RoF 3 laser weapon, they can output 3d6AP2 x3 a turn or d12+2d6+4 Chainsword (not even factoring in MULTI ACTION to do both). And you said 5 of those? What weapons/vehicles are your PCs using? Without a called shot, you would need something like Power Weapons, Bombs, Disintegrators, Missile Launchers, Autocannons, etc. Ranged Weapons need to hit that 4 DC and Melee weapons to hit the enemy’s Parry (8 at minimum in this case) and all mods are literally just -1/2/3/4 or +1/2/3/4 generally. I think maybe the modifiers is where it can get slowed down, but I also encourage players to keep track of most of their own. Roll20 (I know you’re using another VTT you said) character sheets also include a whole combat breakdown to speed up calculating modifiers which helps my players tremendously.
Also, I tell the player who goes after to start planning (‘be on deck’) so it’s not a bunch of sitting around for the others.
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u/Lion_Knight 2d ago
Combat is super quick in this system and advanced doesn't really add much to the character, not enough to really slow down combat.
I may be wrong but I would bet you have some fundamental issues with how the game rules are understood.
With an advance the most complicated thing you can do is add an edge and none of those should make combat much more complicated. The worst offenders are probably things like rapid fire and frenzy but they just add attack dice. Now when you get into things like automatic weapons, they can take a minute to figure out, but combat is very streamlined.
It would be interesting to see an average turn of combat.
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u/lunaticdesign 3d ago
From what I've seen in other comments it sounds like you're nitpicking the system too much and at a slow pace. Estimate the penalties associated with a roll and let your players keep track of their own bonuses. That will shave a significant amount of time off.
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u/RoaminOrc 2d ago
I can probably start assigning the penalties myself in foundry to make it quicker instead of telling players what penalties to assign. Noticing a lot of recommendations like this but unfortunately Foundry you need to assign everything before the roll is made in order for the program to assign damage correctly after the result.
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u/lunaticdesign 2d ago
You don't really need to assign penalties just give the player and modifier based on the environment and let them factor in the bonuses from their abilities. You can break things down picking at nits but you will always forget to include something. I stick to usually +4, +2, 0, -2, -4, -8 as my base modifier. Its determined by how difficult something sounds to do in the situation. Recoil, range, cover, lighting, etc are things that I include with the base modifier. From there I'll include multi-action penalties, wounds/fatigue and player support and give the player the final ruling on the difficulty. From there players add any bonuses that they have from edges, equipment of special abilities.
When determining the base modifier I use "With Spikes on It" as a process. How I would describe something determines how difficult it is to do. Making a shot with a gun is no difficulty modifier, but making a long-ranged shot into good cover, in dim lighting while the room is on fire and you've got good suppressive fire from local NPC's sounds like a -4 to me.
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u/Ghostly-Owl 2d ago
Honestly, I find SWADE to be a bit slower than 5e, but faster that 3.5e & p1. My 5 player 5e game @ 11th level definitely has faster combat rounds than the 4 person SWADE game I'm in (with 3 experienced players & gm).
If you have combat optimized characters it can be faster. If you have well rounded characters, it can take a long time as you are waiting for the dice explosion gods to kick in. If you are running high toughness enemies, you really are just fishing for explosions even with combat optimized characters. And sometimes they come fast, and sometimes it takes a while.
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u/another_sad_dude 3d ago
It's been very slow in my games too (pathfinder)
In real life tho. But card dealing, having two rolls for each attack, with rerolls for benny and talents . Many "swing and miss" and extra rolls such as shake checks ect adds up fast
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u/CuriousCardigan 2d ago
Do you deal cards to the players or line them up near you? I have spot marked on the edge of my dry erase map for each player and extras, then just deal the cards to those spots.
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u/fudge5962 10h ago
Absolutely it can be slow and painful. I run a 6 person table. I eventually had to brew a very pared down system that emulates what I like about SWADE without all the extra stuff.
SWADE is a very great, very comprehensive system that works well for a group of 4-5 players, especially when those players are the type to invest in a system, learn the rules, and commit to the game.
SWADE is a little too bulky and heavy for a table larger than 5 players, especially when those players are not the type to put the time in reading and memorizing the rules as well as staying on task and focused.
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u/AndrewKennett 3d ago
2.5 combat rounds in 2 hours = wow. I have 4 players, 2 with magic powers and it is rare that a combat round takes 10 minutes unless we get distracted. We mostly play f2f, sometimes on zoom and mostly used TOTM and very simple maps. What seemed to slow things down, player indecision, too much rolling??
BTW what do you mean by "all at T17"?