In reply to AviK80 (msg # 1):
If you don't like rolling (specifically for D&D) might I suggest a system my group used for awhile. We have since gone back to rolling, having gone full circle. It is rather simple, but still somewhat involved to learn the nuance of. It's a card based "rolling" system. You can use whatever you want, but I highly suggest cards as it's both easy to show and people can bid in this way if you have slightly less teamwork oriented players.
Before I tell you the system, I want to say it changes combat drastically, not for better or worse persay, but simply that the economy is vastly different.
So...how it works is you have 1 card for each number 1 to 20. You not only have this deck, but you choose, openly how you want to use them. The catch? You have to exhaust all numbers before you restock your deck. You also are unable to use these cards for superfluous rolls, like touch attacks on a willing (and non-enchanted) ally for something like a cure spell. You also cannot force superfluous rolls, like saying you're going to make spot check for no reason, or sense motive to see how scared an opponent is.
This represents a total and absolute regression to the mean. Meaning you will have this happen (sort of) with a brand new d20 anyway, just with natural fluctuation (you won't roll all the those numbers 20 times) and timing (you won't have the 20 when you need it every time).
It seems like cheating, but try it! Once you realize you have to burn that 20 carefully and have other numbers to you have to wade through, it becomes just as tactical, just as chaotic, but involves deliberate action. It's great for narrative too. You can describe the attack (like an Exalted stunt0 and the GM may even allow a +1 to +3 additional circumstance bonus for roleplaying.
In fact, I enjoyed describing even my misses, and a few times I used my 8, and thought I would miss, but the GM gave me a +1 or +2 (very, very rarely +3) and I would hit or make save anyway.
This is really departure, but is, in my opinion, very fun. We stopped doing this when we converted to home games, and using Maptools. It's so easy to use macros and with our tv table (a table with flat tv in it horizontally) we gave up both cards and physical dice and just use RNG.
That said, I don't think I've played D&D in many months. We've switched to another system, so my memory is not fresh when we went back to RNG over cards. We use a d10 system now, and it's really required to be random; or if it isn't we haven't found a good way to represent the range and bell curves of likelyhood of certain rolls.
You can do this for damage dice too, provided you use one die. You
can do multiple dice, but it takes more prep and there are more cards to print/write out. Trying to map certain spells or attacks will prove to be over hundred cards, and that can really do the opposite as intended; to save time and maintain tension.
swordchucks:
Also... an entire session of combat in 5e? How does that even happen? A ton of looking things up and arguing?
It's easy. If you play module, maybe not, I've not played one, but our GM runs many games based on esoteric books and movies,so these are modeled after actual stoires first and games second. I've had whole session of dialogue in D&D 4e, and whole sessions of combat in 5e. It really just depends what goals the PCs have and what challenges present themselves.
For reference, we weren't using the card system, but instead maptools rolling macros for the below sessions.
Spoiler for a combat 5e session: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
For us, we were trying to infiltrate an enemy baron's keep. We had no way of speaking quietly enough to not be heard by the guards, since whispering was worse than our stealth. We used hand motions at the table, and described our actions. WE had time limit until dawn, when the baron was going to execute his forced bride, the daughter of an assassinated king. This was the time table.
Our GM described dialogue between guards, which I guess you could describe as non-combat. We took a short rest after we cleared the grounds and parapets and were about to make the foray inside the actual keep, from the roof. We could have spoke, I suppose, whispered at that point, but we were so engaged and "in the zone" we didn't.
Once we entered the keep there was a pack of dogs that we had to pass, and the druid cast his first spell (having been a wildshaped bear "fighter" until then). We were able to by pass the dogs with just spells, and finally came upon the Baron's pet dinosaur, his poor man's "pet dragon" he supposedly had. The evil friar had the princess in a stockade, and only at that point did we have dialogue, with the Friar but in combat. That combat took about an hour alone, because it went badly at first, the druid went down, the bard healed him, the bard went down, druid went down. I went down, and the rogue and monk barely managed to drop the dinosaur before one of them went down. THEN and only then was the Friar the target. We had freed the princess early in the fight, but didn't dare leave the place without clearing out the enemies that could rally more.
After the fight, we were more than an hour and half past the point we agreed to stop the session.
Spoiler for other sessions for contrast: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
The next session we had only one fight, with the Baron. When we learned he had some information and took him prisoner after a rather easy fight. Except for what amounted to an easy fight with the Baron, we spent the entirety of the session interrogating the baron, reassuring the princess, and rewarding our subordinates who were basically generic level 1's with no class features, and only the equipment we gave them.
After that we had more traditional session where we tracked some of some despot Sherrif's men, fought some guards on flying mounts, and then dealt with the Sheriff from range until he fled.
After that we met up with the head nun who was a friedn of the princess. Our druid (IIRC) was criminal and his criminal base became the church that was defying the evil sherriff's orders. We met some NPCs, and had the princess stay there, for safety.
Then we tracked the Sheriff to a guard camp and fought him again, he escaped a second time, because his guards blocked us and the Sheriff endured enough attacks on his horse, to get out of reasonable hit range.