I like the Doom video game reboots. I’m terrible at them, but I still like them a lot. And, like with a lot of media I consume, it inspired me to do new things in Dungeons and Dragons.
And so, a mildly crazy idea formed: Doom-Style DnD Combat.
At its simplest, this is wave combat distilled down to a mathematically robust, flexible, and replicable framework which you can drop into any DnD campaign. The article walks you through building and balancing encounters that are interesting, exciting, and challenging without being overly taxing and without becoming the horrible, boring math exercise that’s so typical of combat with numerous enemies.
The article also includes an optional rule for generating Inspiration which encourages players to cut through enemies quickly in order to create a rapid get-and-spend resource loop which keeps combat fast and lethal (well, lethal for the enemies) and makes players feel like near-unstoppable forces carving their way across the landscape.
Rip and tear.
