If I may add a bit: The "dont fear to take opportunity attacks" is a great tipp! What I would add here is that you can especially do this to play more aggressive. Let an enemy get behind a player, taking an opportunity attack, in order to flank them. That enemy (and 1 or 2 other characters) might profit from this flanking. This way it becomes more offensive and this also helps to speed up combat more. (They take some damage but you will most likely also take more). You can also make interactable environment by having "traps which you can trigger". What I mean here are things like bookshelves, which you can (with an action) throw onto an enemy/several enemies (if they stand in front of it and you next to it), or a jug of burning oil which you can kick onto the enemies. (Kind of like in a Chacky Chan movie, when he interacts with the environment). If you have fire (like above with the jug of burning oil), you can also make it extend over turns, such that people need to move out of the (increasing) space. Or you can have water level rise to get more difficult terrain. Or the books from the bookshelf (or other shelve) can create difficult terrain.
Awesome tips. There are so many things that can completely change the dynamics of an encounter and make the players go, "uh oh!" That is when it really gets interesting. Thanks for the feedback.
YES this video was perfect to watch, i've just gotten into DMing and i've done about 10 or so sessions but i felt my combat was kind of boring compared to other games ive played and this definitely helped me get a better idea about creative and engaging combat. Thank you!!!
Great ideas with dynamic dungeon elements. I've sometimes used timed hazards as well to force all combatants to move around. Exploding barrels, weak roof supports, mushrooms which spread toxic spores when distrubed, lava bubbles rising for a round and bursting in the next and so on. Ignoring AoO didn't work well for me. Since movement is basicall free, you can simply walk up the the enemy and whack them again. They attack, move & trigger AoO and get hit in the next round regardless. That made fights pretty easy for the PCs. "The enemies trigger AoO every time, are they stupid???" . Yes, pretty much. Here dnd5e works against dynamic fights, since every rat has AoO. I had to invest considerable time to make fights more dynamic.
"Leave enough room to allow them to move around..." Then the Druid goes and casts CR 1/4 Conjure Animals, gets a bunch of Large creatures, like Draft Horses, and the place ends up like packed like a subway train at rush hour.
I love all these tips. Too bad most maps in officially published adventures are so tiny. It's easy to expand a cavern to any dimension, but it's much harder to find such a big space in a building unless it's a warehouse or factory.
Real fighting is the same. Stand still, you're an easy target, and you'll likely get killed. And your enemies will know that, and move around, and use the environment, and generally try to survive. Even in a small environment, like MMA's, fighters move around between strikes, looking for an opening and trying not to give their opponent one.
i have a question, I'm new to this whole world and it is very likely I will be the dm of my group (all newbies). We want to play online and I wanted to know what tools there are to make and intersct with maps
Hi @kurumi_kazuha Roll20 is the tool that most use when running online games. It allows you to upload maps and interact with them during your game. There are other tools as well, but Roll20 is a great place to start. If you want to draw maps, I have a few tutorial videos for drawing maps with GIMP. There is also an online tool called Inkarnate that is excellent. Welcome to the world of D&D.
. . . which is a Reaction. If a character has Sentinel, have the enemies group on them. They can use Sentinel on one of them, which you trigger, and then the character has no Reaction until their next turn. The enemies can scatter and go after other characters, or flank and do serious damage. Best of all, a character with Sentinel nullifies the monsters' Disengage action, which is a fantastic excuse for them to ignore that use of their Action and go hard for damage.Taking the Sentinel feat is a player's way of telling the DM they want their character to tank as much damage as possible -- whether they meant to tell you that or not.
I would love to have a series about encounters & tactics!
If I may add a bit:
The "dont fear to take opportunity attacks" is a great tipp! What I would add here is that you can especially do this to play more aggressive. Let an enemy get behind a player, taking an opportunity attack, in order to flank them. That enemy (and 1 or 2 other characters) might profit from this flanking. This way it becomes more offensive and this also helps to speed up combat more. (They take some damage but you will most likely also take more).
You can also make interactable environment by having "traps which you can trigger". What I mean here are things like bookshelves, which you can (with an action) throw onto an enemy/several enemies (if they stand in front of it and you next to it), or a jug of burning oil which you can kick onto the enemies. (Kind of like in a Chacky Chan movie, when he interacts with the environment).
If you have fire (like above with the jug of burning oil), you can also make it extend over turns, such that people need to move out of the (increasing) space. Or you can have water level rise to get more difficult terrain. Or the books from the bookshelf (or other shelve) can create difficult terrain.
Awesome tips. There are so many things that can completely change the dynamics of an encounter and make the players go, "uh oh!" That is when it really gets interesting.
Thanks for the feedback.
Great tips, thank you.
YES this video was perfect to watch, i've just gotten into DMing and i've done about 10 or so sessions but i felt my combat was kind of boring compared to other games ive played and this definitely helped me get a better idea about creative and engaging combat. Thank you!!!
Great advice. Thank you!
Hell yeah, if you want an interesting combat, you need to move around :)
Great ideas with dynamic dungeon elements. I've sometimes used timed hazards as well to force all combatants to move around. Exploding barrels, weak roof supports, mushrooms which spread toxic spores when distrubed, lava bubbles rising for a round and bursting in the next and so on.
Ignoring AoO didn't work well for me. Since movement is basicall free, you can simply walk up the the enemy and whack them again. They attack, move & trigger AoO and get hit in the next round regardless. That made fights pretty easy for the PCs. "The enemies trigger AoO every time, are they stupid???" . Yes, pretty much. Here dnd5e works against dynamic fights, since every rat has AoO. I had to invest considerable time to make fights more dynamic.
"Leave enough room to allow them to move around..." Then the Druid goes and casts CR 1/4 Conjure Animals, gets a bunch of Large creatures, like Draft Horses, and the place ends up like packed like a subway train at rush hour.
levels. Put archers in the trees, some kolbolts on a ledge.
I love all these tips. Too bad most maps in officially published adventures are so tiny. It's easy to expand a cavern to any dimension, but it's much harder to find such a big space in a building unless it's a warehouse or factory.
Real fighting is the same. Stand still, you're an easy target, and you'll likely get killed. And your enemies will know that, and move around, and use the environment, and generally try to survive. Even in a small environment, like MMA's, fighters move around between strikes, looking for an opening and trying not to give their opponent one.
i have a question, I'm new to this whole world and it is very likely I will be the dm of my group (all newbies). We want to play online and I wanted to know what tools there are to make and intersct with maps
Hi @kurumi_kazuha
Roll20 is the tool that most use when running online games. It allows you to upload maps and interact with them during your game. There are other tools as well, but Roll20 is a great place to start.
If you want to draw maps, I have a few tutorial videos for drawing maps with GIMP. There is also an online tool called Inkarnate that is excellent.
Welcome to the world of D&D.
…and then there came Sentinel.
. . . which is a Reaction. If a character has Sentinel, have the enemies group on them. They can use Sentinel on one of them, which you trigger, and then the character has no Reaction until their next turn. The enemies can scatter and go after other characters, or flank and do serious damage. Best of all, a character with Sentinel nullifies the monsters' Disengage action, which is a fantastic excuse for them to ignore that use of their Action and go hard for damage.Taking the Sentinel feat is a player's way of telling the DM they want their character to tank as much damage as possible -- whether they meant to tell you that or not.