3 Hacks to Make Combat Dynamic and Interesting at Your Table

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Күн бұрын

Don't count how many times I say Dynamic... Or Combat... Or Encounter...
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Пікірлер: 61

@mr_gl00m32 2 жыл бұрын

Pro-tips according to my experience: • Not every action needs to be narrated • Elevate your players actions, successes and failures by describing those instead (or letting THEM describe it) • Give context for the strength of your villain... Think like the T-Rex being defeated in Jurassic Park by a bigger fish • Focus the camera on the important cinematic moments with your major enemy during shifts in the battle to keep combat clean and focused - the goal should always be clear, even if the motive is unclear • Your monsters and NPCs personality/nature/character are reflected in combat. If they're cocky they need to attack more and without restraint, if they're cowardly they need to hide being allies and teleport around. You don't need a lot of nuance, just enough to get your players to understand the NPC • Combine minion NPC rolls to shorten non-player down time but retain a larger scale - big enemies should never be rolled together • Sometimes try to get your enemies to run away • Always err on rounding down on your numbers rather than rounding up -- unless it's your BBEG • Fallen enemies make great difficult terrain and organically changes the battlefield • Move the battlefield from one cinematic location to another when you feel like your players are getting bored or comfortable • Easy encounters are just as important as Souls-like ones • You don't always need perfectly balanced encounters. It's more rewarding to overcome seemingly impossible odds. (Plus 5e is really forgiving with character deaths.) • The big enemy dies (or leaves) right before it stops being fun - I've never understood slogging through combat encounters just because.

@puddel9079 2 жыл бұрын

Point 1: Not every fight needs to have the opponents try to avoid combat, but not every fight needs the opposition to fight to the last man. Point 2: It can be interesting to set up oddities like defenses and defenders set up to defend against what's inside the fortress. It can ramp up the mystery before, during, and after the fight. Point 3: see point 2 Point 4: Cover and hazards are generally what crops up. Hazards can be a particularly muddy bog, gravity tilting sideways toward a wall of spikes, or even a transformer conducting electricity into a pool of water. Cover can be anything that interferes with line of sight and ranged fights, be that a crowd during a chase, a pavise (a.k.a., a tower shield) for cover, natural fog, and even something as mundane as a paper wall.

@StupidButCunning 2 жыл бұрын

Yes, I try to design interactive battle maps. I often have different elevations, since it can easily add a lot of options. In one, there's a haunted forest with dead trees that will attack anything within their range, potentially restraining them. Players might shove an enemy or use other abilities to position an enemy near a tree so that it will be attacked. If hit by fire, the tree will immediately release the target and can't attack anyone again until after the end of the lair's next turn. Similarly, part of the map is brambles, which inflict piercing damage every 5 feet moved through it and is difficult terrain. If set fire by any means, it also deals fire damage to creatures within it, but 3 turns of being on fire and the brambles burn away. Kind of like a flammable Spike Growth. In another, it's a bog that is difficult terrain and prevents jumping due to sinking and sticking in the mud. In the middle is a 50 foot ravine that travels most of the battle map. It can be navigated around, or if you are light enough, you can run along a rocky ledge to jump to the other side. Of course magic like Misty Step is also completely viable as well. This map contains burrowing creatures where the large one can shoot spines from across the ravine and the smaller ones can come up, attack, then burrow back down as a bonus action. Yet another contains a boiling swamp, a sloped hill that is slippery and leads to the swamp, ferns that make up difficult terrain, and piles of rubble of a long deprecated building that could be used for cover. Another still has geysers across the map that may sometimes erupt to spray nearby targets with hot steam/water (which geyser erupts is based on a roll), or depending on the roll, cause tremors in the ground that require a Dex save or you fall prone. There's a fallen tree about 30 foot up a cliff face, which could be used as cover or off the cliff face to hit creatures in its path. The map is designed with ghouls in mind (but I may use other enemies), so if ghouls are present, the geysers spray poison and do poison damage instead of fire (from the scalding water). The scalding water can also inflict blindness. Most maps CAN be fought in such a way as to not use the terrain's advantages, but it really helps encourage clever approaches to combat, which I find keeps the players more invested even when it's not their turn.

@hasmhas 2 жыл бұрын

I recently ran a combat where the Crime boss the party was attacking suddenly pulled out a sending stone and said he would have a characters brother killed if they did not leave immediately. They combat shifted to a tenuous standoff with many characters holding actions, ending in a sudden explosion of activity one of our heroes managed to barely pry the stone out of his hands preventing the message and shots were fired all over the place. Definitely a highlight of the session.

@luckypeanut9943 2 жыл бұрын

Love the idea of enemies trying to run away with items the party wants, I'm so used to it being the other way around The enemy warlock shudders for a sec as his eyes roll back and he seems to recieve a message from his patron. He looks down and feels for his pocket before turning and fleeing

@EilonwyG 2 жыл бұрын

My favorite kind of combat is where it is more than a fight, more than just hacking at the enemy. Something else needs to be accomplished. And, admittedly, so many of my combats get avoided through interesting role play anyway, lol

@PlayYourRole 2 жыл бұрын

Exactly! An intense show down should mean more than one against another. There should be an underlying question that drives tension!

@shootymcfacey5958 2 жыл бұрын

Good timing on this video! I’m at my first big finale for my players tomorrow fighting their first major BBEG, so honestly I needed a little bit of advice for this subject x

@PlayYourRole 2 жыл бұрын

I hope it helps!

@mikeelston9933 2 жыл бұрын

Let us know how you did it! Have a great time!

@albertlawson9894 2 жыл бұрын

What is the BBEG? LICH? Vampire?

@shootymcfacey5958 2 жыл бұрын

@@PlayYourRole Cheers mate!

@shootymcfacey5958 2 жыл бұрын

@@mikeelston9933 Unfortunately we had to postpone, one of our players couldn't attend so we're holding off to next week

@justinsinke2088 2 жыл бұрын

Part of what can keep a combat dynamic on a very basic level, or at least set the foundation for it, is making sure at least most combats have a defined purpose. If there is a larger context reason for it to happen, there are more outside context factors that can logically get involved in it. If it's completely random, then on the fly alterations can feel like its coming out of thin air, especially if you can't scramble to justify them after the fact. Things like the guards showing up (because combats cause a lot of noise) and suddenly it's a social battle to convince the guards who was the aggressor/bad guy of the whole scenario (all while both sides continue to battle in the hopes of winning in a "justified" manner). Or someone knocks over a sconce because of some push effect and now the rugs/drapes are on fire and spreading (are they willing to let the place burn and fight through the fire or do they need to put out the fire and divide their combat intention?). It can be easy to fall into a mental trap of treating like a video game, where the rest of the world ceases to exist when combat starts. If you keep in mind why a combat is happening, who's involved, what they're real goals are, and the nature of the area itself, there can be a surprising number of nuances that can really spice things up potentially.

@Thunderscreamer 2 жыл бұрын

I remember 2 back to back battles in Critical Role that just exemplify that point so well. In the first, the Mighty Nine go into this epic boss fight with a Hydra & Yuan Ti priest, and...not much else. Some of the players get some real shining moments, but the fight overall is fairly straighforward & turn by turn. But then they win... And after the Hydra is slain, the temple they've just spent an episode descending into begins to fill with water, threatening to drown them if they don't get out. Naturally they run, but at the second to last level are two guards trying to block their escape! Every moment they spend becomes more intense, as the water is rising faster than they are cutting down the guards, and somehow, despite the fact that it's just two of the most basic of guards I am more engaged than I ever was during the freaking Hydra bossfight! Epic monsters are fun to think about & stat, but ultimately they're just set dressing. It's everything adjacent to the fight is the meat that matters

@thewingedporpoise 2 жыл бұрын

as another point to this, I don't really remember them fighting a hydra but I definitely remember them trying to escape a rapidly flooding room

@Thunderscreamer 2 жыл бұрын

@@thewingedporpoise EXACTLY!

@CadetSammons 2 жыл бұрын

I like this guy. In a world of amateurs giving untried advice for tables, he actually knows his stuff. Love it.

@twilightgardenspresentatio6384 2 жыл бұрын

Slow down second by second in the middle of intense action -yeah, finding an emotional point to pull is extremely difficult Thank you for this

@taemien9219 Жыл бұрын

I was playing MW4:Mercs about 20 years and in one of the missions has you fight against another mercenary company. You've been hired to destroy an objective, they were hired to defend it. If you push through them and destroy the objective, the enemy commander will contact you and let you know that their mission was a failure and that they were withdrawing. And his forces will do a fighting withdrawal and once they get a certain distance away they will stop firing upon your units and leave. You have the option to continue to engage them and destroy them to the last man. If you let them go, later in the campaign they will come to your aid. If you do destroy them, the enemy commander will come back in a later mission seeking revenge. That sort of stuck with me when GMing a table top game. Not every opponent is there to slay the NPCs, sometimes they have their own objectives and don't necessarily hate the PCs or have anything personal against them even if they are fighting. But the actions and decisions the PCs make can alter that relationship. And sometimes the NPCs once they fail or succeed at what they are doing, won't always stay to continue the fight. It is actually far more interesting when the fight wasn't their main focus. That heavily drives a narrative going forward. Also one thing I do to help with narrative in combat is get the Players used to acting in initiative. These means rolling for initiative outside of combat and acting in their turns. This does wonders for keeping things organized, and it creates a flow that the players get used to and while it can slow down things at first, it can speed things up over the entire session and campaign. This is particularly helpful for dungeon crawls. Especially when dealing with movement rates (climbing, crawling, swimming, etc.) and with traps in specific tiles/squares/hexes. But it also helps in roleplay situations where things can get hectic for a DM when you have 4-6 or more players talking at once. It can also add suspense if you have a stealthy character trying to do something covert while you are using conversation to distract. If the rogue needs to move 45 feet in a stealthy manner, grab an item, and then move another 30 feet to escape. You might find yourselves trying to buy them 3-5 turns. Prolonging a brief conversation without tipping off the guard that something is awry. And when it does go badly, initiative has already been rolled, everyone acts according to their turn, based on the situation changing before them.

@Mary_Studios 2 жыл бұрын

I always try to describe what the person is doing or what it looks like in combat because it gets boring just saying the enemy attacks you and deals this amount of damage. But these are really great tips and I'm defiantly going to use these more.

@FrogEnjoyer17 2 жыл бұрын

What I always thought worked very well and made especially boss battles more enjoyable is homebrewing lair actions for the environment. Last week I made my Players fight a pirate captain on his ship in the harbour and 4 lair actions that would trigger: if players stood still for too long, in combat or lazy casters I would throw crates on their head, shoot them with net throwers, I would make then captain go to a specific part of the ship and crewmates grapple and throw players there so a wereshark would grapple them from below deck and the captain knowing his ship could step on a plank and either knock up or kick it in the balls of players further away making them prone if they failed a dex or str save

@koro45wolf Жыл бұрын

Paused the video to smash the like button because I’m so hooked and switching tasks that I didn’t wanna miss a second!

@braydenb1581 Жыл бұрын

For me, I do a few things to keep role-playing alive in combat. Everyone has something their class can do. Rogue can sneak through shadows, up in rafters, or do some ninja stuff across a thin ledge others can't. As an example. I always make sure there are enemies for those who just wanna kill. I make sure there is some kind of social or skill check for those who aren't into just killing. My last great combat was coming across a farmer who was half mauled to death with the howls of wolves in thr night which he has just managed to escape. Of course the wolves came quick but they were special. Related to the evil the team was against, to encourage interest jn their defeat and to investigate where the wolves came from. The farmer needed to be healed and upon waking up, he panicked and ran. Fell into a river in the middle of the night while combat was going. Players had to rescue him. Then after the encounter spoke to him. Both the players who just wanna kill and those into rp were interested in what the farmer had to say. The rp players wanted to know more of the story and the just kill everything players wanted to know where to go to kill more things.

@thedorkknight5824 2 жыл бұрын

I usually have my combats be exciting, usually have some kind of gimmick and smaller combats I use as more of an obstacle than a proper combat so the main battles feel poignant. As well, I really dig into some war gaming inspiration to give my players the sense of playing tactically. As adventurers in my setting they are generally outnumbered, so thinking tactically and using their environment and abilities is crucial, and my group likes it that way, the combat should be a nail biting experience. As well, defeating the enemies isn't the only way to gain experience, all I ask my players is to "resolve the combat encounter" not "win", what that means is up to them.

@alexreese614 Жыл бұрын

I had a combat recently where their target razed the building they were in, dealing massive damage to all the players (they failed dex saves) and the whole arena went from a decent sized room to a flat battleground with chunks of wood and brick jutting out of the ground as cover

@runevarkevisser7289 2 жыл бұрын

Nice video! Love your channel and videos, you're very fun to listen to. Having goals beyond fighting is always a fun way to spice things up. The dynamic battlefield is one of my favourite tips! Even something as simple as a more interactable space is a lot of fun, like causing stalactites to fall. Occasional big shifts like moving battlefields or even visible timers are great and full of tension.

@PlayYourRole 2 жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for the encouragement! I hope all the advice helps!

@brandonolsen579 Жыл бұрын

In the conclusion of a very long campaign I was running that followed my PCs progression from level 1 all the way to level 20, they ended up facing off against the final BBEG and the first part of the encounter was trying to stop him from completing a ritual. They failed, and he summoned an infant god to the world that began attacking everyone, including the BBEG. The players instinctively started fighting back against the god, but I never implied it was evil, just a terrified baby. They figured that out, but only after doing a lot of damage to the baby god. Then the encounter became protecting the god who was still terrified of them from the BBEG. It was so Chaotic and fun.

@bible.animations Жыл бұрын

Love your content man! Definitely one of the better DnD advice channels :)

@jonathanskinner7647 2 жыл бұрын

So this relates to one of your points, but we had the finale for our campaign last Monday. It was only a 6 month campaign (damn you a-levels) but everyone who was playing first one and had a great finale. I had a BBEG and he wanted to get after a flame of eternal life kept in a magical container. The pc’s knew that if he got this he would be very powerful and due to the battle already going on for a little bit before the BBEG entered the combat, one of them was already nearly down. Eventually, after two rounds, the flame entered the battlefield but despite that, due to use of the blink spell, acrobatic feats and sacrifices from the players they were able to keep it way from him for about 5 rounds. He got it sadly, but even tho my pcs were very badly hurt, they had done so much damage to him previously, they killed him with two rounds of him getting the flame. It was one of, if not the best combat I had run during the entire campaign and was a definite high note to end on.

@PlayYourRole 2 жыл бұрын

This sounds so fun!!! I'm glad everyone enjoyed!

@percussiveseer415 2 жыл бұрын

This one made it to my "for future reference list", which isn't that of a rare occurence with your tip videos ;)) thank you great man and have a nice day!

@risperdude 2 жыл бұрын

Wow Jay, the video style feels a bit nostalgic; it was almost like a throwback. Even with a smaller party of 6 players I find keeping the role play going can be a real challenge for me. How do you keep track of the story with all the combatants and juggling actions beyond hack and slash. I just struggle remembering to advance the initiative tracker.

@PlayYourRole 2 жыл бұрын

Quite honestly, I think my attention issues help with this as my brain is wired to constantly swap attention. HOWEVER one of my largest tools is my players. I'll ask THEM to keep track of things, and remind me if I forget something!

@jacquiblanchard3131 2 жыл бұрын

I add to pause in thr middle to make some mid-battle notes for next session. Thanks so much for the great ideas and explanations!

@seutary 2 жыл бұрын

Just wanted to comment how I like your voice and energy keeps the video engaging. Subscribed!

@EmethMatthew 2 жыл бұрын

These are great reminders!

@grimdagoblinmain Жыл бұрын

A big thing I think is making the enemies combat actions interesting as well. If your orc just run up and swing, that's lame. Have him do something cool, like tackle the rouge and put him in a chokehold. Have the rouge roll some constitiuon checks and let him make check to get out as well, make him do reduced damage because he can't swing as well or give him disadvantage. This puts a major threat as one of the major dmg dealers is disabled, and this isn't just a magical enemy casting hold person. Describing how an enemy attacks and hits or misses also makes it more engaging. Hiding what they roll (besides a crit, because players should know why they are taking that much dmg) and creating suspense via dramatic pauses. "The bandit swings his scimitar at the wizard (roll the die here) ...... and leaves a big oozing gash on the arm." Big combat moments in even more detail. "The gladiator stabs deep into barbarian's chest, lifting him high into the air, and then slamming him down, causing the sand to fly. As you lay, fading into unconsciousness, you hear the cheering of the crowd as he steps on your chest and lets loose a war cry."

@DungeonsNDreadnoughts 2 жыл бұрын

Interesting bits

@eafesaf6934 2 жыл бұрын

I hardly handle fights. Only recently there was a boss fight with higher stakes: a goblin mage pirate was looting with his crew an warehouse full of vine, there was a higher purpose behind it but the PCs more or less glanced over it but found a small hint towards more.

@jerryfinn3056 Жыл бұрын

A simple way I change the battlefield once was having a roof cave in (half the combat was on top of the building)

@thebeatles9 Жыл бұрын

I've generally only ever ran 1 combat per game, even in most of my dungeon crawls

@erikboge7445 Жыл бұрын

Nice

@nicolaezenoaga9756 2 жыл бұрын

Thanks.

@PlayYourRole 2 жыл бұрын

You are in fact welcome

@Eden5000 2 жыл бұрын

Woah 14 seconds ago sheesh Edit: thanks for all the suggestions! I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep my combat more interesting for a while now, since it’s one of my lackluster areas of expertise. One of the problems is for the combat towards the end of the session. My sessions last for a long time, and the players tend lose energy (they’re introverts). Do you have any tips to increase everybody’s energy before combat starts?

@buhh3121 2 жыл бұрын

Whoa 4 minutes ago sheesh

@PlayYourRole 2 жыл бұрын

AYE welcome to the early gang

@SamGlaze 2 жыл бұрын

Can always try inciting the combat in a big dramatic moment, maybe even rolling initiative, and then giving everyone 15 for a bio break, to move a little, re-up on snacks or whatever they prefer. Having that pause to not just be sitting for so long, *especially* when there’s the background tension of this big encounter that’s just been dropped on them. It might even give them some time to think about exiting cool stuff they’ll be trying to do during the combat, which will mean they are more excited to get to the table and try them out, and hopefully the combat is more dynamic because of those ideas being applied

@flaviorossin5283 2 жыл бұрын

I'd like to create my own campaign, but I haven't DM'd ever before so i do not know if I should buy a pre-written book or make an original one for my party. I have a general understanding and knowledge of the rules in the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's guide, so I thought i was ready to create my own campaign, but know that I'm working on it I'm starting to struggle. I also watched a lot of your and other D&D KZfaqrs videos to complete my job as a future DM hopimg to improve now and in the future. I hope you have some suggestions but, even if you do not, keep up with your work, it's really good. Thank you.

@wallyodom4128 Жыл бұрын

Hey man obviously you weren't asking me so feel free to ignore anything I say, but I thought I'd give ya a suggestion. I think pre-written vs. original is mostly up to personal preference. Personally, I vastly prefer creating an original one but to each their own. Either way though, I think the more important thing is this: you don't have to plan out a whole campaign. Original or prewritten, you really don't need to know exactly where you're going. Sure, it's helpful to have an idea of maybe who your Big Bad is going to be, but you don't need much more than that. The more important thing to plan for is your first session. Just try and plan a good session. Make a town, a few NPCs, and maybe some story threads (or, just pick out some from a pre-written adventure). DND campaigns usually take place over long time periods, so its okay (and maybe better) if you don't have anything connected to the 'bigger story' in your first session. By just playing a session without a big plan in mind, you kind of get to feel out your style and your players' style. Then, do that again. Keep planning a good next session, and before long you'll have built a campaign without even realizing it. tldr: campaigns can be super hard to plan (even if you use a pre-written one), especially if you have less DMing experience. Try to just plan a single great session, and a great campaign will follow :)

@TheDStecher 2 жыл бұрын

Yo, what's the music playing in the background?

@zendikarisparkmage2938 2 жыл бұрын

My alternate goal during this combat is to EAT YOUR BEANS.

@herman1francis 2 жыл бұрын

We usually play 3 hour sessions and many of them don't have a combat encounter. Having more than one in a single session would eat two sessions

@AndrewTheUltraBoss99 2 жыл бұрын

So, try to fuck up you players mind randomly and then find a justification just to not lose face. Alright, I think I did that once

@mslabo102s2 2 жыл бұрын

I've watched so many videos about how to keep combats interesting, but I don't seem to grasp anything. My brain is so affixated to video games, especially action games where combat itself is satisfying, while having nearly no experience in even consuming pure-narrative medium, because I was a kid even scared by Spy Kids and hated movies. I'm bad at words and I want to figure it out with someone else.

@fahrai4983 Жыл бұрын

If video games are your preferred way of keeping combats interesting, gameify it. Go full “rescue the princess before Bowser’s castle collapses” and have combat itself be the secondary objective or part of the obstacle-the faster your party completes that combat encounter, the faster they can complete the more important objective. If your struggle is narrating what you’re visualizing, borrow from video game tropes of your choice or some of your favorite tactics. If you’ve ever played the original Halo, how did it feel when you first faced a Hunter crashing through a building? What are some of your favorite scenes in the action sequences of your favorite games? Say them out loud, record yourself, and then take as much time as you like to transcribe it and polish out the filler words. Your narration doesn’t have to be grandiose if you’d rather say “It’s so goddamn cool, there’s this big explosion as the wall breaks open and a huge hulking armor-plated blue spike monster with a laser cannon just booms out of the dust. You hear a repeating beep and as it turns to you, the little beeps flatline. Roll initiative.” (Again, using the Hunter as an example.) Practicing narrations is one of the simplest ways to get comfortable with them on the fly.

@Apeiron242 8 ай бұрын

You can drop the "TT". RPGs are table top by default. "Impactful" is a non word. Stop saying it.

@PlayYourRole 8 ай бұрын

I know this is bait and I should ignore it, but it's so insanely bizarre that I can't resist. RPG stands for Role-Playing Game. These can be live-action, video games, or tabletop, among many others. So... no? "Impactful" is, in fact, a useful word. For example: "Your comment was so inadequately thought-out that it was impactful enough to compel me to screenshot it and post it on Twitter/X."