If Matt Colville's action oriented monster video is the 'How', this video is the 'Why'.

New Zealand is where all players go when they leave the group.

A few things I've learned about combat having narrative weight after running for nearly ten years: -As Dael said, know what the stakes are, but remember that the stakes don't have to be about the party. Rescuing someone while your on the clock is a great way to now have the party be in danger of death, but if they act too slowly, an NPC dies. -If you are going to have a combat that is only supposed to be a resource tax, don't have it in a vacuum. You need the "boss fight" you were softening them up for for the smaller fight to mean anything. I've seen this happen a lot with random encounters that the party just takes a long rest after. -Lastly, a rule I try to always follow is that any combat should be attached to a narrative beat. If the story would have played out the same regardless of if the combat happened then you didn't need the combat. A combat in D&D should do the same work that an action scene in an action movie does or a musical number in a musical; they need to be establishing, progressing, or resolving conflict, otherwise they are just superfluous.

3:19 On the power of wave combat: One of the my players' favorite and most often regaled encounters was when they were trapped in a mummy tomb, with 3 sets of sarcophagi. It's crucial to know I always encourage and facilitate players to stock up on adventuring gear, since it adds so much to the game. Never was that more true than this fight. There were 3 crystals in the door, and to escape, all three had to be activated. As they activated the first, I described how one set of sarcophagi slid open, giving rise to a wave of guardian mummies. Roll for initiative! The party won, but then they looked back and forth between the remaining crystals and the remaining two sets, then locked eyes with each other and realized what they were in for. Two more waves... however, they could activate the crystal when THEY wanted. They set up the lids as barricades around the door, sprinkled lamp oil around, set up a bear trap in a choke point, and added an improvised tripwire. Second wave had them deplete their spell slots, one player went down but was healed in time. Facing having to prep for the third wave was when the mood got grim and quiet. The players were highly invested to make it, sitting around the table like wartime generals facing dire odds. Between all members combined, the party was below half their HP. They scraped the bottom of their inventories - actually roleplaying how they emptied their backpacks in the middle of the room, and extensively discussed tactics. They fortified the barricade, set up more traps, counted the measurements of the room, caltrops, ball bearings, oil-soaked bandages, improvised molotovs mixed with holy water... the whole room was turned into the damn Maginot line. And then, having triple-checked everything, trading around ranged and thrown weapons, and all readying their attacks, they activated the final crystal. Once more, the terrible guardians arose. It was a very tense battle, but a clutch druidic shapeshift, some kiting around the room and some very clever synergies finally saw them victorious. They were overjoyed, high-fiving each other, and you BET they got a ton of XP and loot. So as a disclaimer, yes I thought it was risky to design this way, as I strongly prefer to never railroad my encounters, but perhaps two reasons this challenge worked were the genre expectations of being trapped in a mummy tomb, as well as giving the players agency and all the time they wanted to prepare.

Speaking of the drama of yoyo deaths... well, I'm playing a tank barbarian with mageslayer and I was CRUSHING the villain, and they were desperately trying to knock me out so they could run. When they finally do, the bard sends a healing word to pick me up. Her healing word: Bitch. My barbarian comes back to conciousness, gasping for life, and the villain knocks him down again and finishes him off, making the last words he heard in life being the Bard calling him a bitch. XD

I really like the idea of making natural disasters work as combat. In my first campaign, the players were on a boat "fighting" against a storm. The storm, the boat and the players had to use their values in a combat turn order to fight each other. Until finally the party went overboard ;)

Not only is this really good advice, but I legitimately don't know if I've ever heard someone on KZfaq give it before. I feel like whenever I see videos like "tips to make 5e combat better" it tends to be like the same 5 or 6 things just reiterated from one video to another. I'm prepping a combat encounter later today, and I'm definitely going to keep this in mind while doing it. 😁

One of these days I'll actually get to DM D&D, and I'll be simultaneously over- and under- qualified.

Love the editing, and LOVED the lack of it near 2/3 of the way in. Keep it up homie

I was expecting a New Vegas joke with the "Jingle Jangle" bit

There is a pervasive chaotic energy underlying this video, and I'm here for it.

On the topic of “context is everything” I will always end a session right before the deadly combat. A couple examples: The players are sneaking through the Ancient Red Dragons lair when suddenly a loud noise causes the dragon to wake, eyes pointed straight at the party. That’s a good place to end, folks, let’s see how this goes next week! The players had been fighting through the lair of a demigod vampiress who is bent in ruling the world with her undead army. 3 hours spent crossing pits of spikes and battalions of skeletons and ghouls, only to come the doors to her chambers, which are awaiting open. Well I think we can call it there, see you guys next week! Both the priormentioned battles ended up being fantastic . I had a whole week to set up an unforgettable battlemap, and when people got back they were so ready for their character to die a glorious death. That’s my advice, anyway

Dael's adept strategic planning and skilled manipulation would be a bit scary if it weren't for her obvious good-naturedness. Unless that's just what she wants us to think.

Every time I get your notification, my day gets exponentially better

Brad over there is wearing 28 pieces of flair. Dael: hold my beer

So when does Dael write an article for Colville's new magazine?

*Me:* Gives players a lead on an abandoned castle with "Murder" in the name, outside the narrative of the campaign *Players:* Choose to do that *Me, not wanting them to die here:* =O

"none of us can tell the future" except, of course, for Mopsus the Magnificent!

This is why the finale of Critical Role season 1 is so epic: the narrative climax comes out *through the combat

I 100% agree with Dael talking about raising the tension without lowering the treat by attacking the barbarian! It’s something I always think about. Which character will survive this next attack cause that where’s it’s going. Alternatively so this with a character you think won’t survive is also great tension whether they survive or not!

'Moving to New Zealand' is a meme that goes back to 80's English soap opera. It was away of saying 'they are fine but never coming back...'. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

You helped me realize that I've grown a love for scaling rounds in combat with stakes, but I wouldn't want a combat to go more than 5 rounds.

This is so helpful. My best fights had consepts close to what you describe but having it said out loud makes it a lot more orgenized

dude this video is TRANSCENDENT for me as a DM. thank you so much Dael :D

One of the things that I think has been glossed over here, is that stakes don't always have to be, "We might die" or "we might die and..." but something else entirely. If you wipe out the evil cultists in an efficient eight rounds of combat, taking no casualties, and they are still able to complete their ritual and black out the sun, you've won the battle and lost the war.

This video made me hungry 10/10 would watch again.

The real D&D is the memories we made along the way.

In my current campaign we had fight 1: A couple of slimes, fight 2: A couple of rat swarms, fight 3: A rakshasa; And that tempo has basically been the same ever since. Easy breezy, smooth sailing right into the anxiety of approaching death. They don't mind, because it's supposed to be a deadly campaign, but I've been wanting to change it up, and I think this is the actual advice I needed to do that.

I think this is probably some of the best DM advice I’ve heard so far

"Any combat can get out of hand if the rats roll enough 20s or the heroes roll enough 1s." Dael, you don't realise just how close that hits to home. I remember a situation where those rats only rolled 18-20 and players missed every attack. Also thanks for the great video!

Regarding the dramatic weight, or lack thereof, of death yoyos: it really depends on your players and how they roleplay that out. A description of the character surging to their feet mid strike with a defiant yell, a la Boromir during his final fight in Fellowship of the Ring, is going to have much more dramatic weight than a simple "uh, I guess I get up and try to hit him again"

2nd edition barbarian had a rage mechanic where they could fight on with -9 HP. We didn't have rulebook death save's or other death avoidance at or below 0. All except that barbarian effect, 0 meant dead. We applied a lot of homebrew allowances to let it be easier to get a PC up AFTER combat ended.

Everything needs to be part of the story. Every action of the PCs has a butterfly effect on the campaign world. Make them see that their choices matter.

When i was a dm i couldn't get enough of your dnd videos but now I'm just a player and watching your videos seems like I'm setting my current dm some pretty high standards. Now i can't wait for the story videos

This so so packed full of great info for great D&D. Thank you very much. :)

I like the idea of the serious wound acting as a countdown for the injured player.

Been DMing since 1982. Your videos are incredibly informative and engaging. Great stuff. Thanks for your advice.

I was distracted by the AT-AT pin on Dael's jacket!

Adventures have to be tasty for the brains of your players, so I'm thankful for the dispensing of the recipes.

This was a very useful video for the next few encounters I've been planning for my group. Great work as always!

Thanks for the video Dael. You always brighten my day!

This is brilliant and I'm so glad the KZfaq gods put this in my suggested feed. Brb I'm going to watch all the videos available now.

Thank you for the video! Recently I found a new group to run for and for the past 4 years, I ran for one group and it was a very "roll dice, kill monsters" style game and I'm trying to adjust my DMing style for my new players who prefer more a lean into the roleplaying sphere. Helps me figure out how to keep combat entertaining for them!

I'm technically working on some stuff for my in-progress homebrew setting, and this would be useful for that Specifically, there's a town that's gonna be getting menaced by vampires when the players get there I wanna introduce the players to a specific NPC, get them to like this NPC, and then get that NPC attacked by a vampire and be infected with vampirism, so the players have to either destroy the vampires *before* the NPC turns into a vamp, OR they spot the NPC among the waves of vampires during the final combat Also, I think a good way to highlight further how dangerous an enemy is, is to have a tough and experienced NPC helping the party, and have that NPC be visibly scared when they see the enemy. E.g. that's what I'm planning to do with the vampire-haunted town's cleric in the combat encounter which introduces the boss, an exceptionally powerful type of vampire called an upyr. The upyr would show up near the end and the cleric who was previously fighting her way through waves of vampires with ease would be visibly frightened by this thing. Given the current stat block I've made for the upyr, there's no way the party would kill it during this encounter, but the cleric NPC *would* be able to get them to safety, which is another useful thing: have an NPC around to save the party, so they can escape, regroup, and then do the whole 'second act defeat, third act victory' thing The way the cleric NPC saves the party would also exploit the upyr's two weaknesses - sunlight and holiness - to hint at the players how they can beat it (this being either, a. a lot of radiant damage and holy weapons, or b. find its grave, hide and wait for the upyr to come out, once the upyr leaves - hopefully without seeing any of the players - draw a circle of blessed chalk around the grave and get in, then just wait it out. And then start making wisdom saves once the upyr finds them and tries using every trick up its sleeve, including charming them or using a terror-inducing scream, to get them to leave the grave so it can kill them)

This video feels like it is tying together so much other advice I've heard before. Good work!

Great video on those moments, I'll definitely make use of this!

I’ve been thinking about DMing for a while and it all seemed too overwhelming tbh. Your way of talking about battles made it much easier to break down to the level of stakes and the memorable moments. Thanks for all of your videos, they’re really helping 😄

While I'm sure, as a Content Creator, the editing bit bugs you, it's also super important to remember that what we see is not real time. John Green recently made a video on "The Frame" and spoke about how his presentation online is not how he actually talks, and Alec from Technology Connections has his outtakes in the Patreon reel. I find it really reassuring that the people I look up to are just as human as the rest of us. Now, about the actual content of the video: I love this, because I was struggling with how to get my ideas for my world and monsters and stuff into a compelling story in a tabletop format, and one of the big things was how do I dell these stories through combat encounters. And I often have ideas for these memorable moments, but don't know how to implement them, so this, especially the advice on timing was super useful. I'll let you know how it goes once I finally get my game going :P

This is awesome and so key

I arrived here, through the Dungeon Coach, and I have already become a fan of your work, continue! :D

Great video, has given me so many ideas!

This video was too good, like Omar!

Fantastic as always.

Well, I just ran my first combat yesterday so this couldn't be more impeccable timing!

All this talk of stakes is making me hungry...

I've watched a lot of dnd combat videos on how to make it interesting and important and while all the creators had a lot of good stuff to say I must say this one had the least overlap and most originality and new ideas. I appreciate the work you did on this it'll help me a bunch bc I have a new player that doesn't like combat and I'm hoping these techniques help. Also this is the video that let me find your channel I can't wait to see what other content you produce thanks a lot🙂

If the combat is going to be deadly and it’s at the start of the session, try making the combat slowly get harder so that it starts at difficult, and ends as deadly

I need that d20 pin........ great video! thanks for the awesome tips!

Amazing video! Good charisma! I should watch more of your videos. Tho I'm subbed and notified I've only seen two lol! Once I did the kind of thing you described in my world if darkness mage the Ascension game. Cabal of mages was traveling from London to USA and near their destination their plane was nearly crashed by some unknown enemy. Ofc they used magic to track the attackers and when they found the enemy Nephandi cabal ,sooner then I had planned them to, I gave them a chance to coordinate a decent plan if attack... But they were not ready for that a confirmation. So... After scaring sh*tless The cabal of "experienced" tradition mages the leader of the Nephandi mage cabal sacrificed his own cabal members to cast a high level illusion/ teleportation spell faking her own death. Them half a year later that Nephandi leader came to London and apparently killed the whole cabal. Tho few escaped and few faked their own deaths. That was the ending if first story chapter and explained why half the players went on hiatus. Lol! Now game continues in part 2 set 8 years in future. Hopefully the Nephandi leader has forgotten about the London mages or preferably dead. Latter witch never stopped a single Nephandi ever. *Sight* Death is noth the end.

In my games death is always a possibility. My players know that and act accordingly. They are in a extremely hostile world and a wrong move can hurt a lot. The encounters try thier best to score a kill. Within logic of course

Great advice in this video. You clearly have a grasp for story telling

Great ideas thanks 🤘

Sweet battle jacket, Dael.

"Shout outs" for Dale from Dungeon Craft and The Dungeon Coach episodes this last week. Fun stuff.

Checking out your videos... I love them so much I subscribed. Was sent here by "The Dungeon Coach"! Cheers.

Thank you so much ❤️👍🏻

I just discovered your videos, thanks to Matt Colville. I must say I enjoy your over thinking!

Two RPG videos so close together. Nice, nice!

"I moved to New Zealand, once. Did me no end of good...."

My DMing style is already very story-driven, but I still really appreciated this video.

Great video

Love your videos so much! Can you make a vague and evocative video about a genie encounter like you did with the witches?//the elemental planes in the same manner as your fey wild video?? I've been dying to hear your thoughts on these things for so long!

I feel like 4:58 is what would happen if I ever actually met Dael. Great video, as usual.

Admittedly, I missed some videos. But before looking for them, I wanted to interject that as much as I enjoy Dungeons & Dragons... it is not at all an ideal system for _stories._ A series of group combats, though, with some narrative stuff to connect one combat to the next... sure, in fact that's precisely how it's designed to function. But I know that there are two things that get so many people to force the square peg of D&D into the round hole of not-D&D. It's almost ubiquitous with the hobby simply by merit of having a massive market share, so finding content is not only easy but almost impossible to not trip over D&D-centric content and resources. The other thing: "I already know D&D". This second one is far more ephemeral whereas the first point is actually quantifiable. I say that because learning D&D is actually harder than learning many other systems (not Pathfinder -- that's just a D&D clone with lots of extra fiddly bits). But how about Dungeon World, Savage Worlds, or some of the OSR stuff that strays significantly from their origin points? Or you can go further afield and look at stuff like Blades in the Dark, Monster of the Week, Fate, Stars Without Number, Dresden Files Accelerated, Scum and Villainy, and so on and so on (there are some "micro" RPGs that have led to some of my all time favorite gaming experiences). But if you're up to learning more complicated systems that are also far more geared toward story-first play, you can try out World of Darkness, Delta Green, Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, etc. I used to limit myself to D&D, but after getting introduced to some other systems I soon came to realize... D&D actually sucks for story and character stuff. You can do it, but you're fighting against the rigid mechanics the whole time, and you are generally funneled into certain kinds of stories. But in some ways, the reason there is so much content for D&D is because people so often have to tear it apart and remake it into a new system (without realizing they've done so) in order to get it to do what they want... but do so kind of poorly because people don't consciously want to make a whole new system suited to what they're looking to play. D&D is still great, though, when you want a tactical combat game that doesn't bog down with too much mechanics overheard where the story is fairly light (because the narrative will always be secondary to combat, maybe even tertiary behind rules and combat). One more thing, though... I think learning and running other systems makes a person a stronger DM in most cases. You come to realize where it excels and where it is simply subpar.

I'm here for the narrative validation and I got what I came for

Question: Have you ever released your injury table before? I enjoy using injuries but I'm just using the one from the DM's Guide and some of them are a little lackluster

We Needs This Smashed that notification so hard that my phone made a Con save

I agree. I run a pbp group/solo adventures in a living world. Everything happens for a reason.

Great video. Would love more on the narratively changing stakes without mechanically doing so.

Beautiful reference to John Green's video.

Interesting. When I think narrative combat, I think of games like Ironsworn and Dungeon World. I thought she was about to bring some of that magic in or something haha. But yeah, this stuff works, although I don't think I care to really plan out as much.

Players don't know how much their characters are in trouble. They don't know how much HP the enemies have, they don't know if there are more enemies around the corner, and so on. They already have this mechanical blindfold that prevents them from knowing how easy or hard the combat really is. So it's out job as GMs to make them feel what the stacks are. Now, this can correlate to the actually danger they are in, or not. A good GM can make an easy combat feel dangerous and vice versa.

Dael as the next Superman

BUT WHY IS THAT COW IN A SUPERMAN SUIT. Edit: That cow figurine keeps showing up on the shelf behind her and it's FREAKING ME OUT.

Also, this is definitely a huge part of that followup video I mentioned in the last one.

Is that a side badge where would one to about getting such a thing

Super Dael! WooHoo!

New subscriber here, do you play in any live streams?

Which RPG system do you use Dael? Have you ever used Dungeon World?

"YEAH -- Gimmie that drammaaa!" :)

WOO!

Screech, point of order, just sayin: DMs never make combat encounter to tax characters, to use resources before a boss battle...now, the boss might send out some scouts, and a coordinated probing attack to find out about the party. And as we know a DM would never make a scenario just to beat the players...but the boss may use the info from those scout and probing attacks to devise a defensive strategy against the on coming party.

How does your injury system work for level 1-2 characters, as almost any it will be about half of their HPs?

Dael? Where can we find this injury table of yours? Sounds neato. :)

I never realized combat was about steaks... But steaks are expensive, whos paying for all these steaks? Also whos cooking all these steaks?! and how are they doing so while in combat?! We need someone who is not going to ruin the steaks because as we established before steaks are expensive...

idk what to comment to help the algorithm this time, so I'll just say that the mermaid in the background gives me anxiety because I think it's gonna roll and fall at any time.

I think the "signature moment" should happen as early as you can get away with it. Simply because many times the players will stomp the enemies and there will be no other opportunity to use it. Many times I held back some cool attack options waiting for a better timing and never got to use them at all.

Yay!

I like this video.

1/2 hitpoints major injury in stormbringer rpg