Combat is an integral part ofDungeons and Dragons, but its many rules can sometimes lead to boring fights that take up a lot of time in your games. The limited action economy of 5th editionD&Dcan slow down fights, making player choices feel less interesting on each turn. However, you can raise the stakes of any battle by introducing twists and turns that help ramp up the action.
Anycombat encounter inD&Drelies on a number of factors, from the stat numbers of player characters to the challenge ratings of enemies they fight.Unbalanced encounters can feel impossible for players to overcome, while fights that are too easy can feel like an obstaclerather than a challenge. While different tables have their own preferences for what makes combat interesting, some universal ideas might be worth trying.
10Include More Details About The Combat Environment
Create Landscapes That Are Intricate
A bunch of characters and monsters fighting on a flat, open plain is hardly the most fascinating combat experience.Whenever you start a battle, you want to use the environment as a characteras much as any monster, having it evolve or offer unique solutions to the overall"puzzle"of a fight. For example, you could have a pit of acid in the center of a dungeon, or a lake frozen over that is difficult terrain for characters to walk through.
There are infinite ways to make a combat environment interesting. You could include rooftops for players to jump on to give a sense of verticality, or have tight prison cells with claustrophobic space that prevents AoE magic from being used by your players' characters. Some of theunexpected difficulty ofD&Dmonsterscan come from how they use their environment as well, adding to how players approach a fight on an enemy’s home turf.
Giving players tools from an environment can help them create advantages for their party throughout a combat encounter.Environmental restrictions and details can also add to your game’s story, reinforcing the exploration your players did previously or foreshadowing their next roleplaying moments.
Give Characters Another Mission To End Combat
While it’s always fun to beat up a villain inD&D, sometimescombat can benefit more from a specific goal players have to accomplish. For instance, players might have to destroy an artifact that will curse an entire city of people if left unchecked. Meanwhile, several cultists are trying to keep the artifact working, leading to opposition and combat that isn’t solely about defeating the cultists.
This could lead to multiple members of a party pursuing different missions, with some focused on holding enemies at bay while others conduct skill checks to do something else. Thismight create moments of sacrifice or hair-splitting decisionsfrom members of your party that go beyond just hitting the bad guy until it dies.
8Use Minions As Easy Enemy Fodder
Don’t Rely Too Much On Stat Blocks
Combat can often feel like a grind, especially at early levels, because of how many hits it takes to defeat a large group of enemies. Technically,every creature inD&D’s Monster Manualhas its own Armor Class and Hit Points, establishing a set value players have to overcome. However,minions who go down in one hit can make combat more satisfyingby making it seem like players have a greater impact on destroying a villain’s allies swiftly.
An easy way to use minions is to have a set number of hits they can take before dying. They still retain the same AC as their listed stat block, but players do not have to use too many turns to reduce a combat encounter’s action economy to their favor.
While minions don’t necessarily ignore a monster’s HP, tweaking that number is aneasy way to speed combat up. In the games I’ve run, having minions puts a greater emphasis on a fight’s key antagonist, whether it be a necromancer summoning the undead or a brutal bugbear leading a host of goblins. Minion enemies are still obstacles players have to overcome, but they feel like a piece to the puzzle rather than a wall that’ll take a long time to hop over.
7Introduce Time Limits To Fights
Tension Builds When A Clock Winds Down
Thrilling action is sometimes made even better when there’s a clock ticking down to 0. InD&D, this can manifest in a lot of different ways, from a dark ritual being completed to an evil god getting awoken if players run out of time during a combat encounter.Time limits introduce a ridiculous amount of tension into a battle, forcing players to think about what goals to pursue in the fastest way possible.
Having time limits also keeps combat encounters tight, making their goals very straightforward for players. Sometimes, players may lose track of details during combat, but putting them into a limited timeframe will have them far more focused on the task at hand.
6Let Enemies Pursue Various Goals
Villains Aren’t Always Worried About Taking Down Player Characters
In a similar vein to letting players have different goals in a fight, villains and monsters are more interesting to battle when they want to accomplish something too. In reference to a previous example, having a Lich need to spend an Action during their turn to continue an incantation for a dark ritual gives them far more agency.When enemies have something to do, their motivations can invite creativityin a player’s efforts to stop them.
Enemies with Legendary Actions have far more agency in a standardD&Dcombat to pursue different goals. That being said, bosses do not have to be the only monsters who have unique goals other than killing player characters.
Some enemies can use their distinct skills to stall player charactersrather than defeat them. As player creativity increases, so do villains, as they might use more debilitating magic or features to slow characters down so they have enough time to finish their mission. This creates a back-and-forth during combat that becomes less traditional as either side tries to thwart the other.
5Play Into Character Strengths
Don’t Be Afraid To Let Your Players Have The Upper Hand
From my experience, I’ve been in many games where combat encounters always have players on the backfoot. This can be interesting in some cases, such as an ambush, but sometimes the best fights are ones where characters dominate the opposition. When you run combat encounters in your games, you want tohave enemies do actions that are directly countered by player charactersbased on features they use.
The most common example of this lies in theMonk class inD&D. At Level 3, Monks gain the ability to catch projectiles used against them, but many Dungeon Masters tend to avoid using ranged attacks against Monks because of this. This takes away a Monk from boasting an incredibly cool skill, similar to a Paladin’s aura or a Barbarian’s Rage damage resistance.
Fights are far more memorable when these skills can be used often, as each highlights a character’s specialty.Giving characters time to shine through their unique traits makes combat more fun for them, especially if it turns the tide of battle into a party’s favor.
4Keep Monsters Varied For Unique Actions
Only One Type Of Enemy Doesn’t Stay Compelling For Long
Some monsters inD&Dhave multiple variants, with each using different abilities when fighting to mix things up in combat. Some monster types have a spellcaster variant with limited magic, while others have elevated abilities to natural weapons that make them stronger than their lower-level counterparts.Fights are far more exciting when you use multiple enemy variantsat once, with each having their own strengths and weaknesses.
One easy way to include multiple monster types in a battle is to give your"boss"enemy multiple phases. Alternatively, you could also combine all the traits of a monster variant into a single foe, creating a juiced-up enemy that players will remember.
This creates a diverse battlefield where players have to divide and conquertheir enemies in order to win. Giving players multiple variant enemies might encourage them to communicate with each other, prioritizing who should take on which targets. This can give a party assigned"roles"during combat to counter specific enemies based on their varied abilities.
3Give Players Conflicting Choices
Impose A Decision In The Heat Of A Battle
Engaging combat encounters often have parties pursuing something, but what if they have to make a choice between two goals? My games have always thrived best whenplayers have to use their agency to choose between multiple options, when each choice has clear outcomes. During the middle of a fight, there’s an even greater intensity in any sort of choice, as it could lead to making the situation better or worse.
An easy way to do this might be to have players only able to save one NPC out of two, with the unchosen guaranteed to die. Parties will have to make a hard call, or do everything in their power to save both NPCs, possibly letting both perish in the process. In a fight,hard choices create a level of risk you won’t find from mashing stat blocks together, leading to snap decisions during turns and an impressive amount of party coordination.
2Force Your Players To Move Around
Have Combat Be Exploration As Much As It Is Fighting
MostD&Dcombat mechanicsfacilitate battles where player characters close in on an enemy and hit it until it goes down. This is hardly something worthwhile after many encounters, but if that enemy is behind cover, hiding themselves, or above a party in a building, suddenly that process becomes much more engaging.Giving your players space and incentive to move around a battlefield creates a memorable fight, even in tighter spaces like dungeons.
Wide battlefields, a sprawling metropolis, or simply the entrance to a ruin all have interesting aspects to their environment you can force your players to engage with. As mentioned earlier, you can make terrain more interesting, but the best battles make your players frequently interact with that terrain. Have enemies utilize battle maps in interesting ways to make player characters go outside their comfort zone to gain advantages needed for victory.
1Have Enemies Use Different Tactics
The Best Foes Always Have A Plan
A stat block for an enemy or monster is only the tip of the iceberg, asthe deadliest creatures will use unique tactics to attack player characters. From invisible stalkers silently hunting until the right moment to kobolds using traps, monsters don’t need to have a high Intelligence score to act smart.
Every type of monster has some sort of fighting style, with the best battles taking place when monsters know exactly what they’re doing.Extra tension comes from foes who have a plan set and are ready to defeat a party, which creates an even greater sense of satisfaction when characters overcome that careful strategy.
Ultimately, strategy and stakes up the ante for fights, making them memorable long after the party is victorious or suffers a TPK. If you want to make yourDungeons and Dragonscombat encounters as thrilling as they can be, you need to think about how best to emphasize character agency beyond just basic attacking and spellcasting.
