How do you make your combat encounters more exciting?
High stakes? Reward? Unusual terrain?
>>44297970
You could try giving cool descriptions and not only saying "You hit the orc for 8 damage." Mark.
Make your enemies do something other than hack and cast spells.
Make them knock your party over, make them try and disarm them or use the environment.
I once ran a one shot of DnD5E for a friend, was only him playing. He fought two goblins as his first meaningful encounter.
Because he allowed the two goblins to strafe and circle around him, one of them went from behind and tried to hold him while the other got some easy shanks in.
Now, in terms of mechanics all that happened was he failed a STR saving throw to break out of the grapple, got a reduced AC because he was an easier target, and thus took some mad damage by getting shanked in the stomach.
In terms of what was really going on, it was interesting. Afterwards, he told me it was one of the most fun combat experiences in a ttrpg he ever had.
>>44297970
Make the enemies do smart shit that fucks up the party's shit to some degree
>>44298031
That's what I try to do. Sure I phone it in maybe one out of every four actions but for the most part if I have an image in my head I share it with my players. Had a brawler walking around one-shotting kobolds. Just imagined this elf running up and punting these little bastards like hes in the NFL.
>>44298155
Last session our team of superheroes fought against some sectoids. I hit one so hard I made him punch through the ceiling, dangling a bit from it afterwards.
It was glorious.
It depends on the system and your style of GMing, but I try to make every combat encounter matter. It's not just a mob of anonymous foes to defeat to progress. They're there for a reason, they have an objective, and you have a reason to oppose them.
Adding interesting details to the combat encounter itself is good, giving the enemies their own quirks, strategies and tactics, designing interesting terrain features to exploit or work around, but making players care about them ensures everything you do in the combat has more impact.
>>44298113
>DnD5E
>got a reduced AC because he was an easier target
>>44297970
I like doing lots of changes that require players to adapt. Foes bringing out secret weapons, new side joining the battle, environment shifting and so on.
>>44298180
Whats wrong with a game making sense?
If I hold you in one spot from behind, it's easier to stab you from the front.
AC impacts either how easy it is to hit someone, or how easy it is to hit someone hard enough to effect them. Being held still would make both easier.
As already said before, just try to describe the happenings a bit more vividly. Make your player's characters feel really alive and strong when they take action, likewise for enemies but not exactly to the same extent (gets exhausting).
If capable by the enemy, make them try to perform simple tactics and make them improvise attacks or different shit. Play dirty in a way that makes it seem dangerous yet not tedious and annoying for your players to handle. Also encourage them to improvise attacks themselves, let them know that combat doesn't have to be as stat sheet as the rulebooks make it.
I try to always throw in something unexpected, so that players have to think on the fly. A combat with no surprises is a boring combat; players will gauge their opponents and go through the motions. Little surprises such as reinforcements, sudden change in the terrain, unexpected abilities or items can all add spice to combat.
Take the gunbat here. When my players first encountered a swarm of them in a catacomb, they had no knowledge of the gunbat's capabilities. They could guess at its ranged attack ability and swarm tactics but when the fighter took one out at close range they had to factor in a new discovery: gunbats explode. They changed tactics and took out the rest from a distance, but all the structural damage caused the floor to give way, and the players had to shift their focus to surviving the fall as the debree smashed through floor after floor below them.
>>44298192
He's probably salty because you you modeled that as a penalty to AC instead of giving the goblins advantage on the attack.
>>44298254
Well, in that instance, +5 to hit is the same as -5 to AC.
I actually did just give the goblins a decent bonus to hit, I just said what came to mind first.
>>44297970
Whenever you look at the really great fight scenes out there, there's always more going on between the characters than the actual fights themselves. It's more about two characters having goals and coming to blows over them.
But for more practical advice, I'd advise just going and reading everything The Angry GM has posted, because his essays on p&p are actually worth reading if you can endure the awful lmaosoangry facade he maintains.
http://theangrygm.com/three-shocking-things-you-wont-believe-about-dd-combat/
D&D4E with interesting terrain.
>>44298260
That's not how it works with 5e rules, though. I think that's why anon was pissed.
>>44297970
I encourage called shots and battlefield control.
>>44297970
Don't play D&D, that usually covers it.
>>44300735
Maybe that anon should take his testicles out of his purse and man up and stop getting offended at stupid insignificant shit.
>>44297970
I try to think of them as WoW bosses. Most of the time the players literally can't win by just hiting the bad guy with every strong skill/spell they have. I like when battles feel like action puzzles.
>>44297970
run campaigns that don't spam combat.
>>44298113
The fundemental problem with what your describing is that, in most systems, 5e included, all those "interresting ideas" are mechanically less viable than the boring option. THe goblins would have done more damage by not wasting one of their teams' standard actions to grapple, because 1-attack-with-advantage=/=two-attacks.
I find that infinite refluff of
>>44301808
>>44298113
Sorry, clicked post without finishing
I find that infinite refluff of the mechanically viable options works better than expecting players and monsters to intentionally gimp themselves for flavor.
>>44301002
>not quite how advantage/disadvantage works
To be fair, the other anon was not articulate at all in expressing why that might not have been a great idea. Creating ad hoc rules, especially when there are existing rules to cover a situation should be done with significant care. House rules are best noted before play begins.
In this particular case, the Shorthand that advantage/disadvantage is +5/-5 needs to die in a fire. It creates higher or lower averages, but with numbers as very tight as they are in 5th edition, actual numeric bonuses, especially so high (or penalties) completely changes the range of results possible. +5 does things that advantage never could and far more reliably ensures success, just as -5 swings the realm of possibility far to failure.
>>44297970
By not using systems in which they take hours to resolve.
>>44301808
>>44301817
One thing I'm planning to do to alleviate this is to make weapons in Pathfinder that have a certain advantage (trip etc.) just give that feat, instead of a paltry +2. So anyone who takes that weapon has the option of using that action without having to eat an attack for it. I'm also adding shields that are more suited to shieldbashing.
Because, as you say, the penalty for trying to do something is a little high. It also makes things easier for the DM, because he doesn't have to build special enemies who can execute combat manoeuvres.
