Fixing my BORING D&D combat

My DM in our last campaign set up an encounter with a bad guy and his minions that were way above our level. They had come in to basically kidnapped the NPC we were supposed to speak with. During combat I was forced onto a ledge with fire starting to engulf crates beneath us. The DM had me flanked and I was getting piled on because I was the tank. He allowed what would be the greatest move in the campaign and is now one of the bar stories whenever we visit a tavern. Because of my size (and both of my attack rolls) I was allowed to grapple both of the attackers that had me flanked by the throat and kick off the wall pulling them with me off the ledge. Because of where I was at, one of the attackers landed on the stack of crates that was on fire and caused me to let go of him on the way down. As part of my movement he allowed an acrobatics check to see if the momentum of me loosing the grasp on the second attacker was enough to have me land on top of the other bad guy reducing the fall damage and transferring it to it. This was an epic move and used the physics from the fall to kill off both characters and prevent greater damage (I still suffered some fall damage) to my character who was starting to get pummeled if I had stayed where I was... the moral of the story using the map it was set up perfectly to use the items beneath me to have a fall effect on my action, great DM'ing made for a memorable moment and awesome narration!

A Witcher campaign, my party were scaling a mountain pass through a damaged part of the mountain which if they fell would be certain death.
They each held a length of rope acting as a lifeline should any of them lose their footing.
The ground was loose gravel.
The combat started as a bunch of ghouls (Witcherverse) attacked them some from above crawling out of small crevices and others from the direction they were heading.

One of my players decided to let go of the rope and run across but lost his footing and slid down. I let him use his action to dig his dagger into the cliff and hold on, another player had to rescue him lost his footing but was held by a strength save from yet another PC, they all survived but the stress of an instant death was glorious. They all took damage from the Ghouls but managed to dispatch them by throwing them by throwing them off the cliff. The rope was severed leaving the party 2 and 2. The amount of teamwork I saw from the party made me so proud as the intensity of such a minor encounter lead to one of the best performances I’ve seen as a DM

I had an encounter that was in the middle of a wedding dinner. It was a royal wedding as well. The king was making a speech about how happy he was for his daughter. Suddenly, the massive stain glass windows behind him shatter open with great force! A miniature sized air ship, carrying about 4 people busted in. The ship crashed into a few tables, killing some guests, wounding others, and trapping a few. Then, around 20 dark clothed individuals swung into the dinning hall using the large hole the created by the small air ship. Panic was everywhere. Something my players didn't notice was that the guards in the room locked the doors, and barricaded another... the barricaded door was keeping the proper guards locked away. So, the players had to navigate through panicked dinner guests. Stop the intruders from kidnapping the princess... they had another air ship waiting outside the busted window. All the while trying to protect the guests and themselves. One of my players used his movement and action to unbarricade the guard door, allowing 8 guards to come in an assist.... Lots happened and it was a lot of fun.

If your system has Attacks of Opportunity, your system sucks. Rules-lite is the key. Discover the OSR (Old-School Renaissance).

Enemies are intelligent, and they are coordinated. They hold actions to work together, such as groups of archers readying suppressing fire. They run away when they feel things aren't going their way. And above all, they're always in motion. In combat, he who sits still dies; he who moves faster sets the terms of engagement. Enemies would not wait for players to come to them in their boss chambers, they would take the offensive and use superiority of movement to corral players into positions of disadvantage well away from sensitive locations, ideally even on the players' own turf. They would use combat manoeuvres to keep players prone, restrained, flanked, or otherwise immobilised, and under constant suppressing fire. They would always attack at range and use every trick of illusions, stealth, cover, concealment, rough terrain, and magic to limit the players' attack range. Dispel Magic is their best friend, and Counterspell a close second. Players should be forced to defend locations and deny the enemy entry rather than seek the enemy out; attacking enemy bases is the last step of the quest, not the quest itself.

I ran an encounter for 3.5 years ago, where the group of players were navigating a swamp in a boat with a guide when I black dragon attacked. The dragon would pop out of the water use its breath weapon, killing the guide forcing the players to dive into the water, then forcing them back on the boat. Then the dragon would attack the boat from within the water trying to knock the players off the boat and the dragon would also fly out of the water into the air. Let’s say it left a very interesting encounter that was not a typical combat situation.

My favorite encounter was my party getting ambushed by a harpie as they were fighting zombies and my brother having just found a magic staff that I rolled up in a loot generator went to use it on the harpy only for a harmless tulip to sprout at her feet.

There was a high level Christmas special where a fey by the name of Kit was celebrating his birthday, and one of the events was a snowball fight with the party facing snowmen that were immune to all but cold damage. So being a wizard after experimenting a bit, I cast reverse gravity to deal max falling damage twice with all the loose snow

Traps retreat and kidnapping are all on table for me.

I don't like the "You dodge if you don't know what to do" thing. I hear it a lot, but I think it is way better to help them make a decision. Then again, I never DM'ed for a group larger than 5 players.

This thing about "Bad guys are real people with lives and motivations beyond the combat encounter" is why the concept of dungeon makes very little sense to me. It's like you are telling me there's a series of underground chambers that have been locked off and forgotten for centuries, but there are critters living inside them? How did the less powerful ones manage to get there? Why did the more powerful ones chose to stay there?

I ran a cavern with a bridge in the center and a dug out side tunnel for the party's rogue and ranger to flank but I also lowered a moving spike wall behind them as they came in so they had to keep pushing forward to avoid being hit by it. Kept them alert and moving the whole time

Thank you! This video really helped me in a game I'm running for my son.

Maybe it can be run like a wargame if you have a map.

We played a battle in a casino and were terribly outnumbered, but by calling back to a stairway and letting outselves get "trapped" we drew everyone in range of a damaging channel which sorted things out nicely. If we had stayed stationary we would have just TPK'd

Popcorn initiative is best initiative!

Putting players in situations where they are at a disadvantage to the monsters.

Was running a game where the players where diving in and around shipwrecks when I had a couple hunter sharks show up and the panic that set in to the players was priceless!

i must say what this video thought me is that my DM runs combat super well

Great video, super solid tips, thank you! Also that lipstick is epic.

Excellent video—these are brilliant! Well researched, thoughtfully reported, and CONCISE.

Threat punch them irl if they get hurt

Thank you Ginny!! Your channel has been super helpful as I’m starting my first campaign ever as a DM this week. Especially love your attention and acknowledgement of the emotional aspects of sitting around a table as human beings. Thanks!! :)

hatsune miku lookin girl

I ran a VERY home brew campaign , and one of the big bosses was a military scholar who was completely out of his mind after the death of his wife. The music was intense and loud everyone was tense hanging over the edge of their seats as the man would throw attacks at the players like entire chandeliers and cutting his own flesh to use the iron in his blood to form iron shards. It was one of the most insane battles and it ended in many of the players being actually injured permanently for the rest of the campaign. I think adding permanent consequences after the battle can also add urgency and investment

where did you get this shirt :)

A DM I played with in the past was a master at creating memorable combat encounters; and just to mess with us he would requently trow groups of low CR mosters at us. we called them "F-you Goblins" and they where teriying.
They would attack at night, lay ambushes, set up defenseble positions and engage in full on medieval seige warfare, shoot from near unreachable positions, set shit on fire, drive wild animals at the party and then scatter to regroup once we got the upper hand.
We once spent several in-game days over multiple sessions trying to deal with a few dozen gobblins just Ramboo-ing it up in a forest in the middle of nowhere
I still think of those little shitheads sometimes

Fight smarter? No. Smite farter.

I was running candle keep mysteries, and at one point a bunch of hands star attacking you. Between the players and improv then hands would crawl along shelves and ambush players from them. Then a player had the smart idea to just light the whole shelf on fire to kill 2 of them. So far my players have impressed me multiple with some really smart tool use in defeating enemies.

Could we have this in player form?
I really want to know how to flavor my attacks and play more outside of the box

We where fight a group of nobles and their undead ( I assume) servant as the house was going up in flames

Or you can just play some other TTRPG that treat combat in a more cinematic way

A great way to spark interesting combat is to make sure your combat areas are not flat 2d spaces, but are filled with objects and potential cover and include elevated areas. Craft your encounter to give opportunities to the players to have fun, like enabling them to rain down arrows and spells from above while your melee characters dodge behind cover and attack.

Also inject surprise encounters (have a bunch of surprise encounter monster parties and roll to see which one the players face).

Lastly don't forget to embellish descriptions, not just how grotesque the goblins look but describe in detail how they are hurt and die with blood gurgling details.

My most memorable encounter actually happened last night.

It was a fight against a wanted pirate and the combat was where the group were finally able to get a grasp on the combat mechanics. They'd climb ropes, use actions to clear difficult terrain for each other. Move to force the enemy to trade action economy, apply status effects, etc.

Two of the players went down. When the first one came back up he decides to use his cursed pistol as a last result, swinging the tides in the party's favour. And then the monk took down the last bit of the Captain's HP after waking up and performing a flurry of blows while prone.

Most memorable combat encounter was definitely when we were tasked with retrieving a sacred statue completely intact. Our NPC companion had to prepare a spell so that we could easily move it without breaking it. Enter a small army of rakshasas. We had to hold them off to prevent them from disrupting the ritual to prepare the statue. We succeeded but only after losing our barbarian (our DM subscribed to the "enemies would hit downed players" mentality so she failed all her death saving throws that way).

if youre thinking about strategy for an enemy, remember to think about their intelligence too. something with 1 int isnt gonna be able to do much but swarm

Can an all-powerful DM create an encounter with a CR too high for her to handle?

Yes. Yes she can.

I run with a rule of: you get 30 seconds per intelligence modifier, minimum of 30 (so +2 = a minute and a half per turn. +1 = a minute. <=0 = 30 seconds) to simulate the character having the wits and smarts to deduce what they actually want to do and whats the best strategy. It makes int more useful, and for people who've dumped it, it keeps combat running smoothly.

Make sure to tell players after character creation though. This shoudl reward intelligence as a narrative choice rather than turning it into constitution where it's just a no-brainer to have it high. A pleasant surprise for those who've made characters designed to be smart and then rewarded with in-game benefits.

“Put the pressure on” is probably the most important tip in here

No such thing. I find DnD combat thrilling an Awesome 😎

I was playing with my family and uncle, he had the skype camera hanging from his chandelier and we played from across the U.S.
We came to the second last fight of the dungeon and there were circles of power around the chamber. each one would slightly affect you, boosting attack, damage, or even giving regeneration. The center of the chamber was a pit that was magically sealed, and inside was a death giant that we had to stop from being released or it would be used to great devastation on the nearby settlements. The orcs summoning him succeeded just in time, and we had to fight 10 orcs and this giant, with 4 level 7 characters. My brother's Drow hexblade sent 4 of the orcs into the pit with a storm spell, our dwarf cleric was in a champions battle with the shaman, and my sister's elf ranger was ending the orcs all across the chamber while she stood on a broken pillar. My Dragonborn went straight after the titan, to slow it down in time for the team to kill the orcs and for us to execute our plan to re-contain the giant. But my dragonborn knight was no match, i charged in and slammed his foot with my hammer, and he kicked me into the pit he climbed out of. I fell all the way down and lost half my health, but got up and shook it off, climbed out and hit him in the knee. He kicked me back into the pit a second time. My character fell unconscious from the fall, seemingly done for. I rolled a nat 20 on the saving throw, climbed back out of the pit with 1 hp. The giant was chasing the drow and I screamed at it, it turned in surprise, ran at me and grabbed me. I hit him in the face, he took my hammer and squeezed, so I exhaled lightning in his face. He carried me to the pit, and chucked me down, to which I still lay, dying in defense of my comrades. The remaining party worked together, using storm power from both of their weapons and and the drow's spell to toss the giant into the pit, which actually killed it because of the damage we eventually accrued on the beast. The drow was shot by 2 orcs in hiding, dying and sliding into the pit to rest. The cleric died from arrow wounds as well, with the ranger finishing off the encounter by a hair's breadth. The npc came back, and saw they could not continue the quest, so they egressed to the settlement and were granted one spell of resurrection. The dwarf was revived, and my brother who played it was so mad because he didn't want to have to play the boring cleric role anymore.
This story plays out in my mind to this day, I was 10 when we played it.

I like that first point about interesting maps, but it’s only half of the equation. The other half is on the players asking questions. For example: in C3’s Shade Mother battle, there were mining machines littered around the map to make it look cool. But then Orym asked if he could try to start one up, and in the end, he used it to restrain a very deadly boss to let them escape. If he didn’t do that, it would have been a formulaic battle.

My best experience with combat is how one of the DMs I play with adds fights into the mix with small groups of enemies who think they can take us but that are actually no match. After a couple of close calls against powerful opponents, it is nice to be reminded of how your character is in fact more powerful than the average person.

Tip no.1 stop playing Dnd

My DM has a tendency to run very intense and dificult combats. But last session we fought some bandids, that any member of our party could have killed alone. An easy encounter every now and then is relaxing and makes the players feel powerful

TL;DW: just design a fun encounter

Did you ever stop pulling your punches?

One of the things my table agreed on is having an "egg timer". Every person has to have their turn within x amount of time or else they do nothing. It puts pressure on them to think faster, and it makes the game go soooo much faster.

Probably my favourite combat I've run was The Whale. It was the first major boss that party had encountered, an earth-boring sand whale not unlike Monster Hunter's Mohrans. The party acquired a landship, and the ensuing battle was effectively a high speed chase across the plains. In addition to traditional movement around the deck, anyone next to the wheel could control the ship, which would effectively move everything else on the map relative to whatever maneuver they made. Having the party scrabble about the ship attempting to avoid attacks and return fire as The Whale slowly tore holes in their vessel or bombarded the deck with rocks was quite entertaining. Once it got low enough, I had it dive for a full turn to give them a moment to stabilize before it re-emerged directly in front, attempting a near suicidal head to head charge with it's massive horn. The party had the choice to try and swerve to avoid it, but instead bombarded it with everything they had in an attempt to knock it off course, which they just about did, killing it as the ship slammed into its flank. I still hear my players talking about that fight over a year later, and it warms my heart <3

Last session I dmed my players were searching an abandoned lab they tracked dissapearences to. Inside they found a Flesh Golem which kicked their ass a bit, and inside the Flesh Golem was s Black Pudding Ooze. Players confined to a narrow hallway. Super intense combat. My 2 Players were worried about a tpk. Probably the most intense combat so far.

what songs did you use in this?