Do any DM/GMs have any tips for making combat encounters that utilize the terrain and environment, with out making it seem like it is stacked against the players. Any ideas of terrain features that the players can utilize against the monsters as well.
If you do not want to house rule things then that mostly leaves: Cover, difficult terrain, and hiding spots.
Cover rules are simple: pg 196 PHB. Half = +2 to ac and dex saves, 3/4 = +5, full = no direct attacks, but indirect allowed. Put trees etc. and declare they are obvious spaces to get cover.
Difficult terrain works best for a ranged attacker because the melee have to travel twice as far but the ranged attackers use the actual distance for ranged penalties. It also makes it more reasonable for the ranged attackers to use prone. Each round you rise from prone, shoot, drop prone. Casters using save spells do not even have to rise from prone. Put that in and the players that use ranged attacks can benefit as well.
Hiding spots is simple. Just describe the area and let people hide. Murky pools of water, vine dropping down, hollowed out trees, etc. My favorite is one of the 'for the monsters mostly things', a "Goblin maze". Goblins can take a disengage or hide action as a bonus action so it makes sense for them to fill the area around their homes with hiding spots. Each round they move 15 ft feet, attack, move 15, hide , repeat.
Hide rules:
If the target isn't in the location you targeted, you automatically miss, but the DM typically just says that the attack missed, not whether you guessed the target's location correctly.
When a creature can't see you, you have advantage on attack rolls against it.
If you want to house rule, you could do things like declare that Obstacle X grants one rank of Exhaustion unless you have Y. Then make use of the exhaustion in battle (ability checks). Another thing you can do is to use glass and mirrors to let casters see and attack you with certain spells while retaining full cover. Works great in a 'fun house' type thing. Nothing stopping players from using the mirrors and glass too.
Then there is straight advantage/disadvantage granting things, for example attacking from behind a special built fortification that grants advantage on attacking via a certain method and/or grants disadvantage to those on the wrong side. Think arrow slits.
I think a huge, simple thing you can do is having varying levels in a combat encounter. I don't mean character levels or CR, I mean like spatial levels, vertical axis. It's an important thing to consider when blocking scenes in theater, as level differences, who's standing where, who's above who, can have all different subtext and is visually more engaging than just a bunch of static figures, and I think it can be the same for combat.
Having high ground and low ground that some people can access and some people can't just naturally complicates what might normally just be a knot of characters in melee, and is just inherently more strategic.
I think most combat areas can have a high ground, a middle ground, and a low ground (insert Kenobi joke here), if not multiple of some. Like, picture a forest encounter:
Normally it might go something like *players are engaging a group of goblins on foot, a hobgoblin leads them, two goblins are riding domesticated boars. Players dart into melee, casters hang back, tanks tank, ranged characters maybe use trees as cover, or maybe the fight takes place in a clearing.*
But if you make an effort to include layers in your standard forest encounter, you could have *players stalking through the forest, there's a hobgoblin ahead flanked by two boars, out of the two trees on either side of the players are three goblins each, armed with short bows. The tank rushes the hobgoblin on the edge of a dried up riverbank, both careful of their opponent as much as their footing lest they go tumbling over. The ranged characters are dealing with the goblins, who have cover firing from up in the trees, but the rogue has the idea of climbing the tree after them to assassinate the goblins before the boars charge everyone down...*
It's easy to see how adding vertical dimensions to the fight make it everything less one dimensional (pun intended but I'm still sorry).
It may not be THE thing that is the be all and end all, but it is definitely a significant thing to consider.
A thing to remember about adding difficult or impassible terrain to fights is that it strongly favors ranged builds unless it also provides total cover.
How terrain is utilized determines who gains boons, and who suffers setbacks.
Providing terrain is neutral, until an entity uses it. If your monsters have a favored environmental location, the PCs might want to encounter it outside that terrain, if possible. Otherwise, allow them the opportunity to learn how to counter the terrain or use it against the monster, if possible. Regardless, the use of terrain for the party benefit is a party choice. You saying "you might be able to shove that old pillar over onto the dragon" is just a method of cluing them in to the idea. Alas, you can't make them use it.
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“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Height variation, to introduce opportunities for fall damage. It makes enemies with charging attacks more dangerous, but also gives players the opportunity to throw enemies off with a good Shove, Lightning Lure, or Thorn Whip.
Dynamic elements. Let the players and badguys alike actively change the battlefield. Flip a table to use as cover. Tip a dead tree to use as a makeshift bridge, or dislodge a log that was already serving as one. Tip a barrel to spill slippery, flammable oil all over the floor. Cast Shatter on a support column and see what falls.
Also see what your players and enemies are capable of, and have a battle that makes good use of someone's special abilities. Have a dark room where the party has to face Hobgoblin Iron Shadows, who can teleport around in dim light or darkness. Let the party start in a place with good cover, but then flush them out with an enemy who can cast Stinking Cloud.
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Do any DM/GMs have any tips for making combat encounters that utilize the terrain and environment, with out making it seem like it is stacked against the players. Any ideas of terrain features that the players can utilize against the monsters as well.
thank you,
If you do not want to house rule things then that mostly leaves: Cover, difficult terrain, and hiding spots.
Cover rules are simple: pg 196 PHB. Half = +2 to ac and dex saves, 3/4 = +5, full = no direct attacks, but indirect allowed. Put trees etc. and declare they are obvious spaces to get cover.
Difficult terrain works best for a ranged attacker because the melee have to travel twice as far but the ranged attackers use the actual distance for ranged penalties. It also makes it more reasonable for the ranged attackers to use prone. Each round you rise from prone, shoot, drop prone. Casters using save spells do not even have to rise from prone. Put that in and the players that use ranged attacks can benefit as well.
Hiding spots is simple. Just describe the area and let people hide. Murky pools of water, vine dropping down, hollowed out trees, etc. My favorite is one of the 'for the monsters mostly things', a "Goblin maze". Goblins can take a disengage or hide action as a bonus action so it makes sense for them to fill the area around their homes with hiding spots. Each round they move 15 ft feet, attack, move 15, hide , repeat.
Hide rules:
If you want to house rule, you could do things like declare that Obstacle X grants one rank of Exhaustion unless you have Y. Then make use of the exhaustion in battle (ability checks). Another thing you can do is to use glass and mirrors to let casters see and attack you with certain spells while retaining full cover. Works great in a 'fun house' type thing. Nothing stopping players from using the mirrors and glass too.
Then there is straight advantage/disadvantage granting things, for example attacking from behind a special built fortification that grants advantage on attacking via a certain method and/or grants disadvantage to those on the wrong side. Think arrow slits.
I think a huge, simple thing you can do is having varying levels in a combat encounter. I don't mean character levels or CR, I mean like spatial levels, vertical axis. It's an important thing to consider when blocking scenes in theater, as level differences, who's standing where, who's above who, can have all different subtext and is visually more engaging than just a bunch of static figures, and I think it can be the same for combat.
Having high ground and low ground that some people can access and some people can't just naturally complicates what might normally just be a knot of characters in melee, and is just inherently more strategic.
I think most combat areas can have a high ground, a middle ground, and a low ground (insert Kenobi joke here), if not multiple of some. Like, picture a forest encounter:
Normally it might go something like *players are engaging a group of goblins on foot, a hobgoblin leads them, two goblins are riding domesticated boars. Players dart into melee, casters hang back, tanks tank, ranged characters maybe use trees as cover, or maybe the fight takes place in a clearing.*
But if you make an effort to include layers in your standard forest encounter, you could have *players stalking through the forest, there's a hobgoblin ahead flanked by two boars, out of the two trees on either side of the players are three goblins each, armed with short bows. The tank rushes the hobgoblin on the edge of a dried up riverbank, both careful of their opponent as much as their footing lest they go tumbling over. The ranged characters are dealing with the goblins, who have cover firing from up in the trees, but the rogue has the idea of climbing the tree after them to assassinate the goblins before the boars charge everyone down...*
It's easy to see how adding vertical dimensions to the fight make it everything less one dimensional (pun intended but I'm still sorry).
It may not be THE thing that is the be all and end all, but it is definitely a significant thing to consider.
A thing to remember about adding difficult or impassible terrain to fights is that it strongly favors ranged builds unless it also provides total cover.
How terrain is utilized determines who gains boons, and who suffers setbacks.
Providing terrain is neutral, until an entity uses it. If your monsters have a favored environmental location, the PCs might want to encounter it outside that terrain, if possible. Otherwise, allow them the opportunity to learn how to counter the terrain or use it against the monster, if possible. Regardless, the use of terrain for the party benefit is a party choice. You saying "you might be able to shove that old pillar over onto the dragon" is just a method of cluing them in to the idea. Alas, you can't make them use it.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
Height variation, to introduce opportunities for fall damage. It makes enemies with charging attacks more dangerous, but also gives players the opportunity to throw enemies off with a good Shove, Lightning Lure, or Thorn Whip.
Dynamic elements. Let the players and badguys alike actively change the battlefield. Flip a table to use as cover. Tip a dead tree to use as a makeshift bridge, or dislodge a log that was already serving as one. Tip a barrel to spill slippery, flammable oil all over the floor. Cast Shatter on a support column and see what falls.
Also see what your players and enemies are capable of, and have a battle that makes good use of someone's special abilities. Have a dark room where the party has to face Hobgoblin Iron Shadows, who can teleport around in dim light or darkness. Let the party start in a place with good cover, but then flush them out with an enemy who can cast Stinking Cloud.