I recently jumped back into D&D and did so with an edition I'm not familiar with. I played a solid amount of 3.5 years ago and love the game of Dungeons and Dragons.

I don't know if I'm wrong about this but...wow, 5e seems to make players like superheroes? I'm pulling 4-6 monsters of CR 4-7 for a level 5 group of four players and they're destroying them. Putting half of more to sleep first round in one fight, then incapacitating in the first round the next fight...smashing them with 2 attacks per turn with full bonuses (3.5 the second was normally less bonus to hit), some characters (the fighter) attacking FOUR times his first turn with FULL bonuses. I mean, that could easily be one person hitting for 60 dmg with no crits round one at level 5. Next guy attacks twice with a +11 on both attacks..then sends in his drake who also attacks.

I have players casting spells..then casting another spell? Bonus actions, regular action..etc. Stuff I'm still not understanding. I just don't remember people doing SOOOO much in a single turn when I played ESPECIALLY at level 5. A bard casts a spell to make the next saving throw the monster makes be -6..then immediately, in the same turn, making the monster make that save at -6 so then the monster is paralyzed. No set up and then the monster gets another shot first..or a shot at all. It all feels VERY one-sided.

I'm not trying to kill my players, but I'm struggling to make things feel like a challenge and that's WITH fudging a roll or two. I'm building up to some of these fights and then they're just blowouts where I get off one attack before it's over.

I'm loving the roleplaying, world-building, storytelling, choices, etc. that being the DM is bringing and I'm getting to share with the players. I didn't expect to not like the combat as much as I do from the other side.

Any tips?

Oh, and is it normal for people to take a dodge action before anything has even happened or started? I feel like that's so gimmicky..like you're playing a 'game' not a TTRPG if that makes sense? Like you're being 'meta' and using rules more than roleplaying.

This is all completely normal stuff for 5e, so don't worry about whether you're doing anything wrong. As I understand it, players are absolute cannons compared to earlier editions. Level 5 is an especially big turning point

If your Fighter is attacking 4 times, that means they're using Action Surge- a once per short rest ability. With how much Fighter gives up to get that single feature compared to other classes, I really wouldn't worry about it too much.

You can't normally cast a bonus action and an action spell in the same round. The only way you can is if one of them is a cantrip, which is a pretty good way of limiting it. Try to be alert for that, since it's possible not all of your players understand that rule from what you've described. If they cast 2 levelled spells in a turn, then something is up.

Something a lot of 5e players have a tough time with is resource management. Sure, getting 4 attacks in one round is good and all... until that second group of enemies shows up and you already used up all your mojo. If you're sending out a single larger combat and then allowing all the characters to get a rest, then you're allowing them to expend all of their resources. You're gonna get nova'd. If you put them in a situation where they can't necessarily take the time for a rest between combats, then they're going to wind down pretty quickly, especially if they're foolhardy and use all of their resources the first chance they get.

A lot of groups will try to force a rest even when it doesn't make sense. If that happens, don't be afraid to punish them by sending an ambush. You can even throw in an ambush when they think a rest is safe, although doing that too often is a bad idea.

As for saves, don't be afraid to give one or two Legendary Resistances to your bigger monsters. It could be discouraging for players when a monster outright denies their spell, but most of the time they can realize that having the monster burn a Legendary Resistance is still a success.

 Oh, and don't allow that dodge-at-all-times thing. That's not really how that's supposed to work.

CR in 5e doesn't really work.  Take down your players' AC, attack bonuses, and average damage output per turn.  Calculate how much damage they can dish out in 3-5 rounds (factoring in to-hit chance with the enemies' AC), and then look for monsters whose total hit points fall in that range, and whose total average output (factoring in the Player Characters' AC/Saves) will be less than the players' total hit points.  Then try to factor in any debilitating effects (fear, poison, petrification, etc) that the enemies have that could make them more dangerous (It's more art than science, so there is a measure of just getting the feel for it)

It's not perfect, and an entire battle can be swayed if a particular monster or player-character goes down too quickly, but it's a bit more nuanced of a starting point than just using Challenge Ratings.  I'm in one game where my character is absolutely a superhero, and another where every combat is a near-death experience, so grittier combat is possible.

The game assumes 6-8 encounters between long rests. Almost no one actually plays that way, but that’s the assumption. 
So, as fayettegamer was saying, resource management is a big deal. If you are only throwing 1-2 fights at them per day, they’ll have all their resources for every fight and they are going to roll over the enemies unless you make the encounters deadly-level difficulty. Find a way to hit them with 4 or 5 encounters, when the casters are down to cantrips and no one has healing spells left, things will get much tougher. Just do that a couple times to keep them honest, so they understand they always need to keep something in reserve.

Did you give them magic items? At level 5, they really shouldn’t have much. Otherwise, I’m struggling to think how someone could have a +11. Magic items in this edition matter a lot. A+1 means you are hitting as often as someone several levels higher than you. And there are rules about casting more than one spell per turn: If you cast a leveled spell as a bonus action, you can only cast a cantrip for your action.

One big suggestion is to forget everything from 3.x. This is a very different game. The math is much, much tighter, every +1 matters much more. And in fightsthey’ve eliminated pretty much all of those +/-1 modifiers like flanking or higher ground or whatever. So if you’re giving those bonuses out, it can really screw with things. Then after you forget 3.x, re-read the chapters about combat in the PHB. 

Thanks for all this Quar1on, FayetteGamer, and Xalthu.

Yeah, I'll need to look more into the whole legendary actions/resistances/etc.

The idea that I need to create fights simply for resource dumping always makes it feel too...structured? Like there's a set way to do things. Otherwise, the one fight needs to be big enough they use most of their stuff, and the fight is still going on.

And good to know. One thing I hate is 'meta' gaming in D&D and that's exactly what the whole dodge action before anything even happens says to me. UNLESS it soaks up their first turn as they spend their turn ...then it may be okay to me. Since it reads "When you take the Dodge action, you focus entirely on avoiding attacks."

Definitely Dodge is only an option they can take in combat.

You do need more than one encounter before they get to short rest. It isn't particularly structured to do this, just making there being enough opponents in multiple groups to prevent the party using all their once-per-short-rest abilities on every encounter.

One "big fight" would need to last longer than 10 rounds (1 minute) for most buffs to wear off - and I've never been in a fight that lasted that long. Far easier to have multiple encounters which gives a definite time between them for buff spells/abilities to wear off.

None of the characters have legendary actions. That is a monster-only ability designed for solo bosses. 
The other slightly more advanced concept is action economy, that is, how many times does one creature do something in a round. Action, bonus action and reaction are available to PCs and monsters alike. Often, you’ll want to make sure the enemies have about the same number of actions as the PCs. So if you send them a solo monster, the characters get 5 turns wailing on it, then it gets to attack once. The PCs will win that quickly. Which is where legendary actions come in.

As others have said, they can’t dodge before their turn. They can only do it on their turn in combat. If they haven’t gone yet in the initiate order, there’s no way they can be dodging or doing anything else. And then if they do dodge, it will take up their action.

Note that actions and bonus actions are completely separate pools. They were kind of poorly named because it implies a bonus action is a lesser thing, but it really completely distinct. If something takes a bonus action, they can not use their action to do it.

And really, double check that +11. At 5th level, with a 20 in their attack stat, they’d be at +8. So unless you gave out +3 weapons (which really shouldn’t show up before the mid- to high-teens) I don’t see how they get a +11. A guess ranged fighting style could get them to +10, but you were talking about melee.

Quote from Xalthu >>

None of the characters have legendary actions. That is a monster-only ability designed for solo bosses. 
The other slightly more advanced concept is action economy, that is, how many times does one creature do something in a round. Action, bonus action and reaction are available to PCs and monsters alike. Often, you’ll want to make sure the enemies have about the same number of actions as the PCs. So if you send them a solo monster, the characters get 5 turns wailing on it, then it gets to attack once. The PCs will win that quickly. Which is where legendary actions come in.

As others have said, they can’t dodge before their turn. They can only do it on their turn in combat. If they haven’t gone yet in the initiate order, there’s no way they can be dodging or doing anything else. And then if they do dodge, it will take up their action.

Note that actions and bonus actions are completely separate pools. They were kind of poorly named because it implies a bonus action is a lesser thing, but it really completely distinct. If something takes a bonus action, they can not use their action to do it.

And really, double check that +11. At 5th level, with a 20 in their attack stat, they’d be at +8. So unless you gave out +3 weapons (which really shouldn’t show up before the mid- to high-teens) I don’t see how they get a +11. A guess ranged fighting style could get them to +10, but you were talking about melee.

 On that last bit, it's a Drakewarden Ranger. At range, they have a +11, but in melee, they have a +8. They do, in fact, have a +20 in their attack stat.

In terms of the Dodge Action: Basically, they had come across a bear in its cave...it was stomping the ground, growling, roaring, etc. in order to avoid the fight but letting them know it was ready to go. They were verbally trying to calm it down, etc. No initiatives were rolled, no actions were taken like that...and then one player said they were pre-emptively using a dodge action which caused another player to say they were doing the same. They didn't end up fighting the bear (at that moment, they did after a little more stuff happened and they smoked it out of the cave)

It just threw me off that during an RP part, they were saying they were basically using a dodge action to say if the bear DID charge them, they'd have it ready to go.

I see. Don’t know why I assumed melee. Still not sure about where the 11 comes from as opposed to 10, unless it’s a +1 bow.

For the pre-emptive dodge, I’d either just say, No, you can’t take that until your turn comes up in the initiative order. Or tell them to roll initiative, and that’s a surprise round. Just be clear they don’t have to fight, but they can’t just start dodging until their turn comes up. The first way is probably the better way. 

If it makes you feel better, lots of new (and new to this edition) DMs have trouble balancing combat encounters at first. You’ll just need to plan on how hard to make them, vs how many they gave in a day. Fewer harder fights, or more easier ones. You’ll hit a sweet spot, just takes some practice.  Until then, you can always have a back up, like a second wave of enemies if the fight is too easy.

Quote from Xalthu >>

I see. Don’t know why I assumed melee. Still not sure about where the 11 comes from as opposed to 10, unless it’s a +1 bow.

For the pre-emptive dodge, I’d either just say, No, you can’t take that until your turn comes up in the initiative order. Or tell them to roll initiative, and that’s a surprise round. Just be clear they don’t have to fight, but they can’t just start dodging until their turn comes up. The first way is probably the better way. 

If it makes you feel better, lots of new (and new to this edition) DMs have trouble balancing combat encounters at first. You’ll just need to plan on how hard to make them, vs how many they gave in a day. Fewer harder fights, or more easier ones. You’ll hit a sweet spot, just takes some practice.  Until then, you can always have a back up, like a second wave of enemies if the fight is too easy.

 Yeah, I let them choose two uncommon items to start. Given how powerful +1 weapons are in 5e, I think they all chose that and then one other item. Maybe I shouldn't have done that yet, that's just my own lack of knowledge of 5e.

And yeah, I'll have to work on the combat. This is where I've landed with the dodge thing:

I think for RP purposes, it's okay, in SOME instances...where you can tell an attack may be coming soon, to prepare yourself to dodge BUT it WILL take the place of your first turn or action. Meaning you see the aggression coming, and when they do attack (during the 6 second window of a round) THAT is what you are focused on avoiding and therefore it takes your turn or action.

I can't decide if I want it to be turn or action. Normally it's a standard action, but given it's done pre-emptively...I feel I should make it weigh more.

Readiness for a combat is represented by rolling high on initiative. A character that is always ready for combat should build themself with a higher initiative to represent that. If you want to [action]Dodge[/action before combat starts, that's represented by rolling a high initiative and then using your action to dodge. If your opponents roll higher than you on initiative, that means you weren't as prepared as you thought you were and they still got the drop on you. There's no reason to implement a system for expecting combat, since it's already kinda there.

+1 to quar1on. Allowing them to act before their action is really powerful. It could give them well over one round of the effect.

Dodging used the same resource as making an attack. And you wouldn’t let them attack before their turn.

And, hey, lesson learned about the weapon. The math is actually balanced so that you can be at level 20 with no magic weapons and still hit reliably. You don’t need magic items, they’re specifically designed to break the game math, so having them is meant to be really special. Again, no one really plays like that, and there’s good arguments for martial characters needing magic to be effective. Just the bounded accuracy math works fine without them. 

You have to know your players and characters well. Players usually optimize for heavy bursting, so introduce tough looking softies first to burn through their fully optimized abilities, provide a mix of monsters that are melee, ranged with one or two reaction abilities that trigger on player abilities and give them a mix of resistences. Keep the action moving. Bring in the environment as well to limit the action economy by forcing them to use actions other than fighting during combat. 

Not every fight needs to be so dramatic, mix in some easy encounters where they feel like superheroes so those dramatic encounters mean more. And don’t be afraid to kill a character that is exceedingly stupid or unlucky.

Thanks for all the assistance, guys! Really appreciate it.

Definitely gonna need to learn to work around their resources/strengths -- but also give them some freebies sometimes too.