In my experience, combat becomes draggy when the players aren't threatened. When you're going through an area that's a barrage of "two skeletons in this room," combat gets old fast. So, I try to have fewer but larger encounters.
The drawback of that is that each encounter takes longer. Another option is glass cannon opponents, a mage and a cyclops are the same challenge but will be definitely different fights..
Make sure your players know there are other things they can do besides "swing a weapon" or "cast a spell".
Grappling, Shoving, Flanking and Helping are all things that are allowed by the rules and allow for more variety. Encourage them to go off the books as well.
"I jump and try to grab the chandelier, swinging around and landing right on top of the Zombie" can be resolved using the "Shove" action.
"I tear down the curtain and attempt to have all the skeletons trapped beneath it when I light it on fire with my "Create Flame"" -> Object Interaction + Cantrip and I'd have the create flame cantrip be AOE for this maneuver.
"I wait for the giant to strike at me, so I can dodge his attack and grab onto his arm to climb on his back" -> There's optional rules for climbing larger creatures in the DMG. I guess I'd reward that with advantage on all attack rolls and the player has to make a Grapple check every round to stay on top of the giant.
"I wait for the Fighter to charge in on our enemy and the moment the enemy is distracted I will move to attack his weak spots" -> Helping, either help the fighter or the fighter helps you
I keep rp going during combat. My NPCs talk to the players and also to each other about what they are doing and what they plan on doing next (within reason of the int and wisdom scores of the NPCs). I figure that it the PCs can do it, so can the NPCs. I find that this breaks up the slog of combat somewhat. (At least, it gives me something to do).
I don't know if your problem is dependent on party size. My current campaign party is seven players. With seven players it takes time because each of them has a different idea of how to use their player, and generally speaking we don't work as a team because most players are trying to achieve glory for themselves. I think many of the ideas you hear would actually slow down combat but make it more engaging. For example, if my DM starts adding combatants after two or three rounds, I'm going to spend more time on round 1 and 2 trying to get myself positioned for the additional enemies coming soon.
I'm not sure if you are troubled by the time or that it isn't engaging. If it is time, why are you concerned about how long it takes? If everyone is having fun, that's the core goal for me. But maybe you are not having fun because you are waiting for the party to get to "that thing" where the adventure gets real interesting. For my part I enjoy RP in and out of combat. Combat is just a different arena for RP. If I have an opportunity to RP my character the way I think he should act, then I'm having fun.
Are your players upset that combat is taking too long? How long do they think it should take? We can't expect this to be like a video game. My party had members that expressed some disappointment that they were not leveling fast enough. After three sessions we are only at level 3.2 (20% on the way to level 4). In this case it sounds like our DM would need to just throw monsters at us so we could slay them since we don't get XP for anything else. He does give inspiration for good RP but we mostly hoard it thinking we will need it more later. But that is a different thread. I'm just trying to help you explore what the core problem is.
If your problem is really "Too Slow!" then put your players on a egg timer (small hourglass) and if they don't act, the prepare to dodge. Ask them to roll "To-Hit" & "Damage" at the same time. Try to get them to bring two or three sets of dice so they can roll with advantage using 2d20 instead of 1d20 twice. But make sure that faster is really better for your group. They may enjoy the RP of combat as I do. Good luck.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The drawback of that is that each encounter takes longer. Another option is glass cannon opponents, a mage and a cyclops are the same challenge but will be definitely different fights..
Make sure your players know there are other things they can do besides "swing a weapon" or "cast a spell".
Grappling, Shoving, Flanking and Helping are all things that are allowed by the rules and allow for more variety. Encourage them to go off the books as well.
"I jump and try to grab the chandelier, swinging around and landing right on top of the Zombie" can be resolved using the "Shove" action.
"I tear down the curtain and attempt to have all the skeletons trapped beneath it when I light it on fire with my "Create Flame"" -> Object Interaction + Cantrip and I'd have the create flame cantrip be AOE for this maneuver.
"I wait for the giant to strike at me, so I can dodge his attack and grab onto his arm to climb on his back" -> There's optional rules for climbing larger creatures in the DMG. I guess I'd reward that with advantage on all attack rolls and the player has to make a Grapple check every round to stay on top of the giant.
"I wait for the Fighter to charge in on our enemy and the moment the enemy is distracted I will move to attack his weak spots" -> Helping, either help the fighter or the fighter helps you
I keep rp going during combat. My NPCs talk to the players and also to each other about what they are doing and what they plan on doing next (within reason of the int and wisdom scores of the NPCs). I figure that it the PCs can do it, so can the NPCs. I find that this breaks up the slog of combat somewhat. (At least, it gives me something to do).
I don't know if your problem is dependent on party size. My current campaign party is seven players. With seven players it takes time because each of them has a different idea of how to use their player, and generally speaking we don't work as a team because most players are trying to achieve glory for themselves. I think many of the ideas you hear would actually slow down combat but make it more engaging. For example, if my DM starts adding combatants after two or three rounds, I'm going to spend more time on round 1 and 2 trying to get myself positioned for the additional enemies coming soon.
I'm not sure if you are troubled by the time or that it isn't engaging. If it is time, why are you concerned about how long it takes? If everyone is having fun, that's the core goal for me. But maybe you are not having fun because you are waiting for the party to get to "that thing" where the adventure gets real interesting. For my part I enjoy RP in and out of combat. Combat is just a different arena for RP. If I have an opportunity to RP my character the way I think he should act, then I'm having fun.
Are your players upset that combat is taking too long? How long do they think it should take? We can't expect this to be like a video game. My party had members that expressed some disappointment that they were not leveling fast enough. After three sessions we are only at level 3.2 (20% on the way to level 4). In this case it sounds like our DM would need to just throw monsters at us so we could slay them since we don't get XP for anything else. He does give inspiration for good RP but we mostly hoard it thinking we will need it more later. But that is a different thread. I'm just trying to help you explore what the core problem is.
If your problem is really "Too Slow!" then put your players on a egg timer (small hourglass) and if they don't act, the prepare to dodge. Ask them to roll "To-Hit" & "Damage" at the same time. Try to get them to bring two or three sets of dice so they can roll with advantage using 2d20 instead of 1d20 twice. But make sure that faster is really better for your group. They may enjoy the RP of combat as I do. Good luck.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt