Lots of great answers here ..... I tend to keep it simple - most of my mobs have fly on demand and misty step as a BA on demand - and there is at least one mob in every group that has an aoe of one sort or another. Honestly this is only an issue if you DM the mobs like they have zero intelligence and zero variety of attack options.
Edit - my issue is that most of my groups catch on to this and do a 4 corners plus rover strategy lol. So my heavy hitting mobs can't ever hit more than 2 of them in an aoe.
Edit - my issue is that most of my groups catch on to this and do a 4 corners plus rover strategy lol. So my heavy hitting mobs can't ever hit more than 2 of them in an aoe.
There are options to deal with that from an enemy perspective
Limiting ranged options is a big one. So high speed enemies that are resistant to ranged attacks or effects that reduce the players attack range. For example wind wall which requires them to pass the wall to be able to attack or mist that limits vision range to a few feet. This forces them to move in closer to each other to attack enemies or provide buffs.
Unusually shaped aoes. You could do doughnut shaped aoe that hits the corners but not the center. For example a wall of fire or an effect like a cyclone with a safe eye of the storm.
Kidnapping enemies. Enemies that will single out a single target, grab them and run. For example those with the swallow action or a good knock back. If they can drag a character out of range of the other they'll be force to follow
Snipers. Enemies that can significantly out range the party require them to move closer to it.
Large cones. They allow enemies to target a bigger area the further the players are so they need to move in close to the monster.
Edit - my issue is that most of my groups catch on to this and do a 4 corners plus rover strategy lol. So my heavy hitting mobs can't ever hit more than 2 of them in an aoe.
There are options to deal with that from an enemy perspective
Limiting ranged options is a big one. So high speed enemies that are resistant to ranged attacks or effects that reduce the players attack range. For example wind wall which requires them to pass the wall to be able to attack or mist that limits vision range to a few feet. This forces them to move in closer to each other to attack enemies or provide buffs.
Unusually shaped aoes. You could do doughnut shaped aoe that hits the corners but not the center. For example a wall of fire or an effect like a cyclone with a safe eye of the storm.
Kidnapping enemies. Enemies that will single out a single target, grab them and run. For example those with the swallow action or a good knock back. If they can drag a character out of range of the other they'll be force to follow
Snipers. Enemies that can significantly out range the party require them to move closer to it.
Large cones. They allow enemies to target a bigger area the further the players are so they need to move in close to the monster.
When you think about how an actual melee fight takes place, even if there are people throwing knives, shooting crossbows or casting spells, there is a lot of motion, but not necessarily movement. Motion is not really captured in a tactical combat game.
So narratively speaking in a fight, people are constantly in motion, parrying, attacking, blocking, ducking etc... But there really is very little logical reason to suddenly move 30 feet back and only that sort of movement is captured in a tactical game. Typically you will have an initial charge forming a line for the melee and its a fight and that is pretty normal.
This is why D&D combat should be swift and narratively meaningful, mainly in the way its depicted. If you are just saying stuff like "I attack with my sword", roll a D20.. oh I missed or I hit, deal damage... etc.. Than yeah it sounds boring because strictly speaking, D&D combat is kind of boring. Its not a particularly good tactical combat game and its because.. well its not supposed to be a tactical combat game. That entire principle isn't really part of the design.
The core of D&D is story and narrative depiction, we normally outside of combat take a lot of time describing things, and explaining what you see, hear, smell etc.. we embellish our words when we speak on behalf of PC's and NPC's and so on. We do all that because the narrative depiction of the various interactions is a core part of the game, but most tables kind of stop doing that when the battle mat comes out.
I think there are some reasonably good suggestions here, but they are mostly focused on trying to fix a game that kind of sucks at being a tactical game, by making it more tactical and personally I don't think that is really the answer. I don't think D&D needs tactical combat to be fixed, I personally think D&D combat needs to be more efficient and narratively relevant in combat.
My suggestions would be as followed.
1. Skip the battle mat and go to a theatre of the mind game. If you're playing online, use images to depict a battle scene.
2. Embellish combat narratively to build up a clear picture of combat as if it was an story event rather than a mini game.
3. Make the characters feel more heroic by using simple tricks.
Use of minions (1 HP monsters), creating multi-initiative monsters (essentially give monsters more than one initiative each round, especially in solo situations),
Create equipment rules (breaking weapons, dropped weapons and other equipment failures)
make terrain an important part fo the fight.. tight corridors, lots of "stuff in the room" etc..
use a morale system for the monsters (don't make them fight to the death, make sure there is a chance that the morale fails and the monsters flee when things go south)
Stuff like that.
4. I think perhaps most importantly, give monsters a visual personality, if you are fighting 3 Orcs, describe each orc, give each orc a unique weapon configuration, give them different demeanors (an aggressive one, a sneaky one, a wimp, a super hero one, one that is concerned about fallen friends etc..). I usually make simple bullet point notes so that I have a clear idea of how they will be described and how they might behave.
That would be my advice.. focus on making a fight an event as if its a worthy part of the story with some real character and memorable visual elements.
Lots of great answers here ..... I tend to keep it simple - most of my mobs have fly on demand and misty step as a BA on demand - and there is at least one mob in every group that has an aoe of one sort or another. Honestly this is only an issue if you DM the mobs like they have zero intelligence and zero variety of attack options.
Edit - my issue is that most of my groups catch on to this and do a 4 corners plus rover strategy lol. So my heavy hitting mobs can't ever hit more than 2 of them in an aoe.
There are options to deal with that from an enemy perspective
Really like the some of those ideas - TY!
When you think about how an actual melee fight takes place, even if there are people throwing knives, shooting crossbows or casting spells, there is a lot of motion, but not necessarily movement. Motion is not really captured in a tactical combat game.
So narratively speaking in a fight, people are constantly in motion, parrying, attacking, blocking, ducking etc... But there really is very little logical reason to suddenly move 30 feet back and only that sort of movement is captured in a tactical game. Typically you will have an initial charge forming a line for the melee and its a fight and that is pretty normal.
This is why D&D combat should be swift and narratively meaningful, mainly in the way its depicted. If you are just saying stuff like "I attack with my sword", roll a D20.. oh I missed or I hit, deal damage... etc.. Than yeah it sounds boring because strictly speaking, D&D combat is kind of boring. Its not a particularly good tactical combat game and its because.. well its not supposed to be a tactical combat game. That entire principle isn't really part of the design.
The core of D&D is story and narrative depiction, we normally outside of combat take a lot of time describing things, and explaining what you see, hear, smell etc.. we embellish our words when we speak on behalf of PC's and NPC's and so on. We do all that because the narrative depiction of the various interactions is a core part of the game, but most tables kind of stop doing that when the battle mat comes out.
I think there are some reasonably good suggestions here, but they are mostly focused on trying to fix a game that kind of sucks at being a tactical game, by making it more tactical and personally I don't think that is really the answer. I don't think D&D needs tactical combat to be fixed, I personally think D&D combat needs to be more efficient and narratively relevant in combat.
My suggestions would be as followed.
1. Skip the battle mat and go to a theatre of the mind game. If you're playing online, use images to depict a battle scene.
2. Embellish combat narratively to build up a clear picture of combat as if it was an story event rather than a mini game.
3. Make the characters feel more heroic by using simple tricks.
Stuff like that.
4. I think perhaps most importantly, give monsters a visual personality, if you are fighting 3 Orcs, describe each orc, give each orc a unique weapon configuration, give them different demeanors (an aggressive one, a sneaky one, a wimp, a super hero one, one that is concerned about fallen friends etc..). I usually make simple bullet point notes so that I have a clear idea of how they will be described and how they might behave.
That would be my advice.. focus on making a fight an event as if its a worthy part of the story with some real character and memorable visual elements.
use flanking.
Race: Not Human. that's for sure
Class: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes/general of the goose horde
Alignment: Lawful Evil
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King Of TVs.