D&D 5E Making Combat More Mobile

[yakuba]

Minimize fights where the only goal is killing the enemy

Where feasible have large moving (or movable) objects as part of the environment. these can be random, periodic, enemy controlled, or capture the flag controlled.

Make retreat feasible for both sides

Include positionally important elements in the environment like cover and pits.

Initialize some fights with meaningful differences in altitude or with barriers between team hero and team monster

Where sensible, have team monster attack from multiple entrances/angles

Use blocker monsters protecting ranged and/or spell casting soft targets.

Occasionally use chaotic hungry creatures like trolls or ghouls who will try to carry off dead/disabled victims while the fight is still going on

 

[Quickleaf]

Hi everyone. 3rd Edition had a tendency to have static combats. Full-Attack Actions made it so people didn't want to move. 4th Edition has a lot of powers with movement built in, and I felt there was more movement then; defenders/soldiers locked people in, but they weren't in every fight. 5E doesn't have full-round actions, but my experience has been that fights are more static than 4th but more mobile than 3rd.

Today, I started to question if universal attacks of opportunity were the problem.

What have your experiences been?

I also strongly second breaking away from the grid / distance-accounting. Having representative miniatures is fine, but I've found gridded / distance-accounting combat really diminishes how (a certain type of) players describes their actions & movement.

One house-rule I play around with is changing how Shove works. I often allow "martial-type PCs" to Shove as a either bonus action or 1/round for free on a successful hit.

Another house-rule is including forced movement as a "rider effect" when, for example, someone badly fails a saving throw against a fireball, which might also knock them backwards and prone...or even through a thin wall!

I think the key is not to get hung up on thinking every little bit of movement needs to be accounted for or tied down in the rules, and just roll with it.

Actually, Mike Mearls' recent Twitch stream "Tower of the Curator" has some good examples of handling movement narratively. Mostly Mike just says "yes, awesome, ok so that means..."

 

[mburkom]

On the Adventure Zone podcast (where they 100% play fast & loose with the rules, putting it mildly) my favorite combat encounter was the end of the Petals to the Metal arc, when the PC's had to fight a huge variety of opponents while on (and jumping between) battle wagons (AKA race cars). Kind of preposterous (though hilarious) like most of that show, but really exciting to listen to, and the definition of a mobile combat.

This put me in mind to script a chase scene encounter where the PC's are protecting some treasure (or person) on a cart against a variety of raiders attempting to board and using ranged attacks from their own mounts/carts. Would let the ranged fighters really show off since many targets would not be within melee reach, and it would have a lot of moving around on board the cart to deal with boarders etc. Lots of skill checks to climb/jump, ability to get rid of an opponent by throwing them off the cart (so you wouldn't have to kill every foe).

 

[Sir Brennen]

I haven't seen too much of an issue in 5e regarding movement, either. We do use a grid and minis. My players love the fact you can break up your move before and after actions/attacks. The better AC/Hp characters will often take an AoO so others can move (since the enemy used up their reaction.)

As others mentioned, terrain can play a big part, too. Just be careful not to set up bottle-necks to movement if that's not what you want.

Also, as the DM, you've got to give the PCs reasons to move. If the bad guys just stand there, so will the PCs. If the squishy in the back just scorching ray'd the troll, have the troll break off melee and charge him. Most PCs aren't going to get a ton of damage in on an AoO.

If all the PCs gang up on a creature (i.e, multiple AoO against the baddie if he moves), add circumstances or abilities that temporarily give PCs disadvantage on attacks for a round (Shocking Grasp, Darkness, Blindness, etc.) Use Levitate, Misty Step, Spider Climb and other mobility magic and abilities.

Use mixes of melee and ranged opponents. Have some of the NPCs arrive mid-combat. Push and pull the PCs around.

Speaking of, I like the idea of poor saves for certain effects knocking the PCs around. On the flip side, you could also let a good save (roll of 20+) allow a character to move to the closest point outside of a Area attack, or half their movement, which ever is less.

 

[77IM]

Super-Useful Tactic:

Creatures get only one reaction per round, so have someone with decent AC/HP deliberately soak up opportunity attacks in order to let their allies move freely.​

This works as both a player and a DM. If one or two enemies are chokepointing the map or sticking your allies in place, run past them on purpose to "trick" them into using up their opportunity attacks on you. Obviously you don't want to do this too often as it gives your foes free attacks, but it can still be super-useful in the right situations.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hi everyone. 3rd Edition had a tendency to have static combats. Full-Attack Actions made it so people didn't want to move. 4th Edition has a lot of powers with movement built in, and I felt there was more movement then; defenders/soldiers locked people in, but they weren't in every fight. 5E doesn't have full-round actions, but my experience has been that fights are more static than 4th but more mobile than 3rd.

Nod. 5e doesn't have full attacks or full-round casting times (or full-round anythings, really), so if you don't have to choose between moving and acting - but, it also has relatively little reason to move, few forced-movement effects, and little benefit to positioning (and, run TotM, it encourages you to ignore/fudge positioning).
So, your experience seems consistent with the presentations & content of three rulesets in question.

Today, I started to question if universal attacks of opportunity were the problem.

5e OAs are pretty meh - they consume your precious reaction, and they aren't provoked by much (particularly, not by ranged attacks or casting in melee, so the kind of gank-the-caster/protect-the-caster dynamics you'd sometimes get going back to the early days, is less noticeable), and they don't do anything beyond single-attack damage, which scales little compared to Extra Attack, cantrips & spells.

What have your experiences been?

I've found 5e to be functionally as 'static' as 3e. There's more movement, but it's very often in the form of "I move up to the next guy and attack," adding nothing much to the encounter - just part of the focus-fire routine.

I've seen DMs adapt 3.5 or 4e grid use wholesale with fair results. Still not a lot of movement, though, outside of Cunning Action and similar monster abilities.

Special attacks that also allow you to move is the solution

Ordinary attacks already also allow you to move.

I find that removing the boardgame aspect (that is, miniatures)

You mean the wargaming aspect, then. ;P

tends to get people to be more descriptive with how their characters are moving and interacting in combat.

I find the opposite. Put out any sort of visual aid, and players will focus more on positioning. In the absence of that, you get - in addition to a lot more time spent describing and re-re-re-describing the scene and how it's changed since the last turn to every player, every turn - a lot of very meh declarations (keep attack the same one, attack the nearest/next one, etc). Blah as can be. Doesn't matter how evocatively you describe the area, either.

(Yeah, go ahead, insult my players, you know you want to...)


Of course, what can get players more descriptive in TotM is the carrot - if you often (but not too consistently) hand out advantage or lesser bonuses for such descriptions.

Also, IME 5E monsters drop far more quickly than either edition, so there is quite a bit of movement to face new enemies.

There is that, too. The 'fast combat' goal is antithetical to the development of more dynamic combats.

Since you only take OA when you leave the enemies reach, you can move around enemies to get into a better position (such as to attack a different enemy).

Yep, it's like everyone has the 'Pass Forward' fighter utility from 4e (which was a low-level, at-will, because it wasn't really super-useful, though I quite liked it in one or two builds). Unless you're tracking positing very carefully (and have added some rules to make it more important), though, it'll rarely make a difference.

 

[CapnZapp]

Ordinary attacks already also allow you to move.

No, I mean having the game hand out powers that grant you movement you otherwise wouldn't have, like in 4E.

You've just agreed 4E does dynamic melee better than 5E (and certainly 3E). I'm just saying the key is the special maneuvers that grant you movement. Since you lose it if you don't use it, players tend to use it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

No, I mean having the game hand out powers that grant you movement you otherwise wouldn't have, like in 4E.

If you're not moving with the movement you already have - and in 5e you can intersperse your move and action - I don't see why you'd move with movement granted as part of an action. Perhaps something like 3.x Spring Attack could work, though, letting you move into and out of a threatened area without needing a separate Disengage? Rogue Cunning Action can already be used that way.

I'm just saying the key is the special maneuvers that grant you movement. Since you lose it if you don't use it, players tend to use it.

OK, you've got a point there, building movement into an action might prompt players to think to use it when they might not otherwise have used an available normal move.

Still, it seems to me the issue with 5e combats is not a lack of ability to move, but a lack of reasons to move (fast combat, TotM, rarity of forced movement, and low impact of tactical positioning all feeding into that).