D&D 5E Solving Static Fights

[Hexmage-EN]

• Use more weaker monsters and fewer strong ones.
• Make terrain risky to remain in.
• Use enemies with features that either force movement (push, pull) or encourage movement (damaging aura). The monsters in the Monster Manual largely lack these features (which is why I tend to not use them often), but the monsters of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and later books tend to have more tricks. You can take some of the abilities used by monsters in the more recent books and add them onto creatures from the Monster Manual if you wish.

Looking at the hydra now, it really doesn't have much it can do. Here's what I'd consider to make things more interesting:

• Give it water to take advantage of its swim speed.
• Add a tail attack that can push the target up to 15 feet.
• Modify the bite so that it may also grapple the target.
• Add the ability to make opportunity attacks against creatures that enter the hydra's reach so long as it has a head that isn't grappling someone.

Now you have a hydra that can bite and grapple a PC before dragging them underwater. Those who pursue to engage in melee combat must hazard opportunity attacks from the hydra's other heads, and they might even get slapped away and forced to approach again.

The hydra might also be serving as a guard creature for some intelligent foes who attack from a distance with ranged weapons or spells. Alternatively, maybe whenever a head is cut off from the hydra it remains alive and transforms into a constrictor snake.

 

[Nebulous]

• Use more weaker monsters and fewer strong ones.
• Make terrain risky to remain in.
• Use enemies with features that either force movement (push, pull) or encourage movement (damaging aura). The monsters in the Monster Manual largely lack these features (which is why I tend to not use them often), but the monsters of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and later books tend to have more tricks. You can take some of the abilities used by monsters in the more recent books and add them onto creatures from the Monster Manual if you wish.

Looking at the hydra now, it really doesn't have much it can do. Here's what I'd consider to make things more interesting:

• Give it water to take advantage of its swim speed.
• Add a tail attack that can push the target up to 15 feet.
• Modify the bite so that it may also grapple the target.
• Add the ability to make opportunity attacks against creatures that enter the hydra's reach so long as it has a head that isn't grappling someone.

Now you have a hydra that can bite and grapple a PC before dragging them underwater. Those who pursue to engage in melee combat must hazard opportunity attacks from the hydra's other heads, and they might even get slapped away and forced to approach again.

The hydra might also be serving as a guard creature for some intelligent foes who attack from a distance with ranged weapons or spells. Alternatively, maybe whenever a head is cut off from the hydra it remains alive and transforms into a constrictor snake.

Our hydra fight in ToA was one of the scariest encounter the PCs had, and they were 7th level. The thing chased them, trying to knock their boats over and drag them underwater and kill them. They barely hurt the thing, it was a rampaging beast completely hidden most of the time that only surfaced to attack and then retreat. The PCs did everything they could to escape back to land.

 

[Weiley31]

Skill Challenges. Once the monster is reduced to half health, cutscene the intro to the skill challenge. Three success, remove a head cuz the party fighter just scored an epic cleave thru team effort.

The ground starts cracking and breaking apart because the combined weight of the Hydra and the party is too much for the ancient ruins. Five successes and you have your party moving to the flooded second arena of the fight. Said flooded arena with a VERY ANGRY Hydra submerged in water.

 

[Charlaquin]

There are two sides to every encounter. If encounters are static, neither the players or the monsters must be moving. Have the monsters move, and the players will be forced to move to engage them. Especially in fights with larger numbers of weaker opponents, have the monsters shove PCs prone and gang up on them, or grapple PCs and drag them into hazardous terrain, have them disengage and reposition when the PCs have an advantageous position.

 

[darjr]

Terrain for the monster is key. Definitely have the monsters fight on their terms/terrain unless the players are very smart about it.

Also consider terrain that the monster can sit in that hurts the players. Fire or very slippery surfaces that monsters can stand on.

Also throw in a couple monsters that can move around and slip way and do hit and run or ranged attacks then duck into cover.

I just ran a party of four level 20 characters that were in a situation where they needed to get closer to a ranged attacker but to do so they had to move through LOTS of clusters of monsters or somehow use up spell slots to get closer faster. The monster that was their target was thousands and thousands of feet away.

 

[Morrus]

The solution is to make the goal of the encounter something other than “kill the other side”. The combat is in pursuit of goals — one side is trying to get to the other side of the bridge, rescue the six children from the burning building, activate the thing before the demon does the other thing, etc. If your combat is just about fighting the other side until one side of the other is all dead, it’s boring anyway.

 

[Laurefindel]

Hi everyone. With the quarantine, I've been able to play more games, and something's starting to really bug me about 5E; it bugged me about 3E as well.

The fights are getting to be really static. I don't know if this is all the fault of attacks of opportunity, encounter design, or the lack of more push/pull type basic effects, but too many fights are just becoming lock down stand out slug matches. This has been happening with both an almost entirely new group, and with a group of veteran players.

(...)

What are your thoughts?

Our fights are often pretty dynamic; a lot more than in 3.5 at any case.

5e removed the full attack action and allows movement both before and after attacks, which are great improvement IMO. As others said, the disengage action negates AoO, and monsters/NPCs have only one reaction, which may conflict with other abilities used as a reaction. Theatre of the Mind, which was discouraged in 3.5, also makes movement easier from my observations.

Between all that, the main reason as to why players don't move is because they have no reasons to do so. D&D has few terrain-driven combat advantage mechanics beyond the oft-forgotten cover in combat; magic constitutes the majority of reasons to move on the battlefield other than getting to the next target.

So as many other members posted above, look for ways to give players reasons to move on the battlefield rather than ways to facilitate movement on the battlefield.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I found this awhile back (no clue where, it's been awhile) and consult it when I need to spice up combat:

Defend the Innocent: The enemies aren't focused on the party, they're focused on a defenseless third party that the party needs to intervene and protect.

Stop the Ritual: The party has X turns to stop A Bad Thing from happening.

Achilles' Heel: The enemies are nearly impervious to conventional tactics except for a specific, crippling weakness that the party can exploit.

By The Power of Greyskull: The battle has some kind of power-up that the party can leverage to make an unwinnable fight winnable. Maybe the enemies have powerful, enchanted weapons in their armory and the party can steal them and use them for themselves, allowing you to throw more powerful enemies that the party shouldn't be able to fight at their current level. Maybe there's a magical wellspring that allows the spellcasters to regenerate spell slots, allowing them to cast their highest level spells more times than normal.

(Don't) Kick the Dog: A sympathetic character is fighting for the enemy, maybe mind controlled, maybe it's a misunderstanding, maybe the party just doesn't want to hurt this character, and the party needs to find a non-violent way to take them out of the fight, while they have no problems attacking the party. Crowd control is the key to this battle.

The Floor is Lava: Safe ground to stand on is ever-changing and dangerous. Maybe the ceiling of the ruined temple is collapsing, and each turn some rubble falls on a chunk of the battlefield, with only a round of warning before it does. This forces players who may be content to try and hold a position to move, potentially taking opportunity attacks or losing advantageous positioning.

Hold the Line: The battle is a test of endurance, the party has to survive X rounds against a seemingly overwhelming force before the tides of battle turn in their favor. The more avenues the players have to hold, the more they'll be stretched thin.

They Live: Enemies rise from the dead, have a second wind, or tap into some source of rejuvenation once defeated, and must be defeated again, this time with extra abilities.

Mêlée à Trois: A battle between 3+ equally antagonistic parties where the motivations for everyone involved is "the enemy of my enemy is also my enemy". See Jack Sparrow vs Will Turner vs Commodore Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Prove Your Worth: The battle includes a third party that is judging the players, or that they need to somehow influence to their side. This could be a gladiatorial combat where the group needs to win over the crowd, or maybe a subtrope of the Melee a Trois where the party has found themselves caught between enemies and a group of potential future allies, or maybe the maybe the party has stormed into the throne room to protect the king from his evil vizier and need to fend off the guards long enough to make their case. This is a roleplaying encounter mixed in with combat.

Hot Potato: The battle involves some kind of MacGuffin that can't be held by one person for too many turns and has to be traded off. Maybe the Orb of Baa'dGhai needs to be kept away from the enemies who want to summon the Dark Lord, but every round the players hold onto it they suffer a stacking debuff.

Reinforcements Incoming: Whether it's a Broodmother summoning more whelps, or battalions of soldiers arriving to the battlefield, this is a battle where the number of enemies can become overwhelming if not kept in check, and AOE attacks get an opportunity to shrine.

Enrage Timer: Each turn the enemies become stronger than the previous turn, so a fight that starts easy can quickly become overwhelming if the party tries to hoard their resources.

Romeo and Juliet: Enemies that are linked in some way and must be defeated within X rounds of each other or they will heal their counterpart.

Solve the Puzzle: The Ur-trope, there is some sort of puzzle that has to be solved before the battle can conclude. Maybe the party needs to find a group of hidden runes scattered in different corners of the battlefield to reveal the password to open the door that allows them to escape from a zombie horde.

VIP: A twist on the usual "defeat the boss and you win," reverse it and have a PC be the focus of a battle. Perhaps a barbarian warrior needs to prove that they’re tough enough to remain standing during a battle or a cleric of a light god is channeling the force of their god—the only thing enough to push back the darkness that threatens to consume the entire party. This can be a great way to put the spotlight on a specific character and allow them to shine (sometimes literally).

Capture the Flag: Instead of protecting a VIP, you’re fighting over an inanimate McGuffin, like a magic rune or bag of gold. Maybe once the party defeats the warlord, her underlings will try to grab the body and escape to resurrect her! Maybe the party’s goal is to steal a magic gem that’s guarded by a horde of eternally reanimating skeletons! Maybe the party has reached the end of the dungeon at the same time as a rival adventuring party, with both approaching the artifact contained within from opposite entrances to the final room! Now, in many Capture the Flag combats, battle may eventually degenerate back to a Team Deathmatch state, but simply having an objective can force battles to happen in circumstances that aren’t ideal to either side.

King of the Hill: Control a location. A ‘defensive’ King of the Hill might involve the PCs holding a specific door against enemies that want to burst in and assassinate whoever’s inside. An ‘offensive’ King of the Hill might involve the PCs trying to remain inside a ritual circle to disrupt the summoning of a dark god. The potential combinations are nearly endless.

Wave Defense: enemies don't all attack at once. The ‘alternate objective’ comes in with what I call the ‘Cross the Finish Line’ objective for enemies, which is a classic component of the Wave Defense in other game. Perhaps the party is defending a wall breach against attacking soldiers, or a holy gate against a horde of demons. The enemy can’t attack all at once due to the size of the gap, so they come in waves. Either it’s defeat a certain number of enemies or hold out for a certain amount of time (another alternate combat objective) in order to achieve victory.

Free for All: survival is focused on as the goal over body count. Perhaps this comes to a head with a battle between two factions? If either faction wins decisively, it makes the PCs lives much harder, so it falls to the PCs to ensure that any victory is pyrrhic. Perhaps an otherwise normal battle is interrupted by a wandering monster looking for an easy meal? Perhaps the Big Bad’s underling sees the climactic battle with the PCs as the perfect opportunity to betray their boss an eliminate both groups in one fell swoop? The Free for All is the perfect gift for the Diplomacy player in your game group—a challenge in which strategic thinking and diplomacy RP becomes just as essential to winning an encounter as optimal character design and tactical ability!

 

[Xetheral]

There are two sides to every encounter. If encounters are static, neither the players or the monsters must be moving. Have the monsters move, and the players will be forced to move to engage them. Especially in fights with larger numbers of weaker opponents, have the monsters shove PCs prone and gang up on them, or grapple PCs and drag them into hazardous terrain, have them disengage and reposition when the PCs have an advantageous position.

Expanding on Charlaquin's excellent answer, you also need to consider the motives and goals of both sides. The only reason the NPCs should stay put and slug it out is if the NPCs think that's their best tactic to achieve their goals (or survive, if meeting their goals is no longer possible). Given that most encounters in D&D are designed to be winnable for the PCs, NPCs smart enough to realize they are overmatched should rarely want to stand still and duke it out if they have any other options.

To give NPCs those other options, consider expanding the scope of your battlefields and starting encounters at longer ranges. (Just be aware that larger battlefields can degenerate into full-cover standoffs just as readily as short-range encounters can degenerate into immobile slugfests).

Also, consider dividing the enemies into two groups in the same encounter, with one sacrificial group engaging the PCs directly to buy time while the other groups tries to achieve their objective (which, if sufficiently overmatched, might simply be "run away"). If the PCs engage the sacrificial group in melee they give the other group more operational freedom.

Even when the PCs succeed at cornering the NPCs, having doomed NPCs disengage, dodge, or dash while retreating in a desperate (if futile) attempt to escape can make the conclusion of a battle less stationary.

Finally, don't be afraid to turn the tables and have an encounter where the PCs' goal is something other than "defeat the enemy in combat" and the opposition is too strong to be defeated anyway. As the weaker side, the PCs will have no incentive to stand and fight and will need to make use of more mobile tactics to accomplish whatever their objective is before withdrawing.

 

[billd91]

How do your players feel about it? It doesn’t do much good to fret about moving the tokens on the board if none of your players feel it’s necessary to do so. Were they having fun slugging it out with the hydra? Are you worrying about a problem that doesn’t exist for your players?

Personally, I’m not that fond of adding terrain just to make a combat encounter “more fun”. It may make sense in certain circumstances, but I would probably consider most options as artificial and contrived unless they really fit the adventure locale.