5e combat system too simple / boring?

[Rod Staffwand]

So what tactical choices are missing? What would you need to add to bring 5e up to snuff?

I'm not a huge fan of how 5e classes are put together, but it seems to me that they have access to just about everything in the 3X/Pathfinder line in some form or another. At the same time, there's less emphasis on one-trick pony martials and buffed-to-no-end casters. As for 4e, classes had lots of options, I found myself using the same attack power progression and tricks 90% of the time [best encounter --> second best encounter --> at-wills; insert daily(ies) as needed], there really wasn't much true choice. D&D combat (any edition) is basically a solved problem anyway, white board speaking. Buff Selves. Control Battlefield. Focus Fire. Rest. Repeat.

How would you unsimplify and unbore 5e combat to your taste?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I wouldn't say that it was a poor choice on their part, so much as it was necessary.

I'll have to disagree that approaching the horse, rather than taking cover while discerning if this is just an obstacle in the road or the bait in a very obvious trap, wasn't a poor choice. Of course, I don't mean to suggest that no one should ever make any poor choices - it's bound to happen at some point, and the choice should make things more difficult but not entirely impossible, which seems to have been the case given that your party survived their poor choice and defeated the challenge while doing so.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

The issue with revive in general...you ever read a fantasy novel set in a D&D world

We can make a full stop here and my answer is "No."

I don't read D&D novels; I play D&D campaigns. What might happen in a D&D novel has no bearing upon my games, and the poor writing you refer to of someone dying and it not being clear why they couldn't just be raised is poor writing, not par for the course in a D&D world.

At the end of the day raising folks from the dead needs to be a big damn deal, and it hasn't been portrayed as such in recent editions. It should be a rare occurrence, never easy, and never without a price that goes well beyond simple money.

In my campaigns coming back from the dead is always a big damn deal, is a rare occurrence, and costs severe complications above and beyond the not trivial monetary costs... but I can see how someone would read the same rules materials as I have and reach a different result, as not everyone out there has the same amount of willingness to declare advice and/or guidelines present in the DMG to be wrong (i.e. the stuff in the 3.5 DMG about what level of character of each class is likely present in any given settlement which I disregard in their entirety because NPCs with class levels should not be so common, let alone so predictably high level as those guidelines make them).

As far as I can tell you can choose to cast revivify if you're high enough level to do so. I see no restrictions about this unless they're put into place by the DM on behalf of the character's gods for some reason.

Well, high enough level of the appropriate classes to have it on your spell list, choosing to prepare it rather than something else, and having the appropriate amount of wealth in the appropriate form of diamonds - which I guess a DM can choose to make no more difficult than "I go buy diamonds," if that's what they want to do.

In any event, coming back to life with 1 hit point is getting off extremely easy, especially in 5E.

It is getting off extremely easy compared to the punishments and complications that accompanied coming back from the dead in some prior versions of the game, yes - but that doesn't make it actually objectively getting off easy, nor does it mean that it isn't detrimental enough. I've never seen a player view coming back due to a casting of revivify (nor any higher level spell) as anything other than a significant setback (sure, not the most significant possible setback, but significant enough to matter all the same).

As far as the casting cost, that could be a thing, particularly at lower levels. I suspect most DMs don't make material component acquisition a stumbling block for their players, but even if they do not, this would be a good spell to make an exception.

When it comes to what "most DMs" do or don't do, I don't feel there is much point in bringing it up - especially when you are effectively saying "Most DMs create the problem I am talking about for themselves," so the solution is simply that the DMs viewing it as a problem should just stop choosing to cause problems for themselves.

 

[Azurewraith]

So As i Said i would not down my combats from last session with their slog factor and asked my PCs to rate it on enjoyment the party was all 3rd lvl with a champion fighter, tempest cleric, Wild sorcerer and a valor bard im also running the sytem shock and lingering injuries along with vitalaty optional rules. Only had 2 encounters one was a random encounter with two kuo-tuo(the fish people) in a river they didn't want to fight tried to escape but one of the pcs hit the turbo button on their alien motor boat crushing the tiny row boat of the kuo-tuo throwing the bard and fighter into the water on impact the kuo-tuo saw there chance and went for some revenge the sorcerer mopped up 1 with a exact HP chromatic orb and then the other one fled after seeing his friend into fish finger's. 1action combat everyone agreed it didn't last long enough to be boring the 2nd fight was the same 3 against an aquatic troll that latched onto the side of there boat they had no clue about fire or acid and i used the loathsome limbs variant and it lost an arm on the deck of the boat at one point this one did drag on a bit but after 5rounds the bard just hit the turbo button and steered into a wall creating a belt-sander and the troll let go. They enjoyed this fight as they found a alternative solution and they enjoyed the severed arm getting up and darting round the boat. Oh i mentioned a cleric ye he didn't do anything that session he got hung up on trying to learn an alien language so he seemed to be enjoying him self so left him to it. Small sample size i know but it is what it is i guess.

 

[Celtavian]

I think my players enjoy 5E combat. They miss some of the Pathfinder options on occasion, but mostly seem to enjoy figuring out ways to make use of their 5E abilities.

My main gripes are based on DMing 5E. Creatures are very weak, especially creatures like fiends which are often big bags of hit points that the party easily carves through. It's the Bounded Accuracy effect. Just makes it too easy to do a ton of damage. The creatures don't have enough hit points to make fights interesting. They rarely get to use their abilities. If you were watching a movie with some of these 5E battles the fearsome demon or undead would jump out growling and seeming like a scary enemy, the party would kill it in six or twelve seconds leaving the audience underwhelmed. Since most of my players play this game to live out the fantasy stories they've read or watched, it makes for underwhelming battles that leave the imagination unsatisfied.

 

[Deleven]

The basic rules for combat are pretty darned simple, and it's true that some people with experience in playing more complex combat systems may get bored quickly.

There's a lot of ways to solve this. You could refocus on things other than combat to get people engaged, by introducing more social opportunities. You can wildcard combat by introducing alternate win conditions (Get out of the room before the floor crumbles away!). You could spend a lot of time inventing new combat rules (I'm actually doing this, but I'm nowhere near finished).

However, if they're super bored because they don't have enough actions and numbers to memorize, I'd suggest you just start improvising actions with your monsters. Then point out that if the players want to start tossing sand into people's eyes all they have to do say "My character throws sand into the Orc's face!"

This is prettymuch exactly my point of view

 

[Mephista]

How I solved the "boring combat" problem. I gave my enemies combat feats. For example, I made an anti-party to harass the PCs, and did the following - Polearm Mastery on the orkish war cleric, the yuan-ti assassin had Mage Slayer, the tiefling blade-warlock had Sentinel. Two dedicated casters - a green dragonborn sorcerer that focused on mind controls and poison, and a human necromancer, were more by-the-book, but they had lots of goodies on their own.

In short, the "problem" I encountered with combat being boring is that the monsters were basically too simplistic. They use dumbed down abilities, despite sometimes clearly using class abilities (re: goblins and Cunning Actions). So, I upped the ante by making the monsters have access to the same complexity and ability as the PCs. If they saw orcs with spears, they learned not to approach carelessly. They saw shields and wondered if they'd be knocked down and swarmed if they moved in range.

Given how easy it is to reference classes and feats now, even making spontaneous warriors and casters is easy.

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Oh, and on the issue of throwing sand in eyes.... that's actually a standard tactic for a thief I played, who carried around a bunch of caltrops, powders, and other small "traps" to use with his Cunning Action. Trap Master Ikka. Ah, fun times.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well [MENTION=6786252]Mephista[/MENTION] it sounds like that's a decent choice when your group isn't floundering. Any ideas for one that is?

 

[Mephista]

Frankly, EzekielRaiden, it depends on the group. Some people aren't be happy with 5e because what they want is a tactical war game. Others aren't happy because they feel like things are set up to be a stand-and-swing fest. Another group might actually be having issues because they don't like hitting as often. A fourth table might find that out of game designing is a huge part of their enjoyment. A new party might have issues when it comes to abilities that don't naturally lend themselves to evocative imagery to them.

And this is compounded by the fact that people don't actually know what they want. The brain is a complex affair, and even a simple high chance of success on dice rolling triggers less endorphins and affects the enjoyment of the game. First, we have to figure out what the exact issue is, because every group is different. I'm not going to suggest that my method is a cure-all for everyone. I'm good at spontaneously adapting new spins on abilities or altering monsters on the fly. I encourage crazy stunts, and I have a list of house-rules to fix feats and classes to make them more interesting and dynamic. Hells, I have a system for mid-game changing of your subrace if you're an elf! I have a setting where its not unheard of to have entire covens of warlocks of different kinds working together as a challenge.

My best suggestion for someone seeking to emulate my style is to look into different feats and spells that alter the terrain, and start using those. Web, Entangle, Evard's Black Tentacles, Arms of Hadar, Darkness, almost any illusion spell, some mind control effects. Anticipation and the unknown are two powerful weapons to keep your player's attention. I consider simple to be bad because its generally predictable. Predictable is boring. So, if you avoid being predictable while not going entirely off the walls, it helps a lot.

Lairs are also fun. Use lair traits whenever possible when the players are exploring a dungeon, even if you have to steal them from other monsters, or design your own. I once made up Lair traits for a cursed sword that was spewing shadows into the local area that had to be fought while taking down a necrotic energy barrier.

If your players know the MM fairly well, and know what to expect from enemies, design new ones. Don't use what they expect to see all the time. Give that orcish rager grappling abitlies and drag the rogue away from the party. Give the goblins some drow poison that they stole when fleeing their ex-mistresses during a surface raid, and some shamanistic backup. Have the secret cultists you were sent to exterminate uses a rope of entanglement when you weren't expecting it. Give the thief guild invisibility potions inside of fake teeth instead of cyinide capsuls. Make the leader of this thief guild a halfling-vampire or a blue dragon.

 

[Mephista]

I just read the post about playing a grappling lore bard. Some things I'd like to address first. One is that you're level 3. All the games are pretty weak at low level. Its an unfortnate feature - the game starts comign together around level 5, imho. Second, the bard is primarily a support character that's not always easy to enjoy playing. Its entirely plausable that your issues with the game could be a direct result of the class, and not something else. Third is that I'm frankly unamused with the bard design as a whole. Bard's always been one of my top four classes. I can't really enjoy the 5e bard.

One solution I suggest is talking to your GM to allow you to get access to the Booming Blade cantrip. Its thematically appropriate for a Skald, and something a bit more interesting to do with your turn.