Razz0putin
Explorer
Check out this video by Zee Bashew for this idea
D&D 5E Campaign Confounders (idea discussion)
toucanbuzz
No rule is inviolate
I've posted this before in response to a similar question (someone else, been too long, gets credit for the original ideas).
(1) Don't make your combats about "fight to the death" and (2) spice monsters up by giving them bonus and reactions. MM monsters by default are boring. One of my favorites is the A5E improved frost giant that, if it knocks you down with its melee attack, can take a bonus action to try and curb stomp you with its boots.
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.
Team Deathmatch. The outcome involves the survival of a single VIP, whether PC or NPC. 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. As the MacGuffin trope is an extremely versatile tool in writing, this is an extremely versatile objective in combat design! 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. Besides, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with Team Deathmatch combat, and the times it doesn’t lead to that can lead to some very hectic chases and clever uses of non-damaging combat abilities.
King of the Hill seeks to control a location. Now, this location can start under the control of either faction or start as initially neutral depending on circumstance, and each situation leads to a very different type of encounter. If the location is initially neutral, this functions like a Capture the Flag scenario where the dominant strategy of ‘just run away’ isn’t possible. If possible, try to make ‘tanky’ characters like paladins and fighters really feel dominant when the battle reaches maturity, but favor speedsters like monks and rogues during the initial phase of battle. You can do this by applying a two turn ‘countdown to victory’ for controlling the location uncontested, and deliberately setting up the scenario so it takes a ‘normal’ character one-and-a-half movements (two turns, with an action left over) to reach the location. This means that fast characters can get in an initial advantage but can’t win the scenario outright. A reasonable scenario like this might be taking a bridge. One side wants to hold it so that it can be destroyed, another side wants to hold it so that an approaching army can cross. 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, just realize that, just like with the Capture the Flag variant, the PCs will come up with all sorts of janky strategies to completely circumvent fighting the encounter. To a certain extent, let them. That’s part of the way that D&D is different from a video game. It’s part of the fun!
Leaving MacGuffins behind, what if enemies didn’t all attack at once? This is Wave Defense, and it’s probably the most common of these suggestions in actual play. Still, I figure it’d be worth mentioning here in part because fighting one big battle is more fun than fighting a bunch of little ones. However, it’s easy to overwhelm PCs though the use of the action economy (a lot of enemies, few PCs). The solution is to throw the enemies at them in waves! This also can make combats last longer than the traditional three round length. That’s not all, however. 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.
Another sort-of alternate combat objective is the Free for All, in which survival is focused on as the goal over body count. Though it’s become popular in the modern consciousness with the Battle Royale genre, the Deathmatch is a long and storied tradition in video games which can be applied to your D&D game with the appropriate level of worldbuilding. A classic of the mega dungeon is the existence of multiple warring factions within the dungeon. 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 on 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!
(1) Don't make your combats about "fight to the death" and (2) spice monsters up by giving them bonus and reactions. MM monsters by default are boring. One of my favorites is the A5E improved frost giant that, if it knocks you down with its melee attack, can take a bonus action to try and curb stomp you with its boots.
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.
Team Deathmatch. The outcome involves the survival of a single VIP, whether PC or NPC. 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. As the MacGuffin trope is an extremely versatile tool in writing, this is an extremely versatile objective in combat design! 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. Besides, it’s not like there’s anything wrong with Team Deathmatch combat, and the times it doesn’t lead to that can lead to some very hectic chases and clever uses of non-damaging combat abilities.
King of the Hill seeks to control a location. Now, this location can start under the control of either faction or start as initially neutral depending on circumstance, and each situation leads to a very different type of encounter. If the location is initially neutral, this functions like a Capture the Flag scenario where the dominant strategy of ‘just run away’ isn’t possible. If possible, try to make ‘tanky’ characters like paladins and fighters really feel dominant when the battle reaches maturity, but favor speedsters like monks and rogues during the initial phase of battle. You can do this by applying a two turn ‘countdown to victory’ for controlling the location uncontested, and deliberately setting up the scenario so it takes a ‘normal’ character one-and-a-half movements (two turns, with an action left over) to reach the location. This means that fast characters can get in an initial advantage but can’t win the scenario outright. A reasonable scenario like this might be taking a bridge. One side wants to hold it so that it can be destroyed, another side wants to hold it so that an approaching army can cross. 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, just realize that, just like with the Capture the Flag variant, the PCs will come up with all sorts of janky strategies to completely circumvent fighting the encounter. To a certain extent, let them. That’s part of the way that D&D is different from a video game. It’s part of the fun!
Leaving MacGuffins behind, what if enemies didn’t all attack at once? This is Wave Defense, and it’s probably the most common of these suggestions in actual play. Still, I figure it’d be worth mentioning here in part because fighting one big battle is more fun than fighting a bunch of little ones. However, it’s easy to overwhelm PCs though the use of the action economy (a lot of enemies, few PCs). The solution is to throw the enemies at them in waves! This also can make combats last longer than the traditional three round length. That’s not all, however. 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.
Another sort-of alternate combat objective is the Free for All, in which survival is focused on as the goal over body count. Though it’s become popular in the modern consciousness with the Battle Royale genre, the Deathmatch is a long and storied tradition in video games which can be applied to your D&D game with the appropriate level of worldbuilding. A classic of the mega dungeon is the existence of multiple warring factions within the dungeon. 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 on 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!
Quickleaf
Legend
I don't think your proposal is necessarily solving your problem.
For example, you mention one of your "Encounter Deck Confounders" being "make an Athletics check or hit by falling rock."
OK, but how does that even address your initial complaint – stagnant combats with a lack of movement?
This is a pretty common design mistake: Thinking that if we throw the kitchen sink of options at a problem, that the problem will somehow be masked or fall by the wayside. Instead it's more like "treating" a specific medical condition with a bunch of "well this might work" that never address the underlying problem.
Instead I'd go back to that original complaint – we have stagnant combats with a lack of movement – and ask "how can I encourage the players to move more?"
Here's an example of applying that to a simple Troll on the Bridge encounter: PCs come to a 40-foot bridge spanning a roaring river chasm. Troll climbs up, slams club, and says in broken Common "i'll eat whoever tries to cross."
Now it's time to interrogate the encounter idea: What encourages the PCs to move? Why not just pincushion the troll with arrows/spells? Or close to melee and carve it up 10th-level PC style? Let's brainstorm...
- Maybe there's a waterfall or heavy mists or statues acting as cover that prevent a clear shot to the troll?
- Maybe when the troll slams its club the entire bridge shudders and some stones fall into the river below, hinting that it's an unstable structure?
- Maybe there are lurking shadows under the bridge hinting that there are more trolls in hiding?
- Maybe the party needs to rapidly reach the other side before (a) enemies or a hazard catch up to them from behind? (b) the light of the Sidhelein Moon fades and the way into the secret citadel is lost for another month? (c) the curse/disease/poison afflicting one of them reaches its apex and they die or transform before reaching the cure on the other side?
- Maybe the troll's obscene shouting causes stalactites overhead to rattle in the shadows of the PCs' torchlight, suggesting certain areas of the bridge/surrounds could be struck if the stalactites were to fall?
- Maybe in framing the scene you describe a NPC get knocked 15 feet through the air by the troll's club, dropping them into the river below, hinting this troll has a special push attack?
@toucanbuzz - this is a great reminder as well that not every combat needs to have a lethal ending or a straightforward goal. I've successfully used some of these, and they definitely work well to spice things up.
It's a fair point, and some of that may come down to me not necessarily articulating my frustration clearly. I don't like it when we just keep going around the table with "I swing, I hit, 10 damage, next". Lack of movement is certainly part of that, but a lot of it is also lack of variety. I fully admit I do not do a good job of "interrogating the encounter idea" as you explain so well, and I like your ideas. I'm starting to realize the issue may be a lack of creativity on my part more than anything - that's probably where the "card" idea came from. I do better if I have some sort of prompt to prime the pump, so to speak.
And on that note, thanks to @GMforPowergamers for the suggestion of the TORG drama deck, this is exactly the type of thing I'm envisioning. The content will of course need to change since the rulesets are completely different, but the flavor of the cards is perfect.
It's a fair point, and some of that may come down to me not necessarily articulating my frustration clearly. I don't like it when we just keep going around the table with "I swing, I hit, 10 damage, next". Lack of movement is certainly part of that, but a lot of it is also lack of variety. I fully admit I do not do a good job of "interrogating the encounter idea" as you explain so well, and I like your ideas. I'm starting to realize the issue may be a lack of creativity on my part more than anything - that's probably where the "card" idea came from. I do better if I have some sort of prompt to prime the pump, so to speak.
And on that note, thanks to @GMforPowergamers for the suggestion of the TORG drama deck, this is exactly the type of thing I'm envisioning. The content will of course need to change since the rulesets are completely different, but the flavor of the cards is perfect.
GMforPowergamers
Legend
if you do make changes for D&D i would love to see them
jgsugden
Legend
Noble intent, problematic implementation. Randomness is most useful when you have to put something unexpected together quick. However, it won't give you optimal results if you have time to plan.
Instead of going random, add elements to each combat that make sense given the location, time and parties involved in the combat. Figure out what complications will make that combat unique and interesting and then introduce them.
For each combat you run, I suggest you ask the following questions:
1.) What about the environment could be unique in this combat and add some unusual challenges for the PCs.
2.) What are the victory conditions for the PCs? Can it be (and should it be) something other than killing all foes?
3.) Are there nearby entities that would be attracted to the sounds of combat? How long would it take them to arrive? What would they do? What would trigger them being notified?
4.) What do the potential foes want to achieve?
If you ask those four questions when dropping combats into a game it can really improve the quality of the story you're telling via those combats.
Instead of going random, add elements to each combat that make sense given the location, time and parties involved in the combat. Figure out what complications will make that combat unique and interesting and then introduce them.
For each combat you run, I suggest you ask the following questions:
1.) What about the environment could be unique in this combat and add some unusual challenges for the PCs.
2.) What are the victory conditions for the PCs? Can it be (and should it be) something other than killing all foes?
3.) Are there nearby entities that would be attracted to the sounds of combat? How long would it take them to arrive? What would they do? What would trigger them being notified?
4.) What do the potential foes want to achieve?
If you ask those four questions when dropping combats into a game it can really improve the quality of the story you're telling via those combats.
Similar Threads
