D&D 5E How to create a 3-way fight?

[aco175]

@Dragonkobold Welcome to the boards. Hope you stick around and contribute. You seemed to resurrect a 5 year old thread, which we do not mind since the record I recall is 18 years. You may just not get the original people to respond. Cheers.

 

[fba827]

If keeping this very simple plot wise:

on side of road while /traveling camping, PCs are set upon by road bandits.
Not long after a rival group of road bandits comes along

both bandits have a reason to get money/weapons/etc from PCs (both for the profit as well as for showing dominance over the other group) and they have reason to fight each other (‘they’ each view it as their territory), and for PCs to fight both (if they want to keep their stuff anyway

Edit: yes I know this is an old thread but why not. Ha

 

[steeldragons]

You should really discuss, openly and honestly, all possible options first, before it is even attempted. Everyone needs to be on board/consenting with whatever combinations are desired. It's fairly easy to start a fight by stepping outside of the agreed upon parameters and, then, . . . one realizes this probably wasn't what you meant.

Carry on.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Looks like a bunch of clerics hit level 9 recently, because I've been seeing quite a bit of raise thread lately.

 

[Stalker0]

A great example of a 3 way involves the old "lurker" concept from 4e. Basically creatures designed to ambush.

So you start with a regular fight, nothing special. Then suddenly one of the creatures gets grabbed by the lurker monster, which now changes up the dynamic.

Another way to do it is to change up the terrain. The problem with 3 way fights is generally if one side shows weakness, its best for the other two sides to gang up on them and finish them off, THEN worry about the other side. One way to correct this is with terrain adjustment. Perhaps A and B are attacking C....but then C gets cut off by a rock slide or a wall spell or something. Now A and B battle it out for a bit until C is revealed again.

Last idea, area spells are great to use in such fights, as it becomes easier to hit both of your enemies, so there is less desire to focus fire on just one enemy.