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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HappyHubris" data-source="post: 9625281" data-attributes="member: 7051933">In my experience, you can make combat fun or have it be a slog.Engaging Combat:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players are excited to fight, either due to plot reasons or because you've taken a few minutes to lay out a scenario.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players sprinkle their combat with RP ("Bob murmurs a desperate prayer as his eyes and hands burst into flames.  A fireball lights up the room! (level 4)" vs "I cast fireball at level 4.")</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players work in some comraderie and reactions to each other's turns.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players have enough dice to roll their common spells all at once.  9 D6s at once is a lot quicker than 9 individual rolls.  If you find yourself rolling multiple of X over and over, grab some extra dice.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players are ready on their turns, including having references ready or memorization complete for things like saving throws, conditions, number of dice, spell radius, etc.  You should have a couple of options ready and a decision tree.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">DM uses a grid instead of theatre of the mind, so martials get to manage space, positioning, opportunity attacks, etc.  Also so players can keep track of combat without asking the DM to clarify over and over how many enemies could be hit by a fireball.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Enemies allow players to use their fun toys. Give your light cleric some undead to fight, your battlemaster some humanoids to disarm, or your caster some magic to counterspell.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players have a reason to move instead of standing and slugging out the fight.  This could be adds that prompt ranged to flee, environmental challenges, props/objectives needed for combat, etc.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Avoid plain square or circular rooms that fail to offer cover, pathing trade-offs, or space to maneuver.  Try and utilize things like line of sight or even terrain elevation.  Hang a heavy chandelier.  Add a gunpowder cache.  Let your barbarian throw someone into a tank of sharks.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Some sort of ticking clock that makes players invested in efficient play instead of grinding out a win. This could be a ritual and countdown, escaping enemy who you need to catch, etc.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Vary objectives from "lower the enemy health to zero". Maybe you're defending an objective, activating devices, surviving for X waves that are too numerous to kill.  Mix in encounters where intuitive game mechanics are flipped on their head, like enemies who resurrect and duplicate upon death that must be knocked into a chasm.</li> </ul>You don't have to do all of these, but I sure notice when my tables have more of these traits.</blockquote>

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