D&D 5E Oh, Man, Do I Need Some DM Tips. . .

[Bawylie]

Player: I attack the orc. *rolls* 21. *rolls* 10 slashing.
DM: You dodge to the side to get around the orc's greataxe, then leap up, swing your sword in a deadly overhead arc, the blade gleaming from the light of the fires around you. It connects and blood sprays from a sickening wound as the orc warrior dies.
Player: Cool. I move over here. Done.

Does that look familiar?

Dis an annoying trend.

Don't.




-Brad

 

[WarpedAcorn]

My group and I are meeting about every two weeks now for three hours, which is great for us as we all have hectic schedules. Tonight they fought the BBEG and her minions to end the first chapter of an old AP we're running (RotRL converted to 5e). Man, I was horrendous. I did my best to come up with descriptive dialogue during the fight. I did my best to tie the events of the session to their backstories. I watched a ton of my favorite DM's on Youtube to get inspired. And. . . the enjoyment level for the players was probably a 6 out of ten.

Is that how you felt or did they give that rating? You might be judging yourself too harshly. Also, we all have off-days and sometimes those days are when you're running the game. Personally we had one day when the game was awful and no one was feeling it, not even the DM. It was this weird session, but sometimes it happens.

1.) I REALLY want to bring a much stronger RP element to the game while they. . . don't. Ends up with my describing too much and in too much depth. However, a meta game that just involves number crunching is extremely boring to me and I want to have some fun, too.

Players are different. At my table I have some people REALLY into the RP and some that just want to roll dice. I feel I have found a good middle ground for the group, but I also realized my current campaign was not designed with my group in mind...so I've had to make some course corrections to keep everyone [hopefully] having a good time.

One suggestion I might offer to get your players involved is to ask THEM to describe how they kill a monster or what their Crit looked like. For instance, last game we were fighting a Dragon and its rider. We had pretty much won the fight, the rider was down and the dragon was injured. It was going to scoop up the rider and fly away to safety, but I was next to it so I got an Opportunity Attack. As luck would have it, I rolled a 20 and did enough damage to finish the Dragon off. The DM had me describe the scene and as a player I like things like that.

2.) I thought I was prepared but continually forgot to track advantage, fear, use of spells, etc. This led to pretty decent pauses in the flow of combat occasionally.

Ha! We've all been there...and will be there again. Sometimes we have this cool encounter planned and afterwards forget about all those cool things we were going to do. Some of this is familiarity and some is figuring out better/smarter ways to track monster abilities...another is to combo more simple monsters with fewer complex monsters so you only have to *think* about a handful.

3.) I allowed the combat to devolve into a bunch of people whacking each other while stationary until someone ran out of hit points.

This will happen, its inevitable. But as long as it didn't go on for more than a round or two, no worries. Also, do feel like your monsters can't try and run away. If you see the PC's are going to win anyways, there's no reason not to have the monster try and flee and turn it into a chase or let them range attack it down as it runs away like a coward. Just doing that has changed the dynamic of the scene.

4.) Because of an insane smite crit from the paladin, the BBEG never got off an actual attack. While she had a lot of hit points, she was constantly playing catch up. This led for a really anticlimactic encounter.

It might be anticlimactic to you, but that *might* be something the players remember for awhile. Keep an ear open and see if they mention it again or if the Paladin boasts about it to another character. If so, then it was a solid encounter. Sometimes PC's will outsmart you and win a challenging fight with ease...and if you let them know that was a super hard fight and you had all this stuff planned, then they will get the sense that they "won" and that will probably create a stronger memory than just a tough encounter. The best moments in D&D are never planned anyways. None of my fondest memories come from scripted events, they come from when we did something that "broke" the game.

5.) I didn't end on a cliff-hanger so the session ended somewhat antimactically, as well.

Hey, does everyone want to play again? Unless you're hearing excuses then no worries. Also, if the session ended with the Paladin getting a mega-crit then I would say the session ended with a Smitey-Bang! =)


Ultimately, I think the biggest help for you is to take a step back and look at the session from a different perspective. You're probably beating yourself up too much, and probably over the wrong things. =)

 

[Satyrn]

4.) Because of an insane smite crit from the paladin, the BBEG never got off an actual attack. While she had a lot of hit points, she was constantly playing catch up. This led for a really anticlimactic encounter.

I remember one session a couple years ago when I was DMing 3e. The party was able to surprise the big guy, and the rogue, acting first, critted with a longbow sneak attack. I mean, you'd think I'd have learned by then to give the big guy enough hp to survive a Longbow sneak attack, but nope. That fight was over before it began. The players loved it. So I was fine with it, too.

Then there's just this past weekend, where I'm playing a gnome battlemaster. The party sneaked up behind a giant, and I landed a couple rounds of shortbow strikes with menacing attack the giant succumbed to (picture that: a giant menaced by a gnome! ), keeping it from approaching the party. Meanwhile, the sorcerer was rolling great damage on his witchbolt and the druid was keeping it rooted in its place.

We took that thing out with the giant getting in only one attack over 3 or 4 rounds, and that attack didn't come until right near the end, and it was just a lame grab attempt at my gnome battlemaster riding on its shoulders.

We took down a giant without a scratch, without any threat of a scratch. It was great fun.


That is, I'm guessing your players enjoyed the crit smite.

 

[Kalshane]

Lots of good advice here. The biggest would be talk to your players and find out how the felt about the session: what worked and what didn't and what they would like to see more of.

I'm actually running the same AP myself right now (I've run it once before starting in PF and converting to 5E at the start of Chapter 5. This time I'm doing 5E the whole way.) and my players are likely entering the dungeon the BBEG is in (though not the level she's on) next session.

I assume by "playing catch-up" you mean she spent the whole fight healing herself. Which is generally a bad tactic for a bad guy unless they can heal themselves for more than the party can do in a round (A minion providing the healing works better and gives the party more choices of what to do, though I realize that as-written there is no such minion in this fight.) or have a way of healing themselves AND do something else that contributes to either damaging the PCs or granting themselves a tactical advantage. If all the enemy does is heal then yes, you're going to have a grindy fight where the PCs just beat on a sack of HPs until it finally runs out. If you encounter a similar situation in the future, I'd suggest having the BBEG focus all their attention on taking out the paladin (or whoever did the devastating attack) as quickly as possible, or, depending on their tactics and capabilities, retreat to regroup and come at the party again later when they're not knocking at death's door. Also, a nice (annoying) tactic for a divine spellcaster is to attack the PCs and then hit themselves with Sanctuary as their bonus action. Next round they can either heal themselves (if the PCs are struggling to circumvent the Sanctuary) or repeat the same tactic (as long as their spell slots hold out.)

As for "adding more RP to combat", are you talking about adding more description or more back-and-forth dialogue between the NPCs and the PCs during the battle. For the former, rather than describing every blow, focus more on describing the flow of the combat (much like the Angry GM dolphin article linked above) "The lead hobgoblin looks heavily-wounded but determined to fight on. Meanwhile, three of his soldiers are wearing down Bob the Fighter's defenses. What do you do?" saving the detailed description for big hits or tide-turning events.

 

[pontinyc]

There is an absolutely astounding amount of phenomenal advice in this thread, thank you all. It's truly appreciated. My week has been insane with work but I will be posting a proper response asap. In the meantime, many thanks again!

 

[Imaculata]

It might be anticlimactic to you, but that *might* be something the players remember for awhile. Keep an ear open and see if they mention it again or if the Paladin boasts about it to another character. If so, then it was a solid encounter. Sometimes PC's will outsmart you and win a challenging fight with ease...and if you let them know that was a super hard fight and you had all this stuff planned, then they will get the sense that they "won" and that will probably create a stronger memory than just a tough encounter. The best moments in D&D are never planned anyways. None of my fondest memories come from scripted events, they come from when we did something that "broke" the game.

My players keep talking about that one moment where they totally outsmarted one of my villains with ease, and they love it.

-That time one of the players used his ring of the ram to kick an avatar of a god off his ship.
-That time when one of my players was able to snatch an important item right out of the hands of Aram Seen the Unseen, master of deception and illusions, with the aid of a simple invisibility spell and some good stealth rolls.
-That time one of my players was able to kick one of my powerful spellcasters into the lava with, again, the ring of the ram.
-That time when one of my players was able to save his love interest from the bow of a ghost ship, with a water elemental that had only 1 hp left!
-That time one of my players totally cheated on what was supposed to be a fair duel with a nobleman, by creating a distraction for the audience, and then knocking the nobleman into the water with.... you guessed it... the ring of the ram.

It happens to me ALL THE TIME. But if the players are having a big laugh about it, and are talking about it as they are walking to the car at the end of the evening, AND they bring it up a month later in some role playing conversation, then I know I did well. It means it was a memorable moment that made them feel like heroes. It wasn't scripted, it was all their doing. And that is what makes it special.

 

[WhosAChaoticGoodBoy]

2.) I thought I was prepared but continually forgot to track advantage, fear, use of spells, etc. This led to pretty decent pauses in the flow of combat occasionally.

How we do it is the players pitch in a bit to run the game. Nothing big. Like someone does music/ambience, another person tracks total done to enemies, etc.

We also label enemies alphabetically and put 1x1 inch markers below them: http://imgur.com/a/ofoAX -- different colors indicate different statuses. For example, we use red markers by default and if someone frightens enemy "D" we switch out the red D marker for a yellow D.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My group and I are meeting about every two weeks now for three hours, which is great for us as we all have hectic schedules. Tonight they fought the BBEG and her minions to end the first chapter of an old AP we're running (RotRL converted to 5e). Man, I was horrendous. I did my best to come up with descriptive dialogue during the fight. I did my best to tie the events of the session to their backstories. I watched a ton of my favorite DM's on Youtube to get inspired. And. . . the enjoyment level for the players was probably a 6 out of ten.

What ended up happening was a constant and slow beatdown of a sack of hit points and a fair amount of yawning. Here's where I think I need help:

1.) I REALLY want to bring a much stronger RP element to the game while they. . . don't. Ends up with my describing too much and in too much depth. However, a meta game that just involves number crunching is extremely boring to me and I want to have some fun, too.

2.) I thought I was prepared but continually forgot to track advantage, fear, use of spells, etc. This led to pretty decent pauses in the flow of combat occasionally.

3.) I allowed the combat to devolve into a bunch of people whacking each other while stationary until someone ran out of hit points.

4.) Because of an insane smite crit from the paladin, the BBEG never got off an actual attack. While she had a lot of hit points, she was constantly playing catch up. This led for a really anticlimactic encounter.

5.) I didn't end on a cliff-hanger so the session ended somewhat antimactically, as well.

I realize that I'm writing issues that seem directly solvable but the real issue here is that I think that I'm all ready to address these things prior to play and in prep, etc., and yet they keep somehow happening. Any help here would be wildly appreciated, thank you!

A few ideas:

Legendary Enemies, or anyone you want to be the setpeice of the battle, needs an extra reaction, and the ability to mitigate damage, and a regen value. Maybe a whole extra turn.

Use terrain dynamically. Have feature of the terrain that can be used as cover, moved around/over, used against the players unless they take control of them, etc.

Include hazards as part of such battles, if it makes sense.

Always give your BBEG a lieutenant, and/or some minions, as others have said. If possible, give the BBEG a way to summon/activate 1 or more hazards, obstacles, terrain features, or allies.
Example: my latest BBEG was able to animate statues, and raise platforms in her hall. When she needed space, she had a pushback Blast, and a successful save still pushed the saving creature back, but half as much, so no matter what she got space.
Then, she could animate a statue as a bonus action, and it immediately could Move half its speed.
Lastly, when the party had her on the ropes, she pushed back, and raise herself on a platform, and then made the floor stagger into different levels, creating obstacles the party had to overcome to get to her. Her minions and summoned creature harried the party while she healed, and basically created a new phase of the battle.

Steal monster abilities from other d20 games, and/or give them spells or spell like abilities with a recharge mechanic. Ie, every turn roll a d6, and on a 4+, the recharge ability recharges, and can be used again on that turn.

Animated minions should be resurectable if needed.

Simplify your monsters by making effects part of the basic math. Ie, when running a dryad, have all of her attacks assume Shillelagh, and her defenses assume Barkskin. Alternately, have those effects come online when the monster is at half HP, or loses 1/4 HP, etc.

Find some quick reference printable tables and such, index cards or quick reference sheets for conditions, etc. for the players. Get them tracking their own stuff. Print out monsters so you can mark down current HP, and whatever notes you need, right on the monster. Also for quick reference.

I like to copy and paste stats onto a word doc, clean up the format, make whatever adjustments I need to, simplify redundant stuff, and print 1-3 pages of critters. Minions and such I will only keep 1/4 or so of the statblock.
Other people like using an index card per monster.

Edit. Got interrupted.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Over thoughts:

Read through the adventure for ways to incorporate clues that can help the party with the BBEG battle, and/or with subsequent hazards, traps, and puzzles.

This is where some houseruling comes in, for me. I like to involve research and investigation in my games. To the point where I've added Riddle and Lore skills to the list.

Riddle helps figure out clues from broken, cryptic, or encoded text or speech, and to speak while obfuscating meaning. It's useful when investigating, researching, and in Intrigue plots.

Lore is a straight up research skill and gather info skill. I use it to skip past the boring parts of researching old times, canvassing a market for info on a criminal, etc. it rounds out what's covered by the Investigate skill.
It also can be tested to check knowledge that doesn't seem covered by another skill, or where you feel that the PC's background, training, life, etc would give them a chance to know it even though it is covered by a skill the don't have. Like lore about heir religion, home town/kingdom, an organization their family is involved with, or something related to their class, like what Barbarian Lodges in Rashemen are friendly to outsiders and which aren't.

And I use those in adventures of all kinds. Cryptic text or signs on a dungeon wall might be deciphered with Riddle, and/or researched with Lore, giving the PCs clues they can use to solve the puzzle that hides the treasure vault. Likewise, either skill could be required to get an early warning of the nature of a trap, like in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. "The Penitent Man Shall Pass?" Riddle. The part with the floor tiles? Riddle and Lore.

In a BBEG's lair, these sorts of tricks and traps and puzzles might hold the key to turning what will otherwise be a very tough fight into a fair one. Or they might even be required to win at all, with solving one puzzle giving you the info needed to do something during the big fight, like the knowledge of how to turn off the BBEGs ability to animate statues, or how to control the lightning rods that zap the party every other round if not dealt with.

Don't be afraid to use knowledge, Investigation, Deception, Insight, Perception, etc in combat. Think of how fun Zelda fights are, and why. You have a fight, the pressure of attacks, and a puzzle to solve without which you cannot win. You don't want that every fight, or even every BBEG fight, but it is a tool in your toolbox.

Anyway. I hope some of hat helps.

 

[Imaculata]

Don't be afraid to use knowledge, Investigation, Deception, Insight, Perception, etc in combat. Think of how fun Zelda fights are, and why. You have a fight, the pressure of attacks, and a puzzle to solve without which you cannot win. You don't want that every fight, or even every BBEG fight, but it is a tool in your toolbox.

This is some good advise. I like designing my big boss battles in a way that they demand a little bit more from the players than just attacking the bad guy. I remember this one time I had my players fight a powerful Mindflayer, and I told them:

"You notice that some sort of tube comes out of the wall, and attaches to the back of the Mindflayer. It starts pumping some sort of fluid into the Mindflayer's body, and his wounds begin to heal."

So, the players start hacking at the tube, so he can no longer do that. But that detail was just enough to extend the fight with a few more rounds. It healed the boss back to nearly full hit points, and gave the players something else to focus on.

I could of course have extended this fight even more, by informing the players that there are multiple of these tube-stations attached to the walls, with big glass cylinders filled with the same healing juice that they just witnessed. Also, the Mindflayer calls for reinforcements, and other mindflayers enter the room.

Now the players need to focus on multiple things at the same time. One or two players may need to deal with the minions, while another smashes the glass cylinders, and while the tank keeps the boss occupied. If the party has a spellcaster, then you might even throw some magical obstacle into the mix as well. Maybe the cylinders are shielded by a wall of force, that needs to be dispelled. Environmental hazards are also always fun. Maybe the boss flips a lever that unleashes a toxic gas into the room which only affects the players. Maybe the boss shrinks the area in which the party can safely fight. Maybe the party needs to stay on the move while they fight the boss.

Any of these ideas can extend a fight, and make it much more interesting.