D&D 5E Solving Static Fights

[Jediking]

Our hydra fight in ToA was one of the scariest encounter the PCs had, and they were 7th level. The thing chased them, trying to knock their boats over and drag them underwater and kill them. They barely hurt the thing, it was a rampaging beast completely hidden most of the time that only surfaced to attack and then retreat. The PCs did everything they could to escape back to land.

in a flip side, my table’s hydra fight was one of our worst (I was a player). Our DM did a great job of foreshadowing the Hydra and raising the tension.

Then as soon as there was ripple in the water, our Wizard used Banishment*, everyone readied attacks, and 2 rounds later it was finished.

There are some common spells and abilities that can ruin a “dynamic” encounter. Multiple encounters to reduce party resources, changing the terrain, and/or adding small changes to monster stats blocks are things I have found to be very effective when I DM to challenge players and make fights more exciting

*a spell I personally ban from games I DM, due to repeated issues with a few players who never chose otherwise. I find it causes more work to create exciting encounters than it is worth as a DM. But then, I never have a problem with Aarokocra, so YMMV

 

[Fenris-77]

But then, I never have a problem with Aarokocra, so YMMV

Yeah, no flying PCs for me thanks. Flight is an ability nicely gated by level otherwise.

 

[Dausuul]

In my experience, this happens most often when facing a Bag of Hit Points monster: A big melee brute that doesn't do anything but stand there and beat on a nearby enemy. Unfortunately, 5E (especially core 5E) has a lot of these. Combat with a BoHP quickly becomes static because the players get into optimal formation (melee at the front, ranged at the back), and they have no incentive to change formation, and the monster lacks a way to force them out of it.

I typically solve this in one of several ways:

• The monster either has a way to break contact and go after the squishies in the back without eating an OA... or it just eats the darn OA. It's okay to take an OA from time to time.
• There are multiple monsters, including casters and/or archers as well as a melee front line--basically a mirror of the party. The PCs now have an incentive to maneuver past the enemy front line.
• The monster has push/pull/other forced movement.

How do your players feel about it? It doesn’t do much good to fret about moving the tokens on the board if none of your players feel it’s necessary to do so. Were they having fun slugging it out with the hydra? Are you worrying about a problem that doesn’t exist for your players?

The DM's fun matters too.

 

[Fenris-77]

If you regularly play on a battle mat, you can always introduce some fog of war by using blips instead of figs for enemies that the party can't see but might know are there. I'd recommend using 20 or 30% more blips than actual enemies. They get revealed when in clear line of sight. If you plan good 3D battlefields with lots of obstacles and LOS blocking elements you can get a lot of mileage out of this. It won't fix maneuver after engagement directly, although it adds some serious drama to second and third wave reinforcements.

 

[Eltab]

-Cue music-
Bobbi Sue, took the money and run. Woo hoo hoo / Go on, take the moneyMacGuffin and run
-end music-
This is one alternative to the "Get off my lawn!" fight to kill / capture / drive off intruders, which can bog down into a static slugfest.

 

[Quickleaf]

I just a hydra fight that felt suitably challenging and a little scary (A CR 8 in favorable circumstances against a party of 5 level 5s should have felt threatened), but they met it in melee and no one moved the whole fight (except the ranger's hawk that had fly-by attack).

The hydra is a good example due to it making a number of OAs equal to its heads. While all monsters benefit from encounter design, this is one that especially benefits.

I ran a pyrohydra – more heads, fire-breathing, fire resistance, head regeneration stopped by cold or poison (instead of fire) – against a party of five 10th level PCs in a PbP game. The key to making it interesting was that I placed the pyrohydra in an oasis pool. It ambushed the party, attacked from the water with a combination of Reach bites and grapples. Then it breathed fire erratically, causing the water to heat up, and dragged the grappled victim under into the near-boiling water. The PCs managed to kill it after two rounds, but they were using the Climb on a Large Creature action, ranged attacks, weighing the cost of taking ongoing fire damage to save their grappled friend, and making heroic leaps to close the gap.

This made it feel a bit like the Watcher in the Water from LotR.

A similar thing could be done with the regular hydra. It stays in the water, 10 feet from PCs, biting and grappling. The challenge for melee-oriented PCs becomes figuring out a way to close to melee with the hydra without entering the water (where they could suffer disadvantage on attacks). The challenge for spellcasters becomes figuring out a way to pressure the hydra to quit its advantageous position and enter melee (e.g. an ongoing damage spell centered on the hydra).

Just looking for some ideas. I'm tempted to remove opportunity attacks. I'm tempted to reintroduce acrobatics checks to avoid OAs or diverse Move Actions. I'm definitely going to be rethinking encounters more as well.

What are your thoughts?

Pathfinder 2 and D&D 5e seem to arrive at a similar place in regards to mobility & teamwork through different rules. 5e's approach is to encourage tactical teamwork through the threat of being opportunity attacked.

Say the wounded cleric wants to move without being opportunity attacked by the hill giant, in order to cast cure wounds on the distant rogue PC (and the cleric also wants to be out of melee with the hill giant). The other party members need to figure out a way to lockdown the hill giant's ability to use its reaction (e.g. by casting chill touch or incapacitating the giant) or else provoke it to expend its reaction on, say, the fighter or barbarian engaged in melee, so that it has no reaction to use on the cleric's initiative count.

If they're not able, or not willing, to implement a plan as a team, then the cleric is faced with a dramatic choice: risk their own well-being (i.e. being opportunity attacked) to heal the rogue, or Disengage safely and postpone cure wounds but risk that wounded rogue might not last another round.

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't bother me much. If it makes sense that nobody moves, then they stay put. If moving makes sense, then they move.

Also, in many typical dungeon-crawl situations there might not be any room or space to move, particularly if one side is intentionally trying to hold a defensive position e.g. in a doorway.

 

[Flamestrike]

Hi everyone. With the quarantine, I've been able to play more games, and something's starting to really bug me about 5E; it bugged me about 3E as well.

The fights are getting to be really static. I don't know if this is all the fault of attacks of opportunity, encounter design, or the lack of more push/pull type basic effects, but too many fights are just becoming lock down stand out slug matches. This has been happening with both an almost entirely new group, and with a group of veteran players.

I've been wondering if other people have been feeling the same thing. Pathfinder 2 has tried to tackle this by removing the opportunity attack as a basic thing, giving it only to the Fighter and highly trained monsters. Encounters can be better designed, such as having a monster be an obstacle rather than a wandering beast. Monsters can be designed differently, such as things with damaging auras and devastating melee attacks that discourage locking it down in melee (but this punishes certain builds).

I just a hydra fight that felt suitably challenging and a little scary (A CR 8 in favorable circumstances against a party of 5 level 5s should have felt threatened), but they met it in melee and no one moved the whole fight (except the ranger's hawk that had fly-by attack).

Just looking for some ideas. I'm tempted to remove opportunity attacks. I'm tempted to reintroduce acrobatics checks to avoid OAs or diverse Move Actions. I'm definitely going to be rethinking encounters more as well.

What are your thoughts?

Your DM isnt having the monsters move and draw OA's, and the players are too scared to provoke them themselves (which is sometimes actually a good idea to do).

It was a common problem in 3.5 as well; Combat reflexes was only worth getting if your DM didnt mind his monsters getting AOO. Some DM's refuse to provoke AOO's from their monsters.

When I DM, I ensure monsters often provoke by running past heavily armored PCs to get to the Casters or Archers. It makes the PCs feel good (particularly the ones with Sentinel) and makes the combat a lot less static.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I think that Keith Baker mentioned that for many fights he would specify a few terrain or other features. (Or maybe allow each player to suggest one?)
Each of those features could be leveraged for Inspiration or Advantage in the fight.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think that Keith Baker mentioned that for many fights he would specify a few terrain or other features. (Or maybe allow each player to suggest one?)
Each of those features could be leveraged for Inspiration or Advantage in the fight.

Yeah, essentially a tags mechanic. I like that a lot as a tool for leveraging environmental factors in encounters.