Build Rich and Dynamic 5e Encounters #dnd #lazydm

Monsters, roles
Fantastic locations
Zone wide effects
Traps & Hazards
Advantageous positions e.g., high ground, cover
Intractable objects
Environmental hazards
Goal

How would you handle traps and their triggers when using an abstract map or theatre of the mind? I am preparing a boss battle and I was thinking of including one or two traps in the terrain but then since I don't use a grid I don't know how I could adjudicate if they trigger or not

Outstanding.

I’m sooooo excited for this project! I’m gonna get so much immediate and repeated use of this, I can already feel it! I’m pumped.

I'm VERY excited in a new book on this subject. I'm not good at this stuff unless I take a lot of time to think about encounters. It would be much easier to have prompts to spur the imagination.

Dragons of Stormwreck uses the zone effect in the final boss fight

I like that you still stick to 5e, many thanks. 👍🏻

You are basically describing the X-Men Danger Room (and I love it!)

OMG can't wait for a new book from you guys! If I can make one request... Could you have a spiral-bound option like with the Lazy GM Workbook? It was such a gamechanger!

One thing I did for a section of an underground mine dungeon I'm working on is a coal fire deeper in. In certain sections of the dungeon, the smoke from the coal fires is so thick that anything with normal vision can only see 5ft in any direction, and they have to hold their breath or risk suffocation. I'm hoping that it'll encourage the players to move slowly through those sections of the dungeon at first, and as they map out the hallways and rooms they can return to them much more quickly even though they're still (effectively) blinded by the smoke.

WotC: "We released a new D&D book!"

Me: "Meh."

Mike: "I'm releasing a new book."

Me: "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!"

I love the idea of cascading effects. So in a dungeon, you introduce 5 or so effects one at a time. Then use the 3 out of 5 rule for the boss fight to create a unique and spicy boss fight that the players will have some knowledge of encourtering all ready. Maybe they didn't go into all the rooms before the boss fight and encounter a few surprises as a result.

I don't know that just gets my brain excited.

Yess! These are great ideas. Make the environment interesting, entice your players to move around and interact with the environment during a battle. Something as simple as putting a large table that they can flip and use as cover. These things are always fun!

In some battles, I've literally just made my own Lair-type actions at initiative 20, or 20 and 10, etc, and stuff is happening at those times. Players REALLY have been enjoying as they try to decipher what is happening during those turns, and how they adapt to them!

I often tell new 5e DMs that they need to make their encounter areas much bigger than published 5e materials demonstrate. You need lots of space to create the conditions for different battle dynamics to emerge. It's a little unrealistic to have most rooms in the dungeon be 90 feet or more in one direction, but that's what's fun in play.