Running Awesome D&D Combat

This is an amazing guide. Some things I already do, many things I now will do. Love these ideas, thanks!

Awesome video, thank you Mike!

Mmmm... sandwich mechanics... drools

"Don't change the difficulty based on the character."
I'm gonna disagree on this one, sort of, but going in the opposite direction from what is implied. The difference between "pretty good" and "extremely good" is usually fairly small in D&D, and that's generally a good thing for the mechanics and math of the game, but in terms of doing cool things I would let the guy who is "extremely good" at something get away with a lot more bullshit.
Mechanically 20 strength is not that much stronger than 15 strength. Fluff wise, it's halfway between a strong man and an adult blue dragon! More powerful than a werebear, almost as strong as a hill giant!
Really high stats only gives you slightly bigger numbers, but as far as what you can fundamentally do, I think it should open up a lot of doors.

Hankerin' at Runehammer and PDM at Dungeon craft turned me into zones. It works perfect. Especially theatre of minds.

I freaking love low level D&D.

I love zone systems in other games...but I find adjudicating AOE effects in DND if I'm doing zones FEELS bad.

I will give an exception for ending combat early by saying "You guys are obviously going to win." In my first game, we were supposed to face an epic boss battle. Instead, the wizard cast Create Pit, I (the barbarian) shoved him into the pit, and the wizard then cast Grease on the pit so he couldn't climb out. Our DM paused, then said, "You know what? I'm just going to assume you guys shoot arrows down the hole until he dies. Congratulations on beating the boss." It was a GREAT feeling.

The only problem I see with ignoring 5' distances is some characters and classes gain extra movement from feats, a class feature (bonus action move to dash), etc. So by allowing the paladin to just dash for free then should the rogue be able to do a divine smite for free? I am not an expert DM and I like 5E. The issue is making a change in 5E to a rule can seem very minor but actually has significant implications if said change mimics a feature that one would have to gain a few levels in a class or a feat to obtain but X rule is just given to a PC for free for the sake of player convenience or story.

Round 1..... FIGHT!!!

I have felt the same way about D&D 5e since it was released, that 3rd Level is the sweet spot. But then, I felt that 1st - 3rd level was/is also the sweet spot with D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder. (I never ran 4e, and only played it briefly once.)

"Was Aragorn ever 5 feet away from a monster?" Love this, it's really freeing.

My campaign turned into "The Four Winds" by accident. It was meant to be a oneshot, but the four players accidentally created a thematic party. So imagine my surprise when I start watching this video...

This is excellent!

Outstanding content in this video. Tuning the dials, cinematic encouragement, defeating the enemy at approximate half marks, etc. is all great

Easy way to signal a difficulty adjustment:
If you want to make it easier, then have their next attack cause a debilitating wound to the target and terrify the rest of their forces.
If you want to make it harder have the next attack enrage the antagonist and have them inspire their forces.

Static damage really has smoothed out my table. Looking forward to using some more of these techniques in game. Thanks again Mike

"I provoke an attack to use my misty escape reaction to teleport into the gnolls and then thunder step away to blow them all up." That's one hell of a dope move.

I’m really happy I watched this cause I feel like I do about 90% of this, but I learned a couple of things to make it better! Thank you for making this!

Disagree with randomly selecting targets. The monsters know what they're doing. The monsters want to win. Monsters do not want to die. If the wizard casts fireball, the monsters are going after the wizard hard because fireball is automatic damage. It's what intelligent monsters would and should do. The players should understand that their decisions in combat may affect the NPCs decisions in combat. There's verisimilitude.

Thx for the cool ideas. I like being flexible. Dont want to ruin the fun

Using some morale rules can REALLY help to cut down time . I do this with predator type monsters, who tend to nope out when they hit about 50% hit points. This means they can hit harder than they would be otherwise, but the strategy is to beat on them to get them to run. Other monsters fight to the death, such as mindless undead or golems, and that makes them feel much more threatening... there's no breaking them (short of Turn Undead). I also don't make the creatures tactical masterminds unless the monsters SHOULD be: Hobgoblins, for instance, are tactical masterminds and they fight like they are. This helps differentiate the monsters.

Another thing to do is not have all the monsters appear at once. This lets the PCs concentrate resources on one monster and possibly break contact if they want to.

More immunities, resistances, and vulnerabilities also help. I think 5E really missed the boat on this. They give PCs a new and interesting dial to add in, giving PCs resons to carry a few different weapons, for example, or get benefits from cantrips that seem typically not so useful.

I'm also running without cyclic initiative. I really hate cyclic initiative and am using what I call "Alternate Side Initiative" (I live in NYC... you'd get it if you lived here). This seems to speed things up and make for more possible planning. It's actually pretty easy:


-PCs roll every round versus a DC set by the monsters (typically 10+Dex of best monster, with "leader" type monsters or Legendary monsters getting their proficiency bonus).
-Only one player rolls in a given round, in an order chosen by the players, using the ordinary Initiative modifier. The caveat is that once a player has rolled, that player cannot roll again until everyone else has gone (even across combats). If the PCs meet the monster's DC, they go first (and can choose to wait if they want, e.g., if the monsters are across the board). Otherwise the monsters win.
-Only PCs can roll; NPC allies, pets, etc., go in their side but do not roll initiative.
-The player who rolls declares first and goes clockwise around the table. A player can pass to the next person, going later.
-The only actions outside of your side's turn are via Reactions.

It's taken a bit of time to get used to this but I think it leads to players being more engaged and to speedier fights.

I tried using static damage for monsters but my players didn't like that. They asked me to roll damage for the monsters.

Excellent video. I love the idea of the "combat out". I've toyed with a similar idea for a while but i called it "the detonation". I'd love to see a long list of various "outs" that might work.

Maybe I'm just that guy you don't wanna play with cause I can't begin to imagine not fixating on the damage if I heard the same number twice 😂

But static damage means less dice rolling 😭

I say use the distances and if they're 5 ft short they can make an athletics check as a bonus action to gain That 5 ft for the attack action, I know that's not totally 5e rules just something I'd do, or expend a hit die or two for the extra movement. Just thoughta

If you're going to change the dials during combat, have a good reason.

I.E. the orc smash a ritual rock against their heads and now they seem way more resilient (increase hp).

Messing with stats with no reason is a bad idea.

Most of the time I see videos for "better combat", people focus on simply speeding it up. This video is actually about making it *better*. And I couldn't agree more: combat is one of the pillars of the game, and if you are just trying to get it over with so you can go back to having fun, DnD is probably not the best system for you.

Anyway, congrats on the great content. Excellent video!

i find it difficult to DM and i think i’m better off as a player, but damn these vids are inspiring me to try DMing again

disagree on the sweetspot. 5-10 is the sweet spot

Something that has really helped me of late with engaging combat strategy is " Preparing Battle Plans for Combat Roles, but not Characters". Decide how the monsters might deal with the Tank (meatshield), Skirmisher ( Position-Damager), Blaster ( Glass Canon/ranged), Support (Buff/heal), Controller (CC), & Specialist (Skills/Debuff). When foes can counter those roles my players seem to get creative, but their individual customization shines through as well since the battle plan wasn't designed to 'shut them down perfectly'.

"Take parts out of the mechanics to simplify it..." Amen, brother. It seems like a lot of players could benefit from an official set of quick & dirty combat rules for when players don't want to slog through the drudgerous standard combat procedure. Our permission to make it our game is right there in the rules, but a lot of players cling to the belief that doing anything not exactly by the letter of the rules is doing it wrong. The solution would be an official abstract combat rule variant. Even better if it can also handle mass battles and mook fights well.

As DM the hardest thing I found in combat was keeping track of monster hit points and capabilities especially if they have spells. When there’s a lot of monsters/villains it’s much more work to keep track of hp & what combat skills each monster/villain has. My PCs tend not to take prisoners so it makes no sense for the bad guys to surrender (they could still run away). And the baddies should use their deadliest skills first rather than saving them for later which they may never get a chance to use if the PCs kill them

Hi sly , you said in this video “don’t make the check character-specific “ but I don’t understand why , if the rogue is really good at acrobatics shouldn’t it be easier for him ? Great video by the way thank you very much

Very interesting tips ! thank you (I already simplify some things but you offered new options !) Great video

I tried the relaxed movement in my last session, for the most part it worked great and the Players loved it.
Where it got a bit unstuck was area of effect spells, especially ones like Ice-shard where effect creatures in 5ft, it got a little bit confusing. It ended with me asking the players if they were in that radius which was fine as my players are fairly honest but it felt clunky.

Love this video

So much great advice! Thank you.

This is exactly how I run my AD&D games. It DOES take a lot of practice and sync with the players. With new players, at the 1st and 2nd encounter they get confused so the DM has to be patient and rephrase the scene. Eventually, with practice the players and DM get in sync. Then battles will go smoothly. Sly, wow you can talk fast and succinctly! I cant do that lol.

Great video! Learned a lot.

Great video - thanks Mike!

Completely agree that having to move tokens around slows combat, as long as the DM is adequately able to describe relevant (and relative) details spatial relations, and get players to simply describe what they want to try to do.

As a player I can tell you I hated when DMs used static monster damage. It removed a lot of the dynamism of each attack being its own unique event, and subsequently the creative descriptiveness of the results. We all began calculating how many attacks we could take before going down, and I don't understand how this response is not guaranteed. And as a DM, rolling damage takes a negligible amount of time and gives me more control over the outcome. (You yourself have suggested that damage was one of the things you might alter to keep a party alive.)

When I’ve run large battles, I run combat focused on the PCs and describe the larger battle narratively, taking into consideration anything the PCs have done to alter its course.

While I don’t put tokens on a grid, I’m not a fan of ignoring distance limitations. What I prefer, is to offer skill checks trades (like what you call Cinematic Advantage) where something like a successful Athletics check can get you that extra 5-10’ but a bad enough failure might leave you prone. It’s worth noting that these trades are not mutually exclusive with flanking. They can both be available at the same time. (Playing Theater of the Mind makes it a lot easier to not allow flanking advantage on a target when one of the allies is themselves surrounded on the far side.)

Great tips overall. Always good to have these reminders.

I use static damage on tabletop; on VTT (I use Roll20 currently) the dynamic damage is just as fast because the computer does the math for you.

Brilliant tips! Thanks for sharing. Rule of Cool is SO important - great to see you championing it.

Enjoying you laying out some many ideas (many we are using - sometimes). Greatly appreciate you have the points to look at!

Regarding randomly determining targets, not chess-gaming battles, and thinking like the monsters - I recently watched your interview with Keith Ammann and then bought his book The Monsters Know What They're Doing. I'm reading it now! My hope is it will help me learn to intuitively read tactics out of stat blocks better, the way that Hamlet's Hit Points is supposed to help us intuitively create effective up and down beats at our tables.

Please interview Keith Ammann again for a post mortem on his run of The Curse of Stahd!

Sly, what are you using to show your outline on the left? Is that Word with some styling thrown in?

I think the title is a little misleading. This is all good advice for running NARATIVE style combat, only some for ANY style. I, for instance, like combat to be strategic and rich in problem solving and tough choices. Some of this advice would make MY combat less awesome. I love the content though, keep it up.