Why combat in my games got tiresome..
More often than not, when we start a new campaign with low level characters, combat will be super exciting in the beginning. Because it is fast paced and there is a high risk every time there’s any kind of combat. This is of course because the players at low level are very weak and have few hit points. WIth few hit points and a low AC, then attacks will go in more often and it won’t take many hits until a player is knocked unconscious.
However, when the players begin to reach level 7 and higher, they will have accumulated a lot of HP, a high AC, and they are very likely to have some good magic items as well. Thus making combat a long and tiresome thing. Sometimes it may take up almost a whole session, which can get a bit uniform. We need that role play too! In our games, I have a rule for my sessions where I try to avoid having more than 50% of my session be combat related. Also, I try to set the 50% combat as a maximum, and instead I’ll try to keep it lower than that, preferably around 30 to 40% of a game night.
During my early DM years I learned it the hard way, I had many sessions become tiresome because it ended up being about 90% combat. And, I only had so many exciting lines for making an attack sound cool that it became a repeat and in the end I stopped describing when someone got an attack in. My approach to higher level combat at the time was that I needed to tire out the players (get their HP down and spell slots down) before they met the boss. So when they met the boss they would finally be challenged. Everything before the boss was not a real challenge though, but just a tool to tire them out. It was a poor way to address combat, because it was kinda boring until they reached the boss where the real risk of combat was.
A Better Approach to Combat!
I have since changed my approach, and I now combine different factors to both bring the players down in HP faster and make combat more exciting. I often put the players up against some hard hitting monsters, when they get to a higher level, there are so many monsters in D&D, why not make use of them. ALSO! Remember that the monster stats are only guidelines, if you need the players to lose some HP, adjust the strength of the monster’s attack. Nowadays, we have some experienced players in my group, and they may recognize if I change the stats of a monster. To fix this issue, I simply changed the name of the monster and voilà, no one can complain because it is now a totally different monster. To give an example you might change a troll to a plagueborn troll, whatever floats your boat.
Second, while making monsters stronger might be great, I find that it alone is sometimes not enough when you get to those higher levels. To add some extra excitement to combat I will often include outside factors that the players should be aware of, if they want to survive. These outside factors can be many and different. I really enjoy combining timed traps and combat, this adds another stress level and rush to combat. Now the players have to act fast if they want to survive. A very strong tool in getting your players to hurry up is simply putting a timeglass on the table while they are fighting. instead of a timeglass you can put a dice on the table that you count down every turn so the players can see it.
When the timeglass/dice countdown has run out, a lot of things can happen, it could be a cave in, flooding, reinforcements, an enemy that sets off a damaging trap, or maybe the enemies have an escape route they’ll take, or they’ll parley with the players. I like to think Idiana Jones when adding these factors. Another good twist is to mix combat with puzzles, maybe the enemies keep reanimating until they solve a puzzle.
Finally, a great way to make D&D combat really interesting is by adding some realism and risk to it. When you think about it, D&D combat is REALLY simple and easy for everyone to pick up, and that was probably the goal with 5E, but it comes at the cost of making combat kinda boring. There is no risk in combat except for when you hit 0 HP, until then you are golden. About four years ago we began using our own simple version of Crit Cards whenever a player recieved a critical hit. They would draw a card and suffer a more realistic combat wound than simply losing HP. Every time a player had to draw a crit card, everyone was sitting on the edge of their chair staring at the player, some in fear, others in pleasure. To each their own.
We would like to give you the opportunity to have an even better combat experience with Crit Cards, which is why we are launching a Kickstarter, and we hope to see you there! Also, If you have any other tips on making D&D combat less tiresome, please let us know in the comments.
Cheers!
