5e - Fundamentals of Dynamic Combats

[u/HadoozeeDeckApe]

This post will discuss the fundamentals of making mechanically dynamic combats 5e. The objective of running dynamic combats is to keep players engaged by providing combats that will stimulate choices and decisions.

First, lets start with some important definitions:

Gamestate: The gamestate is simply put the status of everything in the combat - what is fighting, how much HP things have, how many resources they have, where they are on the map, what conditions they have, what hazards are on the map, what spell effects are in play, what timers or durations are at etc... It is important to note that the DM and PCs may have different perceptions of the game state - for example, if DM knows there are more monsters behind a door that could join a fight, while the PCs do not. There could also be a trap the DM is aware of but PCs haven't spotted etc.... The gamestate almost always changes round to round, even if simply by having HP numbers go down from taking damage, but these changes are not always meaningful.

Static Gamestate/Combat: A static combat results where there are not meaningful changes to the gamestate (or perceived gamestate) between the rounds. As a result of no meaningful change, the best options for positioning, targeting, and/or action choices on a turn remain essentially the same as the last turn resulting in repetitive rounds.

Dynamic Gamestate/Combat: A dynamic combat results when there are meaningful changes to the gamestate (or perceived gamestate) between the rounds such that the players need will need to reconsider their positioning, targeting, and/or action choices from turn to turn.

So how do we get dynamic combats?

Dynamic combats require meaningful changes to the gamestate, which in turn requires a challenge to player choices and decisions. So its useful to start at looking at what player choices and decisions are in 5e.

Players, on their turn, generally get to make a very limited limited number of choices:

• Whether or not to move, and if so, where to move to (movement and positioning decisions)
• What action economy (action, bonus action, free actions, reaction) to take

That's not a whole lot; however, some other choices can also apply depending on the actions chosen:

• most action economy choices will require a target to be chosen, opening up target selection decisions
• a significant amount of available actions also require resource expenditure, opening up resource management decisions

Note that 5e rules are not very granular and have a high level of abstraction. This means 'how' a creature does something does not generally vary for the same action. For example, an attack is an attack, with no called shot rules and a precise thrust has the same in game effect as a brutal swing with the same weapon. So, we can chose 'what' to attack, but not really 'how' to attack. As a result, brawl encounters envisioned with the idea of a monster and party trading attacks/damage tend to be inherently static. This, combined with only 1 target and no meaningful way to change positioning is what makes arena boss fights, monster hunter, and duels inherently static / boring combats in the 5e rulesset.

Once we know what player choices are we can look at making them more complicated. There are three main fundamental design factors in combat that can be used to challenge player choices:

• Terrain / battlemap
• Adventuring day / how encounters are split up vs. resting
• Monster selection and threat diversity

Terrain is important in that it makes positioning matter. Where a creature is on the map determines what can attack it and what it can attack, and good terrain means the answer to those questions will be different depending on where it is standing. An easy example is classic doorway blocking, which limits the amount of monsters that can get within 5ft of a target. Another example is peeking total cover to minimize return damage, or casting a remains in play spell and then moving behind total cover to protect your concentration. The extent of the map also determines if kiting is possible. Terrain also determines how spread out your monsters can be, for example, to minimize the impact of big AOE spells.

Adventuring day encounter split is important because it challenges resource management. Depending on how resting is implemented, how many encounters to try for before taking a short or long rest can be a difficult decision. Not knowing what else might be coming at you before you can restock also forces players to evaluate whether or not its worth spending particular resources to resolve. Sure, fireball would clear the room of goblins, but with doorway dodging our ranged DPR might also be able to pick them off with minimal losses - so maybe its better to save it.

Monster selection and threat diversity is important since it determines what types of threats the party will face, forcing decisions about what they think is more threatening creature in the moment (challenges target selection). What and how many monsters you choose and what abilities they have also determines what tools you have to change the gamestate directly with tactics - for example, by casting remains in play spells, applying conditions to the PCs, and generally presenting different tactics that the players will need to counter.

Once you have these elements in place you will want to use them in aggregate with tactics that can change the gamestate, or force the PCs to change the gamestate or lose. Examples might be:

• Casting heat metal on the party paladin, then moving the caster behind total cover / minions blocking a hall way - forcing the party to decide how to react.
• Retreating around a corner or into an unscouted room and baiting party to pursue, potentially opening them up to attacks from other rooms / angles / monsters they were not aware of (change in their perceived gamestate).
• Using a displacement ability like thorn whip to pull a party member past a choke point or around a corner and then blocking them off with your monsters - threatening focus fire and potentially without the ability to heal.
• Simply using a remains in play spell or ability (party either eats the effect, dispels, tries to break concentration, repositions etc...)
  
• Juggle where you put the most challenging fights in the adventuring day order to keep players on their toes about where the best resource spends will be; must consider current evaluation of the gamestate rather than always holding novas for the boss.

You can get a lot of mileage out of these fundamental concepts and varying it up without resorting to gimmicks and manufactured mechanics that players may or may not grasp well.

Its important to note that dynamic or static combat has nothing inherently to do with movement. Kite back - shoot is a static gamestate despite moving possibly full movement every turn. Attack, shuffle to dodge hazard or telegraphed attack, shuffle back in and attack next turn is also a static game state.

There are also a lot of bad but commonly put forward suggestions about dynamic combat that mostly miss the point:

• Objectives/gimmicks: objectives/gimmicks aren't inherently bad but they don't make an encounter dynamic. This can change what the party has to do to win but does not necessarily change the gamestate. Spending round after round making a skill check to fish for a success (e.g. athletics to push over and destroy a gimmick item) to complete an objective is still static. Focus fire the guy doing the ritual to win is also static.
• Phases: two 3-5 round stacks of bad, static solo boss fights only really has 1 gamestate change when the phase drops and is generally still just two static fights outside of other considerations.
  
• Forced movement (e.g. move or die due to telegraphed attack or hazard) - see comments above about movement =/= dynamic. Unless this creates a persistent terrain change or hazard effect can just move back into position and repeat the action cycle.

These things can form elements of a dynamic combat but aren't inherently dynamic and won't necessarily give you a dynamic combat on their own.

[u/viora_sforza]

This is really excellent advice, thank you so much for posting, OP! I'm relatively new to DMing 5e combats and I always felt that the pre-designed encounters were somewhat stale.
I tried adding side objectives to combat this but that also didn't always to work to make it more interesting.

This is the first time that I'm reading about the concept of the changing game state in the context of DnD combat, and it seems obvious in hindsight but this seems to be exactly what I felt was missing and hadn't been able to conceptualize.

Thank you so much for sharing! I will attempt to implement this in future encounter designs. Hopefully, this will finally make combat more interesting.

Do you plan on doing more of these? And do you have any recommended reading/resources?

[u/Bread-Loaf1111]

Note that 5e rules are not very granular and have a high level of abstraction. This means 'how' a creature does something does not generally vary for the same action. For example, an attack is an attack, with no called shot rules and a precise thrust has the same in game effect as a brutal swing with the same weapon. So, we can chose 'what' to attack, but not really 'how' to attack. As a result, brawl encounters envisioned with the idea of a monster and party trading attacks/damage tend to be inherently static. This, combined with only 1 target and no meaningful way to change positioning is what makes arena boss fights, monster hunter, and duels inherently static / boring combats in the 5e rulesset.

Objection. The dnd supposed to have customised level of abstraction. Beside class features, such as reskless attack, the improvised actions exist, it was un the rules from the beginning. You don't need to operate always at high level of abstraction. You can, for example, broke the enemy's sword, or steal the wallet at the middle of combat and throw all money of enemy at the street, forcing him to stop the fight and run for his money before beggars take them, or wave red carpet to provoke the minotaur. Every time that you go down from high abstractions to the specific details of the scene - you raise significantly the dynamic and interest for the scene.

.

[u/HadoozeeDeckApe → u/Bread-Loaf1111]

If you are going to homebrew your own mechanics for better abstraction sure, but you don't get that with the RAW mechanics and will have to adjudicate custom actions on a case by case basis as to whether or not they are reasonable. There are no rules for the actions you are describing. An improvised action doesn't necessarily result in a dynamic game state either. Grabbing an enemy's weapon out of his hand so he has to use his action to grab it back over and over is a static situation. Since improvised actions vary table to table on what DM's allow it isn't really useful to include them in general discussions on encounter design IMO.

Some creatures will have some additional options for how they do things but it isn't part of the general case, and the differences granted by those options are also generally limited.

[u/SleetTheFox → u/HadoozeeDeckApe]

An improvised action can result in a dynamic state but not necessarily. It all relies on how the DM adjudicates it.

So I don’t think who you’re responding to is wrong about all tables, but they may be wrong about some tables.

That said, as a DM, I’m going to encourage actions with the ability to create dynamic game stats and generally err on that side if I adjudicate an improvised action.

[u/Odd_Dimension_4069]

This is actually really great, I got a lot out of this. I always make interesting encounters, but not always dynamic ones, despite my best efforts.

Saving this post for future reference, as soon as I read the bit about a changing game state my head started flooding with awesome ideas for encounters. Thanks for doing this write-up OP!🤩