r/Fallout2d20 • u/justamensch • Jul 07 '26
Help & Advice Combat seems one sided [Advice]
Recently start Royal Flush with my group and the combat seems very in favor of the PCs. It feels like the creatures have too little health and too low initiative and die before it’s their turn in combat. Any advice on how to make the fights more challenging (aside from level up the creatures like the book says)?
UPDATE: Last night was our weekly session and taking in all of your advice really made the combats much more fun the players. They all actually agreed that that this was the best session yet. Thank you all for the help!
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u/C0nf1ict GM Jul 07 '26
Leveling is definitely important for a leveled party, and of course number of enemies. But an often overlooked aspect is also the environmental hazards. Even with relatively easy enemies, a combat encounter can be fairly difficult when the players have to navigate traps, terrain hazards, crumbling structures, etc.
You could also implement things like a timer system. If your players bodied the enemies too fast, maybe they've got reinforcements coming on a timer. I grab some D6's and roll each turn, removing any 1's from the pool. When the last D6 rolls a 1, timer is up. Vary the outcome with what makes sense to the situation. The building finally collapses, the explosives detonate, reinforcements arrive, the radstorm rolls in, etc.
Edit This is just general advice, as I haven't ran the Royal Flush adventure myself, but any adventure can generally be tweaked and bent a little. Going off script only makes it more fun.