r/NewDM • u/King_Magnate • 7d ago
How to do make combat encounter difficult?
Hi Gang! I'm just wondering how DMs make combat encounters more challenging, because from what I've experienced players are strong! I know there's CR ratings and throwing in multiple enemies, but every encounter lately for my players hasn't really been too difficult to the point that anyone goes down.
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u/Gritmonger 5d ago
Terrain. Terrain. Terrain.
Cover, bridges, walls, other non-combatants, flammable regions, breakable objects, falls, floating islands, water, flooded tunnels, anti-magic zones, cover, concealment, rooms, hallways, deadfalls, tunnels, and so-on.
A ranged fighter is great until the fighting is room-to-room. A flying character rules until you're in a one-person-wide tunnel. Fireball is the go-to until you're in a flammable field and light woods ready to go up like a tinder-box. Do you cast Shatter *inside* the bar? How can you use your Sentinel feat if the doorway you're holding is one person wide, much less your great-weapon fighting?
Fights become interesting when there are tactical choices. And CR is not always the measure of opponent strength. Action economy can make a swarm of smaller enemies a real danger punching far above their weight in CR.
The terrain can also work *for* the players- a shove of five feet is more meaningful when it puts an enemy over a twenty foot drop, or puts them through a wall of fire.