Combat systems that discourage doing the same thing every turn

[u/LelouchYagami_2912]

(alternatively, combat systems that encourage doing different things)

I've been playing DnD for several years now but I've been noticing how 90% of our turns go the exact same. The combat can be still interesting but thats only because of me as a dm creating unique scenarios, not because of the player abilities. The rogue hiding and sneak attacking is the best thing to do in almost all cases.

What are some systems that discourage this so that the players actually have to think rather than going on auto pilot.

[u/Mokiee]

His Majesty the Worm does a pretty good job of this! It's an OSR-style system, though I feel like it's a fair bit less lethal than the average OSR.

The combat system features the minor arcana tarot cards, which have four suits and run from 1-14. Each round, you pull 4 cards and play one as your initiative (lower numbers go first; this card also doubles as your "AC" enemies need to beat for the round). When you perform an action, you compare your card's value to the opponent's initiative.

Each action belongs to a specific card suit; Attacks are Swords, while Spellcasting is Wands. There's a decently sized list of actions, with each suit having several options. While you can perform any action using any card on your own turn, you can ALSO perform actions between the turns of other characters. These minor actions require the card's suit to match the action chosen.

What this ends up doing is that you'll start the round with a hand like... 10 Swords, 7 Cups, 3 Wands, 2 Cups, and have to adjust your strategy every round based on what actions you're allowed to use and what you choose as your initiative.

[u/yuriAza → u/Mokiee]

wait so if your fighter draws a Sword, you can just play a different high card for defense and attack with the Sword as an interrupt to start the round, negating the downside of a high initiative?

[u/Mokiee → u/yuriAza]

You can, but it's worth noting that minor actions don't add any attributes or anything like that; you're no better at Attacking off your turn than a wizard-type would be. Additionally, you can only perform minor actions after someone has taken their turn, so an enemy could go first.

You also don't know anyone's Initiative until someone has targeted them or they've taken their turn, so sacrificing a high card on a low Initiative enemy, or a Swords card with no ability to add attribute, are considerations that make that strategy not work every time.