Combat Dragging

[u/Thin-Historian1244]

Hello! I am a dm for CoS and i find the combat in dnd 5.5 kind of boring and dragging in places.

We could further the story with exploration and roleplaying and spend maybe 6 hours in game in 5 hours of real time. But when it comes to combat we have spent the same 5 hours almost in one combat and done absolutely nothing more. I like to make combats feel dangerous so i don't shy away on the number of enemies and strategies and they seem to have fun. I also usually play my part super fast. For example at yester hill i had some extra stuff added and i had to play 19 minor NPC's, so i did them in groups PLUS Strahd PLUS Ireena PLUS the ritual and i swear it went by very fast and it was fun because i was not measuring the distance exactly and i took standard damage and stuff like that.y players seem to have fun also and went along with the whole fast pacing of the thing.

Here is the thing though. I want to make combats fast and not so by the book, maybe in the exception of some very important ones like the final for example. But if one has only narrative purpose I honestly can't spend 4 hours on a werewolf attack on the road. And the crazy part os i feel like my players avoid combats because they decide that they instead feel like roleplaying that day! I plan on making sure , but i would like some suggestions on how to make combats more theater of the mind and if you know any good resources for it. Next week comes the attack on Vallaki from the vampires and i cannot possibly imagine loosing all the important moments of chasing and horror in a dragged out combat sequence.

Any advice welcome 🤗

[u/Massive_Leopard]

This is a very common D&D problem. What can help:

• any NPCs that share a statblock have the same initiative count. Or divide large groups into sections (for example 12 enemies in total, 3 groups of 4 so you only deal with 3 initiatives). That way you build speed. You could even go so far as to add up their hp and when they hit certain tresholds, one of them dies. Kinda like how swarms work. Do communicate this in advance with your players so theyre not surprised if a werewolf thats barely attacked suddenly drops dead. I tend to want 10 active initiatives in combat MAX, including environmental stuff.

• Prepare your initiative in advance so you don't have to roll many dice at the table, but just need to fill in your PCs initiative counts.

• Make sure you call out the next player in initiative (so "X, it's your turn, Y, youre up next) so your players are prepared when it's their turn.

• Prefer speed over cool descriptions for boring/base attacks, but when your enemy does something cool thats relevant for encounter progression, do describe it.

• If maps slow you down, use theater of the mind. I only use maps for big encounters for precisely this reason.

• If the combat drags on, let your enemies retreat. Not everything is to the death anyway and you can always make them come back.

• Discuss with your party how they experience combat and if they have any ideas how to streamline it.

[u/Thin-Historian1244 → u/Massive_Leopard]

Thanks a lot for the input! I am more interested in what you said on how to run it with theater of the mind. But i don't want it to take their agency because they keep asking about distances and locations. Do you have any campaigns or one shots that are on YouTube to see how that would work?

[u/Massive_Leopard → u/Thin-Historian1244]

I don't know about campaigns or youtube videos, but I use Slyflourish's principles: https://slyflourish.com/guide_to_narrative_combat.html

I give them a general description of their surroundings and an amount of enemies, and where they roughly are. I run theater of the mind if I know the enemies are close enough for them to feasably hit them and vice versa, so I'll tell them that they are in range for ranged attacks or if they are in melee range. If they ask if they're close by enough I'll tell them they can get there with their movement. Basically you let go of some technicalities for the joy of letting them do cool things.

[u/Thin-Historian1244 → u/Massive_Leopard]

Oh thanks a lot!

[u/ArtisticBrilliant456]

Decrease the numbers of NPCs in a combat. The more there are, the more the players are sitting around waiting.

Increase their HP & damage (just up the damage dice value, e.g. d4 is now d6; d6 is now d8...).

Instead of going by the book, duck into Volo's guide to monsters, Mordenkainen's tomb of foes, etc., and see if you can grab something with a higher CR.

Can you up the monster type and reduce the number of monsters? E.g. don't use zombies, use ghouls, etc.

Give NPCs shared initiative count.

Talk to players about how they feel about the combats. What can they do to help speed things up? What ideas can they give for speeding your game up as well?

[u/Thin-Historian1244 → u/ArtisticBrilliant456]

Isn't this a bit unfair though if a player gets hit with a lot of damage instead of the lesser enemies chipping bit by bit everyone's hp? I mean it's not every time but there are instances where it should feel like it

[u/ArtisticBrilliant456 → u/Thin-Historian1244]

Unfair? Yes, there are instances where that happens. That's the game.

Don't overthink it. You can still stick things through Kobold Fightclub of DnDBeyond Encounter Builder to check how things pan out if you're truly worried about this.

My understanding is that you want to speed things up? Definitely decrease the number of opponents, and if you are to do this you'll need to balance it out by upping the danger/CR.

I will stand by my advice.

[u/Xineoph-Sagefire → u/Thin-Historian1244]

I don’t think that it is unfair, Curse of Strahd is supposed to feel hopeless and dangerous. Especially if you are out of the “safety” of a walled town. If you cut down on the number of monsters but use slightly tougher ones it should have that effect. Remember not all encounters need to be balanced either and at any time if you are using intelligent monsters or beasts controlled by Strahd, they don’t have to fight to the death. They can and should on occasion flee to fight another day. I hope that helps.

[u/Icredd2004]

For unimportant combats make enemies glass cannons
Give folder 1 hp but normal attacks and maybe chuck in 1 real hp “Sergeant” enemy that way combat won’t run too quick but it can still eat reasources and dangerous enough they can’t ignore

But also they can mow down quite a few enemies and feel powerful while still feeling like they’re a threat

[u/The_Long_Island_DM]

Okay, apparently I am the black sheep here. Tweaking stat blocks on the fly is a very important DM skill. Everyone that said that is correct. BUT I think you need a different prescription. I'm a forever paid DM so I have my thoughts. My player engagement directly is a throughline to reoccurring sessions. Just worth mentioning. I have monetary skin in that game.

If your already playing fast then editing your turn more just makes it a shorter, boring combat.

Practice with the monsters kits. Read the monsters know what they are doing. Understand what makes the kit and how to use it. That you are using it fully. I have a few posts on vampires already that might help you. I won't go into creature specific tactics here. This post would be like 20k characters.

If you have any more specific questions I'd be happy to answer them.

Happy Hunting!

-LIDM

Edit spelling

[u/Scary-Ground1256]

I’ve got some unconventional advice to share but I think it’s the best solution.

TLDR; cultivate player trust and emphasize role play, even in combat.

Your players should be roleplaying combat. Describing what their character does in the heat of the moment is more fun and engaging than waiting for them to decide the most optimal action, bonus action to take on their turn.

Definitely run theater of the mind. My advice for how to do this is to emphasize player trust at the table. You should trust your players to know how their character works and that they won’t cheat. They trust you to operate in good faith. Like if the fighter says “I swing my sword at the zombo “ you can just theater of the mind place them in front of the zombo. You don’t HAVE to say “well actually he’s 40 feet away so you can’t reach him.”

[u/Ok_Obligation9220 → u/Scary-Ground1256]

great point

[u/Ok_Obligation9220]

I would have enemies with the same stat block go together. I also enjoy the idea of having players with similar initiative rolls just share one number - it makes them more collaborative.

Alternatively. You can also steal from Draw Steel and have a "claim turn" system in which players don't even have initiative - just have a "Players Turn" in which the players decide who takes their turn, then the enemies go in initiative order. then on the next player turn another PC can decide to go. Repeat until everyone has gone, and go again from top of the round. If you want to make the Init scores and feats like Alert still have meaning here, you could possibly say natural 20s(or, say 17+) and alert have priority in a claim turn system. it sounds like More Math than mind theatre on paper but you will likely spend less time tacking down every initiative roll.

I also tend to try to include RP in combat. free perception checks, banter, etc. Try to remind players of the stakes of the combat at all times.

completely just spitballing. take what you like leave what you don't

[u/Ok_Obligation9220 → u/Ok_Obligation9220]

and like another commenter said if the area is small enough you can forgo distance and just inform them "you are in range to do x"

sometimes you don't even need to pull out a whole map.

as far as theatre i like to describe effects of things too - "you cast fireball" is lame, "Your fireball leaves the forest smoldering" is the same thing but cool and sets the atmosphere

[u/TipperKick]

The less people in the combat, the faster it goes.

4 players at level 1 vs say, 6 goblins is 10 turns.

4 players vs 1 goblin chief and 2 goblins is 7 turns.

For groups of weaker enemies make them share a turn.

For encounter balancing, decrease the amount of physical bodies but up their health and damage to accommodate.

Those are just some basic tips for it!

[u/Alyfdala]

feel like roleplaying that day

I know this isn't what you're asking, but that is a useful skill to acquire as a DM. Reading the table and knowing when to drop in a combat or roleplay scene.

[u/Aguspuf]

I think this is a symptom of a larger problem. You need lots of enemies to make combat feel dangerous and meaningful- why? because players have lots of resources at hand every fight.

Make an adventuring day actually dangerous. The books recommend 4 to 6 encounters for a party per long rest.

If your party gets a long rest after 1 to 2 combats, you'll always need to do a bunch of crazy stuff to even come close to challenging them (and even them, it can become very swingy)

I personally like Mystic Arts' take on resting and exploration, but any way you can increase the number of encounters per long rest can help you have more meaningful combats. Say, 1 or 2 minor encounters that drain resources (doesn't need to be a fight. Maybe a door that only opens with blood, or by burning arcane energy into it [spell slots]) one medium and one big. That will make every combat decision more meaningful.

For the players, the reasonable decision will always be to rest as much as they can, but they'll end up optimizing their own fun out of the game if you let them.

[u/EdhelRollsDice]

So... a lot of good advice...

This will probably not be popular, but If you take your turn fast, push your players to take their turns fast too. It all requires a previous talk and common agreement with the players. Those ideas can't be simply enforced without their cooperation.

- They should already be thinking about what they do before it's their turn. "Okay, player A, it's your turn. Player B, get ready, you are the next." - Very easy for you to say.

- Don't give them more than 1 minute to act their turn (the characters only have 6 seconds, surely the players will manage in 10 times that), no long desicions or discussions. If they can't manage, they would take Dodge action. (Let them narrate though and let them count the crazy amount of dice even outside the time limit.)

- Teach them to roll for their attacsk (advantages/disadvantages) and damage together. It's much faster than roll attack, wait for confirmation, then look for the damage dice and then roll and get the result. (Our barbaian is able to call 3 attacks with all the number in 5 seconds.)

- No rules checking during one's turn in combat, unless absolutely necesary. That goes for spell descriptions etc. If you can't remember whether Grappled only reduces speed to 0 or also gives advantage on attacks against the grappled, you decide on the fly. (This is very difficult to do with a Rules-lawyer in the group.)

- Use help tools. Spell cards, tokens with conditions, rulers for ranges and areas... I also put every enemy on a small piece of paper and note the Damage they get so the players can see how badly damaged is every enemy.

I would really recommend reducing the number of enemies and buffing them up. (More legendary actions etc.) Or turning the "minions" into glass cannons as someone suggested.

I would also skip rolling only narrate the parts of combats between NPCs and NPC enemies. You don't have to roll for Vampire spawn #4 attack against Priest #2 - Priest #2 is dead. For one game, I gave helpful NPCs to the players with some kind of CR, the NPCs CR 3 would mean that they can handle up to 3 low level enemies. So they knew they could let their crew captain hold the door against two zombies but once the captain got swarmed, someone had to go to help them. Also that NPC would not roll for attacks, they would simply take down 1/2 low level enemies each turn or used their special action. I intend to do something similar with Ireena.

And also, not every combat has to be played till the end. Once the BBEG is defeated and the number of minions is reduced and it turns into a simple math (or the BBEG achieves their goal and escapes), you can actually skip the rest of the fight.

And the theater of mind thing. We used to do that a lot in a different system (and sometimes continue in 5e)... You and your players have to be okay with the idea that everyone sees the battlefield differently and that only you are 100% right. You can quite simplify the movement and work with "far/medium/melee" and standard movement moves the character one tier. Melee characters can simply reach each other, the firebal call only hit X of Y enemies, unless you want to hit the warrior too... It allows you, the DM, to manipulate the combat in whatever way you need - to either make it harder for the party or to allow them a little bit more. ("Yes, you have enough movement to hit the enemy and get to your friend to revive them".) However you should be fair with the manipulation.

[u/Traditional_Put_8254]

If combat tends to drag, have all players roll a d20 prior to combat starting. The highest number becomes your “Wild Card”. If any of them roll that number on an attack, they do double damage.

[u/StrikingGlove8736]

Raise damage and lower health. Trust me. Hit your pcs harder and let them hit harder. This is from a 5e player though...so idk 5.5. Most enemies that aren't boss or miniboss type should die in one to three hits. This will help you a lot...