Building Compelling Encounters in D&D | DM Tips

[@erig6596]

sketch was beatiful

[@JackofWhitechapel]

Good tips. Looking forward to coming along for the ride as you grow

[@duncandomey8199]

I have seen numerous videos trying to explain making combat more... well... what you demonstrated. You did an excellent job and kept it simple, which is what us DMs need.

[@RedRaggedFiend]

Here are some tips for more compelling combats, let me know if you think I should make a video about them in depth! 1. Goals, create encounter win conditions that aren't kill the other side first 2. Improvised Damage, show through your monsters how using the environment is MORE effective than swinging a weapon or using a cantrip in combat 3. Smart Combatants, intelligent creatures know what spellcasters are and will suffer the ONE reaction OA PCs have to swarm a spellcaster if they're able 4. Non "Combat" Actions, there's no reason kobolds can't grapple the party's wizard and demand the party's surrender or they'll cut the wizard's throat (Immediate to 0 HP) 5. Morale: Once the tide of battle has shifted, have monsters try to parlay, flee, or surrender. Only zealots, cornered creatures, and the mindless fight to the bitter end 6. Use More Chases & Flights, Skill challenges to track down the last goblin before they get reinforcements or introducing an OP monster as a non-combat challenge 7. Asymmetric Tactics, Monsters should make full use of cover, difficult/impassable terrain, hazards, light, obscurement, traps, and the z-axis to gain advantage 8. Skirmishing, Monsters follow the party and show up for a ~2 round fight and run trying to whittle them down and steal gear 1-3/day. It drains resources and denies rest. 9. "The Dungeon Hates You," Use wandering monster checks to reinforce resting in a hostile environment is a BAD IDEA that often ends with more fights and resource drain

[@nickischilling]

Go for it! I really like wandering monsters, it makes dungeons feel more lived in rather than monsters seemingly just standing around waiting for an adventurer to walk in.

[@urfork1]

To elaborate on your points with some examples, hopefully to spark some inspiration for other DMs; 1. A party might be trying to stop a terrorist from blowing up a city, their goal is to get past the enemies to cut or stop the fuse of the bomb. Backup plan if your party fails is to have the bomb be defective, and only make a small explosion, leaving unburnt powder everywhere. 2. Enemy ranged combatants might go prone intentionally to impose disadvantage on ranged attacks, the party may counter by having the melee run right up to them for advantage. 3. An enemy paladin may cast sancuatry on themself or an ally to walk past the low WIS fighter and smite the squishy wizard. 4. An enemy who knows a secret the party is after may take themselves hostage, saying "Only I know where the treasure is, if I die, you'll never find it." 5. When the enemies get low on health, they may use actions to dash, or if you've accidentally overturned a combat, describe the enemies as looking a bit frustrated and eyeing escape routes. 6. Number 5 leads directly to this, your party may begin to chase a fleeing group of enemies through the streets, using athletics, acrobatics, perception, survival, or sheer wit (try to encourage them to think outside of their character sheet) to chase fleeing foes. 7. Flying snakes. Use them. Theyll do a number on even mid level parties when paired with other creatures to distract the party. Try a Coatl, some guard drakes and flying snakes. Have the flying snakes hide in treetops for full or three quarters cover while the party has bigger threats to worry about. 8. Have a group of kobolds come and try to sabotage the party while they're traveling, damaging the wheel on their cart, then later, while the party is fixing it, they assail again with a hail of arrows. When the first kobold gets knocked out of the fight, they flee. They return later with the leader kobold who can cast a few spells, and maybe the set the forest around them on fire on both sides of the road, forcing the party to fight and risk their lives, or flee and risk their crudely repaired cart being damaged, destroying their stuff. 9. Try something that may not be outright hostile at first, like a mad spectator who doesn't have a task to fulfill. Let them talk their way out of it. Then try something more dangerous, like a group of duergar ascending from the underdark, or a gelatinous cube that they barely spot just before the first person is consumed. Good luck DMs, hope these ideas helped!

[@Nexusofgeek]

thre's also the inherent problem that 5e combat is flawed and skewed on the hero's sides because of turn initiative. Especially if the monster is of low CR, so to combat this, one may try different combat initiatives such as group initiative from older versions of the game like the one used in BECMI style play, for example. One side takes all their actions then the next side goes. This avoids the repetitive nature of individual initiative where one player goes, then the next which has the disadvantage to the monster or foe if they roll poorly on their initiative at the start of the battle round, since initiative isn't rolled at the start of each turn.

[@beansmalone1305]

Great food for thought. Keep it up. The book "The monsters know what they're doing" has changed the way I think about monsters and their strategies and motivations in my games.

[@Addywastaken621]

Gelatinous cube is just a roomba, treat it more like a hazard than an enemy, lmao. That would make it feel more memorable than “engulf” and “dissolve”

[@Arkay24]

This is a really great video for newer DMs or people who aren't really strategy-savvy. It's worth noting that using FPS (First Person Shooter) maps in D&D can pay off tremendously, or at least taking the basic layout and "movement flow" and applying it to D&D.

[@mrcatchingup]

Sometimes fantasy RPGs have even better maps to use because they have fantasy/nature terrain features already.

[@mrcatchingup]

Terrain features are a big help. -Trees thick enough they cannot be passed through, with some of the squares around it difficult terrain from the roots above the ground. -Moderate bushes here and there that can be walked through but at 1/2 speed and provide cover versus ranged attacks. -Huge bushes so think you cannot see past them and cannot range attack through. -Crates line up to make semi private work spaces in a big room. -Tables that can be stood upon for higher ground and/or require people to spend an action standing up from a seat. -Building support beams to thick to move through. -Beds, dresser or bureau, table & chair in a sleeping chamber. -Dark water that players don't know the depth of but the locals do know where they can step/ford through while other squares are deep enough to require swimming. Even "shallow water might require swimming by halflings/gnomes/goblins.

[@christopherheinlemmer3628]

As a new DM I quite enjoyed this insight. I quickly saw that no matter how interesting I made my map or how diverse I made the creature types, the battles and victories feel rather empty when the party fights with a pre-calculated cheap recipe for success. I tend to try and make up battles with victories where the motivation for the party is to achieve a time sensitive goal which the enemies hinder them from achieving. Depending on how long it takes, there are various consequences. This way, the party needs to pull the lever in the end of the room to stop the big bad from escaping while his minions try to hold the party off. If the big bad escapes and there was nothing innovative done from the party, it doesn't matter how well they killed the minions because the battle was won but the war was lost. There's also the tactic of having greater rewards set up for alternative battle outcomes such as delivering a captive alive to the authorities so that they can be questioned in order to save a victim or recover a stolen item etc. This worked out pretty well for myself so far. The trick I tell myself is that as a DM it's not just an opportunity for characters to play out their own characters but it is also your opportunity to have people exist in your interesting world filled with complex issues and opposing forces with their own agendas and ideas of how things should be. You meet your PC's somewhere in the middle and have yourself and excellent campaign. Let me know what you think!

[@nickischilling]

Okay so now I'm 100% putting a timed encounter in my next D&D session, love that idea.

[@roberttschaefer]

Christopher, all good ideas! One thing to always think about, are ways to create encounter scenarios that prevent simple control spells or cheap combos to wreck the entire scene in a round or two. This takes some creative thought, as there are two things to avoid: (1) preventing players from being able to do all the cool stuff their character is want to do, and (2) throwing the same cheese the players tend to do right back at them, like tossing counterspells and forcecages on top of them. This means allowing the characters to do exactly what they wish, but the outcome is uncertain. The enemy should have innovative ways of dealing with what the characters throw at them without stopping the players from successfully landing their attacks and spells. Maybe the enemy has expertise in charisma checks and saves, and numerous ways to teleport around the battle map (escaping a forcecage). Or maybe they have a special lair action that the players were subtly warned about in advance, that forces them to come up with other ways to use their actions/bonus actions than the normal fireball or other predictable behavior. A current battle map is in a Feywild field of flowers, including some unusual physical obstacles and elevation options. In patches of red blossoms, a grasping vine restrains and poisons them. This takes a bit of time for them to deductively notice that the traps only occur in small areas where the flowers are red, so they get wise and avoid them. Only problem, some of the enemies have eldritch blast with repelling blast, that knocks them back into a grasping vine. This is not a difficult thing to avoid, but it forces them to adjust their movement tactics. One of the fey creatures has a unique charm spell that carries a compelled duel element, etc.

[@discosludge]

Great video, great advice. As your channel grows and so does your production value I can see you finding great success on D&D KZbin! Subscribed :)

[@alexcothren5103]

Thanks for the video man. I liked it, it had good info. Keep it up, you deserve to have your channel grow.

[@pilk1258]

Man this gave some real good insight for making my encounters better, thanks!

[@ADHD_PLUS]

Well, since you asked... a couple of ideas for you: 1) Keep making videos! You have a natural talent, great voice, and likable presence. 2) After telling us how to make encounters better, show us; give an example in practice. At the end of the video, I was really hoping to see how the encounter (from your skit) would look different/better when implementing your tips. That would have brought your advice full circle, for me at least. I like your sense of humor (the skit was what drew me in). It was funny because it's true! 😂

[@alkemyst337]

I'm designing a TTRPG that is focused on simple but impactful map combat. These tips helped me come up with some good ideas myself! Thank you very much for the video!

[@gdragonlord749]

I personally play Pathfinder 1e which has some other incentives to stay put but I change rules to allow for more movement and used the 3.5e Stamina variant rules (with my own twist) combined with armor as damage reduction to make combat more dangerous. You don’t want to take damage because you have very little Hp and some attacks ignore the stamina pool. This makes you play more like the character is real so you keep moving to the most tactically advantageous position and then the enemies do the same. I also remove limits on attacks and movement so you can do both but that part of my WIP system is still underdeveloped. It only allows full attacks and movement and no other dynamics such as positioning benefits. I know this all sounds very complicated but it really evens out with other simplifications I made. For example, those familiar with how BAB works would understand that it is simpler to have all attacks have one modifier but give a small penalty for multiple attacks (like with natural attacks) than the current system. Future plans include having armor have different effects based on damage type and adding chopping damage to axes as a go between with slashing and bludgeoning.

[@kinderdm]

Really great info because as much as I hate to admit it, I am often guilty of this. It's hard when, like you said, you depend on a battlemap laid out in a grid. And with playing online, a lot of everything we do happens with a map, as the background if nothing else, so of course combat always involves one. I try to remember abilities that change the dynamic of the battlegrounds, as well as aspects of the map itself, but it's for sure something to keep in mind. You did a really great job of explaining why it's a problem, and how it so often happens, as well as some really good suggestions on how to mitigate the issue. I'll be sure to keep this in mind when I next play, as both a DM, but also as a player as well. As a player, I want to also make the effort to not just walk up to the monsters and stand there swinging or casting.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

I love your point that if they aren’t play differently, they all may as well be the same thing theater of the mind miniatures using pennies is tokens. It doesn’t matter if they all do exactly the same thing.

[@vurrunna]

My personal favorite method of spicing up combat encounters: Have goals beyond just fighting! In my most recent combat encounter, the players were pitted up against a wave of monsters that were dead-set on killing the survivors of a village. While half of the monsters' forces focused on fighting the PCs, the other half ran around them, setting fire to the survivors' holdout and trying to break in and kill them. The PCs suddenly had to contend not just with fighting the monsters in front of them, but also trying to grab the attention of and otherwise halt the others. Another version of this is to give the PCs a goal other than killing. In one series I watched recently, there was a battle where the PCs had to not only fend off a massive wave of enemies, but also activate a number of shrines as quickly as they could before the whole dungeon collapsed on top of them. Most of the PCs were still focused on combat, but they were also focused on maneuvering around and finding clever ways to navigate both the crumbling dungeon and the myriad attack sources. In a similar vein, I ran an encounter where the PCs were faced with attacking a force of ancient automatons defending a tomb, while the tomb itself slowly powered up magical defenses that both bolstered the enemies and just began zapping the PCs. In the middle of this hectic and increasingly deadly battle, they had to both deduce how to stop the tomb's defenses from powering up, and then actually perform the right process to de-activate the defenses, culminating in a desperate hail-Mary to throw the deactivation key to the proper terminal on the other end of the room. Last little note: Use enemy variety! In that village encounter, the monsters deployed Hell Hounds for heavy damage, Magma Mephits for support and aerial attacks, and reskinned Fire Kobolds for skirmishing and soaking up damage. Each monster had its own set of tactics and required a different set of skills to eliminate, allowing different players to shine in different ways (the party's chief AoE spellcaster was missing that encounter, which the party sorely missed). All in all, shake things up and keep it varied! Find creative ways to make each battle unique, and try to avoid generic "You walk into a room full of monsters" scenarios wherever possible. The more varied your combat encounters are, the more exciting they'll be.

[@PBJok3r]

Great video bro. Subscriber #431 😊 So glad I found you early so I can watch your channel grow. Looking forward to your next video. 1k subscribers before New Years on the way! 🎉

[@kyrnsword72]

The ttrpg system I use eliminates most DM challanges by having real good armor and weapon tables that go with a place hit roll and a round by round monster reaction table. A ttrpg that uses tables qnd dice to replace the need for a DM. This game system is genious and called D100 Dungeon by Martin Knight. Where Map tiles and minis are used at the same time as a little theater of the mind. D100 Dungeon Mapping Game!

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

In theater of the mind, I keep track of distances and positions. I guess that’s kind of like battle mapping but I don’t use the map.

[@Alnakar]

That was great! I'll definitely be keeping that in mind the next time I'm running a game.

[@skycastrum5803]

Thinking of how this has played out in my group. It’s actually worked pretty well due to everyone being either ranged or pretty mobile. We also make a lot of use out of surroundings, like diving under tables, closing doors on zombies that open towards them, and doing stupid crap like stepping into the magic circle that just transformed an enemy into a monster. Our DM also is pretty good about it. Enemies behave like what they’re supposed to be and are often spread out. Still remember one fight where one of us had a way harder time just because of where he was when the dead bodies decided to reanimate. And he’s pretty reasonable on what out-of-the-box actions we decide to do. Fun times.

[@aunderiskerensky2304]

lol running a Rifts game, but concepts remain the same for sure. One player and a demon were basically slap boxing each other at close range but it was fun to flavor it up with *you hit it in the face with the butt of your rifle, it snarls and claws at you, but the backswing of your rifle butt parries the claw* back and forth

[@josephpurdy8390]

1e AD&D wasn't a theater of the mind kind of game. Many measurements to gauge space was done inches. When maps with miniatures were used. A measuring tape could be used to determine distance. All the weapons had length, and amount of space required to operate them.

[@BonusAction]

Great explanation and video!

[@nickischilling]

Omg I know your videos! Thank you! :D

[@hellmutmatheus2626]

Insta subed, really liked you content, I will try to apply today in my table

[@OsoBlanco17]

Really cool and interesting video! You have a new subscriber

[@ODDnanref]

My DM had ranged enemies take cover. Watch towere with scouts, even a sand storm where you took damage out of cover Goblins are a menace because they constantly use their hide and seek ability. At low level, 4 goblins in a cave almost dealt TPK. Hobgoblins go a good mix of ranged and melee. Abusing that longbow range and putting themselves prone on top of high ground to give disadvanatge against ranged attacks.

[@foxy2pointo]

It never feels boring to me, for the same reason that rping with other people doesn’t just feel like i’m talking to my friends in funny accents. When you’re immersed, you can flavor the attacks and damage as a combat with different manuevers and back and forth

[@kristindainiak2359]

Unstable terrain Thin Ice that risks shattering with too much weight Thermal pockets that eruption Flowers that spew hallucinogens have your battle map have a feature to prevent huddling together and stationary fights make em move whether they want to or not

[@mariusgrauer5314]

Great content! Keep it up

[@thetabletopskirmisher]

I think RPG gamers should take some tips from tabletop skirmish games to liven up combat encounters. Yes, terrain is needed but you can do it on a dry erase map. The important thing is: COVER (and proper use thereof). Ambushes. Flanking movements etc. Even a 2x2 should be enough

[@danacoleman4007]

Ohh.... the irony!

[@thetabletopskirmisher]

@@danacoleman4007 😉

[@Soitisisit]

It's funny. I conceptualize and run kobolds and goblins as the inverse of what you described. My goblins are zerg rushing, overwhelm with numbers, suicidal idiots for the most part. Just after greed, fun, and glory. Meanwhile my kobolds are furtive, cautious, use hit and run tactics and traps as much as possible. Edit: Some more detail. I don't run vanilla gobolds or koblins. My goblins breed a lot, regularly have multiples, reach adulthood comparatively young, are very chaotic including their genes being able to rewrite themselves over time to suit their environment kinda like an eevee, are voracious eaters, and very rarely live longer than 20 years old due to infighting, being hunted by other races, cannibalism, parental neglect, and high susceptibility to the effects of age under normal circumstances. However, if an individual goblin can eat enough food relative to their size they can grow indefinitely and while growing they do not age and are able to reverse the negative effects of age. The bigger they get the more intelligent they get as well and their personality will change as their intelligence increases and their behaviour patterns change. This is why hobgoblins in my setting use more sophisticated tactics and often take leadership roles in goblin tribes, but also use smaller goblins as expendables. If a goblin is lucky enough to be successful in their attacks, they become more powerful and besides having an innate gold lust they also use gold as a proxy for power and a means to buy food. Meanwhile, my kobolds are the lowest tier of dragonkin and are very sociable and can even be friendly towards the party if they're not threatening. They are a burrowing species who are generally afraid of other races and are frequently overpowered and enslaved by evil and neutral members of those other races. They also craft crude weapons. ( The in universe explanation is that their claws give them issues with the fine dexterity needed for crafting. ) Their alignment tends towards true neutral and they mainly attack other races out of fear of something scarier than what they're attacking. ( e.g. an evil dragon, a beholder, a powerful wizard. )

[@zauberelefant3766]

Excellent job at demonstrating a interesting combat. Their are always these combats that are just boring and as the dm you ask yourself: damn, that was not entertaining.. what can i do better? Good job anyway .. i like it. Leave you a sub and see with what you come up next.

[@ADT1995]

No one provokes attacks of opportunity? I think I provoke them most combats I'm in unless there's only one bad guy... Although come to think of it, I am usually the only one who provokes them on a regular basis.

[@nickischilling]

My players will stand still and let themselves get hit turn after turn instead of just provoking 1 opportunity attack and moving to safety lol

[@ADT1995]

@@nickischilling yeah, I never understood that. I'm not saying I'll provoke attacks every turn but especially once enemies start getting multiattack I'd rather take one attack on my turn than three on the enemies turn. Also I like to focus fire, so if I'm a melee guy and two of my allies are attacking one person and I'm attacking another then I will shift focus (prime example of this last night when my fighter/sorcerer (divine soul) was surrounded by a monk and an enemy fighter... Warlock shot enemy sorcerer and cleric held person the monk, enemy sorcerer tried to hold person our cleric. I dumped wisdom for roleplay reasons so I really wanted to take him out before he forced me to make a wisdom save and the sorcerer was the only one damaged. So I ignored the paralyzed monk in front of me, provoked an attack of opportunity from the other one.... Ran up to the sorcerer,action surged him, then twin cast shield of faith in my allies because I realized that I just left our back ranks open so I figured making the cleric even tankier and our warlock less squishy seemed like a better use of my bonus action than getting a extra attack with PAM.... Subsequent turns saw me continue to wail on the enemy sorcerer with my actions while bonus action commanding the fighter and using menacing attack on my reaction attacks to make sure our cleric never took an attack from more than one enemy at a time and had to keep the enemy running into and out of the clerics spirit guardians. Except for one turn where I decided to ray of frost the fighter because he made his save so he still had to dash through the spirit guardians and couldn't attack the cleric..... I was completely out of sorcery points, battlemaster maneuvers, and almost out of spell slots but that's how our level 10 party took on an equal number of level 17 NPCs and came out on top (that and the enemy sorcerer was really stupid and just upcasted fireball instead of hitting me with a will save, except for the one turn he cast wish to fully heal all enemies and give them resistance to all damage)

[@RIVERSRPGChannel]

Good video. You hit on a lot of good points.

[@TheRewyn]

A lot of this can be solved by moving to a system that support more interesting monsters and dynamic combat choices and movement built into the system. 5E is pretty badly built for exciting combat, with attack of opportunity resulting in melee squashing up against one another and never wanting to leave the bad guys. Trying a better system like PF2E resolves *a lot of this* without the need to homebrew.

[@ryuteki]

PF2E, also known as "Show me on the developer where the mean player hurt you." Nearly every feat other than a few class feats is like "Oooh, that sounds like it might be interesting, let me read... huh. Nope. That is kind of useless."

[@monkeySkulls]

subscriber 301! nice content.

[@michaelmullenfiddler]

Have you ever wanted to be a great warrior? An unpredictable wizard? Etc. Play DCC 😁

[@nickischilling]

I might be running a DCC game later this year and I’m so hyped for it

[@jaysonkmendoza]

My tricks are as follows: 1) Don't treat your NPC's as idots. They are at their CR because they fight in a way that makes them more difficult. It's not just the abilities they have, they know how to use them and will play to their advantage. 2) Give your enemies (and players) objectives. Doing this will make both the enemy and players more mobile as they try to take or block objectives. It prevents every battle from being cookie cutter and forces them to use terrain. 3) In real life and most interesting fantasy, enemies rarely fight to the death. They also don't willingly take fights they cannot win. If the battle is going south, they probably will try to run away or get help. This has a habit of making players to take more risks. 4) Make failure of objectives matter. Perhaps a key NPC was in the enemy ranks and runs away when things go bad. They will be back and even more prepared. Did the players fail to stop the alarm? Well now they need to go hide or fight the entire army at once. MAKE SURE YOU USE DESCRIPTION SO PLAYERS ARE AWARE OF THE DANGERS SO THEY UNDERSTAND THEIR CHIOCES BETER.

[@Idontgiveaduck]

Came here... had 665 likes... the warlock main in me needed to make it 666. Good video btw, earned a sub from me

[@OpenWorldAddict0]

The problem i have with Goblinoids, Kobolds, Orcs, and Lizardfolk in D&D is a lack of variety of stat blocks, plus mostly really low intelligence that most stat blocks have.. All these monstrous humanoids live in tribal societies, so some among them should be more trained than others, and they take on different roles depending on what's needed for their society. This means that there should be a variety of stat blocks to represent this. For example, for Goblins, there should be Goblin Warriors, Goblin Riders, Goblin Hunters, and Goblin Booyaghs, each with different abilities representing their training for their role in their society.

[@zernichter4649]

1. Monsters of the Muntiverse does have more variants of orcs, goblins, kobolds and so on 2. in the Dmg is a big section about using other statblocks for variants or change them to your needs. 3. there are a lot of cool monster designs from the community and 3rd party content. The statblocks in the Monster Manual are just basic examples. Feel free to change their stats, equipment and abilities. English is not my first language. So pls don‘t mind any errors 😅

[@BloodmoonRises]

Good videos, A few tips: learn the script a bit better, if you keep looking down it makes the audience feel alienated a bit. I really enjoyed the part about kobolds and goblins, would of loved a sample battle though the vtt. Give visual examples. Overall good video

[@nickischilling]

My script memorization has been my Achilles heel since I started this channel, so it’s definitely something I’ve been trying to work on XD. Thanks for the comment!

[@georgebarsby]

Just put the camera closer to the script so you don't have to look away

[@georgebarsby]

Alternatively, when you down, cutbaway to broll

[@CrashCraftLabs]

hahaha the opening skit was epic

[@OutlawJJ80]

TY 4 The video it was great!

[@notreallydavid]

In my entirely ignorable view, smart two-legged enemies should fight as ingeniously and ruthlessly as player characters - nets, oil, traps, poison, invisibility, ambushing from unreachable sites, pinning down and cutting throats, leading with the nastiest spells, hitting and uncatchable running - or combination s of three or more of these. There can be lots of differentiation and atmosphere in combats in which the enemy plays as rough as the party!

[@smnb6652]

One of the big reasons I stopped playing 5e. Sure a DM can fix the issue, but why should the DM fix something if a multitude of other games don't suffer this exact issue.

[@Warrigt]

stand upright. no hunching. you can move the camera if needed.

[@MemphiStig]

Even monsters that aren't supposed to be that intelligent will not fight foolishly, any more than a snake or a lion would. And most of those "dumb" monsters are still considerably smarter than your average bear. I also tend to think all monsters or other creatures should get some sort of automatic advantage if they're in their lair or home, fighting to protect all they've got. They should be tougher opponents there, maybe even getting combat bonuses against those pesky invaders. btw, I can just see a whole cave full of goblins wearing their favorite terrible sports team's gear, praying for a win, and going wild every time it happens, rioting in the streets, etc. Not gonna call anyone out, but they know...

[@GrimHeaperThe]

A bandit? More like one slap.

[@miles9462]

This isn’t bad by any stretch. However, a good chunk of it feels more like you’re explaining how to make compelling encounters, not compelling combat. Everything after you mention goblins, really comes down to creating alternatives to combat that players can figure out or engage in. Honestly I think 5e’s combat is flat because the system is. You can circumvent it by doing things as a DM, but you’re kinda working against the system.

[@nickischilling]

Very fair point!

[@markclutter2402]

honestly its a system issue

[@dimesonhiseyes9134]

Monsters are not stupid. They may not be intelligent but they are still very good at being monsters. You should never make stupid monsters.

[@Eval999]

5e combat is boring because 5e has boring combat.