Five Ways to Build Better D&D Encounters

[@ManjesticBeard]

We found an animated sword in a stump, not knowing it was animated I pulled it out. It started swinging violently at me so instead of fighting it back I grappled it and forced it into my scabbard. it basically became a sword grenade. When I united the peace knot and threw the scabbard it would attack everything around it. It was pretty great.

[@VioletDeliriums]

0:26 1. Use the environment. 1:43 2. Fight smart! 3:13 3. Be flexible. Give your players options. 5:08 4. Exploit PC's weaknesses/strengths. 6:43 5. Let fun and story override the rules.

[@TudBoatTed]

Thank you MR time-stamp

[@xXLunatikxXlul]

Thank ya!

[@little_isalina]

46 seconds in: YES! This is such a huge game changer, especially when people feel that non-spellcasting PCs don't get interesting combat options.

[@waywardwanderer3042]

Thanks for the excellent advice. I thought it was funny how you mentioned allowing characters to think outside the box and using the environment to their advantage, since I recently did a Fallout campaign which unfortunately got cancelled, and I usually play very squishy characters so I always use my environment to help me out, like when the party entered a building and I asked if anything was above our enemies while we were sneaking, and yes, there was a chandelier.

[@chrismooney4125]

This is the first video I have watched for this channel and I am very impressed. Probably the best 10 minutes you can listen to. Excellent advice and examples. Thank you.

[@lifeshown2886]

Great advice, something I find myself doing often is adding combat reflexes. I do this because my players tend to say "he has already attacked once so go ahead and move by him"...They have stopped doing they recently :D

[@Runehammer1]

Ahh the flood timer..a true classic. Great vid.

[@alastairrowland-hill1890]

I reckon I'm probably your biggest fan in Wales man :) Got into your channel watching the provokers, and I use pretty much all of your tips when constructing adventures in the campaign I'm running. In fact, a large part of the setting I've built is the way it is thanks to your tips. Keep up the good work man, pumped for the next Provokers session!

[@AlexBermann]

I have a very simple approach as a player when it comes to the environment in theater of the mind: if an object most likely exists and is useful for my plans, I describe my action as if it existed. The GM can still veto it. As a GM, I expect the same and also have enemies interact with the environment. What I also like to do is have certain attacks have additional effects. For example, when a character charges an enemy with a two handed hammer, that enemy will most likely become prone and/or pushed back. Usually, that is to their advantage, but it can also accidentally kill enemies the players wanted to take prisoner, start a fire or have enemies I want to use again fall down cliffs or windows which they somehow survive. Or, when a wizard does his acid arrow to my archvillain, I can that spell permanently maim the villains face which makes him hate that character with a passion. It can also shatter that villains confidence enough to make him flee. About dropping the HP - I can't do that. When player characters hit an opponent, I describe how much that hit affects him and how beaten up they seem to be. If I dropped the HP, it would contradict my previous statements. When I see that I could wipe the party, I try to create a window of opportunity for them to escape and I also am nicer when it comes to environment effects and in judging the characters actions. For example, a character casted a zone in which the opponent gets attacked. That opponent is a raging bloodknight. So he stays in the zone and fights it - even if it doesn't hurt him. When it comes to Kobolds, I like to use a combination of ranged attacks, ambushes and retreats. In a straight fight, they don't stand a chance, but they have the abilities and the intelligence to work around that. For players who don't adapt, that can be rather dangerous. If they start adapting pack hunting techniques, however, they will succeed.

[@learntoomuch]

Thank you so much. I have adopted your roll table into my encounter planning. You always provide ideas and inspiration that allow me to step out of my own mind box. Where my players are seeking to have fun playing, my fun comes from providing a powerful experience that will always leave them wanting more. Even if it's to get revenge after actually failing an encounter or seeing them succeed in something that was supposed to be impossible ( Thus, making me rewrite everything ) . I have taken to heart the idea that it's not about the rules, but the experience and a great story that they create from the base I provide. Thank you again.

[@AlexE5250]

I just realized that three of the best DM teachers on KZbin are named Matt. Obviously the one in this vid, also Matt mercer and Matt colville

[@aFistfulofDice]

#MattsDoItBetter

[@wingrunner_]

I will add Dawnforgedcast then ;-)

[@AlexE5250]

Flavio Marcato I didn't know his name was matt too

[@wingrunner_]

His name is not Matt, but he is definetly one of the best D&D content producers on KZbin. Along with Matt of course :-)

[@elgatochurro]

thats a weird way to spell Jim Murphey

[@cenelind]

Two Words for you fellow DMs... Forest Fire.

[@aFistfulofDice]

cenelind Always a classic.

[@SirNightmareFuel]

+cenelind Hahahah. Bambi...

[@drawrof3200]

Excellent video Matt. However, I'm surprised that you didn't use the Small Stuff from the Roll & Up and Die podcast. By adding descriptions via the senses add flavor to encounters. Giving the foes names, smells, sounds, temperature, trinkets, or whatever makes a mundane combat encounter memorable. I do like your 2. Fight Smart. I often get my creatures to shove others, typically trying to knock them on their asses. ie, you're facing 6 goblins and a bugbear. A goblin sneaks in behind the fighter and crouches over. The bugbear then boots the fighter backwards tripping over the goblin (Bugbear gets advantage on this strength check with help from the goblin), while fighter is on ground, the other four goblins take advantage of this vulnerability and stab, stab away.

[@jasoncooper8751]

As a first time DM your videos are a godsend.

[@shadowspriest5]

Hi! First of all, english is not my first language. However, you pronounce really, really well! I really like all this kind of videos, that allows GM to improve their skills as narrators and thinkers. +1 to all this videos ^^

[@st0rmforce]

I definitely agree with being flexible. It's always fun to see what players will come up with. I'm a new DM (had the 3rd session of my first campaign last week)... I'd say that my players do something completely unexpected, on average about once every 20 minutes. Sometimes it's things I really should have thought of, but not always. The best so far, was when they were dealing with a puzzle, which I had intentionally made to split the party: A secret door that needs two levers to be held down on the other side of the room, which are only accessible when a pressure plate is held down. Basically the intention was that 1 PC would be holding the pressure plate to open up the levers, 2 PCs would be holding the levers down and then the other 2 would go investigate the secret passage and let the others in later. I expected that maybe they'd think of weighing down the pressure plate so that 3 could go in, no big deal. They work out what everything does, but don't really want to send just 2 guys in... "Could we wedge the levers?" "What?" "We could get a pair of rocks and wedge one on top of each lever. Would that work?" I can't believe I didn't think about that. I really should have. But I've described everything: the little alcoves that the levers are in, the crumbling stonework of the catacombs... I'd have to go back and change my mind about something, or say: No, because reasons. "You could totally wedge the levers. The people who made this place obviously wanted to reduce the number of people going through... But they didn't expect you to use rocks." All 5 get past the secret door... Plans: out the window

[@notoriouswhitemoth]

I always love encounter tips like this!

[@XxMrTubaxX]

This has really inspired some awesome ideas for my next D&D encounter. Thanks a lot!

[@Van-gd1zu]

I LOVE your videos! I am just now trying my hand at running a 5th edition campaign. I have a home brewed plot and several unique encounters planned and your advice is invaluable!

[@aFistfulofDice]

Trevor Mckibben Awesome! Happy gaming!

[@adrianbartko6789]

Hi, i am your new fan. I am really looking forward to see your other videos. I have already seen how to create campaings and i want to tell you that i am not from USA... but from Slovakia (country at Europe). I am playing "dračie doupe" which is Slovakian variation of dungeon and dragons. I can apply your advices to this fantasy game and it is amyzing. Yor simply advices helps me a lot to improve my game and to have more fun with players. So my thanks to you :) :D

[@TheMadmanntis]

The one time I tried my hand at DM'ing, I was not very confident and overly worried about "doing it wrong." Next time I DM I think I'll be much more relaxed, thanks to good vids like this. Also, nice cribbage board. If by some chance we should ever cross paths in person, I may challenge you to a game. THE GAUNTLET HAS BEEN THROWN

[@rileyscott7672]

TheMadmanntis aFistfulofDice I fully agree. Also, I may have said this before Matt, but I have the same cribbage board. One other thing. Are you ever going to do an Edge of Empire one-shot or campaign???

[@FeyScribe]

Fight smart- I would like to add that crafty monsters like goblins could have set up "manually operated traps" Example- A barrel of lamp oil in the rafters with a rope to pull it down, and a torch nearby.

[@ianmaitland4434]

This was incredibly helpful. I've already written the parts about the runes and corpses rising into an encounter. I'm grateful that I saw this video when I did.

[@EMarkMoore]

Thanks, Matt; good work as always. Another one of those sets of tips where I think, "yeah, that's all just common sense, isn't it?" Swiftly followed by, "hang on; am I really doing all of this? REALLY?" Probably not quite as much as I should be! ;-)

[@jwolfman1993]

You have really changed the way I DM. My players thank you and I thank k you for all your wisdom :)

[@AlexBradyMusic]

Great vid Matt! I love the 5 ways to... format. As usual your advice is useful and insightful, keep it up :).

[@TheSwamper]

Lots of excellent advice in this video!

[@FTGxSoJuFoRcEs]

Good advice man! I'm already doing a lot of improvising for the fun and badassness of characters(like summoned characters respawning due to necromancer or shifting runes) and tweaking enemies based on their strengths and weaknesses. But now they might see a few more "dodgy" spiders or alchemist fire wielding bugbears who just murdered a alchemist caravan mwahahaha cheers!

[@ishmiel21]

Super stoked for the new video!!!

[@aFistfulofDice]

Joey Richter Thanks Joey!

[@TheMerrox]

A good and interesting video as usual. Keep up the good work!

[@Skulexander]

This was really great! I needed this advice.

[@RPG_Streams]

I'm actually running a Pokemon campaign where all the players are Pokemon, I've dubbed it mystery dungeon meets dragon age, and although completely different systems I'm going to be using these tips and tips I'm picking up from the Provokers to try and make the encounters more epic and less about which type beats which, like traditional Pokemon has become. Another great video and I look forward to seeing what else you put out.

[@robbiedouglas7423]

Awesome tips! I'm gonna go look at that PDF. Thanks Matt!

[@shadowspriest5]

I always have some lvl 5 (on an average lvl 3-4 party) goblin shaman with precious fireballs :3

[@danielhernandezniva6188]

I truly enjoy your videos. Thanks man you are awesome! :D

[@mindartis4081]

Thanks so much! Good advice!

[@kevin_e13]

Do i see Dream Theater DVDs on the shelf behind you? Underneath the red guy with a gun, looks like you have a stack of DVDs or something. lol.

[@caster-]

Great video, as usual! Thanks a lot

[@Milquetoastfireball]

That is the nerdiest bookshelf I have ever seen. Well done.

[@drunkanddisorderlyanddrago2181]

awesome video! could you please make a tips playlist on your site so i can be the best dm i can be? i love your videos but i love the tips a lot

[@mirroredrealities1639]

I make a battle interesting by turning a normally laughable things into a terrifying presence on the battle field. As an example, I set my players against a green dragon, along with winged kobolds. This seems relatively simple, but having a kobold spawn each turn the dragon was alive crippled the party, and eventually led to the death of one player, and the near death of another. This was all from the kobolds dropping rocks, as the dragon sat their and failed horribly to roll anything good. (PS the kobolds weren't edited in any way, pulled strait from the manual.) Morale of the story, rocks fall, everyone dies.

[@NarutoPrologue]

Love the videos Matt! Thanks for sharing the free pdf! I've been meaning to ask, could you provide a link or something to the Lingering Injuries table you used for the Provokers ? Keep up the good work!

[@aFistfulofDice]

NarutoPrologue I use the lingering injuries table from the 5E DMG.

[@NarutoPrologue]

Thanks for the tip and keep up the good work!

[@balzac617]

thank you for the video

[@JM-db8ez]

Great advice. One question--is that an Eric Gagne bobblehead on your shelf? :)

[@xXLunatikxXlul]

I hope you found the answer, eventually! 👌😊❤

[@PhD20]

Awesome advice as always!

[@aFistfulofDice]

PhDnD Thanks Kirk!

[@dmjamesplaysosr]

Good Vid.

[@zombiemistress]

Much like a book or a movie a world should be a place that seems to be home to the creatures that live there. I tend to make the world more similar to mideval times, less people, smaller cities, disease is more out of control. Plus not so many police per se, so you have a lot of things like bandits, and pirates out there. I like to have a lot of options and I feel I can have any character in my game so long as the characters don't immediately try to kill one another due to alignment problems. As a DM you can control damn near everything, but not the players, although you can kill the players if they're being idiots or wasting game time in conflict with everyone else. Sometimes I stick bad players in jail too, just like in real life. I'm not a dick DM, but there should be a deterrent to certain kinds of problems in gameplay. I am trying to move things along after all, but sometimes it's fun to explore the moment and have fun together. In many ways I'm also one of the players, I just change voices and faces all the time. Give them their villains and enemies, merchant who want to sell them stuff, people who have jobs/quests for them. Give them somewhere to go, but sometimes you will be dealing with a donkey that doesn't want to go up the mountain. You can always kill the donkey and the others can carry the body up the mountain. The adventure keeps going..... (Oh, adventurers always need money. There is no point in having a campaign where they never get any money or valuables of any kind. I don't bother to play in such games. I could be doing housework or something. So make the game more fun than real life and go with it.)

[@zombiemistress]

A lot of my early D&D adventures were heavily influenced by Conan comics. Conan has fought damn near everything at one time or another, he's very physical and often gets captured, jailed and such. But he gets to fight his way out and kill most/all enemies on his way out!

[@xXLunatikxXlul]

Very insightful

[@oOPPHOo]

Does anyone have any tips for how to go about flooding a room in terms of mechanics? My party is going to be trapped inside an underground water temple along with a hostile water elemental. Things I've considered mechanically are the time limit and limiting movement speed as more and more water makes it harder to walk. Additionally I'm thinking about making debris fall down from the roof that introduces the threat of maybe having to make a dexterity saving throw with limited movement in order to dodge it and then maybe later using that same debris for cover. These changes to the battlefield will become more meaningful if I allow this particular elemental the ability to split into lesser forms and if I maybe give them ranged attacks (could be a neat surprise in the middle of the battle). I also entertain the idea that once the flooding reaches a certain level, this elemental can create a whirlpool drawing vulnerable PCs closer. Anything else I can do or anything something I shouldn't do to make this encounter memorable? It happens after a moment of betrayal so I want the resulting battle to be fairly intense in order to give the betrayal significance I'm almost entirely new to D&D. I've played two sessions and GM'ed one. For now I'm just a player trying to gain more experience but I wish to use that experience to run my own campaign at one point and I know that the betrayal in the water temple is going to be an important moment of that campaign and I want the combat encounter to reflect that. Exactly due to my lack of experience I'm unsure about how to mechanically execute the ideas I have.

[@rasonbekend1520]

Is there a nerf gun next to your wardrobe

[@blbblb21223]

My favorite way to get a group to kill a creature i may have made a little TOO much power is have it do something stupid// environment bite its booty, IE it runs into a wall then the cave ceiling falls out wrecking its face or lava was behind the rock and now its burnt to heck ^.^

[@johnypierrot5185]

Cool Vegita

[@johnypierrot5185]

and Akira

[@aFistfulofDice]

Thank you!

[@loki.odinson]

unable to download Better Battles PDF. says PDF is in an invalid format. also says your website does not exist.

[@aFistfulofDice]

My website is down temporarily. Try this link for now: drive.google.com/open?id=1o1-xNeF7UnxFRnQjkxOX5UZxqETyU4iCARcXn8Yw6WA

[@ManjesticBeard]

Naw its not my duty to keep the players alive when running is always an option.

[@JA_94]

how are you so amazing???

[@lioleeuwerink1968]

I suspect he took a few levels of cleric, and draws part of his power from the god of DMing Chris Perkins. Also, Mat seems like an insightful and passionate fellow.

[@xXLunatikxXlul]

@@lioleeuwerink1968 🌞🌞

[@rasonbekend1520]

I dont get it, what if a playercharacter dies?

[@TPBurrow]

+Sir Stampsalot A GM that lets his players die is not a very good GM, there should always be the threat of death in an adventure, but even if a player is killed, there are IC RP ways to bring them back, Resurrection, Ghost or a Gods boon. The story never ends only the names change. Worst case scenario a player re-rolls a new character.

[@aFistfulofDice]

+P Burrow I wouldn't say allowing a PC to die is a sign of a bad GM. If death doesn't exist for the PCs, then the threat of death isn't really a threat at all. Death is an amazing motivator, and some of my favorite character moments occur in the seconds prior to their death.

[@AlexBermann]

+Sir Stampsalot What if a player character dies because they failed the wrong saving throw? What if they just get reduced to 1HP through a crit and die because noone can get close soon enough? Characters die - and as a GM, you don't try to kill them, but it may very well happen. When we're not talking about very restrictive organized play, the players either trust the GM not to abuse his power or they don't play in that particular game. Nothing stops the DM from including an elder red dragon in a game of level 1 characters - but that doesn't mean that you should do it. Anyway, when a character dies, the player usually plays a new character. The same applies when a character leaves the group for some reason. For example, one of my characters had to leave the party since he was affected by an effect which almost makes him incapable of fighting and which will last for over a year and can't be cured by the characters. So that character left the party at the next port (it's a naval campaign) - and my next character joined the party when the opportunity showed itself. Some games have the possibility of resurrection, but we don't roll that way.

[@strika2000]

Is it just me, or is the video slightly out of sync with the audio?

[@aFistfulofDice]

Strika2000 It may very well be. I've been having issues with my capture software, and I filmed a batch of videos about a month ago (this one included) where the audio started to drift.

[@kayleighlovely2998]

Thank you this was very helpful.

[@PrincessXyla]

any chance on a video on how to build a better boss encounter?

[@toprak3479]

Make un-killable bosses and force your players to use the enivornment instead of "i hit for 1d6 dmg".