One of the fantastic parts of Dungeons and Dragons are all the creative, narrative, and roleplaying elements that make a combat encounter come alive, and distinguish combat in D&D from more limited experiences like video games, where you are much more restricted in what your character can accomplish. Rather than trying to cram all this into a single epic video, we felt that these elements are so important that we’re covering them in Part 2 of this series! Stay tuned for that next week!
Great vid! Would love to see a video or series breaking down typical 'roles' a character could have in & out of combat. Especially newer players that hear these roles or terms but don't know what they mean. In-combat: Tank, Striker, Blaster, Controller, Support/Healer etc Out-of-combat: the Face, Skill Monkey, Utility caster, the Scout etc
you'd be amazed how powerful a simple little blast of grease (level 1 wizard) can be for slowing down the onslaught of enemies rushing in to attack your front ranks. and when that 1 minute of grease is about to clear up, hit the grease with a fire bolt (cantrip) and smile in amusement as all the half dead enemies are helplessly laying prone as the grease burns up. My DM allowed the fire to burn for another minute effectively walling off that little area even more.
I would immediately target the caster if I know there is one.... then enemy ranged. Since the group like to target the big guy.... I guess I will go in the opposite direction and remove as many enemies from the battle as possible.
Mages will wreck your day the fastest, they die first. Healing in 5e is not efficient enough to warrant dropping the healer before the guy disintegrating you.
One of the things that my DM likes to do is that if she knows we are going to be down a player or two for a session, she will set up the session so that we have been transported to a dream world type landscape by "Puck" (the trickster deity of our campaign) and Puck essentially performs a body swap on our characters, forcing us to use another players character sheet. At first we hated the idea but it really helped to improve not only our individual play but also our group play as well, because we could see the others using abilities and strategies that we never thought of. And it also helped us realize first hand the strengths and weaknesses of the other members of our group, "Walk a mile in their shoes." if you will.
Holy crap that is utterly brilliant. You solve several issues at once. - Games CAN go on even if 3 out of 5 players drop out. - The DM gets a narrative break and just has to run a combat encounter. - As you mentioned, players get to experience what its like to play this other character. - Everybody wins!
This reminds of when me and friends fought an entire army of Hobgoblins. Like 200+ of them. (The DM didn’t expect us to fight them) So what we do after sneaking in and killing their warlord on his lonesome we had the ranger cast Spike Growth in a bottleneck at a decent spell lvl at the same time our cleric cast spirit guardians. As the hobgoblins rushed forward they literally died after running 10-15 feet into our killzone. As soon as the army realized what was happening I fireballed their front line killing any that had any idea what was going on as the ranger and rogue picked off any stragglers from both AOE’s. In short we used very little resources till kill an entire army because of teamwork with our spells and the archers picking off the few that made it through. Positioning in a hallway of a cave/dungeon to bottleneck them, targeting the warlord when he was vulnerable and by himself then killing those that saw the killzone before running into it so it kept melting their ranks. And kinda battlefield control in that we pissed them off and forced them to come to us where we had all these advantages by killing their leader.
I told this anecdote 2 comments up. I ran a friend through some demos this week as he had never played and was going to appear in this weekend's D&D blowout as a surprise to another old friend he hadn't seen in ages. He's using a level 11 war cleric as that's the NPC he's playing in the campaign. I gave him a few magic items, nothing great, figuring he might need them, including a 1-use action surge-like trinket as an emergency heal/escape kind of thing. Due to some lucky perception rolls on his part, he sees the enemy first, hides, and sneaks into a position inside a ruined keep, hiding the entrance behind him, rightly presuming the the keep was where the enemy were going. The physically toughest foe got through the opening by 1 square at the end of his turn by chance with all of the rest a couple squares out of the door. He flame strike'd them, popped action surge, and cast blade barrier at an angle through the door in such a way that all the other monsters would have to pass through twice to reach him or take forever getting in, and then got behind cover. Kited & killed the barbarian without getting hit once (luck and shield of faith) before the rest could get in, having found no other entrance and having to work hard at the 5-foot-wide stone walls...and promptly unblocked his hidden entrance, snuck out, and flame-strike'd them again, killing the 2 casters and leaving only the other cleric, whom he killed 2 turns later. Let's face it, though: he ended that combat with his first attack. I told him it was impressive for a first-timer to win a fight rated Very Hard by CR level on his first go so very cleanly. I asked him how he did it. "I read what the priest spells could do," he said, faintly surprised, "and I've played a lot of paintball." I cannot wait to see the havoc he unleashes this weekend.
Do you really think that hobgoblins are dumb enough to just run into spike growth and dying? What DM worth her salt would do this? It would be like the DM throwing a gelatinous cube in a hallway and your whole party just saying “Well, it’s here, we have to run into it…..”. Hobgoblins have ranged weapons and are intelligent enough to use their numbers to their advantage. That’s why they’ve survived for thousands of years.
My favorite usage of a battlefield control spell, was being attacked on a ship by hordes of small flying creatures, seeing our wizard start to be surrounded, and casting web on the wizard to protect him.
Team work we had one game was Druid cast fire arrows on ranger who had hunters mark up and the creature was paralyzed by clerics hold person. Focus fire and good spell usage.
I would say if the ranger is designed to shoot his bow and has archery plus 2 to hit, the ability to average out an extra 4 damage per hit is not as bad as you think. Especially on a fighter that has action surge and multi attacks every round.
@@philipnewhouse4683 An extra 3.5 damage per attack for a total of 6 rounds assuming that every attack hits. 12d6 total damage with an attack roll required to secure every single d6 is not impressive for a third level slot. This damage is spread out (rather than being a single round of burst) and only effects single targets that are struck by attacks (rather than being AoE damage). There is a notable 3rd level spell that does very good fire damage for its level, though unfortunately Druids don't get it. All this could be waived, however, and the spell could be marked with a passing grade if it weren't for the fact that it uses your concentration. The most important resource you have as a spellcaster is concentration, and you're currently using it on doing (MAYBE) 2d6 fire damage a round. It is not worth the time.
On my fighter, I took the shield master feat so that I could run in and get a huge crowd of enemies around me and then let the sorcerer cast fireball on me, and walk out the other side (hopefully unscathed). I also talked the warlock into using hex to give disadvantage on strength checks so I can knock people prone more easily. It's amazing how a small choice by one character can have a big impact for another!
Mrsockmonkie If you are an Eldritch Knight you can also get the Absorb Elements spell. Pop that after making your DEX save you take a quarter of the Fireball damage.
Those are good ideas. A lot of people fear friendly fire too much. Oftentimes it's worth it, especially if the character in question has a lot of resistances due to barbarian rage, Oath of the Ancients paladin resistance, etc.
@@chairflipper4313 yes. also that's the point. they can do any job with any subclass, but they have at least 1 subclass that allows them to excel in pretty much anything the party needs. they may not be the best since a war cleric won't out-dps or out-tank a well built barbarian, and a light cleric can't even compete with a wizard, but they can be built to be top 5 in anything.
@@awesomeawesome8350 Yeah, true, but my god, a well-played war cleric is a monster. I ran a friend through some demos this week as he had never played and was going to appear in this weekend's D&D blowout as a surprise to another old friend he hadn't seen in ages. He's using a level 11 war cleric as that's the NPC he's playing in the campaign. I gave him a few magic items, nothing great, figuring he might need them, including a 1-use action surge-like trinket as an emergency heal/escape kind of thing. Due to some lucky perception rolls on his part, he sees the enemy first, hides, and sneaks into a position inside a ruined keep, rightly presuming that's where the enemy were going. The physically toughest foe got through the opening by 1 square at the end of his turn by chance with all of the rest a couple squares out of the door. He flame strike'd them, popped action surge, and cast blade barrier at an angle through the door in such a way that all the other monsters would have to pass through twice to reach him or take forever getting in, and then got behind cover. Kited & killed the barbarian without getting hit once (luck and shield of faith) before the rest could get in...and promptly flame-strike'd them again. Let's face it, though: he ended that combat with his first attack. I told him it was impressive for a first-timer to win a fight rated Very Hard by CR level on his first go so very cleanly. I asked him how he did it. "I read what the priest spells could do," he said, faintly surprised. I cannot wait to see the havoc he unleashes this weekend.
@@WinterPains It was like watching a a tribe of Smurfs attempt to kill a wild boar with toothpick spears, pluck, and desperately cheerful group acapella singing. The PC is actually had a number of little minions to use this time, and they got stomped.. then the bad guy showed up making it a three cornered fight. The PCS managed to get those two guys, played by my two oldest friends, fighting. The Hexblade villain unleashed a hurricane of attacks... And hit only armour. The War Cleric saved up all the extras attacks per action, the extra action, and the 1d8 radiant per 1 round, buffed himself every which way, and burned every single one of his burnable melee abilities in the shortest time possible. In 3 rounds, thanks to a couple of crits, he had the lock on the point of death and had taken 1 hit good like 10 or 12. No fancy maneuvers this time, just sending his Great Axe toward the 'Lock at Mach 3 over and over until there was a Victor. Then he busted out the spells (flamestrike is his favourite, apparently...) When the party got back and was on the point of killing them too when they asked to negotiate. It was bloody epic. Since then we started a different campaign (you many fr that first one quit or flaked) very weekend and he's managed to join us for almost all of them. He's a natural. And thanks for asking.
This is a great video that's already been sent to my group. I set up am an ambush for my group, 6 7th level characters, and they got stomped by my ambush of 5th level squad. Their insistence not to utilize terrain or prioritize left them wide open to spreading damage while I had 2 archers on the roof raining down, of which only 2 of the 6 party members opted to get out of the kill box I established. And I loathe the people who complain that the player characters discussing tactics is a metagame. If you're a tight-knit group of adventurers, why WOULDN'T you discuss your capabilities and seeing what might compliment one another?
Because it is metagaming. A group of adventurers just starting out, barely knowing what they can do on their own, let alone thinking to talk tactics with their teammates, randomly start talking about tactics. "Hey I can do xyz and this and that, what skills do you have that we can combo?" No, it doesn't work like that. Things like that are learned through experience. "Hey I did this, and when he did that, it produced these really good results. I'll go talk to him about it, and point out that we make a really good team when we do that," Experience that they won't get in the first place if you're killing them with encounters made difficult via tactics. They're a ragtag group of adventurers, not trained and hardened soldiers. Even moreso if your players are new to the game too. You can keep killing them, and hope that they stay long enough to actually pick up on tactical gameplay rather than just quit. Or you can help them learn tactical gameplay without killing them. Or you can let them talk tactically and learn on their own, eventually getting better at it to the point where they won't need to. If you're giving inexperienced players encounters that require tactical gameplay to overcome, then you're encouraging them to break the flow of combat to talk tactics. That is your fault as the DM. You can't be mad at the players playing in the way you're encouraging them to play, whether you meant to or not.
@@R.E.E.D. he's not mad, you are? He's the one that said he thought talking tactics was fine? Either way, I could agree with both of you guys. Made good points.
Alex Jobe No I'm not mad. I'm saying he, nor anyone, can be mad if... (insert my previous words). He said "player characters," talking tactics, in regards to people who think PCs talking tactics are metagaming. He agrees with the video, which is to say, he disagrees with players doing what was described in the video (breaking combat flow to discuss tactics rather than doing it outside of combat).
@@R.E.E.D. Nothing about what he said indicated he meant IN COMBAT. If you're an intelligent adventurer, you'll figure out what your other party members can do and talk tactics BEFORE combat.
@@WinterPains ?????? Going by what you're saying, you seem to believe everyone has to create an intelligent tactician when they play? I disagree. But if your players are okay with it, do you. You also sound like you allow your player's characters to choose when all their battles take place. Again, to each their own.
I would add a small addendum in the matter of target priority: "Be aware of your opponent's target priority as well." D&D lacks any sort of aggro system, but, assuming your DM _is_ playing D&D and not an optimized wargame, you can still have a great degree of control on enemy behavior through positioning and damage/control effect output. IE: A more Fighter-ish enemy will probably be naturally inclined to scrap with the Paladin standing next to him, but if the Ranger in the back keeps peppering him with Ensnaring Strike arrows, he will likely get pissed enough eventually to eat the Paladin's AoO to get at that Ranger. Think about how you're acting, and whether that might draw attention in ways you do or don't want. It can make a real difference.
This is why you need your tanker to do good damage in DnD, otherwise enemies would just skip your tanker to attack party members that really hurt them.
Hello from Australia 🇦🇺 😊 I’ve been playing 5e for only 4-6months and loving it. Thanx for all your help with your vids, it makes understanding this world so much easier. Cheers Gents.
I'm going to tell you, none of this will help my party defeat our greatest enemy: a hole. Just any hole. You know, an opening... that goes down. Kicks our butts every time we find one.
Not really tactics more strategy. But i think the most important thing for any combat is to have an escape plan if things goes badly. That way you can choose your battles.
We'll often have a tactical leader assigned based on the environment, and it is their job to take command as soon as the words "roll for initiative" are spoken, if not sooner. This may or may not be the party leader, as the job is given to the most qualified. In a world where all elves, male and female alike, have to put in six years in the army, and he's a ranger on top of that, it makes sense to say "let the former officer assign targets and basic movement patterns". Underground, it makes sense to let the tiefling (who has spent years on the run, much of it in caves) bark orders. When the ranger feels no better qualified than the cleric (the face of the party), he announces such. The cleric has Observant as a feat, making her a good battle coordinator despite her lack of martial training. She can, as party leader, press the job back onto him at any time if she has more urgent things to be doing. The orders are pretty broad, though. "Swarm that one! Keep that one distracted! Stay out of the spellcaster's AoE target area as best you can, but try to conserve spell slots and teleports, even if it means taking a little damage." This still gives the players plenty of room to improvise, but _someone_ has to call the tune.
Something I did as a Monk was, I went to one of the foes that wasn't touched yet, and used Stunning Strike. Then with my 2nd attack and then Flurry, I used the shove action to push them off the cliff we were fighting on, since stunned creatures auto-fail the opposed check. Sadly that didn't work in my case since we were fighting Earth Elements who just... glided through the rock back to us. But in another situation... maybe.
I'm watching this video after my session last night where we were outnumbered and surrounded by 9 panthers like beasts and: - Our life cleric ran up to the middle of the field, tried to tank everything and then went unconscious. - Our two paladins stood far in the back because they were afraid of approaching the beasts. - Our fighter decided to poke two of the creatures that were affected by my hypnotic pattern (it hurt in particular cause I'm a warlock) - Our ranger ran to the opposite side of the arena by himself with almost no hp and with nothing but a sword in hand. If you're still reading, we only survived because one of the paladins landed both of her attacks in her turn with two nat 20's against one of them and, with that kill we managed, to tip the scale by a lot.
My Arcane Trickster was on watch when a group of Hobgoblins came upon the party. Sleep was the first spell cast at the center of the line. The area of effect covered all 5, but because it was a low level it only had an effect on 2. Going from 5 against 5 to 5 against 3, is a nice way to start the party.
Combat/ Tatics : My favorite part of D&D. Knowing your teammates abilities and pre session tactic discussions are important. Also helps keep game flowing during combat. When creating any character I think about what I'll be doing with my BONUS ACTION. I know there is a culture of "Heavy RP" in the D&D community right now but I have always felt more immersed in combat or near combat situations. I love the RP during combat. Great video. Thanks guys. Can't wait for the next one.
Too often people frame RP and optimized play as opposite ends of the spectrum, when in fact they are far from mutually exclusive. It’s like saying food must be either healthy or tasty, when in fact it can be both. The holy grail is where those vectors intersect.
My dms have trouble managing combat while fostering immersion and rp unfortunately. It does seem like a huge task, but it makes long combats pretty boring (especially if the combat isn’t particularly meaningful in terms of story).
Teamwork is fun. Like the campaign where my first character died on the same night at another player's character died. So we went with a Paladin (Me) and Monk (Friend) whose signature move was the monk vaulting off the back plate of the Paladin over the enemy and landing behind him. Thus allowing him to only hit one of us, while getting hit by two of us. It was so effective that the Paladin had a step installed on his back plate to better facilitate said maneuver.
Love this! And the recommendations here pretty well echo Sun Tzu's five key considerations in The Art of War - (1) The Moral Law [Target Priority]; (2) Heaven [Battlefield Control ]; (3) Earth [Positioning]; (4) The Commander [Work Together]; (5) Method and discipline [Managing Your Resources]. I may not have mapped them perfectly, I'm no expert on the subject, but as i was listening this is what I thought about.
I think you've mapped a few well, but I think some are wrong or incomplete. I've got the book in front of me, so I'll give a short analysis. The Moral Law as I understood it has more to do working together. In Sun Tzu's description it's characterised by how reliable the troops are and how well they follow orders -- troop moral and discipline (not necessarily relevant in D&D, unless the players roleplay their flaws in combat). In D&D it would entail sticking to the plan you made together. Heaven signifies the changing natural factors, night and day, heat and warmth, summer and winter. In Sun Tzu's mind, not things that can be changed by the will of the combatants, but things you can take advantage of by waiting until the right time, or be be disadvantaged by if you fight at the wrong time. Earth signifies the unchanging natural factors, the distance to the enemy, terrain, choke-points, etc. Heaven and Earth together signify the surroundings and contexts in which you fight. Positioning is a part of it, but not all of it. The Commander signifies the virtues of the leader. In D&D it overlaps with the Moral Law (and as such, with working together), since nobody is generally the leader, but I think more in the direction of making sure your plans and tactics are good. Method and Discipline is exactly as you said: logistics. But also how the army is organised, so it overlaps with working together as well, in this case the different roles each party member fulfils. I think the reason you can't really map the different parts of Sun Tzu's key considerations to the points in this video is because in that part of the book, Sun Tzu was talking about strategy, not tactics. But otherwise it's a good choice, since Sun Tzu's version of war is quite similar to D&D's - annihilating the enemy. No conquering, (often) no diplomacy, just us or them.
Playing a Warlock in 5e really teaches you patience on when to use that big spell attack. Casters, remember cantrips! 5e cantrips are boss compared to 3e and earlier. Also a great gm trick if your party likes to go nova: send in illusions or clones or dopplegangers. Assume that your baddie has watched the Dungeon Dudes video "5 Spells for Villains" and thanks to scrying knows the party tactics and prepares for them intelligently.
@5:44, if anyone wants have a great idea of how ACTUAL combat 'works' in D&D. Watch Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring. The battle they have inside of Moira. THAT is an actual D&D pace battle. There is NO TIME for talking about strategy, you have only seconds to react.
Sure, but they're also trained fighters who have experience in many combat situations, and the tactics go on in their head in milliseconds from muscle memory. All the things said at the table are things that happen by people trying to PLAY trained heroes, but who are not.
@@stevenle9960 And in real combat with a team you've been in combat *Edit here: with* before, thousands of decisions are going on in milliseconds in your mind about how to deal with a situation in real time. Hence us needing several minutes sometimes in DND to understand what exactly is going on and what exactly our situation and possibilities are, as we are not in the situation, experiencing it.
@Leo Cook Sure, but I'm not a trained warrior, and I glance at my character sheet once a week when I play. Its not a fucking job mate, its a game. I'm going to take absolutely as long as I fucking please, at any table I'm at, because I'll need to figure out ranges and whether it shoots in a line or cone or what the fuck ever unless its a spell I use every single session. Then I level, get new spells, and nope, more time spent going "I think I want to use X, but am not sure it can do Y." Its way too much bullshit to even bother memorizing, thats why there are books. Many, MANY books.
That being said, I'll be attempting to do MOST of that during other players turns, but i'd say 20% of the time, i lay out my plan of action to the DM and get "Thats not how that works because X". And have to do a full rethink on the spot. Meaning at least 2 minutes to reset, maybe a bit more. "A warrior wouldnt have 2 minutes in that circumstance" well, a warrior wouldn't fucking assume he could do something impossible either. So he'd have skipped the first planning phase. And gone straight in his head to the only viable options available to him readily, and pick one that made sense. Since I can't immediately imagine what my character is capable of, as I am not my character, it takes me time to reread skills and abilities. The whole conversation is fucking stupid. I could list of every physical capability I'm likely capable of doing immediately to you right now, I LIVE in my body. I don't live reading fucking game rules over and over, and memorizing my fucking character sheet.
@@LucidLivingYT Depends on levels, but commonly it's either disintegration or some sort of teleportation spell. Also, while the wall itself can't be dispelled, the cloud can. Strong wind can also disperse the cloud, and while it wouldn't really have anywhere to go (being trapped in a force field and all), you could rule in favor of their creativity and say that a Warding Wind, for example, could swirl the cloud around the walls of the forcefield, leaving the innermost area of the trap clear.
You guys have the best D&D channel. Old school Red / Blue Box player here who is getting back into the game. I appreciate all the videos you guys produce, they have been a real aid in me setting up my first campaign since I was 13 ( I’m in my 40’s now 😂 )
Hey, guys. Love your vids. I've been running a campaign for a group of freshman boys. My son and some of his friends. These videos have really helped me give them some tips to be better players. They can be frustrating, but also a lot of fun! Thanks!
A fun tactic we had was my bard ally inspiring me when I was surrounded and just casting fireball on me hoping for the best. I had shield master so if I succeeded (more doable earlier in the campaign) I could avoid all the damage.
My first party defeated a bugbear, a wolf, and five or six goblins at 1st or 2nd level (can’t remember) when our noble background fighter accidentially alerted the boss we were in the cave. A quick retreat to the entrance of the cave, we set up an ambush at the mouth of the cave forcing the enemy to come at us two at a time. My fighter (we had two fighters) having the highest AC had the unlucky job of standing next to bugbear, trading blows and blocking the way of existing goblins.
An important consideration is action efficiency and action effectiveness by your group compared to your enemies. Eliminating individual targets one-by-one means that your group gains more actions per turn while the enemy has fewer of them later on (because some of them have died already).
Thank you guys so much for emphasizing why combat matters and why players should care about it. 90% of modern DnD RU-vidrs have this dismissive attitude about combat, like it's something they need to just get out of the way really quickly so they can get back to Theater Kid Therapy Hour. It's nice to have people remember the "game" part of role-playing game and give it the love it deserves.
This video gave me some ideas for discussions in my group's next session, excellent work as always! Also, the last session was great fun to watch, especially that sequence at the end with the "Executioner". Oh, and the fish discussion, that was amazing to watch. Edit: Being a bit cryptic to avoid spoilers for those who didn't see it.
MY DUDES!! Thank you for this video. Totally sharing it with my party. As a tactically minded player, running with a group that isn't, is extremely frustrating. Hoping this helps
One of the first combat things I did (in my first game ever) was to use mage hand to smack a firing crossbow a gobin was using, rolled a 17 and he ended up shooting his comrade! It was awesome, started my life as a creative spellcaster
If you want to save your teammates from their own stupidity, sorcerers can metamagic all of their save spells to make allies auto-pass. Great when you have a bunch of melee allies.
Theater of the mind kinda sucks because you have to ask everything about distance and you might get the "30 feet? Three rounds ago I was 5 feet away from him and neither of us moved!" kinda crap.
Thank you. Thanks yo you I was able ti join and manage a 10 player campaign thank you we were all rookies and we all know our classes now thanks to you. :) keep it up please!!
10 player campaign? At that point, wouldn't it be easier to divide it into two groups? Could also allow you to have everyone being able to be a PC in one of them(assuming you yourself want to be a PC).
As a player I played a sorlock (hexblade warlock, sorcerer) i cast web before the fighter of our party fight so he can have advantage to his attacks, and to any enemy tries to escape I cast a wall of fire to exits, also when I cast a Fireball i use lightning lure to lure the enemies in range or to move outside of range my party members so they don't take damage from my Fireball
In contradiction to what you said here, you CAN actually have one person telling everyone what to do, but it's something your players have to discuss ahead of time. Having a "Party Leader" that devises tactics and barks orders across the battlefield can really be helpful, especially if you work out a code that will prevent the enemy from knowing what you're telling the party to do. This can especially be helpful when you have a veteran player and some new players. If the veteran players a noble, or a Battlemaster, talks to the party between combats, sets up strategies for the terrain and likely enemies in the area and then when combat begins they tell the bard to crowd control one group, have the wizard and ranger to hail death on the enemy from afar while the melee fighters get into a defensible position, now the party can move as one unit and really lock down a fight. I will repeat though that ALL the players have to have buy-in on electing a party leader, at least for combats.
I don't know man. A half hour debate on how to spend a turn is as least as much fun as a half hour just taking turns with no discussion. At least, that's how it goes in my group. Last session, we had already gotten a quest to go to Mantol Derith. We were given three routes to choose from, and probably spent an hour, hour and a half, debating which to take. And then we came up with a fourth way which was shorter and safer than any route presented to us. D&D i sn't about how much you get done in session, but about how much fun you have doing it.
Studying how to best use my abilities, and seek helpful synergies, to defeat foes ...IS what my character would do. This is how I knew not to attack that troll with plushie toys.
1) Take out the casters first. 2) Take out the leaders next (if they're not the same as #1). 3) Put the Paladin in the middle of the front line. 4) Put the Cleric behind the Paladin. 5) Archers in the second or third line. A point regarding the Paladin Smite ability: There is a point of diminishing return after 1st-level Smites which grant +2D8 damage while adding additional (and fewer) spell levels only add 1D8 per level. Unless you're trying to take down a foe with extreme speed, in the long run, it's better to burn the 1st level slots for the 2D8 damage before using other slots.
Well in the books he's a bit better than this. Especially in the early ones, the drow saga. He really is fighting quite cleverly there despite his berserker side. I recall one fight with how many duergar? 5? Darkness and he just takes them down. But yeah most of their kater tactics boil down to Bruenor, wufgar and Drizzt running in while catie brie takes out half the enemies with taulmaril before the guys even near them. (Sometimes drizzt helps with the sharpshooting though). Although he is quite skilled at setting up encounters. Remember the first Errtu fight, where he even sets up a barrier (and uses Guenwhywar as a Guinea pig. Not a way to treat an animal companion) to get info out of him? (I don't remember however, how he wounded errtu. Did he already have icing death. I kind of don't recall when he and Wulfgar dealt with the white dragon) he did behave quite cleverly there. But yeah later he got overconfident in his skills (one reason i like Enteri. He's way smarter and a more interesting character all in all)
Just wanted to say thanks for the video. I haven't been playing for all that long and play with much more experienced players. It's easy to feel like I have no idea what's going on. I play a ranger currently and learned a lot. I'll be sure to give you a follow on twitch.
Single best teamwork combo i ever had was as a wild magic sorcerer, almost always first thing I would do is cast haste on our groups dwarf cleric tank, he had an item or feat that made him fire resistant and later fire proof, so second round once he was surrounded by enemies I’d cast fireball on the whole gaggle. We could often repeat this multiple times in an encounter. It got even more op once the groups ranger and my character both gained the ability to twin haste, we could get nearly everyone in the group doing multiple attacks per turn. The other main team strat involved keeping my character alive, she got knocked in over 50% of all combat encounters and actually died twice throughout the campaign, yet dm calculated that over the course of the campaign and she did the most overall damage.
I’m about to play a game with some new players, being a bit more seasoned myself, I shall subtly teach them this through the RP of my wise character. Thanks again Dungeon Dudes for being with the times! I love you guys!
lol around the point you were talking about positioning and being a tank/defensive character, reminded me of the time where the "tank" in a game I was dm'ing flew out of the range of the ground bound chimera, leaving the squishy rogue and wizard as the only targets it could attack, with a cone breath weapon that can hit both of them and requiring a con save. Much salt was had that day.
Kinda new to your channel so I gotta say I love it. I consider them (your vids), a valuable toolset for me to orientate myself to the 5e system, and tune my own gaming. Ive played actively since just after the release of 1st edition in about 1981 or so. Love what you guys have going here. Thank you
20:45 if the whole party goes nova and there're still enemies, that can mean a lot of things: It can mean that the players are playing sub-optimally, such as blowing a high level Fireball on just two-three enemies, but it could also mean that the encounter's too damage spongy for the players' levels, it can mean that this fight's a war of attrition in waves that they weren't prepared for, it could simply mean that there were some unfortunate rolls on that blitz strategy. The answer to the question "Now what're you gonna do?" is a pretty mundane one, you can either let the martial classes go to work and fall back on your cantrips, or you can try to retreat. 5e's really good about having it so that just because you're out of spell slots/item charges/class resources doesn't mean you're out of the fight.
I think the inverse of focused-fire can be a bit of a problem too. In action movies and fiction, characters are typically fighting creatures as they encounter them yet if you're "fighting efficiently" in D&D, you skirt the melee and go way out of your way to go gank the guy 25 feet away that 1 or 2 of your fellow party members is fighting and ignore the gaggle of enemies right in front of you. If the party goes in a focused-fire combat style, the DM has significantly ramp-up the difficulty of encounters to remotely give the party a feeling of danger.
This can be addressed by turning focus fire *against* the players, and having their FOES decide to focus all their attacks on a weak PC then move onto the next. Especially deadly with groups of ranged attackers backed up by one or two solid brutes.
Focus fire is especially powerful when most of the group have access to strong range attacks. My current party is 4 PCs, Fighter/Paladin/Sorcerer/Bard, all with 2 levels of Warlock for Eldritch Blast. We dominate many encounters by just dropping a Hypnotic Pattern then hosing down anyone left awake via focus fire. The paladin also has Aura of Devotion, so we can rinse and repeat without regards to friendly fire.
First time playing a Tank. Tactically played they are so satisfying. When I rush to the enemies, I mark him as target for the party. (Or, in some cases I keep him busy) So I'm much more the tactic decision maker as I ever was as a Glass Cannon. They others have the fun of putting the enemies down, as they love to, and I do what I like most.
Great video, I loved the hints. I just have one rule of thumb, role play your ability scores (Intelligence, mostly) Long answer below. One think I *always* do is adapting the amount of strategy my character uses according to the Intelligence score. Then, I usually put at least 13 on intelligence to play strategically. As I DM, sometimes I know monster stats by the top of my head, but I try to keep to what my character knows. Metagame might be a thing if intelligence is not taken into account. Or else, out of the blue, the not so bright barbarian becomes a strategist leader because of player knowledge.
One thing to bear in mind with Intelligence: it doesn't take a genius to execute solid battle strategy! A character with 8 INT might rely on their experience, discipline, coordination, and cooperation to convincingly come up with the good plan in the moment. Sure, they might not design clever traps or complex maneuvers, but these high-level military strategies aren't often a factor in the skirmish scale most D&D combat encounters operate under.
@@DungeonDudes 100% d'accord. I thought of that when writing my comment, but to not stretch it much I left out. In that sense I think a character would need a better wisdom, or some levels, to reflect that experience. The main point is that the interpretation doesn't stop when players enter "combat mode", and how they approach combat strategically must reflect their characters. Think of the battle master (military strategy) and the berserker (pack tactics, per say) differences. Also, a reclusive wizard who suddenly is commanding the group, off character, how to act. I, myself, am the strategist player type, usually knowing the best option for the other players, due to my experience as DM. In fact, I am the person who helps them making their character sheet. But when the game is on, I stay quite to not overshadow them, or their characters. Additionally, when we think about realism, the mere fact that the players can talk off character during combat represents a huge advantage, since it is like all of them have in game telepathy. But that's just me penny pinching. My comment doesn't intend to oppose the video, I wanted to collaborate showing an option on how to differently use the strategies, minimizing metagame, while opening a window for role playing.
@@M0ebius I agree, that's why when I DM and I notice the player doesn't know/perceive something their character would know/perceive, either I call for an Intelligence roll or just tell it plainly to him or her. On the other hand, if the player knows and the character doesn't I think it's reasonable to stop their idea. It's a two-way road.
Alan Capelari As a player I feel like that kind of DMing style infringes way too much into player agency, basically amounting to the DM backseat driving my roleplay decisions. It’s an especially slippery slope if you start applying your line of reasoning to other stats. Like shutting down a player’s social interactions simply because they have a charisma score of 8 and no one could possibly like them, or shutting down a player’s good advice because he is definitely not wise enough with a wisdom of 8. At that point the DM might as well just play the entire party by himself. A better way would be to ask the player for the character’s thought process, maybe coaxing some additional backstory details to further flesh out the character, than to outright disallow something that’s clearly within the rules. More interesting for the table too, and gets the creative juices going.
Hooray! This was an awesome video, but I sure don't want my players to see it! I want them to EARN that tactical knowledge and have to think it through themselves!!! :-) Brilliant as usual, Dudes.
Thumbs up! The things you're talking about here can be some of the more complex and more fun parts of the game. A certain amount of planning, a little nudging at times without being bossy, and players using their abilities to complement those of other players. It is some of the better 'teamship' parts of the game when it works well. It's also fun to see from the DM side; seeing the players really work together before a combat rather than just diving in and adjusting afterward.
i know im late to the party but when it got to 13:24 it just made me think about how our paladin (who always get surrounded due to him having alert feat and rushing head first into the enemy every chance he gets) recently complained that i always take to long to cast spells... im a divine sorc and is our only real healer in a party with 3 melee characters that love to run around and 3 casters who have to keep up and more often than not deal with those that the melee guys ran past. So all i want to say is, if you are not a caster plz don´t make it harder for those that are. We already have enough stuff to think about while in combat
@@WinterPains well i have said it to him multiple times and he just gets pissy about it but most of the time he does not really need alot of healing since he has high AC and has lay on hands. the problem is that due to my limited spell list being split between healing, utility (bcus our wizard only use utility spells that he can cast as a ritual so im basically left with everything over 1st level), buffs (our wizard is a selfish prick on this aswell) and damage. So i have to chose between hitting either him, the fighter or both if i want to hit 6 enemies with a fireball (and they hate when i do that since i can´t sculp spells like our wizard). This all leads to frustrating fights were i basically only cast twinned fire bolts, haste(s), healing spells and maybe 1 or 2 fireball.
I am new at 5e and my new Dungeon Master asks me were the hell are you learning all this stuff??? Stupidity I replied "I cast a spell" LOLOLOLOLOL you guys are top secret stuff LOL
From what I found, twin spelling polymorph a two dragons out of your weakest players before or during a difficult fight is very handy. They attract a large amount of enemies toward them, and if you chose gold as your dragon type, they will be immune to fire. Therefore a sorcerer can cast fireball on or near the dragon and deal damage to everything around it. Polymorph can also save a character from dying because it brings them to the hit points of the mob they are transformed into. So if you use a young gold dragon, one of your characters now has a full 178 hp with a simple 4th level spell.
This was extremely useful, in my campaign we are about to fight a literal god, and I'm the one in charge of creating a group to fight this god because my charecter had lead a revolution, one of my party members doesn't know what's going to happen and the other is trying to run from the situation. So now i know a bit more on how to plan an attack against the god
I love thinking about strategies and combos with my friends but, honestly speaking, I get a little self-conscious when I'm playing with new people. I need to work on that... Still, I know that the most fun I have while playing is when we put a fluffernutter on the table and try to make it work as hard as we can. :)
Definetley have the conversation about your different abilities and how to combine them to get the best out of them, but for gods sake do it in game! Don’t discuss feats and skills as a mechanic, discuss them by the fire after a battle, ask questions about each others awesome moves and apologize for not grabbing an opportunity in the moment that seems obvious now. Makes for great role play. :)
I mean if the bard puts 5 enemies to sleep or unconscious in some way and then the wizard slams them with a fireball that's 5 crit hits. Pretty effective I'd say. But still you'd wanna focus the more immediate and conscious enemies.
It is always fun as a GM to have two casters with both having flaming sphere and using the flaming spheres together to pull a wall of Thermopylae that also damages anybody trying to get through or next to it or in it and as they make their way through they get hit by the fighters and declare behind the fighters making sure they stay alive. It's GM it was infuriating and a proud moment to see them work together like that
something you guys kind of danced around but never directly addressed was action economy. It's tangent to focusing your fire on a single target, but also encompasses letting your area of effect spells and abilities take out groups of weak enemies rather than wasting big single target damage, and also saving your healing spells and abilities, which are typically not efficient, to primarily get allies back in the fight rather than keep them alive.
A] If you're a fighter: wielding a Glaive/Halbred and taking the Tunnel Fighter fighting slyle(UA), the Sentinel feat and the Polearm Master feat can make you the KINGS and QUEENS of opportunity attacks B] For Eldritch Knights or otherwise for low-levels Wizards that are more engaged in melee fighting: my absolute favorite mobility combo is the Mobile feat, and the spells Expeditious Retreat , Longstrider and sometimes even Jump
Combat tactics 101, aka how to not get violently destroyed by a group of goblins ala goblin slayer. This is also why you take careful spell as a sorcerer, so you can ignore that impulsive barbarian.
In my new campaign session 0 one shot, our first combat encounter we found a bunch of goblins in a cave. Somehow everyone missed every attack, except our fighter, who was smashing through the archers. Our monk knows goblin though (lol why), and managed to pin the goblins against each other. They were also missing wildly. My druid had never faced combat before, and decided to heal the goblin that was on our side. It was hilarious. The goblins ended up swapping who was on our side as the monk couldn't convince anyone to stop attacking. He ended up punching through the face of the goblin shed been trying to save. Lead to an amazing RP moment with the fighter yelling, "Yeah, that was awesome!!!" As the monks fists seethed with craving for more goblin blood. The rogue had missed almost every shot, so the fighter dubbed her "bullseye," and my character learned that death is a part of life. I also contracted goblin herpes from the blood spatter. It was a mess. A beautiful mess.
I remember a old tactic from my players lead to a beautiful crowd control was one caster casting sleet storm and another caster cast a aoe restraining spell like web, entangle, some times spike growth. I your unlucky enough to get restrained then knocked prone, your just going to have the worse time, with the spike growth since sleet storm makes the area heavily obscured the targets don't even notice the additional spikes or other effects until its to late.
He's not wrong. We a group of lv 11's, took on a Cr 27 Great White Wyrm. with 600 hp. 25 ac, and several magic rings on. We killed him in about 9 rounds, without a healer, and only our fighter getting low.
Controlling movement on the battlefield can have great impact as well. For example I have a rogue/fighter that has the mobility feat and I am often able to kite a large threat away from the party to allow them to take out the minions. Some other good options to control movement are spells like ray of frost or thorn whip and many monk traits.
Vengeance Paladins and Hexblade Warlocks are fantastic for this. There's a real value in being able to keep the big guy busy while the rest of the party clears out the rabble and gets into position to take it down.
Yes controlling movement is huge, choking packs at entrances makes some fights very trivial. Theres some disgusting stuff that can be done with sentinel and cloud of daggers. We just got lvl 5 and noticed how insane haste is, not just the attacks, but the movement means you can run around up to the BBEG at the back and just chop him down. Use of miniatures makes a lot of this stuff a bit too good.
Focused Fire really is devastating when it is used regularly. It is more effective when there are even numbers on both sides. When the Focused Fire reduces their number to less there is a small shift in advantage. Drop another one in an even match and that scale of advantage tips even further in your favor. This is the favorite tactic I use in the campaigns I'm involved in.
Excellent video, as always. The preamble really cut to the core of the importance of combat and it's effect on the narrative. I do think a discussion of the action economy could have been a good addition. You tangentially brushed against it, but a meta discussion about it could have a place here.
The Action Economy is such a huge and important topic, and you're 100% right. We'll cover it in detail in Part 3 or 4 of this series. Originally we were trying to cram the basics, action economy, and creative and narrative combat strategies into a single video! It was just too much dense conversation for a single video, so we decided to break it apart into more digestable chunks.
Just last night, our party of four (War domain cleric, Battlemaster fighter, Lore bard, and my Wild Magic sorcerer - all 5th level) gut jumped by three specters. The cleric turned two and the fighter, cleric and sorcerer circle beat the third down, Then an ice hag flies on and blasts the three of us with Cone of Cold. Our horses dead, and us close, The bard fails to slap a Crown of Madness on the hag, we fire arrows and spells, and the hag starts to take off. The DM actually planned to have the hag escape for another day, but I grabbed the fighter, told him to grapple the hag who was about 80 feet away, and as a prepared action cast Thunder Step on us (sorcerer at 5hp and fighter at 8hp) to just over the flying hag, the fighter grapples the hag and we all fall 50 feet to the ground. So the cleric heals us up slightly just ahead of our second death saves, the bard beheads the hag, then we clean up the two returning undead. - - - The important lesson, sometimes you need to do something stupid, in the hopes that you don't take instant death damage as a result.
I apologize if I mis-named any spells or creatures, I've only been playing 5E for a few months. I used to play AD&D in the 1970's-80's, then played Rolemaster for the last 35 years or so.
When you talked about sorceror using all his slots... and went to said "again don't cast fireball at a group of enemies under hypnotic pattern I thought you where going to say cast 2. You know always double tap.
A better spell combo than cloudkill & wall of force. We had 3 spellcasters in the party: * A wizard with Darkstar which has magical darkness, silence & a lot of damage * A bard who used magical secrets for wall of force which blocks all movement * A warlock with devil sight & scatter which can teleport enemies We annihilated a lot of very dangerous creatures by locking them in a room of darkness they couldn't even teleport out of
One of my favorite offensive combos with one of my characters comes between my rogue and my dad’s grave cleric who usually play together. If there’s a big enemy and I’m next in initiative, he might use his Channel Divinity (Path to the Grave) so they’re vulnerable to my next shot, which almost always has sneak attack. I once one-shot a hill giant because I crit on top of Path to the Grave.
