Master THIS skill to be a better DM 

This is incredibly helpful. Remembering your legendary actions, lair actions, legendary resistances, minor minions, etc is very important

"The tension is gone" That is always a good time for the DM to consider the bad guys running away or surrendering. They often die anyway trying to get away but its more satisfying for the PCs if they get to ace the last monster in free shots rather than waiting for their turns. Takes less time too.

This is probably one of the better pieces of DM advice I’ve seen - built in with excellent examples of problem and good encounters.

Small tip, if you get to a situation where a single enemy is left with no chance leaving the following fight to be a pointless slog, just have them surrender. If they're an intelligent creature they probaly want to live and understand they can't win. It can be a good source of RP and info for the party (also a really good way to help your players understand what's happening).

Our DM utilized these tips last weekend, before this video came out. I can vouch these tips work. We were one attack away from a TPK.

Love the inclusion of environmental effects and the region essentially getting a turn. I’m a huge fan of dynamic fields of combat, since players and GMs can use the effects to advantage their side (a fire can spread and cause damage to structures, smoke can cause blindness or stunned effects, and the whole place can be used to intentionally cause characters or monsters harm).

Overall, solid advice. Never allow a party to focus their fire. That's always a cakewalk recipe

I recently found out just how effective burrow speeds can be, Because it's effectively a flying speed with cover You can infiltrate the backlines quite easily Making the party freak out as they have to deal with this enemy before it disappears again.

I'm fond of spicing up a combat by adding motion. it provides the need for the players to spend actions on things other than just multiple attacks and flanking the bad guy. A chase scene across two speeding carriages has challenges and even "lair actions" of a sort. Likewise ye olde rooftop chase. The trick to both of these is to make sure a player doesn't get left behind or steal the scene (if they can fly, for example).

The same is true for players honestly in my opinion. If you want to make a character who turns up to fights and gets stuff done then all you really need to do is think about how you are going to use your Action, Bonus Action and Reaction on every turn if you can. It matters way more than trying to milk the max damage out of any specific thing, is a lot less gimmicky and generally just feels more fun imo. I play the game to interact with the world. If I get 3 ways to interact with the world every turn, best believe I'm gonna try to do all 3.

"Say it louder for the folks in the back!" This is such a useful video, great stuff! Also, I need that shirt!

One of my favorite tricks for dealing with the players focusing fire is sacrificing an underling as a meat shield. This can be a devout kobold cultist throwing itself in front of a hit for its dragon master, or the orc warlord shoving his goblin underling into the path of a coming arrow. Can't use it all the time, but it's a fun one when it works, and can seriously screw with a parties established combat rhythm

I've totally fallen in the hole of just "add more monsters l" and still struggling to be a threat. Love this! Defd going to try these ideas. Helps a ton! Thank you?

Something that I love doing if my players are cool with it, is letting the enemies fill in the places between player turns. My players roll there initiative stack and my monsters roll their's then we alternate between stacks. It's not super realistic, but my players loved it. They call it "hard mode"

Once in a while you do have to have smart enemies focus on the squishy characters. Mainly to keep them honest. Unusually large parties might be able to afford to assign a bodyguard, but I've only had that happen to my Wizard once in decades of playing. Wizards have defensive spells, and they should be scared into using those precious spell slots (and Actions) to cast them. The hardest combats are going to be the ones where the monsters get the party on the back foot. In a Boss+minions fight having the Boss engage the Fighter and the minions harass the other characters works well, as does having the minions mob the Fighter while the boss lobs stuff from the rear.

Strahd has a legendary action that lets him do a move without provoking attacks. It sounds simple, but this turns him into a creature that is chump to a monster that can eat teir 4 parties. Just giving a monster 2-3 extra move actions in a round can be insane

To add to the lair action idea, one of my old dms had legendary actions for important boss fights. These legendary actions usually manifested in a sort of special attack or buff that activated when the boss hit a certain hp threshold. It changed the flow of battle and made winning actually very dangerous sometimes. One of my characters nearly lost her construct pet just because it got caught in an ice explosion. Her pet nearly dying also got her angry enough to use her abilities to shift her rapier into a greatsword that split the boss in half.

Like for an appropriate shirt for a wednesday, my dudes.

I just ended a campaign after retconning the old-semi-finale session because of a terrible action economy encounter. Added 4 groups of minions, legendary actions, legendary resistances, and smartly used Banish on the high level NPC Paladin to take out the harder hitter (and not taking out PC). Best encounter I’ve ever run, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the battle- including several players who’ve been playing over a decade. Action economy is the key.

Great video! Also, legendary actions are a good way to deal with the action economy imbalance of players vs DM. It could be cool to see more legendary actions on lower levels bosses as well.

Two things that help with action economy for big bads, Legendary Actions and Lair Actions. Think about it, you’re fighting an ancient blue dragon, he does multi attack to your fighter, some hit, some don’t. Your rogue backstabs the dragon. The dragon uses their legendary action to whip their tail at the rogue. Then the cleric goes and heals both the rogue and fighter. Then the lair action goes off, electrifying the floor, causing lightning damage to everyone touching the floor.

That's a thumbnail straight out of Avatar :D Sokka got the shrooms!

The #1 trick I found to improve combat was to give each creature a name and basic personality (eg. Gorg the Orc - afraid of fire) or create a swarm with multiple attacks and legandary actions that scale up/down with their hitpoints. Then for boss monsters they should have a aim and create a dilemma for the PCs. I've had monsters who's lair action was trying a divine intervention that got eaiser for them the more damage they took, or mixing and matching abilities like combining the 'invisible in water' ability of a water weird with a Aboleth in a sewer fight making the disease especially scary. Though my fav was my BBEG Ravenloft game where Strahd and Vecna ended up having to flee a horde of Nothics....because while they could easily kill them, every single nothic had the 'weird insight' ability and was using it to steal embarissing secrets and TELL THEM TO EVERYONE... Which was both super fun for the players to make them up on the spot, but terrifying for the PCs.

Of course Hacker-Ginny was ineffective She did not even wear sunglasses :O

What a great video - the clearest explanation of action economy - and what to do about it from a DM perspective - I've ever seen

Thank you for this. Big validation and helps to know I'm heading in a good direction as a DM 👏🏾

Haha, I would focus fire as a DM for sure; I played it like a miniature game by targeting the most impactful character that would be the most efficient at defeating the party. It caused problems in my party at first for sure, the players had trouble predicting the monsters' actions and often a couple of them would go down.... Eventually they got wise to it and built their tactics around reviving and healing people. I realize now I should have just told them... that would have helped them right off the start. Also, I love some of the ideas that you suggest... multiple monsters that leave when the leader dies, and having different objectives is also quite a great idea. Thanks! I would argue that in real life, focusing fire can be quite effective. When attacked by multiple people, defend against both, but disabling one will make things much easier for you. This is also true at the strategic level as well, for example the Allies in WWII deciding to focus on Europe and not Europe and Japan at the same time.

Thank you! After this weeks game, I was running through the "What Worked? What Didn't Work" and needing some better ways to do it. Right advice at the right time

I can't give over how awesome the pattern matching is on the button placket of your frog shirt, and the fabric is already amazing at that (also really good tips in the video, I'm just easily distracted by cool clothing/sewing details).

Superb video, am definitely taking Ginny’s advice when I prep my next session.

That actually was a very entertaining ad read! And you are the reason I've been using World Anvil for about a year, thanks!

Thank you! You didn't make this discussion complicated. I will be listening and taking notes.

Great advice! Thank you for your effort and knowledge!

Great video Ginny. Nicely done once again.

you always drop videos like this right when i need them?? thank you!! this was very helpful :)

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever seen... Thanks!

I was just looking for this Thank you!

I love those advices. Thank you Ginny DM. Also your eye makeup is just wow.

One mechanic I am planning to implement to an undead island I am creating is the undead can only really be killed if all of them are dead at the same time, or they revive eachother. The first time this shows up will be a few beefy ghouls but then it will lead to a necromancer that is being shielded by some undead mages. By taking out the mages you can hit the necromancer but you have to try and do so with all of his undead army rising again once every so often. (Hitting him with the shield down will stop him for a couple of turns) This should hopefully make for something cool that feels like a necromancer putting out an endless horde until defeated, and making it less of “oh there goes the skeleton cannon fodder now lets kill this guy” I am trying to make sure this also doesn’t come out grindy either by making it so the mages defending him don’t really have any hit points and just die guaranteed, but the difficulty being working around that tactic with the necromancer trying to harass you.

This was a really great video! I would also add for BBEGs I've done "Shadow of Colossus" style combat which has worked out really well every time I've tried it. Basically, each area of the monster attacks on a different initiative (head, legs, wings, tail, etc). Each part of the monster also has its own AC and hit point block. So players can call their shots to take out a dragons wing or leg in order to lessen the effect of an attack or a decrease the monsters movement or just decide to generally hit the monster. It makes them feel like each shot matters and they can see the effects of their attacks more quickly and feel like progress is being made than just whenever the monster is defeated.

Lots of advice and scenarios I hadn’t thought of, thanks for this!

Every piece of advice here is highly useful. Thank you!

These are some great tips! Thanks Ginny!

This is very well put together and helpful!! And … you are super talented!!! I loved the skit you put together too!

This is so helpful, thanks Ginny!

Hands down the best dm advice you have ever given!

Great advice, thanks! Also that shirt is fire

Superb. I’ve seen a number of these tips around RU-vid, Reddit, etc., but never so carefully detailed and explained!

Brilliant! You're a wonderful instructor, Ginny Di. Thank you for all of your accessible and comprehensible presentations on DMing and role-playing!

Great video and great advice. Once a DM grows more accustom to balancing encounters, they can begin expanding on their tactics as well as using such tactics at earlier levels in a way that won't TPK the party. I regularly use Lair Actions and Legendary Actions on creatures well before double digit levels. In my campaigns, I often introduce the concept of Legendary Actions by as early as level 2 for the party (typically in an encounter set to resolve the first arc and advance them to level 3). Sure, the abilities are not overwhelmingly powerful, and a level 2 "boss" creature will only have 1 rather than the 3 or more I may throw at them at level 7, 10, or higher, but it helps players, especially new players, get an understanding that some creatures may take actions when it's not their turn. The same holds true for Lair Actions, in that I use them to enrich the combat and make an exciting combat out of what would otherwise just be a tank and spank. Also worth mentioning is Lair Actions are only present if the players have stumbled into said creature's lair, and should the players lure a creature out of its lair, then that eliminates one aspect of the fight from threatening them.

Thank you for your videos! They have helped me a lot as a new DM!

this is an excellent video! really helpful and well-paced - even the sponsored segment was enjoyable (and thank you so much for making it concise). love your shirt as well!

Yay! It's always a good day when Ginny Di drops a new video!

Current party is in the middle of fighting a giant earth elemental in an ancient caven with floating rock platforms and the entire ceiling engraved with magic runes that causes wild magic surges on any character that casts a spell. Sends a wave of panic through the wizard who thinks he's safe out of melee range.

Thanks for the tips!❤ And your ads are the best😂 I never skip them

Your videos are fun, creative and very informative, helping people to really think outside the box. I have been catching up on your videos and am loving every minute! Thank you for creating insightful and engaging content! I have struggled to read all of the DMs guide so having good and constructive content has been doing wonders. Your videos have been inspiring. Keep up the great work!

You are awesome! Preparing a game for Monday and taking notes to spice things up...

One of your better videos, Ginni. Great advice! 👍 saving this one.

You know I think taking the action economy into account, one of the problems with the villain Strahd as a boss monster is that while he's definitely imposing and dangerous to low level players, he can be very easily overpowered at higher levels. Solutions that often get mentioned (short of homebrewing) is to be more attentive to Strahd's many unique abilities and to play Strahd more as a tactician than a straight up fighter. If the players are doing well against Strahd, he can use his mist form to escape deeper into the castle to heal up while the players have to try and quickly find him. Perhaps he can summon more of his army of vampire minions to add to the players, or use the threats and traps within his own castle to thwart the players. My personal favorite is if Strahd can successfully charm the strongest player (maybe another high level spellcaster) and get them to fight on his side...forcing the party to now contend with two spellcasters.

Fantastic advice. Thank you!

Great video with very useful tips!

Keep up the good work!

Minions are a good thing, but normally if I have one big bad boss fight I will come up with clever themed Legendary actions to give that big bad boss that add flavor and danger to the fight. As DM you aren't limited to what the Monster manual says. Always leave the Players Guessing, but all the other stuff mentioned in this video is super solid. Great Advice

Loved the ad, honestly my favorite part of the video.

I appreciate the creative ad break. Well done.

Thank you for the great video!

Fantastic video, cuts to the quick, extremely useful advice

Love your ads, they are so entertaining (and engaging). Some great tips here.

Using a hex map: The Beast has 6 tentacles , legs , eyes, and mouths . It has 3 attack types Hit, Grapple [ with reach ] , and Chew . Each side of the beast has an eye , tentacle , and mouth so it can not be flanked or suffer disadvantage . Older Beasts have tuffer hides . As a boss it can be a night mare .

As a brand new DM about to start my first campaign, this was very helpful! thank you!

I actually kinda had two of these suggestions lined up for a Curse of Strahd campaign I'm running soon. It will be my second time running the Death House. The first time I ran it, I had a party of 6 lvl2 adventurers. On the final encounter against the Shambling Mound, the Cleric did go down a couple of times, so I can't say it was "easy" for the players, but it also kinda was. The Paladin, Barbarian, and Monk wailed on it up close, while the Artificer and Ranger took shots at it while staying safely out of its range. This time I'm starting the players at lvl 3, because I think it's more fun. So to prevent the same thing from happening, I am giving the Mound tendrils it can summon to disrupt ranged attackers. They aren't very strong, more of an annoyance than anything. And the chamber will be slowly filling with water during the fight, and when the fight ends the water starts flowing rapidly. I've specifically designed both of these to appear more dangerous than they actually are, so they should just raise the tension of the fight while only increasing the difficulty slightly.

This was absolutely helpful and very much a game changer to the strategies I use for boss battles and lighter encounters, thank you!

I started preparing Christmas session for my group and i will definitely need those tips for the final boss. Thank you!

Glad you brought up lair actions! Another thing that can help action economy, especially for monolithic bosses, is to go a little off script and upgrade their actions to be more effect-dense. Not necessarily more damage, but add additional complications or control effects that reduce player action viability. (Though do be careful with control effects that stun/disable. It's zero fun for the player.) Like, maybe the enemy wizard's lightning shocks the players into Fortitude saves to avoid dropping their weapons, or a huge monster bats the players out of position with heavy shoves that come with its attacks.

Great advice, thank you😊 a great narrative helps build the story and fill in the monsters needed and which legendary type actions the BBEG has

This was really useful for me as a new DM. Great video

Great ideas. I even love the sponsorship skits. I always skip over them on other RU-vidrs but always watch and enjoy yours.

Thanks Ginny Di... your tips always make me rethink the whole game.

That was another fabulous ad spot, Ginny! The rest of the video too, but goodness I enjoy your creativity 😊❤

This is definitely good advice, and solidifies by the end what I was thinking: unless there is an absolutely huge disparity in level between the monster and the party level, solo monsters really need legendary actions. They exist to even out action economy, letting monsters at the very least get more turns before they go down.

Wow this is really helpful, I always knew one big bad was bad action economy but this helps me actually understand what I need to do.

I recently ran a giant octopus fight for a 6th level party, should have been a walkover for them, but I teamed it up with a bunch of giant crabs who couldn't really inflict much damage, but had the annoying habit of grappling the PCs and dragging them off somewhere where they couldn't attack the main opponent.

Thank you! This is actually so helpful!!

That World Anvil ad felt like a conversation with Ginny's niece/nephew during the holidays 😂

Some excellent advice here, as usual. Something I do in my game (home-brew 5e/OSR hybrid) to help with action economy is to divide attacks across the round. If an Elf archer has two attacks, he takes one at the start of his turn and one AFTER everyone else has taken an action. Or put another way, one attack at the top and one attack at the bottom of their turn. This applies to the bad guys as well. If a BB has four attacks, rather than waiting for ALL the PCs to dog pile them, I allow the boss to make attacks in between them. As I use group initiative, this makes the division pretty easy. Yes, this requires me to juggle a lot of stuff, but it makes the combat way more exciting.

a lot of my friends i play with have been asking me to DM, but while i feel really confident about world building and making stories fun for them all, balancing combat has always mystified me a little! i always felt like something vital was missing from my understanding, and it turns out it was this. everything is clicking into place! this makes me so much less nervous to DM, thank you so much!!! a great video with really helpful examples :)

I've heard the topic before, but this is a well-rounded, thoughtful, detailed essay about it.

Great explanations and examples, keep up these short informative video's :)

Thank you! I needed this, I just started running my first campaign.

Wow action economy... This is new to me. Thanks a bunch, Ginni!!!! ❤

This is a well written/delivered video and I am motivated to check out both links in the video description. Well done, have some engagement.

This was fantastic video I’m going to use all these tips in my next campaign.

I get to DM for a group in one of my classes (we're doing a dnd mini-unit) and this video is really helpful as I have no experience DMing, and my teacher kinda just said "you can do the combat balancing for your group I trust you." So this will take a lot of the weight off my shoulders, and also probably impress my teacher. Thank you so much for this love your content! 💖🧚‍♀️✨

The skit killed me omg 😂😂 thanks for the tips!

Good work!

Great advice. I run PF2e exclusively now, but this advice is Rock solid.

I always make monsters group up as least a squad size, and having them a tatic every time, feels like you are trying to defeat player with lessen pawn, like a chess game when you have less peices than your opponent, it feels great and it gives player think about the tactic they are using.

Amazing advice!

Morningwitch shirts! I love the three I got, glad to see another ytuber wear these

Thank you!