What Your D&D Combat is MISSING 

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I LOVE that teleporting McGuffin

Oh hey, that's me at the end! Thanks for including me again, I love the name Koala KHAN lmao.

a friend of mine describes DnD 5e combat as rubbing big numbers together until one of them hits zero, which honestly feels fairly accurate

Timers: it doesn't have to be represented by dice. Candles work well as a timer for a Halloween oneshot. The roleplaying game Ten Candles even uses it to full effect by having 10 candles (or tea lights) lit at the start of the session, then have them go out one by one as the horrors in the dark lurk ever closer. Timers are a tool of pacing for the players, not for the characters! So feel free to experiment with real world objects to represent each timer.

Timer dice definitely amped up the drama in a werewolf encounter. I had the werewolf howl, and threw down a d4 (number of rounds before a pack of wolves answered the call). They didn't know what it meant, and when it ticked down, they freaked out.

That was a fun and well-executed intro, it actually held my microscopic goblin youtube attention span

Having just finished BG3, verticality and environmental interactions would elevate any fight to the next level. A few points of high ground, covers, places where you might fall, destructible environment all give the fight a completely different feel. It is so much more satisfying to win an encounter by intelligently positioning yourself and creating chokepoints and giving yourself advantages instead of out damaging the enemy

The best combats end with snailshark becoming your long-time friend.

Whoa! The teleporting macguffin thing is something I planned for a short game that never happened! Cool someone else had the same idea!

A combat I'd like to do one day that we see all the time in games and movies is one set in the middle of hazardous weather, set to a timer. When the timer hits 0, everyone not in cover takes damage/gets knocked down/gets blinded/etc, and then the timer resets. Could be a fun scenario as PCs and enemies struggle to stay in shelter while trying to push each other out of it as the timer ticks down. Could also be combined with a chase or some other objective for a very hectic encounter. Maybe even make the timer hidden to the players to really ramp up the tension.

I've never felt so called out in the first 40 seconds of a video before

Great video, Bob! In our last meeting, one of our players detonated an airship above the town and the rest of the session was spent putting out radioactive fires all over the town. Then having a lively, philosophical discussion about 'What is a military target?' and 'What constitutes a war crime in this world?'

Wow. This was one of the very best videos I have ever watched on your channel. Yes, more ideas like this would be MORE than welcome. I am even upping my patreon to the builder level just so I can download this interesting one shot. Thanks, Bob!!!

Every combat, I put a gimmick, be it have dangerous terrain, difficult terrain, cover, a target to rescue, a challenge, a magguffin to get, have the fight be perticullarly hard or easy, have reinforcements etc. Anything more than HP sacs usually does it, and more than one gimmick usually make it too convoluted.

I'd love a whole *series* of these honestly.

That audio transition from phone to Rode mic was so pleasing to my earbuds. Thank you, Bob. And I'm definitely taking the Koala KHAN idea for the climax of my campaign.

The flying down chase and the koala khan encounter is cool

Yeah I like that teleport trick too. I think in R20, I would stack maps in the map layer and then move them back, so they would cycle. I think that would keep all the other layers intact. Maybe make a "medium" statue that needed to be grappled and dragged. Maybe the reward would be this controllable teleport device to travel to distant lands....

That transition into the video proper was pure gold. Literally grabbed my attention

I _loved_ that intro combat sequence! _I was on the edge of my seat with excitement!!!!_ ❤

One of the best fights I’ve had in dnd was taking down a cannibalism cult in the city sewers. What made the combat great was that we had alternate objectives (save the hostages) but it got better when the warlock’s lightning bolt started a massive fire. Now we needed to spend actions to put out squares of fire, race against time to save the civilians before the fire blocked the door to their cages, AND deal with the cultists. The fire added so much fun to the fight because it changed the terrain, but the players could affect it by spending actions. Years later, my group still talks about that low level fight.

That's a brilliant use of owlbear rodeo! I've gotta use that fight sometime, wow

Ran a magic fruit tree scenario. The fruit gives consumers buffs. Based on how they roll for con save aand a d6. We ran it as a skill challenge arena. Had a support runner a collector and a distraction. A faction the party knew wanted the fruits showed up part way through the encounter pcs realized and booked it with what they managed to get. They almost didnt get away but managed a sneaky trick and slinked off

Great opening transition!

Great video as always Bob! I definitely plan to try and include more "non-combat" objectives. Things have been getting a little stale lately

Love a good ticking timebomb. Last session the whole dungeon crawl was a ticking time bomb. You have 5 in-world minutes to do as much as possible to find captives, destroy objectives, kill leaders. Be too careful and you won't di enough, and your army will suffer heavy losses, amd yoy will fail. Too reckless and you die.

As a GM, I play the monster with a bit more of agency and that really change the battle a lot. First, use the flanking mechanics from the DM guides. It makes movement and position of the monsters far more important. While PCs have many ways to get advantage, the same is not true about monsters and that change the game a lot once they can flank. Second, play the monsters as if they know what they are doing with a desire to survive. Have them retreat when at half hit point. Let them target the spellcasters and the high damage rogues instead of attacking the tank. Let them prepare ambushes such as retreating and baiting the party in a flanking maneuvers. Take advantage of the terrain such as having range attackers seek covers. Have them surround and focus on one targets like the players would, taking advantage of flanking and forcing that characters to retreat or likely die. Third, creates encounter with multiple monsters rather then a big one. Big monsters are poorly balance and makes the points above far far less interesting. With all those tricks, combat become far more interesting without the needs to add something specials to all the fights.

Wow I really love the teleporting king of the hill idea im stealing that for my campaign

Great intro. very smooth transition from skit to video! Great rest of the video too but big ups for that one shot intro

That cat portrait lifted the intro combat a full notch.

Pathfinder has Chase Combat, with abstracted movement and skill checks to progress. It also has Performance Combat, with emphasis on showboating.

I am smitten by the "gang war" mechanic. Countdown dice as civilians to be saved? Very fresh idea. Thanks to whomever submitted that one!

Roll for initiative, and reverse the order of declared actions (lowest to highest) but do not roll anything until all actions are declared starting with the highest initiative roll. Peace! \o/

The Koala-Khan sounds so fun! Those players must have had a blast

Glad to have you back! I got worried when there was no BWB video last Wednesday

Static combat is a huge problem in many RPGs. It's not very realistic that two combatants would be locked in place for an entire fight. I'm not a 5e player so I don't know how it works in D&D, but in other games I play (such as Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) I let the "combat round winner" (whoever caused the most damage) force their opponents back (straight or diagonally) one square after every turn. With a free "follow-up". This makes ledges and campfires and pit traps extra interesting in the scene.

Yes, tes, YES! I've seen similar on other channels. "Why are we fighting?" Not just because they're there.

I love all of these suggestions. Most of my encounters have been altered by suggestions found online. One of the best was a ritual where 20 bleeding common town folk were chained to a cavern wall in the center was a portal that was fed by their blood the dungeons main bad guy and his minons were present for this ritual. You roll a die to determine how much blood would come and another to determine what sort of undead would be portalled into the room. Then roll to see how many commoners would die that round. I created a chart with some unique undead like the zombie jugganaut and skeleton knight and used the ammount of blood to boost the roll. This ritual slowly dies down as less commoners bleed out.

Yes I'd love to see a full video about timers!!

The timer die is awesome! I did a moving encounter many years ago. The players' characters were on a cart pulled by horses. The cart and horses where moving forward but instead of moving them forward, we moved everything else backward. So characters not on the cart would have to spend their move action and their action to negate that effect and jump back on the cart. Another cart was chasing them, trying to stop them from fleeing. I added a bit of randomness so the carts were not anyways at the same relative position to make it like a cart would take the lead for one turn. That's probably the best idea I came up with to spice up an encounter. 😊

These are all great, but yeah, that "Koala KHAN" is an instant classic. Stealing that one, for sure.

The opening video is epic😂

Great video. The intro was next level.

Great video, this is exactly what I needed for my upcoming game!

That transition tho

When you said, "they have to stay in one place, king of the hill style," I thought you were talking about the show, and thought the characters would have to stay in Arlen, Texas

I definitely need to up my combat game. Thanks! 😊

i recently made an encounter where the party returns to the city under siege(they had a 15 day time limit and wasted a lot of time doing other things and forgot what day they were on) when they entered the city they were met with a choice to save either: -guardsmen(who could help them fight bbeg) -black smith who could do the same -Mayor (who is gonna pay them) -orphans -hardworking farmers and traders and shopkeepers (who had lost of goods) -Love interest npc’s and other people they’ve specifically met along the way. essentially they had to pick to save the people who can’t defend themselves or save who is gonna help them defeat the bbeg and figure out who’s the most important to them and have mini 1v2 fights potentially losing health and resources to fight individually or quickly saving people as groups of two but not helping as many groups while saving spell slots and abilities.

That was awesome Bob. I love the creative camera work. Cheers

The game Fantasy Age has an interesting chase mechanic built into their combat. They don't have opportunity attacks either, but on each turn you can choose a 'minor action' which usually is like a stance that stays active for the whole combat, like "aiming" gives a +1 to hit or "guard" gives you +1 to defense. There is also "press the attack" which allows you to chase any enemy that leaves your melee range. This essentially helps you keep an enemy from fleeing in a more realistic way. They also have the opposite "blockade" where you make it difficult for an enemy to get past you.

This makes me wanna go back and look at FPS games modes for inspiration. Ghouls that respawn at random locations unless you confirm the kill by interacting with the corpse, or a capture the flag scenario where the party has to steal and return battle plans before the enemy does the same and gets an advantage in the larger battle that surrounds the party’s objective. Now I wonder how I can make Bomberman a combat encounter…

Fantastic video sir. Would love to see more of this stuff.

Feel pretty stoked that I've already introduced quite a few of these modifications to my own homebrew totally naturally.

I was DMing a 3ed Ed game, I described the room as 10' by 15', with 3 orcs, and a shaman, the party wiz declared magic, and won initiative. He cast Fireball, and killed the monsters, and 4 of the PCs.

5e does have chase rules that are actually far more useable than people give them credit for, but if you want really good chase rules look up the Call of Cthulhu 7e chase rules. They are second to none.

Yes please, more unique encounter/combat ideas. Always looking to make my encounters more interesting.

Would love to see you explore more dynamic combat elements!

Love all these ideas. I'm starting a spelljammer campaign I'm excited to work some of these in. Thanks Bob!

Chase scenes are probably the main reason I put Speed as a main stat in my game. It functions like any other ability score. Want to chase a fleeing foe down? Roll Speed. Need to escape? Roll Speed. Hurdle an obstacle? Speed. The teleporting king of the hill encounter is something I may have to steal at some point, if only for the sheer level of chaos it involves.

If you like the idea of timers, you might be interested to check out the ruleset for the rpg Blades in the Dark. They have a kind of narrative timer called a clock, which ticks down every time the narrative moves closer to the clock’s result. Like “villain gives up” might be a clock, and you could tick it down either by successfully attacking/injuring the villain, or by intimidating or distracting them so they lose the will to keep fighting.

pretty cool how the intro sketch flowed into the video, definitely caught me off guard !

That wrestler getting thrown onto the dice made me flinch. Ouch

My Cabbages!!!

Changing combat goal is the number 1 advice I give newer DM and these are great ideas. It’ll be much easier to just share this video with them. Great stuff!

A friend of mine was trying dming for the first time and we unexpectedly got into a chase. Not knowing what to do, he started calling for skill checks. Athletics to close the distance, acrobatics to jump over a fallen log, attack roll to trip him, persuasion to try to get him to stop and talk, etc. He asked me later if he did it right. Technically, not really but way more fun than the “right” way!

Nice cinematogrophy in the beginning!

"take that D6 and add it to any roll of their choice" adding that to a critical hit damage roll :D

Im wrapping up tomb of annihilation currently. Theres a companion guide over on dms guild that has some truely spectacular alternative racing rules. Ive run many chase scenes in chult. Players chasing a hag through the jungle, being chased by a zombie vomiting T-Rex and even escaping a crumbling ancient ruin. It can be done in 5e. You just have to run it like an old 4e skill challenge.

Running a chase and having it be dramatic is all but impossible under straight rules, especially if you have any rogues in the party. I use skill challenges for chase scenes - but I do give benefits to characters with special movement abilities such as Unarmored Movement or Cunning Action so they don't feel like their characters are (overly) nerfed.

Oh this video was perfect for me right now. Next session is saturday and this video had so many great ideas.

3:14 regarding the disengage and being chased down by monsters thing: Why don't we just say if you use the disengage action, you get 1.5 times your speed to retreat. So if you have the usual 30, you can disengage and run away for 45 feet. Then most monsters (who also have 30 speed) can't catch up to you, unless they use the dash action. At the same time, dash is still more useful if you just want to cover as much distance as possible; and the Rogue and Monk's special abilities are also still stronger and more useful. I think I'll try using that with my group.

Bob back at it with another banger video!

Great stuff, Bob!! Thank you!

One of my favourite combats involved my players trying to save an elf village. The party arrived at an elf village which was being menaced by frenzied goblins. The villagers, along with families from the immediate area, had taken refuge in various of their cottages and communal buildings. Various groups of goblins/goblin bosses were fixated on menacing assorted buildings, attempting to set them on fire, break down the doors, get in the windows etc. The goblins were sufficiently fixated that they were unlikely to attack the party unless the party engaged them BUT at the end of each combat round there was a chance of an escalation. At the end of each round I rolled a d6 for each goblin group not engaged in combat with the party, and on a 1 the goblin group progressed in their diabolical plans - get the thatch alight, break a shutter off a window, hack a hole in a door with an axe - or would turn their attentions to the party. As a particular building suffered successive escalations the situation become more dire, until the villagers hiding within would begin to take casualties. There was also a group of NPC elf warriors on the far side of the village who were pinned down but holding their own. This meant that: A) The players felt like badasses as they cut a swath (literally or figuratively) through a horde of relatively low-level adversaries. B) Escalating tension and uncertainty as the situation worsened at different locations throughout the village. C) Tactical decision making - which groups to prioritise as the sitiation escalates, or to deliberately engage multiple groups to draw their attention, at the expense of facing more enemies simultaneously? Or should they help the elf warriors first, to free them up to take on some of the goblins themselves? In the end all the villagers were saved, but only by some good tactics. One player used an inspiration point to offset the disadvantage of engaging the goblin boss pinning down the elf warriors at the extreme range of his shortbow. A good hit drew their attenrion, allowing the elves to break out of their position and join the fight. Even then things seemed desperate, so again the party engaged another group of goblins at range, causing them to rush to engage the party - only the sorcerer had readied an action to cast thunderwave, which not only wiped out that group, but the thunderous sound attracted the remaining goblins to them.

Oh man is it crazy that I actually opened my campaign with a teleporting macguffin? Because when you can’t decide on a location but you want the party to meet in the most insane way possible.

I'm a Pathfinder GM/Player, but because the systems are similar enough, I steal some of these ideas for my games. Opening scene for a new campaign coming up this weekend, and I've been inspired to #1 make the combat more interesting with some timers, and #2 figure out a way to include some prop handouts at some point in the adventure. Bob consistently keeps demonstrating to me that he's my kind of geek. :) Great video!!

I wouldn't include timers that end on the party failing completely, rather make it a pushback or have some semi-random thing happen that makes it harder for them (or maybe even help them)

You’ve always got awesome ideas, Bob. I like complexity to all aspects of D&D. I’m really big on decisions having consequences, whether good or bad, rather than the usual “go kill the bad guy”.

I did a 3 stage chase in a star wars game. The players had sprung a wookiee medic out of a detention center and went to escape in a speeder truck to their ship outside the city. Stage one was them racing through the streets, avoid obstacles and other vehicles while being chased by speeder bikes. Stage 2 was when they got near the outskirts, avoid a blockade and outrunning more speeder bikes before getting to their ship. Stage 3 is them on the ship racing into orbit to jump to hyperspace with TIE fighters from the base in pursuit. They were shooting out the back of the truck and the windows against the speeder bikes in the first stage, and in the second stage the speeder bikes were trying to take out their vehicle instead of them. Changed up the scenery and the challenge in each stage and it was tons of fun. :)

I have an idea for a goat herding scenario, where a village needs at least 70% of them back if they wish to survive winter. When the party catches up with them, most goats are halfway climbing a mountain side, and heading into a cave, led by two aggressive giant goats. The party can use whatever skill they can think of to try and lure the bulk of the herd back home, and fighting will occur only if the giant goats will feel threatened. If they fail, the cave is home to an ogre that is found playing with the goats as if they were toys and will have to be dealt with the old fashioned way.

The non-combat combat (06:18) saved me during the start of my "Dragon of Icespire Peak" campaign where I rolled the starting town, Phandalin, as the very first location that the dragon was meant to be at! I couldn't make an actual encounter with the dragon because, at 1st level, they'd likely die, BUT I thought of this technique you mentioned here, and I made the goal being for the players to get all the panicking civilians to safety as the dragon flew around and tried diving at random people to grab and eat. I even included some armed NPCs to give the players the option to run and get help from as part of the encounter. It worked so well, that they all thought it was just part of the module, and if I ever run this module again, I'm going to make that a permanent first encounter, because it was so fun and effective!

Chases don't work in rules-heavy systems (such as PF2e - which I love), and distances for movement and spells became a real headache which make the GM just avoid chases. Rules lighter systems are a dream here - I wrote a Chase sequence for ShadowDark and it was so easy.

That intro the the best!! =) easily equal to the wizards presentation\trip intro. I wish I could do more TotM combat without squares. Sadly. One of my players really likes that and gets way into the details on *exactly* how many feet a thing does. And the other players are not bothered\enjoy it well enough as well so I get out-voted. Lol.

With chase scenes dont overthink the rules. Keep it simple, and dont use the rules in the DMG, they blow. Also be creative in the challenges and contests for the players. Use different skill or ability checks than just DEX or STR based checks. Let the players be creative in the way they navigate a crowd of revelers in the street. Or an over turned fish cart. Be creative with the effects of the fails as well. The character fails a challenge? Great! Use that fail to create another creative obstacle for them to overcome.

Id love to see more encounter idea videos. Keep it up Bob

On the chase one: My players were lvl 11 and were getting quite ballsy. They found information about a gang of drug dealers and a new type of drug in the city they were in so they decided to just waltz inside the bosses quarter and kill him. Slight problem, the boss was a Rakshasa with two Iffrits as bodyguards, as you can imagine the players realized the folly of their ways the second they saw the Iffrit summoning Fire Elementals. They fight a bit but realize it's futile so they start running in different directions. The barbarian takes the wizard and jumps off the window (they were fighting in a tower), he lands down taking massive damage and they start using the buildings to protect themselves from the Iffrit barrage of fire. The monk jumps out the window and starts running down it and hides between buildings and manages to escape first. The other barbarian also jumps, sprains his ankles and barely manages so live with the help of the wizard and other barbarian. The paladin and cleric stay inside the building since they don't have the hp to jump off. The cleric dies and the paladin takes his corpse (the cleric was a tortle) and uses it to skateboard down the stairs to safety. All of this happened while still taking into account opportunity attacks and movement speed. All you need is an interesting place and players willing to improvise and adapt to a situation. The chase wasn't planned but it was epic how they managed to survive and avoid a TPK.

all great ideas, I'm going to share this with my DM apprentices. I think the best combat I've ever run was based on the Battle Prawn cooking challenge in Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel found on page 25. I had a large group of 8 young players so I divided them into two teams and introduced a third team of bugbears with more experience in cooking. Not only did the teams have to collect all the ingredients, avoid attacks by prawns, they could also sabotage each other's recipes and gain the favor of the audience and judges. Hot cauldrons, a moat-like fish tank, and sharp knives plus skill challenges to crack the husks of the bamboo shoots, fillet the prawns, and find hidden spices in a cache of special ingredients. The two teams of players only worked together to a point, once the third team was eliminated. Of course, "winning" was not decided by who killed the other teams, it was who's dish tasted best. Award- a magic spatula that flipped opponents prone on a failed save.

Having the terrain be an important element in the combat can be fun as well. My players were taking a small ship to get from city to city. This "three hour tour" got hit with a massive storm in the middle of the night. The sailors were working hard to keep the ship scudding before the wind so it didn't get broached (if the ship got turned side-on to a big wave, the wave will send it to the bottom). Just as dawn was about to break, the bell rings for all hands on deck. As the players reach the top deck, the situation is even more chaotic. The waves are irregular, so the deck is bucking like a wild horse. There are life-lines stretched across the deck to give you something to hold onto as you try and walk across this unstable surface. The ship is attacked first by waves of crabs, then by three massive crab monsters. As the players enter combat, the rolling deck is now a factor. At the top of each turn, each player standing on the deck needs to roll a dex check. 16+ and they stand their ground and can use both hands. 8-15 and they remain standing but can only use one hand for their turn as they have to hold on with the other. 3-7 and they are thrown to the deck and they're prone, getting up they can only use one hand. 2 and they are prone and slide 10 feet to starboard, and a 1 they are prone and thrown 10 feet to larboard. The archer quickly learned he needed to get up into the rigging because he couldn't shoot with only one hand. Same with the magic users. The monk was usually pretty good, but did have a tumble and slide at one point. They had to stay away from the sides because a 10-foot slide the wrong way and they're over the side. They also had to keep the sailors safe because for every sailor that they lost, the ship became more likely to not be under control and turn unexpectedly and get broached. So, the party had to fight hoards of crabs, three giant crabs, protect the sailors and keep their feet. One of them up on top finally said they wanted to look around and they were able to see, in the distance, a giant crab wizard on the back of a shark, who was obviously controlling the weather. They could stop the ship from bucking around and possibly sinking by stopping the storm by killing or at least breaking the concentration of the wizard. It was chaotic and fun and tense. The archer finally took out the wizard and by the end of the current round they no longer had to make rolls to stay upright. The party felt a real sense of accomplishment at the end of the fight. They were bloodied and exhausted, but had only lost two sailors and saved the ship.

Invaluable inspiration, Bob - thank you!

Great vid, Bob. I’ve gotten really tired of how 5E makes nearly everything you get upon level up combat related; I feel it slightly discourages these alternate scenarios when most party members are only good at killing stuff. Spellcasters being the exception of course due to the wide variety of available spells. Anyway, I really like how the few OSR games (WWN, DCC) that I’ve read almost discourage combat due to its lethality. It’s so dangerous to fight things fair and square that a smart party should be coming up with their own ways to spice things up. All of the ideas you presented are good though.

Man I started playing dnd about 4 years ago, using the dragon at icespire peak module. I found your videos about that module, when your channel was much smaller. I just wanted to say how happy i am to see your channel, confidence, and quality grow. Thanks for your hard work on your content!

Yes, make a whole video about that kind of encounter design. The Franken Armor encounter reminds me of an adventure I made in which early on one player found a skein of Troll-Gut rope. Later in the adventure, they wandered into a cloud of prismatic mist, which had a number of different effects depending on the color of the mists that round. One color cause wooden objects to sprout green leaves, leather items to leak grease and blood, and for people's hair and fingernails to grow super-fast. I decided that this effect was enough to regenerate a tiny troll a timer die later in the PC's backpack, which set about trying to throttle him with the length of its own intestine hanging out of its body.

Great video! Lots of great ideas. I'd be interested to see more videos on related topics. In particular, I'd be interested to hear more ideas for chase mechanics.

A great way to do a chase. We’ll say we’re in a market Aladdin style. The target takes off in a direction. Your players would then obviously chase the target. When you get to an intersection, you describe what they see in multiple different directions. They can spend extra time (in seconds game time) to get more descriptions. They can wait more and more to get a more clear picture but allows the target to get further. If they correctly guess the direction the target went, they can get closer to the target. Slowly but surely spending time searching and chasing, they inevitably either lose the target or catch it. Losing the target however isn’t necessarily bad. It can lead to an investigation segment where they try and find the target in a slower more Sherlock Holmes kinda way.

these are good suggestions. I've been pushing for tougher choices in my encounters for a while now. - forces that split the party (not massively, just use some walls and slit rooms will do) - different objectives at different parts of the map - time sensitive elements so the party cannot reliably do more than one objective at a time, but the others have a chance of ending if not handled for high level encounters, this helps break up the stomping aspect of over powered PCs without needing to resort to "every enemy is Tiamat" Allow the party to be against threats that they could very well handle easily... if they were grouped.

Holy crap..... I've had a demon allied with characters briefly before, but never a shark as a reoccurring character.... that's wild :)

This video was awesome. Please do more like it. Show different examples and different types of encounters!

Not to disparage your work or what you said in the video, I think it is all absolutely correct, but I think the simplest way to fix combat feeling stale is to be way more descriptive in your characters movements and fighting style; even if you're not knowledgeable on fighting styles you can just make up something that you think looks cool, feel around and figure it out, it's also another layer of Roleplaying that I love because it's different for every character. Campaign 3 of Critical Role, specifically Liam's descriptions of combat with his character Orym, does a really good job of making you imagine the combat in a way that even if you miss your attack it still feels like cool stuff is happening.

I absolutely love adding environmental features to combat. There will be conditions that the party has to avoid (and can possibly utilize against their enemies) and other ways of winning the fight. Lots of options can let players be even more creative in their approach if they choose. It can also let the less "fighty" PCs utilize their skills to help succeed in the fight. Everyone feels more fulfilled in the actions they take.