D&D 5e blues

>>49653566
That's a low quality bait. How dull.

>>49654172
I am not baiting, I am genuinely asking for advice.

>>49653566
Sounds like the problems with your players. Get the new delta green QuickStart book. I ran the sample adventure as a one shot, and finished the third adventure of a short campaign

>>49653566
Well, if you feel "non-combat encounters are a pit stop" that could mean all your players are interested in is combat; to be fair, the game gives you little else to work with in terms of challenges and goals.

I also find 5e combat boring. What are you looking for in combat encounters?

>>49653566

5e's encounter building rules don't really let you build an interesting encounter out of monsters you aren't really familiar with, and I think that shits the boat.

Good mechinics lead to more impression.

.... No, saying everything is nanomachines doesn't actually help immerse me Metal Gear Numenera.

The players at the moment are only level 3 so it might be that they don't have many tactical options as there are only three of them, but I would like to have combat be more than just, roll to hit, do x damage, add interesting description of how the attack played out and deduct damage from hit point count to little effect until the hit points reach zero.

>>49653566
Why does it feel like a pit stop? What rules do you feel you need to not make it feel like a pit stop?

In my experience, if your players aren't into it, it will feel like a pit stop in any system no matter how comprehensive social rules are. They can never model genuinely interesting roleplaying.

>>49654298
Combat is derived not from just mechanics, but also from interesting tactics enemies utilize and interesting battlefield and interesting objectives. Good combat is always work. Also yes, you really should play some more, because 3rd level is where characters specialise and start to get their toys.

>>49654330
I find that out of combat time is generally spent on gathering reassures for the next combat, while I would like to encourage greater investigation and more interaction with NPCs on their part

>>49654298
Most characters get their toys at 3, like >>49654330 says.... however, in my experience things really don't get any more exciting, unless you are a full caster (and possibly not even then), at least for 8 or so levels.

>>49654411
So would you recommend starting a new campaign in another system after a break, or should I try using miniatures to add more tactical depth to the combat?

>>49654398
It sounds to me like the issue of how do you structure your game. Do you run your own adventures, do you use a published module? How easy is it to solve everything with combat?

>>49654434
You could try miniatures+more exciting monsters maybe, before switching.

I've gone entire 4 hour sessions of no combat, and rolling only a handful of skill checks.

Your issues stem from your groups way of playing the game, there's plenty to do as long as everyone has the imagination and drive for it. If all you're interested in is combat, then you'll be centered around combat.

>>49654465
So far I have been basing my campaign off of the night below but I have so far only not used any of the written material and have been running my own introductory adventure. So far the PCs have traveled north after a brief scuffle with cultists in the large port city in my setting before heading north and after a few random encounters and a brief stop in town where they spoke to a couple of NPCs who agreed to help them on their quest, they traveled to the lair of some lizard men, where, one player used a ring of phase shifting to Sneak past the majority of the lizard men and rescue one of the children they had been chasing after to which led them here and an old man the lizard men where holding prisoner. They then alerted the rest of the lizard men to their presence and had to run out of the dungeon to escape while the rest of the party was fighting a Grell they had found in a side corridor. I then had to give the an item to allow them to escape to another plane to provide a means of retreat from the huge battle that took place outside the lizard men's lairs gates.

>>49654664
>have traveled north after a brief scuffle with cultists in the large port city

Why did they do it? Was it initiated by cultists or players? Why did they went north afterwards, were there any consequences?

>after a few random encounters

Were they planned as combat encounters? Or did players turn them into combat encounters? Or were encounters of other variety?

>a brief stop in town where they spoke to a couple of NPCs who agreed to help them on their quest
>rescue one of the children they had been chasing after to which led them here and an old man the lizard men where holding prisoner

The quest is to rescue children and an old man, as I understand it? Or what is it?

>I then had to give the an item to allow them to escape to another plane to provide a means of retreat from the huge battle that took place outside the lizard men's lairs gates

Battle with whom? Sorry, it's really not clear, that's why I'm asking all of this. You said you want to encourage investigation and interaction, but the way you've explained it so far, I'm just not sure what was there to investigate or whom to interact with.

>>49654788
The players fought several cultists who had kidnapped five children from an orphanage that the one players character has close ties to. They found on the body of the lead cultist that they killed, the others escaped, a message stating that he was to meet someone in a town to the north. They traveled to the town and along the way we're attacked by goblins riding in the backs of giant wasps fending them off before reaching the town. There they learnt that the town had been frequently attacked by lizard men and befriended a dwarf cleric who offered to lend them assistance in exchange for their help in him recovering artefacts from his clans fallen keep, and a Druid who took them to the lair of the lizard men. The battle outside the gates was between the party with the aid of the friendly npcs and the lizard men leader and 20 lizard men and a evil human cleric.

>>49654906
Wow. Yeah, D&D isn't well suited to handle large combats like this. It can turn into a slog if you're not using some sort of minions so there's that.

Otherwise, since they're pursuing cultists, make some points of interests in the city, places to visit, people to find. You've got the opportunity to focus on information gathering, do that and make sure it can't be just solved by combat. Bribes, favors, spy missions, contests, anything goes. Helping the cleric also sounds interesting, since you can fill that keep with ghosts and strange traps and maybe a really dangerous dragon you just have to parley with for some of the stuff he got in his hoard and plenty of not combat related stuff.

Also I recommend not making your random encounters obligatory combats. Goblins could be pursuing someone else and players might want to intervene or not to intervene. It's the choice that matters, D&D or not D&D.

So yeah, I think it's mostly in your hands. Except really large combats, if that's a thing, Savage Worlds might be better.