How you you make melee combat less static? I'm talking

>>50364698
Not specific to your problem but here's my general guideline for making an interesting encounter
>first pick the enemies you will be using, look at and think about their stats, use these to decide how they would probably approach a fight, what's their best option?
>then look at the player characters' builds and composition, then think about what their go-to strategy is, then set up the terrain, goals, whatever to stop that happening

the idea is to get rid of the obvious option so the players have to vary their approach to the fight

>>50365070
Thanks, that makes me think that more ranged enemies might be a solution. The current campaigns have been largely anti-beastmen, undead, Orks so far.

>>50365181
mixing enemy types is one way of removing the players' first strategy, I prefer using placement and terrain though

so talk me through it, what does the party consist of and what kinds of enemies are they facing?

Players might get creative if you give them bonuses for clever tactics, but it's up to you to make combat more than two opponents wailing away at each other in a faceless void.

First, describe the scene. Are they in an open field under the harsh glare of the midday sun, or in a dusty storage unit knocking over boxes and furniture with every swing? More than just description, let it impact the battle. That midday sun is sweltering, making it tiring to move about in armor, and the occasional glare off metal momentarily blinds someone now and then. Every swing in that storage room might knock over boxes or furniture or send an opponent sailing into them. After a few rounds the floor is probably littered in broken bits of furniture and slippery as well after a bottle of wine/shampoo/etc. got spilled.

The dice can help you decide how it plays out. Bad failures can cause bad results and good successes cause good ones, above and beyond the consequences of a simple hit or miss. A good swing might send the foe sailing into the dirt or knock them into a nearby opponent, sending the latter off balance the moment before they land a killing blow on an ally. A bad one might result in being momentarily blinded by the glare off the armor of a fallen friend, allowing the foe a moment to climb a ledge for a leaping strike. Narrow successes might be double edged, succeeding in what they attempted to do but causing some new problem to spring up. The struck foe might knock a lamp into the spilled wine, causing it to catch fire.

Now let it all build up to a climax. Every round things should get a little more intense. That fire spreads rapidly and soon the whole place is aflame. Reinforcements may show up for one side or another, or an unknown force may pepper both with gunfire. The opponents grow desperate as the battle drags on, and start using reckless or even suicidal tactics, such as grabbing a burning support beam to swing at the player character.

>>50365240
Kislevite Bear Tamer (Whip and Bear)
Skink Javelinman (Fan rules)
Human Tollkeeper (Sword and Shield, they dumped their crossbow a while back.)
Bretonnian Knight-errant.

That's a 50/50 melee-range split if you don't count the bear as a party member.

The biggest notable battles we've had so far is claiming a tower from a beastmen warband (With a Minotaur too), surrounded by zombies and a wight, and fighting humans in a tight alley.

At the moment they're in the sewers about to encounter Skaven.

You're right about terrain though, I feel like the above are fairly one-dimentional encounters.

>>50365299
Yeah, I've offered bonus xp for creative tactics, but they seem to forget that the moment combat starts.

It becomes a monotany of "I aim and attack". They get bored, and I feel like a failure for not preventing that. I'll definitely try and remember the importance of a good description though..

I've had the Wight fail a charge attack and rush past them, imbedding their sword in a nearby statue, but then it just goes straight back to them saying "I walk up to them and attack".

>>50364698
I've been DMing for a 2e group for quite a while and originally had this problem too, especially in the early game. I’ve found a few good ways around it.
First, think about how they encounter the enemies. If they and the enemies are group up, several squares away, the natural response is to just charge into the grinder. But if they encounter them spread out, over many kinds of terrain, but all within sight, they have to make choices about who goes where to cover which flank. Also, think about if they find the enemies before the enemies find them, if they’re smart they’ll aim for trying to take out as many enemies as possible round 1 in a sneak attack. But if the enemies are spread out, or there’s reinforcements nearby, they’ll have to adjust on the fly after they take out the initial 1-3 in the first round.

Second, enemy mindset. Play your enemies like the creatures they represent. For example, if fighting an intelligent race like human dwarves etc, and one of them goes into critical but doesn’t die (or even just a very large wound) have another run over and try to save them, like a real partner would. Have some beastmen be charge in madmen, but maybe others are weak small cowards who jump in and out of combat if things are going poorly.

Third, enemy variety. Even if they’re fighting “3 beastmen” consider them having different weapons with different effects, like an AP hammer, a great weapon with impact, a bow. They’ll treat them all different. Personally our weapons are all very house ruled and changed.

>>50365605
Thanks. It seems like most of the replies are advising better terrain and enemy layout.

I'll rework the sewers to give the players a bit more stealth and other variety. Plus I'll make the mobs smarter, why expect the players to be tactical when the enemies won't?

>Personally our weapons are all very house ruled and changed

Yeah, I'm a sucker for house/fan rules. Been working on a MEGA collection of everything I can find. 400+ files and counting.

>>50365395
Just make sure they're forced to make more decisions than move and attack. Give them some things they have to factor in or work around, anything from being grappled by an opponent to getting their weapon knocked out of their hands to an unexpected quake opening a rift between them and their foe. Options that force meaningful choices and/or must be addressed quickly are better; they might ignore their fallen weapon if they have another on hand, but if it's hanging over the edge of a pit and could fall at any moment they risk losing it forever. An enemy who's strangling them with a garrote will force them to find a swift solution before they pass out, with action becoming more difficult every round as they struggle to remain conscious.

Also, don't forget to end the fight when it's clear the players have won; no need to whittle every foe down to their very last hit point. Have the survivors rout or give a short description of the player characters overwhelming and finishing off (or capturing) the stragglers.

>>50365395
>That's a 50/50 melee-range split if you don't count the bear as a party member
ok so against small groups of weaker, melee focused enemies (which seem to be mainly what they're fighting) their optimal strategy is
>the bear and melee people close the distance and hit them every round
>the ranged people shoot at them from safety every round
which from what you've said seems to be what they're doing, so you need to look for things which can prevent either or both actions
>smoke or similar which makes attacking from range hard
>enemies capable of moving around the melee guys to attack the ranged characters
>enemies able to kite the melee characters
>an enemy with a dangerous enough melee attack that standing toe-to-toe isn't an option
could all work, have some fun with it

>>50366297
Thanks! Yeah you guessed their tactics perfectly. I thinking alongside the stuff I mentioned above about the sewers, I could take a note from Space Hulk. Lots of flanking and overhangs for ranged ambush and counterplay, plus corridors so narrow the players can't get passed eachother, that would force some tactics too.

Is that the right idea?

>an enemy with a dangerous enough melee attack that standing toe-to-toe isn't an option

I tried this with the minotaur, and they stood next to it aiming and attacking it every round, resulting in a party wipe and one less fate point.

There was even a cannon brought by an NPC specifically to bring down the tower / kill the minotaur, but they completely ignored it in favour of their strategy. I've got a tough job getting them to use their brains in combat.

>>50365742
One of the things I like about 2ed and similar is how apart from fatepoints, NPC's are on a similar tier to PC's. they can have career advances, special weapons, quirks and talents. It might be helpful to stop thinking of your players enemies as 'mobs' but instead just characters in their own story, which normally they'll try not to have end. It's not skaven six, it's Gnawlet Bigfang, third largest of his litter, recently promoted to clan rat from slave after he ate his packmaster and stole his gear. That one over there is Neebl Scarless, a rat who's ability to dodge and avoid harm has left him relatively unmarked but for constant itchy boils. He tries to keep up the reputation by avoiding me lee, instead using a sling to pepper his enemies and running away as soon as things go south

>>50366678
Does that really have a pronounced effect on combat for the work involved in doing that? It doesn't take long to drag and drop an enemy from the roll20 journal, but building a character from the ground up (or from the roll20 base) takes far longer.

I can vouch for the immersion factor though, they liked when I gave the Elves from the Into The Drakwald story their own personalities, plus the Three Stooges like criminals they started a fight with. Even though each had different skills it didn't really effect how the players approached the situation.

>>50366497
>I tried this with the minotaur, and they stood next to it aiming and attacking it every round, resulting in a party wipe and one less fate point.
good, keep doing that

they will learn how to fight properly, and suffering shall be their teacher!

>>50366823
I think it's important to make it clear to them as well that it isn't me being a punishing GM either, but their own incompetence.

Like the canon, being a clear way to kill the minotaur that they never considered, they always need to look back on the encounter and think to themselves "We should have done this", rather than "Our GM can't balance fights".

>>50364698
make the environment more interesting.

players love knocking zombies down pits