Not new to GMing, but I don't have heaps of experience either.

>>52853121
You want interesting combat in a system specifically designed to be as bland as possible. You're pretty much SOL here.

If you want interesting combat while staying within the arbitrary confines of the D&D brand, switch to 4e or go to the OSR thread and ask about pre-3e D&D.

>>52853121
>I was thinking of homebrewing based of Exalted perhaps (Players get advantage if they describe what they are doing well enough etc)

It's a good idea, but not really homebrewing. The base rules for (dis)advantage state that the GM is free to apply it as circumstances warrant.

If you're liberal with its use, players start to get very creative. If you're feeling ambitious, start having enemies try to put the party into circumstances where they suffer disadvantage. Now you have a scene where the environment matters instead of just being fluff.

>>52853177
That's some good advice, thanks!

What is at stake in this combat?

The undead are rampaging thru the countryside. The peasants need to evacuate to the relative safety behind the city walls. But they need to harvest their crops or the city starves. Are you bad enough dudes to stave off the Ghouls and save the farmers?

Rorik the Elder can testify to the Archmage Council that the Baron is secretly a Necromancer working in league with the Morgathian Church. Can you get Rurik to the town of Waxford before the Baron's Wraith lieutenant BurKral and his Spectres kill him?

The Mayor of Durlanford has betrayed the people of his town to the Gravelord Morgionia. After proving his guilt, can you stop him from giving away the Radiant Gem to the Gravelord in exchange for his hostage daughter?

Use the Facing, and the Flanking rules from the Dungeon Master's Guide.
It only really works if you're using a mat and figures. It makes combat much more exciting when everything is changing all the time.

>>52853121
You don't. 5E combat is inherently boring even at its best.

>>52853121
If you want cinematic combat, you are playing the wrong edition of D&D. 5e is meant to simulate first level D&D for 20 levels.

If you want tactical combat, you are playing the wrong edition of D&D. 5e goes back to the milktoast snorefest of 3.5e where the wizard does everything and the martials are glorified pets that go around full-attacking enemies.

If you're somehow married to D&D, then your best bet is to move to 4e. If you're not a papist, divorce D&D and go play another system with tactical combat AND support for exploration and roleplay.

If you absolutely can't move on from 5e, the absolute best you can do without gutting the entire system is incentivizing people with the +3.82 bonus gained from combat advantage to describe their things and making a lot of judgement calls about the effects of things that other systems can already handle out of the box.

>5e
>exciting combat

You've already fucked up.

>>52853121
Without changing the system? Just read a fucking book, dude. Use a thesaurus. Learn some new words. Paint your players an exciting word picture. Use your imagination, since it's what the game hinges on.

>>52856522
Nothing incentivizes the description when it all comes to the same boring mechanical effect. It doesn't matter how many ways you can fluff your full attack when it's always going to be a full attack with the same weapon and the same results as the last hundred dozen times you full attacked. Why don't people understand this?

>>52853121
The terrain and the stakes make the combat more exiting that any system.
Import something from 3rd if you want more lethality.

>>52853121
Here's what you do.
Every combat should feature at least one interesting opponent and one interesting environment feature.

Example:
Enemies are attacked by a group of goblins in the forest. Yawn, boring.
>add goblin leader, this one is called the wolffather and has two wolf servants. The goblins of this tribe dress in animalistic clothings and fight with claw-like weapons instead of regular weapons. They use pack tactics.
>There's a large rock in the middle of the map marked with goblinoid engravings. It is shaped somewhat like a fang. They fight to the death to protect this.

File: cactus_dragon_design_by_chaos_draco-dad8529.jpg (99KB, 900x646px) Image search: [Google]

99KB, 900x646px

>>52853121
Include strange creature and emphasize their strengths and weaknesses. Give them weapon's with crazy and weird magic effects, put environments around them that they can use in a brawl (chairs, halflings, logs that are on fire, hot soup) make improvised weapons worth using, not just "okay 1d4". Allow party tactics to have relevance in combat. D&D is a skeleton of a system and it's up to you to make it fun.

>>52856859
>halflings
>improvised
nu-/tg/, everyone
The rest of the post is gold.