say hello adverse series it's me again Antonio this is pointy hat and welcome to tip of the Hat that's right this is a series where I give you d d advice and give the video a controversial title so you click on it but I have a good reason I swear today we're talking about a very unexplored very obscure topic for d d YouTube videos that's right it's time to talk about combat whatever your cat came from Sri Lanka I know I know this has been talked to death but stick with me here I think I have something new to bring to the table and yes I had to give it the attention grabbing title as I said this has been talked about a lot but I really think what I have to say is different from basically all advice I've seen on the batter let's talk a bit about the place of combat in the game so people that Snidely call DND the dragon game often characterize it as a combat simulator I guess in an effort to pretend that the thousands of people that put a lot of emphasis on role play and storytelling using DND are all dumb for doing so because the ID can only do combat correctly can you tell I hate this take anyway there is a kernel of truth to this mischaracterization combat is the most robust rule set out of all the rule sets in d d there are more rules about combat than about anything else in the game now some people and by some people I mean me might say that d d has plenty of rules and ways to deal with roleplay and that the reason why there are so many rules for combat is that DND takes out rules light approach to roleplay and that rules heavy approach to combat and that can be area could do safe to tell plenty of role-play heavy stories I for one am glad that the ID doesn't have affection points or relationship States or whatever to mathematically track if an NPC likes you or not except when it does stop that dnd's combat system is deep because it wants to give players a deep combat experience I really really resent the implication that deep combat somehow means no story or no role play but anyway enough soapboxing d d has a complex combat system to allow for complex deep fights so why does it often end up being a bit boring let's get into that but before we get into combat proper we gotta set up the world where it takes place and what better way to do that than with a story Our Heroes have been traveling for weeks beneath hundreds of feet of solid Stone they've heard Tales of an artifact that lies deep in the bowels of the earth some say ancient elves grew it like a plant by watering it with magic from the realm of the thing some say that the first dwarfs that walk under the surface forged in Flames at the core of the planet and some say that the artifact is divine in nature no matter the origin the truth of the current situation is that after a long arduous Journey the party stands before the object they've endured so many hardships to find the world Anvil an object capable of creating everything and anything now our heroes can bring to life anything they could ever think of animals people towns Nations continents entire worlds but how would they possibly keep track of all of that how would they organize it all and in a convenient way well that's exactly what world Anvil is for and you can access this power yourself that's right you don't have to Journey to the Abyssal depths to find it World Anvil is accessible to you from the comfort of your own computer and this bad boy can do well everything ever related to World building World Anvil is an incredible tool that helps you create your world from character profiles to information about entire nations continents and worlds everything is organized neatly and accessible for you to consult and keep track of with just one click you can use World Anvil to flesh out your Campaign World keeping everything organized for extreme ease of reference for you or your players or you can use it to plan out your novel and the world it takes place in it has a manuscript feature that is literally built for novel writing sorry to say you've run out of excuses to put pen to paper on that story that has been bouncing inside of your skull for years and all of these options are outfitted with tools that help you world build easily and step by step if you so choose so if this all sounds like something you would like to check out go ahead and head down to the description of this very video and check out World anvil and now that we have the world to fight on let's get back to combat and white can feel flat Indian D there's no one reason for combat to feel boring as the 1000 videos on the topic clearly point out so let's be clear I'm not going to spend the rest of this video telling you to make your terrain interesting or make sure your enemies move and keep the fight dynamic or make your fights relevant to the story or cater to your players abilities instead of actively nerfing them plenty of creators have made great videos on all of those and I'm just gonna link a bunch in the description check those out later if you haven't they are all good no I'm gonna concentrate on something that I've seen people talk about in passing but I've never seen someone really go into detail for and I think this one thing makes such a difference as to how combat feels and adds a ton of variety and interest to your fight and that's a combat's goal is a goal what's the goal of a fight no I'm not talking about the story reason behind the fight it's great that you're fighting so that you can prove to your Fighter's hard ass mom that he's ready to go on adventures but that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about what the win state is what do the play players have to do to win this fight if this question sounds dumb to you you are exactly the person this video is for me most DMS run combat with one win state and one win state only the players win when the enemies are unconscious or dead and the players lose if they are unconscious or dead before I say anything more than that I want to make one thing clear this is fine this is fine this is perfectly fine most fights I run are exactly like this this is not a sin you have not been doing something wrong all this time this is not me pulling the rug out from under you to tell you about how you should be running d d in the pacifist run or else you're bad at the game but the fact that most DMS never ever vary the goals of their combat is what to me makes so many fights feel so similar and frankly a bit boring I think this is more common now than it was before because most new DMS today have more history with video games than with ttrpgs and that's once again perfectly fine I love video games I make them for a living I am also in this camp but it's extremely common for video games to have this exact same problem where every fight is about killing the thing in front of you in the past the amps were more likely to add fights that were about well escaping from an enemy you could not defeat but I also find that well not particularly inspired either like it's good to add variety sometimes if you make it explicitly clear to your players that the thing they have in front of them will absolutely wipe the floor with them and escaping is the best and frankly the only option God knows there are plenty of horror stories out there that go something like my dumb players tpk themselves because they did not run from a fight that was too hard for them to win were the dumb players in question could not possibly have known that you randomly decided to put a Debbie God in front of them that would destroy them in two turns you're not punishing your players for wrong decisions you're a middle manager on a power trip I think we can do much better than actually guys this fight is about running away varying the goal of a fight not only brings variety and breaks the monotony of putting a whole bunch of rooms full of dudes for your players to Bunk to death it also shifts how players fight and engage with the combat system they are so familiar with and a completely different way I know this whole thing sounds like a lot of talk but I mean it this really does change everything so how do we do that how do we make fights more engaging and add variety by changing the goal of the fight well that's the problem I found with most advice around this it often ends there with the person giving the advice saying something like what if players have to flip a switch in the middle of the fight and then it's up to you to come up with options other than flip the switch the issue there is that I think it can be quite complicated to come up with options other than hey guys in this fight you gotta flip a switch and then kill the guy now I'm a fan of flipping switches I flip switches all the time I turn the lights on and off like nobody's business but I think I can come up with something a bit more engaging than that and that's why you pay me we went what do you mean they don't pay me what no before I get into some options of different goals for your fight it's time for my favorite part disclaimer portion listen up those of you that love to argue a point I did not make during the video I am not saying every fight should be like this as I've said before most of the fights I run Hava bunk everything until unconsciousness as a goal this is a great way to add variety to your fight the point is not to constantly switch it up on your players but to bring in these fights with different goals to break up the monotony also you are more than welcome to use these several times hell you can make a whole ongoing side quest out of some of them let players become better at a completely different type of combat throughout the adventure good good okay let's go here are my options for goal shifts to spice up your combat for our first goal shift I'm gonna go easy by showing you how making an extremely small change can completely shift the strategy and goal of a battle change the target the winner of the fight is the first party that brings something to zero hit points not the first one that brings everyone else to zero headpoints but the first team that brings one specific Target in the enemy team down seems like nothing right well by making this extra really small change you've just altered the entire Dynamic of the fight spells like warding Bond are no longer just out of combat extremely situational spells but rather extremely useful Staples of this type of combat fighting styles like the protection style that were up until now just useful for tanks and only use reactively are now extremely useful picks for anybody that can use a fighting style half and three-quarter cover granted by allies suddenly matters now so does positioning so does the difference between being a range combatant and a melee fighter all of those change now that you've changed the goal do you take the time to bring down the tank or do you try to find a way to reposition them away from whoever they are defending do you first go for the Healer who is pumping the target full of healing or the wizard who is teleporting the target away from your melee Fighters and while you're doing all of that what are you doing to defend your target from the enemy are you gonna set specific people as Defenders now you're thinking of all of those questions instead of the usual hit stuff real good do you see how much of a change that makes I can see so many story reasons for this fight to go like this maybe this is a sort of sport that a culture in your game plays maybe this is a competition maybe you're both trying to bring down the Avatar of magic that is helping your side and a conflict think creatively but how do you set this up well a simple way to do this is to Mosey on over to the ranger class see this even makes it so that the Rangers are useful for something and make an NPC with the stats of The Beastmaster Rangers animal companion now your party is participating in this strange sport where the goal is to destroy the enemy's construct companion while protecting their own or literally any other explanation hell give every party member a companion and make it so that the winner is the first team to eliminate three enemy companions if you want the fight to last longer or if you don't want to make it fair maybe make it so that the party has to flee while their enemies are targeting this companion they've stolen and they have to both run and defend their companion from the enemy assault this can be as versatile as you want it to be but speaking of running away what if we use that for my second goal shift we are literally gonna make the party try to reach a goal that's right what about out actual racing make an extremely long battle map as long as you can make it and you're basically set the goal of the PCS is to reach the Finish Line before the rival team if you don't see how much this can change everything about battle you have not been paying attention by making the goal not defeating all opponents but rather reaching a goal before anyone else you've now changed absolutely everything about how this fight will go down does a party who use their whole action to run or is it better to cast some spells to disadvantage the rival team now suddenly difficult terrains matters a lot for once spells like expeditious Retreat matter all of a sudden too ditto for kinetic jaunt haste is less about the number of actions and more about the extra movement Marshall characters may be one two action source so they can both move twice and trip someone making them prone making someone prone is suddenly this huge deal not because of advantage on attacks for half a turn but because it caused that person to have their movement just to get up same goes for grappling and I can already imagine how you can add even more variety to this if you make it so that the party is on top of a cart and the card is what needs to cross the finish line first it frees the party up for all sorts of shenanigans against the enemy cart while stopping them from doing some sort of weird tabaxy monk Sonic the Hedgehog 400 feet of speed per turn weirdness you can even make this come competitive and ongoing by having it as a side quest that your party can take part in making a whole bunch of races that the party can visit to win medals at each of them and become top Racers and before you know it you're playing Tokyo Drift DND version Mario Kart Edition and everybody agrees you're the best DM known to man okay for our third goal shift what if we took normal combat and change the rules around it what if it was more like wrestling what if it was more about giving a show rather than winning fairly what if we embrace the whole fake side of wrestling and turned it into its own game to do this let's give each type of action style points and make the goal to accrue the most style points before a certain number of rounds is up grappling might not be the best tactical option to win the fight but it might give you a ton of style points to Grapple someone and for your teammate to attack the enemy while they are grappled better yet make it so that if the party does not put up a show they lose style points using the same action two turns in a row Wars the audience so points are deducted not using your movement in combat makes a fight boring and static so points are deducted using two spells of the same school of magic in a row is more so points are deducted you could even make it so that they have to fight any character the cleric has made up a Persona about being an evil Necromancer heal give extra style points if they pretend they are bringing someone back from the dead when they cast Q wounds on an unconscious Ally you can go the extra mile and make actions like taunt or rally the crowd actions that add absolutely nothing to the fight but give you tons of style points at the end style points are tallied along with maybe the remaining HP and the winner is decided you can even forego the whole the fight is over after a certain number of rounds and turn it into a real fight that is only over when all members of the team are unconscious and now it's about getting as many style points as possible and winning the fight do you want to make quick work of your enemies that might actually make you lose style points as you rob the audience of a cool fight but if you spend too much time getting style points you might actually lose out on winning the fight part of the fight this is also the perfect opportunity for your players to take the scribing duties from you and tell you exactly how their moves in combat look you can even award x-ray style points for particularly cool descriptions I can see many shy players finally going out of their shell with a setup like this okay let tally up so far we've got changing the target running an actual race and making it a style battle with style points added to traditional moves but what if we took it a step further what if we played with something even more different from d d combat all while keeping its rules intact for our fourth and last goal shift we're going to a frankly obvious source of inspiration Sports I know I know I know I know this is a nerd safe space and like 87 of you have not cared about sports a day in your life I'm right there with you but stay with me a minute think about it what better way to shift the goal of a battle than well with sports sports have goals I've been told see right there those are goals so how should we go about it what if the goal no pun intended of a battle was not to Bunk everyone until they can't move anymore but instead to score the most points kinda similar to the last idea with the style points but with a more obvious system if the ball enters the goal that's a point Simple and Clean anyway let's base it on football since that's the sport I'm most familiar earlier with but make it so that the players can touch the ball with their hands that sounded like something else anyway and let's alidate my predominantly American Audience by refusing to call it soccer in order for this to work we have to add some actions like shooting and passes and some cool reactions like interceptions and lunges for positioning the xbait PCS will be better at setting up for passes and controlling the field whereas strength based PCS will be better at actually scoring goals it will require some quite Advanced teamwork at the table dare I say much more advanced than most combat strategies in normal combat look at that now we have a DOD challenge that does an unfairly favor spellcasters we did it we found the wide whale of DnD design but hear me out what if we add our normal DND combat system to all of this suddenly it's not just about passes and shooting but you can also Bonk your opponents to death if you so choose that opens the entire spectrum of spell and combat moves along with the sports angle and your players have to decide if it's better to set up or a pass try to shoot or attack a particularly annoying rival team member spellcasters are not good at either strength nor decks become Battlefield controllers once again spells that see little to know use a normal combat suddenly become extremely important and range attacks and spells see even more use spellcasters won't get to make tactical passes or score goals but they will help their teams through clever spell usage doing these sort of hybrid systems of traditional combat rules and completely new rule sets that alter the goal of the game is really really fun because veteran players are already very familiar with their combat abilities and adding a new system of rules to play around with ships how they play and what abilities it's smart for them to use I've seen players completely shift their spell lists when faced with challenges like this and remark on how some spells they have literally never used before have become extremely powerful with these new rule sets of course this also accomplishes what we set out to do by completely Shifting the goal of combat yes Downing enemies is a good tactic sometimes but if the players spend their time only attacking the enemy team while the enemy team is free to score goal after goal the players are just not gonna win no matter how many people they bunk to death so yup gotta do that these extra rule sets are a bunch of work I hope you're up for it I mean especially this last one the others you can Implement with not too much work which is why I propose them but the sport one requires its own set of brand new rules with actions reactions rules for how to score it's it's a lot hope you're up for it let me know how it goes oh what's that you don't feel like doing it well let me tell you something it's a good thing I did it for you that's right the entire rule set to play a sports match in d d is in the description of this very video for you guessed it for free yep 100 certified free so go out there put on some distracting great sweatpants or yoga pants and make your DND combat a completely new experience oh game set and match two contest me I did it I did the combat video I've run this little system before with my players and we've had an absolute blast just really really solid fun and I've been doing this goalship combat session for a long time to frankly amazing results I really hope you try it because it's been amazing at my table not just the sports one of course but the changing of the target the race the style points one and any that you can come up with please forgive the title you gotta play the YouTube game and when you play the game of tubes you win or you tank your engagement and speaking of thank you to everybody that engages if you like this little video and feel like gauging further go ahead share it around tell your friends tell your grocery store clerk tell your dentist shout about it on Reddit on Tumblr on Gaia Online I'm too scared to do all of those for my own videos or whenever I spy my stuff on Reddit I'm like oh someone liked it enough to put it there and it makes me happy and I think that's nice in any case thank you if you do that thank you if you comment I swear I still read the comment I think I read all of them or most of them they are getting to a point where like I think it's like 4K per video so it's getting hard but I do read them so y'all better be nice down there or I'll cry in the last video I wondered aloud if anyone stayed for my ramblings at the end and it turns out that a whole bunch of you do so thank you for that too YouTube apparently cares a lot about how many people stay until the end so thank you for doing that if you've made it this far share with the class a fight that you've been in or ran where the goal was different I'm sure we can all find inspiration in what other people do to spice up their games alright gotta work on that Faye Wall video it's it's coming very soon I'm always scared to make promises but it's looking very likely that we will be seeing that monstrosity of a video very very soon in the meantime remember to stretch before engaging in physical activity play fair being competitive is perfectly fine but remember not to be a sore loser all right Adolf advice okay time for me to go to my video writing cave bye now bye bye