D&D 5E Movement in combat

[Mouseferatu]

Watch any small-scale melee in the movies, in modern video games, or IRL, and you'll note that people are moving all over the place. Boxers move around the ring. Even fencers go back and forth.

What you basically never see are two people standing in one spot smacking each other. Try that in a real fight and you're going to get hurt, a lot.

But very often, despite our best efforts, that's what melee combat in D&D comes to. Once the fighter and barbarian have engaged the giant, there's nothing to be gained from a lot of shifting around (and in fact, the opportunity attack rules often discourage it).

Flanking makes advantage too easy, and it doesn't really involve that much maneuvering anyway. And yes, monsters might try to move to take cover from ranged attacks or what have you, but it's not always an option, and not really what I'm talking about.

Has anyone managed to come up with any minor house rules that encourage more in-combat mobility? Gives martial types good cause to move between attacks (even against the same target), or reasons to regularly fall back from an opponent? I don't want to add layers of complexity or slow things down much, I'd just love to see more of the battlemap covered by the close-in combatants over the course of a fight.

 

[CapnZapp]

That was perhaps the one best thing about 4e. The way people were always all over the place gave the combats a very realistical semi-chaotic look and feel.

In games less dependent on battlemats (theatre of the mind and all that), I lean towards an abstract drift - something like "winning and gaining" perhaps.

 

[CapnZapp]

The forum itself came up with these previous threads:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?316222-More-Movement-In-Combat!

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?184022-movement-in-combat

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?114264-Movement-in-combat

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?92768-Movement-in-combat

 

[AkaKageWarrior]

I'd say: imagination helps!

If you just look at the grid and the see the miniatures standing there, well, looks too static.

But ... 2 medium sized opponents each have a 5-foot square, so just imagine that in a real combat
there would be movement in and around the squares.

AND don't forget: the better melee fighter probably can and might want to remain in one place / square
(or roughly the area).
If you know MMA: there's a thing called "octagon/cage control", that's usually the guy in the center
and is (mostly) in control. He wants the opponent to get in - because he's (or thinks so) better at
toe-to-toe smacking... (the fighter). While the "rogue" is circling try to get a shot in - and away...

Now, if you have 2 of these guys, and they can fight back-to-back, I'd say it's also not so unrealistic.

 

[Ath-kethin]

This is one area where I feel turning combat into a miniatures wargame really hurts. In my TotM games, we describe combat as more dynamic and fluid, and it makes them far more exciting.

I suppose you could just keep mentioning the minor movements and shifting of position that characters and monsters are making while using minus, but given the very static nature of the pieces themselves that might fall a little flat.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Perhaps replace Attacks of Opportunity with the ability to follow up an opponent who moves away, granting an AoO only when you actually break contact. Combine that with a defensive benefit for backing up that will stack with the Dodge action, and you should see more movement in 1-on-1 fights.

(A lot of fights involving weapons of disparate reach devolve to one opponent desperately backing up while their opponent tries to rush close while not getting hit.)

IRL, fights involving more than one combatant a side tend to be more static though. Moving forward exposes you to more opponents without the cover your friends are granting you, and moving back exposes your allies to attacks from the opponent that you were facing.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

There are tons of ways to stay mobile on the battlefield in D&D. Mobility, Cunning Action, Fancy Footwork, Disengage, Relentless Avenger, Misty Step, etc. The game also rewards concentrating attacks on a single target until they drop, so there's often no need to move while on the attack until the current opponent is down. Even then you can move around them and not incur AoO.

 

[MarkB]

A lot of the movement in real combat results from combatants pressuring each other. One presses the attack and another gives ground, or one dances back from an attack to draw an opponent in. There's not much in the system that simulates this sort of positional play. If anything, there's less of it in 5e than in previous editions.

 

[Oofta]

In addition to people moving about in a 5 ft square, I would say that most movie fight scenes are total BS.

Two armies clashing do not go from a tight formation to total scrum flailing about everywhere the moment they engage the enemy. They stay in tight formation because moving around would expose them to attacks. Kind of like D&D. Well, kind of like D&D if you squint and don't look too close.

I personally like that there are a few classes that feel different - running in and out of combat with a Swashbuckler for example - gives it an option to make it feel different.

CapnZapp's links give some interesting ideas, although I didn't read through them all. If you integrate them in, all I suggest is that you still reward play styles that focus on mobility.

 

[iserith]

Rather than implement house rules, I prefer to sometimes include environmental effects to encourage movement or discourage remaining static. Or perhaps effects that force movement such as blasts of wind that scatter the combatants and break things up.