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Dungeons & Dragons 5E combat has a lot of problems - here’s how to fix them

Wheels and Liv discuss some of the problems inherent in D&D's combat with recommendations on how to fix them

With such a long and storied past, it's innevitable that some of the systems in Dungeons & Dragons have become a little dusty and out of date over the years — chief among them being the D&D combat system. It's one of the most prevalent sections of the rulebook, taking up a huge percentage of the text to explain grappling rules and attacks of opportunity, and yet there's a massive amount of D&D players the world over that avoid it like the plague.

So why is it that the thing this game is seemingly built upon and encourages at every turn has players like myself wishing they could just skip it all together?

Today I'm joined by D&D afficionado Liv to go over what we think are the root causes of the problem and to dicuss some of the ways you can improve your combat experience whilst also looking for inspiration from other TTRPGs that we think do it better, including games like: Blades in the Dark, AGON, and Lancer.

Michael Whelan avatar
Michael Whelan: Michael "Wheels" Whelan started life in the video game industry working as a community manager and content producer on titles such as the Total War franchise and Sorcery! 4. He was able to integrate his lifelong enthusiasm for tabletop into his job by starting a new series of tabletop livestreams on Total War's marketing channels, before becoming the second talented member of Dicebreaker’s video team in mid-2019.
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