Combat Basics in D&D 5E (Rules School Part 3)

here on D&D rural school today we're gonna be learning the basics of combat for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition hi everyone my name is Nate and you are watching WASD 20 a channel about tabletop RPGs and fantasy maps D&D rule school is a series for people who might be newer to D&D 5th edition or who want a review of some of the basic rules in the first video we talked about the very basics of the game and in part two we talked about the abilities and skills I'll put links to both of those videos up at the top and you can check them out in today's video we will tackle some of the basics of combat if you find this video helpful or if you know of others who are trying to learn the game I would really appreciate it if you would share it with them too so combat what exactly is combat and when does it start quite simply combat in Dungeons and Dragons begins when two or more opposing forces fight one another with weapons and/or magic and it usually gets a bit more tactical now the rules make mention of the three basic modes of play exploration social interaction and combat exploration and social interaction are a bit more freeform with lots of narration and occasional skill checks where you might roll a die to determine the outcome of something combat in D&D on the other hand is usually much more mechanical which means we make greater use of the rules really digging into the stats and abilities on the character sheet in a way that we generally don't in other parts of the game that's one of the reasons combat is a natural fit for a session of D&D rule school as I noted earlier combat occurs when opposing forces decide to fight each other this doesn't have to be a fight to the death necessarily it could just be a tavern brawl for example and I guess technically it doesn't even have to be a fight between two parties or individuals we could use these rules for combat when there's going to be a struggle that will involve movement speed and actions in a way where there's competition against the clock or against non player characters but anyway these rules are contained in a simple outline called the order of that which is a simple way of organizing the chaotic nature of combat at the highest level these combat encounters are broken into rounds and turns and the world of D&D around is about six seconds for your characters and monsters now that one round at your table could easily take five or ten minutes but for all of our humming and hawing and figuring out abilities looking at our character sheets and making rolls and decisions this all takes place in six seconds in the game world in one round each character or monster gets to take one turn and the order of these turns is determined by initiative which we'll talk about in a minute now before we get into this order of combat I want to pause and thank my friends at absolute tabletop for partnering with me to bring you these videos ab tab makes top-notch RPG books so if you're looking for a good D&D adventure or some Dungeon Master inspiration go check out their books via the link in the video description you can pick up books in print or PDF form and I highly recommend their every PDF bundle because you get all their PDFs at about a 60% discount so you'll have tons of tools and inspiration for your game thanks absolute tabletop so the order of combat the first step is for the DM to figure out if anyone is surprised if neither group is trying to be sneaky or stealthy then we can assume that they see each other and no one is surprised if either the adventuring party or the NPCs or monsters are trying to be sneaky the DM will usually ask for a dexterity stealth roll this is an ability check which we talked about back in episode 1 the outcome of that role is usually pitted against the passive wisdom or perception scores of the opposing side if any one of the opposing sides fail to notice the sneaky ones then they will start the combat round surprised this means that those characters or monsters will not get to move or take actions and reactions during the first round of combat supporters now that we've figured out if anyone is surprised it's time to determine the order in which everyone will get to take their turn during the combat rounds this is one of the most exciting moments of playing D&D that moment when the DM says roll initiative rolling for initiative means that you roll a d20 and add your initiative bonus to that number this number is usually just your dexterity modifier the DM will also roll initiative for each of the enemies involved in the combat or sometimes a group of enemies together and assign an initiative score to each of them using these numbers the DM will then rank each individual combatant in order from highest to lowest this is the combat initiative order that will be used until the end of the encounter when it's your turn in the initiative order you have several choices of what you can do in this episode we're going to focus on the basic move and attack actions and the next episode we'll look at several other options for actions you can take during combat but it's generally a pretty good policy if you're new to the game just to try to think about what your character would do don't look too carefully at your character sheet just yet try to think of what your character will do and the DM will help you determine what you should role so if you are wanting to do the standard move and action like move and attack on your turn you do have the option to choose which one you want to do first your movement is determined by your speed on your character sheet every creature has a base walking speed that affects their movement and there are also items and character options that can increase or decrease it from that base speed keep in mind that if you are playing with grids and miniatures one square or one hex usually is going to be 5 feet so a character that has a base walking speed of 30 feet can therefore move 6 squares on their turn in any case this movement speed determines how far your character can move on their turn while still taking an action keep in mind that you do not have to move the entire distance of your speed that's just the maximum distance you can move and you can even break that movement into smaller moves so for example if your speed is 30 feet you could move 20 feet attack and then move another 10 feet after that so if you take your move first next you'll take your action and for episode three here we'll just focus on the attack action this generally means that you are going to attempt to hit another creature with a melee weapon something like a sword or an axe or a ranged weapon maybe shooting an arrow from your bow throwing a dagger or firing a crossbow or using an offensive spell you might remember from previous episodes that for most of the game players will tell the DM what they want their character to do and the DM will narrate what happens whenever there is something the DM feels is challenging up to warrant it however the player makes an ability check they roll the d20 and add the relevant modifier they're trying to match the difficulty class or the DC this is the target number the same is true here in combat but the difficulty class usually takes the form of armor class armor class is a number that represents how difficult it is to hit a character monster or object even though it says armor in its name it doesn't necessarily just mean actual armor all creatures in D&D have an armor class even if they don't wear armor if not from armor a high armor class could come from naturally thick hide or tough scales on a dragon for example or it could also come from having very high dexterity which means you'll be harder to hit for a character without any armor or shields your armor class would be ten plus your dexterity modifier and yes that can be a number less than ten if your dexterity modifier is a negative number for characters who are wearing armor or carrying a shield you'll want to factor in additional modifiers using the equipment section of the rules which are found in chapter 5 of The Player's Handbook this is the number that like difficulty class must be matched or exceeded in order to successfully hit or get hit now that you know how you and your enemies are defended let's take a look at how to actually attack them with your attack action you determine how you want to attack them for example let's say your fighter rogar is facing off against a zombie the dungeon master indicates that it's your turn and you say something like I bolt forward across the chamber and I swing at the zombie with my great axe at this point you to attack you're not worried about damage just yet first you need to see if you are going to hit when you roll to attack you will always roll a d20 and add your attack bonus let's go ahead and roll our attack for rogar all right I got a 6 on the die and then I get to add my attack bonus of +5 for a total of 11 to hit now a hit only happens when I meet or beat the armor class of the thing I'm trying to hit in this case the zombie has an armor class of 8 so it's very easy to hit and I do hit the zombie now I don't want to get into too much detail of the character sheet here but if you're confused about where this attack bonus comes from in the case of my fighter rogue are with this weapon I use his strength modifier plus his proficiency bonus which is plus 2 so I've got the 3 and the 2 which gives me an attack bonus of +5 for our damage bonus over on this part of the character sheet we don't get to add the proficiency bonus so it's just our strength modifier so in this case it is 1 d 12 plus 3 you can learn more about where all these numbers come from in my character creation tutorial which I'll put a link to right up at the top there so in this case we did hit the zombie now we need to roll our d 12 our 12 sided die to determine how much damage we're gonna do so in this case I roll the d 12 I got a 2 and then my modifier for the damage is +3 for a total of 5 slashing damage so that's how much damage was done to the zombie on your turn the dungeon master then subtract that number from the total number of hit points the zombie has sometimes when we roll the d20 to attack it will either land on a 1 or a 20 if the total is a 1 or a 20 before any of the modifiers we call this a natural one or a natural 20 or more popularly a critical fail or critical hit these roles can be both fun and frustrating depending on which end of the attack you're on if you roll a natural 20 the attack hits no matter what the target ac is however if you roll a natural 1 the attack autumn mrs. regardless of any of the modifiers you add on a critical hit you get to roll your damage diet twice and then add your modifier this could be a lot of damage but if you roll low on the die twice it could actually be pretty underwhelming many of these rules for combat would be used in any kind of time-sensitive struggle in a confined space like a race in which a bandit is trying to run toward the charges to light them so the mine will collapse while the Rogue is trying to catch up and tackle her and the wizard is gonna try to knock some rocks loose with a spell to block her path we might not really think of this as combat but whenever there is a time-sensitive competition like this we often do have players roll initiative and we use the rules for combat so these have been some of the basic rules for combat in D&D 5th edition with a focus on moving and attacking in the next video I look forward to covering the other actions you can take in combat as well as rules for many of the special circumstances that may arise in combat so make sure you're subscribed and stay tuned for well like several months or maybe years because that's generally how long I wait for D&D rule school videos yeah sorry about that but hey this video is made possible by my amazing patrons who support WASD 20 on a monthly basis thank you so much to these amazing people and the rest of the patron army if you get value from my videos and you want to support my work as well there are some pretty cool rewards and benefits and you can check them all out over at patreon.com slash WASD 20 thanks so much for watching everybody if you have any questions or comments please leave those down below take care happy gaming and you'll see me again very soon [Music]

Channel: WASD20

Views: 224,171

Keywords: d&d, dungeons and dragons, dnd rules school, how to play D&D, 5th edition, 5e, dungeons & dragons, tutorial, learn d&d rules, how to play dungeons and dragons, gaming, tabletop, rpg, ttrpg, d20, dungeons, dragons, wasd20, nate, combat basics, how combat works, dungeon master, dm, learn to dm, game master, pathfinder rpg, d&d tutorial, dnd basics, combat in d&d, combat rules, learn dnd rules, handbooker helper, critical role

Id: FvpwoZeNwt4

Length: 13min 9sec (789 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 29 2020