- If we made a list of every
skill that dungeon masters use when running a D&D game, we
would be here for a while. It's a big job and often DMs
are responsible for everything from the logistics of
hosting and scheduling to being a convincing
storyteller and improv actor to understanding the math and mechanics of creating well-balanced
combat encounters. But if I could pick one skill that I think has the biggest impact, not just on how fun sessions are, but also on the DMs
fundamental understanding of how the game works, it
would be action economy. I DMed for several years before truly understanding action economy. I had heard the term and had a basic concept of what it meant, but I didn't really know how to apply it to my encounter building. But ever since I dug into
the subject and learned more, my encounters have gotten better, encounter building has gotten easier, and I have way more confidence that the actual experience
of combat will line up with how I've positioned it narratively. Not to be dramatic, but without a full
understanding of action economy, I think it's impossible
to truly master DMing. So let's start with the
obvious, what is it? Simply put, action economy is about who can do what, when and how often. In D&D 5e, each participant in combat, whether that's a player
character, an NPC or a monster, has a limited number of
things they can do each round. Usually that's an action, a bonus action, movement and a reaction. That's basic info. We all know that. When it gets complicated
is when we start looking at how the distribution of those actions between the party and
the DM affects the way that combat plays out. If you've ever had a monster
get unexpectedly annihilated or you unexpectedly
annihilated your players, you probably need to learn
about action economy. That's all very theoretical. So let's look at a few examples. Imagine you have a party of five players facing off against one powerful monster. Now the players obviously
outnumber the monster, but that's why you've picked
a really powerful one. The challenge rating
says it should be deadly for a party this size. You've set it up narratively so your players know this
is gonna be a big fight, but the moment you enter initiative, everything goes downhill. Even if that monster hits
hard or has multiple attacks, once its turn is over, the players have a long
stretch of uninterrupted time to unleash their abilities
and attacks against it. Maybe the monster has a
reaction to defend itself, but once it's used that, there's still four more turns
of attacks to get through. Your monster only gets
a few rounds of combat if you're lucky. So much for a climactic boss battle. The monster was much
stronger than the players, and yet they still defeated it easily. This is because the players
have a higher action economy, with five turns to every
one of the monsters. They get to make more attacks, which means more chances to hit, more ability to strategize and coordinate and more cumulative damage. Let's try another example from
this same theoretical fight. Let's say that both the players and the monster have the ability to incapacitate or stun a foe. If the monster does it, they eliminate one of the
five attacks coming their way, but if the players do it, they get an entire round unopposed. You might be thinking, "Ginny, I get it. I need more monsters
so I get more actions." Allow me one more example to explain why it isn't quite that simple. Your party of five is
now facing five monsters instead of one. You've done your best to balance it so that the monsters are well-matched to your party's abilities, a fair fight. But when combat begins, players
start focusing their fire. Since these monsters are even weaker than the one in the previous example, they go down easily when ganged up on. Every time they kill one,
your action economy goes down. You get one less turn. Now you could focus fire on them too, but unlike when they do it, you are ganging up on a specific player. If you take out the wizard, the wizard doesn't get to play anymore, and they probably didn't have much fun. So you don't do that. You let them pick off
your monsters one by one, and by the time they've
reached the final monster, combat has become a slog. They're obviously going to win, but the last guy hasn't
even been touched yet. So everyone has to attack it,
but nobody feels any threat. The tension is gone, but
the combat stretches on. You see, it's not just about
how dangerous the monsters are or how many of them
are on the battlefield. Monsters and player characters don't have the same skills and abilities, and even when they do, there are things that your
players get to use against you that just aren't fun if used back at them. Plus, sometimes the narrative
calls for a single big bad. So how does understanding
action economy help us fix this? That's up next right after this clever
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to skew the action economy in your favor. Say your party has been sent to steal from the lush mountaintop
garden of a cloud giant. This is a stealth mission, and you make sure they
have plenty of warning that they don't wanna go head-to-head with this huge spellcaster, but they make some bad rolls
or some bad choices or both, and you all end up rolling initiative. The giant is powerful, dealing
30 to 40 damage per turn, but your players surround
him, impose disadvantage, and between their magic items
and shield spells and buffs, multiple rounds pass without
the giant landing a single hit. Even though everything
went wrong for them, the encounter ends up
being a walk in the park, and they escape without a scratch. The credibility of your threat
as a DM is totally gone. Next time they face a similar problem, why should they bother
trying to be stealthy? They might as well knock on the front door if this is all that's waiting for them. Now let's rewind that encounter
and add in two wyverns, sentries to patrol the garden. Not only does the party have to deal with the heavy-hitting cloud giant, but now they're also
facing aerial attacks. Maybe the wyverns grapple the characters and move them around the battlefield. Not only do the wyverns and the giant present different threats
complicating the battle and demanding a more tactical
response from the players, but the increased action economy that comes with having three
monsters instead of one makes each monster less of an easy target. Best of all, if the players
kill the giant first, the wyverns can just take off. They were basically guard dogs,
and with their master down, there's no reason for
them to stay and fight. That means no endgame slog. I know I said earlier that just adding more monsters
is not by itself a solution to the problem of action economy, but that doesn't mean it can't be an effective
part of your strategy. Even if you wanna highlight
a single boss creature, they can still be backed up by minions. Not only does more
monsters mean more turns, but it also allows you to bring
varied abilities into play, preferably abilities that
compliment one another. But like I mentioned earlier, players can still focus their fire when they're facing multiple enemies, which brings me to my next point. This time your party is
fighting a band of orc raiders. These orcs have been
harassing a nearby village, stealing supplies and kidnapping civilians to use as leverage to stop the villagers from striking back or calling for help. Your players engage the raiders and choose their first target, but the raiders, experienced
with fighting as a team, quickly recognize what's
happening and respond. The orcs split up, some taking cover and
lobbing ranged attack while their leader orders two others to go kill the captive villagers and a third to go fetch reinforcement. Now the players have to choose. Do they seek out the raiders
who took cover to attack them? Do they attack the leader in hopes that the others
will stop fighting? Do they try to rescue
the captive villagers? Do they try to prevent
reinforcements from coming? Might they even split the party? When players focus their fire, their real target is your action economy. Thankfully, there are a lot of ways you can discourage focused fire. Using your movement and
taking advantage of cover, as well as abilities that
make your monsters difficult or impossible to hit, such as invisibility or
burrowing underground, can remove whatever creature
they're ganging up on, forcing them to pick another target. And giving your monsters
different objectives creates a sort of a trolley problem where your players have to choose which target to prioritize, knowing that letting any
one of them go unchallenged will have consequences. In real life, it isn't actually
strategic to focus fire because we are not bags of hit points that remain completely functional until the moment that we die. In real life, it's dangerous to turn your back on someone
who's trying to kill you. While D&D 5e does not
recreate this dynamic, you can mimic it by creating consequences
for ignoring enemies. Maybe when left to their own devices, your monsters try to escape or do damage to something or someone else or activate dangerous effects that hinder or harm your party. I played in a recent session where if left to their own
devices for two full rounds, the monsters would literally multiply. And let me tell you, that was very effective at
stopping us from focusing fire. Okay, we leave the imaginary orc raiders and find ourselves in an
imaginary Underdark setting. Your party is fighting a mind flayer, maybe backed up by a few grimlocks, but still winning by a healthy margin, that is until stalactites
start falling from the ceiling. It's completely random, maybe a dice roll between every turn. And when they land, they not
only deal bludgeoning damage to anyone in the space, but they create a permanent
area of difficult terrain, changing the battlefield
continuously throughout the combat. As if that wasn't enough, the area is also littered with traps. Players have to be careful
as they move around, or they might risk
falling into a hidden pit or triggering a snare. But not moving becomes harder and harder as the stalactites continue to fall. In 5th edition, it's usually players who get the advantage of action economy, but there are a few tools that you, as the DM, have
access to that players do not, and that's because you don't
just control the monsters. You also control the world. Environmental effects can allow
you to attack your players without needing to take a
monster's turn to do so, effectively increasing
your action economy, by allowing you to use the environment like you might use a creature. Or in the case of traps or similar effects that could
be activated by players, you don't have to use
your own actions at all. Instead, you turn the
player's actions against them. They use their movement.
It activates your trap. Even if they avoid the effect, you've tipped the action economy just a little bit towards your side. And while, of course, you
can make these up on your own like we've been doing here, this kind of thing is
also built into the game for certain types of monsters. I'm talking of course about lair actions. Unfortunately, it's rare to be using monsters with lair actions until your players are at
least in double digit levels. But that shouldn't stop you from coming up with
lair actions on your own for any monster that you
think should have them. Check out this video next to
learn how to do exactly that. Whether you wanna make a
boss battle feel climactic or you just need to beef up a monster to pose a challenge to your party, lair actions are a great way to boost your action economy in combat.
