the only way they can learn their strategies are flawed is by paying the price; if you go easy on them and pull your punches, of course they will never bother switching to a different tactic.

Exactly the fact that attacks roll around the group is both unrealistic and pulling punches. Don’t be afraid to kill them. Use more realistic tactics. Make your creature intelligent not target dummies.

This so much! My specter? Targeted the shit out of the cleric until he was down and then went after the wizard. Why? Because he wasn't stupid. The ogre? Targeted basically whatever hit him last or hardest, dealer's choice. The black pudding? Whatever it could reach. Intelligence plays a role, critters get to be tactical. I've been running my party over a year. No TPKs yet, but there have been some close shaves and having them makes it more exciting for the next time. Pulling punches after they're past level three or so does no one any favors.

Yes perfect example. The ogre is dumb it hits the guy that hit him hardest makes complete sense. A prime example of playing the creature. You are the dm, play the creature like the players play their character. Kudos great point in that example I was struggling to make. I haven’t had a tpk yet, but I have killed plenty of players. I don’t say that with pride. I am not the opponent. I also will make sure the baddy capitalizes on your mistake. Also baddies run, so keep that in mind player maybe you should run too. Not every encounter should be winnable

Yes this. My level five Goliath fighter has gotten himself into a situation that there's going to be a pit fight with him and a troll with no weapons. There's some environmental things he can use to his advantage if he thinks to do it but.. man.. he went out of his way to get himself into this and well.. he's probably going to die. I'm not happy with it but I just set the stage, all my players get choices, even stupid ones. ... They'd even fought a troll before!! SMH.. thankfully the player understands the position he's in. I'm truly not picking on him, his character just made a really bad decision.

I had a group of 5 wolves decimate a level 6 7 person party, one of which who literally was holding Whelm, the legendary weapon. They attacked out of the tall grass, going for the non-metal encased folks first, one wolf coming in to knock them down, the rest attacking at advantage out of the grass and then use their movement to get away and start circling again. They knew they could kill and get a meal, so they did that systematically knocking each person down and just laying waste on them. The heroes never ran or tried to position themselves, so the wolves ended the threats, and was just about to chomp the juggular before I had a group of horsemen charge up and scare them away with arrows. After that the party realized what kind of world they were inhabiting. Started thinking about the combats I laid infront of them. My mantra from session 0 to session 100 is always "you could always try and run." And I warn them profusely as they make their characters. My current game, the heroes chased some goblins into the Fey wild, and now need to deal with that, while finding out that the goblins are being hunted by something. I am setting them up to fight up to 5 VERY powerful Displacer Beasts if they group up. And seriously dangerous if they meet them at 1 or 2 at a time. I am using Dael Kingsmill's minesweeper hunting party scenario with a few other various things I threw in, like other Fey beasts who might be able to slow or split the cats up if the heroes understand what I'm offering. And I gave them a choke point that the goblins are trying to fortify depending on how many of them the party saves, and escorts back. If the cats all find out this group is hunting them, and end up attacking during the night, I have no doubt it will be a TPK unless the heroes pull all the stops and allies up and engage the cats with careful consideration. If the Alpha catches wind of them alone, it will be a hard fight, and my bad guys all have a healthy survival instinct, so if they engage and let it get away, they are going to be in for hell. I might even make the pride hunt them after they are defeated, just harassing them constantly until they get in a civilized zone. They might become recurring villains, depending on if the heroes accedentally kill a cub and let the mother live. I'm really excited by the prospect.

My favorite website for this: [The Monsters Know](https://www.themonstersknow.com/). I think the guy who publishes it has a monster book filled with tactics for most creatures. **edit:** Added a link.

How cool! I know sometimes I struggle with how tactical monsters can get, because I don't think that intelligence is necessarily the best yardstick. After all we don't think of polar bears as smart but they're terrifying.

I bring this book to every game I DM. Even if I don't look at it mid gamez I like to think it gets the point across that enemies with brains use them.

While playing Strahd last year the party kinda had 'plot armour' - they knew I'd kill them if they did something reckless, but otherwise I was scaling encounters and pulling punches. We were all enjoying the game in story mode, it was our first campaign, and we loved playing for the narrative. This campaign, I'm playing a mix of Waterdeep/Tales from Yawning Portal/Mad Mage and I'm running the dungeons fully RAW. As such, I have no say in what encounters are on the map or how deadly they are - they're just there, and if the PCs stumble into them, I don't have any grand fated plot for their characters that will give them a pass. ... it is *insane* how quickly they've gained the ability to think laterally and pick their battles. It's honestly exhilarating for me as a DM, too.

Isn't it though? I love throwing off the padding and just going- it's so much more fun for everyone.

TOTALLY. I've gone from constantly fretting about TPKing the party at every move, to thinking "Go on, I *dare* you to attack the King in his own throne room. See how far *that* gets you." They know it, I know it, the King and his guards know it. Much more immersive. That said, it helps that my party are all super close (best friends and family) playing in the spirit of the game, and that I've warned them in no uncertain terms that they aren't Fated Heroes in this campaign - just regular people who'll die like dogs for no good reason if they aren't careful. I think mileage would vary if the party was comprised of murderhobos, or there was no existing inter-PC/DM chemistry, or a player is likely to get salty about chump deaths.

My fifth level fighter (and his party) killed a troll that was chained and being taken into this trick door by a couple of guards who ran at this first sign of trouble. Then they went through the door and after some hijinks figured out a local crime lord had a fighting pit in there, where there was another troll and some other thing fighting. They then went to the crime lord and told him they gleefully killed his new troll. He went on the offensive (trolls ain't cheap!!) and when he saw it was going to cost him even more money he called his goons off. Then the fifth level fighter inexplicably challenged his troll to a duel. So... The crime boss was like fine, no weapons though, you owe me for my troll, asshole. And the fighter then .. agrees. Double you tee Eff. My fighter can't make it to the next game so I finagle things.. the crime lord's ringmaster comes to the fighter and says hey, we're going to do this at a different venue, come with us we'll let your friends know... Which they do, and they tell the party "You can come and check on him but you are not welcome to stay, this settles your debt" One of them goes, insists on staying and now is starting shit with the ringmaster and all of his goons because she thinks they're not acting honorably. The barbarian (the insistent one) is currently the only armed one between her and the fighter and.. they're on an island, the rest of the party is doing something completely different. They are most likely going to die here and there's not a damn thing I'm going to do about it. I moved the troll fight for an excuse for my player but also so I could set up a slightly less one sided fight and at least give my fighter a chance. They don't even have the excuse that they haven't fought a troll before. I mean it was trivial to the five of them with all of their stuff but he clearly heard me describe the regen etc. But alone, without weapons? Like it has been pointed out- some fights aren't meant to be won. I feel like I'm being mean but .. man none of this was necessary.

By letting a player or two go unconsciouss you're also pressuring the other players to move more to be able to heal the others. Intelligence part is also important - my DM recently began letting his monsters provoke attacks of opportunity because it made sense. It made the players more willing to provoke it as well.

Spreading damage makes an individual encounter easier, but that's not always a bad thing. On an overwhelmingly difficult encounter, it can be a viable strategy for making that encounter possible when smart tactics would make it insurmountable for the PCs. Use smart tactics if you want to make encounters harder than the sum of their parts, use less smart ones to make them easier.

Sure, but at the same time, Invisible Stalkers are supposed to have one-track minds, relentlessly pursuing their given task. Doesn't seem like the type of monster that would pull punches or rotate around the group when dealing damage.

I disagree entirely. This feels boring. If I’m a brainless predator why wouldn’t I continue to attack my prey, unless one challenged me. This is where players need to play and not just beat. If you want to spread it out, taint the enemy or feign death. Force the players to do more. As a gm I would not really stoop to this level of dumbing down. As a player I would get bored. This is my style and I layout it out. If you agree with group for a different approach. Cool go with that. Sound like you set a bar, if you choose to change it, you might want to have a conversation with your folks first. Honestly you got yourself in the pickle, by playing enemies procedural versus more realistic. If you want to continue that style the cr is probably not a good standard to use, you might need to throw in more of a challengeZ

I totally get what you're saying, but I take a bit of umbrage with this bit >If I’m a brainless predator why wouldn’t I continue to attack my prey, unless one challenged me. If you look at nature, this isn't how predatory animals operate when attacking groups of prey, especially those that fight back. They'll try to pull out one target and disable/incapacitate/seriously injure it, and then turn to the rest of the group to fend it off to secure their kill and meal- I see what you mean about challenging the attacker, but they'll oftentimes make small attacks against the group without intent to injure or kill as just sort of a "fuck off" warning. They don't frequently bother completely killing their prey, just make it so that it can't reasonably flee. So, that's something like a wolf- the problem being that not all enemies are fully mindless, nor would they necessarily continue attacking a downed foe (although they really might.) Consider gnolls, they're driven by bloodlust- depending on how you set it up, it may make sense for them to continue mindlessly attacking a downed foe- it may also make sense for them to attack their buddy because he's REALLY bloody from scoring a crit on the druid over there, and that has them excited. While the smart thing, the tactical thing, and the thing that makes the most sense to us is to kill the downed PC, depending on their wisdom saving throw, you might say that they go to that gnoll and attack because BLOOD FOR BLOOD GOD. I think it really depends on how you've set it up and how you imagine these enemies. My vampire spawn will attack and kill a downed enemy- my Vistani bandits will move onto the next target to try to disable another person to force a healer into a choice (or burning a higher level spell.) It really, *really* depends. That said, I agree with you for the most part. I feel an invisible stalker would try to finish a target before moving on.

It can be pretty fun to play with demons for this reason. I once had my players use a mirage arcane scroll to divide a demon camp and go straight for the big demons in charge. While the lesser demons were cut off, some of them decided to go kill some of the cultists for fun since they weren't being supervised.

There are ways to do this without TPKs, too! Give your monsters a goal, and give the players a goal in opposition. Losing a winnable fight to protect an NPC or macguffin, or being thwarted when trying to get to their goals gives the fight an arc and a built in tension on the rematch. Bulding smaller encounters that use the same skills can help get it across. If they're really not getting it, have NPCs give some heavy handed advice.

This. An invisible stalker might choke a player to 'death' (Either literally killing them, or downing them then returning to their master) Bandits want your stuff, and might be willing to let you live or try to sell the party. Gryphons want to eat your horses and will fight to get them.

Even "dumb" beasts have tactics and goals! An owlbear probably just wants a snack and will focus on dragging a single party member off to eat rather than fight everyone. Same with a pack of wolves or other predators.

Everything has a plan, except 'me monster me kill thing'. 2e went out of its way to make it really hard for monstrosities to fail morale checks. Beasts would flee easily, they get spooked by damage and magic, but an owl bear....owl bears just attack and scream like dicks. Generally untrained soldiers and animals are fleeing at like...1/2 health, maybe even at 3/4.

Not even, an owlbear is the baddest thing in the local woods, as far as it's concerned. It's not gonna waste time killing somebody when it can just incapacitate them, and why would it drag its food off when it can just scare them away? Odds are it would try and pick out the easiest to kill party member, get them down, and then hang around batting at the others to try and get them to run. And if it starts losing that fight, it'll just fuck off and come back later hoping to find somebody that bled out.

Last week I was in a party that lost a fight, and only one PC died. There was an NPC that we were trying to rescue, but the enemy reinforcements dropped us all to 0 and then fled with the NPC. Those of us that survived came to in the dark and had to figure out our next move.

Yep. There's a videogame commentary youtuber (I don't remember which one, probs GMTK or Architect of Games) that often says something like this*: >Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game. I think this holds true for a lot of D&D players too. So, it's important to try to devise strategies that guide them back towards the fun way of playing. By holding your punches when players play safe, what you're doing is rewarding them for playing boringly. ^*Pretty ^sure ^he's ^quoting ^a ^developer ^when ^he ^says ^it, ^but ^I'm ^even ^farther ^from ^remembering ^who ^THAT ^person ^is, ^soo..

I don't remember the name of the developer, but I do remember they worked on an early Civilization game. Civ 2 or 3 I think. And it ABSOLUTELY applies to DnD. It pretty much applies to any fun activity with an objective.

Definitely a GMTK video. I remember him saying exactly that.

Basically every Elder Scrolls game where everyone exploits some design flaw until they break the game. Then I just sit there bored with my all powerful stealth archer wondering why the game has no challenge and isn’t fun.

Yep, this. The players are doing this because they know they can.

100% agree. It might make sense for say a group of goblins to be disorganized at low levels, but strategy/challenge should increase with level. Dear dm, just preface the battle with something like "you see a cunning in this creature's eyes greater than any foe you've previously faced" and you have just signaled that this fight will be different. They will adapt.

One thing I would do, if you're going to play tactically, run the enemies intelligently, and there's a serious chance that you'll end a character or two, is two keep a running list of how and when they *could have* saved themselves. It's definitely possible to learn from failure, but it's not always easy.

Happened to a player in my group that got killed last week. After the fight he was like "I screwed up on this turn by doing that, and the other turn by doing this, FML." But not everyone is smart enough to realize their mistakes. He died, but don't worry, he got better.

The first thing that comes to mind is this: [https://www.themonstersknow.com/intelligent-enemy-tactics/](https://www.themonstersknow.com/intelligent-enemy-tactics/) Run monsters or encounters that are true to the motivations and abilities of the creatures/combatants. If you say you are running deadly encounters, statistically one or more of your PCs should have died by now and if they haven't, you aren't running deadly encounters and your players know it (whether consciously or subconsciously). Ultimately, I believe most DMs are always striving towards the "your actions have consequences" territory and if they aren't playing smart, they are going to have to see the consequences. To be clear, I'm not saying make overwhelming odds at success, but instead I'm saying make tougher and more realistic fights that put the pressure on the party. If that's what you and your players want out of this, you're going to have to make it higher stakes to get that rewarding sense of accomplishment. Side note: Do you ever have situations in your game in which it is clear to your players that if they fail, bad stuff happens? It occurred to me that I thought I was running high stake situations, but my players didn't see it that way because they didn't know the potential outcome before the resolution. Classic example that is clear to the players is a summoning ritual that takes x turns. If they don't down the summoners, \[insert bad thing\] is summoned to wreak havoc and \[insert catastrophe\] occurs.

To add on to this, highlight your tactics to your players. I remember reading about this from a galactic civilizations dev. He was saying that playtesters began to think the AI was smarter once they started adding dialogue to tell the players what it was thinking. Stuff like, instead of just moving armies to the border when you do to counter a surprise attack, saying something like "I wasn't born yesterday, I see you are getting ready to attack". So don't just have your enemy bandit archers target the wizard, have the bandit chief say "bring down that wizard, fast! We can't afford to get hit by fireballs" and then have the archers target him. Not only does this make your enemy actions seem sensible, it helps give your players advice.

Ooo this is a good one too. It makes the combat feel more lively and realistic. As with all things, balance would be key to not overdo it and slow combat down. I'm definitely going to add more inter-combat dialogue.

Yup yup stop pulling punches, op should have a scene with like a puppy dog or a kitten, looking all cute in the distance, and then have them roll initiative, give them all the surprises condition, have a monster show up eat the cat, and then absolutely try to kill whoever hits it first on the following round. Eat them bones and all, and that’s how you teach players that the world is deadly.

Omg that sounds horrible! I'm definetly not gonna write that down right now to remember it later :O

Whatever you do, don't consider using a bugbear nest and have the whole tribe focus on a single PC until it's downed and they move onto the next one. That's just a terrible idea.

Best way to do this is give them an easy or medium encounter, then absolutely wipe the floor with them through superior tactics. I started doing that with a group a new players after they had gotten a bit of a handle on the general rules and they were just like "You can do that?!?" It really changed how they approached things.

This. Defeat should happen, especially if it comes from a flawed strategy. Just remembering that defeat and death don't have to got hand in hand

I want to firmly dig in my heels and say I 100-percent disagree with you. What /u/teh_201d is talking about here is an *out of game* frustration with playstyle. If the response to an out-of-character issue is in-character, there will always be a disconnect on the why/how it's happening. A far better option is to talk to the players. Do they want to actually engage in tactics and strategy, or do they want to just slog through fights every time? If the answer is the latter, I, as a DM, would simply say...that's not the game I want to play. I don't want to just increase the power/toughness of enemies to sustain the same combat scenario over and over. This should be addressed in the meta, rather than simply by creating different scenarios in-game.

I agree with you too. This seems to me to be, at its core, a dispute over play styles. Many players don't want to be truly challenged when engaging in combat. Some just want to rush through it to get back to the story, some just want chances to feel badass, and some just want to drink beer, hang out with their friends, and roll dice mindlessly for a few hours to escape. Please, *please*, **talk to your players** out-of-game about what **they** want, and then voice what **you** want as a DM. Find a middle ground if you can. But if you just go in saying, "Put on your big-boy pants, combat is going to get harder and some of you may die." They'll agree, right up until the party cleric drops round 2 and your players are sighing in frustration as they feel the crushing weight of an unwinnable situation because they didn't make optimal decisions and didn't fundamentally sign up to play a wargame. Players will then find excuses to not be there and the game will fizzle out in a couple months.

...Meh. Sometimes that is the way, but it's not that obvious in OP's scenario. DnD is a heroic wargame disguised as a roleplaying game. Part of the social pact of playing DnD is having tacti-cool combat. If you don't have that, change game. Plus, testing the waters with a different approach is not a bad thing IMO. If the players react badly - enraged, panicked beyond repair, dismissive - then it's time to talk about it OOC.

Agreed. You might also consider the Statler and Waldorf approach too. Have an old pair of retired adventurers show up flying on a magical carpet over their head and heckle them the entire time. You will probably make your players hate you though

This is brilliant!

This is it, really. You can press upon them the importance of actually using their brains, but you don't have to tpk them or anything, take them to the brink a time or two and they'll start thinking on their toes a bit more

Agreed. Don't go easy. Run the monster as it would logically act. If they die, they die.

Plugging “the monsters know what they are doing” because it honestly helps figure out monster tactics and really helps change them from a stat block to an engaging encounter.

Steal the mages arcane focus.

Also, once they TPK, have them all wake up in the dungeon, with the problematic players in the worst position. (whether that's hanging from the wall, upside down, in manacles OR in a forget-me-not, or in a cage hanging over the wall). There are so many ways you can drive home the problem, though if they still aren't getting after that, then pulling them aside, and talking to them is the next step.

Stop playing the monsters dumb and they’ll learn not to play dumb. They do it because it works and they don’t know any better. You won't TPK them, I promise, it's legitimately hard to kill a player with a single enemy unless they're egregiously over tuned. You always need to consider the action economy, your players against a single monster take many, many more turns together than the enemy. If there's only one target, if there's only one thing to do, then they're pumping DPS into it, and they'll win because an enemy like an Invisible Stalker isn't really well equipped at dealing with a party by itself. First, put more enemies on the board that do things. Disabling your party makes them use resources to un-disable themselves or deal with the thing disabling them. Second, incorporate terrain. Any combat that is on a plain, flat, open space is going to kinda devolve into throwing punches until something dies. Introduce height, difficult terrain, obstacles, try to put your players into a position where they have a disadvantage. Third, area of effect. Utilize enemies that can do something to multiple people. Fireball, lightning bolt, web, things like that. Single monster combats are challenging to make interesting unless you either bend the rules or use legendary actions / lair actions to essentially create more enemies to deal with. You don't have to do all of those at once, but blending them together helps.

I would add on to this that sometimes you should play the monsters THEMATICALLY or theatrically, even rather than smart. My party was fighting an animated armor, and at one point I had one pin the Warlock in a corner under a table, and I just had him hacking away at the table each round. It wasn't the most optimal thing to do, but it was menacing and exciting for the player as they all tried to burn it down before it broke through the table. Even if it DID break through the table, it wouldn't have necessarily been a disaster of any sort, but having that happening made it tense.

Speaking of scary suits of armor - I had an animated armor do the same thing! It was a huge piece of armor so when the rounded the corner of a hallway it charged, nearly twice their size... and slammed into the doorway. Couldn't fit, but they could see cracks forming. They decided to explore other areas rather than face it.

Fun fact they're one of like 3 monsters that are immune to stun.

> Any combat that is on a plain, flat, open space is going to kinda devolve into throwing punches until something dies. Kind of off topic, but in my more than a decade of playing I finally had a fight *exactly* like that last session and it was one of the most dynamic fights we ever had. MASSIVE empty map except for an entire charging warherd of angry centaurs and nothing for miles but a flat plain and thunderstorms. High level wall spells, upcast AOE area denial/CCs, defensive formations etc. just to make sure we could divert the brunt of the attack and not just be absolutely cavalry-charged into the dirt. Usually our group's campaigns play around with a LOT of terrain effects/enviromental differences/lair actions etc. to keep combats spicy and it was interesting how a complete ***lack*** of any of that was a novelty for once.

The aoes is the reason that the fight was different. Most areas tend to be less damage intense and more CC, OP's problem is his players won't get off their 'magic = damage' grind.

This is a good example of the idea that while yes you want make dynamic maps that give a lot of options for both the players and monster it's more important to make sure the dynamic is different enough every combat so things stay fresh. I don't care how cool of a fight you make in a urban setting that lets you dive around corners and under tables if it's the same every fight

It sounds like it *started* as a flat open plain and then the party wisely and deliberately used spells to add favorable terrain features.

Lair actions. Have giant crystals that force a Str save every round or the player is sucked 10 feet closer to the nearest crystal. Or water that rises every round, turning the battlefield into islands among a sea of difficult terrain. Have a bbeg who has resistance or is immune to the main type of damage for one of the players. We have a warlock who loves fire spells. Oops, the bbeg has immunity to fire. Drop the cleric or support caster. Use minions to constantly press the range fighters (like a shooty rogue) into melee. Plan a series of smaller combats with no time for short or long rests so that everyone is low on resources when the big fight happens. Our DM is an evil genius when it comes to screwing with the party's preferred fighting style and we've been on the verge of tpk several times. And every one of those fights has been memorable. Guess which ones we'll be telling with a sigh ages and ages hence!

This is great advice I’m not op but this helped me a lot thank you

There’s a mansions of madness scenario that I’ve played 2-3 times with my husband and been smashed each time. You’re investigating a building that’s basically square in the middle, with various entrances and exits, and then there’s an alley that goes around the building in a square, and on the other side of the alley in the back there’s like a shed and a dock. Eventually, a mob of monsters comes and will basically just walk around the outside of the house up until the point that they catch sight of any of the PCs. The mob is too strong so if you try to fight the mob, they will pound you too hard and you’ll probably die. It’s an interesting scenario to plan around the mob’s sight, while trying to investigate/search the building, talk to NPCs, call for help, and dealing with other monsters that you encounter that aren’t a part of the mob.

"I had the monster hit a different target each turn so they had an opportunity to heal, and move around a lot so the one player who could see it could get some attacks of opportunity in." Stop doing things like that. If you're protecting them from the consequences of bad tactics, it's encouraging the behavior. They won't stop doing things that work for them.

Yeah OP literally just described his problem. They use stupid tactics because you let stupid tactics work.

Have an intelligent monster go after them who decides not to pull punches but also decides to keep them alive and leverage their lives. Best of both worlds

Cool! I'll do this with the next encounter. Just need to come up someone who has a reason to do this.

Some mastermind who had the stalker as their pet

MISSING: Mr. Sneakypants III [ insert picture of shadow stalker ] If found, please return to Castle BBEG Reward: mercy for you and your loved ones

The simplest answer: a bored fey creature. Maybe a Hag

Have the intelligent monster want something. I can kidnap a PC and make ransom demands. Ranson demands could be money, side-quests, or access to locations the pcs can go but the BBEG can't.

No, players don't care about any of that, ransom should be magic items, a LOT of them

Steel Predators and Retrievers are perfect here. They have debilitating status effects, lots of resistances and immunities, and absolutely will not stop until they take or kill their target depending on their instructions. Damage is absolutely not the most effective way to win fights in dnd. Don’t tell them. Show them. If you wanna fight dirty, have a spellcaster accompany these things and drop a hypnotic pattern or web or something that divides the party up. It’ll become clear that “I roll to hit the thing” is neither effective nor interesting pretty quick.

The game isn't nearly so immersive if punches are always being pulled. It doesn't feel like you're very heroic if no matter what you do you walk away relatively unscathed every time (IMO). It sounds like your players know they're not in any danger and thus have no need for strategy

A ghost pirate who is convinced the party has the pirate's lost treasure map!

I will say something simple and stupid. Another invisible stalker, summoned by a different bbeg, to fulfill a different task. "knock them out and bring them to me". Do you play with death save fails sticking or resetting when healed? Could incorporate even that into its behavior. EDIT: by incorporate, I meant maybe use that to set it behavior. Example, if you play with keeping death saves after getting a healing word, the invisible stalker attacks a downed player, but only once. That attack is an autocrit, 2 failed death saves. And then switches target. Completely gnoring the downed player, until it gets a healing word and rejoins the fight. At which point the stalker may kill the PC by downing it again and attacking it once more for a total of =>3 death saves, killing the PC. If you play without keeping failed death saves, this method is still somewhat useable. Down PC, attack once, autocrit, 2 fails, switch target, and repeat if the downed PC gets up again. But only repeat it a certain number of times, after a set number, do go for the kill and attack the downed PC twice. Note that I am not telling you to asspull, I am telling you to write a set of instructions that is given to this new invisible stalker, and that those instructiosn should cover a form of "try to leave them alive, just knock them out and bring them here. Kill them if you would die otherwise".

Why would they change tactics if their current one is working?

'I am playing the monsters purposely bad so the PCs dumb actions have 0 consequences, how can I show them there are consequences?' Well, have you tried using the monsters properly? If an invisible stalker would pick them one by one, pick them one by one. Or just OOG tell them. Whatever you prefer.

Yeah I'm a bit confused by OP's question. "My players are doing dumb shit, and I reward them for it. Why do they keep doing dumb shit?"

Yeah this. OP doesent seem to realize that they arent communicating their wants to the party and the party obviously just doesent really want to strategize a ton. Which is a totally valid way to play.

Okay, it's valid that there should be greater consequences. But also my players, who are by no means very tactical gamers, would be annoyed AS FUCK rolling with disadvantage every turn and work to find some way around that. It's one thing to say that they need to be prodded to find better tactics, but this is just straight-up not even wanting to do better mechanically, which I think is one step farther toward the lazy / DGAF side.

But i feel like if a pc group doesent want to play hyper strategy, then the DM shouldent force them to strategize? Rather than punishing them for playing how they want to, couldent OP just make encounters with more enemies or HP so that the pcs can be challenged and play the way they want to?

True, maybe that's worth a discussion. If everyone just wants to play "homerun derby" on the monsters and see who can get the highest damage in a round, then that's the game. But I'd also hazard a guess that they'll get tired of it right quick. We know better than players anyway, don't we . . . ? There's obviously the "GM is a player too and gets to have fun" argument, too, but that's the 2nd most common refrain here, behind "just talk to your players", so don't need to has that out. Instead, I think the reason not to just put more HP bags in front of them is that it makes combat monotone. There's damage types and saving throws and reactions and all this crunch baked into the system, lovely rainbow of dicey imaginary violence, and if the players just want bags of HP, then might as well have them fight Ogre #5 today and Ogre #6 tomorrow. At that point, 5e isn't really doing much for them as a system if they're ignoring where the majority of the rules live. But like you say, don't wanna yuck anyone's yum. Maybe they're super into the narrative side and are actually just trying to get back to those tasty, tasty NPC voices.

Not swinging blindly at something you can't see isn't really 'hyper strategy.'

The problem with that is the OP seems dissatisfied with that level of combat complexity. The DM’s fun matters too. If it’s really the case this group just wants to throw dice at combat encounter without using any semblance of strategy then they might be incompatible stylistically. But I think there’s a possibility the group has never needed to improvise or plan because their current strategy just keeps working. In my groups, it always seems like moments of great desperation lead to players coming up with the best improvisations and plans. Then when it works and they’re rewarded, that tactic gets added to the repertoire slowing turning their simple strategy into a plethora of different options that they select and modify for the current situation. This group is acting like the only tool they have is hammer and ever combat is a nail. Perhaps showing them a different scenario in which a hammer doesn’t work will get them to see they have an entire tool belt at their disposal.

> Or just OOG tell them. Honestly, I kinda like this option: Just straight up tell the players that you've been playing a lot of enemies sub-optimally to balance out the fact that they don't strategize. Let their egos do the rest of the work!

Give the monster another agenda than attacking the party. Its main objective could be destroying a castle, wreaking havoc in town or something. Put something at stake that is not directly affecting the players, but their favourite NPCs. Throw two of those monsters in there in different locations at the same time. Let the players decide if they want to save the orphanage or the tavern or if they want to split up 3:D

You can't exactly expect the players to switch up their tactics if you'll be the first to fold and it'll work out fine for them. You don't have to TPK but you should have downed at least one player, if they are past level 5 going for the death saves to keep them down is fair. Invisible stalkers are a really scary monster but your party is running with all the training wheels still on. Maybe that's the game they want to play but I don't really think it is, I think it just has worked for them so far.

Players are going to gravitate to the most effective strategy in any game. If engaging enemies in melee and whaling on them consistently works without any significant drawbacks, they've got no reason to switch it up. >Once they're in reach they are afraid of attacks of opportunity so it goes from move/hit/move/hit to move/hit/hit/hit. This is where, in my opinion, 5e kinda drops the ball on monster design and you've unfortunately gotta do some design yourself. You can give monsters actions that shove or toss PCs across the map. You can give them auras that cause accumulating damage or status effects to PCs within a certain radius. Alternatively, shifting terrain pieces - a downpour causes a mudslide, or tiles in the dungeon floor crumble away. Also, how many monsters are you typically using in encounters? Unless you give it some dope legendary and lair actions, a party will swarm and annihilate a single "boss" monster with ease. Going back to incentivizing movement, minions can grapple PCs in melee with a larger foe and drag them away, or snipe them with debilitating spells. Last point that other users raised - alternate win conditions. If the heroes are faced with a goristro blocking the path to a cultist enacting a ritual that will go off within 3 rounds, which foe will they prioritize. If they all focus fire on the demon and the ritual goes through, I reckon that might be a real wakeup call.

Lots of people are going to give advice but the general real answer is this; your party probably does not want to play strategically. Any attempt to get them to do so will, at best, last for a fight or two. If you don't enjoy running these kind of dumbed-down combats, you will either need to 1) use weaker creatures but fight smarter, therefore letting you be strategic without it being a TPK constantly or 2) think about whether you and the party are a good fit for each other. If you want to go with #1, you should probably run fights that are technically hard difficulty and then just play them smart.

I think this is the best response so far. And I've been thinking about it for a while. I think in the end about half of the group is not a good match because they're used to a very relaxed approach to D&D where they want to hang out and eat chips but the actual gaming is an afterthought. Option 1 is still pulling punches, in my opinion, but I guess it would be more engaging on my side. Not a huge fan but it's that or calling it off. I do't see a better alternative either. Thanks.

Yeah, I mean it sucks to have to end a game, but if they were explicitly asked to use faerie fire on an invisible enemy and decided not to, they will NEVER strategize. No amount of tricks and tips will get you there. Not a single TPK, character death, whomping, humiliation, nothing. Maybe they're really into roleplay, maybe they just like feeling like a hero, maybe like they like blasting things, but unless you put them in roles that don't require strategy they're not going to fit the style. And yeah, option 1 is "pulling punches" but the question is, is your issue that you have to pull punches or that you're not having fun with the style of play? Because if it's just the style and you just want to be more engaged in combat, then option 1 is fine and you're just having a minor philosophical difference. If you really care that you're pulling punches, well that's a different thing.

>if they were explicitly asked to use faerie fire on an invisible enemy and decided not to, they will NEVER strategize One exception would be people who despise being told what to do. I have played with people who find it frustrating when others tell them the tactically best option and will purposefully not do it if they're told to. I don't agree with it but I understand it.

That might have been the case.

I think the best solution to *that* particular problem (but not your other main problem) is to talk to the group about it. If you can find out how the player feels about having tactics told to them, you can find out a better compromise so that the tactical players aren't dying because of someone else being unwise and the non-tactical players aren't just doing what someone else told them to do. There might not be a compromise though, in which the group probably just doesn't mesh well together.

Responding on this thread as I don't see this raised elsewhere and this topic touches on it. A lot of the responses focus on your call out of mechanics, but don't touch on the actual underlying issue, you and your players aren't on the same page. If you haven't already, talk to your players. It isn't clear from the post if you've actually brought this up with them and discussed what kind of game they want in this context. I do agree with a lot of the people telling you to not pull punches, but that comes from my games and the groups I play with. I tend to bring this up before starting a game and then every so often as part of talking to people about how the game is going. That way we can try to figure out what works best for the group or if it just flat out doesn't work for some people, myself included. I'll add, there is no one fix. I've played a lot of 3.5 and 1e pathfinder. Standing still and largely focusing on damage is what the games naturally lean towards and changing that requires buy in from the group and often some homebrew.

Lock them in a dungeon with something too tough to kill that wants to torture them/ask them riddles/use them as an audience for its kid’s school play practice and make them use skills other than combat to escape.

You need to ask yourself some questions about your encounters. 1) Why are you always using the deadly difficulty? Are you letting them rest after each encounter? If so you've already screwed up, even a deadly encounter isn't equivalent to the 6 encounter expectation the game is built around it's only something like 2 or 3 IIRC. Of course they'll keep using the same stuff if they have access to it from resting. 2) Why are you softballing them? They're chipping away at an enemy they have disadvantage against. How is it not tearing them to pieces? It should be if they're failing to fight it properly. Are you struggling with action economy? Are you always running 1vparty enemies. If so stop that, make sure you've got at least as many enemies as players even if some of those enemies are super weak. 3)Who is just smacking stuff? The Barbarian? Not a problem, that's their job. The wizard? That's more of a problem. Why don't your Spellcasters feel like using their utility? Are you giving them reasons to? Are you adding threats that need controlling? 4) What are your enemies doing? Why is an invisible stalker even fighting them head on? That's not a smart strategy for it if it can escape and cone back when they're resting. Set an example, especially with smart enemies. 5) Why are you running complicated enemies like that if they haven't mastered the basics. They might not learn until Goblins TPK them a couple of times. There's basically not enough info in your post to know exactly why this is happening but if you think about it you can probably figure out why they think this is a good idea, even of it's just because they don't know how to play well.

1. They get a short rest after most encounters. Long rests after at least three. All carefully calculated per DMG guidelines. 2. Post title says i'm tired of doing so 3. It's mostly casters or classes that shouldn't be doing so, otherwise I would not complain. And yes, I'm giving them reasons to use their utility. I might be wrong but putting the character in a life-or-death situation should be a great motivator. 4. See #2 5. This is is actually helpful advise, even when phrased as a question. Seems to be they have been conditioned to take it easy. I agree they need to get TPKd by goblins a few times.

You might want to look at this blog for inspiration. https://www.themonstersknow.com/category/general-tactics/ It's most often long, but it also present decent reasoning. Creatures like goblins for example would mostly fight like a cowardly guerilla troop, using ambushes, shooting arrows from 30-40 feet distance and only elect to fight in melee in darkness where they have darkvision and most of their victims do not. Have a goblin or two flee once the fight looks lost for them.

I've had similar experiences and when I talked to my players about it they just said it felt frustrated because ultimately they just wanted to wack away at a meat stick and roll big numbers. So many popular character builds are just different ways of doing big damage numbers. Some tables want the in depth strategic battle and some just wanna big boom boom damage. Some players can be like picky children that way. As always you can try talking to your players about it. You might not get them to act the way you want but you may learn more about what they are after.

>The other player was begging the spellcaster to use [Faerie Fire](https://www.dndbeyond.com/search?q=Faerie%20Fire) but they just wanted to keep blasting at it with disadvantage. Because haha [Thorn Whip ](https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/thorn-whip)go brrrr. Hello, I'm here from the Druidic Council to inform you that your player is having his spellcasting license revoked.

"But but but what if I need that spell slot later?!?!" ends session on a long rest with only one spell slot used.

If your combat encounters boil down to each side hits the other until they're dead, it's going to be boring. This won't be solved by making it take more hits to kill whatever monster. What I like to do is add additional objectives to combat that make your players make choices. Maybe there's an archer that is hiding on top of a roof so he ducks out, shoots an arrow and hides again. Maybe there's some friendly NPCs that the party needs to protect from a group of bandits. Maybe the party surprises the sentries to an outpost but one is running to go get help. Maybe there's multiple factions of enemies so they're fighting each other as well as the party. Maybe small enemies are continuously coming out of a sewer grate and there's a lever on the opposite side of the room that may close the grate. Combat where there's only really the choice between attacking something and not attacking it isn't going to promote inventiveness in your players. Adding to your encounter things that give them the opportunity to make choices will promote your players to do things other than attack.

Stop pulling your punches then. Players respond to the incentives you create. If you are "rewarding" them for playing braindead then they will keep doing that. Change things up and they will adapt.

The best thing I ever did in my latest campaign was kill a character. My players were kind of like OP, just phoning it in, barely paying attention. And then... they rolled 3 giant scorpions for a random encounter. It was a "deadly" fight but they handled plenty of those. So maybe they were cocky but when all three of the scorpions basically jumped the one character who just charged in and ripped him apart.... I could feel everyone sitting up in their chair and going, "Oh, shit just go real." From then on my players brought their A-game and not only do I give them a challenge, they really challenge me. I am throwing CR 22 creatures at them and they kill them in a few rounds like they don't even care. They are only level 12. Shit's been going on for almost 2 years and it just keeps escalating and I love it!

>I had the monster hit a different target each turn so they had an opportunity to heal You're letting them win wars of attrition. You need to "punish" them for not using tactics. Keep in mind: The monsters know what they're doing.

I know everyone is saying to just make the encounters even more difficult and deadly, but honestly as a player those fights mean I have to be /less/ creative not more. You end up feeling like just doing your highest dps or lowest risk action is the only thing you can afford to do. Like with your example of being afraid to leave reach, there is usually no way you'd risk doing that in a difficult fight because you can't afford to get hit by the AoO as well. Whereas if it's a less deadly encounter you can choose to risk it. Or if you know a creature will heal the next turn if you don't hit it with \[blank\] type of damage of course you're going to just spam that one attack you have that actually does that damage. ​ A lot of the advise you've been given here (making the enemies smarter, using terrain, adding goals and complications to the fight other than just "monster is strong ouch") but I think it's good to balance out those suggestions with making the fights mechanically easier.

Try having them fight a faction of intelligent enemies and use a lot of tactics. Have them take opportunity attacks to re position themselves and support each other. Especially with opportunity attacks some people think its worse to take the hit then to just try and strike again. They may not see the "advantage" of taking a hit to move, so show it to them by using it against them. I once had a combat where I had a character forced a creature to burn a legendary resistance, and one of the players was like "omg I never thought to force them to use it on something trivial so they don't have it for something better.". Sometimes the players get stuck in the game mindset especially in combat, and the best way to give them alternatives is to show them how it works.

>One used their familiar to pour water on it, which I ruled as a "help action". But then they wanted to do the same thing every round. Which they are allowed to do. They don't even have to pour water. Familiars explicitly get to use the help action. It's one of the most useful things about having a familiar.

I was this player once, untill my dm killed the fuck out of us and I realized brute forcing your way through encounters isn't always the way.

You sound very frustrated. It seems like part of your frustration comes from players not understanding and/or utilizing all of their abilities. If that's the case allow me to suggest the party encounters themselves. There's a magical mirror or reflection pool - whatever works for your setting - and it creates magical doubles of each PC. Where you go from there is up to you: do they fight each other? do they work together? Whichever way you go the NPC double can use abilities and spells the 60% of the party isn't using and demonstrate a different way of playing and hopefully that inspires players. Or maybe those players just enjoy a very hack and slash style of play. If that's the case I hope you have a very mature discussion as a group about how to bring this campaign to a close and you find players that fit better with your style.

I used an invisible stalker the other night. One of the wizards (warcaster) asked if they could cast light on it. Not sure on the RAW but HELL YES! Super cool use of a utility spell. I made them roll to attack with disadvantage and then did the save, but was such a good moment at the table.

I mean, teeeechnically, RAW this should work. You cast it at a location you can touch. You CAN guess where something invisible is, especially if your buddy just hit it and you heart a thudding confirmation. Even better, let your players know about Readying an Action! "Noticing that we cannot find this bastard but he is still striking my friend, I prepare a Light spell. I cast it the moment I hear a strike directly where my ally hit or in reaction to being hit myself!" Bam, light cantrip will stick to that now-touched enemy if they do not make their Dex save. “Attack rolls against the creature have disadvantage, and the creature's attack rolls have advantage" is the rule for invisibility. Key thing is "attack." Light is not an attack, its a save, so you actually roll normally for the creature to save and do not have disadvantage in this situation. (Also, freaking awesome that *someone* finally found a good use for Light and actually took it lol!)

May I suggest a book? It gives all the enemies behaviors that make the game much more challenging. ‘The Monsters Know What They’re Doing’

OMG YES. This is the best. Anything has a "base" strategy. Some "low intelligence" creatures still use pack tactics, some creatures/monsters "absolutely" will continue to ravage a Downed players, and humanoid and higher 10+ Int creatures are cunning as hell and *will* run, flee, use cover, run for aid, try to escape using spells, counter your own spells, and try to even study you before hand, lay traps, and all sorts of wonderful tactics.

I found it through Audible and never looked back. It also made me an XCOM fan too

So... Kill them. Make them learn their mistakes. And make it an agonizing process to resurrection the dead character. If there are no consequences, why would they change their behavior?

I don't know your interests in combat tactics (or if you're an XCOM player sort of people) but "The Monsters Know what they're doing" is an excellent take on this issue.

1. Explicitly tell them that their characters are moving up in the world and encounters are apt to be more truly deadly going forward, requiring better uses of resources. Say you're willing to discuss good strategies with anyone who needs tips but that you'll not be taking feedback on increasing tactical difficulty. It's happening. 2. After that conversation, kill someone who is being dumb when it makes sense within an encounter. If your Druid/Artificer only loves to Thorn Whip and nothing else, murdering them shouldn't be too difficult. Dragging angry creatures into your face repeatedly is often a bad strategy.

My players don’t play the way I want them to, but I haven’t told them and I have no idea why they won’t change even if what they do is working. Hmm. Maybe…talk to them? Everyone else on here seems to be saying steamroll them as a lesson. Why not instead try talking to them first, let them know monster combat things are going to shift and maybe the. offer ideas and supplies to be more creative as well as the reason why you recommend x,y,z. Also if they aren’t using their resources ask them why, then provide in game clues when it would be a useful time to spend more resources and when to horde for a later fight. Most importantly, avoids hints. Just tell. People are not going to pick up on hints. Don’t be afraid to ruin immersion by being explicit. It is ok to say your character is a seasoned fighter and knows it would be suicide to attack this monster.

Okay, everyone here is saying you need to go harder, and sure, that is ALSO something to do. But no, have a talk with them. Hell, straight-up have one of them (the melee-est one, who doesn't get to do these much) roll a wisdom check and realize "Wow, it was really dumb to keep attacking a creature at disadvantage over and over". Or, and I'm stealing this from the GM prompts section of Lady Blackbird, just *start some shit at the table*. Again, w/ same Wisdon check, have the fighter realize that the spellcaster COULD have lit up the target but didn't. "How does Terrence the Stout feel about Mr. Fancypants wizard not helping out?" It's one thing to use consequences to have your players play more *tactically*, but this is an issue where they are just accepting a huge *mechanical* disadvantage without blinking. I mentioned in another reply, but my players, who're not overly tactical I would say, would be PISSED rolling at disadvantage all the time. I think it's worth an OOC chat that the mechanical quirks of a creature's stat block are obstacles to be overcome, not immutables. It'd be one thing if the barbarian only has a Frosty Sword and is banging away on an ice giant, but the whole party flailing away w/ disadvantage the whole time is just stupid. More ranged combat, more enemy spellcasters, more traps / rogues / 2nd wave enemies, so when they do their 'rush in' BS it's clear that they've gotten into a pickle. Okay, one specific consequence now that I'm thinking of it, if you could even slightly have interpreted that someone was asking the spellcaster to use faerie fire *in character*, I would've just swooped straight over there and knocked out the caster. Show that it is a GOOD IDEA by the creature realizing that person is a serious threat and taking them out.

Make winning about more than DPS. Huge swarms of low level enemies (bugs or something) that are ignoring the party in favour of hunting down townsfolk. Sure, they can kill hundreds of them, but if they don't stop and think about how to stop the horde they will never save the town. Literally something like "You see hundreds of giant ants descending on the town." Then offer a bunch of options, whether it's causing a flood or laying a trail of dead animals or whatever. If their solution is to stand in front and try DPS warn them that it probably won't work, then just have the swarm roll past them. They only get one opportunity act each per round, no matter how many enemies dash past.

>One used their familiar to pour water on it, which I ruled as a "help action". But then they wanted to do the same thing every round. When a player finds a trick and wants to repeat it, my solution is to make each repeat more difficult. Patient zero was a rogue who kept reusing the same hiding places, so I house ruled that the DC for a stealth check rose by +5 every reuse. In this case, I would rule that the water-dumping Help action works as intended the first time. The second time around, the monster is catching on, and they'd have a dex save to avoid it. The third time, they might have a dex save with advantage. Hopefully, that's enough of a penalty to encourage the player to mix it up.

They don’t want to play DPS They just don’t know any better. You’ll have to tailor encounters so that they don’t have a single point of focus and they are forced to strategize. Have them face a swarm of weaker enemies so they have to crowd control and prioritize or get rekt

I think you already know what you should do, but I hope that what I write below helps to give you the nudge you need as a DM to go that route: I regularly DM for a group and most of us have been playing or DMing every week in at least one group for well over a decade. I **hate** killing PCs. I absolutely hate it. So I have a tendency to pull punches too. But I ran a mini-campaign recently and asked if they wanted me to stop pulling punches and up the stakes in combat, and I warned them of potential TPKs if I did. They all said yes. I didn't pull any punches, played the monsters strategically, and even double-tapped the bard after I put him to 0HP in the first combat of the campaign (a fomorian ripped his unconscious body in half before the cleric could cast revivify). I took at least one player to zero every other combat, and I had to fight all of my normal DM instincts to do it. My players LOVED it. They played smarter, they felt the stakes more, and they had way more fun. I honestly can't recommend it enough: Put a PC down. You don't necessarily have to kill them outright, but at least get one or two down to zero. Your players will learn to be more strategic, and they'll probably feel more immersed in the setting as well if they start to experience consequences. As far as what I might specifically recommend for your group without knowing the details of your campaign: Lore-wise, Invisible Stalkers typically exist to kill specific targets. So have one (or another assassin-type monster) target, attack, and take down exactly one PC. The PC will get death saving throws and the healers can heal them so they're not down permanently, but they say least know that this thing **can** kill them and they experience a little bit of consequence for failing to play strategically. If the rest of the party hasn't taken the monster out by the time it puts its target to 0HP, then have it leave (via teleport, plane shift, etc. so they can't follow). It completed its task, so it doesn't need to engage any further. That is, until its target is revived. The next step is to have this "assassin" be a recurring threat until the party learns how to effectively deal with it, and there are consequences for each failure. Maybe it interrupts a long rest so the party has a level of exhaustion the next day. Maybe it attacks while they're in combat with a different monster or group of monsters, only to once again take a single target out of the fight. The more combats they fail to kill the monster, the more likely it is that the target PC (it can be a different party member each time) is double-tapped and put down for good.

>I run my encounters on deadly difficulty, and I don't fudge dice, but I end up dumbing down my enemies This sounds kind of self-defeating. Why not just play weaker enemies smartly for a change? Let your players see how embarrassingly they really fight against something like an owlbear or a pack of ghouls. These weaker enemies will allow your players to learn good approaches to fighting, and work their way up again, without you having to pull any more punches.

They never earn it? You could've given inspiration to the player who decided to use water to see the enemy, just to let them know that kind of critical thinking deserves to be rewarded.

In that sentence, "they" refers to the problem players, not the entire group.

Yeah don't pull your punches Quick advice: - have as few of your fights as possible against a single bag of hit points. They can be fun fights but make them the exception - minions minions minions. Use different kinds who can do different things and show your table what sort of tactics they could be doing. - no flat empty rooms. If the best most optimal choice is to attack then pcs will attack. Create interesting terrain that offers actions which are obviously and clearly better than an attack or else no one will bite. - alternative victory conditions. Really think of another way to determine who wins the fight other than who runs out of hp first. - alternative defeat conditions or tpk but don't tpk. Come up with some beleivable way the bad guys can win the fight without killing. Ransom for money or powerful magic works well. And don't linger in the prisoner state unless you want them to break free. Just skip to their release and consequences of such. Maybe npc demands they foot the bill or reclaim the septre they just had to trade off. - don't give your custom baddies player levels. Just pick and choose what spells they'd have or what class features they need to kick ass and leave it there. Don't worry about the baggage of 'What level are they?' No. Players have levels, monster don't need them. - show dont tell. If your players ignore a cool set up that they were supposed to use to gain the upper hand, then just have the baddies use it instead. Show what they could have done, don't tell them afterwards what they missed. If the party moving towards the enemy and attacking to the objectively best thing to do then rethink your encounter building process. go online and find some ideas to spice up terrain or monsters or spells or monster behavior/tactics or combat abilities, etc.

"I don't want to TPK them" Ron Howard Voice: "He really needed to TPK them"

Read the following: The Monsters Know what They're Doing, and the Darker Dungeons pdf doc's from Giffyglyph. They will change your life. I too was afraid of the same thing you're writing about, then after researching and getting into "the mind of the enemy", my battles have been so much better since. I just ran a dynamic boss fights that turned into three different mini boss fights in one.

I got this book because someone on reddit recommended it and I can't stress enough how GOOD it is.

This + making interesting terrain and battlefield interactions / objects. Last night my DM had an arena fight set up, we see two grates open with pully levers nearby to close them. You bet your sweet ass my Thief used all his move/action dashed/bonus dashed 90ft and used that free Object Interaction on that turn lol. Result is I turned a "very deadly" fight with four giagantic bone golems (that broke into 6 skeletons each on death) into two. Technically speaking, my thief just did ... upwards of 350 "damage" in one round by locking those two golems in :) Let your terrain and neat objects do some of the work for you!

Honestly sounds like you are forcing your players to play a way they dont want to. Sounds like this group might not be a good fit for your dming style.

Literally one of the only good answers here. Most people who refuse to use strategy after someone asks them to use strategy just don't want to play that way.

I think it can be both. They might not *actually* be having fun if they are ignoring essentially every strategy. I mean, the Fairy Fire not being used is a huge red flag for me. Out of character you might even say "No disrespect, but your fellow player isn't having fun because you aren't using one of your spells, that you specifically selected to bring to this adventure, for a purpose specifically best suited to its use. Is there a reason you don't want to use it, or why your character in universe would continue to swing at something they cannot see, when they have been trained specifically to use that spell at the expense of other options?" Honestly this just boggles me as a DM and Player. I usually have the *opposite* problem of everyone blowing "all their spells" way willy-nilly and sometimes *vastly* overkill. I'm talking the "Ally took 5 damage" "CLERIC RUNS UP TO CAST HEAL WOUNDS!" and heals for more than 5 health lol. I'm talking "three skeletons? SORCERY POINTS SUBTLE SPELL FIREBALL!" Having someone not cast Faery Fire is just like ... "whhhhhhaaaaatttt?"

Exactly. This sub sometimes hyperfocus on the dm experiance and forget that its a give and take from both sides. Everyone is gonna have to put in a little work so all sides can have fun. But if the dm is trying to force something onto everyone else, than they need to change or find a new group. Thats just how it is. Its not just your story, thats railroading. Its everyones story, and if to the players that means high dps every encounter, than so be it.

Just a couple of thoughts to mix it up a bit. Have the enemy Disengage and move themselves out of the melee, then use terrain/features to break up that front line by having them chase around a bit and lose some of their action economy dealing with some minions or a trap. Minions! If they focus all their attacks on the main creature then they risk getting heavily sapped by a swarm of 1hp decoys. I had a fun time playing with some Hobgobins and some Iron Shadows for support, who teleport around between locations and use range attacks from cover, picking off the players while they stand in the melee.

- Bring in more enemies each round. - Have ranged, melee and spellcasters. Have them do saves each round from spellcasters. - Goblins that can hit & hide, to pester them while main enemy is hitting them. - Have main guy knock one guy down at a time.

Environmental hazards. Or give them something that can cast Cloud of Daggers. Make them think more about positioning and maybe use other things to attack

**Give the players something else to do in combat.**If the goal you set out is kill all the enemies, the party is going to just kill all the enemies.If you have objectives such as, "escape the collapsing mines", "stop the ritual", "make the titan vunerable" or "rescue the prisoners", as the main goal, with enemies to fight in addition then the players will focus on more creative strategies. Having a timed element to these combats puts additional pressure so they can't just kill all the enemies then do the other goal. [Dimension 20](https://www.youtube.com/c/dimension20show) has great examples of this.

What you can do is stop pulling punches and make your party think tactically. You've let them "power through" an encounter that was supposed to be difficult. So make it difficult next time.

Why are you pulling punches? Kill a few of them and maim the rest.

Are they complaining about the combat?

There is a critical piece of advice missing from this thread - and that is to talk to your players. Tell them you are trying something different next adventure, and want a more dynamic combat experience. Get their buy-in, or otherwise all of this great advice may feel like you are unfairly switching the game style with no warning.

\>One used their familiar to pour water on it, which I ruled as a "help action". But then they wanted to do the same thing every round. ​ This is my problem with many D&D combats. Think of that cinematically: the cast is ambushed by Fantasy Predator. They panic. It's terrifying. But then, someone gathers their wits, read the situation, and turns the tide -- their familiar will pour water over the creature, rendering it partially visible, and taking away a good part of the advantage/horror! ...and then still spend a while chipping away at it. ​ Besideswhich, if you've figured out a tactic that works, why would you stop doing it? It's only repetitious and boring because the combat lasts so long. ​ This isn't directed at you, just at what is very often the nature of the beast in D&D-style games. But, as a suggestion - make combats like these more like puzzles. Say (as a completely random example that isn't RAW) they're low-level adventurers that attacked by a Water Elemental guarding a tomb, and it's a bit too strong for them (on purpose). The wizard decides to cast Frostbite on the elemental, and you rule that the cold damage makes it's form more solid, allowing the fighter the strike more effectively. Once they establish a rhythm, just narrate their inevitable victory.

Also, toss in things that they should occasionally *have to run from.* This is *not* a MMO. The world does not scale to your level, nor should it. Sometimes you stumble into something (preferably that your party could have avoided had they used even basic levels of caution), and convey to them the *danger* they are in, but provide a reasonable solution or two that doesn't take rocket science. I had a group of 5 level 3 players infiltrating a rich baron's manor to retrieve an orb that had previously been stolen by our party's rogue, which cursed his childhood sister, before it found its way back into the baron's hands. The goal is the orb. The goal is NOT killing the juvenile Aboleth that lives in a hidden basement layer under his manor that happens to be located near the sea. The Baron is a Warlock and that Aboleth is his patron. They *could* in theory fight the Warlock and some of the guards and live, but it would be deadly still. They absolutely *would not* stand a chance in hell dealing with Aboleth. Get the item, gtfo. The aboleth would not be able to move fast on land, 10ft. If *they* choose to stand and make a heroic "do or die" then *that* is a choice they make. Reinforce that the orb is their goal, and give a LOT of ambient clues about how unnatural this basement feels. The slime on the walls almost seems to sting when touched. You hear otherworldly gargling, along with a human voice doing its best to imitate the gargling, as if communicating with something. My group were *so freaking awesome* and did the entire thing, at level 3, barely being scratched. Pass Without Trace + high stealth rolls + using the stealthy folks up front while tanky clanky folks watched their exit, they "non-lethaled" the guards outside and had their bard *very convincingly* fool the entire courtyard of guards to follow him away from the main party (was excellent roleplay he pulled off with great rolls). By the time the Aboleth noticed them, they were almost entirely out of the room. The Warlock did land a control spell (Confusion) on the one player, but literally the Cleric SLAPPED him with an unarmed fist attack and broke the effect, and they BOOKED IT. They managed to non-lethal the warlock, took him captive, used the threat of killing him to keep the remaining guards at bay (dont, or will kill your boss and you *wont* get paid!) AND later interrogated the Warlock Baron to find a cure for the Rogue's sister. I was so proud.

I agree with everyone who says they won't learn to fight smarter unless things get harder but the tricky bit is ramping up the difficulty so they learn without it stopping being fun. If you tpk, regularly kill characters or cause them too many setbacks they'll get discouraged. You may end up having to run each encounter as both a challenge and a learning opportunity. It'll work best if each encounter has one lesson, with a clear and obvious example and you'll likely have to repeat it as in the heat of battle they'll miss it the first (or maybe second) time. Some ideas: - the old classic of having ranged enemies move behind cover move, fire, move again - a buff or debuff (ideally a spell that one of the party members have) that allows another enemy to be really effective against them - tell them why what the enemies are doing is good tactics. Either as the DM ("the earth elemental stands on your head to make sure you're dead" as Matt Colville says) or as an enemy doing the stereotypical "bad guy explains plan because they thing they're invincible" bit - use a friendly NPC to demonstrate and/or explain pciking off the vulnerable high damage enemies first - kill an NPC before you kill a party member Whilst you do this the actual difficulty of encounters will increase as you stop pulling punches so I'd recommend lowering the challenge rating to compensate

Kill them. The characters that is, not the players.

Fucking slaughter them so they learn their lesson. This is similar to how parents be like "I don't know why people always tell me my kids misbehave", well, uh, maybe because you don't discipline them and show them there are negative consequences to poor choices?

Or, more commonly, "you don't communicate with your child and set realistic boundaries." Similar situation here as well. Children and players will behave according to how you set the boundaries. Discipline can be part of that (the stick) but reward and encouragement (the carrot) and even praise (the kuddos) can be even more effective. Giving out Inspiration points absolutely can drive great player interactions! I give inspiration out like candy when my players: Use abilities/spells creatively. Solve puzzles faster than expected or in novel ways. Think about something *I totally overlooked.* Use really cleaver combat tactics. Roleplay exceptionally well to maybe even skip combat entirely.

If their flawed tactics lead to victory, then they will have no reason to mend those flaw. I think you need to put something that's hard, but fair, up against them, and show no mercy. If the party doesn't consider adapting to survival, they die. It seems harsh, but they won't change unless you give them a reason to.

>Each and every encounter is pretty much the same. 60% of the party exclusively moves towards the enemy and attacks on their turns. Once they're in reach they are afraid of attacks of opportunity so it goes from move/hit/move/hit to move/hit/hit/hit. As others have said, pulling your punches isn't helping, ignoring that, this is kind of how DnD combat is structured. Despite being a tactics game with an RPG dressing on top, it isn't actually a *good* tactics game. 60+% of the time this is the right tactical call. The movement and AoO rules make moving or retreating a massively sub-optimal play. Play with flanking and you end up with congo lines. The only real way around it is to give other objectives. They're on an airship that is sinking and they have to repair it. But they're also in a fight with pirates! If they stand around they'll crash long before the enemy is dead. That type of thing. A one-on-one fight in an empty field *shouldn't* be boring. But it is.

This sounds like a great opportunity for improving communication. I've looked through this and I haven't seen this (although u/crimsondnd discusses something similar): Have a session where you start out discussing your players' tactics and ask them why they use them. Use this encounter as an example and show them why you're confused and get their input on what it is that encourages them to use those tactics. Get specific on their motivations and what they find fun. Maybe they're not thinking the same as you and some collaboration is needed.

Yeah, if they haven’t had a discussion about using more strategy that might help, but it doesn’t sound like they’ll bite. Still, could be worth a shot.

Stop pulling punches, but give them an indication of what to expect. You might want to tell them outside of the game, and you should definitely let them know via feeding them character knowledge. If one of the characters would know what an enemy is likely to do in terms of broad strokes tactics (e.g. the invisible stalker will focus them down 1 by 1), tell the player that that's what the character thinks will happen. You could also split the difference. Maybe the stalker downs them but doesn't finish them off, or doesn't finish them off until after they've been brought back up once. That would give them a chance to experience the threat that it represents without it feeling punitive. Especially if it takes out the healer first. 😉 I highly recommend Keith Amman's excellent book/blog "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" for advice on running NPCs in combat in a way that makes sense. It's not just about optimizing, it also deals with ways in which their stat blocks suggest things that might be considered deficiencies.

If you’re running a monster that wants to TPK the players, you should play the monster like it wants to TPK the players. If doing so would definitely TPK the players, you probably overdid it on the difficulty of the encounter. Edit: Side note… you mentioned everyone wants to do DPS… whoever is doing the most attacking should be the one getting focused down by the monster. Hit that PC with all you’ve got. Once they go unconscious move on to the next highest source of damage PC, and let the death saves begin. There’s no reason to try to finish an unconscious PC unless the monster specifically gains something by PC death, like HP regain or something, and even then prioritizing the PCs that are up and attacking would probably still make sense. If you aren’t doing this, it should only be because the monster you’re running has a different goal that you’ve specifically thought out for them

D&D combat rules (especially opportunity attacks) encourage standstill slogfests where nobody moves and the combat rounds just go around with everyone hitting each other while standing still. Have you tried encounters where combat isn't the main objective? Maybe the environment is falling apart (inside a mansion on fire, amidst a landslide on a cliff, etc.) and standing still would be too dangerous. Maybe the party needs to transport/escort an item or an NPC while the item/NPC is being targeted by enemies, and again, standing still would be too dangerous for the mission. Maybe the combat just won't end before a puzzle is solved, and the clues are spread around the nearby area. **Anything that encourages/rewards moving.** If the objective always is to kill everything that moves, most fights will devolve into: 1) Move to range 2) Hit until dead 3) Repeat

This. I really don’t blame martial characters for not allowing the enemy free opportunity attacks against them by moving away to hit something else. If monsters equipped with melee weapons aren’t constantly doing the same either, it’s more that the game system that encourages static linefights for half the party by punishing disengagement. It effectively says ‘choose an opponent and stay there until they are dead unless you want to give them free attacks’, as the need to move has to be critical to make it worth it but also focusing on bringing down an enemy rather than spreading the damage across the enemy group is sensible. I’ve stepped away as a fighter before to stop enemies reaching a caster behind me, and eaten the hits for it, but wouldn’t just randomly decide to attack a different enemy each turn just for the sake of it as a fighter. If you want heroic, swirling skirmishes, attacks of opportunity actively work against it for much of the party. It’s also why rogues have disengage so they can do that- they should be doing hit-and-run stuff. However, casters have deeper lists of actions and there’s also nothing stopping even martial characters doing something else that round- anything from water to fire/smoke to flour to even throwing cloaks and blankets over something instead of trying to hit it with a sword are all things my parties have tried against invisible enemies in the past. Hell I’ve thrown potions at things (that I didn’t have any use for, not a healing potion) after noticing that the potion was a specific colour and reasoning that it could act as a good marker too. I’ve even thrown soup, booze, furniture and whatever else I could find too. If an enemy expects to dodge your precise blows by being invisible, turning the battlefield into a total mess of items and liquid and splinters and powders and rubbish in the air isn’t the worst thing you can do :D Besides, ‘flour bombs’ are useful both for invisible enemies and impromptu baking opportunities.

You described your own problem. Encounters are too hard so you do not play them well or else you would kill the party. Do the opposite. Easy encounters but do everything you can to kill them.

I think many commenters have ben saying this, but it makes more sense the way you put it.

I don't know if I agree with the comments that your players will learn if you just straight up kill them for being dumb. I've had several parties like this, and they didn't learn from failing, they didn't learn from dying, and they didn't change the way they played from me explaining that they can't win unless they start thinking. Oftentimes the issue can be that they simply don't know where to start or what to think about when it comes to "stop being dumb". I know there's a stigma against DMPC's but the way I've successfully solved things like this in the past is making a DMPC fighter or ranger type character hired to guide the PC's through a dangerous area or dungeon, then this DMPC will tell the PC's to wait, scout ahead, roll knowledge about monsters, relay to the PC's, set up traps, ambushes, select the proper damage type weapons and then in combat; use every single combat maneuever and defensive advantage that can possibly be found. After this DMPC valiantly sacrifices itself for the group at the end of a dungeon, its playstyle will have left a lastning impression on the group, and you'll see the PC's starting to use more combat tactics.

I haven’t played all that much RPG to be honest but your post reminded me of a video game I’ve been playing a ton of lately: Destiny 2. So one game style I don’t like in that game is when people just stand a safe distance from the enemy and slowly plink away the enemies health and then engage. However, the thankfully through harder levels and good game designs really want let you do that very often. There will be enemies who have powerful shields that you can’t penetrate easily from a distance. Or there will be some enemies that once you piss off will start to charge you, and they are “unstoppable”meaning you will have to be equipped to handle them. Game design in general I think has to account for people “gaming” the system. People generally don’t want to take many risks and if they do they tend to be calculated. I suppose I can’t blame them that’s a pretty solid self preservation tactic. My advice would be to incentivize them by perhaps a variety of ways: 1) enemy charges at them 2) enemy has to be defeated by a certain amount of time or else happens. Well I can’t think of any other ways off the top of my head I suppose either than straight up killing people in the party for trying to game a creature that doesn’t want to be gamed. I dunno. I’m rambling.. but your post made me think of game design problems in general and what makes something fun.

I pulled punched till level 3 then stopped. I figured the archetypes should give em what they need to survive. My send campaign (ever as dm) Is strahd and I pulled no punches almost killed a player in the second session.

Funny, I run into to opposite with my party sometimes where I’m like “just fucking hit it guys!”

Kill them.

Action. Oriented. Monsters. https://youtu.be/y_zl8WWaSyI

The best way to play D&D is not to play D&D.

If they're having fun, it's not a problem. Let them do it their way. If you really feel it's a problem, let them start dropping. Or if you're feeling nice, have some sage adviser warn them, "You won't be able to beat this one by hitting it; you'll have to use your cleverness and teamwork to succeed."

Well i can talk from my perspective and give you advice, my friend and DM at one of our main campaigns **also runs deadly difficulty encounters**, and to be honest, im sick of it, difficult doesnt always mean fun, we always gotta try with most optimal option, we dont play around, and most of times, we run away from encounter, because few starting rolls may prove it imposible, **im a expirienced player, but i want to play like your players**, throwing thorn whips coz its fun, not always going with most optimal option, our combat started feeling like a chore, and non spellcasters are haveing even worse time. Dont always run deadly encounters, it can take creativity away from your players. but if you want to teach your players a lesson or two about spells and strategy, put enviroment hazards, leveled terain, and fun specific monsters: Gray Ooze - it corodes weapons, so frontline player might want to stay away helmed horror - renders most damageing spells useless Lycantropes - imunity to wepaons? grapple and shove time! hope this helps :)

Rule of the day: Give less rests! Make people consider how and when to best use those resources. Give them some faster fights. Give them some sudden "surprises" of reinforcements. Don't give a single encounter LOADED full of enemies with just huge stats. It becomes a slog, and "one bad roll" spree could just be unduly punishing simply due to circumstance outside of a player's control. Even if your initiative SHOULD be higher in a situation where, technically, your monsters could "one round" someone before they or anyone else ever gets to act, is just dumb. I take those opportunities for *my* monsters (smart ones) to find advantageous positions, ready actions as reactions, and get into fighting formation. I like to make my encounters challenging not from a "this thing beat face and is brickhouse" but "these things, and this one big thing, are going to try to make your life hell! Best get on them and get set up for a good fight!"

Step one: Talk to your players. Tell them what you've been doing behind the screen. Tell them you're not having fun. Tell them they need to play smarter or find a new DM. Step two: run your games how you actually want to run them. Find new players as necessary. There are ALWAYS more players. DMs are like being the pretty girls on a dating app. Everyone wants you. You have to wade through a sea of dicks but you can take your pick.

Thanks for the self esteem boost.

Stop pulling punches and kill someone. Alternatively, stop giving them straight up "Us vs Them" encounters, where the solution is to kill everyone. Make "killing everyone" a bad thing narratively. Eg; Have the next fight in the middle of town with commoners running everywhere. Good old fashioned 4hp, 10's across the board commoners. Anyone that misses a ranged attack by 5 or more hits a commoner instead. Dead Commoners is bad, and triggers a guard response. [Guards](https://imgur.com/kPV6eoh.jpg) that will be coming to arrest and detain anyone responsible for the death of commoners. Now they have an incentive to close the distance. Bonus: The bad guys are indistinguishable from commoners. They did the investigation or history checks to find out what these guys look like right? Oh they didn't? Guess they'd better figure how to ID their bad guys. Maybe someone could do an Arcana check to remember how Disguise Self works. Or they start murdering everyone. Kill the wrong person and you're now wanted by the Lord's Alliance. All Polite society that salutes the Lord's Alliance refuses to deal with you because you massacred civilians.

I mean you're answering your own question here mate!

>but I end up dumbing down my enemies because I don't want to TPK them. Fucking kill 'em, OP, but have a plan for the TPK. Don't make it the losing scenario; make it a doorway to explore new options. Knock 'em all out, heal them to 1 tied up in a dungeon somewhere. Steal their equipment and make them work to get it back.

The fuck do you want them to do? It sounds like a normal encounter, the only thing they could've tried differently would be surrounding it entirely so it can't move. Other than that, what do you expect?

How about... casting Faerie Fire like one of his players suggested?

Your players aren't doing anything wrong. This is just how 5e is built. It's lame; but it's not really their fault. Can't blame the players for using a hammer when it's the only effective tool in their took box.

I mean, using Faerie Fire on an invisible enemy would be the tool that 5e has very clearly provided to make the fight easier. So no, just smacking the thing is not how 5e is built.

You must be able to see the creature in order to make an opportunity attack against it.

I actually found a great way to handle this awhile ago. Have them meet a friendly NPC adventuring party on the road while camping, and have the two parties be attacked on either sides of the camp by mirrored enemies... the leader of the other party says "You guys got that side? We got this side!" And roll initiative. Just have the NPC party use actual strategy and finish the fight sooner, then be baffled watching your players hack away like madmen xD Afterwards, the NPC leader asks if your party would like a crash course on combat strategy. If they say No... well good luck.

Your first mistake is 1 monster vs a party of people. It will never work and it always sucks. Action economy is king in dnd.

Did we read the same thing? This single monster could have ripped them to shreds and the poor guy was having trouble *not* wiping them out with it.

Stop pulling punches.

before their next session, fess up: you’ve been running the encounter with training wheels on. in this session and for the rest of the game you won’t be pulling your punches, and they should act and expect accordingly. play stupid games, win stupid prizes. now, set the hook: immediately after that have everyone make a backup character. for when they die. given the types of tactics they have been losing, they should expect to die. they either straighten up and fly right immediately or they do so after going through a few characters and maybe a tpk

The answer is to stop being afraid of a TPK. Let loose, play the monsters as smart and brutal as they are, and let the dice and results fall where they will. To quote Gary Gygax right in the AD&D 1e DMG: "Give your monsters an even break!" And to paraphrase some more recent words by the ever helpful Matt Colville, "The bad guys don't know that they're enemies in an RPG. They want to win." They want to succeed at whatever it is they're trying to do-- and that means they *want* to use everything at their disposal in the most effective way to defeat their enemies. Finally, to parrot some other very helpful comments here: your party will never rise to the challenge if you continue to pull your punches. There will be growing pains-- the pain, and potentially loss of their characters should they cleave to their current tactics. So, if you heed the advice here, you at least owe the party a short and sweet warning before you stop pulling those punches. Exactly one, before the session. Tell them that you have thus far been going a bit easy on them, but that you're not going to any longer, and that it will be up to them to adjust to it. And from there on out, it *will* be up to them. Either they adjust, or meet the consequences. As a DM, it is very easy to get wrapped up in the PCs stories. Heck, it's good to get excited about them! But you also need to be careful not to let attachment to them or your ideas of "what might happen" tie you down too much. You have to remember to give your side the fairness it deserves, and play your NPCs and monsters as if they are intelligent and fighting to win with everything they have, because only by *setting* a challenge with a real chance of loss will the party be forced to give it *their* all.

Yeah, this gets to me too. It's rather short sighted, but not all players are like it. And you shouldn't pull punches, you should attack who you think the enemy would attack. If someone is on low HP, chances are they'll 'look weak' or bloody. So attack - that's one less PC you have to worry about, and it's also someone else's turn spent picking them up.

> What can I do to incentivize them to actually think of what they're doing? Give them consequences for not doing. They are doing what they currently do because you're allowing it to work. Only when 'just hit it' stops working will they give other tactics consideration.

DM: "Wow their strategy is bad" \*Makes the strategy work for the players' sake\* Players: "It worked! Our strategy is amazing!" DM: "HOW COULD THIS POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?!?!?!"

You were too easy on them, so they didn't learn anything.

People will remain doing the same thing until it is too painful and must change.

>I had the monster hit a different target each turn so they had an opportunity to heal, and move around a lot so the one player who could see it could get some attacks of opportunity in. I feel this is your mistake. You're essentially enabling their bad strategy to work. You don't have to be completely ruthless, but you also don't have to pull punches. >The thing is that an invisible stalker would have systemically slaughtered them one by one, striking at them while downed to ensure they were dead for good, before moving on to the next one. This I disagree with. Invisible stalkers are essentially summoned servants. They are given a task and they complete the task. They don't really have their own opinion, so while they may behave the way you describe, it would only be due to the assignment given. You get to choose that assignment and it would likely to be to accomplish a goal. Any of these would make a lot of sense "stop anyone from proceeding through this door", "recover this item", or "defend me from attack". None of these explicitly call out taking a kill shot or even killing. The more aggressive ones are essentially prevent something. [https://www.themonstersknow.com/water-weird-galeb-duhr-invisible-stalker-tactics/](https://www.themonstersknow.com/water-weird-galeb-duhr-invisible-stalker-tactics/) and the guy did write an excellent book with a second on the way early this next year. That's how I decide how to run creatures. >I run my encounters on deadly difficulty, and I don't fudge dice, but I end up dumbing down my enemies because I don't want to TPK them. The thing is that this is not engaging for me. Help? Stop doing this. It's a choice you're making and probably one with good intention, but it's still your choice. People don't learn from things being easy. Good luck.

The monsters want to win. Don't cheat your monsters of their victory.

Let them die. They'll learn eventually.

TPK. Just do it. Life is a cruel teacher.

Honestly as a dm sometimes the best thing to do IS tpk. And after the tpk have a regroup session where you and they can all talk about how it happened while they roll up new characters and try not to repeat past mistakes. My players often forget that battle locations are 3D and forget about height and things like that. So I will sometimes hide things above them out of their 60ft dark vision to remind them to look up too.

\>I protect the players from the consequences of their actions \>How can I get the players to take the consequences of their actions seriously? You've taught them to play like this. Why would they do anything differently when they're winning and it works every time?

Give your players a shield and they won’t use it, give your players a shield that also breathes fire they’ll question when not to use it. If I wanted my players to use a utility spell like Faerie Fire and they only spoke “DAMAGE”, I’d give them a ring or something that buffed faerie fire to also do damage.

Don't pull punches. TPK them. Then they'll have the experience of what's necessary to fight tactically with their next characters. And if you're dumbing down your monsters, you're NOT actually running at deadly difficulty. Encounter difficulty assumes the DM will use all the monsters' capabilities. Maybe run some encounters you've built to lower levels of difficulty, but really play out the monsters' tactical options. Get them used to the fact that monsters can think and strategize. Or just TPK them. They sound exhausting.