Battle strategy guide anyplace?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Does anything like a D&D battle strategy guide exist?

My party does ok, but it seems like we are 4 or 5 individuals taking random shots at enemies.

I think I've just hit the level of proficiency where I can maximizing my available actions. During our last session I feel like we had a moment where when one of our own was mind controlled we made an effort as a team to prevent spell casting through grappling (and head dunking!) while others did their best damage. That may just be because we know each other's weaknesses though.

If it helps send me someplace our party is a:
Lore Bard
Wizard
Rogue
Ranger
Sometimes a Monk, sometimes a Cleric, never both somehow lol.

[Naez]

In 5e combat each character is pretty self contained. There's not really anything you can do in the way of tactics, combos, and synergies. If you just need to figure out how to do more damage the various class guides should cover that but there's really not much more you can do except hit it and hit it harder.

Unless you're a caster then you can use illusions, mind control, or a creatively used utility spell to negate an entire encounter while the rest of the party twiddles their thumbs.

[Arcangel4774]

If you want more case specific help, subtypes, levels, and style preference are somewhat necessary. Spells known is important as well.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

If you want more case specific help, subtypes, levels, and style preference are somewhat necessary. Spells known is important as well.

Perhaps that question has revealed a problem. I do not know all the spells our Wizard knows or the Monk's exact stats for example. I do know the Wizard loves fireball and some kind of floating flaming sphere.

To be as specific as I can then.
Lore Bard leveling up to 5 next session
Wizard lvl 5
Rogue lvl 5 (with a haunted +1 sword that is bound to cause trouble)
Ranger lvl 4 (traded the sword to the Rogue for a Misty Step magical belt)
Sometimes a Monk (he might be lvl 3 still if we don't bump him next time he shows), sometimes a Cleric lvl 4, never both somehow lol.

My Half Elf Lore Bard rolled:
Str 9
Dex 17
Con 13
Int 9
Wis 13
Cha 18

We have not allowed feats.

Cantrips
Dancing Lights
Message
Vicious Mockery

1st Level
Charm Person
Faerie Fiare
Healing Word
Thunderwave

2nd Level
Heat Metal
Phantasmal Force
Shatter

3rd Level (will probably take)
Bestow Curse
Fear

Trapping low intelligence enemies in a prone position with Phantasmal Force so the Drow Rogue or Monk can attack them while I plunk them with arrows and heal with Healing Word is the best I have for strategy.

As we are leveling up I get to discard and a Cantrip to 2nd Level spell before the next session so if you have suggestions on what to swap out or what 3rd Level spells would round me out better I am all ears.

[Arcangel4774]

You've planned well for good spells for the next level. I personally like hypnotic pattern, but it's not strictly better than what you chose. You may want to pick up the 1st level spell dissonant whispers, it's pretty useful, especially if it allows a rogue opportunity sneak attack. You've done a good job of focusing control spells, which is fitting as your wizard seems to be more damage orientated.

As for your combat tactics, especially now that you're level 5, cantrips will start scaling better vicious mockery give enemies disadvantage on attack which is pretty big depending on the fight and enemy. As a side not you are supposed to have disadvantage at range with a bow, when the enemy is prone, so your dm may have been taking it easy on you.

[djreynolds]

Charm person is a good spell, at almost all levels if you succeed. It can take a dangerous foe out of combat.

Also you make areas for the rogue to hide in, illusion, darkness, fog cloud etc., so he can gain advantage.

[nickl_2000]

Phantasmal Force is a fantastic spell IF your DM lets you get away with things and you have the imagination to make it work. I struggle with the best use the spell in most situations, so I've dropped it.

For my second level bard I'm using
Suggestion
Heat Metal
Shatter

Suggestion is an AMAZING spell and one certainly worth looking into. It has battle uses and has outside combat uses, and is even better if you can get an Instrument of the Bards (which gives disadvantage against charm effects).

[Citan]

In 5e combat each character is pretty self contained. There's not really anything you can do in the way of tactics, combos, and synergies. If you just need to figure out how to do more damage the various class guides should cover that but there's really not much more you can do except hit it and hit it harder.

Unless you're a caster then you can use illusions, mind control, or a creatively used utility spell to negate an entire encounter while the rest of the party twiddles their thumbs.
Wut? I'm sorry but that is a load of crap here.
Quite on the contrary, there are a lot of class features or spells that are specifically designed for teamwork, like Barbarian's Reckless Attack for example.

To OP: considering your party and spells...
You could have taken Dissonant Whispers to help trigger some OA from your Rogue, Ranger and Monk pals. Beyond that you should alternate between Faerie Fire and Phantasmal Force depending on the kind of enemies and use and abuse Heat Metal on big dangerous enemies with metal armor, it's a deadly spell in these situations.
I would personally rather use Faerie Fire in fact for now to keep 2nd level slots available, especially if your Monk friend is an Open Hand Monk (free tries to Shove them prone).

Your Wizard pal could also help in battlefield control or frontliners efficiency by learning Blindness (also shuts down casters, mostly) or Web.

Since most of your group can be good at a range (you are using arrows already, Rogue and Ranger can easily swap to ranged too, Wizard probably use ranged cantrips as well, so only Monk would be affected) your Ranger pal could learn Spike Growth on his next level to channel enemies into a chokepoint. Or you could cast it "onto" a Grease or Web (cast by Wizard previously) once some enemies so create a catch-22 situation.

Or your Ranger could learn Flame Arrows and pair it when useful with a Web (putting it on fire).

Certainly, it's difficult to give some advice "in the void" like that but as long as everyone is trying to facilitate each other's strengths and you all defined some golden rules beforehand (like: what is our usual, low-resource strategy? Who decides when to retreat and in that case how to cover our runaway) you should be fine.
Basically: try to provide advantage to your frontliners (especially Rogue), help them survive the aggro (Heat Metal when it can work, otherwise Cutting Words / Vicious Mockery). Wizard should do anything "control-like" (Fog Cloud/Darkness to provide cover from distant archers or force enemies to go out from a secure place, Grease/Web to channel enemies and control their movement, Blindness to disable a dangerous foe, Phantasmal Force to lure/disable them, etc) while keeping a Burning Hands/Shatter/Fireball available in case there is a chance to trap several enemies at once.
Ranger should be the one doing the main aggro, using either Hunter's Mark or Ensnaring Strike depending on enemy (and his own WIS), providing advantage to Rogue ("ally close-by") to facilitate Sneak Attack, while the latter uses his mobility to engage either at close-range or hanging back depending on the situation.

My two cents, hope that helps. :) Have fun!

[Quoxis]

My tipps:
- read class guides. Most of the good ones already point out what you can do to maximize their efficiency in a team, especially the "god wizard" guide by the infamous Treantmonk.
- the most basic tactics: get a feel for playstyles. A party can survive with a group entirely made of blaster wizards for example, but with your group you could have the monk run around and stun opponents (effectivity taking them out of combat to deal with them later), while bard, wizard and cleric can do control, healing, buffing/debuffing OR blasting - or all at once. I'm currently playing a cleric whose main role is blessing or healing the group, occasionally casting faerie fire if we're dealing with invisibility etc., i rarely get to attack at all, but we managed to take down opponents well beyond our level so far.
- advantage, advantage, advantage. Spellcasters cast spells to Grant advantage on enemies or to impose disadvantage on their attacks (vicious mockery ftw!), martial combattants shove them prone for advantage on melee attacks, etcetcetc

[KorvinStarmast]

In 5e combat each character is pretty self contained. There's not really anything you can do in the way of tactics, combos, and synergies.
That's not quite true. Our last group had a shield master tank/fighter who made it a habit to knock things prone so that the rogue or barbarian would attack with advantage.
Our Mage was more controller, less blaster. His use of slow was pretty nice when I was using sacred flame or call lightning, which call for a dex save (and slow gives disadvantage on des saves.
My Cleric usually had bless up during a fight to help out the others.

I am currently playing a monk and we have just gotten to the point where I can begin to knock things around, or prone, so that our martials can attack with advantage. that's where I spend my ki points: to help the rest of the party.

[Gtdead]

There are a few tips for combat performance, but it really depends on the party make up and the spell selection.

For example, if the melee can flank, he should flank, that way ranged characters don't have to deal with half cover.

The low dpr class should focus on providing advantage for the high dpr.

Buff a player's strongest stat, not the weakest. Buff the damage of the damage dealer and the ac of the tank. Never use resources to compensate for a weakness unless it has tactical application, like fly on the sorcerer

Against ranged enemies go prone.

Mooks deal proportionally high damage compared to their sturdiness. Drop them as fast as possible or control them out of the fight. Have a dedicated class for that if possible.

Choke points need some thought. You can cripple your ranged classes. Spellcasters can handle choke points better than archers.

Have a strong and flexible alpha strike. Even melees should be able to effectivelly engage in ranged combat.

And more I guess. Can't think of another general rule tho.

[Tanarii]

My party does ok, but it seems like we are 4 or 5 individuals taking random shots at enemies.


If it helps send me someplace our party is a:
Lore Bard
Wizard
Rogue
Ranger
Sometimes a Monk, sometimes a Cleric, never both somehow lol.With that party, I'd expect you to be doing a lot of running away. You don't really have the characters to form a solid combat line/front. So ... Hit and Run. Ambush with the scouts (Rogue, Ranger, sometimes Monk), then lure the enemies back to your Wizard/Bard/sometimes Cleric for a second ambush.

[Gtdead]

Lore bard and wizard can create a good fireball killzone.

Cleric can do the SG + sanctuary trick if dm doesn't have any objections. The slow is a huge benefit to ranged parties.

Heavy use of pass without a trace. You have a super strong initiation.

Monk can play the cleric instead. ^^

[Gastronomie]

If it's about strategy, in addition to those mentioned above, focus fire. I've seen many people who spread out damage over multiple enemies, but it's obviously better to focus damage on certain enemies and gradually decrease the number of turns the enemy side gets each round.

[Sir cryosin]

I think your good the way youre goupe is working from what you have said to us. For tactics find ways to get the upper hand on the enemy's. Have good party cooperation. Talk about what spells y'all have what abilitys and think up combos simple things like pushing some back into the wizards cloud of daggers. Or lock down the enemy caster like in your example.

[Laserlight]

There's not really anything you can do in the way of tactics, combos, and synergies.

My party's archer, who has the habit of running into the midst of enemies instead of staying back behind our line, would agree with this. Makes me want to tear my hair out. Or better, his hair.

Your characters should get together and talk about:

How each of you can get extra attacks (generally through bonus actions or OAs).
What you can do to a target so your friends have Advantage on their attacks against it.
What you can do to avoid creating Disadvantage for your friends--e.g. don't prone a target or stand in front of him if your party is mostly ranged attackers.
What range you each want: who wants to be in melee, who wants to avoid it, and who wants to dart in for melee attacks but then run back out again (eg swashbuckler).
Who needs to be adjacent to a buddy to make their attack routine work (eg Sentinel); the rest should usually spread out a bit so as not to be easily hit by area effects.
How to identify targets for focus fire and AoE fire--who's in charge of yelling "Kill that one!" or "Fireball through that door!"
Code phrases--if you yell "Kill that one!", the enemy can hear you and might respond; yelling"Option Green, zone two!" will be harder for them to respond to. It also makes your group feel more like a team and less like a disjointed collection random murderhobos.
Stupid things to avoid. If you get your initiative, then all the monsters get theirs, then the rest of the party acts, then you should probably not Move+Dash to get into the midst of the enemy where all of them can hit you and your party can't support you. If you need healing, don't move out of range of the healer. If there's a horde of trash mobs and your sorcerer's initiative is after yours, don't run into spot where he wants to drop a fireball.

[CaptainSarathai]

This is something that I've been working on with my group, a bunch of newbies working alongside my character. Stuff we've been doing:

1. Keep your Range close
I see this happen a lot. You spot some Goblins in the distance, and your melee guys (especially the Paladin and Barbarian, who don't have ranged weapons at all) go sprinting headlong toward the enemy, dashing all the way. Seconds later, the other half of the ambush pops up from hiding, and swallows up the squishy Wizard and Archer in the back of the group.
Try to keep your ranged classes within 1 Movement of your melee characters, so that either one can break away from contact and get snuggled up with a shield-buddy.
When we're facing an enemy who is closing in from range, we try to get the melees into cover or prone. If you're not able to contribute at range, be patient and keep your head down so that you're not eating up damage (and heals).

2. It's not always about damage
I'm running levels of Battle Master on my character, and one thing that I've gotten used to, is giving up one of my attacks for Commanding Strike. Sure, my Fighter/Warlock can throw 2d6+Stat damage, but if I give up my attack to the Rogue or the Paladin, that's a shot for them to Sneak Attack or Smite. One attack from them will do at least what a single attack from me would do.
This is most obvious with Bards, actually. They are the preeminent "support class," but I see them giving up chances to throw Bardix Inspiration around, in favor of chucking out Cantrip damage on their turn. They'll pass over every "aide" spell, and then whine about how they deal less damage than everyone else. - they aren't there to deal damage, they're in there as a force multiplier.

If your Fighter has Shield Master and Athletics, you need to be using it and putting people Prone so your party can finish them off more quickly. You won't deal nearly as much damage as 2 other players wailing with Advantage.

3. Learn to Move
My character has Sentinel, but he hardly needs it. Our DM (also new) just has monsters run up to you and stand toe-to-toe, trading blows. Players let them get away with this, too. This is wrong.
I am always moving. I eat OAs like candy, and they rarely hurt me. We use a grid, and I have no problem counting out squares. I'll gladly eat 1A from a Bandit, if it means that two others are in Dash range now and can't use their MultiAttack.
Rather than always go right for the Disengage, I'll often try to get some kind of a Push effect, and then move away. It's better to be contributing all the time, and Disengage just... doesn't, because it takes up your Action. Eating the OA and then Dashing would be better, trading your Action to hopefully gain enough distance that your enemy has to Dash to catch you, and trades their action as well.

4. Get Extra Attacks
This kind of ties in with #2, but always be aware of what gives your allies better/more attacks. Some Rogues love having flanks and help in combat. Other Rogues actually need you to move away so they can get their SA off.
Having Sentinel means that I can take swings at people who hit my friends, so I need friendly characters standing near me to proc attacks.
The Fighter with GWM gets a Bonus if he scores the killing blow with his weapon. The Warlock gains THP. Barbarians need to either hit or be hit each turn of their Rage.
Knowing these things helps the other people in the party operate at peak efficiency. It's probably what they built their character for. Let them have fun and do that role to their fullest.

5. Focus Fire, and hit fast
If I have 3 goblins at 1 health each, I'm still taking full damage from that encounter. If I have 2 goblins and a dead one, I have now reduced incoming pain. Focusing your fire is the key to keeping players alive. Take attacks "offline" as quickly as possible. Don't worry about stupid things like "stealing kills" or who killed what creature. Just bring one target down, then work on the others. Just beware, mook creatures are arguably more dangerous than the big guys. Action economy makes a helpless little Goblin into a complete nightmare when he's part of a group of a [I]dozen[/].
Still, unless you have AoE effects, you want to bring them down individually, and fast.

Speed is a key word here. If it seems like maybe you should use your big attacks, use them. Too many players are too stingy with things like Leveled Spell Slots, Maneuvers, class features and NOVA capabilities. They go to bed with these things still active from the day before.
That's wrong.
Encounters are built on a budget. Yes, if the end-of-the-day bossfight comes and you're out of max level slots, it's gonna be harder. But that's because people don't think in terms of the entire day. Blowing up that Demon earlier may not have been the most heroic use of your spell slot, but quickly killing enemy soldiers saved you taking extra damage, letting you reach the boss relatively unscathed.

[MaxWilson]

In 5e combat each character is pretty self contained. There's not really anything you can do in the way of tactics, combos, and synergies. If you just need to figure out how to do more damage the various class guides should cover that but there's really not much more you can do except hit it and hit it harder.

Whoa. That's basically the opposite of what I'd have said. A party that works together can synergize to an astounding degree to beat foes that they would lose to if they fight as random individuals. Consider even just the simplest of examples: Rogue, Ranger, and Wizard pour arrows and cantrips into the enemy (say, two Fire Giants) while the monk tanks one giant (Dodging, with or without Patient Defense, but threatening Stunning Strike opportunity attacks to keep the giants' attention on him) and the Lore Bard uses his conjured minions (via Conjure Animals) to keep the other giant busy, and avert hits on the monk via Cutting Words. Just the simple fact that the monk is Dodging instead of trying to maximize his DPR, and letting the other PCs do the bulk of the damage, will (guesstimate) cut in half the resources expended on these giants, meaning that the party can kill twice as many giants and/or gain twice as much XP per day. And that's a simple combo. When you get into stuff like having the wizard animate skeletons while the Lore Bard casts Stinking Cloud around the skeletons to give them advantage on ranged attacks and protect them from melee attackers, and have the skeletons throw nets on anyone who does enter the Stinking Cloud, it gets more complicated but also more rewarding.

Another good thing to do with the OP's party is to have the monk scout ahead (stealthily), being fully prepared to book and run back to the party if he runs into anything he can't handle. The idea is that you want the enemy to be spending his actions Dashing after the monk while the PCs are spending their actions attacking the enemy. This does require the party to choose a good position to wait for the monk, ideally an open space or one end of a long corridor--you can prep the corridor with caltrops to make it effectively longer. (The monk can avoid the caltrops just by running on the walls instead of the floor.)

I don't know of a central location where you can go to read about battle tactics, and honestly it is probably more fun if you discover them yourself instead of reading about them. But trust me that there is a lot of stuff you can do. One word of advice: optimizing for DPR is pretty pointless. The devs have made it expensive to increase DPR very much--it may take a whole class feature just to raise your damage by +CHA mod per round, for example. But it's pretty easy to optimize defensively, to make it so that enemies do less damage to you, and many good tactics are built on that foundation instead. Mathematically there is no difference between cutting the enemy's DPR in half vs. doubling your own DPR: either way, the combat has the same difficulty. But in 5E, cutting the enemy's DPR is generally a lot easier.

Oh, one other thing to mention: when there's lots of enemies, use a big AoE like Web or Evard's Black Tentacles to render most of them ineffective (and try to exploit chokepoints). When there's only a few enemies, find tactics that put that lone enemy at disadvantage (like grappling it and shoving it prone so it gets disadvantage on attacks while you get advantage--note that it can't get up from being prone until the grapple ends) so you can kill it cheaply. Avoid blasting spells unless there are lots of weak targets.

Have fun discovering good tactics!

[GlenSmash!]

...Have fun discovering good tactics!

i'll try to do just that, but I'd kill for a "Guide to playing a defensive X" based on this post and some of your other posts.

A Grappling Barbarian using a Rapier with Defensive Duelist to make himself even harder to hit is about as far as I've gotten.He's is super fun to play. Hard to hit, and when he is hit the damage get's soaked up by resistance and a big pool of hitpoints.

I wonder how I would build a more defensive Ranger.

[Tanarii]

I wonder how I would build a more defensive Ranger.
Rapier & Shield, Defensive Duelist, Mobile, Sentinel, Beastmaster with Wolf in Breastplate Barding.

[MaxWilson]

i'll try to do just that, but I'd kill for a "Guide to playing a defensive X" based on this post and some of your other posts.

A Grappling Barbarian using a Rapier with Defensive Duelist to make himself even harder to hit is about as far as I've gotten.He's is super fun to play. Hard to hit, and when he is hit the damage get's soaked up by resistance and a big pool of hitpoints.

I wonder how I would build a more defensive Ranger.

Well, one fun thing to do with a Ranger is to exploit Escape the Horde and Longstrider. Escape the Horde forces enemies to take disadvantage on opportunity attacks against you; Longstrider makes you faster. Put them together and you can make sure you always end your turn out of melee range of (most) enemies: you just move away from the enemy, taking a single opportunity attack in the process, and then shoot them with your arrow. (Or if you like, stab them with your rapier and THEN move away.) Instead of a full multiattack against you, the enemy gets only a single opportunity attack, and that is at disadvantage; then it has to Dash to get into melee range of you, which means it cannot do a regular Multiattack on its turn.

The key question of course is "What is the rest of the party doing to synergize with you at this time?" I.e. "Why doesn't the enemy golem/fire giant/chuul/whatever just attack them instead?" There's no point in baiting the enemy into opportunity attacking the ranger unless you simultaneously ensure that there is no target BETTER than the ranger. For the Rogue, that should be simple: stay at range and sneak attack it with a shortbow. For the monk, it's harder, because some players like to play monks as up-there-in-your-face always melee attacking; either the monk needs to get used to letting someone else tank sometimes, or else the ranger needs to simply stay at range and let the monk tank, or else the DM needs to throw enough enemies at you that both of them need to tank in different directions (e.g. opposite ends of a large hall with zombies pouring in from both sides).

Edit: I should mention here that the fun here is not so much in the fact that this combo is particularly powerful--it's not. Anyone with the Mobile feat can do the same thing. The fun here is the fact that it's practically free. You need zero feat investment, and Longstrider is cheap and worthwhile in its own right, and all of the Ranger abilities at 7th level are pretty mediocre IMO, so choosing one of them and making mediocre lemons into lemonade is fun IMO. If you have a better use for a different 7th level ability like Iron Will instead of Escape the Horde, you can safely skip this trick. It is "fun" and counterintuitive, not "powerful."

Rangers can also exploit Spike Growth and Conjure Animals to create zones that are difficult for enemies to cross quickly and/or safely, and use that to buy time to kill big enemies. Works especially well if you have a warlock in the party who can Repelling Blast enemies right back into the danger zone after they've spent time and HP getting out of it.

If you have questions about specific classes and/or party configurations I'd be happy to brainstorm with you.

P.S. Nice job on the grappling barbarian! Sounds like fun!

[JellyPooga]

In 5e combat each character is pretty self contained.

Only if players only build for themselves. There are plenty of ways to build "support characters" or otherwise pro-teamwork characters. Hell, a level 3 Wolf Totem Barbarian is a perfect example of someone that sacrifices some personal power (Bear or Eagle Totem) for team benefit and that's just the tippy top of the iceberg; Bards have an entire core Class feature designed for teamwork (Bardic Inspiration) for Petes' sake!


There's not really anything you can do in the way of tactics, combos, and synergies.

And this is total rubbish. A Rogue with Expertise in Athletics that uses his action to knock a foe down for the Fighter to wail on it with his GWM Extra Attacks is a spammable tactic that doesn't even scratch the surface of the possibilities of spellcasters (though probably isn't that useful to the OP unless the Ranger is melee focused). Any spellslinger that can buff an ally (with is basically all of them) has the option of using their turn on some kind of "combo" and/or "synergy", let alone the option of battlefield control spells, debuffs and so forth. If the spellslingers in the party are using direct damage spells more than buffs, debuffs and control spells, encourage them to stop dealing damage; they're basically operating at low efficiency. Show them some guides on their classes and talk about party roles; with a Rogue and a Ranger in the party, they should probably be the primary damage dealers, with the spellslingers backing them up and enabling their "striking" abilities.

[GlenSmash!]

snip...P.S. Nice job on the grappling barbarian! Sounds like fun!

Thanks, it is fun. And thanks for the good advice!

Now I've noticed how easily I was falling into the trap of "Take a feat for that" that I was forgetting what I get for "Free" out of the class. I used to do this with the said Barbarian, until I realized the Grappler feat didn't actually make him any better at grappling. I'm glad I didn't take that one.

[furby076]

Stuff you can do together
1. Focus fire. Melt the face of one target at a time...its faster. Maybe have one other character controlling the battlefield (e.g, web) preventing the other enemies from engaging
2. Debuff an enemy before your other players use a save attack. I ask our group warlock to hex before i cast a nasty spell


there are lots of ways to be tactful, and it all boils down to this: a player needs to be willing to not use his/her shining/pimp/awesome ability to help a different player do something better. Think of basketball....you could try and always take the shot or you could pass the ball to your teammate who is in a better position

[MaxWilson]

Stuff you can do together
1. Focus fire. Melt the face of one target at a time...its faster. Maybe have one other character controlling the battlefield (e.g, web) preventing the other enemies from engaging
2. Debuff an enemy before your other players use a save attack. I ask our group warlock to hex before i cast a nasty spell

Do note that Hex does not affect saving throws, only ability checks. Hexing someone's Strength will make it harder for them to break out of a Web (Strength check) but Hexing Dexterity will not make it easier to catch them in the Web in the first place (Dex save).

Hex does make grappling/shoving prone/disarming lots easier though.

[poolio]

Apologies if it's already been covered but it's late where I am and I'm going to bed, no time to go over full thread right now,

But the problem here is that combats can be so different that it's kinda difficult to come up with a guide on how to optimize strategy, i mean there's terrain, starting positions, types of enemies and their size and capabilities, not to mention the limitless possibilities of player party composition, from number of players to classes/sub classes and spells/skills,

But there is one thing i notice that would really up a teams ability to function, and that's that not everyone has to do damage, or even anything at all, in a turn to make things work, I've played a couple eldritch knights who've primary actions until later levels was to attempt to get the attention of the enemies and then just dodge while team mates pelted the foes from afar,

I always see combat like a boxing match, the point is to hit, without being hit, and the two sides just make up one individual fighter each.

Maybe I'll come back and give my examples of good strategy in the morning...if anyone is interested :smalltongue: