My campaign (dnd 5.5e) has been going pretty steady (thanks to many of you here who jumped in with advice for me and the Fishel bros. books) and we've just had a bit of a summer break. Essentially the group is gearing up for a big rescue mission. I'm familiar with the concept of dialing up and down the difficulty level but I was wondering what you all keep in mind for running something like this: They are rescuing a party members long lost grandfather who has a special time traveling ability. They're fighting kind of like a fascist organization of dwarves who are aligned with an evil wizard group (that is after a different party member). The party has yet to align with some factions they might share similar interests with. My teen son who is in the party has told me my combat has been getting better, (originally was hard for me to think past the monsters lol) this is what I've been doing, I'm looking for just any other ideas you keep in mind when planning combat. - having interesting terrain, traps, objects - Maybe having countdown clocks at different points - Smarter monsters , monsters that turn into other monsters, different waves of monsters Thinking of adding more innocent bystanders, maybe unclear bystanders. Also more height or trench/ underground possibilities. Maybe this is enough but thought I'd check with you all here! I'm aware that maybe the best way to make combat more interesting is to use a different system 🤣 but this is what everyone is into.

Hi everyone! My name is Juan Pablo. I'm from Bogotá, Colombia and I've found this community recently after reading the books (Proactive Roleplaying and Collaborative Campaign Design). Currently I'm mostly playing SOLO, using a mix of Ironsworn/Starforged + The One Ring 2ed for the mechanics, while going through the backlog of 5e adventures that I've acquired through the years. These books have helped a lot in making sessions more engaging so I hope to find and share even more ideas with this community.