One of the easiest ways to make your combat encounters more interesting and difficult in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons is to introduce environmental hazards. These are dangers, objects, and other elements that you can place on a battle map for your player ch💙aracters and NPCs (non-player characters) to interact with.

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The cardinal sin of battle map combat is placing the cha🌼racters and their opponents in a blank room. Using environmental hazards, you will n♐ever commit this cardinal sin again, and your players will undoubtedly thank you for it.

10 Water

Djinn air elemental genie casting magic
Djinni Windseer by Livia Prima 

The simplest and most obvious environmental hazard to put in any counter is water. Whether it's🐭 a river, a lake, a handful of puddles, a waterfall, or something else, water offers a lot ꧙of different options that can change the landscape of your battlefields.

Creatures without swim speeds typically count water as difficult terrain whic♔h means it will cost them double their movement to get through water squares. However, a waterfall might offer partial or total cover from ranged attacks, and a river with a strong current might require an Athletics check to cross without being swept away.

Here's a simple way to see the effectiveness of water: placeꦍ a handful of ranged attackers on the far side of a river from your party.

The party's me🎶lee characters will instantly find themselves in a conundrum.

If you feel like being esꦍpecially devious, give the enemy ranged attackers cover in the form of trees💦 or bushes as well.

9 Pit Traps

A lone figure holds a torch in a cavernous dark dungeon
Dungeon Descent by Kasia 'Kafis' Zielinska

Yet another classic environmental hazard is the simple pit trap. Opponents such as bandits, goblins, and kobolds are sure to make use of these kinds of devices when your party is fighting them on their home turf. Pit traps also have the surprise effect of turning a combat that seemed⭕ simple enough in🙈to a suddenly deadly affair.

Beyond that, including these hazards on your map can reward players who have put points in their perception score as a high enough passive perception may 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:reveal the trap before a character steps on it. Just remember that passive p𓂃erception only applies within five feet of your c🐭haracter, so characters with a high passive will need to be moving across the battlefield to spot these dangers.

8 🃏 Falling Net

 Battle Angels of Tyr MtG Art from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate by Fajareka Setiawan
Battle Angels of Tyr MtG Art by  Fajareka Setiawan

Typically less effective than the pit trap but also less frequently expected is the falling net. This trap is best for harrying non-Strength based characters as it takes an Athletics check to escape one. However, the net can also be physically attacked with a slashing weapon or fire and dismantled that way. This alternative method 𓆏of escape rewards thinking players.

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While basic nets are easily overcome once encountered a couple of times, you can always up the ante by using steel nets that can't be cut, magic nets that shock whoever is unlucky enough to get trapped in them, or razor-sharp nets that have been lined with sharp ob💛jects such as daggers.

7 Elemental-Breathing Statue 🧸

A red, gold, amethyst and shadow dragon, from Dungeons & Dragons
Official D&D Dragons side by side via Wizards of the Coast

Statues that breathe an elemental burst of energy are technically magical traps, which are a great tool to use on your party once the🧸y think they've got the hang of your run-of-the-mill env☂ironmental hazards. While this hazard is usually set off by a pressure plate that can be noticed with a high enough passive perception, it can also be revealed by a handy casting of detect magic.

In other words, this is yet another hazard that can lead to players celebrating their intelligent and cautious gameplay. Beyond♓ being disabled with thieves tools like other traps, these statues can also be put to rest through a successful casting of dispel magic. All in all, they're a great w🐽ay for the magic half of your party to get in on recognizing and disabling hazards.

6 Boiling Oil Or Acid 💯 ♎

A blue feminine sea creature smiles wickedly over some shell
Sea Hag by Andrea Piparo

If you want to run a larger combat like the siege of a keep or castle, it would be remiss not to include the medieval terror of🥂 boiling oil or an acid-like equivalent. These can trigger like falling nets or you can simply let some of your enemies use their actions to pour buckets of the stuff on your unsuspecting party.

Once doused in one of these substances, a character will take recurring damage at the start of every one of their turns until they take an🐠 action to scrape the substance off. This gives players a difficult choice between losing most of their turn or braving the risk of taking more damage. Furthermore, smart play such as wading into a nearby river or well is yet another way to delight players.

5 Poiso🍌n Dartౠs

Dungeons & Dragons: In Swarming Goblins by Andrew Mar, goblins attack from a canyon
Swarming Goblins by Andrew Mar 

When it comes to hazards, it's just hard to beat the classics. Poison darts may be simple enough at first glance; however, there's a lot of room to customize the exact poison your PCs might be afflicted with. Typical poison darts just deal additional poison damage💙, but you could have them inflict a condition such as poisoned, sleeping, or paralyzed instead.

There's also the op🐬tion to have a particularly potent poison do both! Chapter 8 of the Dungeon Master's Guide has a good selection of poisไons that have already been made for your ease of use.

4 🦩 Rolling Sphere

In D&D, a Barbarian breaks down the door to a dungeon.
Kick In The Door by Justine Cruz 

This is a🌱 hazard that has an initiative of its own. That's not just a joke; the boulder actually rolls for initiative if this hazard happens to be triggered. Player characte🍨rs in the way of the boulder's trajectory, when it takes its turn, will find themselves in a world of pain as it rolls right over their fragile bones.

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There's also the option to include some less-than-obvious trajectory changes for a rolling sphere if a particularly intelligent dungeon-dweller has preemptively created a sort of race track f🔯or the hazard. Ideas here include sections of wall that are hidden doors for the sphere to roll through, curved corners i🀅n a room to let it turn, and even methods of teleporting the boulder.

3 Glyph Of Warding 🎐

fireball blows up building in alley
Fireball by Sam Keiser

Speaking of teleporting boulders, glyph of warding is the most likely means by which your evil henchmen can accomplish this feat. This is a third level spell with a casting time of one hour that inscribes an almಞost imperceptible glyph on an object or surface. Detecting the glyph requires an Iꦗnvestigation check against the spellcaster's spell save DC (Difficulty Check).

Glyphs can be set in two modes. The explosive runes option makes th🃏e glyph into an elemental bomb that deals 5d8 damage when someone messes with it. However, the much more interesting option is to set the glyph with a spell. This option lets you store a spell of third level or lower in the glyph, which is cast when the glyph becomes triggered.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Great spells to put in a glyph include thunderwave, web, hypnotic pattern, fireball🌠, hold person, and many, many more.

Concentration spells are a great choice in particular൲ as they automatically last their entire duration and require no concentration from the original caster.

Also, you can upcast glyph of🃏💙 warding to store higher-level spells as well.

2 🏅 Portcullis Or Wall

A group of adventurers being attacked
Art by Zoltan Boros

The old adage 'never split the party' exists for a reason. Many players adhere to this and prevent their dungeon master from singling them out and making each of them more vulnerable. That being said, there's not much a party can do when a wall or portcullis dro𒐪ps from the ceiling between them and monsters attack the characters on both sides simultaneously.

This hazard forces players to think out of the box quickly to bring their party back together. A portcullis can be beaten through 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:many different means of teleportation; however, a wall is much more tricky. This is a great opportunity for Strength-based characters in particular to shine, whether they're trying 🐈to lift the wall or protect their more fragile part𓂃y members.

1 Lava

Firkraag, Cunning Instigator by Andrew Mar
Firkraag, Cunning Instigator by Andrew Mar

The Dungeon Master's Guide🧸 tells us that a character submerged in lava takes 18d10 fire damage. That works out to an average of about 100 points of damage which is enough to nearly one shot even the highest level characters. For this reason alone, lava is easily the most danger🙈ous environmental hazard you can put on a battle map.

Lava should be used sparingly, but it's a great inclusion in any climactic boss battle or high-level adventure. Especially if you have fire-immun🦂e creatures tha🐷t can grapple the characters and pull them directly into it. Yeah, that's going to leave a mark.

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