What’s up guys. It’s me again. Once again asking for your advice.

So. I’ve been GMing PF2e for a while now. And I love playing it. But I seem to not really get the combat right. I’m gonna elaborate.

My problem isn’t that the fight itself isn’t difficult. We have had some real nail biters in the past as I like to keep my combats quite demanding. And my players like a good challenge even if it can sometimes get really hard.

My actual problem is that after a few minutes of combat, my game sounds like this:

P1: “So I’m gonna attack him with my sword… 26” Gm: “Thats a hit. Roll for damage” P1: “27” Gm: “27 damage reduces enemy’s HP by 27” Gm: “you have x actions left” P1: “I’m gonna strike again… 16” Gm: “That’s a miss. What’s your last action?” P1: “im raising my shield and ending my turn” Gm: “Okay. It’s now the enemy’s turn. He is gonna attack you with his claws… 25. That’s a hit. You take… 14 points of slashing damage” P2: “okay” Gm: “he’s gonna use his feature now to intimidate you… 29, that’s enough you are frightened 1”

I think by now you understand. Combat always turns into this. No epicness. Just math and tactics. Which is cool as I like being tactical. But it doesn’t feel like an epic fight.

I then tried to narrate all the actions. Narrating vicious sword swings, epic blocks and dodges, battle cry’s, deaths. Trying to really form a picture in my players minds. Make it into a living breathing narrated encounter. Like a movie in your head.

I also tried getting them to narrate their own actions in this way.

Both of those measures led to, in my eyes, for more epic combat. But I could practically feel my players engagement slipping away. Why? Because the narrations made combat even slower than it already is.

After some sessions with this new approach my players approached me in the feedback session asking me to cut back on the combat narration. It slows everything down and makes combat longer and drawn out instead of fast and tactical. Which I do understand.

But now we are back to the kind of combat I simulated above. My players seem to have no problems with it and never complained. But for me… it feels wrong somehow. It doesn’t evoke theatre of mind I had hoped for when fighting epic battles. Which especially saddens me when it comes to boss fights.

They don’t feel epic. It’s just math. I tried doing the narration just for bosses which seems to work well and is accepted by my players. But the normal encounters, even the harder ones, still just feel dull for me.

But maybe I’m the only one with that problem. My players seem happy and always tell me they are having fun. They also seem to enjoy narrating their finishers when they kill more important enemy’s (which is also something I implemented for more engaging combat).

Still. I would like to get some advice?

What would you guys do to make combat more engaging? How can I make it more engaging while still keeping it fast paced? Are their other easy to implement cool features like narrating finishers? How do you guys handle your combat?

Thanks in advance!