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Using manouvers, intimidate, taking cover, pulling a disappearing act. Toss some alchemicals if you're feeling rich. Mobility becomes very important when enemies have sneak attack, too.
Basically, to have players play interestingly, you need interesting enemies. If all your NPCs do is stand still and hack, players will respond in kind. If they kick an open barrel of oil on their head from the upper floor and light it up, someone might think to drop and roll.
If they kick an open barrel of oil on their head from the upper floor and light it up, someone might think to drop and roll.
Great, now that I and my axe are on fire I can deal fire damage thrice per round! ;)
Well, the thing is that other actions (e.g. intimidate, grab, move) often feel less impactful than another hit even if the math is telling us that long term they aren't, especially versus higher level monsters.
Intimidate might do nothing in a particular situation because everybody is just rolling high or low enough to fully ignore the benefits this time. Monk has successfully managed to grab the big bad monster? Well monk has just made himself the prime target and will be left in the dust just like any other character by a triple attack that does not need a nat 20 to hit, even on the last attempt. Move away? To bad that you are fighting 90% of your fights in tiny caves while dungeon crawling, etc.
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Skirmishing enemies or unusual terrain can help. While I like combat anyways in this edition, the most memorable fights have definitely been the ones where the players have planned around stuff.
E.g. some of my earlier encounters in my campaign involved an urban area, with trees next to buildings, 10 to 20-foot wide roads and alleyways, and groups of enemies on the ground with support on the rooftops. The martials climbed the buildings to beat up some of the archers and bosses, using the trees to make it easier, while the spellcasters did stuff like wall of wind and blasting spells to keep themselves safe on the ground.
Using manouvers, intimidate, taking cover, pulling a disappearing act. Toss some alchemicals if you're feeling rich. Mobility becomes very important when enemies have sneak attack, too.
Basically, to have players play interestingly, you need interesting enemies. If all your NPCs do is stand still and hack, players will respond in kind. If they kick an open barrel of oil on their head from the upper floor and light it up, someone might think to drop and roll.
I had an encounter set in a warehouse once. A bunch of criminals were auctioning weaponry a bunch of gangs, but they'd threatened some of the gangs into showing up. The players helped remove the threat the first group of criminals were holding over a gangs head, and sneaked along to the auction as part of that gang. TL;DR the druid kicked out some fire spells and intentionally hit some alchemical stuff to set the auctioneers on fire, and all the gangs descended into a free for all. By the end, most of the map was on fire or covered in toxic smog.
Fun times.
It can also help as a GM to set up battles where the objective has to be more than just “kill the enemy.” If hostages are involved, or the enemy is escaping with something, or the boat the combat is happening on is being drug to the bottom of the ocean by a gargantuan sea serpent, standing still and attacking three times becomes a much more difficult/dangerous choice to make.
You can always try to make it more "gamey" if you want to and are comfortable setting up some more rolls. Use monsters with more abilities or add abilities to monsters if you feel they're lacking. Like others have said, make the terrain more interesting or more dynamic--rocks falling, a ship that's listing, flying enemies in a giant treadmill room pulling players towards a massive spike pit crusher filled with demonic flesh-eating oozes and a slurry of lemon juice and salt...
Scenarios like Unicore mentioned are also helpful. You can also encourage alternatives to combat or nudge players one direction by having them get handled by a single big enemy... And then notice the next room is guarded by three of the same thing!
Add in monsters with unique resistances and suggest to the players that they can Recall Knowledge to get an edge. Have monsters use interesting tactics, model them for your players, and see if they want to try them out.
Though, at level 1 there's only so much you can do with player options. Fighters might be able to Sudden Charge and raise their shield, or get off an attack of opportunity, but there won't be a lot going on at lower levels without the terrain playing a role. Most classes are going to have a simple routine at level 1, and most monsters are going to have a simple routine.
If new players are playing casters and struggling to figure out which spells to prepare, maybe let them basically be spontaneous casters in their first few outings to get a feel for the options they have. I have a group of all new players, and for the one caster (playing a Druid) I'm letting her pick her spells as she goes through the day. We just had a session where she used grease to great effect, and it was a spell she otherwise wouldn't have looked at. Now the group is starting to realize that some of these less flashy or exciting spells can actually be very potent, and when I transition them into fully preparing their spell lists they'll have a bit more experience with their options.
But at the end of the day, if your players are enjoying walking up to things and smacking them, or using electric arc a lot, then that's fine. As a DM you can make the monsters interesting, and nudge players and show them options, but if they like being boring then that's ultimately what's going to be fun for them.
The easiest way to get your players reconsider triple attack is to have a monster with a reaction on critical failures on attack rolls, like an automatic disarm.
For electric Arc, it's a bit more tricky. You can put monsters with specific vulnerabilities working like demon's vulnerabilities. Like mental damage when a monster get Frightened or Clumsy. Double it with lightning resistance if your players don't understand.
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The easiest way to get your players reconsider triple attack is to have a monster with a reaction on critical failures on attack rolls, like an automatic disarm.
Jason "suggested" in one of his many discussions about PF2 mechanics that we may start seeing monsters that have AoO actions with triggers based on critical failures. Could be as simple as an attack when you crit fail an attack or something more "interesting" like a combat maneuver or things like a goblin's scuttle, etc.
I too look forward to when simply standing in one place and swinging three times hoping for a nat 20 on the 3rd roll isn't the most optimized use of your actions. Given that damage output per capita seems to be in the enemy's favor, I would rather move away and give them one less chance to nat 20 me on their 3rd attack than hope and pray for a 20 on my 3rd attack, especially since they don't seem to need that 20 as often as I do.
Jason "suggested" in one of his many discussions about PF2 mechanics that we may start seeing monsters that have AoO actions with triggers based on critical failures.
This does a good job discouraging third attacks, but I'm a little worried it might have the ripple effect of also discouraging nonspecialists from even bothering.
I'm also, despite the OP's concerns, not entirely sure that third attacks need to be discouraged more. There are a lot of good uses for your actions, with a third attack being a decent choice if raw damage is your concern. Pushing too much further into discouraging it risks turning it into just a trap.
1) Make the battlefield interesting. Choke points, paths to flank, different elevation, difficult or. Dangerous terrain, cover,...
2) Better to have one interessting set piece than four boring dice fests with little tactics and little danger. Just ignore minor battles, make big fights bigger.
3) Show off options by having enemies use them against the PCs. Experience is the best corrective for faulty intuitions.
4) Give battles goals other than killing ist enemies. "Stop the goblin spy from escaping with the war plans!" or "Extinguish the fires before the palace burns down, while the fire newts attack!" and so on.
Some of my players do nothing except use Strike to try Nature 20 in battle. I feel that this battle is not interesting. How should I set up monsters? Or guide players to try other actions, other wizards are just turrets named "Electric Arc"，It's too bad，They think this is the most efficient way to defeat monsters。thanks for answer
Another solution to handle this problem is to put monsters that need specific tactics to be handled. The best example is an ooze in open terrain. You can put an ooze with 4 or more levels than your players, so it'll put down anyone who doesn't understand how to fight it. And you won't lose your party as the last player will for sure run away and discover that an ooze can't follow him, and then chip it from far away.
Don't make every fight a fight to the death, if all the enemies aren't supposed to die then simple damage becomes less important.
Make the fight more fun for whom? If your players are having fun, what is the issue?
Getting more descriptive with the environment and enemy actions will encourage the players to respond in kind. Then you're telling a story instead of dictating actions, and it should be more fun for everybody.