D&D 5E DM Help: Tips and Tricks for Monsters In Combat

Discussion elsewhere persuades me that we need a thread for DMs to share little tips and tricks for running combats. Here's a couple to start off:

* Monsters that have high movement rate (like dragons) can exploit that movement rate to deny attacks to melee-oriented PCs by eating opportunity attacks. A melee PC with Fly has a flying movement of 60, and a dragon has a flying movement of 80. This means that if the dragon claw/claw/bites the PC and then moves back 80 feet, the PC gets an opportunity attack but cannot get a full round of attacks next turn. If he Dashes into melee range of the dragon he will eat three tail attacks from the dragon and still get to make nothing but a single opportunity attack in return. Compare a Barbarian GWM with Polearm Mastery (three attacks) to a Barbarian making nothing but a single opportunity attack against you: you've cut your damage taken by 2/3 and expended his reaction. This is why all melee PCs should carry backup missile weapons (daggers, hammers).

* I'm getting ready to run a battle between a Rakshasa with four guards and a 12th level Barbarian with a magic weapon (Mordenkainen's Glaive--+0, Lifestealing) at the start of next session. The barbarian just threw down becaues the guards are trying to arrest him, but he doesn't know yet that the tubby human Lord Waldemar is a burly Rakshasa. Rakshasas don't look like much in combat, being all defense and no offense, but after some thinking I've decided that my options are to play him much like an Enchanter wizard:

1.) Dominate Person and make him hack himself to bits. Very amusing. But he could save, and then he would have a magic weapon still, which could hurt me. Also, if he saves I need a backup plan because I can't re-cast this.
2.) Plane Shift him to the Plane of Elemental Water and laugh as he presumably drowns. (In reality, I as DM will give him a chance to swim to land and survive. It may not be a big chance, but it will be a chance.)
3.) Sneer a Suggestion at him. "You ought to rip my smug guts out with your bare hands." Without a magic weapon he isn't any threat. This is probably most effective before combat gets going in earnest. Then I dismember him with my claws, which (to be fair) will take quite a while.
4.) If things go really bad, eat an opportunity attack and run 30 feet away, then cast Fly and fly another 30.

* Against heavy-ranged PC parties, don't forget that monsters can Dodge and take cover too. Umber Hulks vs. necromancer PC with skeleton army works out a lot better for the Umber Hulks if they're Dodging to avoid Evard's Black Tentacles (advantage on Dex saves) while closing to confusion range of the skeletons. Try not to get caught out in the open. This can prevent PCs from finishing off wounded monsters, which really frustrates the players.

So, nothing fancy there, just some basics to start the thread. What observations do y'all have to share about running monsters? No rule changes please, no giving the Tarrasque or dragons ranged attacks via thrown/dropped boulders: let's stick to tactics within the parameters laid out in the MM and PHB.

1. Monsters use Dodge Action while closing distance on PCs.

2. Grappling with dragons. Use reach bite to grapple and carry someone off while flying, usually someone lightly armored. Carry them to isolated location, kill them, and repeat process until party figures out how to stop it. Smart parties should prepare for this eventuality in advance. Note: This tactic may be cruel in 5E. In 3E this tactic was countered by freedom of movement liberally cast upon the group often using disposable magic items. That is much more difficult in 5E. Though it is easier for a character with athletics or acrobatics to resist the grapple. Use your judgment to determine if you will wipe the party using this tactic.

3. AoOs are better than full attacks. If you can position your monster to take only AoOs while delivering full attacks, do it. DPR race is in their favor. Very difficult to do with optimizers focusing on ranged attacking over melee in 5E.

4. If you have a visibility advantage over the PCs such as them making a group of humans, use the visibility advantage. Have your monsters attack their light sources. Most groups are smart enough to carry a magical light source. If you have lazy casters not taking the light cantrip and relying on lanterns and torches, feel free to hammer those items with attacks plunging them into darkness.

5. Once the PCs get past level 3 or so don't design a major encounter against humanoid or intelligent NPCs without giving them caster or magical support. Surest way to turn an encounter trivial is to let the casters have their way without anyone challenging their magic with dispels, counterspell, or similar spell support. Might as well not even run that encounter and let the PCs chalk it up as a win. PC casters providing support for the group is the largest advantage the PCs have over everything they fight. That's why anything less than a determined enemy with caster support generally turns out to be a trivial encounter against a party with casters that is smart enough to scout ahead.

6. Do not be afraid to focus fire on a PC: Whether you're running a group of intelligent humanoids or a pack of ghouls, do not be afraid to have them focus their attacks on a single PC. The enemy is looking to kill the PCs. If they know a group of PCs has wizard or cleric support or a particular PC is particularly troublesome, have the entire group focus on killing that one PC if they are able. And creatures like packs of ghouls often attack the nearest thing looking to tear it apart. Don't hold back due to kindness. Swarm and kill only spreading out the NPC attackers if it makes sense for the enemy to do so.

7. If a party spreads out, a dragon should look to blast a target with the breath weapon and close for the kill. While the dragon is at full hit points, it should focus on killing at least one party member quickly using everything it has. Breath weapon, close for melee, lair actions, legendary attacks. Do not spread the damage. Have the dragon take someone out as fast as possible in the first round absorbing a round or two of attacks from the PCs. If it drops the target, don't even wait for the target to get "pop up" healed. Continue to attack the fallen PC auto-critting on the attack and causing two missed death saves followed by a killing blow. If the dragon is able, have it pick up the body and carry it off to prevent healing and put it in advantageous negotiating position with the invading PCs. If it is able to kill at least one PC, have it leave the fight recharge its breath weapon, and prepare another vicious assault. If it gets low on hit points, then it can negotiate using the body of the dead and taken PC to force terms. If the PCs refuse to negotiate, have it leave and plan to kill them later. Dragons live a long time, they can force a lot of people to work with them. If the PCs fail to kill the dragon, have it spend its time plotting their demise and hunting them using humanoids and other creatures to set them up. Entire towns or cities might shun PCs being hunted by a dragon if they know the dragon will burn them to ash for helping the PCs in any way. A dragon might even put a bounty on a PCs head offering treasure or mercy if they bring the PCs heads to them.

Note: You can do this with any powerful, intelligent creature from demon lords to mind flayers. The main lesson to teach the PCs is come prepared to kill your enemy preventing them from escaping or prepare to be hunted.

8. Use terrain advantages whenever possible. If you have a fliers, put them in difficult terrain with lots of cover positions fliers can reach easily. Even creatures of low intelligence are smart enough to take advantage of terrain.

Have lower-level monsters use the Help action to give each other (or to higher-level monsters) advantage on attacks. This is especially useful if the monsters involved have a nice rider on their attack like extra damage or a condition.

If your adventure has a countdown timer where the amount of times the PCs rest may lead to a particular outcome, throw in some monsters that can apply conditions that end only after a long rest (or magic). For example, the chasme demon, mummies, succubus/incubus, and wight all drain maximum hit points in one form or another. Knowing that time is of the essence and needing to rest to recover creates some hard choices for the players.

These are all wonderful, and I hope to see more, since I'm not the most tactically-oriented DM. This is really helpful. One thing I would say, though, is that unless there is a reason, monsters should be played generally according to their known traits and behaviors. For example, dragons are legendary not only for their prowess but also for their arrogance. I don't imagine a "typical" dragon would look to take hostages or play a defensive game until the PCs demonstrate that they are undoubtedly a match for the dragon. It would take the dragon some time to realize it has to fight smarter, by which point a well-matched and tactically-minded party could easily already have the battle in their favor. If the PCs are famous, if they have a history with the dragon to the point that the dragon knows they are no typical adventurers, or if they have been going around slaying dragons in nearby areas, then probably the dragon would go into the fight much more carefully.

Similarly the teaming up on a single character (the closest in many cases) makes sense and could easily bring a PC down (and if it's zombies or ghouls, kill them by attacking (eating) the unconscious), but if the nearest is a knight with magical breastplate, or a wizard with initiative who readied his action for when the monsters step en-masse into melee range then thunderwaves, so be it... the battle will likely go better for the PCs than if the monsters had done otherwise.

I guess my point here is that tactics shouldn't be the first thought on the DMs mind unless the monsters are of a nature or disposition that it would be the first thought on their own minds. Still there are plenty of cases where that should be... and no doubt, as with the rakshasa example, spell casters should be able to use their spells to good effect, which generally means the DM should take some time to think about all these spells, and how they might be best used, so that they can be prepared to run the casting monster as if it were highly experienced with its abilities, as it would be. But then, maybe a caster who has gone over into the political game and has not needed its magic for many years could be quite rusty with it, too. It depends on the situation.

Kuo-toa have sticky shield and pincer staffs, but don't do much damage individually. But they excel at separating the party, and can foil a lot of attacks against them. For example:

Step 1: Organize into squads of 2-3 ordinary kuo-toa and one with a pincer staff.
Step 2: squad closes with party and the ordinaries dodge, giving PCs disadvantage. Pincer staff delays.
Step 3: PCs attack, many get their weapons stuck on shields.
Step 4: Pincers attack, if they hit they drag a PC back 15' (half the normal move) behind shield wall.
Step 5: Ordinaries attack if their opponent's weapons are stuck.
Step 6: PCs free their weapons, can't attack this round.
Step 7: Pincer staffs deposit PCs in a convenient pit, cage, or other hazard, come back to fish out another PC.

Of course, they're low-CR opponents and there's a good chance the PCs will blast through the shield wall, unleash a big thunderwave, or do something else to make these tactics fall apart. But a well-organized group can make the party sweat.

SigmaOne said:

These are all wonderful, and I hope to see more, since I'm not the most tactically-oriented DM. This is really helpful. One thing I would say, though, is that unless there is a reason, monsters should be played generally according to their known traits and behaviors. For example, dragons are legendary not only for their prowess but also for their arrogance. I don't imagine a "typical" dragon would look to take hostages or play a defensive game until the PCs demonstrate that they are undoubtedly a match for the dragon.

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I 100% agree. Once you know what a dragon physically could do, you can then evaluate what it would do. This thread is intended to help DMs with the former, but you still have to make the call on the latter.

Hemlock said:

* Monsters that have high movement rate (like dragons) can exploit that movement rate to deny attacks to melee-oriented PCs by eating opportunity attacks. A melee PC with Fly has a flying movement of 60, and a dragon has a flying movement of 80. This means that if the dragon claw/claw/bites the PC and then moves back 80 feet, the PC gets an opportunity attack but cannot get a full round of attacks next turn. If he Dashes into melee range of the dragon he will eat three tail attacks from the dragon and still get to make nothing but a single opportunity attack in return. Compare a Barbarian GWM with Polearm Mastery (three attacks) to a Barbarian making nothing but a single opportunity attack against you: you've cut your damage taken by 2/3 and expended his reaction. This is why all melee PCs should carry backup missile weapons (daggers, hammers).

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This works for Huge and larger creatures like many Dragons, but for large and smaller creatures, the melee PC does a shove. If successful, the creature is knocked prone, falls to the ground (might take damage depending on situation), and can then be gang attacked by the melee PCs with advantage.

The Enlarge/Reduce spell on a melee PC changes this to huge or smaller Dragons which is all adults or younger. Polymorph into an intelligent huge creature (or similar magic/effects like Wild Shape) allows for the tactic to work against Ancient Dragons (although the odds of success drop).

Since most monsters do not have the Athletics or Acrobatics skills trained, the odds of success for many melee PCs doing this are close to 50% (more with buffs and more with higher levels to the point that it can be an 80+% chance of success at real high levels). Once the dragon is on the ground, if it ever tries to fly away from the multiple PCs, every size altered PC that gets an OA tries to shove the dragon, increasing the party's chances of doing it again.


For a tactically alert group of players (who have multiple size altered PCs) and DM, the Dragon tactic of hit and run tends to work once before the intelligent Dragon (i.e. DM) understands that sooner or later, the shove is going to work and the Dragon had better switch tactics.

The downside of this at higher levels is that the size altered PCs tend to not have their magic items or spells available for the combat, but the hit and run tactic can be thwarted. But against adult dragons, a group with a Druid, Wizard, and melee PC can put two Large PCs on the dragon.

Hemlock said:

3.) Sneer a Suggestion at him. "You ought to rip my smug guts out with your bare hands." Without a magic weapon he isn't any threat. This is probably most effective before combat gets going in earnest. Then I dismember him with my claws, which (to be fair) will take quite a while.

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This will only work for a short period of time (usually one round). Once the Rakshasa damages the Barbarian, the Suggestion goes away.

So, the Rakshasa uses up a round for the Suggestion in order to get the Barbarian to attack once with a weaker attack. That's an ok trade off, but not that great.

It's much better to save the Suggestion for later in the combat if the Rakshasa is losing and suggest that the Barbarian run away instead.

@KarinsDad, per PHB 195 Shoving requires the attack action, so you can't do it on an opportunity attack.

Good catch on Suggestion. I had intended to use the time to poison my claws (this particular player will know exactly what I'm doing when he sees me a bottle filled with light blue liquid--it's purple worm venom, just like he himself has bought with another PC) but I had forgotten that Suggestion ends on damage. At least he won't be holding a weapon any more though, hopefully. Maybe I'll Plane Shift him instead of clawing him.

Remember that it's not "a weaker attack." Bare hands against a Rakshasa are a totally ineffectual attack. You need magic weapons to harm them.

Hemlock said:

1.) Dominate Person and make him hack himself to bits. Very amusing. But he could save, and then he would have a magic weapon still, which could hurt me. Also, if he saves I need a backup plan because I can't re-cast this.

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This is ok too, but not really a great move. Every time the Barbarian takes damage, he gets another Wisdom save. So a level 5 Barbarian in a single round would get upwards of three saves. The initial save, the save if the Barbarian damages himself the first time, and the save if the Barbarian damages himself with his second attack. So we're generally taking 0 to 2 Barbarian hits against the Barbarian. This is at most a mini-nova.

Again, better to save the Dominate for if the Rakshasa starts losing the fight or if the Barbarian is greatly wounded where this might finish him off.