Accessable Tactics to Monsters

[HoboGod]

This question is forked from another discussion. What factors should a DM consider when developing a fair way to decide who and how a monster attacks the monster is the one who ambushes?

As I see it, there are 7 factors to consider:

1) Number of Monsters
2) Alignment
3) Mindless or Not
5) Skills
4) Intelligence
5) Wisdom
6) Type and Subtype

If the monsters are not mindless, my general approach is that if the monsters outnumber the players, they'll attack every player as evenly as possible to avoid letting the players develop a plan. If the monsters are evil, they may try to make use of hostages. Skills like spot, hide, and move silently may give them certain advantages in setting a trap.

The most important factors are the last three. It's assumed that the monster will want to get rid of the most dangerous first or outright slaughter them from weakest to strongest. My opinion is that the closer in type to their prey, the better they'll be able to attack the party. Intelligence and Wisdom follow next in importance. If the monster is facing a party of humanoids, they must be humanoids to tell important details of who and what these adventurers may be. For non-humanoids, ranks in knowledge religion would sniff out the cleric, ranks in knowledge arcana would sniff out the wizard, ranks in knowledge nature would sniff out the druid... and so on, so on.

How do others read monster entries?

 

[Jhaelen]

As I see it, there are 7 factors to consider:

1) Number of Monsters
2) Alignment
3) Mindless or Not
5) Skills
4) Intelligence
5) Wisdom
6) Type and Subtype

I think you forgot the most important factor:
7) Knowledge

If the monsters are forewarned of the pcs approach, they'll react differently. Forewarning can come from a variety of sources. Monsters can spy on pcs, interrogate survivors from previous encounters, gather information about their previous exploits, or use divination magic.

If the monsters are not mindless, my general approach is that if the monsters outnumber the players, they'll attack every player as evenly as possible to avoid letting the players develop a plan. If the monsters are evil, they may try to make use of hostages. Skills like spot, hide, and move silently may give them certain advantages in setting a trap.

I usually try to vary monster tactics from encounter to encounter. I don't have a single plan I always follow and I also adjust tactics during the encounter as soon as the monsters learn something new about the pcs.

Intelligence and Wisdom are often overrated by DMs. Even animal intelligence is usually sufficient to apply certain basic tactics successfully. Wolf packs are my favorite example. They're less flexible when it comes to changing tactics, though.

Often basic tactics are determined by the monsters' motivation: Why do they attack the pc's in the first place? What do they hope to gain, and how far will they go to achieve their goals? This is often influenced by the monsters' alignment, but the more important factor is their background.

Tactics change when monsters realize that one or more of the pcs are more (or less) powerful than initially estimated. Since this is based solely on their knowledge and obeservations, their reasoning may well be flawed. E.g. if one of the pcs keeps missing because of a player's bad die rolls, monsters may well conclude she doesn't represent a threat. On the other end of the spectrum a lucky crit may convince them a pc is extremely powerful and must be taken out no matter the cost - or is entirely beyond their ability to defeat resulting in a hasty retreat or even a panicky flight.

 

[Dandu]

An untrained Knowledge check is simply an Intelligence check. Without actual training, you know only common knowledge (DC 10 or lower).

The ability to take 10 on checks when not threatened means that any monster with an Int of 10 or higher will know common knowledge about humans.

 

[jefgorbach]

While your 7 factors are all important, it mostly reduces to intelligence, wisdom, and circumstance.

Intelligence reflects the creature’s ability to plan, recognize, and adapt. Predatory animals have the basic intelligence to employing ambushes, determining and isolating visually weaker members of a group, stealth; and in the case of pack animals like wolves, lions, etc cooperative team work as any nature show will show so use allow them to use/adapt to the terrain and events accordingly. Wisdom reflects its common-sense and gut-feeling/intuition – so even if it hasn’t encountered a given class/race before, a successful Wisdom check might allow it to instinctively recognize the strongest/weakest party member. Regardless, a starving or wounded creature will be more willing to attack without retreat than it would otherwise; as would one protecting its lair/young.

Those of at least near-human level intelligence will react accordingly, adjusting the encounter to reflect THEIR strengths as much as possible, so plan/run it as you would given the information they have available: terrain, whats known about the PCs (visually or via rumor/information gathering), available skills/weapons, etc. Obviously, the effectiveness of intelligent foes would be reduced against newly discovered classes and species, however they would be able to generally group the PCs by melee/ranged fighters, clerics, and spell casters using their own clan/racial knowledge as a guideline then plan accordingly. Likewise historical foes generally know how to most effective counter their foes’ racial abilities and traditional classes; applying that knowledge as possible.

 

[HoboGod]

All wonderful points, thank you. It's fairly sure with these points, monsters of basic intelligence and societal organization can react accordingly without restriction to any practical strategy.

However, knowledge seems to be key. To determine advanced information regarding the class levels of the party, I'd say if the party has become notorious enough, a gather information check would suffice for a knowledge check. An untrained knowledge check would unlikely provide that level of intimacy. If the party were to ambush a band of ogres, I wouldn't let them know vital information such as if there are ogre barbarians or ogre mages among them with a simple DC 10 intelligence check.

 

[Dandu]

Ogres and Ogre Mages are visually distinctive.

 

[Jack Simth]

Don't forget monster goals.

Regardless of specific Int scores, the goal will be important.

The critter that's defending, or attacking with intent to wipe will generally want to take out what it perceives to be the biggest threat.

The critter that's simply hungry and thinking the PC's will make a decent meal will start with the one that looks like the easiest kill (so he can take his dinner and go).

 

[jefgorbach]

Agreed.
Basically its the same thing the PCs do; in reverse - so an organized group might use Gather Information to learn the PC's numbers, general fighter/divine/arcane breakdown, favored weapons/spell effects, racial breakdown, etc with knowledge(x) rolls providing additional insight regarding learned details ... however NOTHING should reveal exact class/level details since those are metagame terms used by the GM/Players to describe the world and not something Inhabitants would know/use.

ie: Gather Information would reflect an organized group's attempts at eavesdropping/spying on local settlements (esp taverns) and trading information/etc with other similar beings with additional skill roles building upon that basic data framework with low/failed rolls providing false information just like it would the Party.

For instance reliable sources confirm (DC10) a new adventuring band recently arrived in town from (direction) boasting about <prior accomplishment>, VISUALLY comprised of #fighters, #divine, #arcane; races; bearing holy symbol descriptions with (DCxx) confirming the boasts are not only accurate, but they are also responsible for <prior adventures the organization might somehow be concerned with by race/god/region> with a tendency to use YYY spell-effects/etc. (DCxx) One of the PCs was spotted with a <describe beast> (DCxx) currently lurking around location.

Knowledge(religion) reveals the aforementioned fighters are in fact paladins, and/or the described holy symbol represents XXX with higher DCs revealing XXX's favored weapons, domains, etc. Knowledge(nature) confirms the stabled beast (DCxx) is an incredibly well-behaved and substantially above average for its breed implying the owner is a Ranger/Druid.

one way to run them if you have the spare players or someone "away" on a side-quest, spending time crafting, or otherwise out of the immediate action to run the monster group (esp better organized ones) making it effectively PC vs PC refereed by the GM.

 

[Verdande]

The best thing to determine what the monster's tactics is to play to their strengths, which is what any monster, regardless of its intelligence, would do. If you've got a band of orcs, they're going to use their animalistic rage and probably not a lot of sublety. If you've got some drow, you better believe they're going to use ambushes and liberal darkness spells and combined arms tactics.

No monster, no matter how stupid, is going to charge in mindlessly to their death. Even the dumbest of animal knows to run away if the fight isn't going well. Everybody has an instinct for self-preservation, and it's important to factor that in when fighting. Older editions had a morale score for monsters, and I think that's something that could really stand to come back into newer games.

 

[Jhaelen]

Everybody has an instinct for self-preservation, and it's important to factor that in when fighting.

In the real world, with a couple of notable exceptions, you're right.

In a fantasy setting, though, this doesn't have to be true at all. What if you're certain (or convinced) that no matter what, you're going to be either resurrected by your high priest or live happily everafter in one of the outer planes?

Knowing for a fact that deities exist and intervene for the sake of their followers can easily lead to fighting until the bitter end.

Actually, it's sufficient to _believe_ you cannot die (or will return from death) to affect your behaviour in a fight. And that's something that also worked and will continue to work in the real world.

Finally, fantasy settings typically _do_ have creatures without a sense of self-preservation. Lesser demons and undead, constructs, plants, etc. might all fit in this category.