Defenders require bad AI from monsters

[GoLu]

Forked from: Battlerager: Experiences?

So, you've now put the enemy in the position where it's bad to attack the defender and bad to attack someone other than the defender. The good option is to not attack, but to run. Yet, the monster doesn't run. Why?

For the same reason that the PCs don't immediately flee the battle the moment they get marked by some monster. They have a vested interest in winning and think that it's still possible, or even likely, despite momentary setback.

Besides, the defender can also punish the enemies for running.

I've spawned this to a new thread so we can avoid crapping up the battlerager one. Do defenders (or any other role, or PCs in general) really require that the DM serve up suicidal lemming monsters on a platter for them, or do they now have the tools to deal with an aggressive and intelligent set of enemies played by a reasonable and fair (but mean and cunning) DM who doesn't treat the NPCs as hive minds dedicated to the destruction of the PCs?

I think they do have those tools. I think the title of this thread is a false statement. I'd like to hear more about why you disagree.

 

[LostSoul]

I haven't followed the other thread, but I know that I regularly have monsters invoke the Fighter's Combat Challenge - often to really sucky (for the monster) results.

Why? Because it's more fun that way. The Fighter gets to use his main class feature and really mess with my bad guys. It's worse now that he has Shield Push.

Or, more accurately, more fun.

Why x2? Because I figure the monsters don't know what he can do until he does it. Once they do, I try to exploit it. I don't always succeed.

edit: In CM mode.

 

[Solodan]

If it seems right that a monster runs, it runs. I've done it a few times - it is a great way when the battle is obviously won but going to grind on a few more to save some time, get the party moving a long and keep the action up.

The bad position a defender puts a monster in isn't necessarily obviuosly suicidal. For example, a fighter's mark just says "Stay here or I'll punch you, for lots" - that's not horrid. At the beginning of the fight, most of my adversaries believe that they will win and that the puny adventurers don't have a chance. Either its because the monster is,well, monstrous (equal level normals generally have 150% or more hp than a standard pc) or they have numbers due to minions.

On paper we all know that they players have the advantage, but nobody that isn't mindlesss would participate in a fight they couldn't win. Ok, some players do (but that's a tangent).

Monsters think they can win, or will run right away (usually to get help)

At least, that's how I aim to play them.

 

[LostSoul]

I always have monsters run.

The pressure is too much on the encounter as a whole - you need to engage Healing Surges and make them count. Have the monsters run so they can drop mulitple encounters on the PCs at the same time.

It is the logical choice and the best choice for the game. If Healing Surges/Daily Powers don't matter, the game will not work as intended.

 

[the Jester]

Defenders work fine even if your monsters play smart and ruthless.

Trust me; I'm speaking from experience. I ain't afraid to tpk in my campaign, and my monsters are happy to use all the tricks they have up their sleeves. Yet those pesky defenders lock 'em down pretty darn well and pretty darn often.

 

[LittleFuzzy]

Forked from: Battlerager: Experiences?



For the same reason that the PCs don't immediately flee the battle the moment they get marked by some monster. They have a vested interest in winning and think that it's still possible, or even likely, despite momentary setback.

Besides, the defender can also punish the enemies for running.

I've spawned this to a new thread so we can avoid crapping up the battlerager one. Do defenders (or any other role, or PCs in general) really require that the DM serve up suicidal lemming monsters on a platter for them, or do they now have the tools to deal with an aggressive and intelligent set of enemies played by a reasonable and fair (but mean and cunning) DM who doesn't treat the NPCs as hive minds dedicated to the destruction of the PCs?

I think they do have those tools. I think the title of this thread is a false statement. I'd like to hear more about why you disagree.

When I DM, I have little problem with having monsters run when it's obvious they're overmatched. Sometimes the people they run to will move to engage the PCs *if they think they're strong enough* sometimes they will themselves try and hook up with stronger forces, and sometimes they will just hunker down and try and create favorable positions from which to meet the PC onslaught coming on the heels of the runner.

To an extent, my table's characters do seem a bit lacking in the ability to keep runners from escaping. But the fighter is easily one of the strongest tools they have for keeping potential runners corralled. Dont' know how well other defenders serve in that regard.

The big problem for monsters is a tad meta-gamey but it's isn't that the DM is trying to have them behave like suicidal lemmings. In my experience, the monsters usually fare pretty well in the first part of the fight. What screws them is the extra endurance the PCs are granted by the capacity to heal. And that's an advantage which is often hard to recognize before the monsters lose the opportunity to easily extricate themselves from the fight.

 

[chaotix42]

The DM playing smart means having the monster run and get enough allies that it has overwhelming odds in it's favour instead of the odds being overwhelmingly in the party's. Actually, thats the monster playing smart. The DM playing smart means grinding stupid monsters against the party in such a way that the party has fun. This means letting the defender defend, the controller control and the strikers kicking serious behind.

This does not compute. The monsters are meat for the grinder unless they bring insurmountable numbers to the encounter? Anything less is automatic suicide?

This is 100% false. Perhaps in Regi's experience it isn't, but if that's so then I'd like to invite him to one of my games.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

The good option is to not attack, but to run. Yet, the monster doesn't run. Why?

Ever seen a contender walk confidently into the ring for a championship fight and then gets humiliated by the champion? It happens a lot. Boxers like, say, Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton and Floyd Mayweather have steamrolled over plenty of contenders over the years. They all have their share of fights against top ranked contenders that ended in embarassment in less than 4 rounds. And these unlucky contenders had the chance to see videos and and study the champion. They still genuinely believed they had a chance!

Now tell me why a bunch of monsters, who usually outnumber or outweigh the PCs significantly and have never seen them fight before, are going to run away on first contact? They really believe that have a chance!

Unless the unbalance is extremely obvious, you will only realize you never stood a chance once the fight is well under way. That's why the monsters (usually) don't run away.

 

[jedrious]

I used to have monsters run, unfortunately my party loves nothing less than to pepper runners with slow effects and blast them from safe distances without any threat, since I run a regimented campaign with an NPC with the party to report and record all adventuring parties' activities so the party has a reputation of allowing zero survivors which makes groups of enemies that face the party fight all the fiercer

 

[Elric]

This does not compute. The monsters are meat for the grinder unless they bring insurmountable numbers to the encounter? Anything less is automatic suicide?

This is 100% false. Perhaps in Regi's experience it isn't, but if that's so then I'd like to invite him to one of my games.

Chances are your games don't feature, say, 10% of encounters being TPKs against the party. Under the simplifying assumption that an encounter will end in a TPK for one side if no one flees initially, then each monster is getting killed 90% or more of the time. So if the monsters had correct expectations about what was going to happen, and valued being killed more negatively than the positive of winning the fight (and didn't really value inflicting damage on the opposition while getting killed), in the vast majority of encounters they wouldn't want to fight if they had a decent chance to flee.

Ever seen a contender walks into the ring for a championship fight and then gets humiliated by the champion? It happens a lot. Boxers like Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton and Floyd Mayweather have steamrolled over plenty of contenders over the years. And these unlucky contender had teh chance to see videos and see the champion. They still believed they had a chance.

Now tell me a bunch of monsters who usually outnumber or outweigh the PCs significantly and have never seen the adventurers fight are going to run away on first contact. They really believe that have a chance!

Unless the unbalance is extremely obvious, you will only realize you never stood a chance once the fight is well under way. That's why the monsters (usually) don't run away.

While this can work, it requires almost every monster to be very overconfident. Boxing is sufficiently low stakes that overconfidence doesn't seem unreasonable; perhaps it's a good method to motivate yourself to work harder. A monster that actually has a 95% chance to get killed and 5% chance to win the fight (and wouldn't want to take the gamble of getting into a fight at 50/50 odds) would have to be overconfident by a huge factor to want to take the gamble.

By comparison, if it has a good chance to get away and get lots of reinforcements by running, its chance of getting killed will go down dramatically. Unless the PCs are the first true threat that the monsters have ever faced, the monsters that were overconfident to the point of not getting reinforcements probably got killed long ago by some other foes. The ones that are left are the ones that don't make that mistake.

It can be hard to come up with rationalist explanations for war.