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RPG Evolution: Boo! Pity the Ambush Monster
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8814335" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>One of the GMing lessons that I learned over the years is to never fantasize about scaring, wowing, or intimidating the players with your monsters. You should never really be mentally rooting for your monsters.</p><p></p><p>One trope I hate is that all monsters attack by ambush and fight to the death. </p><p></p><p>It's a trope that comes about because of GM investment in the monster and a desire to have tough combats. And I think it's a trope that comes about by the fact that PC's are typically well equipped with missile weapons and monsters just aren't. The result is that PC's can generally decimate any monster that spends more than a round outside of melee range. I think as a response to this DMs write encounters such that PC's are inevitably "surprised" (effectively if not mechanically) at close range by the sudden appearance of the monster which never tries to flee because flight is useless against PC's with effective missile weapons.</p><p></p><p>But the result is encounters that feel to me inorganic and after a while redundant. </p><p></p><p>I've written at length about 1e AD&D monster design and what was wrong with it, namely that monsters gravitated to being glass cannons. But I think this design continues to trouble later editions of D&D. 4e and 5e sort of solved the problem in some cases, but mostly through hit point inflation which just turns all encounters into damage races. But, if I was going to focus on ambush monsters I'd want to focus more on their ability to resist damage than their ability to inflict it. Resisting damage includes forcing players to skip actions or at least making actions much less likely to succeed as well as mitigating damage. </p><p></p><p>But in a larger sense, monsters regularly need to be able to play in the PC's world and counter ranged attacks in some fashion regardless of their mode of combat.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8814335, member: 4937"] One of the GMing lessons that I learned over the years is to never fantasize about scaring, wowing, or intimidating the players with your monsters. You should never really be mentally rooting for your monsters. One trope I hate is that all monsters attack by ambush and fight to the death. It's a trope that comes about because of GM investment in the monster and a desire to have tough combats. And I think it's a trope that comes about by the fact that PC's are typically well equipped with missile weapons and monsters just aren't. The result is that PC's can generally decimate any monster that spends more than a round outside of melee range. I think as a response to this DMs write encounters such that PC's are inevitably "surprised" (effectively if not mechanically) at close range by the sudden appearance of the monster which never tries to flee because flight is useless against PC's with effective missile weapons. But the result is encounters that feel to me inorganic and after a while redundant. I've written at length about 1e AD&D monster design and what was wrong with it, namely that monsters gravitated to being glass cannons. But I think this design continues to trouble later editions of D&D. 4e and 5e sort of solved the problem in some cases, but mostly through hit point inflation which just turns all encounters into damage races. But, if I was going to focus on ambush monsters I'd want to focus more on their ability to resist damage than their ability to inflict it. Resisting damage includes forcing players to skip actions or at least making actions much less likely to succeed as well as mitigating damage. But in a larger sense, monsters regularly need to be able to play in the PC's world and counter ranged attacks in some fashion regardless of their mode of combat. [/QUOTE]
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