D&D 5E As a DM, what monster abilities do you find difficult to run?

[Azuresun]

I think this is a misapprehension. Does an INT 20 PC have layers of contingencies and plans? Do really smart people IRL have layers of contingencies and plans? I say not to both. This is a weird trope. INT 20 does not automatically mean "Xanatos from Gargoyles". That's a personality AND intelligence thing. Not every smart monster will have great plans. Not every smart monster will be a tactical genius. I'm pretty sure Einstein might have screwed up big in a fight.

Indeed. Intelligence does seem to get fetishised quite a bit in fantasy / sci-fi circles as the be-all and end-all of every character and conflict.

 

[Oofta]

I think this is a misapprehension. Does an INT 20 PC have layers of contingencies and plans? Do really smart people IRL have layers of contingencies and plans? I say not to both. This is a weird trope. INT 20 does not automatically mean "Xanatos from Gargoyles". That's a personality AND intelligence thing. Not every smart monster will have great plans. Not every smart monster will be a tactical genius. I'm pretty sure Einstein might have screwed up big in a fight.

So the real answer is don't try to play them like that unless they're the rare sort who is like that (the Xanatoses of your world).

Yes, if they're forewarned and have time to prep, they may have more fallbacks/plans, but then it's all about intelligence in the other sense - i.e. knowledge of your enemy. How much do they really know about the PCs and their methods and why they're here and so on? If it's very little, but enough to be scared, if the monster has any common sense at all, they're going to leave, perhaps leaving behind some sort of way to observe. Or they'll mount an ambush that hopefully leaves them relatively unegaged and able to flee. Or if they're arrogant, they'll do something dumb like trying to overawe the PCs. But you look at the whole of the personality. The idea that 200 IQ or whatever means they'll always have good plans is a complete denial of the reality of smart people.

So a creature with a 6 intelligence is going to use tactics similar to a creature with a 20? A genius+ level creature in a hostile world is going to have better defenses. An ogre is going to rush in, yell something about "me smash" because that's always worked with the goblins they dominate. A lich is virtually always going to have superior tactics and plans

A genius level intellect that knows enemies are about to attack will have countermeasures even if they don't know the specific enemy. We're talking monsters here, creatures that live or die by using their intellect to defeat threats, not a physics professor. On the other hand if Einstein (a level 0 commoner in D&D terms) did have to defend themselves and knew there was an imminent threat then yes, I would expect he may have come up with ingenious defenses your average Joe may not.

Last, but not least, the genius level enemy that is always one step ahead is a common trope. Of course not all opponents (even intelligent ones) will be tactical geniuses. But when I want to have one that is, I think it is fair they would have set up contingencies that I did not think of. On the other hand I tend to have better tactics than my players (particularly true of my current group no matter how much fun they are) but monsters should not be that proficient depending on a variety of factors, intelligence being one of those.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'll join the chorus of those saying spellcasting. I spent like a week preparing to run Acererak in Tomb of Annihilation, and ended up with a full page of notes, including spell ranges, tactics, and combos. Even with all that, sometimes I had to take a moment in combat to figure out what he was going to do next.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Monsters that rely on illusion. Rappan Athuk had a complex encounter between the party and a

Spoiler

Rakshasa that involved casting an illusion around a PC to make him look like a monster and then creating another illusion of the PC on himself while the party attacks the monster, aka the PC.

The encounter pretty much requires a player and the DM to work together to run it. Wasn't any way for me to do that without tipping off the rest of the party or working with a player in advance. It sounded cool but was almost too complex at the table. I'll probably totally redesign it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Last, but not least, the genius level enemy that is always one step ahead is a common trope.

Yeah that's my point. It's a terrible old, worn, tired, and just wildly overused trope that has this point become basically laughable. Xanatos from the old Disney Gargoyles cartoon (now available on Disney+) is the most classic exemplar or this, with a trope named after him - the Xanatos Gambit, a plan so good that all the ways it can resolve (including what appears to be failure), end up benefiting him in some way.

Comics and cartoons basically beat this trope to death. Batman villains are particularly bad for "I'm a genius so my plans are automatically incredible".

So a creature with a 6 intelligence is going to use tactics similar to a creature with a 20?

Why say this? That's an honest question.

Nothing in my argument suggests that. It doesn't logically flow from my argument at all. So why say this? It just seems so odd to me.

Obviously creatures will have different tactics, but intelligence level is only part of the equation. It's more of a cap on how complicated and elaborate of plans a creature possibly could manage than an indicator of the base level of plan.

What's striking about arguments about yours is this sort of acceptance that creatures of normal intelligence ranges will have wildly varying levels of tactics, but high INT creatures will all be Xanatos. I guess you could get into canards about how stupid people are stupid differently, and intelligent people think alike, but those are canards.

Kobolds for example, are INT 8, but I don't think anyone believes they're less likely to have good plans, traps, fallbacks and so on than an INT 10 human bandit. Why? Because personality and mindset matter. Kobolds have a mindset and typically personalities that lead to them planning, building traps, building fallbacks, preparing elaborate ambushes and so on. Bandits are different - they're often people who didn't fit in, and a lot of them are likely somewhat lazy - their ambushes are likely to be far more straightforward, and they're likely to have fewer, if any, traps and proper fallbacks.

If we just looked at INT 10 we'd find a wide array of beings with wildly differing levels of good tactics. Some will be good but extremely predictable. Others will simply not be likely to have proper tactics at all. Others still may have training which makes them good at tactics even if they aren't great thinkers. Some will be cowards, some will be brave. And so on.

What I'm saying is that it's a worn-out and unnecessary and even unhelpful trope (as I think you've illustrated, pointing out it's hard to work with), not a reality, that INT 16-20 = tons of good plans (again, if it's that way, why don't PCs with that INT always have good plans?!).

Personality is going to dominate over intelligence here. A lazy creature is simply not going to bother making great plans, though it may well think on its feet well. A cowardly creature will flee even when it's not a great plan. An arrogant creature will potentially make really bad plans because of that arrogance (if you've worked in a corporate environment, I'm sure you've worked with that guy who was extremely smart, and yet made completely unreasonable plans because he continually overestimated the capabilities of himself or his team) An angry (or god help us, hungry and angry) creature will like forget its plans in favour of being, well, very angry, no matter how smart it is (I've seen literal geniuses, who were very good tactically, completely lose it and lose all semblance of tactics in games before - any inference that I might have wound them up until they did is obviously unfair! ).

A meticulous creature on the other hand, a paranoid creature, or a creature which simply enjoys planning, or obsessively plans, even if it's not a genius, not 18 or 20 INT, is likely to have really solid plans. If it's not that bright, they may well be simple, or have a big flaw it doesn't know about (or does, but can't figure out how to fix), but they'll have those plans.

So I'm saying personality is key here. Unless you think the creature's personality means it is likely to be a big planner, you don't need big plans for it, or complex ones, or elaborate fallbacks. Just roleplay it appropriately. Yeah, INT 20 and reasonably calm (i.e. not INT 20 and a cowardly panicker) is not going to fall into some obvious encirclement the PCs are going for, and will start moving for the exit before it's cut off, if the fight is even looking somewhat balance (or even if it's winning, but not by enough). But INT 20 doesn't mean Xanatos (or Moriarty or Holmes or whoever you want) unless the creature has a Xanatos-type (or other appropriate) personality.

My experience is that an awful lot of pretty high-INT creatures in D&D are driven by negative emotions or base hungers (often literally hunger), often extreme ones, or are mentally unhinged. Certainly play them smart in a moment-to-moment way, but remember what drives and motivates them, remember their personalities, and note that even a smart person will do very dumb things if overcome by emotion or desire (which may well be for DELICIOUS BRAINZ or whatever). If anything, the super-planner types should be a small minority of smarter monsters.

 

[ART!]

Running combat with one or - GASP - more legendary monsters is a bit of a nightmare, because of the combinations, situations, timing, and frequency of attacks et al. One of our DMs made an action table for legendary monsters before-hand, and that just should not be necessary AFAIC.

 

[Lidgar]

Spell casting and the concentration mechanic in particular.

me hates it.

 

[Oofta]

Yeah that's my point. It's a terrible old, worn, tired, and just wildly overused trope that has this point become basically laughable. Xanatos from the old Disney Gargoyles cartoon (now available on Disney+) is the most classic exemplar or this, with a trope named after him - the Xanatos Gambit, a plan so good that all the ways it can resolve (including what appears to be failure), end up benefiting him in some way.

Comics and cartoons basically beat this trope to death. Batman villains are particularly bad for "I'm a genius so my plans are automatically incredible".



Why say this? That's an honest question.

Nothing in my argument suggests that. It doesn't logically flow from my argument at all. So why say this? It just seems so odd to me.

Obviously creatures will have different tactics, but intelligence level is only part of the equation. It's more of a cap on how complicated and elaborate of plans a creature possibly could manage than an indicator of the base level of plan.

What's striking about arguments about yours is this sort of acceptance that creatures of normal intelligence ranges will have wildly varying levels of tactics, but high INT creatures will all be Xanatos. I guess you could get into canards about how stupid people are stupid differently, and intelligent people think alike, but those are canards.

Kobolds for example, are INT 8, but I don't think anyone believes they're less likely to have good plans, traps, fallbacks and so on than an INT 10 human bandit. Why? Because personality and mindset matter. Kobolds have a mindset and typically personalities that lead to them planning, building traps, building fallbacks, preparing elaborate ambushes and so on. Bandits are different - they're often people who didn't fit in, and a lot of them are likely somewhat lazy - their ambushes are likely to be far more straightforward, and they're likely to have fewer, if any, traps and proper fallbacks.

If we just looked at INT 10 we'd find a wide array of beings with wildly differing levels of good tactics. Some will be good but extremely predictable. Others will simply not be likely to have proper tactics at all. Others still may have training which makes them good at tactics even if they aren't great thinkers. Some will be cowards, some will be brave. And so on.

What I'm saying is that it's a worn-out and unnecessary and even unhelpful trope (as I think you've illustrated, pointing out it's hard to work with), not a reality, that INT 16-20 = tons of good plans (again, if it's that way, why don't PCs with that INT always have good plans?!).

Personality is going to dominate over intelligence here. A lazy creature is simply not going to bother making great plans, though it may well think on its feet well. A cowardly creature will flee even when it's not a great plan. An arrogant creature will potentially make really bad plans because of that arrogance (if you've worked in a corporate environment, I'm sure you've worked with that guy who was extremely smart, and yet made completely unreasonable plans because he continually overestimated the capabilities of himself or his team) An angry (or god help us, hungry and angry) creature will like forget its plans in favour of being, well, very angry, no matter how smart it is (I've seen literal geniuses, who were very good tactically, completely lose it and lose all semblance of tactics in games before - any inference that I might have wound them up until they did is obviously unfair! ).

A meticulous creature on the other hand, a paranoid creature, or a creature which simply enjoys planning, or obsessively plans, even if it's not a genius, not 18 or 20 INT, is likely to have really solid plans. If it's not that bright, they may well be simple, or have a big flaw it doesn't know about (or does, but can't figure out how to fix), but they'll have those plans.

So I'm saying personality is key here. Unless you think the creature's personality means it is likely to be a big planner, you don't need big plans for it, or complex ones, or elaborate fallbacks. Just roleplay it appropriately. Yeah, INT 20 and reasonably calm (i.e. not INT 20 and a cowardly panicker) is not going to fall into some obvious encirclement the PCs are going for, and will start moving for the exit before it's cut off, if the fight is even looking somewhat balance (or even if it's winning, but not by enough). But INT 20 doesn't mean Xanatos (or Moriarty or Holmes or whoever you want) unless the creature has a Xanatos-type (or other appropriate) personality.

My experience is that an awful lot of pretty high-INT creatures in D&D are driven by negative emotions or base hungers (often literally hunger), often extreme ones, or are mentally unhinged. Certainly play them smart in a moment-to-moment way, but remember what drives and motivates them, remember their personalities, and note that even a smart person will do very dumb things if overcome by emotion or desire (which may well be for DELICIOUS BRAINZ or whatever). If anything, the super-planner types should be a small minority of smarter monsters.

You obviously care about this far, far more than I do. Intelligence is one factor for what tactics a monster will use but it is only one of many.

So perhaps a better way to state my opinion. I want different monsters to use different tactics based on what makes sense for that creature. Sometimes I find that difficult because sometimes (heaven forfend) I want a monster with superior tactics and they should have better tactics than I do. At the same time I don't want to simply fudge die rolls or do "gotcha" DMing. On the other end if a monster should be using poor tactics, I need to remember to run them that way.

In any case, I'm not getting into a bicker fest about this. Have a good one.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Way back in 90 or 91, I accidentally opened my description of an encounter with "You are surrounded by illusions." One of my biggest Nat 1s as a DM. The players were all good sports about it, but my face turned red the moment those words came out.

Monsters that rely on illusion.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

This blog can help. The Monsters Know What They’re Doing - Ready-to-Use Tactics for D&D 5E
Even if you don't agree with his tactics, he explains his reasoning and assumptions, so it's easy to work out your own.