A dragon can outwit a party of adventurers. Can you?

[Marcon]

I brought this issue in another thread but I feel like it deserves its own discussion.

So you sometimes play board games against your friends. You're obviously not omniscient so you make mistakes and therefore, you lose more often than not. But among the same group of friends, you happen to be the best storyteller and the one who is willing to invest time to prepare kick-ass D&D campaigns.

That's where 4e combats kick in. Your friends (You know, the ones who were more than happy to own and dominate you during your board games Sunday) still have an easy time dispatching the monsters you send their way. It doesn't matter how intelligent the creatures are since you're the one controlling them and let's face it, you completely suck at tactical combat.

Some of us just doesn't have it and the more the game is gonna shift towards over-the-top powers and cool interaction between the classes, the more these types of DMs are probably gonna have to fudge some rolls to prevent the BBEG from going down because you didn't expect the warlord shifting him towards another character who was able to pin it or whatnot, just as you didn't expect your pal conquering North America in your last game of RISK.

In a board game, it's you vs your friends. In D&D, it's the monsters vs the characters. What can you do, as a DM, to amount for the fact that some crits are obviously smarter than you, especially in the light that 4e is bending even more towards tactical combat?

-Marcon

 

[hong]

Possible solutions:

1. Not worry about it. The good guys are supposed to win, after all.

2. Use higher-level bad guys.

3. Encourage the players to play stupid, by making the stupid options fun. This only really works if you continue to play the bad guys stupid, though.

 

[Wormwood]

I'm the DM. I'm not supposed to win, am I?

 

[marune]

Stop playing an gamist RPG and try a narrativist one ?

 

[psionotic]

Use environment for creature tactics? Its usually the PCs busting into the monster's dens, right? Monsters should be using traps if they can build them.. Dragons should have lairs that make their flight ability an advantage, etc. If you set up the combat on a flat battlemat without any terrain features or obstacles, then it really is a board (and bored) game.

 

[Zelc]

It might actually be easier to run dragons in 4E since they have fewer abilities, so the space of tactical possibilities is smaller.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Plus, most monster strategies aren't that complex. That's most of the reason why monster abilities were reduced down to only a couple for each monster.

Say a creature has 3 abilities:
Fire a direct ranged attack, stun the target
Melee attack, does extra damage against stunned targets
Whenever it moves more than 4 squares it gets concealment

It doesn't take a tactical genius to say "Use the ranged attack after moving. After someone is hit, get into melee and do extra damage against them".

That's rather the beauty of the way the system works. You can design interesting and challenging combats simply by using monster roles and running the monsters in the most obvious way. If the creature above(who looks like a skirmisher to me) is paired with a couple of Brutes, a controller, and an artillery, you have a pretty cool encounter that isn't hard to run.

 

[Stormtower]

I'm the DM. I'm not supposed to win, am I?

This. IMO, ideally the DM sets up difficult but not impossible challenges for players to overcome with their PCs. That's not to say a TPK can't happen, but the most recent two editions of D&D (3rd and 4th) spend a good deal of time addressing encounter balance, suggesting that PCs should be "winning" most encounters while occasionally being pushed to the edges of their abilities with truly deadly stuff.

Without relatively trivial encounters that PCs are supposed to win (given reasonable luck and solid, basic tactics), there's nothing against which to contrast the shock and danger of a truly nasty encounter. It is true, however, that a tactically poor DM (and/or one that is not skilled at encounter design) can render even difficult encounters trivial.

Arguably, the DM "wins" every session because s/he enjoys setting up and running games to entertain the group, and smiles/laughter/fun = win.

 

[Stormtower]

Incidentally, I'm glad WotC has clearly defined monster roles in the 4E MM along with suggested tactics. The abovementioned, hypothetical "tactically poor DM" cannot but strengthen his or her skills by running monsters as suggested in 4E. This is one of my favorite bits of design work in both late 3.5 and 4E. Practice makes perfect, but clearly defined monster roles make practicing easier.

 

[CleverNickName]

1. Not worry about it. The good guys are supposed to win, after all.

I'm the DM. I'm not supposed to win, am I?

Stop playing an gamist RPG and try a narrativist one ?

Gee, you guys are a big help.