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

[dm4hire]

It all comes down to planning and tactics. However, I have learned with some groups it is best to skip the planning as they either don't go the way I want them or my plans are too good and guarantee TPK which is bad enough when I do it without planning.

Ex. using old style dragon. Red dragon was polymorphed pretending to be the mayor of a town, party chases after him and he used previously set traps and misc item to throw up wall of fog to which the party can't see the them. Dragon passed through, party follows and takes a beating. They stop to take their time to avoid any other traps. They come across a corpse with a spellbook with it (another trap). Rogue fails check, don't have detect trap, they miss the glyph of warding, leaving one dead. They charge through and come across loyal minions helping out their master and defeat them. Party stumbles into cave with an opening in the top, puzzled by where they have ended up till the dragon breaths fire from the shadows. They fight for a bit till the Dragon finally leaves but not before it finished off two more members.

The the best tactics is using everything the Dragon has to their advantage, terrain, abilities, magic (if any now), minions, and not to mention the time they've had to prepare before hand (i.e. traps). Unless it's a very young dragon most will have had plenty of time to think things through over the years and how they will defend themselves. If Dragons have become more primal they can still be cunning, to which terrain will be an important aspect such as the hidden spot mentioned above.

 

[Dausuul]

This sounds good in theory, but does not work in practice.

By uppng the NPC level, it assumes that the players will always play at their normal optimal level. However, situations and dice rolls can drastically alter this. This is typically a TPK just waiting to happen and does not address the issues of the OP.

How is this different from the normal situation? If the players screw up--relative to their usual level of skill--then what should have been a difficult but beatable fight can easily turn into a TPK. That's always the case.

Admittedly, upping the ECL can make things more "swingy." However, 4E should reduce the impact of that to some extent.

 

[Enkhidu]

...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

One thing to remember is that if the PCs are having too easy of a time of things (not taxing their powers to the limit, feeling like their characters lives are really on the line) its entirely OK to simply add more hit points to your big bads. In a fight vs. a dragon, feel free to give the dragon a hundred or so extra hit points - even in the middle of the action. This will even the tactical playing field somewhat, doesn't rob players of their tactical glory, and (while it will almost certainly result in "why won't this damn thing die!?!" frustration) can give a more "heroic" feel.

Obviously this isn't something you want to do all the time, but if used springly can help.

 

[Iron Sky]

Also, from what we've seen of the monster manual, they have a little tactics section on most monsters that explains how they fight, if you can't figure out from their abilities.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

One thing I've occasionally done to help with this kind of situation is rip off video games bosses.

You know how in tons of games (from Mega Man to World of Warcraft), bosses have specific patterns you need to use to defeat them? Something like this can work in an RPG.

Maybe the Big Bad demon has several High Priests chanting protective invocations for him, so the PCs have to kill those three relatively weak NPCs before tackling the big guy. (And maybe whenever they kill a priest, Something Bad happens - the priest explodes, or his allies heal, or whatever.) This way, the players have to use their skills (Arcana or Religion perhaps) to figure out what attack pattern to use, and they have to scramble to adapt their attack pattern on the fly.

Or maybe the encounter is with two or three powerful lurkers... but the party is stuck standing on a torch-lit island in the middle of a marsh at night, so the monsters can constantly dart towards the party and then escape back to the shadows. The party has to either find a way to nail the enemies in place, or else light up more of their surroundings so they can see the enemies at range, or else find a way to traverse the difficult terrain and deep water of the marsh around them to maneuver into better position. (Nature, Stealth, and Perception checks could be huge here, as could clever uses of magic - setting trees on fire with a fireball, or freezing the marsh with icy blasts, for example. Not to mention solid performances by defenders to lock down the enemies.)

Even if these encounter are won handily in the end, the party will probably feel like they worked for it more than if they just pulled off the same standard attack pattern they've developed to make mincemeat of most baddies.

EDIT: The key point here is that the DM doesn't need intricate tactical mastery to make the game fun, because he can instead design encounters with "dumb monsters" that still require a lot of extra tactical ingenuity from the players.

 

[Doug McCrae]

If the DM's tactical inferiority is detracting from the fun of the game for the players then the best solution is to use tougher monsters and other factors which go against the PCs such as surprise, attrition or environment. It's much, much better than fudging imo.

In other words, what Hong said.

 

[Benimoto]

The book Dungeonscape had some really good advice for planning encounters. In fact, it probably was a proto-4e book, since not only did it encourage you to break down monsters by roles and use multiple roles in an encounter, but also looking at the 4e preview adventures, some of the encounters seem to have been designed using the system it advocates.

I won't try to completely explain the system here--you should check out the book--but I'll summarize:

Don't just draw a map for the encounter and then plop down monsters on it. The monsters probably live there, and it's safe to assume they've thought at least once about how to defend themselves if some intruders come barging in.

So, decide on what role you want your main monster to have. Then, if this is a fight for more than one monster, add some more monsters that support that role. For example, if your main monster isn't good in melee combat, put in some monsters that are good to block for him. If your monster likes to flank then put in some monsters for it to flank with.

Then, once you have your roles picked, draw a quick sketch of terrain that supports those roles. For example, archers like to be in places where they can see the whole battlefield, but aren't easy to reach. Sneaky monsters like lots of stuff to hide behind.

Once you have your sketch, test it out imagine a party of adventurers attacking the location. You don't have to use your own party, just think one up. If your test reveals problems, try to fix them by moving monsters around or adding terrain and then re-test until you think you have an interesting encounter planned.


So that would be my answer. As a DM, you may not have the on-the-moment tactical skill of your players, but you do usually have control over the encounters. Set them up in a way that reinforces the monsters' strengths and plan and test them out in advance. The caveat if, of course, that it takes more time, but once you work through all the steps a few times, you may find that you think more tactically about setting things up.

 

[Plane Sailing]

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?

I think that the two best solutions are

a) give the creatures more hp

b) add more creatures

(I don't think that increasing the level of the threat is a good idea, as PCs can get quickly outpaced - adding more foes of an appropriate level divides the PC resources and gives the bad guys more options. This can be especially true for loner monsters like dragons in 3e which are very poorly equipped to face a whole party.)

Cheers

 

[smathis]

There's been a lot of good advice here. I'm not a naturally tactical-minded DM either. I do, however, have a hyperactive imagination at times and I've found that can help me out just as much.

I always try to put myself in the monsters' shoes. I ask "If I were stuck living in this crummy dungeon, what would I do?" Generally not what the adventure depicts me doing.

The trick is -- in most encounters -- the monsters are the defenders and start out with the tactical advantage. Think of how you could use terrain (or traps) to your advantage. I mean, in theory, these monsters have lived there most of their lives. Once they become aware of the PCs, they should be able to take advantage of some of their lair's defenses.

And don't be afraid to fall back. I have monsters do this all the time. If they're obviously losing, there's no way in blue Hades they'll just sit there and keep fighting. Unless you want them to fight dumb.* So, if the tide is turning against the monsters, I frequently have them fall back (which is usually pretty easy for them since they know and can take advantage of the terrain).

Then harry the party with lurkers and artillery to give the controller time to regroup for a second attack. Basically, switch to guerilla tactics to wear the party down.

That denies the PCs the opportunity to rest. Evil GM, I know. But, hey, if somebody was trying to go into my haunted cave, well... you know...

I once nearly TPK'd a 10th level party in 2e with just a whole bunch of Kobolds and some homefield advantage. I played the Kobolds no smarter than, say, a Badger. But they knew the traps in the dungeon, knew to lure the PCs there and had set up a network of tunnels (too small for the non-Halfling PCs to get into -- and none of the PCs were Halflings) for just this problem. Well, actually there was a big group of Hobgoblins that would enslave and eat the Kobolds that probably constituted a bigger long term problem...

But, to give you an idea, the dungeon was B1 (Into the Unknown), with just a lot of Kobolds in it. The PCs never got to the Hobgoblins. The Kobolds wore them down with very basic Guerilla tactics and I wound up having to pull out the "Big Neon Sign" to get the PCs to the bottom level and out of the dungeon. Who knew that Kobolds could be so tough?

But I believe trying to think from the Monster's perspective is the key. I mean, the players are trying to kill you. So fight like you mean it. Because they do. I've seriously had players slaughter monster babies just for the fun of it. And you want to protect your monster babies, don't you?!

I'm really happy that the 4e MM has tactics pretty well spelled out. All that is really needed is the environment to optimize their advantage. And many of the creature's descriptions and abilities should suggest themselves to some brutal possibilities. And it looks like the DMG will be actually useful for a change.

* - Some creatures (like Low-to-No Intelligence creatures) I just portray as dumb. Zombies are a good example. No sense of self-preservation. Even a Green Slime has a sense of self-preservation and would (should) slink away at the first sign of a heat source. But no, sometimes it's fun to play fanatical or otherwise handicapped monsters that just have no desire to live (in the broadest sense of the term). That's okay too. I generally throw a handful of those at a party to warm them up. And then I introduce them to the Swarm.

Because watching the PCs glow with pride as they dispatch 8 zombies is nice. But watching the PCs terror as the sneaky rogue comes back from scouting to inform them that there are 100s of these things screaming for brains, that's priceless.

And, let me say, I never do this to win. I roleplay the monster. Yeah, I can see that coming back to bite me, sorta like the old "I'm just roleplaying my alignment" cop-out. But I really don't enjoy playing adversarially. I don't think that precludes me from playing the monsters with some sense of self-preservation, though. I mean, I'm only doing it to protect my monster babies.

The one thing I don't do that a monster (especially a lurker) probably would do is target the weak PCs. I think it would be too easy to kill a PC like that. And that's not the goal.

The goal is to challenge the PCs, not kill them -- despite my earlier monster babies statement.

So, I target all the PCs equally. If a monster is "smart" enough to know what a spellcaster is, then he might get some extra attention in some cases. But if not, generally the troops scatter after a fireball.

Then they regroup to discuss what happened and what they can do about it.

So, long post short, think like the monster. Tactics will suggest themselves.

 

[SmCaudata]

The poster above who mentioned ripping off video games stated what I was thinking when I read this thread.

For the normal run of the mill encounters the MM is going to tell you how the monster's typically fight. Then play them as if you are trying to kill the PC partry. The archer shoots at the wizard and it seems as if it hits, and the wizard had no magical defenses up. Well the brutes then should key in on this and charge the robe wearer and try to knock him down due to his inferior melee skills. On the other hand if that arrow seems to bounce of an invisible shield then the brutes will probably concentrate on the leather wearing rogue or the cleric and save the fighter type for the end. Also, the mosters are going to use their strongest stuff right away. Most monsters have a short life span when it comes to facing off against PCs so they are going to play it like all or nothing. If 5 brutes use their Daily strong attack on the surprised wizard he may go down in the surprise round.

Then when it comes to the big bad bosses... put in your own tricks that aren't in the MM. Give him a protection that allows him to take half damage until the two orbs nearby are destroyed. Make friends of his drop down from above or run up from behind when he hits the bloodied mark. Think of a "script" ahead of time for your tough monsters if you are worried about your own personal tactical skill. Basically, take things you read, see on TV, and encounter in video games and use them. Use terrain, traps, and secret doors. Don't let the PCs walk in on the dragon and just fight straight away without giving any advantage to the dragon. Have arrow traps constantly raining down on the fight below, the dragon will shrug them off, but they will eat at the PCs making the fight have a sense of urgency. Doing things like this is better than adding 100 hps or fudging rolls on the fly and makes it fun for all at the table by making it more challenging without seeming cheep.