D&D 5E Advice on monster reactions in 5e

[redrick]

So my 4 PCs 1st level PCs run into a room full of 40 kobolds. (They had listened at the door and heard the hushed conversation of a lot of kobold voices, but felt the best plan was all-out assault.)

My players are a little better with math than tactics, so they knew it was time to parley, and I had no trouble believing that a significantly superior force would be willing to hear a final plea. After a little back and forth, the charismatic fighter makes an extremely long case for a "partnership", along the lines of a Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars scenario. This feels reasonable to me—the kobolds are no longer afraid of these 4 wannabe-heroes, and they might as well let them kill a few rival tribesmembers before getting slaughtered. (The kobolds haven't seen Yojimbo and don't know how these deals usually work out in the end.)

The player now feels like she deserves a roll of the dice in order to "win" her fate. Sounds good to me! Can't have deus-ex-roleplay be entirely risk-free, and she's got a lot going for her — 14 charisma and inspiration from the wordcount alone of that speech. But I still need to set a DC for her roll, and at these moments, I feel like I'm fudging the DC in about the same way as I might later fudge the dice. I want her to succeed, so I set a DC of 10, which she easily hits, and that's that. What I would love to have for these moments is some sort of more objective guideline on monster reactions, a little like the reaction tables of B/X. A high roll gets a friendly and helpful reaction (sure! pull up a bedroll here in the common room and we'll get to work tomorrow), and a very low roll gets an immediately violent reaction. (The kobolds have every reason not to trust you and rip you into tiny pieces. Let's roll for new characters.) Rolls in the middle have middling results. (Indifference — they march you off to an enemy cave and send you in at spear-point. Hostile — they drag you off to fight a pair of ogres.)

Anyway, these are obviously all things that I can improvise at the table, but I find, when I improvise, that I always err on the side of softballing my players, because if there's going to be a TPK, I want it to feel fairer than fair. And I could see this adventure having a lot of monster interactions, parleys, pleadings, etc.

Does anybody have any system that they use and like?

thanks,
redrick

 

[Pillsy]

The simple solution would be lay out a table of DCs for Charisma (Persuasion) table, based on factors that should influence the difficulty of making the case, and using the "Typical Difficulty Classes" from p. 174 of the PHB (p. 58 of the Basic Rules). In this case, I'd say convincing a room full of kobolds to form a partnership after you charge in is going to be Hard, or maybe even Very Hard. A first level character with proficiency, inspiration and a +2 ability score bonus should make a DC 20 check about 44% chance, which is just a little worse than even money.

Of course, in a situation like that, even if you fall short of making the case for partnership, the kobolds may well stop short of turning you into adventurer-burgers, and let you go, or demand tribute, or something of the sort.

If you wanted to go into even more detail you could have some sort of range of reactions (ranging from "Active Combat" to "Friendly", say), with the check result making the situation worse (say if you roll less than 10) or better (if your roll is better than 15).

 

[MoutonRustique]

When making the table, I would suggest you get the input of your players.

A thing that some players can do is resent and then fight the roll result when in social situations : an example would be that they enter into a haggling contest and then roll poorly - some players will refuse to pay the higher price and instead walk away from the buy. In some ways, that player refuses the result of the die. (I understand that it can be a valid interpretation that the player simply refuses the offer - then I would ask what the reaction at the table would be if the vendor simply refused the result of a good roll...)

Things like the creatures requiring a tribute/ransom can be excellent results on the table - but I strongly urge you to get player input on these kinds of things that force player action. Otherwise you might as well simply have "combat" instead.

It is analogue to NPC diplomacy rolls - depending on player preferences your most suave NPC can only be as suave as you yourself are. It is not meant as a knock - but it is important to be aware of these issues.

On the flip side, players will often propose things you would never have proposed for fear of offending them (same as in a classroom: students are STRICT - when they're dealing with hypothetical, not-themselves, wrongdoers...)

 

[redrick]

Thank you both for your input! The whole "easy" -> "very hard" DC system feels very intuitive — until I'm at the table and I'm trying to figure out how easy something should be, mixed with how easy I'd like it to be. Experience, I'm sure, will make this easier, but in the meantime, it's nice to have something a little more specific to point to. So I probably will draw up this table, and I'd definitely like to make it a sort of "graduated" DC, where the outcome is based on the roll range, as opposed to just beating a set number.

That being said, MoutonRustique, the idea of asking for player input when putting together a house rule (even if it's just a reaction table) might be a good one. I definitely want my players to feel like the world we are modeling (as clumsily and inaccurately as we are) follows the same rules that I think it follows. So maybe they don't know the plans or motivations of this particular pack of kobolds, but they know, if they roll up a 3 on a charisma check, those kobolds just took a real strong dislike to them.

All this DM responsibility is still a bit much for me! I remember my first time DM'ing, a player did something off the wall, and I thought to myself, "man, I wonder what will happen in response to that?" And then realized, oh crap, I have to figure out what happens in response to that!

 

[Connorsrpg]

Maybe don't rely upon ONE roll.

Although a confusing or 'clunky' system (and I don't want to start a 4E fight here), Skill Challenges was a very good idea. ie, you need a certain amount of successes before failures. Each faliure might result in a 'condition' being added to the alliance. All failures, well, hostile is the word This way you CAN set the DC higher.

Savage Worlds also has a very simple and elegant system for resolving this situation. (I cannot recall the mechanics name, but from what I remember, there is a set amount of rounds for the parley. (These don't have to be combat rounds). Similarly to above, a certain amount of successes (and raises) determines the overall success. Often opposed rolls may be called for).

A Song of ICe and Fire has a very robust Intrigue system if you wanted to adopt that.

In any case, I guess the main suggestion is, I would not handle such a large negotiating/interaction situation with one roll. (Like combat ).

 

[FadedC]

Reading through The Horde of The Dragon Queen, I occasionally see references to things like NPC attitudes or states of readiness, as if they are supposed to mean something concrete. Given that the PHB does not appear to reference this in any way I'm going to assume (hope) that the DMG does in fact have concrete rules for influencing NPCs based on their attitude towards you.

 

[redrick]

Hey all, again, thanks so much for your input and I think I've got enough to chew on until my next time at the table.

Ultimately, I think my players were happy to not be dead, felt sufficiently threatened, and their predicament forced me to do some useful world-building which will hopefully make the game more enjoyable for all.

-r