Defenders require bad AI from monsters

[shadowoflameth]

Monster Behavior?

A kobold is not going to have the same motives as a pack of vavening wolves, or a human or a dragon.

If it bothers you that weak foes don't flee until it is too late to escape, or at all, consider that perhaps the kobolds might flee early, or fight in an area where they have a good option for escape unless the party block it.

More powerful foes like that dragon might not consider escape because of overconfidence, or because they've been defending their horde against local heros intruding in their lairs for 300 years.

Others too may simply be compelled to fight to the death by magic. Zombies, skeletons, golems etc.

Still others like those wolves might be desperate enough for meat that it doesn't occur to them to flea.

Believe me, if this is the greatest story driven concern in your game, you're doing great.

 

[webrunner]

It's worth noting that if your monsters are canonically working for the BBEG or a Smaller Bad Evil Guy, then it's quite possible that no matter what your party can do to them it'll be better (quicker and less painful) then what they imagine the XBEG will do to them if they desert their post. It's okay for monsters to be cowardly, but it isn't necessary that they're afraid of the PARTY.

As for things like Combat Challenge, although a monster knows if he's marked, a monster doesn't know what the fighter can do to a marked opponent. Marked essentialy means "preference to attack target X", but other factors can make other targets better targets, even if you do want to target the fighter first. If there's a mage in the back setting you on fire, then yes, maybe, you should disengage the fighter. It's not like you know you'll take a combat challenge hit. Sure if you walk you might take an OA, but that's gotta be better than definitely being set on fire again.

Additionally if you add these two things together: a boss fight with other monsters.. the boss can be barking out commands like "FOOLS! Stop that infuriating spell casting whelp or any survivors will spend an evening with the Machine!", then immediately have several of the enemies go after the spellcaster. It can even be a plot hook you bring up later. Your party will wonder what the machine is, and no matter how many times various groups bring it up, don't tell it, and if any allies of the enemy, you can threaten the party with it.

 

[Cadfan]

Psychologically speaking, people tend to dramatically overestimate their ability to coerce others by means of violence.

Its why wars happen.

 

[MwaO]

The monster is also acting tactically by forcing the defender to maintain the mark. It might not be what the monster wants to do, but...

Spending an at-will minor or free action to completely negate an enemy's attack is usually a huge win of resource allocation - as the defender can just pull the same stunt on one of his friends the next round. So running is often a horrible choice in that kind of situation.

 

[the Jester]

As for things like Combat Challenge, although a monster knows if he's marked, a monster doesn't know what the fighter can do to a marked opponent.

Actually, 4E pretty explicitly says that you always know the effects of conditions you're under.

 

[webrunner]

Actually, 4E pretty explicitly says that you always know the effects of conditions you're under.

Combat Challenge isn't a condition the monster is under, it's an ability the Fighter has which interacts with a condition the monster is under (namely: plain old everyday marking). It's a condition the Fighter has, not the monster.

The only condition the monster is under when marked by a Fighter has is "-2 to attack anyone other than the monster", and the monster can choose to ignore that if it feels something else is a more important target.

Conversely, the Paladin's marking radiant damage thing actually is a special condition. But that specifically also calls it a "magical compulsion that affects the creature’s behavior, regardless of the creature’s nature. "

 

[jedrious]

Actually, 4E pretty explicitly says that you always know the effects of conditions you're under.

actually the rule is

Whenever you affect a creature with a power, that creature knows exactly what you’ve done to it and what conditions you’ve imposed.

nowhere does it say that the creature knows what powers and abilities you have

 

[Herschel]

...but I imagine if the alarm gets sounded immediately when the PCs attack at encounter 1, encounters 3 and 4 will have time to group themselves together. In a five encounter dungeon, that at least encounters 4 and 5 will manage to group themselves together after an initial alarm seems even more likely.

You're assuming an egalitarian society in the dungeon here. The guards are fodder. If attacked, they sound teh alarm and soften the invading force a bit while the next groups prepare. However, that doesn't mean they are rushing in to save the fodder, they're just setting their own defenses. Next group is shock troopers for the third group, etc. The BBEG is behind layers of defenses with reserves, just like classic human battles. The BBEG expects the invaders to be softened up and less dangerous by the time he faces them.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I mean SERIOUSLY, how are you even able, in one sentance to say "oh, the monster can tell the controller's AC is 2 lower and has a few less HPs and is doing 20% more damage so the Defender has a hard time because the monster will go after them instead"]/quote]

Well, the defender is a guy in heavy armor hacking away at people with a sword. The controller is a guy who is flinging spells around and is in leather.

Of course, no monster is actually thinking that. They may however, see the wizard sustaining a magical effect. They may notice it's hard to hit the defender. They may notice the defender taking lots of damage and not going down.

Some monsters like the easy target. Some monsters want to take out the person dishing out the damage. Some targets just don't like the heavy armor ... it's harder to sink their teeth into.

then in the next sentance say "oh, the monster can't tell that it's going to loser the fight, even after it's engaged and has had a few friends die."

Any monster that is able to fight has survived EVERY FIGHT IT HAS EVER BEEN IN. If nothing else, a monster can choose to run away, however it might want to pick the right time to do so. And if his FRIENDS are dying ... if only he runs away, he's leaving the rest of his friends to die (not to mention his other friends that died did so for apparently no reason except giving him a chance to flee). They may at one point in the fight change strategies, start making a tactical retreat, try to take down at least one member of the group to make it easier to escape.

While it can take someone out of the game that monsters aren't acting "rationally", assuming that in the middle of an attack (the PCs are almost always the ones starting the fight), the monsters are able to reevaluate their odds of survival during SIX SECOND INTERVALS, and will make intelligent rational decisions. When two of their friends die, they won't allow anger and thoughts of vengence and hurt pride stand in the way of their cool rational "we can't win" decision.

Intelligent monsters do not mean monsters without emotion. Even rational beings behave irrationally.

EDIT:

Not to mention, the idea that all intelligent races would have upbringing, traditions, concepts of honor, etc that would lead to similar decision making is a bit of a falacy.

If it's a group of humans ... that's one thing. However monstrous races may have societal pressures. With some, if they run away and survive ... they get killed for doing so.

In some cases, strategically, it may be better for the monsters to not have one concentrated force. If the encounters are steadily increasing it could be they didn't want to risk losing their "big guns" early. There is also a possibility that the adventuring party is merely the first wave in a larger invassion force. Either a distraction, and if you sent all your people to take down a small group, while a ton of people stormed the other side, or perhaps merely there to weaken your forces for the real fight. If you send your big guns in right away, the party may just try to take the big guns down, and then the remaining group would be horribly weakened for a real assault by a large group. Either way, the dungeon boss has populated with dungeon with monsters that are meant to kill, and die, to defend him, even though he's more of a challenge for the group than any of his minions. However, he doesn't want to be bothered, so he has them there as a bunch of buffers. Once someone gets through all of them, they may still be alive, but they won't be in tip top shape, and it will be easier for him to finish them off.

Consider the PCs, as an example. They win nearly all of their fights, with an occaisional risk that they die. However, how many times do PCs run away when they feel they may end up dead, and how many times do PCs keep fighting until they die, do TPKs happen, etc? If the PCs were acting "rationally" they would never have a PC death or TPK, because they would always retreat when they knew one of them would die (which isn't necessarily the same as losing). In the case of the monsters ... when they encounter the PCs ... this is THEIR first instance of a "TPK in the making" they may not be able to process that ... they've survived every other encounter they've been involved in, and now they may end up dying. Heck, they may not know their friends are dead. The whole "you can decide whether you kill or render unconcious a monster when you drop it to 0 hp" thing is basically because ... they are functionally the same, and you wouldn't be able to tell until you checked on them which was which. The monster may believe if they can drive off the adventures, there is still time to save their buddy (if they care about that). Rarely is a monster put to negative bloodied, so it's effectively "death by failed death saves" while knocking unconcious basically means "stabilized before last remaining death save failed".

 

[MwaO]

Well, the defender is a guy in heavy armor hacking away at people with a sword. The controller is a guy who is flinging spells around and is in leather.

In 4e, though, that's not necessarily a rational choice. The defender in Scale wielding a two-handed weapon should have the same AC as the Staff Wizard with a 18 Int in Leather. And if that Defender marked the enemy, it is easier for that enemy to hit the Defender than it is to hit even a non-staff Wizard.

The easy targets in 4e are:
Those wearing Cloth
Those without a staff, defensive weapon or shield
Those wearing Chain or Leather

You see any of those choices in roughly that order, they're probably reasonably easy to hit.