D&D 5E Encounters and NPC/Monster Strategy Thread

[Rhenny]

Tactics! Play that 4HP Kobold like it's your own PC.

When the bodies are looted, it's probably got a pouch with 10GP in it. That's a lot to the lil guy, have him barter for his life. I know most murderhobo parties will kill it anyway, but it should give pause.

Use Actions other than Attack. Use Help and Disengage cleverly. You could even rule that a monster reduced to 0HP isn't unconscious but is bleeding out (hey, give it death saves, so they're not just auto dead). Maybe while bleeding out, if at the feet of the PC, you allow it to Help (blood soaked hands clawing desperately at the fighters legs, causing him to be distracted just enough that Snotpickle - his dearest friend - can make that stab count).

Up til now I've had a goose/gander HP apartheid - the PCs get death saves but the monsters, at 0, are dead. I've been toying with changing this, especially as they're 5th level now with all the extra attack toys.

Cool...thanks for adding. The Help action works especially well when the PCs face a number of weaker foes and some more powerful ones. The weaker ones could try to help/distract to give the stronger ones advantage. That will definitely make a difference. The goblin who can only do 1d6+2 damage would gladly sacrifice an attack to give the bugbear a better chance to do 2d8+2.

I could totally see giving the leader or special monsters that chance to use death saves too...or sneaky DM just ruling that the foe that was bleeding out suddenly gets back up (just something the DM can add in once in a while). For the special monsters or leader types, I sometimes give them the fighter's "second wind" and "action surge." That makes them much more resilient.

 

[redrick]

Tactics! Play that 4HP Kobold like it's your own PC.

This is what I'm working on, though it's hard for me. Unfortunately, I think I am more likely to play my PC like he's a 4HP kobold... (My PC got dissolved by a gelatinous cube last week. Dissolved by a cube while lying prone after failing to climb out of a pit. What a chump.)

As DMs, we get used to playing our monsters like disposable characters there to lose to PCs. But the game gets so much more interesting when those monsters are out there just fighting to survive. I think the DM training has to start at low levels, when you can still get away with small amounts of simple monsters, and really practice running them like you mean it.

I don't think I would give actions to a bleeding out NPC, as that's more than a PC would warrant. I did once have a Medusa "go limp" after being attacked. As adventurers moved in to loot her body, she grabbed the PC's hand and looked him in the eyes, shouting, "Gotcha!" Not the sort of trick you want to run too often, though.

Death saves, though? Absolutely. It would be interesting to see how the game would change if you reduced the numbers in hordes, but gave NPCs some of the luxuries afforded to PCs.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

As DMs, we get used to playing our monsters like disposable characters there to lose to PCs. But the game gets so much more interesting when those monsters are out there just fighting to survive. I think the DM training has to start at low levels, when you can still get away with small amounts of simple monsters, and really practice running them like you mean it.

I'm not sure how you mean the bold above--there are a lot of DMs out there who run monsters as smarter and more bloodthirsty than they actually are, and when in doubt it's better to err on the side of making the monsters something other than tactical battlecomputers whose primary interest is inflicting death on the PCs.

That said, there are a lot of nasty tactical tricks you can play on the PCs, everything from Dodging to Hiding behind cover instead of charging blindly to punting PCs off cliffs (Stone Giants have +12 to Athletics! they rock at punting PCs) to ye old grapple-a-PC-and-fly-off-with-it trick for dragons/gargoyles/air elementals. I find that running solo combats against notional parties is a good way to develop that tactical skill. Once you know what the bad guys can do, you can then filter for stuff that they would do. E.g. recently it occurred to me that kobolds in a mixed group of monsters can employ nets as weapons to restrain enemies for their bigger buddies (since pack tactics cancels out the normal disadvantage for using nets). Maybe a dragon plus two kobolds really is harder than just a lone dragon. Not only does this work mechanically, it seems perfectly appropriate for the kobold flavor.

One thing that I don't do often enough and should do more is to have enemies who fail a morale check drop and play dead when hit. Since HP loss is usually narrated as "okay, he's down!" the players would often believe it. It serves the dual purpose of increasing verisimilitude in the game universe and quickly ending a fight that is clearly well in hand. (Yes, I know that you can "close the scene" before everyone hits zero HP, but sometimes I forget.)

I should also have monsters use caltrops more often.

 

[CapnZapp]

Even kobolds know to target the obvious spellcasters first. "Him in bathrobe! He no take candle!"

Corrected that for you.

 

[Kabouter Games]

Tactics! Play that 4HP Kobold like it's your own PC.

When the bodies are looted, it's probably got a pouch with 10GP in it. That's a lot to the lil guy, have him barter for his life. I know most murderhobo parties will kill it anyway, but it should give pause.

Use Actions other than Attack. Use Help and Disengage cleverly. You could even rule that a monster reduced to 0HP isn't unconscious but is bleeding out (hey, give it death saves, so they're not just auto dead). Maybe while bleeding out, if at the feet of the PC, you allow it to Help (blood soaked hands clawing desperately at the fighters legs, causing him to be distracted just enough that Snotpickle - his dearest friend - can make that stab count).

Up til now I've had a goose/gander HP apartheid - the PCs get death saves but the monsters, at 0, are dead. I've been toying with changing this, especially as they're 5th level now with all the extra attack toys.

THIS. This, this, this, this, and THIS.

Never, EVER fall prey to the apartheid. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Anything the PCs can do, so can a foe. Foes get crits, just like the PCs. Foes get death saves. NPCs with class levels get whatever powers accrue to those levels. That's been my rule for nigh on 30 years. So long as everyone knows about it up front, there's never a problem. Well, other than how much it sucks when your long-time PC gets splashed by a monster. But that's the game. Sometimes your PC dies.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

The party at my table have managed to win a bunch of fights by dint of the baddie running away. Or by running away themselves.

So far there's three nasties that are "out there" and they know that at least one of them is actively searching for them.

Also, regarding using terrain, have the monsters in room 4 prep themselves, having heard the sounds of slaughter from room 3. Upend those items of furniture to make barriers with cover; jam the door with chairs; vacate and set a booby trap; and so on.

I used the terrain in this way to the players' advantage once, when a room of guards gambling at cards were fought. I ruled that the Thunderwave spell the party cast not only flung each guard back into the wall, but the table and all their coins they were betting with, too, for a little extra damage.

Having one of the guards die with a gold piece in her forehead was pretty cool; and the decision to loot the bodies by digging out the coin shrapnel was a pretty gross one with some nice RP.

You could always do much the same for the monsters/npcs. For example, the same spell thrusting the tank backwards into his colleague could have interesting effects if the tank is a typical specimen of the type, and has a lot of pointy bits of weaponry strapped to his back...

Mwah ha ha haaa.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I've had this weird desire lately to make a monster which belches out black puddings as its action each round.

You been watching Spirited Away?

 

[redrick]

I'm not sure how you mean the bold above--there are a lot of DMs out there who run monsters as smarter and more bloodthirsty than they actually are, and when in doubt it's better to err on the side of making the monsters something other than tactical battlecomputers whose primary interest is inflicting death on the PCs.

I guess I'm just saying that most of the DM's I've played with (and myself included) tend to run their monsters with a sort of "hive mind" mentality. They may run them effectively, with a clear strategy, or they may be like me and run them poorly, but the individual survival instincts of each unit in the monster hive generally don't come up until a morale check is failed, at which point everybody just runs away. I would like to get good at making my monsters a little more scrappy than that.

I will say, one "tactical" change I've made since I started DM'ing is for monsters not to focus fire on PCs. Even if it means spreading out the damage such that a character doesn't get knocked unconscious, it makes the fights more engaging and also discourages the players from focusing fire. I would make exceptions, like if the PCs leave the AC 11 Wizard undefended and monsters can get in there and take him out, they will.

That said, there are a lot of nasty tactical tricks you can play on the PCs, everything from Dodging to Hiding behind cover instead of charging blindly to punting PCs off cliffs (Stone Giants have +12 to Athletics! they rock at punting PCs) to ye old grapple-a-PC-and-fly-off-with-it trick for dragons/gargoyles/air elementals. I find that running solo combats against notional parties is a good way to develop that tactical skill. Once you know what the bad guys can do, you can then filter for stuff that they would do. E.g. recently it occurred to me that kobolds in a mixed group of monsters can employ nets as weapons to restrain enemies for their bigger buddies (since pack tactics cancels out the normal disadvantage for using nets). Maybe a dragon plus two kobolds really is harder than just a lone dragon. Not only does this work mechanically, it seems perfectly appropriate for the kobold flavor.

One thing that I don't do often enough and should do more is to have enemies who fail a morale check drop and play dead when hit. Since HP loss is usually narrated as "okay, he's down!" the players would often believe it. It serves the dual purpose of increasing verisimilitude in the game universe and quickly ending a fight that is clearly well in hand. (Yes, I know that you can "close the scene" before everyone hits zero HP, but sometimes I forget.)

I should also have monsters use caltrops more often.

This stuff is all great. And yes, running mock combats between NPCs and a notional party sounds like good training, if I wanted to take the time for it.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You been watching Spirited Away?

Never seen it. Explain?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It occurs to me that you don't need kobolds to use nets effectively. You just need to Hide first. Goblins can do it as a bonus action of course, but even regular human guards can do it with a round of prep behind total cover.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to use nets more with intelligent foes. They're cheap, too.