For playtesters: the lack of morale rules

[Libramarian]

Back when, I believe it was Robert Schwalb, wrote a blog post about morale rules, many posters here argued that morale rules were unnecessary and the DM should decide by fiat when the monsters break morale.

The playtest rules so far do not have morale rules. So, a simple question for those who are playtesting: do the monsters ever run away or surrender?

For me, playtesting with a newish DM, no; monsters fight to the death. We did capture a kobold, but we had to wrestle him to the ground with a Str contest before he stopped fighting.

In fact even while he was restrained, my Wizard pointed his Magic Missile finger at him threateningly and he bit it for 1 point of damage.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not sure they will on Saturday's session. But I can guarantee they will try on Monday. (I'm playing Sat then DMing Mon).

 

[fjw70]

When I DM on Friday some will surrender or flee, but it isn't a good idea to let monsters flee in the Caves of Chaos. Too many possible reinforcements. Luckily my player always do whatever they can to stop monsters from fleeing.

 

[Salamandyr]

Of the three or four things I found disappointing in the D&D Next playtest, the lack of morale values on the monsters was pretty high on the list. The other two I can think of off-hand was the armor rules and unrealistic weight values for weapons, so you can tell I was overall pleased.

While they may not be absolutely necessary, it's been my experience that, absent a little clueing in by the ruleset, most novice DM's and even a lot of experienced ones will make every monster fight to the last drop of hit points. In some editions, it's even implied that they're supposed to, at least that's my read.

Morale is pretty easy to ignore when necessary, and should never be implied to override the DM's needs for the adventure, but it's a useful tool.

 

[TerraDave]

To let combats end even more quickly and maybe even make them less blood-thirsty (I know, what am I saying?) it could be interesting to have something like a defeated or routed condition, where you know the monster is done and won't bother you again.

You could still have guards or others that can warn and have to be stopped, if you like that kind of thing.

 

[Tehnai]

Fleeing kept things tense and kept encounters escalating to ridiculous levels.

Somehow, the players survived 13 hobgoblins, 8 goblins and an ogre, and then survived another fighter with 22 goblins, including the goblin warchief.

They were scared shitless. It was awesome.

 

[CleverNickName]

I miss the old morale rules. In fact, I am seriously considering adding them back to the playtest, just to see how they perform. I will use the rules and morale scores from the Rules Cyclopedia, and I'll report back to let you know how it went.

 

[jadrax]

I miss the old morale rules. In fact, I am seriously considering adding them back to the playtest, just to see how they perform. I will use the rules and morale scores from the Rules Cyclopedia, and I'll report back to let you know how it went.

Yeah, I am probably going to do the same.

 

[Nebulous]

what about just low, average, high or fearless morale guidelines instead of actual hard-coded rules?

 

[howandwhy99]

Yeah, it depends on Wis and Morale.