D&D 5E "Just Kill Them": Balancing PC survival and Monster Intelligence

[Remathilis]

Kinda a spinoff of the elf as a drow slave thread here, in which the following exchange was had...

Our group is screwed; we're importing our 3rd level PCs and among our group is a wood elf ranger, a gold elf rogue and a renegade drow paladin of Lathander. (We also have a gold dwarf cleric of Moradin, a half-orc barbarian, and a human diviner, I don't wager any of them are going to fair that well either).

This is something I couldn't ignore if I was DMing. The drow would just slaughter all of you and take anything of value. I never handwave things like this because my group would become disinterested in the campaign.

It makes a lot of sense for the drow to do this. Out of six captured, perhaps one of the six would actually make a good slave. The elves would be killed on sight. The renegade would be mercilessly tortured for going against his people, the dwarf is a priest and has magic, the human is both physically weak and knows magic (knowing magic in 5e wold be a liability for slaves; especially with at-will cantrips). In reality, the drow would take the half-orc (who is strong but controllable) and murder the rest (either there or painfully later). Drow, unlike orcs or goblinoids, are supposed to be smart and cunning and would be able to understand said liabilities.

BUT that doesn't make for a fun experience, especially for 5 our of 6 PCs. Instead, OotA creates the infamous James Bond scenario; put the heroes in an elaborate death or imprisonment rather than just putting a bullet in their heads and be done. In D&D, as in most fiction, that is done to create tension and drama. Still, it leaves the "smart and cunning" villains holding the idiot ball as clearly if the shoe was on the other foot (that is, the PCs captured a drow raiding party) they most likely wouldn't leave them with a chance of escape. (To be honest, they'd probably be killed by the PCs and take anything of value.)

So that leads to an interesting dilemma: how do you balance the "fun" aspect (that is, giving the PCs a fair shake and not "bullet-to-the-head" them) with the "smart" aspect of said monsters? Should it even be balanced, seeing as how the PCs rarely give such considerations to their foes (turnabout is fair play when the drow kill you and take your stuff)? Or do the PCs deserve the James Bond treatment because they are the protagonists and the story is about them, not the random drow raiding party who ambushed them.

Note, this doesn't have to be just about drow (or OotA). You can replace this with any smart creature like dragons, sentient undead, demons, etc and any "cunning" plan that lets the PC's live or escape and the point would stand. Is it fair to play the monsters "smartly" and have them kill the PCs or should they grab the idiot ball and let them live in the name of "fun"?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I never worry about my villains carrying the idiot ball...they are Not as I.important as the e pcs

 

[Ahrimon]

I haven't read the adventure yet, but a couple ideas off the top of my head are:

1. They have to take them to the place to be killed.
2. They can't kill them, they have to take them to the person to be killed.
3. Alternatively they have to wait for the person that will kill them to get back.
4. They will be sacrificed on the holy day which is sometime down the road.
5. There is an order for some unique slaves from one of the houses and they can make a good sum by fulfilling it with these guys.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The suggestion which comes to mind is that there is an outside factor influencing the Drow's behavior. A smart Drow would kill the PCs, so given that they didn't (or else we wouldn't have a game), why is that the case? Are the Drow being pursued by something scary, so they don't have time to finish the party off? Are they under orders from someone to take prisoners for interrogation, because they're looking for one person in particular? There could be any number of good reasons why a smart Drow wouldn't kill the party.

It really helps if you limit that sort of thing to the premise of a campaign, though. The prior probability of such an unlikely event occurring is pretty low, so the players have every right to roll their eyes at such a ridiculous plot contrivance if it happens in the middle of a campaign; there may even be suggestions that the encounter was unwinnable, and that the DM was going to railroad this outcome regardless.

If the game starts out with the player characters already taken captive by Drow, then that changes everything. The prior probability of that event having already occurred, given the situation at hand, approaches one-hundred percent. Maybe 997 adventuring parties out of a thousand are killed rather than being taken captive, so the fact that they didn't kill you just means we've selected our narrative to focus around one of the 0.3% that weren't.

The idea that the PCs would be treated any differently because they're protagonists is ridiculous, because neither the PCs nor the Drow could possibly be aware of that fact.

 

[Lhorgrim]

I read somewhere that one of the drow matrons preferred surface elf servants, but that they didn't survive long.

I can usually come up with a reason for the PCs to not be killed outright even if the bad guys are intelligent. Ransom , sacrifice, suicide mission ala Snake Pliskin. I try not to make it too far fetched, but I also don't start adventures with the PCs at the mercy of an enemy who would probably kill them immediately.

 

[ExploderWizard]

To me the answer depends heavily on a couple factors.

1) Did the PCs get captured as a result of their actions in play or is it the campaign starting default? If the default start to the campaign is everyone begins in captivity then its Bond villain time all the way. In this situation the players didn't get to make any decisions that led to their capture-it just happened. Providing a not too terribly difficult way out is really needed here. If the PCs end up captured due their decisions during actual play, then their fates are more uncertain.

2) Who are the captors? Assuming this happened in the course of play, who captured the PCs and do they have any plans that living PCs might help them with? If the answer is no then adios muchachos.

This is how I run things. The players are special. Their characters are not and can be killed and left on the curb with the rest of the trash. In my experience if the players know that the universe isn't looking out for their characters then they will play as if it really IS up to them to survive-because its true. I have seen the reverse happen too.

 

[Umbran]

In this case, it seems simple - drow are not just cunning, they're also sadistic. If you are familiar with Game of Thrones, they are Boltons

So, when they have leisure, they don't just kill. They like to play with their toys. Humiliate and break wills, to prove their superiority. Sure, you hate elves, but what's better, the fleeting thrill of killing one, or the feeling of satisfaction day after day when you look into their cowed, subjugated and enslaved eyes?

Which is to say, sure the enemy is smart, but the enemy has drives beyond beating the heroes, and sometimes those get in the way.

 

[Nebulous]

Yeah, i don't see any problem with the drow taking prisoners to torture them for fun. Hell, they could even use them for sex toys who knows. I ran a short campaign where the drow used prisoners in gladiator pits for spectator sport.

 

[Sunseeker]

IMO: what makes the game enjoyable for the group is more important than what is the statistically more likely outcome. I think there's plenty of room in the Drow lore to say that they want to play cat-and-mouse with you for a while before eating you.

 

[Ristamar]

The question of "smart" versus "fun" enemies is a bit misdirected, IMO. It's really a matter of good design, planning, and being able to recognize when you've vastly overestimated the party's abilities versus the party heroically (albeit tragically) falling short.

When you create an encounter, you have to account for any possible fail states. If the party falls to enemies, traps, hostile environments, natural disasters, etc, the real question is whether or not you as a DM are willing to kill any or all of the PCs if that is a likely outcome or the only possible outcome.

Most DM's can (and should!) generate plausible outcomes as to why some or all of the party might escape death's clutches, but eventually you have to be willing to put the hammer down if the circumstances warrant a severe and swift conclusion. In the event of a permanent loss of one or more PCs, if the players were aware of the stakes, the encounter was fair, and no one felt like they were cheated, it shouldn't cause too much friction at the table.

Essesntially, the question shouldn't be "are these enemies smart enough to kill the PCs, and if they are, why don't they?" The question should be "if the PCs fail in this encounter, did the stakes warrant any or all of their deaths?"