Monster tactics 101?

[Herschel]

I never noticed is was an auto kick in just that it was available.

 

[jimmifett]

To paraphrase Kirk in Wrath of Kahn, you're not thinking 3 dimensionally.

Players walk into a valley. There are ledges for archers. At the far end of the map, the ladders/ropes that the archers used to climb up (or a climb check for the players). Have 5 or 6 minion archers that can shoot OVER the defender, and maybe a non-minion artillery.

To get to these minions, you either need ranged, or you have to get through the soldiers on the valley floor to get to the ropes/ladders.

You could even have another set of melee minions on the far side of the map. They take double move actions the first turn, then a move and a charge the second turn to run across the same archer ledges and slide down the enbankment behind the defneders.

Place a fight over an ancient large bridge that is crumbling, with lots of gaps to make forced movement tantilizing. Ensure that players that fall can get back into combat within 2 rounds.

In a jungle? Give stealth rolls to enemies hiding in trees. As the party moves by, they drop down and attack the rear as part of a pincer attack.

In the desert? Big Bad (solo?) seemingly alone taunts the players into attacking. When they do so, a bunch of minions, and maybe a lieutenent pop up from the sand, having hidden under concealed tents (another stealth check) to surround the players.

Never forget that everyone hates swarms.

Target Reflex, defenders typically aren't good at reflex since it'd be wasted in that heavy armor.

Have mounted cavalry trample through the front lines and harass squishies.

Use a ton of minions that do extra damage when adjacent to thier allies. Dogpile!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

AC 24 is quite good at level 2... But your typical attacker has +6 to hit. Even a normal monster of that level has a "reasonable" chance to hit the defender. Flank him and you hit at 16+ 4 monsters and the defender goes down in 4 rounds or so.

But as mentioned, ignoring the defender as long as possible yields better results, but you should ask yoursef if you want to specifically circumvent your players defenses on a reguar basis.
In general it is much more fun, to allow players to shine and only sometimes use monsters that can easily threaten the knight.
A rogue type NPC elite that targets reflex with his normal base attack modifier that outsmarts the knight in his shiny armor should be a memorable event, not just a cheap trick to make the knights efforts to be a good defender redundant.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Really, it kicks in faster now? I'm hating Essentials more and more all the time.

I really wished you could just mix and match superior material and enhancement bonus as you like...adn

Why not adamantine and mythral armor like in ADnD. A bonus from +1 to +6 that can be mixed and matched as liked. So you can give a +2 heavy armor, which is impossble right now.

 

[Johnnii]

Always have at least one monster that targets NADs in your encounters. If they don't, change it (maybe a Lurker/Skirmisher has Piercing strike or the like). If not for increasing challenge, do it to increase variation.

Also, monsters that can deal damage on a miss or an effect. The Blue dragon for example can deal half damage on a miss with an at-will! (unless they changed it in Monster Vault)

 

[Aulirophile]

Really, it kicks in faster now? I'm hating Essentials more and more all the time.

No, kicks in at the same time it has since AV released (two years now?), and was always automatic if you actually read the Masterwork armor rules.

They just clarified it for people who didn't read those rules.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Always have at least one monster that targets NADs in your encounters. If they don't, change it (maybe a Lurker/Skirmisher has Piercing strike or the like). If not for increasing challenge, do it to increase variation.

Also, monsters that can deal damage on a miss or an effect. The Blue dragon for example can deal half damage on a miss with an at-will! (unless they changed it in Monster Vault)

this is n genral a good advice. But i want to stress that the pircing attack should not be the avrage brute or soldier. Those should rather have miss effects (force of the blow) or attacks vs fortitude...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

double post and sorry for all those typos... this keyboard just barely works...

 

[Kannon]

Skirmishers are fun. Especially if half the party has high AC. Those you don't have to feel so bad about trying to nerf the defender using, since that's what skirmishers are meant to do.

Controllers that aren't shy about knocking the party around or into nasty traps do a lot to threaten the party, too. Heavy armor doesn't help against pits. Most of the time. (The defender in my party got a natural 20 on an acrobatics save against a trap. So with his -3 skill bonus, he just barely made it. Only 20 he's gotten yet.)

Oddly enough, I'm concerned about accidentally killing them when I mean to just scare the bejesus out of them. Take for instance, the Jhakar tracker. Also a dark sun monster, it does 3d6+4 with CA on it's at-will, and has an immediate reaction encounter that does 3d6+4 without CA. I apparently wasn't paying attention and paired them up with a couple of brutes to flank with and a controller with a recharge 5 ability that made the target grant CA to adjacent enemies. Whoops. Should have known adapting a Gamma World power was a bad idea. Put the fear of Dark Sun into them, and no deaths, though half the party went into negatives.

They remembered the trackers when they showed up later and made very, very sure to not let them get into position, though. (And made sure to warn the NPC they were guarding about them too. Which was a nice touch.)

I'm also fond of controllers with forced movement abilities. Especially near aforementioned traps/hazards. It makes them think a lot more about their positioning when someone can kick them into a pillar of burning pain.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Can anyone give me some basic DM monster tactical tips? I feel like I'm not particularly challenging my party (although they don't seem to be too bored or otherwise unhappy). In tonight's game of three encounters I managed to bloody a PC maybe three times total.

The 2nd level knight has an armor class of 24, and in one encounter my monster had to roll an minimum of 18 in order to hit him. But if he tries to disengage he gets whacked.

I saw somewhere else in this thread that he has +2 armor. There are item guidelines that need to be followed if you want to keep the balance. Personally I use inherent bonuses so the issue takes care of itself. In any event, PCs shouldn't really expect their first magic armor until 4th-level (if you use the inherent system, that's when they get their equivalent) and in either case, shouldn't be getting +2 armor until 6th-level at minimum. However, with +1 armor, his AC would be only one point lower.

I would suggest using lots of controllers or artillery that target defenses other than AC. Note that plenty of other monsters might have an attack that doesn't target AC as well, such as a brute that has a multi-hit "swinging weapon" power that targets Reflex.

I always use encounters of at least +1. Even an easy encounter will simply use a few slightly higher-level NPCs. (It's mainly because some of my PCs have high defenses. Alas, their offense is often a point short, so it's a bit of a knife edge there.)

I have a PC in my group who has a really high AC too, despite using the point buy rules, as his character is a halfling rogue who pumped everything into Dex, getting his AC and attack bonuses a point or two above what they "should" be. His Will and Fortitude defenses are quite weak however, since he can't boost his other stats much at all. He also tends to drop a lot when exposed to damage-dealing auras, even when the opponent isn't deliberately singling him out for damage.

Meanwhile, the thief has an attack bonus of +11 even without combat advantage, which he gets 80% of the time due to tactical trick, flanking, or the mage's spells.

I don't know what to say to that kind of bonus. That sounds a bit high for 2nd-level. Check their math, and check you're handing out proper magic items.

In my limited DMing experience the best way to challenge the party is to use a "party" of monsters, as in only one or two of each monster type. For instance, IME, the rogue keeps "ganking" spellcasters, especially templars (I'm running Dark Sun). So one trick is to put a soldier next to the templar. Many soldiers have an ability that gives them a free attack against an enemy who targets anyone other than themself, and often these attacks are debilitating (they don't just deal damage, they might also knock the opponent prone, immobilize them, restrain them, inflict a -2 penalty to attack rolls, etc). Note that soldiers also mark PCs (even that knight), drawing aggro away from squishy controllers.

In one encounter I forgot to do this, and used something like four controllers/artillery and only two soldiers. Needless to say the rogue got his pick of which squishy to target (anyone not standing next to a tough guy) and did massive damage.

Sad because in the previous encounter I did not make that mistake, and despite an equivalent XP budget the battle had ended up being much more satisfying for both the players and myself. (It hadn't been a hard battle either.)

I guess I'm whittling their healing surges away as they heal after each encounter, but I don't feel like I'm ever really pushing them anywhere near the brink during the combats. These are Level+0 or +1 encounters. Maybe I need to bump up the encounter level? Use higher-level monsters which will have a better shot to hit?

That'll help to some extent, but you need to set up "combos". For instance, in a previous encounter, I used a controller monster with a special ability to inflict the "dazed" condition as a recharge power (the attack was versus Will, IIRC), along with skirmishers that had combat advantage and a soldier to protect it. Even if they couldn't flank, the skirmishers would often deal bonus damage to dazed opponents anyway. (And combat advantage helps a lot when the PCs have high AC.)

I can do this easily as I design new monsters in a really short period of time (a complicated one takes me half an hour at most) and I won't shy away from designing an entire themed group of monsters designed to fill all those roles and be backed up with combos. After all, my PCs don't shy away from using powers like this combo: use a pull power to pull a controller or artillery away from its allies right into the midst of the heavy melee characters, then watch them get killed in only one round.

One tactic I guess I will start trying is to bog down the knight with minions and let the tougher monsters attack the thief and mage. But that only lasts a couple rounds until he cleaves his way through the minions.

If the knight is doing his job right, he should be sticking next to the mage, killing anyone who hits them, or pushing them back, etc. (I'm more familiar with the fighter than the knight, but I know the knight can still "draw aggro" to himself.) So I don't see that as a good strategy, actually.

So my suggestions go like this:
1) Check your PC's math and don't hand out overpowered magic items. (I'm not even sure if a PC of 5th-level or less gets more than a +1 bonus from a +2 item.)

2) Use slightly higher-level monsters (regardless of encounter level equivalent). So a 2nd-level encounter might consist of 3 or 4 3rd-level monsters rather than 5 2nd-level monsters. Higher-level minions can let you dish out a stream of continuous damage, especially if they're artillery, which means they are less likely to be immediately killed.

3) Use the DMG2/MM3/Monster Vault damage expressions. Buy those books, especially the DMG2 and Monster Vault. (The MM3, unfortunately, focuses mainly on high-level monsters.) Update monsters that deal low damage in your Monster Builder (I don't have that, so I use index cards), and also use these expressions when designing your own monsters.

4) Assemble encounters to use different monster types. This might mean you need to design your own monsters, or buy monster books, etc. Some monster types, such as gnolls and hobgoblins, have a very wide variety of "types"; there are gnoll brutes, soldiers, controllers, artillery, skirmishers and leaders all around the 5th to 6th-level mark. (Note that you can "level down" or "level up" monsters using the DMG2 rules, so it's no problem if the monsters you want to use are too high level.) And feel free to blatantly steal monster abilities when designing your own, or "reskin" monsters with minor changes. (For instance, as a Dark Sun DM I can't use gnolls as there aren't any on Athas, but I can certainly take away their Pack Frenzy ability (their signature ability which the players would recognize) and replace it with something else that's nasty, then call them something else. The players won't realize they're effectively fighting gnolls.)

You should always have a soldier or two to protect your "squishy" spellcasting or ranged monster. You should always have monsters that attack a stat other than AC (or do damage automatically) - which your controller monster is likely to do. And pick skirmishers with useful abilities, especially the kinds that can potentially get past the knight and cut the PC mage or cleric to pieces. (Useful: anything with "Mobile Melee Attack" and a high movement speed.) Or use artillery instead of skirmishers.

5) Set up encounters so monster abilities synergize nicely, just like your PCs do all the time. A monster that can knock a PC prone works quite well with a monster that deals extra damage against foes that grant combat advantage. A monster that grabs PCs works well with a monster that has an aura which deals damage (especially if the "grabber" is immune to the aura for whatever reason).