D&D 5E Monster Tactics: How Ruthless a DM are you?

[was]

Monsters should always have a winning game plan in mind while attacking. As a DM, however, you must make sure that the plan is tailored to the monsters' strengths. Tailoring it to the party's weaknesses, is acting on knowledge the monster doesn't have yet.

 

[MechaPilot]

TLDR: How smart are your monsters in combat?

It often depends, not just on the stats of the monsters, but also on the experience of the players as well. I'll play monsters dumber with new players, until they catch up to the learning curve. With experienced players, the monsters fight to win.

I also have no problem letting monsters improvise. In my experience, one of the best ways to encourage the players to improvise in battle is to have the monsters do it as well.

Of course, all of this is also modified by the goals and nature of the monsters as well. Sometimes fleeing and ambushing the PCs later is the smart choice, but zealots probably won't even consider that.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

How current on Doom are you? He's lost a bunch of times in person and his plans getting foiled also count as losses.

It remains open to debate, whether any given instance was actually him or actually a Doom-bot - even if it appeared to be the real him, at the time. The only two undisputed losses were 1) That first time against the Fantastic Four, and 2) The first appearance of Squirrel Girl.

I am a few years out of date, though. It's possible that the real-him has gone on a massive losing spree in recent years.

 

[Sailor Moon]

As others have said, I run my monsters based on their stats and personality. I also don't change their tactics mid combat. For instance, don't expect a smart villain to step over you if you drop and he knows you aren't dead. They don't back off in order to save a PC, it all plays out however it plays out. Some find this a bit hard but it works for our group.

 

[EricNoah]

I do think that a) sometimes a DM doesn't realize s/he's picked an opponent that's really too tough for the party and has to adjust that on the fly, and the easiest way is to play sub-optimally or fudge; and b) if you do that, and if you play using XP, you should give less XP - after all they didn't really defeat the opponent, they defeated a slightly less powerful opponent.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

Well it is a tactical wargame on some level & on that level focus firing & protecting the squishies are the most fundamental tactics. There is also the idea you hit the target with the greatest ratio of damage output to survivability.

Honest question how do you avoid this?

It's easy to play monsters dumb & random but players will obviously focus fire as much as they can. I usually try to have smart monsters do similar & of course pack hunters naturally pick on the weakest member of a herd & try to bring it down together.

Marks & similar in 4e went some way to mitigating the issue but that solution is even more abstract. Other stickiness rules & making firing into melee punitive also counter this as ranged attackers are the most capable focusers.

I also usually target "bloodied" characters before fresh ones if given the chance.

Typically you have to play dragons & similar well within their capabilities or they will just kite you with repeated breath weapons as Jester points out or some other frustrating tactic.

To limit focus fire I've adopted a semi-13th Ageian system of engagement which often breaks a larger combat up into individual duels. Only ranged characters can focus fire with any degree of consistency, but need to worry about LoS and their own cover in return.

My dragons NEVER kite. I think it's absurd to make a dragon's best abilities be everything other than its facility in straight-up melee combat (fear, flying, spellcasting). I re-stat my dragons to make them true engines of melee destruction not some timid little things afraid of breaking a claw.

 

[HEEGZ]

I try to accurately role play the monsters and NPCs. In combat they use all tactics at their disposal. I have only on 1 or 2 occasions (in 3.5 ed) specifically targeted a downed PC in order to finish them off; instead of an active PC target. For 5ed I have resorted to dice rolls to select targets for monsters. For example, a kobold surrounded by two active PCs and a downed PC I will do the following:

roll d20
1-2 attack downed PC A
3-11 attack PC B
12-20 attack PC C

And so on. This has led to some really funny scenarios from time to time. I have really enjoyed the random tables encouragement from 5ed and I now roll for random decisions for all kind of reasons. I roll for hit points for each monster, I roll monster damage each time, etc.

As for the OP, I go all out, but some monsters and NPCs can go full tilt more than others. To be fair, I also use morale, and goblins and kobolds will easily run on the next round when they realized they are on the brink of a TPK. Sometimes, one will make a will (morale) save and stand his ground. I've had heroic goblins and kobolds save their fellows on multiple occasions using this method, and actually dying a valiant death to the PCs swords/spells.

 

[Eric V]

It remains open to debate, whether any given instance was actually him or actually a Doom-bot - even if it appeared to be the real him, at the time. The only two undisputed losses were 1) That first time against the Fantastic Four, and 2) The first appearance of Squirrel Girl.

I am a few years out of date, though. It's possible that the real-him has gone on a massive losing spree in recent years.

I very much regret to tell you he has... :/

 

[Rhenny]

With 5e, I've been having intelligent monsters disengage and flee to more defensible positions or to places where they can spring an ambush on the party.

For some reason, the way combat works in this version (as opposed to 4e and even 3.5e to some extent) seems to make it easier for me to justify that intelligent foes won't stick around for more than 2 or 3 rounds unless they see that they have clear superiority.

In a way, the swinginess and the amount of damage PCs can put out makes me play many monsters more like opportunists or skirmishers.

Even the dragon fights more like a skirmisher (at least the ones I've used against 5th level and 8th level PCs).

The dumber ones sometimes run or try to get at the ones that look most wounded even if they take Opportunity Attacks.

 

[KarinsDad]

It remains open to debate, whether any given instance was actually him or actually a Doom-bot - even if it appeared to be the real him, at the time. The only two undisputed losses were 1) That first time against the Fantastic Four, and 2) The first appearance of Squirrel Girl.

I am a few years out of date, though. It's possible that the real-him has gone on a massive losing spree in recent years.

The real Doom lost to Cap in Secret Wars.