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

[MonsterEnvy]

This. Skeletons will walk straight across a trap but fight to the "death".

It's actually pointed out that Skeletons have common sense. They will avoid traps they know and if their is a locked iron door they try the knob first if that does not work they will try and find another way in. Zombies are the stupid ones that just go straight through anything that's in their way no matter the danger to themselves.

 

[Nebulous]

It's actually pointed out that Skeletons have common sense. They will avoid traps they know and if their is a locked iron door they try the knob first if that does not work they will try and find another way in. Zombies are the stupid ones that just go straight through anything that's in their way no matter the danger to themselves.

Reading that description of skeletons in the MM reminds me exactly of the undead from Army of Darkness.

 

[Joe Liker]

I'm completely ruthless if the monsters are smart, and yes, I do have enemy leaders scry/spy on the party. It has actually become an important plot point in my current campaign.

You might be surprised how happy a party can be when the amulet of proof against detection and location is rolled as random loot.

 

[Mercule]

It's actually pointed out that Skeletons have common sense. They will avoid traps they know and if their is a locked iron door they try the knob first if that does not work they will try and find another way in. Zombies are the stupid ones that just go straight through anything that's in their way no matter the danger to themselves.

Hadn't caught that. Interesting.

The basic concept stands, though. Sub zombies for skeletons.

 

[Tzarevitch]

While 5th edition is much less dependent on tactical decisions than 4th, but there are still tactical decisions to be made. I sometimes find myself struggling as a DM whether to have the monsters "play to win" or if I should ease up during tense situations.

For instance this weekend my roommate and I wanted to get a taste of how high level would work so he made up 4 level 15 PCs and I ran an encounter for him to fight an adult blue dragon (CR 16, classified as a hard encounter by the DMG). His party consisted of the 4 classics: a fighter, a wizard, a cleric and a rogue. On the first turn I had the dragon breathe lightning on the wizard and fighter, dealing considerable damage to both (and making the wizard lose concentration on his fly spell causing the fighter to fall out of the sky. It was pretty awesome). On the dragon's next turn I then had a decision to make. I could focus all the dragon's melee attacks on one character, spread them around, or even just have the dragon keep to the air and wait for lightning breathe to return. My gamer mind was telling my to go for the wizard since the caster can be dangerous if left unattended and he was probably close to going down. However, I had a gut feeling that playing the monster to win was a jerk, move so I decided to land near the cleric and fighter and lay some hurt onto them. Maybe it was that since my roommate was playing 4 completely new characters and that he didn't have the time to fully digest their options, if he couldn't play to his full potential then I shouldn't either.

This little experiment showed me that perhaps how you run a monster is more important to determine difficulty than CR.

In a typical game however, I'll try to do what makes sense for the monster. Goblins attack whatever is closest in a bloodthirsty frenzy. Beasts will attack whats closest or turn to charge when something really hurts them. Most times I don't mind having my monsters take attacks of opportunity if I think they would want to be someplace else.

TLDR: How smart are your monsters in combat?

I play them based on their tactical skill and alignment. Unless the blue dragon you described was overconfident, unfamiliar with wizards or tactically stupid, I'd have had it shred the wizard. Wizards are glass cannons. They do too much damage and are too fragile for enemies who are familiar with wizards and have any tactical sense, to not attack them preferentially.