Libramarian
Adventurer
Then the DM should modify their alignment to reflect that.
New Staff Blog: Run Away!
- Thread starter KidSnide
- Start date
RE: Focus Fire
I learned to FF playing Phantasy Star. Then I noticed it pretty much always holds true that: in a turn-based game, killing an enemy is always better than damaging an infinite number of other enemies for less than would kill the one.
As long as that hurt NPC is still active, it is still 100% combat effective. A dead one is 0% combat effective. IMO, as long as this is true, Focus Fire will always be a top-tier strategy in combat.
I learned to FF playing Phantasy Star. Then I noticed it pretty much always holds true that: in a turn-based game, killing an enemy is always better than damaging an infinite number of other enemies for less than would kill the one.
As long as that hurt NPC is still active, it is still 100% combat effective. A dead one is 0% combat effective. IMO, as long as this is true, Focus Fire will always be a top-tier strategy in combat.
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Hussar
Legend
I loves me the morale rules.
And, I think that morale rules are possibly a very good way to resolve another issue - combat resolution time.
Those 15 kobolds? Yeah, they're likely going to break after half of them go down. Great, combat just ended in half the time.
That dragon? Ok, it's a dragon, it's in its lair, it's sitting on a big, honking pile of gold, it's not running away for nothing.
You get your quicky fun fights and your longer climactic fights and you can have a fair degree of control over both without resorting to simply deciding by DM fiat. Which always seems a bit cheap to me when I just "decide" that the baddie run away.
And, I think that morale rules are possibly a very good way to resolve another issue - combat resolution time.
Those 15 kobolds? Yeah, they're likely going to break after half of them go down. Great, combat just ended in half the time.
That dragon? Ok, it's a dragon, it's in its lair, it's sitting on a big, honking pile of gold, it's not running away for nothing.
You get your quicky fun fights and your longer climactic fights and you can have a fair degree of control over both without resorting to simply deciding by DM fiat. Which always seems a bit cheap to me when I just "decide" that the baddie run away.
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S
Sunseeker
Guest
I dunno, the upside to Gm fiat is that you can't be rules-lawyered about it. Reasonably strong morale rules may lead to rules-lawyery players trying to tell you that those bandits will/won't fight to the death because X bandits times Y deaths -Z hitpoints divided by the number of rounds means they're not applying to the appropriate logarithmic morale scale.
Hussar
Legend
Now, that's true enough. Although, I tend to see that more as a player issue, rather than a rules issue. But, yes, that's certainly something that can come up.
I also don't want morale rules to apply to the PC's. That's a no no. PC's allies? Oh sure. Sorry, Mr Druid, but your pet wolf just won't fight to the death for you.
I guess I see the advantages outweighing the disadvantages. Having a neutral arbiter (the dice) decide the issue means that I step back out of the light a bit as the DM. You beat on the baddies, they fail morale, they run away is more satisfying to me than: You beat on the baddies, I think you've done enough damage, they run away. It puts the DM squarely in the spotlight if morale is entirely up to the DM. Whether or not a monster runs away ultimately rests in the DM's lap and I'm not very comfortable with pressing the eject button on an encounter.
I like a morale stat as a tool to help me decide NPC/monster action. I tend to use Basic D&D morale in every game - monster morale between 2 & 12, roll 2d6, flee if roll over morale. I make checks when the PCs gain an advantage but I'm not sure whether the monsters would run away. However if most monsters are dead and defeat is inevitable I usually have the survivors flee without a check.
Morale is a great tool for GM adjudication. Recent editions have suffered IMO from a lack of emphasis on the GM's roll as adjudicator. Some people seem to expect the GM to mechanically run combat as little more than a computer, but to me that really misses the point of having a GM.
Morale is a great tool for GM adjudication. Recent editions have suffered IMO from a lack of emphasis on the GM's roll as adjudicator. Some people seem to expect the GM to mechanically run combat as little more than a computer, but to me that really misses the point of having a GM.
I disagree. It does teach you, because it helps you to do so. A group of newbie players in 3e or 2e might easily fight several 1vs1 fights when facing a group of goblins. I know I did when I was newbie.4E does not "teach" anyone to use focus fire. I dare you to find even one quote, or one section, describing focus fire as a tactic and how to use it in a 4E rule book. (And if you do, I'd bet you can find similar advice in every other D&D edition.)
The mechanics of the game may make it useful to use as a tactic, but it's definitely not the first edition for which this is true, nor does 4E explicitly promote it, describe it, or "teach" it...at least not any more than any other edition.
Come on, Man!
In 4e, however, bonus are situational. They rarelly last for long. When your warlords hit some guy and his power says everybody adds his Charisma to hit and damage for *one round*, it becames clearly obvious what you have to do *next round*. To focus fire in the guy and get the bonus. While doing so, you see the other beneficial aspects of focusing fire (like a dead mob is better than two wounded ones).
Also, several monsters have "bloodied" abilities. Monsters tend to be nastier when they are bloodied. In old editions, having 2 monsters at half hp is wrong, compared to having one at full hp and another one dead. In 4e, it goes further. Not only the 2 half health monsters get full actions against you, they do so *with a bonus*.
So 4e DOES teach you to focus fire, and much better than any other edition.
I don't see why this is a bad (or good) thing. But it's clear that 4e teachs players to focus fire much better than other editions.
Cerebral Paladin
First Post
I think that KidSnide, Hussar, and others are hitting on the solution: include morale rules, but make it extra clear that these are guidelines, that GMs should feel free to have monsters fight to the bitter end (or flee early) even if the rules/dice suggest that they should flee (or keep fighting) if it makes sense in game.
In my experience, the disappearance of morale rules went hand in hand with an increased assumption that encounters would end when the last monster died (sometimes with the last one or two monsters fudged away "and then you finish them off"). The connection isn't perfect--some GMs I played with did an informal morale in 3.x or 4, and I played with plenty of GMs who never used the morale rules in 2e, 1e, or BECMI, with monsters fighting to the bitter end. But if you put in guidelines, it can adjust how GMs in general run fights, and it give guidance to answer questions like "how likely are these orcs to run away after half of them are killed? Okay, what if they were hobgoblins? Would that be different?"
KidSnide's comparison to "number appearing" is perfect. Is the GM cheating if the number of a monster in a given encounter is outside the stated normal range? No, of course not. Is a GM cheating by disregarding morale under certain circumstances (i.e. these particular orcs are defending the holy site of Gruumsh and will fight to the death)? Of course not. And some GMs will choose to handle all number appearing or all morale by feel, which is fine. But having the rules (or guidelines, really) there will make the game more fun on aggregate.
In my experience, the disappearance of morale rules went hand in hand with an increased assumption that encounters would end when the last monster died (sometimes with the last one or two monsters fudged away "and then you finish them off"). The connection isn't perfect--some GMs I played with did an informal morale in 3.x or 4, and I played with plenty of GMs who never used the morale rules in 2e, 1e, or BECMI, with monsters fighting to the bitter end. But if you put in guidelines, it can adjust how GMs in general run fights, and it give guidance to answer questions like "how likely are these orcs to run away after half of them are killed? Okay, what if they were hobgoblins? Would that be different?"
KidSnide's comparison to "number appearing" is perfect. Is the GM cheating if the number of a monster in a given encounter is outside the stated normal range? No, of course not. Is a GM cheating by disregarding morale under certain circumstances (i.e. these particular orcs are defending the holy site of Gruumsh and will fight to the death)? Of course not. And some GMs will choose to handle all number appearing or all morale by feel, which is fine. But having the rules (or guidelines, really) there will make the game more fun on aggregate.
I see a room for morale rules in an adventure. In an adventure, combat situations are tied to story elements that form a basis for morale decisions. Is the opponent encountered at home, protecting somebody or just passing through? What motive does the opponent have for fighting?
All these things are vital for morale decisions and - if one decides not to let all opponents fight to their death - need to accounted for.
This, to me, is nothing that can be laid down in numbers. It should be described in short fluff instead.
If you put something like this down as a rule mechanic, as an abstract monster description in a monster manual, you will only be able to take all the important factors into account with a great deal of administration for a GM. And administration equals work. More work is something I personally do not need as a GM.
That is the reason why I never played with morale rules even when they still existed in the 80s and 90s. I was glad when they were basically declared dead as part of an abstract monster description with 3e in the new millenium and put into fluff in adventures instead.
Somebody in this thread posted rules that included calculating % based on hit dice and other stuff, with +1% here and -2% there etc. Excuse me for being blunt, but: My goodness, what a waste of prep and game time!
Also, these numbers invite rules lawyering ("Those goblins should flee, because with the death of their leader, their morale is now 3. You have the numbers all wrong and therefore suck, GM") and can work against plausibility if there is a great story-reason why the opponents continue fighting even though the numbers in the monster description say otherwise.
And morale does not neccessarily make fights better or quicker.
In my games, I regularily let opponents flee, if they are outnumbered or in a bad spot or if I have designed them as cowards. Sometimes, the players let them go. Most of the time, they want to capture them and present them to the watch (except my wife's character - she just wants to kill them all, even if important information could be gained).
And I do not need numbers to do this.
Last but not least, a failed morale check can ruin an otherwise great heroic fight. Which is one of the most exciting things for all players at the table.
So, please WotC, do not waste good design time now on putting monster morale in the core! Put it in a later rulebook that people who like stuff like this can waste their money on.
All these things are vital for morale decisions and - if one decides not to let all opponents fight to their death - need to accounted for.
This, to me, is nothing that can be laid down in numbers. It should be described in short fluff instead.
If you put something like this down as a rule mechanic, as an abstract monster description in a monster manual, you will only be able to take all the important factors into account with a great deal of administration for a GM. And administration equals work. More work is something I personally do not need as a GM.
That is the reason why I never played with morale rules even when they still existed in the 80s and 90s. I was glad when they were basically declared dead as part of an abstract monster description with 3e in the new millenium and put into fluff in adventures instead.
Somebody in this thread posted rules that included calculating % based on hit dice and other stuff, with +1% here and -2% there etc. Excuse me for being blunt, but: My goodness, what a waste of prep and game time!
Also, these numbers invite rules lawyering ("Those goblins should flee, because with the death of their leader, their morale is now 3. You have the numbers all wrong and therefore suck, GM") and can work against plausibility if there is a great story-reason why the opponents continue fighting even though the numbers in the monster description say otherwise.
And morale does not neccessarily make fights better or quicker.
In my games, I regularily let opponents flee, if they are outnumbered or in a bad spot or if I have designed them as cowards. Sometimes, the players let them go. Most of the time, they want to capture them and present them to the watch (except my wife's character - she just wants to kill them all, even if important information could be gained).
And I do not need numbers to do this.
Last but not least, a failed morale check can ruin an otherwise great heroic fight. Which is one of the most exciting things for all players at the table.
So, please WotC, do not waste good design time now on putting monster morale in the core! Put it in a later rulebook that people who like stuff like this can waste their money on.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
I agree, but it takes rules to make a rules lawyer, so if there's no rules to lawyer from, no lawyering.
Yeah, I can see that, they're just NPCs who are friendly to the party, like guards or townsfolk, ect...I also don't want morale rules to apply to the PC's. That's a no no. PC's allies? Oh sure. Sorry, Mr Druid, but your pet wolf just won't fight to the death for you.
I suppose it depends on how open you are with your players. Sometimes I drop dice behind my screen for no other reason than to make my players think I'm up to something. Sometimes I'll randomly decide one of those rolls is for the baddie's morale.
I guess the issue with morale for me is that it's always struck me as part of my campaign design space. Depending on the culture, the setting, so on, that's usually be my guiding line for how much morale my enemies have. When the rules start suggesting some equation for that, it feels like they're stepping on my toes. Which is why I'm holding out for morale being more of a guideline than any hardcoded numbers.
