Should Monsters use sneaky tactics in combat??

[Dausuul]

One of my players made a comment the other day, saying "that in my games it was always you against us", meaning i use the monsters like characters against the party.

Question: Should monsters be unthinking combat machines, or should the DM use every skill, feat, terrain, missile, poison(occasionally) and item at their disposal to try and beat the party??

I obviously believe monsters should use these tactics, as it helps make boring creatures exciting, gets the adrenalin pumping and helps to create an interesting stimulus.

What say you????

I say it depends on the monster. I generally assume that the smarter a monster is, the more of a "big picture" of the battlefield it has. Dumb monsters tend to pay attention only to what's directly affecting them; they will not, for example, bypass the party's melee fighters in an effort to take down the healer. Really dumb monsters might not even make the connection between the fireball that just hit them and the enemy wizard over there. Likewise, their ability to use terrain and traps is limited by their understanding.

A smart monster, though, will most certainly use anything and everything at its disposal. It will lay traps, use magic items, bypass the party tanks in order to target the squishy fellows in the back, and ruthlessly abuse the fine points of the combat rules just the same way PCs do. Players should fear these monsters as much for their brains as for their brawn.

Moreover, monsters have different levels of aggressiveness, which affects how they balance offense versus defense. Even a dumb monster understands the basic elements of melee combat, like opportunity attacks (and, in 4E, being marked, which I interpret as "you get in its face and make it dangerous to pay attention to anything else"). Most animals are more interested in survival than slaughter, and will generally choose to avoid provoking opportunity attacks or fighter combat challenges.

On the other hand, a demon, even a smart demon, doesn't care one bit whether you hurt it or not. The lust for destruction overrides self-preservation. Once it picks a target, it goes after that target with savage single-mindedness, and it doesn't care if it provokes opportunity attacks. A zombie knows only the need to kill; it will go after whoever is closest, consequences be damned.

The one tactic I don't generally employ is the coup de grace. I justify this on the grounds that monsters get their combat experience fighting other monsters and NPCs, most of whom lack healing powers; so even a smart monster is likely to assume that a foe who's been knocked into the negatives is one who no longer poses a threat. (That's the in-game reason. The metagame reason is that hitting a fallen PC with a coup de grace is excessively spiteful in a game such as mine, where resurrection magic is heavily restricted and usually involves cutting a deal with something Bad.)

However, smart monsters do learn from their mistakes; after the first couple of times a "fallen" PC pops back up to rejoin the fight, the monster may start taking the extra effort to put its enemies down for good. And there are a few monsters, like ghouls, that will continue to attack a fallen foe. This provides some incentive for PCs not to let themselves get taken down in the first place.

 

[Rechan]

I would say that in real life, seriously injuring someone is probably more important than killing him outright.

In most circumstances, and in civilized war situations. You have situations like mortally wounded soldiers who go all kamikaze.

 

[Dausuul]

It doesn`t help me as a DM, with a group of players who never retreat from combat, even when the monster is either too hard, they are low on spells, previously wounded or have special abilities all characters dislike(like energy/level drain), sometimes the whole point of the encounter is to flee to fight another day.

Hmm... well, it's worth keeping in mind that D&D players, no matter how careful and conservative they may be, hardly ever retreat from an actual battle. I find most players won't start a fight that's obviously out of their league - a party of low-level PCs will likely refrain from attacking an ancient dragon - but if the monster attacks them, even cautious players are likely to commit themselves fully and not consider retreat until one or two PCs are dead. There are some legitimate reasons for this, both in-game and metagame.

The only players I've seen who will voluntarily withdraw from a battle before things look utterly desperate are players who are scared to get in a fight at all. Like the wizard who always abandoned his friends at the first sign of trouble, and who never used his combat spells in case he needed them later. That's not an attitude I want to encourage at my gaming table.

The phrase "sometimes the whole point of the encounter is to flee to fight another day" sets off warning bells in my head. It sounds too much like a DM out to "teach the players a lesson," which is hardly ever a good idea.

Point in mind: Said player, is a Half Ogre Barbarian of 9th level so not soft, pulls open a dusty grey stone sarcophagus, disturbing the remains of a long dead priest, suddenly from the broken bones rises a man shaped mist, now i might step back beside the cleric at this point, as its probably undead, nope he waits and attempts to whack it, Inititiative, he strikes and misses 50% incorporeal, it hits and drains two levels, character walks away, player in a sulk.

Well, in most cases I would say that's just a whiny player. However, a lot depends on how difficult it is in your game to recover lost levels; if those levels are effectively gone for good, I think the player would have a legitimate beef. It's not unreasonable of the PC to make one attempt to whack the thing before letting the cleric take over. Certainly that's not a mistake that ought to be punished by permanent level loss.

 

[Orius]

One of my players made a comment the other day, saying "that in my games it was always you against us", meaning i use the monsters like characters against the party.

Question: Should monsters be unthinking combat machines, or should the DM use every skill, feat, terrain, missile, poison(occasionally) and item at their disposal to try and beat the party??

I obviously believe monsters should use these tactics, as it helps make boring creatures exciting, gets the adrenalin pumping and helps to create an interesting stimulus.

What say you????

Yes. It should be monsters vs. the party, but not to the degree that it becomes the DM vs. the players. I've frequently pulled nasty tricks in my game, like goblin rogues using invisibility to get into place for a sneak attack, my humanoids nearly always carry bows, enemies reinforcing each other and stuff like that. There needs to be some risk to adventuring.

 

[S'mon]

I always seek to play the monsters in-character, so drow fight very differently from orcs, say. Goblins are sneaky with poor morale, hobgoblins form shield walls, 3e orcs charge in swinging, drow will ambush, hit and run, dwarves & duergar use combined arms tactics with missile troops & spellcasters supporting the infantry.

 

[Lanefan]

In general, if something's got brains it's going to use them.

Conversely, if something doesn't have brains it won't do anything the least bit intelligent. Case in point from my current game: 1st-level party gets attacked and split up by way more undead than they can handle (mostly due to them making far too much noise, alerting the boss to their presence, so he sends in the idiot brigade) and things look TPK-level grim. Except the players stumble on to a brilliant idea: realizing these things have no brains, each group pours a bunch of oil on the floor, lights it, and stands behind it; and these mindless skeletons and zombies walk right through the fires trying to get to the party. The undead roast like chickens, and the few that don't are easy pickings for the PCs.

Fortunately for the PCs, the boss was an arrogant SOB who thought his idiots could handle things, and didn't follow them in until the party were long gone.

Lanefan

 

[Betote]

I think it's important to have each monster/NPC behave differently. Some will use pack tactics, some will prey on the weakest, some will use terrain, some will use stealth, some will try to flee... That's what keeps it interesting for us.

 

[Thanael]

See Hong's First Law.

I had to google this.

Hong's first law of fantasy: it's the other people who are munchkins.

Hong's second law of fantasy: thinking too hard about fantasy is bad.

Hong's third law of fantasy: any sufficiently widespread magic is indistinguishable from technology.

 

[Grazzt]

Yes. It should be monsters vs. the party, but not to the degree that it becomes the DM vs. the players. I've frequently pulled nasty tricks in my game, like goblin rogues using invisibility to get into place for a sneak attack, my humanoids nearly always carry bows, enemies reinforcing each other and stuff like that. There needs to be some risk to adventuring.

Yep. Agree. If the monster's are sneaky, then they use sneaky tactics. If they are intelligent, then they act accordingly.

For example, any monster intelligent enough to recognize a wizard may just decide to concentrate all efforts on taking him out first (especially if they've seen what the power of a wizard, at least in pre-4e, can do). Not DM vs. player. Or DM picking on the player with the wizard PC. It's the DM playing the monster to the best of THEIR ability.

 

[Krensky]

When we were in Somalia in the 90s we would routinely fire rounds into 'dead' soldiers, mostly because of rumors that they would sometimes fake death and then shoot our guys in the back. I could easily see similar behavior in a fantasy world with healing magic, illusions, and bluff checks so easy to come by.

I never disputed that. The question is, did you do that in or out of combat, using the distinct and artificial line between them in RPGs?

In a firefight there's an enemy is shot and goes down. They may be faking to bushwack you, they may be playing dead instead of running, they may be dying, or they may be dead. There is another enemy shooting at you. Which target do you service first?

I maintain that dropping the guy who is trying to kill you right now is more important then making sure the guy who may or may not be trying to kill you in a minute or two is dead.