D&D 5E Suggestions on how to handle NPC on Monster/NPC combat?

[Eyes of Nine]

Hey ENWorlders -

Suggestions on how you handle NPCs in fights with opponents the PCs are fighting?

Watching the DM roll a bunch of dice of his own characters fight against each other seems pretty boring, unless it's narratively important.

Folks have ideas on how to handle this in a very quick way?

 

[el-remmen]

Do you mean like NPC allies?

I usually choose their actions but let players do the rolling.

 

[Tonguez]

NPCs always go last, are always defensive and while I have veto they will generally follow the instructions of PCs*, PCs roll.

*even in army units, a PC should be the commander who gets to direct and roll for the unit

 

[Fenris-77]

I tend to roll some dice and narrate some stuff. The two may or may not be connected. I don't want to hog the spotlight from the characters, so that's my prime narrative goal.

 

[overgeeked]

Hey ENWorlders -

Suggestions on how you handle NPCs in fights with opponents the PCs are fighting?

Watching the DM roll a bunch of dice of his own characters fight against each other seems pretty boring, unless it's narratively important.

Folks have ideas on how to handle this in a very quick way?

The DM decides what happens and narrates. The end.

If that’s not acceptable...everyone’s rolls are always the average on all their dice. All d4s are 2; d6s are 3; d8s are 4; d10s are 5; d20s are 10. Add their bonuses to that and walk through the numbers, narrating as you go.

 

[iserith]

I refer to this as monsterbating. I try to avoid it wherever possible. That said, if it does come up, my games are on a VTT so it takes just seconds to resolve attacks and damage and I can move through it pretty quickly.

 

[Flamestrike]

Fade into the background for the main fight, with occasional progress being simply narrated to further the overall narrative.

They're not the protagonists. They're the extras in the story.

 

[Shiroiken]

Playing on Roll20, using macros keeps them moving quickly, but I still try to keep it to a minimum. On one particular expedition they had 3 NPC allies with them, and that was a pain in the ^&*. If I don't have a macro setup, I simply have them deal an expected level of damage each round, and quickly move on. I could also see giving a combat sheet to the PCs for them to run, unless it's a treacherous NPC that might betray the party.

 

[aco175]

Sometimes I have a couple to several NPC in combat with the PCs. I just roll a couple dice for the whole group and not for each. I count a 'hit' as something rolled high (usually higher than 13) and I may just give some sort of average damage, like 5 or 10 points. I never roll for damage for the NPCs or the monsters.

At lower levels, I tend to just give a wound system where a goblin may only take 1 hit and an orc takes 2 hits. I use red rings from soda bottles to mark the mini with wounded or near death. This makes it so I do not even need to track damage. I judge that one of the orcs is hit, I place a red ring on it and the next time it is hit, it dies. A larger monster may need 3 hits and I just place the ring on the ground near it for the first hit and on it for the second hit. The NPCs get a hit system like this. It shows the players that the weaker NPCs are in trouble.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

If we're talking about NPC allies/sidekicks/henchfolk/retainers, I typically would let the players choose their combat actions and roll accordingly.

If we're talking about an NPC who is siding with the PCs for story reasons (e.g. "the enemy of my enemy is my (temporary) friend"; or a hireling out for a single adventure), I'd usually decide the actions and let a player do the rolling.

If we're talking about a third group entering a combat opposed to both the PCs and the existing NPCs/monsters, I'll control them for the obvious reason that the PCs are possible targets. This is really no different than a larger group of enemies vs the PCs as a DM would roll for all the enemies anyway - the only catch is that sometimes some of them will attack a creature other than a PC (to the delight of the players), so it ends up likely being a shorter combat with less DM rolls than if they were all opposed to the PCs.