Tactical Quotient (TQ) for monsters

[Revinor]

As 4e seems to have very tactical board game combat, I'm wondering how smart DM should play the monsters.

In pure board game, there is no question - everybody plays his side with the best of his skills, misusing all available rules and having full awareness of global situation of his units. Problems start when we want to pretend it is RPG - we would not expect same kind of organization from bunch of mindless zombies and groups of highly-trained, telepathic warriors. Same encounter can have very different difficulty depending on the way monsters are played. I would even risk saying, that good versus bad tactics on monster side can be easily worth 2 levels of power (if not more).

I'm wondering, what level of tactics are expected from DM for monsters to be 'fair' according to default rules.

Should single monster try to use his abilities/movement to the best effect? Even if his Int score is 3 ?
Should multiple monsters cooperate perfectly? Flanking is easy, but what about coordinating push/slide with some special abilities of your allies?
Should monsters see through walls a bit? Be aware of board situation behind a corner where their allies are? Knowing layout of PCs behind a corner even if all their allies there got killed?
What about sacrificing a monster (by jumping in middle of PCs for example) when it gives tremedous advantage to the monster allies? I'm not talking about special case of minions here.
Should unrelated group of monsters help each other? (you are attacked by rabid rats while fighting kobolds, should rats try to flank you to help kobolds getting combat advantage)

In case of pure boardgame answer to all those questions is simple. I'm not going to worry if my 30 points zombie is smart enough to outmaneuver 20 Int wizard, it is my miniature. In case of 'RPG', it becomes quite shady. First - players for sure will not dumb themselves down tactically just because their Int is not that high. I also don't expect them to jump from behind the corner for sure death just because their character is 2 squares away from seeing what has killed their friend. Second - trying to emulate 'real' behaviour of monsters will result in quite painful exercise in simulationism, with tens of perception rolls, int checks, line-of-sight checks etc.

Boardgame geek in me says there is no way I will dumb down my encounters by pretending monsters are stupid - less fun for me, less balance in encounters. RPG guy says that difference in smartness of tactics can be best way to show the difference between different opponents/organizations (better than abilities 'difference' between 1d8+3/push 1 square and 1d6+4/pull 1 square).


Coming back to the title. It is obviously pun on all the Emotional/Social/Sporty Intelligence/Quotient ideas. Should monsters have some kind of TQ statistic which will indicate how much of the brain DM is able to use? I could see it applied on two orthogonal aspects - individual smartness and teamwork. Probably none of them should be directly related to Int stat (wolf pack can be quite smart tactically in both individual and team aspects while still having Int stat below the radar). 3 levels should be more then enough:

Individual:
Low - advance and hack using your abilities; follow the enemies through simple path; if you get marked, attack guy who marked you
Medium - DM is allowed to use full brain, but trying to limit knowledge to what monster knows
High - DM can anticipate PCs powers, look behind a corner etc (more or less, same level as players will be using all the time), simulating genius-intelligence of the monster

Group:
Low - Monsters move on it's own during single turn, not moving in anticipation of movement of next guy; small shift to give flanking to the friend and yourself is ok, pushing PC next to the monster which happens to have defender AoO is not ok
Medium - Monsters move as a group, but still some 'realism' should be preserved - no suicides to get +1 to hit for other guy, no coordination with the guys on the other side of the wall
High - Full teamwork and telepathy, coordinated ambushes from different sides of the wall, all possible use/misuse of all team abilities, omniscience as far as group tactical situation on entire board is concerned

One immediate idea for enounter follows - bunch of zombies controlled by necromancer. Zombies have high/high TQ, if you kill/incapacitate necromancer they become mindless hack machines, with low/low behaviour.

What level of TQ do you plan to use for your encounters? Do you plan to vary it depending on situation/type of monsters? Will you adjust 'challenge rating' for that?

 

[Syrsuro]

I have always played creatures according to their intelligence.

Keeping in mind, of course, that even a lowly 8 intelligence is still more than enough to function as a soldier in any modern army and thus quite capable of most tactics (which is why players not 'dumbing down' their players is never an issue. Unless they are off-the-scale stupid (6 or less), they are perfectly capable of any tactics your average players is going to come up with.

But animals and mindless undead are notorious for their lack of tactics, tending to attack whomever is closest or whomever hit them last.

On the other hand, powers and the like are not signs of intelligence but the result of programmed or instinctual behaviors and they will - despite their simplistic tactics - use those powers quite effectively.

Carl

 

[Voss]

Well, a few thoughts. One, the team abilities are really built into the new monsters, if the kobolds are any example. Between shifty and the mob attack on so many of them, I can't see running them without a large degree of teamwork and cooperation among the monsters. Same with the hobgoblins.

On the other side, the healing surges, and the... player friendly death rules give you a fair amount of 'stretch' in how hard you can hit the party. As long as you don't load up the XP values too high, its seems like the encounter system shouldn't produce TPKs without a serious run of bad luck. And then even if does, most of the party won't be quite dead and can be captured. Whether thats good or bad on its own depends on the situation, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't have to dumb down the monsters to give the PCs a fighting chance AND a reasonable challenge.

On the other hand, some of your questions are quite specific.

Should single monster try to use his abilities/movement to the best effect? Even if his Int score is 3 ?

If the monster is built right, his abilities should reflect his Int and his combat options.
A raging dumb hellbeast should run up and attack, and his abilities should help him run up and attack, but not any more than that.

Should multiple monsters cooperate perfectly? Flanking is easy, but what about coordinating push/slide with some special abilities of your allies?

Yep. Well, maybe not perfectly. But they would reasonably know each others fighting style unless they've just met.

Should monsters see through walls a bit? Be aware of board situation behind a corner where their allies are? Knowing layout of PCs behind a corner even if all their allies there got killed?

Uh, no? At least not without special abilities of some sort. Dumbing them down is bad, but so is giving them god level omniscience.

What about sacrificing a monster (by jumping in middle of PCs for example) when it gives tremedous advantage to the monster allies? I'm not talking about special case of minions here.

Really depends on the monster. A summoned devil under the command of a pit fiend? Sure. A skeleton commanded by a cleric? Yep. A self-aware and free willed entity? Probably not, barring unusual circumstances.

Should unrelated group of monsters help each other? (you are attacked by rabid rats while fighting kobolds, should rats try to flank you to help kobolds getting combat advantage)

Actively? No. But the kobolds are clever enough to take advantage of flanking opportunities that come up, though the rats wouldn't be, necessarily. In this case, the rats should probably be attacking the kobolds too, by the way, and inadvertently helping the PCs at times, depending on how rabid rats would act, and not what benefits the kobolds.

 

[fafhrd]

Perfectly intelligent human beings fail to cooperate all the time.

 

[Syrsuro]

Should single monster try to use his abilities/movement to the best effect? Even if his Int score is 3 ?

Should multiple monsters cooperate perfectly? Flanking is easy, but what about coordinating push/slide with some special abilities of your allies?

Consider the degree of coordination you see in real world animals such as a pride of lions flanking and driving their prey. If an 'animal intelligence' creature can handle tactics at that level - which, although limited and simplistic, at the least require being aware of the location and intent of the other members of the pride - creatures with a greater intelligence (such as all humanoids) can certainly handle much more.

One way I do tend to show lower intelligence is in their adaptability. For a low intelligence creature, I might decide on some basic tacics before the game and they will usually follow those tactics even if they aren't working particularily well. In contrast, a higher intelligence creature will be more likely to observe the players tactics and abilities and change their own approach if it isn't working.

But both are, of course, constrained by what they are actually capable of seeing/ knowing.

Should monsters see through walls a bit? Be aware of board situation behind a corner where their allies are? Knowing layout of PCs behind a corner even if all their allies there got killed?

Not normally, no. (And yes, it is hard to ignore that. But just as I expect the players to distinguish between 'in-game information' and 'metagame/ooc information', I as a DM am obigated to do the same.

If I was trying to model a phenomenal level intelligence (higher than 20) I might allow them to act upon past events that they couldn't reasonably know, on the logic that even if they didn't know what the PCs around that corner were doing, their superior intelligence would have allowed them to accurately infer what they could not see. But not for any intelilgence less than that.

What about sacrificing a monster (by jumping in middle of PCs for example) when it gives tremedous advantage to the monster allies? I'm not talking about special case of minions here.

Extraordinarily unlikely, and only possible for intelligent and altruistic creatures. In other words - about as likely as a PC sacrificing his life intentionally so that his companions will survive. Or, more preciseily, less likely than a PC sacrificing himself, because a PC has a possibility/hope of being raised, while an NPC typically has no such expectation. Unless, of course, the creature is being coerced in some way and not acting of its own free will.

Should unrelated group of monsters help each other? (you are attacked by rabid rats while fighting kobolds, should rats try to flank you to help kobolds getting combat advantage)

In that example - no. The rats aren't smart enough to consider that tactic. But the reverse case - should the kobolds try to flank you to help the rats get combat advantage? Why not? They are smart enough to realize that the more the rats hurt you, the better off they are, and therefore if they can help the rats hurt you, why wouldn't they do it. Of course, they aren't doing this to help the rats, they are doing it to help themselves.

Carl

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I generally do not worry to much about that sort of thing, but it is not that hard to bring into play.

If you want to play a monster as being less than tactically optimal, you should not do it by ignoring their best abilities. You should do so by creating opportunities for the players to easily take them out of action.

- Move through threatened squares and take AoO's.
- Go after the most convenient target rather than the tactically optimal target.
- Attempt combat actions that probably wont succeed (like a 2 HD Gnoll trying to Grapple or Disarm an 8th level opponent).

Essentially, just have the opponent increase the risk it subjects its self to rather than holding back on its own abilities. It does not take very much for the players to be able to take an opponent apart.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[SaffroN]

Depends on the group. The players, the DM, the type of campaign. Basically, just tailor this to your needs.

EDIT: also i don't think monsters should have a TQ. It just feels unnecessary to me. Almost like adding extra skills to a monster like Profession(cooking) +7.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

It doesn't seem like much of an issue to me.

Dumb monsters have dumb powers. Like the skeletons warriors : +2 to hit and +1D6 damage on AoO. No need for rocket scientists. And the way to get the most out of this power is simply for the skeleton to do what comes naturally, swarm the PCs.

Monster who are given tactical options that require brainpower are to be assumed to be smart enough to use them.

 

[Celebrim]

I always play creatures at thier intelligence level.

For mindless or nearly mindless creatures, I just have them blindly charge in an uncordinated fashion. Smarter creatures will use thier instinctive attacks, but won't recognize or react intelligently to things outside of thier experience. Ogres for example are good at pounding things and will intelligently defend themselves, but don't work together and don't recognize when they are being out planned. Wolves on the other hand work extremely well together and are good at realizing when they are being out manuevered, but (unless they are actually animal spirits) don't really know how to deal with missile weapons or magic except by running away. Human level intelligence creatures will try to work together, and try to respond within the limit of what I think thier ability is. Bright creatures I play to the best of my ability. Creatures that I think are smarter than I am, I not only play as well as I can, but I use my metagame knowledge of the characters abilities and defenses against them, reasoning that a true superhuman intelligence would be able to divine these things from subtle clues.

Likewise, monsters often run away rather than fighting to the death, and in doing so often expose themselves to greater risk of than if they'd fought bravely. Zombies may be mindless, but they are also fearless.

I like the game that way. I'm not trying to beat the players. I'm trying to bring thier story to life in a deeply emmersive and compelling way. If the game is just about me demonstrating my tactical accumen, I'd rather play a game that was 'fair'. And I wouldn't want to be the DM every night either.

Goblins, orcs, gnolls, and kobolds only look somewhat similar on paper. They play 'the game' of battle completely differently. I'm not adverse to 4E helping to bring that out, and in fact I approve of the general trend of making +0 LA races more flavorful (which can really only be done by increasing thier power level somewhat). However, I don't think it is strictly necessary, and having established my own preferred 'style' for the major races I won't necessarily want to relinquish it.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Ogres for example are good at pounding things and will intelligently defend themselves, but don't work together and don't recognize when they are being out planned. Wolves on the other hand work extremely well together and are good at realizing when they are being out manuevered.

Your playing your ogres dumber than wolves?