Tactical Quotient (TQ) for monsters

[Celebrim]

Your playing your ogres dumber than wolves?

Actually, to a certain extent, yes.

Also, my animals don't have 'animal level' intelligence. They are the animals of faerie stories, and as such an average wolf has in an intelligence of 5-7. More potent animal spirits in wolf form will be smarter than that, and quite possibly capable of speach. Anyway, both a wolf and an ogre have roughly the same level of intelligence, but wolves are instinctively better tacticians. It's what they do. Manipulate tools, not so much, but they do understand battle.

Even without my faerie tale take, its not IMO particularly 'realistic' to assume all animals have an intelligence of 1 or 2. There is an easily recognizable graduient of intelligence between something like a cockroach, a lizard, a mouse, an elephant, and an ape. You'd need at least 5 levels of int just to cover those possibilities, and I think it could be further refined with a longer list. Besides, animals like chimpanzees, gorillas, and grey parrots have manifested human vocabularies. They generally are as smart as 2-4 year old people (depending on the ape and the person), and smarter where thier built in algorithms are strong. Dogs and elephants aren't that far behind that, and animals like cats and octopi aren't far behind that.

 

[LostSoul]

everybody plays his side with the best of his skills, misusing all available rules and having full awareness of global situation of his units.

This is what I would do.

edit: Well, except for "misusing". Hopefully we'd get the rules right.

 

[Mal Malenkirk]

Wolves aren't tactical genius.

They run down deer. They're good at it, but they're not soldiers. They'd be completely confused if confronted by a group of four armed travellers who do not allow themselves to be chased. PCs wouldn't run scared when they'd hear the wolves. They wouldn't allow themselves to be funneled, allow themselves to get exhausted by pointlessly trying to outrun a predator with more stamina than them and then allow themselves to get cornered. They'd let the wolves howl all they want and would keep going in the direction they want at the pace they want.

IRL, wolves would never attack a "prey" who reacts that way unless they are famished. Or even then. I've never heard about wolves attacking multiple preys at the same time. These animal that you hold to high tactical standards wouldn't know what to do in such situations! But this is D&D of course, so it happens. But there's no reason for them to do so more efficiently than Ogres beyond a personal bias toward an animal with a fantasy behaviour VS outright fantsay creatures. Ogre are smart enough to lay traps and ambushes. Wolves don't even do that.

 

[Celebrim]

Wolves aren't tactical genius.

Well, they don't open doors, eat grandma, put on her nightgown, and then proceed to attempt to bluff red riding hood into bed either.

We obviously aren't talking about IRL wolves, the behavior of which I'm only mildly interested in primarily because descriptions of it always seem to have a certain political bias attached to it, and secondarily because fantasy wolves are more interesting and relevant for my purposes.

But there's no reason for them to do so more efficiently than Ogres beyond a personal bias toward an animal with a fantasy behaviour VS outright fantsay creatures. Ogre are smart enough to lay traps and ambushes. Wolves don't even do that.

Right. So now you are going to lecture me on the realistic behavior of outright fantasy creatures?

 

[arscott]

I agree with Voss. The best solution is to design monsters such that their most effective tactics are those that reflect their intelligence and expected behavior.

So Zombies should be most effective when shambling toward the nearest warm body and swinging wildly at it, while drow are better served by sneaking about in shadows and stabbing people in the back.

Also, re wolves: Maybe the wolves you have the most experience just chase down deer. But those are the weaksauce wolves that only ever hunt very timid deer. When pack hunters (wolves or otherwise) are trying to take down something more formidable, like elk, water buffalo, or sauropods, they have to develop some pretty specialized tactics--cause that pray ain't gonna run away.

 

[fnwc]

Wolves aren't tactical genius. [snip] Ogre are smart enough to lay traps and ambushes. Wolves don't even do that.

Well no, but they do operate on pack instincts. Wolves hunt in packs, and purposefully circle prey, often picking out the young or weakened members of their target herd (herding dogs inherit their 'corralling' instincts from this behavior). They even often purposefully leave open escape routes in their formation, which leads into an ambush.

Of course, they're not going to be able to reason like an Ogre, but they have sophisticated enough instincts developed from thousands of years of evolution to be efficient hunters.

Unlike more intelligent monsters, wolves aren't going to look at the Mage of a party and decide to attack him because due to his magical abilities; all the same, wolves would probably be able to sense that the Mage is physically weaker and unable to handle himself like the quicker or stronger members of his party.

 

[Revinor]

Well, except for "misusing". Hopefully we'd get the rules right.

By misuse, I meant using rule according to the letter of it, but against the idea (like paladin mark&run tactic, which is being corrected right now, but for sure we will find more such cases for release). Again, for board game, it is perfectly correct behavior, for RPG, I think I would have to talk with that paladin seriously.

 

[Revinor]

Consider the degree of coordination you see in real world animals such as a pride of lions flanking and driving their prey.

Sorry for bit offtopic answer to that, but as far as coordination between lions and other animals is concerned, please do watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM

Buffallo phalanx anybody?

 

[shilsen]

Perfectly intelligent human beings fail to cooperate all the time.

I'd agree with you if experience hadn't taught me that "perfectly intelligent human beings" is an oxymoron. Other than myself, of course

Personally, I always run enemies taking into account a combination of their Intelligence, Wisdom and flavor, as well as the circumstances. A group of hobgoblins with a skilled leader will fight much more tactically than the same group without the leader. I also won't use absolutely perfect tactics unless I'm playing some sort of super-genius.

 

[Patlin]

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

Wolves cooperate and use basic tactics more reliably than humans.

Edit: OK, a million people got in with this before me.