The Best Monster Tactics | Web DM | TTRPG | D&D

foreign how's it going welcome to Wednesday this is webdm I'm Jim Davis and we are here hanging out today talking about uh fundamental tactics for DMS uh for your monsters although this is not d d specific I hope you guys are able to get something out of it uh while we're hanging out here today chatting and uh yeah taking your questions as well so if you have a question feel free to type it in chat just uh add question in front of it whether in all caps or regular uh just in order to get our attention really so yeah let us know what you're thinking how's it going uh see some familiar faces and chat some new folks hey Ryan how's it going see me there um yeah I'm I'm curious today uh to talk about tactics because a few weeks ago uh Rudy and I on nightcap which is our twitch show that I do on Sunday nights just capping off the weekend chatting about you know whatever's on our minds like we got to talking about fourth edition and all of the things that we liked about fourth edition that we thought were interesting and and engaging and like added to the game and that we missed uh or that we you know hope hope uh stick around for other editions of Dungeons and Dragons and for me one of those is Monster rolls right it was a it's a logical uh step and monster design to be very explicit about what kind of role in combat this monster has it helps DMS identify just at a glance okay this is how I should use this monster you know if you don't know anything else artillery is farther away from the characters than a brute and does its damage at range uh hence its name I also found that the name of them were just very evocative and very you know descriptive of the roles in question um you know it was just something that I really liked and I think it's present in fifth edition it's just an explicit you know if you look at something like the kobold the kobold is clearly a skirmisher it's not supposed to be anywhere near melee it's going to get in and get out Goblin is similar a little bit uh beefier a little bit harder to take down than a Cobalt maybe but similar situation they're skirmishers you're not supposed to be able to pin them down supposed to deal their damage hit and run get away for the you know let the uh the soldiers and the brutes and the like advance and actually pin down the enemy and so what I found is that it's helpful for me to have a the kind of Paradigm excuse me to have a paradigm for especially humanoid monsters um you know that they can be the most boring kinds of encounters where it's like oh it's just it's more goblins more Orcs yay so in order to make them interesting they have to vary up their tactics how they behave on the battlefield what makes them distinct from one another what's the difference between a cohort of hobgoblins and a mob of goblins right like there's the way that you portray a monster on the battlefield the decisions that you make round round the abilities that you use and the like can say something about that monster can tell a story as it were and so I find for me having a simple just like these are the these are the little paradigms I have just the little categories I can think of how to put by monsters specifically humanoids but more than just that as I portrayed them on the battlefield and run them in combat so that it's engaging and interesting and honestly for me combat is one of those areas that I find I'm always looking to improve in because it's so easy in the chaos of like organizing everything keeping track of initiative what's going on all right what do you want to do players okay what do you want to do here's how we're going to do this that when it gets to my turn as the DM to portray the monsters a lot of times I'll just forget stuff or do what's easiest you know they make their basic attack at the closest enemy and that's not an engaging experience for anyone for myself for the players and it also leaves like you know uh the promise of the threat of some of the monsters I might portray outside of combat unfulfilled and so these are some tools and things that I've used to help me make uh make these things interesting I find them useful in any game they are not specific to 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons they don't rely on any specific mechanics or anything like that um you know the different uh system nuances of your fantasy Adventure role-playing game of choice I will color how you use these but for the most part I find them useful in just about any context and uh yeah I want to get into it but uh before I do if you like what we do you want to support the show you want to help us out and why wouldn't you you can head on over to patreon webdm and check us out there we've got podcasts we're coming up on 250 podcasts right now plus uh game supplements and more that you'll find over on our patreon so check us out over there and uh yeah best way to stay in touch with us and get more of that web DM content that you're looking for that you're hungry for I can feel it all right I'm hungry too but it's like it's a kind of skip lunch but I want to take a question or two let's see if we have any I'm not sure uh if you've not got any going on right now before I jump in but I think looking at it I see some questions but I'm there's a lot that I want to talk about today so I think I might just get started like you know what you guys are gonna like really you're gonna be so proud because I made a slideshow for you I have visuals I'm ready so uh let's check it out here we go so this is the uh what I call fundamental tactics for DMS and as just general tips here at the beginning uh right off the bat I'm going to assume that the various monster rolls are basic knowledge but for those of you out there who have never heard of the Marine countering it the first time basic monster rules are artillery this is to say the monster deals damage at range big damage brute these are heavy heater melees tend to be lower on the AC ladder than other monsters they hit hard in melee and usually have a lot of hit points so good damage following that there are controllers and leaders both of these are support type monsters controllers control the battlefield either through dealing AOE damage or laying down zones or auras or that kind of thing a lot of times they're spell casters and leaders are those that bolster their allies that can heal monsters you know give them some kind of benefit or a boost again they tend to be spell casters and then there are skirmishers stalkers and these two tend to be highly mobile good at stealth they don't want to stay stuck in melee very long but they could take a hit or two they might be ranged attackers they might be melee attackers but they tend to be glass cannons if you're familiar with the phrase both skirmishers and stalkers sometimes called lurkers and then there's soldiers High AC high hip Point medium damage type monsters to me these are the most boring like they're the heart they take the longest to whittle down they do weak damage a lot of soldiers in the base monster man fuel that are just going to soak up damage and and hit like a kitten uh and I'm sure I'm forgetting uh one last one but uh yeah sometimes we like think of bosses or Elites and those are Concepts from fourth edition legendary monsters kind of feel that role in fifth edition that's generally how you want to think of your monsters you can tell what kind of monster it is by the sort of attacks that it does kind of special abilities that it has if it does a lot of big attacks at range it's probably an artillery but because fifth edition at least doesn't uh you know classify these in any way you get a lot of mixed types things like that so anyway that out of the way fundamental tactics for DMS some general tips I'm going to use it you want to use a mix mixed force of monsters for uh their complementary combat roles the classic example of this would be artillery plus Soldier the soldier pins down the enemy the artillery deal statements to them or skirmisher in this case you know brute soldiers another combo they make good melee buddies they are there to uh you know complement each other if the brute needs to withdraw to heal or take the pressure off the soldier can step in similarly with something like a lurker or stalker or someone that's going to do a lot of damage from hiding or Ambush they could use a melee buddy to help them out and so you want to think of your encounters whether they're rolled randomly or you know you're pre-planning them as offering a mix of types because just like say just brutes or just artillery is a one-sided one one-dimensional fight and and you know this is where you get situations where it's like okay we're just going to kite this monster all day long there's nothing it could do for us sometimes that's the way the story goes it's a horde of zombies what are you gonna do it's a horde of zombies but where that horde of zombies come from are there other monsters that might be accompanying them that are like following in their wake like ghouls for instance that could be a bit quicker a bit more of an elite or a heavy hitter maybe they're Necromancer smelling them or angry ghosts that could act as skirmishers and the like so you consider your encounters think of like what's the theme what kind of creature types are you using and then how do they behave in combat how can they support each other that's a big one really big one these next two seem obvious but they're worth pointing out use your strongest attacks on your weakest on your opponent's weakest Point uh you don't want to match strength with strength you want to match strength with weakness and at the same time you want to minimize your own weaknesses using terrain and tactics if you have low AC low hit points stay out of line of sight and stay out of melee and use hit and run attacks if you have no ranged attacks at all then you got to try to Corner your enemy pin them down somewhere that they can't get away and they have to fight you in melee so to minimize your weaknesses and attack your opponent's weakest points this can lead to an escalation this is all assuming that everybody's down for this style of play and the like or that this particular moment in the game you're running warrants these kinds of tactics but this is sort of the basic fundamentals right so good to know the point of subterfuge is to delay confuse and occupy your opponent's time to make them divert their efforts elsewhere while the real action takes place in in some other location it could be so that you can get into a position that's favorable to you first or you launch an attack and then in the confusion Escape without anyone being the wiser so that's what subterfuge is for and we'll get get into specific examples here in a bit and the other was make sure you have an objective for yourself keep it simple a lot of times that objective is you know stop the PCS from doing X or you know block the PC's way or attack the PCS or something but it could be just humiliation or a show of strength keep it simple so it's easy to remember when it comes to your turn and it can guide how you make decisions round around similarly keep the big picture in mind what's the battle for what part does it play in this adventure is this a random encounter that's just indicative of what's there or is this a set piece battle uh it's important to kind of keep those details in mind because the whole point of everything is to make the game fun and engaging by by introducing things that are interesting so we're varying up our tactics to keep it interesting we're keeping different objectives in mind to keep it interesting that's why we're here that's why we go through the trouble um and of course adjust things to fit your group's play style not Everyone likes a White Knuckle uh knock down drag out fight uh every time I don't I like them sometimes and sometimes I I don't and sometimes it's like that's not why I'm playing today so as always got to adjust things sometimes on the fly in order to fit groups play style all right that's enough of the general stuff out of the way these are my seven Tactical paradigms for humans and they're monster allies they are mob warband fnatic Hunter stalker Legion and murder hobo uh there's some overlap between them and they're basically in order of sophistication and uh tactical coordination and so get into them all right so there's a couple of these and I'll answer some questions I think so see we've got a chats active how's it going guys excuse me didn't want you to hear that I was trying to maintain my reputation for being a gentleman mobs everybody knows what a mob is there's rabble no they're just a collection of poorly disciplined and ill-coordinated individuals uh mobs could be anyone they could be any kind of humanoid they really generally the key feature of them is that they have poor morale these are not soldiers trained to fight together they're not veteran adventurers they're not monsters that live by their tooth and Claw and breath weapon they're just cr0 or 1 8 and have to make do so in general they prefer missile combat missile scrunching over melee you really won't attack in melee unless they have an overwhelming Advantage there's really no sophistication there they attacked the first targets they can see mob up on them and you know until they're down and are easily picked apart uh piecemeal if they have a layer it's probably open and undefended so a good example of mob or like non-fanatical cultists so I kind of use Warhammer here like the the cultists of slinish are a mob you know they're not Marshall they're not I mean you know they don't train together they don't live a lifestyle of raiding and and fighting that would uh you know make them better combatants they're decadent they got into this gig for the the self-indulgent pleasure of it and when it comes to a fight they are looking out each looking out for themselves they don't coordinate and they're easy to uh to take down goblins of course another classic mob I think yeah warband here we go Step Up the Ladder they actually have real weapons and would prefer to fight you in melee there's still minimal coordination and poor discipline warband is great for representing those uh humanoid types that are on the edges of civilization they're sophisticated they've got a culture we've got things going on but they don't necessarily have a culture of Martial discipline right they live a fighting lifestyle every one of them can wield a weapon and has used it in their daily survival but they're not uh it's it's not a military training and that's a key difference excuse me I'm gonna take a little drink from my idea more about uh but yeah warbands could be anything from like you know Viking raiding party uh our our English War of the Roses uh retinos here these are semi-professional uh fighting Aristocrats usually and so they tend to have excellent morale when they're leaders and champions are present they're looking to impress uh the elites of their society and so they're not going to run away when the boss is around but if the boss is dead they're probably scattering they prefer to have some sort of just Mass charge at their enemy to get to melee it's almost always preceded by war cries challenges attempts at intimidation ultimately if you can get an enemy to run away and flee a battlefield without needing to risk your own life that's a benefit and so they're going to try to shout you down throw things that might be an exchange of missiles but eventually it's going to come to blows with big melee weapons and they are looking to get stuck in and attack with the stronger War band members seeking out stronger opponents in single combat issuing challenges and so combats like these there might be an ebb and flow where there's an initial charge then they back off a second wave comes in that kind of thing the key to this is that they're leaders when their leaders are present these are tough opponents and then when their leaders are not they're a mob essentially all right there we go The Fanatic this is probably my favorite piece of Renaissance art right here by the way this is I believe called bad war and is a picture of uh landsnext and swiss Pikeman in a pike Square push of a pike and it's just a it's just nasty yeah I imagine that happening in a dungeon somewhere and I just shutter and also it's a Glee with anticipation all right fanatic I might call these those Berserkers zealots something they they have some cause or ideal which gives them Superior morale they are willing to die to lay down their lives another coordination of their discipline it might be moderate they might be professional soldiers driven by religious Zeal they might be you know hopped up on some kind of alchemical concoction or something what really distinguishes them is their ferocity in battle they did a favor simple tactics rushing into melee and generally have a mix of melee weapons we're going to have some reached some heavy weapons two-handers some lighter weapons and the like the idea here is that the weapon kind of determines how the uh the opponent will fight and so that they've got a big weapon or a reach weapon they're generally going to stick put and be like one spot on the battlefield while the uh while they're allies with the lighter weapons kind of come and go Retreat withdrawal they're more like stalkers skirmishers and the like so yeah their layers tend to be fortified and heavily patrolled so I I play with morale in my games humanoids especially will run away because they value their lives beasts as well and so having humanoid opponents that really don't run away is a great way to distinguish like different factions or or different opponent groups that you're that your characters might face it's like every time we fight a goblin if we just kill two or three of them the rest of them run away that's no problem and you can always Ransom them back you know they have very short attention spans and memories so all right I get this is the about to get to the good one but um let me answer some questions here before we get to uh the rest all right let's see Caleb asks uh what are your thoughts on the new minion rules from ncdm I'd be honest with you Caleb if I knew more about the their specific minion rules are I could answer this intelligibly and informally but I at the moment I am behind on a lot of the uh what's happening over there at MCD and with their monster design I'm looking forward to it right back to latest Kickstart I really want to check it out but uh I hadn't had a chance to yet in general minions I like the concept of them the the thing that I always shaped at in say fourth edition was just the one hit point part of it like to me if a creature has some you know less than tenure points that's functionally makes them a minion um and so there was just there was a a disconnect for me when you get like higher level Minions that at one point in the campaign had a certain amount of hit points and I felt like another point that bumped down to one because this category that they put in and I'm much more of a well if you want minions that's what kobolds are for that's just what a grunt Cobalts for uh or grunt Goblin and you want there's a reason that you would want to have them around even you know in an encounter with 20th of all characters still have actions they still can have hit points like there's a lot that a goblin or a kobold can get up to even if they're you know an action away from being roasted or incinerated or hacked to bits or something like that um it also makes those parts of the encounters I think were varied more interesting when you have a wide range of CRS so yeah wish I could answer uh more fully Caleb but if you check us out absolutely I will be reviewing flea Mortals and perhaps even doing a bit of a deep dive on what they got going on over there before then so that we can uh I can develop a more informed opinion because right now it's there's they're doing something uh over there I was just gonna wait for the book but you know maybe not who knows all right count enough real that's a great name by the way what do you do to make a big bad evil guy not get steamrolled when all the players meta I don't met a game too like you know like especially if you've got those kind of players then you gotta you've you really sort of have to if you're not meta gaming yourself you're you're really fighting with one hand behind your back like you can't do it too much because if you're a DM you can mitigate until they're just like I have the perfect counter for you just Batman them and then you know everything they do here's one I mean that speaking on the tangent just uh for a moment that's always an option to create uh adversaries for your players that are specifically about countering the character in their character build it wouldn't do a lot of that I wouldn't do it every time but if it's Justified and can be interesting once is very memorable once where they have to shake things up and they're like uh is is fun so don't really answer your question um here's some ideas that I've used Project image it's a higher level spell but it's basically like yeah an image of the villain shows up and can talk and hear and interact but you can't do anything with it it's just it's like a hologram that's always one if it's Justified of course uh Resurrection magic exists for a reason and there's a lot of different ways to get resurrected so that's another easily justifiable that a big bad evil guy would have some kind of backup plan like that a clone a contingent Resurrection something like that and you know allies that that have a lock of their hair or piece of their skin or scale or fingernail clipping or something just whatever they would need to go up the chain of command and get a loyal uh Lieutenant uh rest if they do get steamrolled they could come back from the life as a ghost or Revenant they could come back as a demon or a devil being reincarnated as a fiendish creature and then coming back in a you know in another tier you know let the PCS forget about who they were for a bit those are ways that you can recover from getting steamrolled but as for not getting steamrolled you have players who are just chomping at the bit like to me uh you've got to have good saves you've got to have a way to get out of stuns paralysis restraints grapples all that kind of stuff gotta whether that's magic special abilities don't make your NPCs like characters make them like the kind of NPC you want they might be made with character levels they might have a little bit of this a little bit of that they might have this feature from this Rogue subclass and this feature from this monk sub class and whatever you need to make the villain that that is going to survive contact with them long enough for a satisfying game and I you know for me I deal with this in a variety of ways there's no one way that I do it but Mobility and and durability are key being able to get out of Dodge fast being able to uh resist being pinned down uh so you know so that they just don't get wiped out in one uh in one hit and you know also um half multiple Big Bad Evil guys so if it happens it's not the end of the game I'll get to these others here a bit because I want to get back to this those are good questions especially uh count uh befriends it's it's a real thing right like you got a villain you put a lot of work into you like you know they're gonna go you know they're gonna get smeared right you know the minute you introduced them into a campaign and put them in front of the PCS they were going down but you want to enjoy that villain as long as you can you know you have a good time with them I'll tell you one about Pruitts this is good again there was a there was a an NPC in the first spell generate campaign he ran who wasn't it was never the primary antagonist but was the but was an instigator was a a thorn in our side sometimes an ally like one time we captured her and then we got attacked by overwhelming force and we were like we gotta release that hurt she's powerful was actually we need her help and before the the battle was so possible okay we've got to kill her before the battle's over and now that now that the forces are even down and she slipped away that happened three or four times where um you know it's like we're in positions where we aren't either weren't able to engage here on our terms and so she was able to get away or when we were able to engage on our terms they were mitigating circumstances that kept us from just man I still would I'd replay the one shot just to get that NPC it makes me I can't let loose sleepover to this day it was like six years ago anyway all right back to the slideshow yeah all right there we go Hunters so up until now the the mob the warband and The Fanatic pretty unsophisticated to very less degrees they they fall from you know they prefer ranged only to melee only with warband kind of sitting in between they're mostly not very coordinated kind of disciplined towards fanatic and warband certainly more so than mob but nothing like you'd see later on in some of the other paradigms here from now on we're talking about paradigms that make use of things that PCS might use against the monsters and we're getting into territory where you just need to know your group need to know their preferred play style because these could be seen as and received as escalations and I've been in games where you know sort of a dmpc arms race has developed um until we've reached a happy equilibrium but it does we also lost two-thirds of the players of that group uh so I would just be careful and either use these sparingly or as like signature this group of monsters fights like this Paradigm um and so for hunters the big thing with them and what distinguishes them from the next category is that Hunters are out to capture or otherwise use non-lethal means to engage the party they might have weapons like this lull here that deal damage if they're smart they will that the preferred weapons are not lethal so Hunters have excellent coordination that's what makes them Hunters right they're good in groups or on their own most likely they operate in a small group about the size of the average party um moderate discipline and morale they're not going to stick around and can and fight to The Bitter End they're more likely to cut and run and prefer hit and run tactics over uh just engaging in melee this is one of those first this is one of the first things where you know what kind of group you have if you you're about to engage in like okay this this encounter is going to take place over several days like these this group of nulls here is hunting you over the course of a week and some groups are going to think that's really cool and get into it and like it's a running battle across the Wilderness as it's you know tracking them doubling back setting ambushes things like that and others are just going to be frustrated and want to solid Straight Up Throw Down fight so you know now your group as the just blanket advised they tend to use non-lethal weapons like Nets lassos bolus sap poison smoke and my favorite glue resin you know the anything that will restrain that will incapacitate and the like that's that's what they're looking for uh if it goes without saying that for all of these paradigms magic in both acts as a force multiplier and enables certain tactics so you can count magic in any of these anything that that restrains or otherwise uses non-lethal Force to uh to take down an opponent if your PCS don't like being captured I I would just skip to the next one [Music] so what distinguishes hunters and stalkers is that stalkers are there to kill their prey they are there to to leave them bleeding and dead they tend to be you know big damage dealers lurker is another name that the the Monster Roll uh has so um but yeah they tend to have excellent coordination and like Hunter's moderate discipline and morale they're not looking to die for their cause to much prefer to save their own skin but stalker is also like a lot of monsters that are intelligent but not humanoid are stalkers essentially they they're Ambush Predators things like that so stalkers prefer sniping from range from hiding uh and hidden and inaccessible locations uh hit and run tactics ambushes and my favorite my absolute favorite is the famed Retreat um so just as a bit of trivia horse archers are easily my favorite type of uh military unit historical military unit the amount of coordination it takes just a skill on the part of the writer the horse as well like the things that say the parthians were sent to you where they could turn around in the saddle and shoot directly behind them as they were fleeing an opponent to keep that opponent like riled up like they're still firing at us we can't let them get away with it while they while they run away so it's a fiend Retreat is a a tactic that's uh horse archers and and other sorts of light Cavalry are incredibly uh good at pulling off also heavy Cavalry as well if you're familiar with the Battle of Hastings but the idea is that you take an enemy that's in a fixed position like say a bunch of PCS that are camping a doorway and using that to uh you know using that to uh to their advantage and you faint a retreat got a brake line of sight that's the key thing in a tactical RPG like dnds you've got a break line of sight otherwise you know they probably have an answer for you um so you break line of sight and then whichever PCS venture out first uh you've got the mobility and the hitting power to turn on a lone PC as it heads out at the front of the pack uh either there's other forces that were always hidden waiting for this exact moment or the retreating forces aren't fast enough and have the reactions and abilities they need to stop what they're doing and running and turn and deliver a big attack so yeah this is uh if you pull it off it's really fun because it's one of those moments it could be one of those moments in a combat where the player's like oh my no how did we not see them what uh so yeah stalkers use disguises misinformation and deception to confuse their opponents the idea here is that they are looking to confuse their opponents either after the attacks delivered so that the opponents don't know who to retaliate against or use it before the attacks delivered to get close enough uh to to Really deliver a Target if you've ever read the Assassin subclass for rogue that's what they're looking at they use their disguise to get close to to the Target so that they can surprise them and do whatever and play DM AI stalker layer is going to be hidden and difficult to access as well trappling sometimes all right Legions yeah I'm a hobgoblin because it's probably the uh the the quintessential monster that represents a legion so Legion uh has excellent coordination discipline and morale these are professionals so this could be the you know the king's own Army this could be the iron Legions of the Hobgoblin Warlords you know these could be the the series ranks and cohorts of of the infernal uh brigades they are a mix of different monster types we've got soldiers brutes artillery skirmishers those are the big four uh for these they're supported by leaders and patrollers as well they've got fast-moving highly mobile element to it so there's a mix of all these different types and they work in conjunction with each other to support each other so they're working in unison they focus fire they've got sophisticated tactics they're looking to pin down the Heavy Hitters of their opponents and get their own Heavy Hitters in an advantageous position to take out their enemy piecemeal so they have a versatile array of tactical options the layers tend to be fortified and well supplied these are the kinds of of forces that you know when you when you run a battle with them can punch above their weight because of coordination and tactics and being able to take advantage of the elements in their army or their force that do have the uh the magical heft to to take on the party whether that's a big monster or a spellcaster or something all right and the last one's murder hobos basically you play the monsters like their PCS it's the worst of the stalker Hunter and Legion paradigms the dirtiest tricks the nastiest uh moves you can use they use henchmen minions dogs familiars summoned creatures and Undead to their advantage takes a lot to get to the actual VIPs uh in a murder hobo using the murder hobo Paradigm got to go through a lot of trash mobs to get to them and while you're walking through those trash mobs it's through a field that's on fire and got poison gas and there's pit traps and all kinds of things going on they're cautious and methodical using subterfuge stealth and the like I this is I've done this maybe once and you know it was a deliberate kind of uh move to do it uh so I I think it could be really fun it was fun in that sense of sort of creating a rival adventuring party and basically running them like an adventuring party would and thinking things through and how would they tackle this and the like um but it's not for every encounter I don't think it's appropriate but like the drow Hunting Party that's after the PCS after they you know stole something from the matron mother uh their house yeah they're murder hobos they're just they're they're not gonna let up and then they're going to come at you sideways they've got the water poisoned they're scrying on you all that kind of stuff um so yeah this this is a this is to me this is the um use once in a campaign and then skip it the next campaign kind of paradigms unless your group's into it which case uh fun times have a good one let's see where we're at all right all right I want to answer a couple more questions before I get into the uh actual like setting up on the battlefield and and maneuvering around here in the last bit but to me the the um the point of the paradigms is to have something that's quick and easy to remember when you're setting up a battle so you've got all different kinds of monsters and everything and maybe it's a mix of trash mobs and Heavy Hitters and a couple of specials you know they got you know like you got a Hydra and a spellcaster or whatever and as you're thinking about okay how does this group fight it's like they trained together have they fought together before what kind of weapons do they have what's their temperament you know a group of Cobalts defending their home probably more like Hunters if they kill a bunch of the humanoids they're just going to bring more you know dwarves and elves and humans down here but if they just make life miserable for anyone that comes near their lair then maybe the people go somewhere else you know it's nobody's dead you know it's just it stinks it's hot there's all these pit traps everywhere you know there's these annoying uh couples that are stealing things from us but when you get them into their layer when you trap them in their layer and the like maybe they fight like Fanatics like they just they backs to the wall they just throw everything at the party and they won't back down catch them out in the open they're a mob you know what are they going to do I got no leader they got no coordination caught them by surprise it's going to be an easy fight you know but then when they march to war with a cup with a Cobalt War leader gets everyone together trains them drills them now we're talking War band maybe even Legion right depending on how sophisticated they are the level of gear they have the time they've spent together so to me they're they're interchangeable they're situational but they're also easy to remember and use and make for more interesting fights and a way to distinguish the cuboids in your game throwing Monsters Magic in there just adds to that to me so yeah that's a couple more questions let's see okay so Chase asks how would you come up with and use a simple morale mechanic or would you just role play it out how you do a mix of both if it makes sense to role play it out I role play it out you know if I know that like this group of monsters is fighting for these reasons and something has happened in the course of the battle to you know affect that or to change that then I don't roll uh I I do what makes sense for that creature at that time um other times I use the uh the 2d6 roll under uh mechanic from basic uh BX DND there is a a mechanic in fifth edition for morale but it's it's essentially a wisdom save and I just don't to me that but that doesn't work for it like the The Narrative behind it just doesn't fit um and so I just you know I usually morale starts at six and you gotta get six or under and the more disciplined and trained the enemy is the more like Supernatural they are the higher that number goes so that like Undead oozes constructs they're never rolling for morale that's what makes them terrifying is you can't force the undead to stop they keep coming yeah that's that's and again it distinguishes Fanatics from from others as well fnatic AC might be 11. you know might be the only bolt on if I were like a 12 or something um so yeah that's that is that's how I do that let's roll under because it's just simple easy um I don't mind the just you know the unified mechanics of it doesn't bother me uh so yeah that's that is uh what I use uh the big thing with morale and I in this this could be a whole showing of itself it's the implications of enemies running away has a lot of wrinkles that that can throw some groups what do you do with prisoners what do you do they come back the players can get super paranoid about enemies that run away um but again that's a it's a different uh kind of different topic John asks all right how would you balance boss competency with player fun I was playing in a group in the boss locked down PCS from most of the fight with walls and conditions and everyone was just frustrated yeah it is a balance it's easy to sort of look at a a monster or a special Caster high intelligence of the life is being like they're going to do this and that and this is how I can pick apart the party and the like and easy to create a perfect enemy it really is like you can create one especially if you're home brewing something or modifying an existing monster without really considering the modifications you're making can make one that is going to pass the important saving throws has legendary resistance to get out of the rare times it wouldn't have big attacks debilitating attacks and like everybody talks about how how much of a pushover uh fifth edition monsters are compared to the PCS that's not always the case and I've accidentally killed characters in tier two and three before I've had it happen to me you know I think um the game is not as tipped in favor of PCS maybe sometimes people think it isn't so you got to really look and see what am I creating my uh my boss for because if you're going to lock them down with conditions and prevent them from moving around the battlefield like without giving them a way to break out of it then that's not a fun encounter if you do it and say like all right here a couple of ways like you could say there's this penalty you have whatever condition spell effect the like here's the cost to ignore it right and then make it a cost make it something that's really like do I want to do that or have the penalty be hit hard enough that it's it means something but not so much that you can't do anything right like and this is to me this is kind of tough because fifth edition just has a lot of binary States so this or that you're either stunned or not there's not a lot of like Middle Ground there so you might have to make those things up yourself make up the effects yourself an example might be like I'm create a zone of difficult Terrain that is you know requires you to make some kind of check to even move through and you can't Dash or you can just move through it and take damage for every X feet you move through you take some damage I think if you know it's especially like a super Spike growth basically and and it's like yeah it it it is there you can you're not gonna be able to ignore it but if you're willing to pay the price you can ignore it and I think those kinds of abilities are make for more interesting fights because then you have you put the choice in the player's hands how much do you want to deal with this BS I just threw at you or this rather the bad guy threw at you because and if your players get mad at you like you know as long as you've done everything right you haven't made an unbeatable encounter and you can say hey this is the way it's played out I've I I you know you and you can with confidence say there are ways to get rid of this there's ways to get past this uh I haven't created an unwinnable unbeatable encounter uh so those are things I keep in mind with it and honestly I try to keep bosses that have conditions and the like pretty limit I prefer to limit them to one maybe two signature ones and then the rest are like big damage attacks or or if they impose a condition it's temporary well I think one of my favorite conditions is they're you're incapacity until the start of your next round goodbye concentration goodbye Barbarian rage just to get your turn um I don't know I better feel like keep happening I'd be pretty frustrated though yeah others that's that's that's what I think uh about that the third questions I like these guys got a lot going on in your minds here what are we at a little bit of time left I made these drawings and I want to show them to you that's what I'm gonna do whatever murder hobos classic English uh uh retinue from the late Middle Ages murder just like the D definition of murder hobo all right so these are four uh this is the first of four little uh basically deployment patterns that you can use and uh I'm realizing now I did not order them in terms of their complexity so this is more intermediate uh one but the idea is that blue triangles are range support artillery spell casters archers things like that the green diamonds are skirmishers or otherwise highly mobile mobs monsters creatures uh and then the red circles are brutes and soldiers and so the idea here is that you're deploying uh your individual creatures far enough apart that a single AOE isn't going to take them all out it's going to get some of them but it's not going to get as many as you hope and so there's about 15 to 20 feet apart in for each row and then between rows is maybe a little bit more than that probably more like 30 40 would also be appropriate the idea is that every row is is no more than one move or Dash away from being in a position to support the other and so like as you're advancing on the enemy or as the enemy is advancing on you you can adapt and move to where you need to without um you know causing your forces to split into and then you basically have you know divided your forces and uh can be picked apart so you can still have uh you know that cohesion and that mass of advancing as one with support from ranged and the ability for skirmishers to come and go as they need to through the spaces but it's not like a shield wall that we'll see later where you're really packed in there and an AOE is going to take you out if you're not careful uh so yeah to me the checkerboard is sort of a a real fundamental deployment uh pattern because of its versatility and anybody's familiar at all with the Roman Republican Army this is centrally adapted from their triple line uh checkerboard formation of essentially the same reasons and then the third line is a reserve you don't commit them until you know where where the party has gotten stuck in and you need that extra support to defeat them crush them and take their character sheets and rip them apart and write their home DMS and tell them they can never play those characters again all right Crescent so in this one the arranged elements are in a forward position they're getting the maximum Field of Fire that they can get and overlapping fields of fire which is important and then your Heavy Hitters and the libraries are pulled back a bit and further back so that they're not vulnerable to return fire themselves the artillery and skirmishers are in a position to either withdraw and pivot if they come under too much pressure or if the enemy advances through the center to attack the you know the big beefes in the middle which is also of course where you put your leaders the kinds of uh characters that the that the players want to get bait the Trap nicely then they're walking in between two horns of ranged attack that will get them from either side now depending on how you play the game you might be using flanking you might not there could be cover but the idea is that eventually the the enemy walks into this overlapping Field of Fire where they're pinned down by the big brutes and then if they try to attack one of the Wings the big brutes can advance while that Wing withdraws and then the whole thing kind of shifts and they can be enveloped or lured in the Crescent formation is really good for a famed Retreat if the wings are hidden or otherwise not targetable or more visible when the battle begins just the red circles in the middle that are there as a tempting treat for foolhardy monks and Rogues who want to get that first attack in go for it yeah come on you can move really fast before any of your friends just come on up here take out this little guy so uh right here this is more of a uh what I call a refused flank where you have a a strong forward position that is able to hold its own for a round or two while support comes in and the idea here is that that forward element either pins down the enemy and then the rest of uh your own uh creatures swing in behind them and around them or they fight some other part uh of the uh of the line not wanting to take on your strongest uh element there at the beginning and then the strongest element swings around and attacks them and while they're doing that they're having to take fire from all of this just sort of hear and having overlapped this area right here is where the overlapping Field of Fire is we have a mobile reserve and the staggered Center can either contribute a little thrown weapons themselves await the enemy or advance to support some other part but the idea is that they're not all in range of the of the PCS at the start of the battle kind of pulled back and you're gonna Advance them and use them uh as you see fit as the battle develops and then this was the most basic one here the shield wall The Shield wall is great for dungeons if by great you mean you want a real meat grinder combat where it's uh you know just two groups grinding away at each other without any ability to get around the other but a shield wall does well when its flanks are anchored by terrain of some kind and that could be magical dungeon wall rock or river whatever the idea is that you've got high AC soldiers in the front brutes with reach weapons in the back a second rank I think you've got various range support from thrown weapons ranged weapons crossbows bows spells javelins all that kind of stuff and everything in front of the high AC soldiers is essentially a concentrated Field of Fire you have all kinds of missiles Nets pit traps flaming oil difficult terrain spell effects whatever you just make it miserable to be in that front Rank and forcing them to retreat and then the skirmishers rush through the gaps to pursue them um so for me these are four easy ones to remember between the paradigms and the deployments personally gives me something to like just remember it's easy to access and I can use on the Fly and it's it produces something other than like it's a big block of humanoids that are just going to bum rush the party again and again uh and and sometimes these goblins are pretty sophisticated sometimes these lizard folks know what they're doing um and so it varies up the game and it's easily accessible that's why I like it I think uh let's see I'm going to uh answer one more because we got such good ones and it would definitely uh make a note of chat for uh for questions that we might have missed so that's the other side this last one here uh from let's see leave question how do you keep the combat with an enemy that is dipping in and out of combat fun or do you just Embrace this as a tiger hunting Embrace this as a tiger hunting You In the Jungle the deck is against you and it's not fair in some senses yeah and I'm explicit about it with uh with the players so I'll say something like this creature is stalking you long term or they are using hit and run attacks to try to wear you down so that at the very least the players know what's at stake and what's happening even if their characters might not be aware of the significance and I'm letting the players know that because it's their chance to both signal wait wait a minute we're about to do what that sounds really boring or tedious uh or it gives them a chance to like counter that in some way and so that the next time there is that hit and run they've had their own trap they can lay against the enemy so that they keep them pinned down and don't let them run away and in my my experience once it happens once the second time that enemy is probably not getting away that the players probably have something up their sleeve whether it's a trap or a magic or just hitting hard word and being ready for it that'll keep him you know to me this is something that some monsters will do and and it could be because they're weaker it could be that these are goblins that you know the only way they can take you down is through small attacks hoping they're a little poison will wear you down They're Gonna Keep It Up um the big question is do you keep it up while the party's trying to rest that's that's a big uh point of contention and and the reason why spells like the Layman's tiny Hut and rope trick and the life exists is to so the PCS can rest without having to worry about constant attacks um but I think there's sometimes it's appropriate like are you in a big predator's territory then you might be able to drive it off temporarily but it's not going to let you stay you know it's got to drive you out I mean until one of you is bleeding on the jungle floor so yeah I think it's fine sometimes you can do it with like big monsters and it makes for a more memorable encounter because it's like we're gonna have to face this dragon two or three times because it's not going to stay and fight while we're approaching its Lair it's trying to drive us away and like the only way to get a dragon to stay and fight is to fight it in its Lair because otherwise it's just going to fly away and as we breathe once and fly away I'll do that all day long so yeah I can enhance that kind of thing um yeah might turn it into a skill challenge or or not play out every combat uh if it's getting too tedious but at least a few just to know what the stakes are that's what I would do and I just you know don't do it all the time and get make sure the players have a chance to respond and not feel like that this is forced on them so that's how I uh you're done but yeah lots of great questions today and um yeah we'll take a note of chat get some others and I think maybe a morale is the morale is on my mind the various wrinkles and hiccups and the like so I mean next week we'll be talking about morale a bit but um yeah I hope you guys have a great uh great weekend and if you're in the US have a good Fourth of July and keep your ear protectors on if you're gonna go out there and check out the fireworks because uh yeah we'll see you next week have a great uh great weekend guys

Channel: Web DM

Views: 21,010

Keywords: dungeons and dragons, d&d, dungeons & dragons, dnd, 5e, web dm, webdm, jim davis, 5th edition, ttrpg, rpg, roleplaying game, tabletop, game master, dungeon master, prep, campaign, faction, session prep, how to play dungeons and dragons, dm, gm, dungeon, monster, monsters, tactic, tactics, enounter, combat, monster tactics 5e, monster tactics dnd

Id: BkdX5rK-r5E

Length: 57min 30sec (3450 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 29 2022