I'm not a fan of GMs being "brutal".
And by that I mean I'm not a fan of GMs who basically treat the game as a "me versus the players" situation. In my opinion, good games are collaborative efforts to create an intense, challenging but awesome story that the players will talk about for a long time after it's completed, and where they will sit down in an inn with a mug of mulled ale years later, reminiscing "do you remember that character I played ..."
Erh ... well, maybe not in an actuall inn with a mug of actual mulled ale, but I digress ...
I'm in favour of the GM being fair.
This means no fudging. If the players legitimately have a horrible night and they universally roll badly, it stinks to be them but at times, that's how life is, and yes that may lead to TPKs but I'd feel pretty bad ... as a player ... if I knew my GM had deliberately "spared" my character through muddling his own rolls. I'd constantly wonder if he was messing with his next roll as well, to make things easier for me, when at times failing is exactly what a character needs to experience to grow and eventually to overcome.
It also means creating encounters that are realistic for the party. Let them face things that they actually stand a chance of overcoming. It may be difficult, even very difficult, but it should be possible for them to do so. Also, it should not require the players to have an absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of every minute rule in every rulebook ever published, because frankly, it's my experience that very few players have such knowledge to begin with, and even if they did, the flow of the story is often interrupted by more or less pointless discussions over whether this or that is the right way to interpret a rule. Such things can be debated between games, but should be kept to a minimum when the game starts.
The example OP makes in this thread is horrendous. The GM in that game clearly had no clue whatsoever. Hold Person in a single campaign is madness. In a group of a few players, using Hold Person means those who are not affected suddenly have to defend a helpless compatriot and that can add suspense and danger to an otherwise trivial encounter, but for the GM in this case to use it, PLUS outnumbering the player several times over, PLUS having the advantage of surprise, PLUS the ranged combat element of the archers ... sorry, but that GM sounds like he shouldn't be running games anytime soon.
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My players are much more likely to call me out on tactics-fudging. ^_^See, I never get called out on this, because I play morons like morons and geniuses subtly and with intelligence.
If a pair of idiots are easily distracted by candy, well ... they're idiots.
If the party's brilliant plan, created by the wizard with Intelligence 20, fails in the face of countermeasures devised by the marilith with Intelligence 23, well ... them's the breaks.
But don't expect me to play Brunt the Grunt like Doctor Doom.
I wouldn't expect you to. I wouldn't do that either. Didn't stop them. ^_^
You see, I did all those things and still got criticized (although it's tapering off these days).
Part of it is that, in addition to Intelligence, I add motivation.
Example: just because the ghoul paralyzed you doesn't mean he's immediately going for the coup de grace. He's been trapped in this pit for a hundred years without flesh. He's too hungry to find the most lethal spot. So, his actions aren't "optimal".
The elite mercenary, on the other hand? He'll use every tactic he knows to fulfill his mission. If that's getting past you, he'll do what he can to get past and slow any pursuit. If his mission is your death? Low Int, he'll use the tactics he's trained in and have trouble innovating; high Int, he'll improvise, use the environment, whatever he can.
That's just me, though. ^_^
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I wouldn't really say I'm a brutal GM. Its just that I have the godlike power to decide when I want to completely destroy the entire party and sometimes I exercise that power with immediate and undeniable results. What's so wrong with that?
...
Seriously though I think Alkenstar above has it right - I think "brutal" is when the GM has a "Me versus Them" mentality regarding the players. I have to admit though this is REALLY easy for some of us to fall into.
We're human. We have petty feelings and some GMs like myself are little more than overgrown children. I can't speak for everyone else but these ugly emotions tend to well up in me when the PCs confront a "boss" type villain.
See I like to pretend I'm an adventure writer, a real storyteller, and not the pure hack I am in real life. As such I have a vision for how this is encounter is "supposed" to look: the kobold, much more impressive than his weakling brethren, appears near the top of the cavern from fissure in the rock. He's laughing menacingly. As he boldly leaps from the ledge a winged shape, like a tiny dragon, suddenly expands to Medium size as he lands nimbly on its back. "Fools!" he starts in a surprisingly dark and confident common parlance. "You have walked right into my..."
And that's about where my players hijack the scene. Four attacks later and the last two minion kobolds are dead, the BBEG's Mauler Familiar is bleeding out in the corner and the boss himself is brutally wounded, and he hasn't even finished his epic monologue let alone cast a single spell.
WTF man?!? Don't my players KNOW how awesome a storyteller I think I am? Don't they appreciate the gravitas of Imvyryx the Dragon's Fang? If they'd only listened they'd have understood how he clawed his way up through the ranks of the elder kobolds, staged a coup and then masterfully framed his own accomplices for the action, branding them as heretics and having them killed for it. Now, alone and unrivaled in his power Imvyryx directly converses with Mordalith, the Old Black Dragon who is the real threat in this campaign. As one of Mordalith's trusted subordinates Imvyryx commands real power and is tasked with shutting down all merchant trade flowing through the Bleakmoss Moors.
Imvyryx is cool, and powerful, and has a compelling personality and backstory! If. Only. I. Could. SHOW. Them!
But no. My stinking players wrecked it all with their awesomely perfect builds, masterful tactics and a couple lucky die rolls. Freaking meanies! Well, I'll show them! Imvyryx just HAPPENED to have a wand of Cure Light Wounds and I'm just going to completely re-write the rules of the entire game and say that because it's a unique wand he can expend multiple charges at once and heal like a high-level channel. Bam! Imvyryx and his familiar Vilewing are both fully healed and flying - Vilewing never took an action this round so he's double-moving WITH Imvyryx on his back.
Oh, and just to add to their frustration the PCs' ranged attacks, while brutal, leave both rider and mount JUST barely alive enough to pull that hidden lever (that I just thought up) in the roof of the cave starting an avalanche! HA HA suckers! Rocks Fall... YOU ALL DIE!
...
Or at least, that's all what flashes through my head. The reality is that Imvyryx bites it after a round and the players look around and go "ok... let's loot this place!"
So I completely understand the TEMPTATION to go brutal. I try not to; most of the time I don't break that way but I'm ashamed to say that sometimes I do. To all in this thread: please don't judge us GMs too harshly. We're human after all.
Caveat to all of the above: I still think being a "brutal" GM is wrong.
... a lot of very funny things ...
Dude, that had me in stitches!
And yes, I agree, it's unspeakably annoying when players ruin your great monologue or other truly epic moment. I've learned to compensate based on the group of players I have. Fortunately, they are quite ready to engage in banter, even with the badguys, and this has led to endless hilarity and hijinks such as when they were trying to lead any kind of sensible, intelligent conversation with a captured ogre gladiator who seemed to be incapable of saying anything more coherent than "WAUAUAGHAGHHAHAHAHHHGGGHHGG!! SMAAAAAASSH SQUISHIIIES!"
Considering that the ogre was behind bars, they got quite high-brow in their responses, which gave the ogre a headache and made him roar all the louder.
Furthermore, the fact that you used kobolds as the epic race in this case speaks highly of your sense of drama. Sir, I salute you on your impeccable taste.
Kobolds forever. Because yip.
Since I also consider myself a moderately talented hack, and I also write (and since my players all seem to enjoy what I write ... I'm really concerned for their collective sense of taste, to be honest) I get a lot of my epic Rah-Rahs that way. I let them FIND an epic screed, written down.
If I'm having a really bad day, the Epic Screed (tm) will end with the words "I prepared explosive runes before writing this".
Seriously, though, a modicum of fairmindedness goes a long way in this hobby, and while we can all have petty moments of "that's not fair" and "I had prepared this whole amazing encounter" ... I usually manage to make up for it next time.
If my players consistently annoy me by denying me my epic moments, I let them run into a taxi-driver (if we're playing in a modern setting) or a geenie (if it's fantasy).
Those of my players who have played with me for years have learned to dread cab-drivers and geenies. They don't kill the players ... they just make their lives utterly miserable and unnecessarily complicated.
I would much rather have my GM challenging than brutal.
To me (this is just MY opinion) a Brutal GM is one who uses his Godlike powers to make his players suffer, just for his amusement and to see his players fail. A Challenging GM is one who throws various challenges at you and is happy to see you succeed in them, probably teaching you a valuable lesson.
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Now here's an interesting question: Do you, as a DM, ever create a scenario with no idea how the PCs are going to defeat it? Do you try and anticipate every tactic they might attempt? By doing so, are you endeavoring to actually destroy them ...
... or are you simply having faith they're going to pull some brilliant sh!t and win the day?
That's actually par for the course in high level play.
You can pretty much go for something that on paper is insurmountable, and see how your players demonstrate it's not.
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Now here's an interesting question: Do you, as a DM, ever create a scenario with no idea how the PCs are going to defeat it? Do you try and anticipate every tactic they might attempt? By doing so, are you endeavoring to actually destroy them ...
... or are you simply having faith they're going to pull some brilliant sh!t and win the day?
That's actually par for the course in high level play.
You can pretty much go for something that on paper is insurmountable, and see how your players demonstrate it's not.
I do a lot of this. ^_^
I don't think of brutal as equal to the "GM vs player" mentality. My first thought of a brutal game is lovable munchkin's games. He pulls no punches and his encounters might leave you in tears. But that just makes victory SO much sweeter when we win. And that is just a play style not him versus us. He wants us not only to win but to earn our victory with blood, sweat, and tears.
There is brutal leading to enjoyment and accomplishment, and then there is brutal leading to very frustrated players with very dead characters. Now I'm all for allowing characters to die (he said with hand over heart), but if they are ganked and then the next party are also ganked you may have a walk-out on your hands.
Seen it and participated in one after we were ganked thrice (woe to the thrice-ganked). This particularly brutal dm laughed at characters when they died, scowled and called us useless when it went to a tpk, took a clear perverse enjoyment in killing characters, had one of the characters raped by an ogress and grew annoyed our low-level combat optimised characters couldn't solve a mystery - this was all in the one campaign.
That guy doesn't have players anymore. So although I can be brutal once in a while and hopefully my games are challenging most days (I think they range from easy to hard in truth), I consider my suffering at the hands of a brutal dm to be a cautionary learning experience.
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One time I had decided to stick a high lvl cleric against my players. It was in an area of wild magic. They actually tied the equivalent of a lvl 10 up and killed his lesser acolytes! Talk about natural 20! Anyways, I'd decided to let him cast undeath to death(my players where all undead) figuring that the wild magic had a good chance to fail the spell.
Well I had rolled a 100 on the % die, which means the spell was basically maximized! Well 5 lvl 1 characters would have just been vaporized after I had spent so much time getting this entire champaign set up!!!!!
So, DM intervention. I had the gods stop the cleric. He died it a blast of unholy energy
Moral of the story: sometimes the DM sees he made a mistake and tries to fix it. Just be glad he didn't let that dragon wipe the group clean off the face of the gameboard.
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Now here's an interesting question: Do you, as a DM, ever create a scenario with no idea how the PCs are going to defeat it? Do you try and anticipate every tactic they might attempt? By doing so, are you endeavoring to actually destroy them ...
... or are you simply having faith they're going to pull some brilliant sh!t and win the day?
I try to stay lvl oriented, but as with my last post, I described the cleric as a powerful looking priest. They charged in and took the lvl 10 down in 3 rounds flat. The cleric was stunned most of that time.
So I guess I figured they could have made the appropriate checks and punch the cleric in the face before he finished the stilled spell. Unfortunately, they didn't.
I would have gone with the vaporization, but given some time to describing the game over.
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I think there is a tendency to see it as GM vs Player (even if the GM is a sympathetic opponent). This creates a mechanic vs mechanic scenario where "cheating" on the part of the GM can be seen as, well, cheating.
If the joy the GM and players get out of the RPG is exploring the mechanics, then that's probably a good dynamic. Fudging the dice or "dumbing down" the NPCs in that case is a legitimate concern.
That said, if mechanics are not the primary motivator, it might be helpful, as a GM, to step back and re-examine your role. Are you there to RP the NPCs? or are you there to guide a story? If the later, then "cheating" is perfectly acceptable if it moves the story along in the right direction. Does this mean the players shouldn't be challenged? No, but it means the challenge should be molded towards a larger story arc, not an incidental creation of random mechanics. I've killed characters many times in story based games, but it was more because it was a fitting end to their story arc and less because the dice were particularly vindictive.
That said, stupid player actions are stupid player actions and needs be punished. I tend to prefer keeping them alive so their suffering can be a glorious symphony, but your mileage may vary :).
Now here's an interesting question: Do you, as a DM, ever create a scenario with no idea how the PCs are going to defeat it? Do you try and anticipate every tactic they might attempt? By doing so, are you endeavoring to actually destroy them ...
... or are you simply having faith they're going to pull some brilliant sh!t and win the day?
That's actually par for the course in high level play.
You can pretty much go for something that on paper is insurmountable, and see how your players demonstrate it's not.
In the low-ish level (~5) 2nd ed Planescape game I run, I generally have no idea what the "solution" is to a problem I give my players. I just know the problem, and let them figure out a solution. Usually (90%?) the problem is a scenario that's not really combat based, and it's interesting how they solve it. If it's reasonable within the confines of the game (or interesting and in character!), then it works. They seem to love the thrill of all these amazing events, and have a feeling of "just" making it out in time (which is what I am going for in that campaign).
I do a lot of this. ^_^Now here's an interesting question: Do you, as a DM, ever create a scenario with no idea how the PCs are going to defeat it? Do you try and anticipate every tactic they might attempt? By doing so, are you endeavoring to actually destroy them ...
... or are you simply having faith they're going to pull some brilliant sh!t and win the day?
That's actually par for the course in high level play.
You can pretty much go for something that on paper is insurmountable, and see how your players demonstrate it's not.
+1
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There is brutal and then there is sadistic.
I try my best to keep things going on a pace the players are good with.
That calls for occasional brutality. Sadistic glee would distract me from being a fair DM.
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Sadistic glee would distract me from being a fair DM.Technically, that's not a denial.
We DMs are only neutral arbiters of the rules.
We take no glee in envisioning the noise of your bodies falling from high heights or you walking into our obvious traps.
No.
None at all.
...
...
Muahahaha.
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If the Sorcerer BBEG could cast fireball and TPK the entire party, but opts to Grease the wizard instead, that is a fairly sure sign that the GM is intentionally misplaying the BBEG. In other words, the PCs will have some level of awareness of what options are available to the creatures they are facing. This limits what the GM can do to fudge without it being apparent.
If the creatures start doing things which are apparently nonsensical, then either a)there is information the PCs lack that explains this bizarre behavior and they should probably go find out what it is, or b)the GM is misplaying.
In your example of the BBEG they have a vague idea of how much HP the BBEG has. The BBEG is probably APL+2 to APL+3 and has 12-16 Con depending on build and items (+ maybe toughness). That plus their hit die average and FCB gives you how much HP they are to within 3HP or so per level of the BBEG. Most likely, with an APL of 10, the caster is level 13 with 16 con or 14 con and toughness, if the boss has little to no support and thus eats up most of the budget for an APL+3-4 boss fight. Those numbers would add up to 100hp. It might not be exactly that in reality, but 100HP is a reasonable estimate.
If your BBEG has take 40 damage so far, the PCs know that the BBEG can probably take quite a bit more before getting dropped. If the PCs are about to die and the BBEG decides to bail, it is fairly obvious that the GM is pulling their punches.
If the BBEG has taken 105 damage, on the other hand, it is a reasonable assumption that the BBEG is an inch from death, and then it would make sense for the BBEG to bail, because they might value their life more than killing some of the party, and so it doesn't actually look like you are fudging your tactics. Of course, in this case you are quite likely to not be fudging your tactics because the BBEG is likely to actually be an inch from death and hence retreating is a reasonable course of action.
If you start doing things like having the extremely maneuverable gish type BBEG slogging it out with the party barbarian while the casters obliterate them, then the party is likely to realize the BBEG was badly misplayed. They are either going to think you fudged your tactics, or they will think you suck at tactics. Note that I just described the classic badly done boss fight - a 1v4 with a dragon, in which the dragon opts to use it's infinite use breath weapon, flight and spells to trade blows with the fighter type on the ground while completely naked and unbuffed. If you initially played the dragon well, buffing up and doing strafing runs with it's breath weapon, then after the party is an inch away from death if you decide to have the dragon land and play tradsies with the party invulnerable rager, then the PCs are definitely going to think you deliberately misplayed. And they would be almost certainly right.
I want to convey this anecdote even though it's not from Pathfinder.
I recently played a session of Deadlands wherein the GM set up an "encounter" that was far too railroad-y and deadly to be anything near fair in my opinion. Players should have a chance to survive and fight successfully, even if it will be especially deadly.
However, this was most certainly not the case. The GM basically set a horde of small wild piranha-boars on us. Even though they were charging at us in what amounted to relatively open terrain, we couldn't notice these things until they were 20 yards away from us.
In Deadlands your character can move 6 yard a turn. If running you move 6 + 1d6 yards. The piggies move at 10, and run at 10 + 1d10 yards a round. There were dozens of pigs, too many to fight. In Deadlands if you take "damage", you become shaken meaning you can't act on your turn unless you "critically" succeed in "shaking it off".
My character needed to run 20 yards to safety, and climb up a rock.
I run, but roll a 1. The piggies roll near maximum for their run. On my next turn I roll better for my run, but the piggies roll equally well and catch me.
There was nothing for me to do except run. I did it the best I could, but they catch me and attack me. I become shaken, meaning I'm unable to act unless I critically succeed in the roll. I don't. The only option left to me was to spend a "benny". Which would let me remove the shaken. But you only get 3 of these per game session (which isn't necessarily one day of play, but rather a scenario). So a very rare commodity.
He had set up this encounter to purposefully try to take our bennies from us, just to wear us down for the encounter we would have later.
We I didn't succeed at shaking it off I told everyone I would rather have my character die. In my opinion the GM was being a jerk with the set up. My character survived because other players had the ability to teleport and managed to get me out of the path of the pig and to safety. But I wasn't going to be railroaded like that into giving up an especially rare resource.
I would have responded better if he had just said, "For this fight I'd like you all to 1 less benny each". I would have accepted this, challenge mode. But don't set up a scenario that you want to appear "fair" just to give us no options.
I should also add, due to this set up another player's character did in fact die because she ran out of bennies.
Because we had to fight at least 26 wild pigs.
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My players are much more likely to call me out on tactics-fudging. ^_^This kinda confused me. I'm pretty inexperienced and so are my players. I'm guessing yours are so experienced that they instinctively know what spells, feats, etc the bad guys have? But even then, if you're role playing the baddie, only you know what the baddie knows so they surely can't know what you decide the bad guy's tactics will be?
If you're hiding the dice they have to believe whatever you say, don't they?
You'd think, wouldn't you? ^_^
I've had complaints about ghouls not coup de gracing paralyzed victims (choosing to gnaw on them instead). I had to explain it twice before the player stopped complaining.
My players are much more likely to call me out on tactics-fudging. ^_^This kinda confused me. I'm pretty inexperienced and so are my players. I'm guessing yours are so experienced that they instinctively know what spells, feats, etc the bad guys have? But even then, if you're role playing the baddie, only you know what the baddie knows so they surely can't know what you decide the bad guy's tactics will be?
If you're hiding the dice they have to believe whatever you say, don't they?
You'd think, wouldn't you? ^_^
I've had complaints about ghouls not coup de gracing paralyzed victims (choosing to gnaw on them instead). I had to explain it twice before the player stopped complaining.
Oooh. Can I hear an explanation.
Before you start, bear in mind that Ghouls have above average human numbers in all of their mental ability scores and are thus not "stupid", according to their printed stats.
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My players are much more likely to call me out on tactics-fudging. ^_^This kinda confused me. I'm pretty inexperienced and so are my players. I'm guessing yours are so experienced that they instinctively know what spells, feats, etc the bad guys have? But even then, if you're role playing the baddie, only you know what the baddie knows so they surely can't know what you decide the bad guy's tactics will be?
If you're hiding the dice they have to believe whatever you say, don't they?
You'd think, wouldn't you? ^_^
I've had complaints about ghouls not coup de gracing paralyzed victims (choosing to gnaw on them instead). I had to explain it twice before the player stopped complaining.
Oooh. Can I hear an explanation.
Before you start, bear in mind that Ghouls have above average human numbers in all of their mental ability scores and are thus not "stupid", according to their printed stats.
I'd attribute that to ghouls wanting their meat 'live.'
They're undead, they like doing terrible things.
The problem is in a lot of cases, tactical stupidity is in character, and tactical brilliance is out.
One DM I came across had a situation where gelatinous cubes had set up some sort of elaborate ruse trap. Despite being utterly non-sentient cubes.
The trick is always portraying the appropriate levels of low cunning, brilliance, cageiness, brutality or ruthlessness.
A lot of DMs run every baddie the same way.
I /try/ to avoid that.
As an example: Erinyes are cagey devils, in combat they tend to use their teleport ability to retreat, reposition and kite the crap out of foes. If someone went down and they could get away with it, they'd cdg. Against higher level foes, they teleport around the battlefield dropping unholy blights for scratch damage and withdraw when they get targettd.
Ghouls are ravenous, malicious monsters, I can see them trying to capture heavilly injured but living opponents and dragging them off to a larder so they can watch as they are individually ghoulized or eaten in front of their friends. I therefore don't see them cdging as frequently.
A dretch fighting a paladin disengaged (and provoked an AoO) because he wanted to run over and kill an innocent girl who was nearby and figured the paladin was too busy fighting the other dretch to notice.
Medusae are vain. They could go around smashing their statues, but their statues are like their trophies.
Conversely, an underworld dragon was a ruthless jerk ass, he swam around in liquid magma and tried to turn someone into stone expressly so they'd melt in the magma.
An iron golem hauled off and socked the rust monsters led into its enclosure since its programming told it to destroy opponents that entered, and it continued doing so as it got dissolved.
Tactically wise? Nope. Reasonable? Yes.
Tactically wise? Nope. Reasonable? Yes.
This is what I like to see. The DM's are all knowing... the npcs are not. That includes the BBEG. The BBEG should be trying to win, but they have flaws in their knowledge too. They do not know what kind of contingencies your wizards have on them for example. Casting their super-death spells may get bounced right back at them if they misjudge. Smart BBEGs may not do the quick/easy thing.
They also have character flaws... Arrogance, Anger, self-esteem issues. Sometimes they care more about showing up the heroes than getting the easy kill. It's a benchmark for fiction. All the Bond Villains and Dr. Dooms and whatnots SHOULD be fighting optimized at all times and know everything that the heroes would ever do... but they don't.
Heck... maybe they panic?? Sure He's a super-lich, but action economy means he knows that they'll get more hits than he will... First time something goes against him... maybe he didn't plan for THAT and things start to fall apart for his 'master scheme.'
Same with most 'intelligent' encounters. A team of super bandits have a perfectly planned ambush in mind that's worked dozens of times over the years... until Frank is cut in half by the barbarian! What do we do NOW?! That's never happened before?!?!
yeah, wouldn't ever get on a DM for 'poor tactics'...
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My players are much more likely to call me out on tactics-fudging. ^_^This kinda confused me. I'm pretty inexperienced and so are my players. I'm guessing yours are so experienced that they instinctively know what spells, feats, etc the bad guys have? But even then, if you're role playing the baddie, only you know what the baddie knows so they surely can't know what you decide the bad guy's tactics will be?
If you're hiding the dice they have to believe whatever you say, don't they?
You'd think, wouldn't you? ^_^
I've had complaints about ghouls not coup de gracing paralyzed victims (choosing to gnaw on them instead). I had to explain it twice before the player stopped complaining.
Oooh. Can I hear an explanation.
Before you start, bear in mind that Ghouls have above average human numbers in all of their mental ability scores and are thus not "stupid", according to their printed stats.
Trust me, I know their stats perfectly well.
These ones had been sealed away for over sixty years without even a hint of fresh meat, though. As someone else noted, tactical intelligence can sometimes be overridden by other motivations.
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My players are much more likely to call me out on tactics-fudging. ^_^This kinda confused me. I'm pretty inexperienced and so are my players. I'm guessing yours are so experienced that they instinctively know what spells, feats, etc the bad guys have? But even then, if you're role playing the baddie, only you know what the baddie knows so they surely can't know what you decide the bad guy's tactics will be?
If you're hiding the dice they have to believe whatever you say, don't they?
You'd think, wouldn't you? ^_^
I've had complaints about ghouls not coup de gracing paralyzed victims (choosing to gnaw on them instead). I had to explain it twice before the player stopped complaining.
Oooh. Can I hear an explanation.
Before you start, bear in mind that Ghouls have above average human numbers in all of their mental ability scores and are thus not "stupid", according to their printed stats.
I'd attribute that to ghouls wanting their meat 'live.'
They're undead, they like doing terrible things.
The problem is in a lot of cases, tactical stupidity is in character, and tactical brilliance is out.
One DM I came across had a situation where gelatinous cubes had set up some sort of elaborate ruse trap. Despite being utterly non-sentient cubes.
The trick is always portraying the appropriate levels of low cunning, brilliance, cageiness, brutality or ruthlessness.
A lot of DMs run every baddie the same way.
I /try/ to avoid that.
As an example: Erinyes are cagey devils, in combat they tend to use their teleport ability to retreat, reposition and kite the crap out of foes. If someone went down and they could get away with it, they'd cdg. Against higher level foes, they teleport around the battlefield dropping unholy blights for scratch damage and withdraw when they get targettd.
Ghouls are ravenous, malicious monsters, I can see them trying to capture heavilly injured but living opponents and dragging them off to a larder so they can watch as they are individually ghoulized or eaten in front of their friends. I therefore don't see them cdging as frequently.
A dretch fighting a paladin disengaged (and provoked an AoO) because he wanted to run over and kill an innocent girl who was nearby and figured the paladin was too busy fighting the other dretch to notice.
Medusae are vain. They could go around smashing their statues, but their statues are like their trophies.
Conversely, an underworld dragon was a ruthless jerk ass, he swam around in liquid magma and tried to turn someone into stone expressly so they'd melt in the magma.
An iron golem hauled off and socked the rust monsters led into its enclosure since its programming told it to destroy opponents that entered, and it continued doing so as it got dissolved.
Tactically wise? Nope. Reasonable? Yes.
This guy gets it. ^_^
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Tactically wise? Nope. Reasonable? Yes.This is what I like to see. The DM's are all knowing... the npcs are not. That includes the BBEG. The BBEG should be trying to win, but they have flaws in their knowledge too. They do not know what kind of contingencies your wizards have on them for example. Casting their super-death spells may get bounced right back at them if they misjudge. Smart BBEGs may not do the quick/easy thing.
They also have character flaws... Arrogance, Anger, self-esteem issues. Sometimes they care more about showing up the heroes than getting the easy kill. It's a benchmark for fiction. All the Bond Villains and Dr. Dooms and whatnots SHOULD be fighting optimized at all times and know everything that the heroes would ever do... but they don't.
Heck... maybe they panic?? Sure He's a super-lich, but action economy means he knows that they'll get more hits than he will... First time something goes against him... maybe he didn't plan for THAT and things start to fall apart for his 'master scheme.'
Same with most 'intelligent' encounters. A team of super bandits have a perfectly planned ambush in mind that's worked dozens of times over the years... until Frank is cut in half by the barbarian! What do we do NOW?! That's never happened before?!?!
yeah, wouldn't ever get on a DM for 'poor tactics'...
I actually adore flawed villains, especially the hubristic ones. My favorite parts of
In both cases, I played up how superior they thought they were. ^_^
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My players are much more likely to call me out on tactics-fudging. ^_^This kinda confused me. I'm pretty inexperienced and so are my players. I'm guessing yours are so experienced that they instinctively know what spells, feats, etc the bad guys have? But even then, if you're role playing the baddie, only you know what the baddie knows so they surely can't know what you decide the bad guy's tactics will be?
If you're hiding the dice they have to believe whatever you say, don't they?
You'd think, wouldn't you? ^_^
I've had complaints about ghouls not coup de gracing paralyzed victims (choosing to gnaw on them instead). I had to explain it twice before the player stopped complaining.
Oooh. Can I hear an explanation.
Before you start, bear in mind that Ghouls have above average human numbers in all of their mental ability scores and are thus not "stupid", according to their printed stats.
Trust me, I know their stats perfectly well.
These ones had been sealed away for over sixty years without even a hint of fresh meat, though. As someone else noted, tactical intelligence can sometimes be overridden by other motivations.
So in other words, that particular Ghoul was more or less driven insane from starvation and 60 years of imprisonment?
That's...actually a pretty good explanation. Fair enough.