Jose Hernandez 622 wrote: _Ozy_ wrote: 1) Because the players are 'tricked' into thinking it is a threat. If they aren't tricked, the ploy fails.
2) What, you think you have a summoner hiding in an alcove you just leave him be? Or a buffing bard? The whole point is to make it difficult, but possible, so that the players waste their actions.
If you are insisting this is an impossible scenario, I'm not sure how to convince you.
About 2). Is not if they are tricked, is how they are tricked and what value do the target has over the guys in front of them.
If the buffing bard is making everyone a threat, I would not bother with the bard if I don't have the means to deal with it in a swift poof. I would just adjust my team to deal with the bigger, buffed, threats. From there is quite simple if you ask me. Did I start the battle? If I started the battle I just retreat; it is my field, I have the home advantage and plans B to D. If I didn't start the battle (or is not my field), I would pray for the best and that my guns are bigger than yours. Sure, if the cover/terrain makes it that difficult to get to the 'decoy', then you're better off using an actual bard or spellcaster who can sit back there unmolested.
The decoy suggestion was based off parties who make it a habit to always alpha strike the bard/spellcater.
_Ozy_ wrote: The decoy suggestion was based off parties who make it a habit to always alpha strike the bard/spellcater. :facepalm: What kind of formation the team with the spellcaster and bards had to allow an alpha strike on them? I mean, outside of a surprise attack where the team is already at disadvantage.
Everything that I said still applies. If the players know that they have to rush to kill the wizard, the enemy knows that too (and that is not metagaming, much less a genius NPC, just simple, thinking NPCs). If the players knows that they have to protect the wizards/bards, the enemy does too. And if the players knows when they are screwed and when they need to flee or die (or even when to initiate combat)... the enemy also knows that.
The decoys are quite useless in those situations. If a solid formation and usage of the environment can't avoid an alpha strike, the decoy would not. I mean, that is if you REALLY want to win. If you just want the decoy to slow down and make more challenging the encounter, well... it may be a good solution in one or two fights tops.
Try playing a spell warrior skald and giving everyone an extra d6 of Flaming, frost, lightning and sonic. That will make everyone hit like a fricken rocket, And they can all full attack more often than not due to beast totem.
Jose Hernandez 622 wrote: _Ozy_ wrote: The decoy suggestion was based off parties who make it a habit to always alpha strike the bard/spellcater. :facepalm: What kind of formation the team with the spellcaster and bards had to allow an alpha strike on them? I mean, outside of a surprise attack where the team is already at disadvantage.
Everything that I said still applies. If the players know that they have to rush to kill the wizard, the enemy knows that too (and that is not metagaming, much less a genius NPC, just simple, thinking NPCs). If the players knows that they have to protect the wizards/bards, the enemy does too. And if the players knows when they are screwed and when they need to flee or die (or even when to initiate combat)... the enemy also knows that.
The decoys are quite useless in those situations. If a solid formation and usage of the environment can't avoid an alpha strike, the decoy would not. I mean, that is if you REALLY want to win. If you just want the decoy to slow down and make more challenging the encounter, well... it may be a good solution in one or two fights tops. Or, the enemies keep using decoys until the party starts ignoring them, and then they use a real bard/caster, and the party keeps ignoring them.
Depends on how smart and organized your enemies are.
And, once again, it's easy enough to try it out and see if the tactic works or not. Heck, the DM sets up enemy 'tactics' all of the time, and sometimes those tactics 100% fail because of something the PCs do that is unanticipated.
And yet, 'decoys' can't possibly ever be a good idea?
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_Ozy_ wrote: And yet, 'decoys' can't possibly ever be a good idea? OMG, no!!! Decoys are wonderful as tactics that require to defend a target, particularly if that target is not presented in the battlefield (the classic trope of "the princess is in another castle" kind of thing).
Decoys as part of an aggressive combat strategy are not good. The thing is that the player have to win (unless scripted) and that led to use decoys in an aggressive strategy as a defensive option (do you see the problem here?). And when you put CR into play, that 1/x decoy may be the difference between a good fight and a "uh? the caster died in a single hit" kind of moment.
Nevertheless, decoys are to alpha strikes, what fake "evil" enemies are to paladins. It may trick them once in a while, but they are not going to stop trying. They just have to know when and to whom "alpha strike".
For me, it would be better just to use different strategies that put theirs in a bad position: Spear attacks, alpha strikes (first to hit win), pincers, swarms, ball of death (synergy teams), and back-doors... almost any strategy that put them in a defensive position.
Also good ones are feints attacks (similar to decoys, but not quite), skirmished by weak enemies (preferable replaceable ones), battle of attrition if the alpha strikes are dependable on (big) resources, and almost every strategy that make the alpha strike moot because there is no target to alpha strike.
Jose Hernandez 622 wrote:
I guess if everyone in that group trained inside a cave with no world interaction, I would agree that they should not know.
It does depend on the campaign world and how common that knowledge is. If the DM decides no one in his homebrew world knows about a Trolls weakness to fire without at least making a decent skill roll and some research then imo your out of luck.
Jose Hernandez 622 wrote:
When you are being trained to be a fighter, a wizard, a monk, or a normal living being in a world where dragons, trolls and so on exist, I bet that they would know that information 95% of the time. That is the kind of information that save lives and towns. Well, that is if you think that the world in which your character lives is a realistic one.
Good point. I still think some research needs to be done The information could be from a guy who talked to a guy who shot another guy. As I said above it also depends on the game world. Some DMs may make it that common weakness are not known. Not without actually having fought and defeated the creature. I don't agree with that kind of design philosophy but I'm sure it happens. I don't make players roll for everything as a DM as well. For a Rogue after a certain level they don't need to roll to open a lock that has DC of between 5 and 10. Now if they insist on wanting to roll I let them. Otherwise having players roll for everything slows the game down imo.
memorax wrote: I still think some research needs to be done I do agree, but not on every case. When I design a world I use a recipe for a list of creatures that you don't need to make a check:
1. Make a top 10-20 list of the most dangerous* monsters** in the "world"
2. Take out the extra-planar ones, or those that are so uncommon that you will need to make 10 rolls to even believe that you are seeing one (e,g, a vampire-cyborg Tarrasque).
3. Fill the blanks with new monster
4. Repeat 1 to 3 until you are satisfied, bored or you have filled the top 10-20.
* Dangerous does not necessarily mean powerful: Trolls might not be as powerful as dragons but they may be more dangerous because they attack towns much more frequently. Much like falling from bed and white sharks - white sharks may eat you, but falling from bed is more likely to kill you (statistically speaking)
** Or group of monster when the group is quite wide, like Dragons.
memorax wrote: Why is it being a poor tactician. I think some here confuse what they know as a player to what their character actually knows. If the group encoumters a Troll for the very first time should they all know thry have a weakness to fire. No they should not imo. Not unless the group either makes the right Knowledge check. Or the group has someone who is lucky enough to have someone whosr character background is either to be a dedicated Troll slayer or something along those lines. This is a false comparison. You should not automatically know that the troll is weak to fire, sure, but a player can see a muscular, primitive-looking creature wielding a club and make a reasonable assumption that it is a brutish smasher. You aren't going to accuse the party of meta-gaming if the fighter tries to cut off its charge route to the wizard on account that it might be actually be a caster despite its appearances, no?
In a world where wizards and bards are reasonably common, and for a party of supposedly veteran fighters, something like "the guy in robes in the back is probably a threat, get him first" is a similarly reasonable, common sense assumption to make. Just like "let's not try to hit that heavy armor and shield guy in the front with sword attacks and go for his allies first" or "we're getting fog spells cast from seemingly nowhere, let's cast see invisibility."
You are free to subvert expectations by using decoys, but you can't accuse the party of metagaming for using common sense like that just because of the possibility of a deciy, in the same way that you can't accuse the party of metagaming for just assuming that a deer is just a deer instead of a disguised demon or evil druid.
With large parties with strong melee focuses terrain could be a limiting factor to their overall strength. For example the opponents may chose to attempt to engage the PCs in choke points where the terrain limits the number of PCs that can engage in melee, evening the flow of battle (like in a small room or hallway).
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