What is Reddit's opinion of
The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters (1)?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
By popularity on Reddit, this product is:
39 reviews of this product found across Reddit:
Highly recommend the book "The Monsters know what their doing" super helpful in making any combat serious.
I would check out the book "The Monsters Know What They're Doing". Features are much more subtle and pared down in 5E but really playing up the differences in combat styles will help make things feel more distinct between enemy types.
Also consider special mechanics tailored to a specific fight. Adventure Zone Balance, Dimension20 and NaDDPod all have great special boss fight mechanics. Portals that summon enemies and have to be closed. Terrain that moves and changes or can be controlled by players and enemies. Support minions that buff or protect the boss. Environmental hazards that explode or throw people around.
Weird environments can add a lot too. One of my parties is about to have a boss fight that takes place on top of wagons that are racing down a road, wagons they have to protect. They can order the drivers of their wagons to maneuver, essentially rearranging the terrain. They can also target the enemy drivers/mounts, jump onto their carts or shove people off.
In general, you should take your monster's Intelligence and Wisdom into consideration.
An intelligent creature should be able to come up with better plans and tactics. A wise one can read situations better and know that discretion is the better part of valor.
There's actually a book that discusses, as well as the various tactics they can take.
In general, consider what they'd do in the situation, especially if they were ambushed, or if they were ambushing.
A bloodthirsty gnoll (Int 6 Wis 10) is smart enough to know how to lay an ambush, but may have difficulty with any plan above bash them until they're dead. They'll probably run away if they think they're going to lose, but are hard to scare when they're in a bloodthirsty frenzy.
A vampire (Int 17, Wis 15) is probably a lot more difficult to take down. Given their high intelligence and wisdom, they would play tricks like the one you've noted. You don't live to be an ancient vampire without making a few plans.
The only way to properly kill them would be to trick them into an area they can't escape, insult them to a degree that they'll want to fight to the death, or appeal to their valor.
Posts like this happen frequently. The answer is to not come up with bullshit like you are to kill certain players. Play your monsters intelligently and they would realize that they wouldn't even try to attack the Cleric or Paladin. You don't need to jack up +7 to hit (every Goblin isn't Strahd), just pit your players against enemies intelligent enough to know how to fight.
Which means you have to know how to fight: https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Know-What-Theyre-Doing/dp/1982122668
I'll increase the initial monster group or have the monsters call for reinforcements if it starts going really badly. I also don't believe in the "all monsters fight to the death!" scenario. Monsters would flee if they're quickly overwhelmed. 2 bugbears see a party of 8 decent adventurers coming? They're probably not going to take that fight.
The Monsters Know What They're Doing is a great reference for playing monster encounters:
https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Know-What-Theyre-Doing/dp/1982122668/ref=asc\_df\_1982122668/
Kobolds and goblins.
Kobolds are ambushers and they swarm a target, run away if enough of them die, and do it again. And traps. Get creative with those, but dropping rocks from above, a pit with a swarm of centipedes, collapsing a tunnel on a party, all good ways to make them a big enough challenge without needing to beef up an encounter.
Goblins like to stay a good 40 feet away from their targets and try to attack a party member who is separated from the group. They attack from hiding, then move and hide as a bonus action to do it all over again. Your players will be trying to figure out where they are.
An encounter is more than throwing a beefy monster at them. It’s about playing an enemy tactically and intelligently. Even kobolds and goblins have their strategies even though they’re dumb as rocks. If your player is good at hitting hard, present encounters where hitting hard won’t work but will showcase other players’ strengths.
EDIT: I would advise picking up a copy of “The Monsters Know What They’re Doing” by Keith Ammann. I started using this and man, my encounters have improved greatly.
The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters (1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982122668/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_EEAJXKSXR4HBVRY0Z09G
Don't be too focused on absolute numbers. The rogue probably has a high dex to help him with his AC. If all your players are actually using the rules of the book, they have very few things they could do to actually 'break' the game.
Run your monsters like they would behave, don't try to account for your players stats (too much). If there's one big guy in front taking all the damage while the rest of the party shoots at them, make the monsters take that into consideration. Perhaps a savage beast or monstrosity might push away the barb to jump into the backline, while a smarter spell caster might take a few steps back and hit them all together with the same spell.
If you struggle with this kind of thinking, I have heard glowing recommendations about the book "The Monsters Know".
I love The Monsters Know What They Are Doing. Even if you aren't using official stat blocks, it gives you strategies for how to use enemies in combat other than just blindly running into the PCs.
Maybe the problem is more in the way you use monsters than the monsters themselves.
Take a look a this book: The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters for some ideas.
As other have said, while you can up the HP, this only means the combat last longer, but may not be more difficult.
As for the dice... try to keep a running count of the results. Luck is something (I know; I swear I always roll too low while I co-player rolls always too high!), but it should even out somewhat over time. It might just that you don't see it yet.
(Also, check "how" they roll; sometimes if you don't "shake the die enough" they can control how it lands).
You should check out the book The Monsters Know What They Are Doing. Why play the monsters as dumb when in reality most enemy types are familiar with battle and tactics. They would also know how to effectively disengage, move around the battle to gain an advantage, or use the environment to their favor.
You need this: The Monsters Know What They're Doing
I find resources like The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters (1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982122668/ to be helpful.
Also keep in mind, all that “treasure”? If any of it is actually useful they’d be using that stuff. If anything survives it will be out of charges, scrolls would be used up, potions drunk, etc.
At high levels treasure changes from loot to research, components, pieces of artifacts, maps, etc.
When I’m overloaded with NPC’S I’ll do what you’re doing here but with someone who will “play” the NPC as if it was their own character and see how they set up. Or better yet, substitute the campaign NPC with a high level players old character and gear.
Bad ass NPC’S didn’t make it that far by being screwups. :)
Environmental stuff.
SURPRISE! Your bandit fight in the woods drew a few wolves!
Aerial beasts.
A moving fight.
Difficult terrain.
Anything is possible! Watch action scenes in movies and tv shows for inspiration. I'd also recommend reading up on enemy tactics, the blog turned book Monsters Know What They're Doing is a fantastic resource!
I use the encounter builder on DnD Beyond to help out with this same issue is having. I’m a new DM and we are doing LMoP as well and we are about 5-6 sessions in.
The early battles my players were just steamrolling through and it was getting a little frustrating, at least on my side because I didn’t think they were having much fun.
So like the third session in, one of the players had some family stuff going on and wouldn’t be able to make the game. I created a side quest where the Phandelver jail was “haunted” and the players would have to clear it out before it could be used. I did that so the other players could play but wouldn’t necessarily advance the story until the other guy came back the next week.
I used the encounter builder to create battles where the challenge rating would be high enough to offer a significant threat to the players who like to stand toe to toe with monsters and just roll the same attack over and over. It really helped.
Also realize that not every battle has to be super difficult, there can be several small skirmishes that appear easy, but are designed to whittle down the players resources until you bring in the big tough guy. Get them low on arrows (if you track that) or low on spells, then bust out that pack of Hobgoblins or Owlbears, etc. There’s no right or wrong way to do it as long as you are having fun.
Also check out this book The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters. I just started reading this and it’s a great resource on monster motivations, how they move, how they think and how they react. It can really change how you operate them during combat.
This is awesome - definitely going to try implementing it!
Also, for anyone who was interested there’s a book for The Monsters Know What They’re Doing now which is pretty cool
I'm also a first time DM and running this campaign. Here is what we did. It may not be the best but we just concluded session 2 and everyone seems to be locked in and excited.
First thing I did was send the group an email. The goal was to really set expectations. In this email I called out any stylistic differences I knew I would have from the previous DM (the big one for me was that I was planning on using milestone XP instead of granting it after every battle like our previous DM). I also:
- Outlined what they could expect from the session 0
- Additional context as to what was happening at the start of the adventure
- Review what was in this email
- Creating character backstories.
- A real quick session the back-half of our time.
- That the first session might end early (I did this so I knew exactly how far I needed to prep)
- Adventure expectations
- I took a lot of this from Sly Flourish's the Lazy DM series. As a side note here, I found this really helpful for helping wrap my head around everything but not very helpful for actually running the session. He's super experienced and can run with a high level outline. I learned I needed more than that.
- Some important facts (again from the Lazy DM)
- My expectations of then prior to the session.
Here is a link to a Google Doc with my email for you to reference or use at your discretion.
Then we ran the Session 0. For this I did exactly what the email said, reviewed the facts I had provided, expanded on some, and then fielded any questions they had about high level things so that they had a good conceptual idea of what was going on.
The bulk of the session was spent on the characters. This actually turned out really really fun. It started with everyone going around and sharing what they had come up with so far and then I just started spitballing backstory ideas that could link them all together. What started as just me throwing out ideas turned into the entire party getting excited once a few ideas landed. Keep in mind, I threw out a lot of bad ideas too but at least it got everyone thinking.
Once that was concluded we ran the first two encounters of the campaign. We did the bar fight and the creature from the portal. It was at this point I realized I was in over my head but it turned out totally fine. A couple recommendations here:
- For these two fights, spend some time thinking about the mechanics of how encounters work in DnD. I was a bit caught off guard by all the things a DM has to keep track of and that caused me to miss some opportunities. One big one was when the Troll (for me it was a demon in the spirit of the Lazy DM). Beforehand I didn't spend time thinking about how I would build the tension and actually do the reveal of the creature. Then, once he came out I realized I could one-hit everyone so I panicked and had the creature spend a turn 'getting his bearings having come up in a rowdy tavern'. Because of that, to me it felt a little weak but I wish I would have thought it through more.
- The book The Monsters Know What They Are Doing (I am in no way affiliated) has been an awesome tool. I use it when I'm prepping just about every encounter now because it gives you some realistic and quite different tactics for the creatures. The example in this session came with the Stirges. Instead of having them just be in range of the players, they would dive down and try to attach to someone to drink their blood. That was really the only time they could get melee hits on the creatures, but I also had them roll to make sure they didn't hit their friend who was being attacked. But I use this as a reference every session prep now
- I was also overwhelmed and missed a glorious opportunity in which one of my players started hitting on Yagra... man that could have been something special. But it is also a reminder that you will miss things, but just put them in your back pocket and fit them in later. I'm planning on having Yagra insert herself a bit later.
We then ended the session with the party receiving the mission from Volo, the bar closing and them heading up to get some sleep.
We just concluded session 2 and everyone seems really invested. Some other thoughts I'll give you that I'm picking up
- I've started prepping important dialog encounters. I got this from an interview Matt Mercer did. And it works by trying to answer (and write out):
- What is the NPCs goal? Are they trying to inspire the characters? Key information from them? Feel them out?
- What is driving the NPC? What is their motivation for being in this location and doing what they are doing?
- Why is the NPC important? Is it actually worth spending time worrying about this piece of dialog?
- I also write out some quotes for them and make some role playing notes, a format I got from Alexandrian.
- To start prepping for each session, I do follow the Revenge of the Lazy Dungeon Master process. I won't put it all here because I think supporting him by watching his videos or buying his material is warranted.
- But then I work my way through the session in more detail using the above as a framework to make sure I get everything in that I want and don't miss anything important.
- I made it clear to the group at the very beginning that I expect open and honest feedback. That if something isn't landing quite right, let me know immediately so I can address it.
- I also spend time reflecting on the session. Trying to pin point what went well, what didn't and what I would like to improve on. This is an old habit from my poker days but it has helped me focus on just a couple areas at a time instead of trying to boil the ocean.
- And finally, I use Roam Research to keep everything organized. I already used it and so it just naturally fit in with my process.
Keep in mind, this is all just my current process. It is far from perfect but I really hope it helps in some way. I'm happy to answer any questions but just remember, being a successful DM is about the player's having fun. Knowing that they are enjoying themselves, no matter the amount of time spent or not spent prepping, is the goal. If you have a good group you'll do just fine. Each session will get a little better and you will get more comfortable and your personal prepping workflow will start to solidify.
Good luck fellow newbie! It's been a fun ride so far!
Keith Ammann has a blog and a book covering monster tactics, I very highly recommend it.
The blog: https://www.themonstersknow.com/
The book: https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Know-What-Theyre-Doing/dp/1982122668
If you read, https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Know-What-Theyre-Doing/dp/1982122668
You would know that the only creatures a Deva actually wants to kill are Undead or Fiends (devils demons etc). Other than that they'll fight you until you're unconscious. But The Abbott is Lawful Evil.
Either way, there is room to maneuver, narratively, in a manner that does not result in a TPK. If you choose, I guess.
buy and read this https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Know-What-Theyre-Doing/dp/1982122668
If you DM, The Monsters know What They're Doing.
If you are a player, Live to Tell the Tale: Combat Tactics for Player Characters.
Personally I got more out of the first first. A lot of the stuff in the player focused book boils down to "understand your character's race/class options work and what can trigger them." Sitting on the other side of the screen makes you think that way more often anyway. Not unhappy I got it, just don't reference it as much as the first.
Other things you might not think about are the Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture and the The Storyteller's Thesaurus for game prep when the words you want to use are not present in your brain.
There is an educated opinion on this in Keith Ammann's book, The Monsters Know What They're Doing:
>The "four elements" of air, earth, fire, and water originated with the Greeks, but somewhere along the line, some D&D writer must have read that djinn, in Arab myth, were supernatural beings of air and that efreets were supernatural beings of fire; decided that there had to be corresponding entities of water and earth, too; and shoehorned marids into the genies-of-water role, maybe because of the syllable mar-, which means "sea" in Latin. In Arabic, however, مارد mārid means "defiant" or "rebellious," and it's used to describe all sorts of troublemaking creatures, including not only certain genies but demons and giants as well.
>I include the dao only for completeness' sake, because--let's be frank--it's not all that interesting a monster, unless you're running a thematic campaign on the Elemental Plane of Earth. Like the marid, it seems to exist only because someone thought the existence in myth of air and fire genies meant that there had to be water and earth genies, too. It doesn't even appear to have a source in Arabic folklore. And its afterthought nature shows up in its abilities.
The D&D writer seems to have been Gary Gygax. As u/whitetempest521 points out, they appear in Gary's (awesome) 1982 module, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, along with marids, efreet, and djinn. I'm guessing that this was their first appearance; here's the (possibly incomplete) timeline:
1978 Monster Manual: efreet and djinni, no marid or dao 1979 Dungeon Masters Guide: an efreet is on the cover 1981 Fiend Folio: none of the above 1982 Tsojcanth: all four 1983 Monster Manual 2: all four, as well as the jann (plural "jannee")
The MM2 says, "The race of the jannee is the weakest of the elemental humanoids (cf., dao, djinni efreeti, marid) collectively known asgenies, because a jann is formed out of all 4 of the elements and must therefore spend most of his or her time on the Prime Material Plane."
This supports Ammann's account. The two drawn from actual myth (though probably still loosely) appear in the game much earlier. By Tsojcanth, Gary seems to have decided that these creatures fit well with his vision of elemental planes. He goes looking for two more, shoehorns "marids" into the Plane of Water, and then makes up the dao from scratch.
You might want to check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Know-What-Theyre-Doing/dp/1982122668 The guy has a blog too, same name ("The Monsters Know What They're Doing.")
(Highly recommend this for all DMs)[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982122668/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_G106PZ71E17XG166WPKN?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1]
The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters (1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982122668/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_CHC4V0MRPBMKDMQJKEQP
My husband/DM loves this book, and I believe there’s two sequels as well.
I highly recommend The Monsters Know What They’re Doing. It’s geared towards 5th edition but it’s still a great starting point as most of what it covers is behavioral.
O.k. here are some possibilities...
Sly Flourish - The Lazy DM and Return of the Lazy DM are both great resources.
The Monsters Know What They're Doing
​
If they don't have Xanathar's Guide to Everything or Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, you might get him one of those.
​
You might provide links to these if they might be of help to your DM...
DnD Compendium DM Resources for Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding Templates DnD 5e
​
I will ponder this further and when I have more time I will post more.
Read this book. No lie. You'll never look at combat the same.
https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Know-What-Theyre-Doing/dp/1982122668
>A Goblin provides almost zero threat to a 5th level character.
https://www.themonstersknow.com/
You seem like you need this.
Because of bounded accuracy, CR 1/4 goblins should absolutely be a threat for 5th level PCs. It's just going to take numbers and tactics beyond "stand there and mob them".
The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters (Volume 1) https://www.amazon.ca/dp/1982122668/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_navT_a_37Y1R8BQQR8FHJHS7GY4
This book can help you better represent the bad guys in combat:
This video sums up what I'm talking about. You don't even have to get your fighter to half health to cost them resources, but I the plan in the video probably would. It takes it to the extreme a bit, but is a great example of playing the monsters to their backgrounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T94SVug8jms&ab_channel=Runesmith
For tips on how to play different monsters, check out: https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Know-What-Theyre-Doing/dp/1982122668/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+monsters+know+what+they%27re+doing&qid=1631299422&sr=8-1
He has a free blog you can google but it's so well done, and the book is cheap enough that I absolutely recommend buying it just to support the guy if nothing else (he has another coming in a month or two for volo's/mordenkainen's monsters).
The above is an excellent resource for DMs trying to come up with realistic combat tactics based on the creature stat blocks.
It is for this reason that I highly suggest either the blog or the book “The Monsters Know What They’re Doing” by Keith Ammann. He created a system for thinking realistically about the features in the game world, and turned it into behavior and tactics guides. It makes a great deal of sense, and takes the load off the DM in thinking “what would this creature do at this point?”
The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982122668/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_9SMZDbGBVKEP4
Popular alternatives to The Monsters Know What They...
