Monster Behavior

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

(Dani gave me these notes about how monsters should fight, and they're worth including with my campaign notes.)

One question I struggle with is the question of when monsters who were initially confident should run away. Do you have any guidelines to offer there?

Mostly that you want to ask yourself some questions when you're planning an encounter:

Are these creatures experienced? An experienced band of Orcs probably can't be suckered into a fair fight. Wolves-vs-sheep odds are safer and more rewarding. A bunch of adolescent lycanthropes, on the other hand, might think they're immortal.

Have they trained (or, in the more chaotic cases, fought) together? This will determine whether they show effective cooperation and/or planning or whether they act as a bunch of individuals. It makes sense for rats to attack the nearest person. It makes sense for trained fighters to through spears at the spell casters, to fight in pairs against individual opponents, etc.

How organized (lawful vs chaotic?) are they? Do they obey a leader who can be trusted to order a retreat when things are going badly, or will they all just rush in wildly, and break if they lose heart?

How much planning will they have done (and can they tolerate)? Planning may manifest in having drilled together, in having a leader with good tactics, in having decided who takes which opponent, etc.

What is their perception of the odds? If they are expecting an easy victory, a sharp reversal could result in rapid retreat. If they go in knowing they are at risk, they could be focused on taking opponents' lives, not on preerving their own.

Do they have an objective, or is this a random encounter? A band of halflings looking for the One True Ring are unlikely to take a break to beat up and rob a passing band of adventurers. A band of drunken halflings looking for Any True Bar might.

This sort of classification let's you predict the monsters' behavior reasonably well. A band of kobolds guarding their den: Expect a determined - but not incredibly intelligent - defense, long on ambushes in the dark and short on death-or-glory charges. A marauding band of orcs: Expect them to avoid battles unless they have a clear advantage - and expecte them to demonstrate good tactics when they do fight. A group of young-adult bugbears: Expect them to overestimate themselves, and to attack parties which slightly outnumber them. Their nerve should not be hard to break if they take unexpected casualties.young

If you answer the same sorts of questions for the rat men, you will probably come out with a clear picture of whether they would have attacked, how they would have attacked, and when they would have cut and run.