Morale is an old mechanic that’s jumped in and out of
D&D since near its inception. I am not here to propose some mechanical
solution to this problem, though that doesn’t preclude me trying later. In many cases, the system would be ignored for
its complexity, if it even worked. Instead, I seek to solve the problem of NPC
behavior by giving DMs a perspective on how the NPCs would act. More
specifically, I want to give an overview of how NPC enemies should act in
combat with the PCs—how they balance the twin objectives of victory and
survival in a variety of ways. In addition to creating more immersive combat,
it allows you to make even very basic minion NPC enemies into complex
characters with internal conflicts!
Loyal Soldiers
Let’s start by defining what I think ‘default’ NPC enemy behavior is in combat for most people. These ‘Loyal Soldiers’ will follow the plan of battle as well as they realistically could with the knowledge they currently have. This, I think, is basically the way that most enemy NPCs are played in combat most of the time. It’s certainly the way that I played them until I started thinking about it. Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with this behavior, I just think it would be a lot more impactful if the party were impressed by the coordination and dedication of their enemy, rather than regarding them as basically a video-game AI that might do some cute moves or have some witty responses once and a while. When I started running enemies with plausible morale and behavior in combat and then pulled out enemies that knew what they were doing, my players were suitably impressed! If you make something rare, you often make it special, and in this case, it worked.
Loyal Dullard/Fanatic
Two variants on this are the ‘Loyal Dullard’ and the ‘Loyal Fanatic’, the first of which is very common in games and the second of which can help emphasize the point made by the first, if used sparingly. The Loyal Dullard is a default behavior for enemies that are minions, or enemies when the DM is bored or tired or distracted by something else. It basically means—an enemy that uses the simplest possible attack in the simplest possible way. There’s nothing wrong with that—you should save your energy for the important enemies! If there’s a lesson to take away from this, its to know your limits! The Loyal Fanatic is the opposite of the Loyal Dullard in many ways. If the Loyal Dullard lacks creativity, the Loyal Fanatic can be a story beat in and of themselves. While many Loyal Soldiers will fight to the death, they will rarely make the sacrifice needed to achieve victory with total abruptness. The Loyal Fanatic, on the other hand, may destroy a rope bridge with a fireball while still on the bridge, simply to drop the party into the pit below, crying out a prayer to their god of choice with their last breath. This is not for every enemy and will lose its effectiveness if used too often or to no effect, but if used sparingly and with impact, the fanaticism of your party’s foes can’t be doubted.
Fallible Soldier
Next up is the ‘Fallible Soldier’, which introduces the possibility of retreat, surrender, and other sub-optimal combat behaviors that introduce character into a battle that would otherwise be purely tactical. The Fallible Soldier will attempt to act like a Loyal Soldier when things are easy (they’re starting the fight, they have a commander nearby, they’re nearby allies, etc), but when the going gets tough, they’re liable to get going, going, gone. As simple as they might be (just nameless, faceless minions), the desire to retreat or surrender or simply take the Dodge action when bloodied, surrounded, or outnumbered makes them complex, three-dimensional characters! This behavior also gives you a critical excuse to wrap up combat when things look like they’ve come to their natural conclusion, or at least to give it a reason to exist by making ‘stop the fleeing enemies’ the new objective once ‘team deathmatch’ is off the table. You can also use the idea of the Fallible Soldier to build encounters that look tougher on paper, as you can simply have the enemies make sub-optimal decisions to keep themselves alive instead of focusing on ensuring a TPK. This may even allow you to encourage that oh so rare event—an orderly retreat by the party! An alternate version of the ‘Fallible Soldier’ that harkens back to the ‘Loyal Fanatic’ is the ‘Aggressive Soldier’. Like the Loyal Fanatic, they are all too willing to give their life for the cause. Unlike the Loyal Fanatic, however, they are liable to commit many errors in doing so, giving up any organization in order to engage with the party as quickly and violently as possible. This sort of behavior works great with Orcs, Barbarians, or other impetuous enemies that would otherwise not suffer from the drawbacks of the Fallible Soldier.
Hungry Beast/Mindless Monster
Everything I’ve mentioned up to now has mostly been a variation on an organized force fighting the party under a single banner. This, however, covers only half of the enemies that an adventuring party will face. Most of the others can be either described by the ‘Hungry Beast’ or the ‘Mindless Monster’. The Hungry Beast, while being best understood with hunger, doesn’t have to be hungry or even a beast. It describes a combat enemy that is wholly focused on fulfilling some basic need, like a hungry monster or even a hungry bandit. While these enemies will attack aggressively out of the gate, they will focus on getting what they want instead of on winning the battle, sometimes attempting to drag a downed party member away from the fight instead of seeking to knock down everyone in the battle. When wounded, like the Fallible Soldier, they will often reconsider their position and retreat, but unlike the Fallible Soldier, they don’t have a commander or sense of duty that can rally them back into battle—they are here for the loot, not the victory. You can often treat unintelligent monsters like Hungry Beasts when they attack the party… unless they’re fighting in their lairs to protect their young, in which case they act like Aggressive Soldiers. Never corner a tiger! A Mindless Monster, on the other hand, will rarely change behavior based on circumstances. The Mindless Monster describes something like a zombie or a golem—they never retreat unless ordered to and rarely care about the state of the battle. These play a lot like a Loyal Dullard, except that they will often fall for extremely obvious gambits. Creatures they can’t sense might as well not exist. There’s no difference between a hapless civilian and a hardened and over-armed adventurer. If their enemy retreats and their order is to guard something, the enemy might as well be teleporting to the moon. Traps? What are those? Mindless Monsters, like Fallible Soldiers, can be deployed with larger numbers than the party could deal with on paper, if the party has the mental and physical space to manipulate their behavior to victory.
Compassionate Warrior
Finally, we have the ‘Compassionate Warrior’. The Compassionate Warrior is an archetype that is best combined with the other behaviors I’ve described, but, if you go full tilt on it, can function well on its own. The Compassionate Warrior cares about their fellow warriors. These are the sorts of enemies that use the same death rules as the PCs. They’ll use healing potions and healing spells and Sanctuary spells on their downed comrades and will fight inefficiently in order to keep their friends alive. This offers a lot of opportunity for roleplay from the DM, and, if used effectively, will make your players think twice about butchering their enemies. As fun as that sounds for you, I recommend you not do this with every fight, as D&D is a game about fighting, and going all Red Badge of Courage on every enemy your party faces can make actually fighting them feel pretty awful for the party. Still, when used in the right context, it can help create a world that feels alive—where the party aren’t the only group that care about keeping their friends alive. If you want, you can extend this compassion to the party, where the enemies are unwilling to double-tap the party and will even act to stabilize them in certain contexts. Perhaps you use Compassionate Warriors to put the party into a fight that they can comfortably lose. Likening back to my previous post about combat objectives—creating threats besides death allows you more room to maneuver as the DM.
Variations
Obviously, these aren’t the only possible variations on behavior an enemy can have in combat, but having some idea of morale and the reasons that enemies actually fight the party can go a long way towards making fighting different enemies actually feel different, as well as lending a sense of plausibility towards the combat itself. Combining these behaviors can add an additional level of complexity. For example, the ‘Fallible Dullard’ is a good way to add the Fallible Soldier behavior to a combat with too many moving pieces for you to track. Simply have the Fallible Dullard act as a Loyal Dullard until a certain other enemy (their ‘commander’ or some such) begins to falter, upon which they will falter as well. You could combine the Aggressive Soldier, the Hungry Beast, and Compassionate Warrior to characterize a mother monster defending a nest of baby monsters, and so on and so forth. These titles are not set in stone, and mostly exist to help condense a bunch of complex advice and behavior into a few memorable lines. Hopefully it’s done its job! Remember, if you take nothing else away from what I’ve written here, remember this—the enemy’s priority is rarely “kill the heroes”. It’s almost always some variation of “achieve my objective” and “survive this fight”. If you remember this, not only will your battles be more fun, they’ll also have much more verisimilitude than nearly any video game. And in the end, isn’t that part of the reason we play?
Originally posted here.
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