I DM for a bunch of different groups and last week, my party got torn apart by a dire wolf and a pack of 4 regular wolves because everyone targeted the dire wolf first.
They killed the Dire Wolf by the 2nd round, but by the end of that round, the regular wolves had downed the Barbarian and Rogue and were looking to surround the Wizard next. I had to toss the players a softball and split the wolves between the Wizard and Paladin to prevent a TPK. The Paladin was the only one left conscious by the end of the encounter.
This is not the first time that players went after the biggest and toughest looking monster first. What is going through their heads that makes them think that it's a better idea than killing off the almost equally deadly, but significantly easier to kill minions?
How can I communicate that better to the players short of outright telling them that they should kill the small ones first?
Generally the big bad guy is enough worse that going after them when fresh makes sense - do you want to take them on at the start and hopefully have enough left take out the minions? Or, do you take out the minions first and hope you have enough left to take out the bbeg? When the two are close to evenly matched then it can be a problem deciding which to take first. This is why most intelligent bbegs try to have lots of minions - by the time you’ve worked your way through them your easy pickings for the bbeg.
Are you referring to size or power? I assume power.
The best creature to target first is not that straight forward. If the highest CR creature has offense focused it is best to focus on them first, especially if the support monsters are defense focused. For example if a combat is against a mage and a couple of veteran bodyguards it is absolutely the best thing to target the mage first?
A direwolf has 3.5 times the HP of a wolf and a higher AC so it might take 4 times as many attacks to hit but does less than 50% extra damage so yes the best strategy is to take out the wolves first but if a dire wolf say had 15HP but had multiattack with two attacks each doing 15 damage then the optimal strategy is to go for the dire wolf first.
Do the players know that? Or more to the point do the PCs know whether a dire wolf is strong offensivly or defensively? If the PCs should know it but the players don't as a DM you can provide that information.
"Conan, you know that while a bite from a dire wolf does a little more damage that a normal wolf bite dire wolves can take many a blow from a sword before finally going down."
Your party sounds like it needs to learn better combat strategy.
Typically deal with spellcasters first, because they deal AoE and Nova damage. In the absence of spellcasters, deal with the squishiest enemies first, because by eliminating them, you're reducing the amount of potential damage directed at your party by the maximum amount. You may have one member of your party designated to engage the boss to limit its ability to harm the party. Your whole party is trying to fill one role, and leaving the others unfilled.
The boss that's has an enormous pool of hit points, an armor class in the clouds, and saves in the stratosphere should be left until last, when it's your whole party against it.
Several reasons (but not all): 1) They feel if they defeat the alpha, the rest of the minions will run off 2) They want to hit the strongest target when they are at their strongest; this can include having maximum resources, not being affected by any conditions, ability to dictate the battlefield 3) Pack attacking is a valid strategy and can work (based on your own description, it sounds like that this is what you used to effectively take down the party) 4) The alpha may be far stronger than the minions. The damage output or other effects could outweigh the attacks of several minions.
The last one is important and brought up by other posters. They players need to determine the damage output scenarios of the encounter. In the encounter you presented, the output is pretty much even between the dire wolf and regular wolves. But in the scenario where the alpha of the pack could have multi-attack and higher die for weapon damage then there might be an advantage in taking out the alpha early in the combat because the minions will be easier to defeat even if the party is in a weaken state.
There are many strategies that can work. It is about the players understanding the most dangerous threats and turning the combat in their favor. Being outnumbered, trying to find a way to avoid fighting the entire group or saving the weakest opponent for the end are not bad strategies. And if the players are not metagaming then it is even more difficult to make that call unless the game session is providing the information needed.
So to answer your question, "How can I communicate that better to the players short of outright telling them that they should kill the small ones first?" - The first comment to ask yourself is "how did you envision the strategy of killing the small ones first". Would that change the strategy in how you had the wolves behave? (note: this is not the only question you might ask yourself. Just an example)
This can now be a discussion point to have with the players out of game. If they see a reasonable expectation in these battle tactics then a lesson can be learned. If, however, they feel that taking out the minions would result in two party members fighting a healthy dire wolf....they might have more questions if this would be a successful encounter. It doesn't mean it still isn't the correct solution, but now you can discuss their apprehensions and help them learn successful tactics. The point is learning the reasons for their choices and evaluating alternatives.
There are other elements to discuss. Like positioning? Is the party bunching together and if so why? Could they pull the pack apart so they become less effective? These are all out of game conversations to have to help better develop game play strategy.
In game: Don't emphasis the "dire wolf". Maybe don't even call it out as being all that different. Try to get the players to target the wolves equally. If the party starts hitting the dire wolf, you can point out its tougher and that it might be harder to take down than the rest; but keep emphasizing the bite is about the same. Set the narrative that there isn't a bigger damage dealer on the board and the danger is really in the quantity of the enemy. If your players believe there is a more powerful alpha then they might feel cutting down the numbers isn't the best solution to win the this conflict. Think of it like this, I don't have to take down all the TIE fighters to blow up the Death Star. So why should the party assume if they kill the pack leader the others won't run off in a whimper?
Really? The group I GM for always do the opposite. They fireball minions and shoot bows at support characters. The last big combat, it was round 6 before the main boss took any damage.
I DM for a bunch of different groups and last week, my party got torn apart by a dire wolf and a pack of 4 regular wolves because everyone targeted the dire wolf first.
They killed the Dire Wolf by the 2nd round, but by the end of that round, the regular wolves had downed the Barbarian and Rogue and were looking to surround the Wizard next. I had to toss the players a softball and split the wolves between the Wizard and Paladin to prevent a TPK. The Paladin was the only one left conscious by the end of the encounter.
This is not the first time that players went after the biggest and toughest looking monster first. What is going through their heads that makes them think that it's a better idea than killing off the almost equally deadly, but significantly easier to kill minions?
How can I communicate that better to the players short of outright telling them that they should kill the small ones first?
A conquest paladin might to follow their tenets: to where they “take out the leader/most threatening thing” first, in an attempt to get everyone/everything else to flee or surrender to their might.
sometimes. You just have players that you have to save from themselves like the party you dm for. “How do I communicate that better to the players…”
you let them TPK as a result of their actions. The. Hold a session 0.2 as they make new characters to pick up as a group that watched “a group of idiots”.
if you keep saving them from it, they won’t learn. They need to learn it for themselves to want to do it for themselves, and the easiest way to get that lesson is “natural consequences”
It's a tactical thing and it sounds like your party (hopefully) learned a hard lesson: Not every tactic works well for every foe.
In an encounter with a boss and 20 mooks, the boss might get 2-3 attacks or a spell per turn while the mooks get a collective 20 attacks. If you're fighting Kobolds or Goblins, killing the leader might make them break and run. If you're fighting fanatic cultists, watching their leader go down might just enrage them and make them fight to the death.
If the party spends 3 turns killing the boss and they have a total of 5 attacks per turn, that's potentially 75% of the mooks dead which means 75% less chance for the enemy to roll a crit or use Pack Tactics or some other shenanigans.
Let them know that this is the case by having some enemies flee when many are dead (wild animals will not usually fight to the death unless starving, defending their young, or cornered) while having others fight to the end IF they have a valid reason to. They'll learn (hopefully) that they can't always plan on enemies fleeing or fighting to the end. They need to be looser with their tactics and adapt to the situation.
This sounds, to me, like they're applying Videogame Logic to the game. In videogames it's often not worth the effort to kill all the little mooks... they barely deal any damage, they tend to be easy to avoid, and usually when you beat the big enemy they all vanish anyway, so who cares? The only exception is if their presence somehow buffs the boss... like, if there's a healer mook, or if there's one that creates a shield.
D&D isn't like that, largely thanks to the Action Economy. Half a dozen mooks all dealing 1d4+1 damage each turn is technically a greater threat than a boss that can output like... 4d6+5 damage each turn.
Still, this sounds like a learning experience. If, after this, they STILL don't try and clear out at least some of the mooks during combat, then that's on them. I know I was in a game where we found ourselves in a situation with one high-priority target... they were building up power for some thing and we had to absolutely stop them or else something worse would happen. So everyone focused on that character and we ended up nearly getting whomped by all the minions surrounding him (I'm pretty sure our DM fudged a few rolls to avoid a TPK). After that experience we approached combat with more strategy... greater focus on crowd control by the spellcasters, the Monk went out of her way to use her mobility to clear out low-HP targets, although as the barbarian of the group I still found myself mostly honed in on the biggest monster, since I still mostly had high single-target damage output.
It also sounds like the players in your game are not familiar with the concept of crowd control. Wizards, Sorcs, and Druids have a variety of crowd control options without even looking at subclass spells. The idea of crowd control is to diminish the ability of PCs' opponents to concentrate their force onto the PCs. Instead of putting all their eggs into the Big Damage basket when doing spell selection, it's often more powerful to include several spells that divide up, isolate, or disable key enemies. You might try recommending the following YT video from Treatmonk: Origin of the God Wizard. While the context for the "God Wizard" build started in D&D 3.5 edition, the same ideas still apply to 5th edition. The same principle of "divide and conquer" also applies to any spellcaster or other PC that has crowd control spells or crowd control abilities.
Assuming a low level party since they are fighting a CR1 and below monsters. And you do say the Dire wolf was down by round 2 so their tactics weren’t horrible (focus fire on one target is good tactics. A dead enemy does no damage). And sometimes it takes more than a round to figure if the big guy is the heavy hitter or marginally above the mooks. So by round 2 you might as well finish it off.
And wolves with Pack Tactics can be brutal on a low level group.
That doesn’t explain all of your experiences but for this encounter it doesn’t seem like the party was acting horribly. And it all depends on the situation, who’s getting attacked, the layout of the battlefield etc.
There is some kind of military theory that actually lends itself to this logic. Focusing on taking down the biggest target first usually eliminates the biggest threat, leading to less damage and an easier fight.
I DM for a bunch of different groups and last week, my party got torn apart by a dire wolf and a pack of 4 regular wolves because everyone targeted the dire wolf first.
They killed the Dire Wolf by the 2nd round, but by the end of that round, the regular wolves had downed the Barbarian and Rogue and were looking to surround the Wizard next. I had to toss the players a softball and split the wolves between the Wizard and Paladin to prevent a TPK. The Paladin was the only one left conscious by the end of the encounter.
This is not the first time that players went after the biggest and toughest looking monster first. What is going through their heads that makes them think that it's a better idea than killing off the almost equally deadly, but significantly easier to kill minions?
How can I communicate that better to the players short of outright telling them that they should kill the small ones first?
Maybe they're hoping to break the morale of the rest of the enemy - take out the toughest, and the rest will fold and run away.
Generally the big bad guy is enough worse that going after them when fresh makes sense - do you want to take them on at the start and hopefully have enough left take out the minions? Or, do you take out the minions first and hope you have enough left to take out the bbeg? When the two are close to evenly matched then it can be a problem deciding which to take first. This is why most intelligent bbegs try to have lots of minions - by the time you’ve worked your way through them your easy pickings for the bbeg.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
As a player, I’d do my best to ensure we weren’t fighting all five wolves at the same time. No Leroy Jenkins in my group.
Are you referring to size or power? I assume power.
The best creature to target first is not that straight forward. If the highest CR creature has offense focused it is best to focus on them first, especially if the support monsters are defense focused. For example if a combat is against a mage and a couple of veteran bodyguards it is absolutely the best thing to target the mage first?
A direwolf has 3.5 times the HP of a wolf and a higher AC so it might take 4 times as many attacks to hit but does less than 50% extra damage so yes the best strategy is to take out the wolves first but if a dire wolf say had 15HP but had multiattack with two attacks each doing 15 damage then the optimal strategy is to go for the dire wolf first.
Do the players know that? Or more to the point do the PCs know whether a dire wolf is strong offensivly or defensively? If the PCs should know it but the players don't as a DM you can provide that information.
"Conan, you know that while a bite from a dire wolf does a little more damage that a normal wolf bite dire wolves can take many a blow from a sword before finally going down."
Your party sounds like it needs to learn better combat strategy.
Typically deal with spellcasters first, because they deal AoE and Nova damage. In the absence of spellcasters, deal with the squishiest enemies first, because by eliminating them, you're reducing the amount of potential damage directed at your party by the maximum amount. You may have one member of your party designated to engage the boss to limit its ability to harm the party. Your whole party is trying to fill one role, and leaving the others unfilled.
The boss that's has an enormous pool of hit points, an armor class in the clouds, and saves in the stratosphere should be left until last, when it's your whole party against it.
This is what's known as a learning experience, where players get a lesson in how to efficiently chose which enemies to focus on first.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
My group usually follows the logic of taking care the next enemy to act in the initiative order.
Several reasons (but not all):
1) They feel if they defeat the alpha, the rest of the minions will run off
2) They want to hit the strongest target when they are at their strongest; this can include having maximum resources, not being affected by any conditions, ability to dictate the battlefield
3) Pack attacking is a valid strategy and can work (based on your own description, it sounds like that this is what you used to effectively take down the party)
4) The alpha may be far stronger than the minions. The damage output or other effects could outweigh the attacks of several minions.
The last one is important and brought up by other posters. They players need to determine the damage output scenarios of the encounter. In the encounter you presented, the output is pretty much even between the dire wolf and regular wolves. But in the scenario where the alpha of the pack could have multi-attack and higher die for weapon damage then there might be an advantage in taking out the alpha early in the combat because the minions will be easier to defeat even if the party is in a weaken state.
There are many strategies that can work. It is about the players understanding the most dangerous threats and turning the combat in their favor. Being outnumbered, trying to find a way to avoid fighting the entire group or saving the weakest opponent for the end are not bad strategies. And if the players are not metagaming then it is even more difficult to make that call unless the game session is providing the information needed.
So to answer your question, "How can I communicate that better to the players short of outright telling them that they should kill the small ones first?" - The first comment to ask yourself is "how did you envision the strategy of killing the small ones first". Would that change the strategy in how you had the wolves behave? (note: this is not the only question you might ask yourself. Just an example)
This can now be a discussion point to have with the players out of game. If they see a reasonable expectation in these battle tactics then a lesson can be learned. If, however, they feel that taking out the minions would result in two party members fighting a healthy dire wolf....they might have more questions if this would be a successful encounter. It doesn't mean it still isn't the correct solution, but now you can discuss their apprehensions and help them learn successful tactics. The point is learning the reasons for their choices and evaluating alternatives.
There are other elements to discuss. Like positioning? Is the party bunching together and if so why? Could they pull the pack apart so they become less effective? These are all out of game conversations to have to help better develop game play strategy.
In game: Don't emphasis the "dire wolf". Maybe don't even call it out as being all that different. Try to get the players to target the wolves equally. If the party starts hitting the dire wolf, you can point out its tougher and that it might be harder to take down than the rest; but keep emphasizing the bite is about the same. Set the narrative that there isn't a bigger damage dealer on the board and the danger is really in the quantity of the enemy. If your players believe there is a more powerful alpha then they might feel cutting down the numbers isn't the best solution to win the this conflict. Think of it like this, I don't have to take down all the TIE fighters to blow up the Death Star. So why should the party assume if they kill the pack leader the others won't run off in a whimper?
Really? The group I GM for always do the opposite. They fireball minions and shoot bows at support characters. The last big combat, it was round 6 before the main boss took any damage.
A conquest paladin might to follow their tenets: to where they “take out the leader/most threatening thing” first, in an attempt to get everyone/everything else to flee or surrender to their might.
sometimes. You just have players that you have to save from themselves like the party you dm for.
“How do I communicate that better to the players…”
you let them TPK as a result of their actions. The. Hold a session 0.2 as they make new characters to pick up as a group that watched “a group of idiots”.
if you keep saving them from it, they won’t learn. They need to learn it for themselves to want to do it for themselves, and the easiest way to get that lesson is “natural consequences”
Blank
It's a tactical thing and it sounds like your party (hopefully) learned a hard lesson: Not every tactic works well for every foe.
In an encounter with a boss and 20 mooks, the boss might get 2-3 attacks or a spell per turn while the mooks get a collective 20 attacks. If you're fighting Kobolds or Goblins, killing the leader might make them break and run. If you're fighting fanatic cultists, watching their leader go down might just enrage them and make them fight to the death.
If the party spends 3 turns killing the boss and they have a total of 5 attacks per turn, that's potentially 75% of the mooks dead which means 75% less chance for the enemy to roll a crit or use Pack Tactics or some other shenanigans.
Let them know that this is the case by having some enemies flee when many are dead (wild animals will not usually fight to the death unless starving, defending their young, or cornered) while having others fight to the end IF they have a valid reason to. They'll learn (hopefully) that they can't always plan on enemies fleeing or fighting to the end. They need to be looser with their tactics and adapt to the situation.
This sounds, to me, like they're applying Videogame Logic to the game. In videogames it's often not worth the effort to kill all the little mooks... they barely deal any damage, they tend to be easy to avoid, and usually when you beat the big enemy they all vanish anyway, so who cares? The only exception is if their presence somehow buffs the boss... like, if there's a healer mook, or if there's one that creates a shield.
D&D isn't like that, largely thanks to the Action Economy. Half a dozen mooks all dealing 1d4+1 damage each turn is technically a greater threat than a boss that can output like... 4d6+5 damage each turn.
Still, this sounds like a learning experience. If, after this, they STILL don't try and clear out at least some of the mooks during combat, then that's on them. I know I was in a game where we found ourselves in a situation with one high-priority target... they were building up power for some thing and we had to absolutely stop them or else something worse would happen. So everyone focused on that character and we ended up nearly getting whomped by all the minions surrounding him (I'm pretty sure our DM fudged a few rolls to avoid a TPK). After that experience we approached combat with more strategy... greater focus on crowd control by the spellcasters, the Monk went out of her way to use her mobility to clear out low-HP targets, although as the barbarian of the group I still found myself mostly honed in on the biggest monster, since I still mostly had high single-target damage output.
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Sounds like they need an AOE spell to help out the group.
Burning hands
Color Spray
Thunderwave
Sleep
Fear
Even Magic Missile if nothing else.
It also sounds like the players in your game are not familiar with the concept of crowd control. Wizards, Sorcs, and Druids have a variety of crowd control options without even looking at subclass spells. The idea of crowd control is to diminish the ability of PCs' opponents to concentrate their force onto the PCs. Instead of putting all their eggs into the Big Damage basket when doing spell selection, it's often more powerful to include several spells that divide up, isolate, or disable key enemies. You might try recommending the following YT video from Treatmonk: Origin of the God Wizard. While the context for the "God Wizard" build started in D&D 3.5 edition, the same ideas still apply to 5th edition. The same principle of "divide and conquer" also applies to any spellcaster or other PC that has crowd control spells or crowd control abilities.
And the next thing to learn after crowd control is how to defeat crowd control 😳
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Baby steps, yo. Baby steps.
Assuming a low level party since they are fighting a CR1 and below monsters. And you do say the Dire wolf was down by round 2 so their tactics weren’t horrible (focus fire on one target is good tactics. A dead enemy does no damage). And sometimes it takes more than a round to figure if the big guy is the heavy hitter or marginally above the mooks. So by round 2 you might as well finish it off.
And wolves with Pack Tactics can be brutal on a low level group.
That doesn’t explain all of your experiences but for this encounter it doesn’t seem like the party was acting horribly. And it all depends on the situation, who’s getting attacked, the layout of the battlefield etc.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
There is some kind of military theory that actually lends itself to this logic. Focusing on taking down the biggest target first usually eliminates the biggest threat, leading to less damage and an easier fight.
Kind of my point back in post #3
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.