Day 3 of this hash tag thing, and the second post on time! Two out of three ain’t bad.

Let’s jump into today’s theme and my thoughts inspired by it.

This theme was a no brainier for me. Only one thing came to mind and it was a book.

That book being The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters by Keith Ammann.

The book “unpacks strategies, tactics, and motivations for creatures found in the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual.”

What I like about the book is that it allows you as a DM to make combat with the monsters feel “real” and unique. Almost giving them a personality. And hopefully stopping the encounters feeling samey. No more relying on two tactics of run away or fight to the death. Which is important to me. Not only am I keeping the players on their toes, but hopefully keeping things fresh, and authentic.

Obviously as the quotes dotted throughout the post point out, things change once a combat begins. You have to react to changing events known as the players. But that doesn’t make this book pointless. It makes it more important as it allows you to have the monsters react authentically to the unfolding situation. You basically have a framework to make decisions against.

The Monsters Know What They’re Doing can be bought either as a physical book, ebook, and audio book. Sadly I have all three versions of the book.

There is a sister book aimed at players called Live to Tell the Tale: Combat Tactics for Player Characters (only available as an ebook or physical). Which provides “beginning and intermediate D&D players the tools they need to fight back. Examining combat roles, class features, party composition, positioning, debilitating conditions, attacking combinations, action economy, and the ever-important consideration of the best ways to run away”.

I can’t speak for this book as I don’t own it. I did point my players in its direction, I have no idea if any of them bought a copy. I hope they did.

Then this December we get a follow up to the original tome called MOAR! Monsters Know What They’re Doing. This new book “analyzes the likely combat behaviors of more than 100 new enemies found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes.” Like the original it is available in the same formats. Amazon is taking pre-orders now. Which I have taken advantage of.

In the meantime there is a blog that you can go to as well by the author. Click HERE to read it.