[Tabletop] Solo D&D 5E Journey | Episode III – Goblins with intelligence (Monster AI)

In this third episode of solo 5E journey series, I continue D&D starter kit adventure, lost mine of Phandelver using Tanares RPG characters. Today, the journey continues into the first part of multi-combat encounter.

In the upcoming Tanares RPG for 5E, GM-less add-on will contain official Monster AI, but pre-made D&D adventures do not have one as they are not built to be played without a dungeon master.

Therefore, the main highlight of this episode is to share my endeavor for finding monster AI that can be used in current adventure. Also I will be explaining “surprise” and “hide” game mechanics in 5E rule, which were confusing to me when I played through this encounter for the first time.

Let’s get started.

Disclaimer: The original draft of this was written in real time as I played the game. So my excitement or disappointment were the real time feeling of my own.

Cragmaw Hideout: Cave Mouth – Who is surprised?

Picking up from where I left off in the last episode, Gaknak and M’Bollo’s adventure continues to my first multi-part D&D combat encounter.

This particular encounter describes 3 potential ways of how the combat can begin depending on whether one party is surprised or not.

Scenario 1: Surprise attack by Goblins

If goblins notice Gaknak and M’Bollo first, they will surprise attack my party with Goblins getting half cover terrain benefit.

Scenario 2: Surprise attack by M’Bollo and/or Gaknak

If the adventures can stealthily approach inattentive lookouts, Goblins will be surprised.

Scenario 3: Neither side is surprised

Even the first encounter used surprised mechanics, but this time who is getting surprised can change each time the game is played.

Normally, improvised role play between a dungeon master and players will dictate which of the three scenario takes place, but the choice was not clear as a solo player.

I could have simply rolled a die and let it play an oracle; however, I thought that would lack cinematic feel. The versatility of the 5E rule should be able to do better than that.

So I tried to connect above 3 scenarios into a logical sequence of events.

Let’s take a close look at surprise mechanics.

Goblin’s Surprise Check

Player Character’s Surprise Check

Keeping logical consistency, the first surprise check result can be viewed as Gaknak and M’Bollo saw hidden Goblins, but Goblins have not yet noticed adventurers.

So this time my party are reaching to Goblins stealthily for the attempt of “surprise attack.” The same surprise check rule will take place in this situation except the attacker and defender roles are now flipped. So Gaknak and M’Bollo rolls for Dexterity (stealth) check individually and the results are contested by the Goblin’s passive perception of 9.

The results of my rolls were confusing. Initially, the above result looked as if M’Bollo will surprise Goblins, but Gaknak won’t. If you try to implement this, you’d realize you cannot do it without breaking a rule.

To simply put, surprise attack means surprised creatures cannot take their first turn. So if I try to have Gaknak skip his first turn because he did not surprise Goblin, it makes Gaknak actually being surprised himself. This would become a real issue if there were another enemy that wasn’t surprised by neither M’Bollo or Gaknak.

Literally, after hours of re-reading rule books, online search and finally posting on some online forums, I have found out that there is an official errata for 5E rule called Sage Compendium.

You can be surprised even if your companions aren’t, and you aren’t surprised if even one of your foes fails to catch you unawares.

Sage Compendium – Combat “Does surprise happen outside the initiative order as a special surprise round?

It says all foes must successfully surprise the target creature for it to be considered surprised. Since Gaknak failed here, overall surprise attack against Goblins have failed.

Therefore, this combat was started as neither side being surprised.

Character position ambiguity

It is important to mention that in 5E, precise starting positions of characters are not defined in the adventure campaign book. There is just relative description.

Initiative Roll

Initiative Mechanics

Initiative determines the order of turns during combat. When combat starts, every participant makes a Dexterity check to determine their place in the initiative order. The DM makes one roll for an entire group of identical creatures, so each member of the group acts at the same time.

The DM ranks the combatants in order from the one with the highest Dexterity check total to the one with the lowest. This is the order (called the initiative order) in which they act during each round. The initiative order remains the same from round to round.

If a tie occurs, the DM decides the order among tied DM-controlled creatures, and the players decide the order among their tied characters. The DM can decide the order if the tie is between a monster and a player character. Optionally, the DM can have the tied characters and monsters each roll a d20 to determine the order, highest roll going first.

Basic Rules Chapter 9: Combat – Initiative

Initiative rolls determine the order of round, which will be used throughout the entire encounter. Initiative system is one of many elements in the 5E that provides game play variance so every game would feel different.

To determine initiative, I roll d20 for each of my characters and one for both Goblins to decide initiative. However, Foundry VTT rolled separately for each Goblins, but two were in successive turns, so I kept it as is, but technically if needed I could have adjusted them manually.

Monster AI Creation

Unlike the very first encounter, this encounter did not provided how Goblins should act. In adventure board games where there is no dungeon master, this is where monster AI comes into play.

With Monster AI, players just need to move and roll based on the Monster AI guide but no thinking involved by players.

This is not just easier for players but also it defines actual game play experience. As this adventure is not written to be played without a DM, there is of course no Monster AI in Dungeon & Dragons.

So here I have decided to create my own Monster AI.

If I were to just use the Basic Strategy from the board game like Arena: the Contest or any other generic strategy for all monsters, every monster would feel the same except for stat variation and attack type difference.

So I need to take it beyond. You can read a process of making Monster AI article here.

The end result of Monster AI for Goblin look like below. Two versions were made. One is using Monster Knows website as a reference. So there are much more detailed information. The second version is a plain form. I interpreted Monsters Manual and Monsters & Creatures books myself without adding any personal flavor.

Combat

Now I am ready to start the combat.

Round 1

This encounter introduces a few new concepts/game rules. First is the terrain mechanics, specifically, it is a half cover.

Half-Cover

A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws. A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body. The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend.

Basic Rules Chapter 9: Combat – Half Cover

I had to do a bit more digging about cover rule in the later combat during this multi-combat encounter, but I will spare that investigation until then.

Here, basically thicket provides a half cover, and it is sufficient to say half cover terrain adds +2 Armor class on the defender side.

Based on the Monster AI, “Basic tactics section” is followed as no special tactics event has been triggered.

The first goblin rolled respectable total of 19 for its attack roll using shortbow attack targeting the Gaknak. Normally, this is a hit because Gaknak’s Armor class (AC) is 18; however, Gaknak is behind the thicket so he gets +2 AC bonus. Therefore, the Goblin’s attack was a miss.

After the shortbow attack, the goblin tries to keep 40 feet or 8 grids distance, but thickets are considered a difficult terrain, which means it takes twice the steps to go thru one square.

So normally Goblin’s can move 6 squares or 30ft but within the thicket it can only move 3 squares or 15 ft.

This was only enough for Goblin to move total of 30ft or 6 squares away from Player Characters rather than full 40ft.

Now its Gaknak’s turn. Gaknak has two options for his action phase with both Goblins being hidden. Perhaps, it is worth mentioning here that in D&D, generally a character gets a single action and movement phases on its turn, similar to the games like Arena: the Contest.

However, there are quite a few options to choose from during the action phase in 5E.

1. Attack
2. Cast a spell
3. Dash
4. Disengage
5. Dodge
6. Help
7. Hide
8. Ready
9. Search
10. Use an Object

For the current situation of Gaknak, he has two reasonable options.

1. Attack.
2. Search.

If he attacks a hidden target blindly, he gets disadvantage on his attack roll, which means roll a d20 die twice and take the worst number.

Search will attempt to find the hidden goblin. For this, Gaknak will roll for Wisdom (perception) check to contest original Goblin’s dexterity (stealth) check result when it succeeded on hiding.

This choice requires a tactical thinking.

If Gaknak succeeds on discovering the Goblin by searching, M’Bollo gets full potential of attack chance. However, Gaknak will use up his action phase so he will not get a chance to attack a Goblin.

If Gaknak attempts blind attack, M’Bollo has to do the same as well because the Goblin will try hiding next round again so searching with M’Bollo has no benefit. Therefore, both Gaknak and M’Bollo will have to do disadvantage attack rolls.

There is no reason to do this, but I’ve got curious and decided to see which one has an overall better chance of hitting a goblin.

So there is almost 50% chance that one can hit a goblin with a blind attack.

Obviously, the numbers would be different if I had more players, Goblin’s Dexterity (Skill) check wasn’t so high.

For this case, I’ve decided to blind attack using both characters. Sadly, I lost the coin flip chance here with both characters missing a target.

Round 2

Even though everyone missed attack during the first round, the board situation is entirely different. Both Goblins are now hidden and Dragon spirit is out.

For the second Goblin, it follows the basic tactics.

As an unseen attacker, it gets advantage for its attack roll. With both Gaknak and M’Bollo at the same distance, the target becomes Gaknak due to its lower health. The goblin rolled 18 for attack roll, but this is a miss due to thicket terrain half cover bonus.

Creatures can move through spaces the Spirit occupies; they are not considered difficult terrain. If you or your allies (but not enemies) move in a single direction through these spaces, it does not count toward the movement distance.

Tanares RPG Player’s Guide Sample

This encounter continues to inside of the cave, but that’s for another episode.

Impression

Compared to the first encounter, I felt this was much more engaging. It is partly due to the fact, I am starting to get a basics of 5E combat rule, but the main reason is the use of Monster AI. This time, I felt goblins had their personality.

In this encounter I have learned surprise and hiding mechanics, which are not quest specific but part of generic 5E rule. So they can be part of game tactics even for player characters.

The success rate of attack hit felt low, especially after experiencing 6 consecutive turns of no damage to either side. However, I started to think that 5E is not button bashing type game if it were a video game. Instead, this is tactically controlling luck game just like Magic the Gathering and other adventure board games.

As always, the 5E game rule is more complicated than any other board game I have ever played, but as I learn each piece of game rule, my excitement continues to build up.

Reference

For adventure,

• Lost Mine of Phandelver from D&D Beyond
• Tanares RPG for 5E Sample Source book

For Monster AI creation,

• https://www.themonstersknow.com
• Monsters & Creatures (Dungeons & Dragons): A Young Adventurer’s Guide
• Monster Manual from D&D Beyond

For arts,

• Sword Coast Adventurers
• https://tetra-cube.com/dnd/dnd-statblock.html
• D&D Beyond
• Tanares RPG for 5E Sample Source book

For rules,

• D&D Basic Rules from D&D Beyond
• Sage Compendium from D&D Beyond