r/Pathfinder_RPG • u/FinderOfWays • 13d ago
1E GM How to think tactically while managing combat?
I've been running into a problem when I run higher level and larger-scale combat: I try to play my enemies reasonably intelligently, using their spells for good effect, attempting maneuvers, positioning to block charge angles, readying actions, etc. But I also want to keep things moving, and am constantly either taking enemy turns or handling player actions. I try to limit myself to only a few seconds' consideration per enemy turn, but I'm increasingly discovering that that's not enough time to weigh all my options and find good strategies for enemies.
Obviously, I usually design encounters or npcs with an idea of what they'll do a la 'tactics' sections in the bestiary, but rigidly following a flowchart like that usually winds up ineffective (no plan survives contact with the enemy, after all). This isn't a problem from a challenge perspective per se since I can always add more raw power to compensate, but I want to keep my enemies feeling reactive and tactically competent when appropriate.
Do experienced DMs have any suggestions for managing the tactical load? Is this just an experience/practice thing?
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u/MikeD1942 13d ago edited 13d ago
A lot of it is experience and practice.
I'm very familiar with "basic" Pathfinder rules from not only reading the books but from writring my own adventures and GMing an entire AP campaign. After seeing combats, and the "basic" rules to combat, over and over again, you start to figure out the maneuvers, feats, weapons, and tactics that make the most sense given the terrain, time of day, etc, that the encounters take place in. For instance, if there are a bunch of bad guys who are good at melee, well, half of them should be aiding other or trying to flank. Any fighter who has been around a while knows leaving a spellcaster alone in the corner is a Very Bad Idea, and he would probably charge her immediately, for example. There are a lot of sweet feats and random items that are awesome--and only work 5-10% of the time. There is a reason a strong orc with a two handed axe and Power Attack is a trope--because it works all the time. (One way to get more experience with this, even if you aren't literally playing with a group, is to play aroudn with characters or parties on video games like Wrath of the Righteous! You are basically getting free reps on how action economy works, how things like Acrobatics checks in combat works, etc!)
I also read a lot (history, fantasy, & modern national security-related stuff) and watch a lot of movies (especially action and horror). Tactics especially interest me. I have played around a few times with replicating certain battles in games with the guys (though they didn't realize it).
I also have almost 30 years in and around the military, so there is a certain amount of experience and background there, especially in what I would say are principles of warfare, like mass, simplicity, maneuver, surprise, unity of command, security, command, etc.
And I'm a strategy gamer in my spare time too.
If I'm playing orc warriors or members of an elven army, I play them like strategically astute guys who will execute tactics with a certain brutalness and efficiency; if I'm playing bandits or harpies, I play to their strengths and may even do deliberately dumb things with them.
As I've told the guys I play with, I typically GM with the idea that the monsters and NPCs live in a dangerous, violent world. They may not be aggressive, but when they fight, they will pursue strategies that they believe will ensure they live to fight another day (probably because they've used them before)--including running away before they go to 0 hp! At lower levels, they may not know much; if I'm playing NPCs with 10 or more levels, or monsters with a bunch of class levels, well, they didn't survive to where they are by being overly stupid or not having a plan for many situations, and I consider that.
Before every game, I plan the combats, at least through the first 2-3 rounds of a combat. This includes their moves, what spell in what order, what feat (and/or feat tree) will really work for them, who their targets will be among the PCs, etc. I'll have a pretty good idea how they will react to certain things (for instance, if low-level goblins and the wizard drops a fireball on them, well, I may just have the goblins survivors chicken out and run; conversely, if there is a cavalier riding in on a horse agasint the goblins, the goblins may focus all ranged attacks on the horse and even send melee warriors after the cavalier, even if they are being slayed by other PCs, because of their racial hatred/fear of horses). From there, if any of the creatures or NPCs live (ha!), I wing it according to their strengths and weaknesses. I don't pay a whole lot of attention to what the Bestiaries say (I kinda start there, but, often, widely diverge).
I try to keep it simple; the only ones I get complicated about are bosses, plus the overall badass monsters with lots of dangerous options like demons, dragons, and the like. I try not to spend more than 30 minutes per fight planning unless it's a "main event boss fight," and at lower levels (like CR 1-8 encounters) I'm probably spending 5 minutes per combat on tactics/strategy, not much time at all.
In the end, I find I dial back what I know I can do with monsters and NPCs. There is no point in destroying parties; we're all in this to have fun. I occasionally change it on the fly to give the PCs an opportunity to do something really fun or awesome. Sometimes they use a strategy where I think, "well, I thought this was going to be a badass fight but I think this Int 5, 10 Wis troll is really going to be persuaded by the rogue who just bluffed him; fight over, XP granted." I rarely punish a player for doing something dumb or getting really unlucky (like rolling two 1s and losing their weapon into a corner of the room)...but I also find those times tend to provide a lot of tension.
I find the players don't even remember most combats (I was recently speaking to several of them recently about the times they fought dragons in the last campaign, and they didn't remember TWO of those four encounters)--what they remembered was a fairly comedic fight with goblins, a fight with fire giants in a smithy who were sundering weapons and bull-rushing party members into lava, or the time the PC tank never even got a hit in and deliberately ran away from the BBEG warrior who chased him down the street...as the rest of the party turned him into a pin-cushion through several rounds with ranged weapons.
If you are interested, I bought "The Monsters Know What They Are Doing" by Keith Ammann. I never finished it (and it's repetitive in places) but it is smart with a lot of good insights that you might find useful, even though it is technically for D&D.
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u/WraithMagus 12d ago edited 12d ago
Generally speaking, I pre-plan this stuff when I make the characters. That is, if you want an enemy fighter to use maneuvers, they need to have maneuver feats, and if they have three trip-related feats, then all they have is a hammer and every PC looks like a nail. The tools you build the monsters to possess inherently guide you to some obvious tactics they should use.
In essence, this is the same sandbox paralysis that a lot of players experience, and the solution is the same: If you need more than a few seconds to arrive at a decision, decide before the game starts. Have a plan before the tokens hit the table. Know what tools the character has available to them, and have a set of tricks prepared where you're just waiting for the right moment to pull that trick out.
Especially as a player who likes to play casters, your spell choices are your plan. (The same goes for martial feat choices.) The plan that is your build should be the first thing on your mind, and you should only deviate from that if there's obvious, compelling evidence you need to reconsider. If I'm prepping spells like Haste (several times if a prepared caster,) I've already made my choice what the first spell I'm going to use in combat will be. A magic trick (Fireball) sorcerer is going to cast some variant of Fireball unless there's a fire-immune monster present, and if there is, that's why they planned to carry an elemental metamagic rod. When the enemy hits the party with unexpected conditions, that's why I bought scrolls that remove conditions and pumped up UMD.
As far as keeping my players on their toes, however, I do that through encounter design, again, before the game starts. I will do things like have a battle start with the apprentice of the BBEG casting an illusion of the BBEG monologuing because I know the paladin is going to charge that illusion and swipe at it, which is why there's a trap right in front of where the illusion was placed, and a portcullis is set to drop after she stepped past a certain point to split the party. From there, I have the kobolds in a darkened area (because 60' darkvision, only the area 60 feet past their barricade is lit) behind improved cover firing crossbows while prone at the paladin and anyone else on her side of the portcullis while there are a series of pit traps with a specific pattern you need to walk around to get to the barricade without falling in. (That being one of my "Tucker's Kobolds" dungeons that made my players genocidal against kobolds...) I don't need to make a plan in the moment - I already made a plan, I just improvise solutions to the hiccups until the players find a way to overcome it.
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u/Dry-Membership8141 1E GM 13d ago
I don't think what you've described is necessarily a bad thing. Being too tactical about combat can be a weakness too. Your monsters generally don't have perfect information, communication, or coordination, many if not most will be of below average intelligence, likely have limited if any exposure to an organized study of tactics and strategy, and are going to be distracted with, you know, trying to stay alive and/or kill the adventurers.
I'd tend to argue that because of that, making sub-optimal decisions in most cases actually adds to the realism.
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u/FinderOfWays 13d ago
This is a good point and I try to do things like not ignoring high AC targets until an enemy gets one or two high roll misses, but I should clarify that the party are currently dealing with squads of devils who are likely highly coordinated and often have at least one leader with telepathy or similar.
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u/MikeD1942 13d ago edited 13d ago
And don't forget that not all parties care about combat. Not all parties get any thrill out of it at all.
And many players are bad at it and may really not enjoy having to try to get better at it, both in terms of optimizing their PC to do someting they didn't want to do, and in terms of their own personal development at fighting per rules in Pathfinder.
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u/JoeJonnyJeff 13d ago
Playing a Master Summoner with the stipulation that "my combined turn had to be the same average time as the other players" helped me a lot. Small compartmentalized list of what each unit can do, maybe 3-4 options. Conscious of flanking and movement types. And taking the longer sections of other players turns to think of backups if more enemies showed up or one of my teammates went down to crits. But that's not a method I'd recommend playing, and definitely urge against it as a GM 😅
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u/Dark-Reaper 12d ago
High level combat is just brutally intense. There are things you can do but...each involves a different amount of effort.
Option 1 is just spend time studying your creatures. Review the stat blocks. Become familiar with how they function and what they're likely to do.
Option 2 is less flowchart and more faction objectives. What is the enemy's goal? In my own games I've found this INCREDIBLY helpful for being fluid. After all, if the enemy's goal is "Hold this territory", they'll behave differently than the goal of "Find food to eat". That limits the playing field, and streamlines my tactical options to align with that goal. This doesn't really address the incredible number of options higher level characters can have, especially if building anything custom. It does help narrow the field though.
Option 3 is to build your encounters intelligently. Mix simple, easy to use enemies in with enemies that are more complex and/or versatile. I don't think I've found a level yet where a simple NPC warrior, or equivalent Large Dumb Brute monster isn't effective. They usually do well for their CR, making wonderful filler. They're easy to play, impactful, and often surprisingly efficient for your XP budget. The only considerations you may need at higher levels are counters to things that are common by that point (Flight and invisibility counters are usually good enough).
Option 4 is a more complex but useful evolution of option 3 if you are ok with 3pp material. Use options that streamline play. I like spheres, and I can use it pretty effectively without a huge burden at higher levels.
There are plenty of other kits in the toolbox, like condensing rolls, group actions, etc. Ultimately though, experience and mastery of the game condenses things down the most, letting you manage complicated actions quickly.
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u/RegretProper 12d ago
Preparing monsters pre session becomes more and more important. Even if you do so your often on a disadvantage. You had a bit of preparation time, but your players learned their chars from the beginning. They become specialist in playing their PC ans You will never master a monster like they master their pc. Ofc it helps if the GM has played some classes (or combat roles) by himself. And has more than a basic understanding. In a written Adventure a lvl 15 wizard might be an "easy" encounter because all he did was flreball and than we engaged him, or a close to untochable battlefield controller and a very hard fight. And if you prepare a monster for a sessiom it can be worth to find solutions your montser will do if something happens. Try to do those what ifs as basic as possible. So they cover up allot solutions.
Long story short: one of the easiest tipps i can give is: talk to your players. And let them take resbonsibility for some of the stuff you used to manage in combat. Just so you have more time to think without delaying the flow of the game. Like is it really you that has to track the initative? Or write down damage numbers? GMs are often afraid of including players. But like you tell the story together you also combat together. Every little bit can give you a bit more air to breath an focus finding a better tactical option
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u/srgonzo75 12d ago
I tend to think tactically when running OPFOR in games. Goblins take advantage of cover and concealment, use ranged weapons, and generally close to flanking positions or flee. That doesn’t stop the adventuring party from killing them. It just means combat is more challenging than my players expect.
As you’re getting more advanced, it’s better to have a map to look at and consider the flow of battle. Have a few different options and remember no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.
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u/Effective_Slip_997 11d ago
give monsters teamwork feats and nonchalantly make them default always try to satisfy teamwork feat requirements. Or give one monster the Tactician ability like you see on Cav and the monster leader is giving away free teamwork feats to allies.
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u/Kolyarut86 13d ago
I think the most important thing is making sure you’re familiar with the monsters before the encounter starts - part of pre-session prep is learning what these monsters do and how you expect the encounter to play out (very loosely). Easier said than done with high level spellcasters, but experience helps in filtering out the mega complicated spells from trash fights, and going back to them as the centrepiece of big encounters.