One of the biggest problems with Dungeons & Dragons monster design are those monsters that can only do one thing, and that fail utterly if the situation doesn’t allow them to do that one thing.
— Merric Blackman (@MerricB) October 23, 2021
You can also apply this to player characters, btw. If a simple thing like a chasm means that one side can attack without the other side attacking back, that is something of an issue.
— Merric Blackman (@MerricB) October 23, 2021
In many cases, the proper actions are “retreat from the fight”. And while I am all for not fighting all the time, when most of your fights can’t happen, that doesn’t lead to entertaining play. Now, with this, there's a large part of proper monster selection on the DM. If you choose monsters with only melee attacks, then they need to be employed in situations where they can use those melee attacks.
— Merric Blackman (@MerricB) October 24, 2021
If you use creatures that work with sneak attack, then they need allies or places to hide so the sneak attack becomes relevant. Using a kobold with pack tactics in a 5-foot-wide corridor, so only one kobold can attack a PC at a time is not really in the kobold's interests!
— Merric Blackman (@MerricB) October 24, 2021
As a GM, I do like rewarding players for surprising me with clever ideas, and as long as this instance is rare, it can be fun when it happens! Yes, it's when it becomes standard that it becomes problematic.
— Merric Blackman (@MerricB) October 24, 2021
For the most part you do that, but then players change the environment and monsters can't deal with it. 🙂 It's not always that simple, alas!
— Merric Blackman (@MerricB) October 24, 2021