Realism is a crap goal and I have no interest in it. I want to make that clear from the get-go. And no, this is not a discussion about the difference between realism and verisimilitude, either. I hope you know the difference. Hint: one involves trying to emulate the real world, the other involves trying to create a fictional world that could be real if certain assumptions were, you know, assumed. Also, hint: one of them is a useful quality for a fantasy story or game to have. One of them is only useful if you feel you have to WIN internet forums.
But, even if verisimilitude is a useful quality for a game to have, it’s not nearly as important as some gamers think. Because verisimilitude ties into the willing suspension of disbelief. And that’s a very slidey sliding scale. See, the truth is, if the game is fun and the narrative is engaging, people will suspend their disbelief. A lot. If the game is crappy and the narrative is dull, though, people won’t. Most people. Some people are shitty audience members. And shitty players.
Point is: verisimilitude is a good quality for a game to have. But your time is better spent ensuring the game is a fun game to play and involves a well-structured narrative. And screw realism altogether. Realism is crap. Oh, and the same goes for immersion. If you talk about increasing immersion, you suck at games.
I have to lay all of that out so that when I tell you how I handle morale in D&D 5E, you won’t think I’m doing it for the wrong reasons. And you won’t think I’m suggesting you use it too.
If you’re the sort of person who complains on internet forums that it’s unrealistic that the enemies in D&D always fight to the death and that’s just not reasonable or realistic or versimilitudal or whatever, well, this article isn’t for you. And table-top RPGs aren’t for you. You need one of those online simulation games that primarily involve managing spreadsheets. Don’t use my morale system. I don’t want you touching anything of mine with your filthy, simulationist hands.
Meanwhile, if you’re the sort of person who runs a fun game for a group of fun players who just want to slaughter goblins and orcs and take their stuff or if you’re the sort of person whose game is like a fun JRPG where the turn-based random encounters are just there to get the blood pumping between the narrative moments and you and your players like it that way, great. And I mean that. That’s not a sarcastic great. It’s sincere. Run the game you want to run. The one your players enjoy. And please, please don’t feel the need to wreck the game with my morale system.
And if you’re the sort of person who likes fiddly, complicated rules and demands everything be objectively spelled out so some GM can’t screw it all up by using their actual brain to actually adjudicate things based on judgment calls and stuff, you probably won’t like this system either. It is very much in keeping with the design philosophy I rambled about last week.
Okay, so we’re done talking about who this is for. Let’s talk about what it is and why I use it. Long, Rambling Introduction™ done.
He Who Fights and Runs Away…
Way, way back in the early days of table-top role-playing games – when the games themselves were still so steeped in their wargaming roots that the combat chapter of the book consisted of a single sentence that read “buy our small-unit, tabletop fantasy wargame rules, Chainmail, to resolve combats – there was this system for determining when the morale of various NPCs and monsters would break. What does that mean? Well, morale is basically the willingness of a group of combatants to continue risking life and limb in battle. Esports de corpse, as the French call it in their sissy, whiny language. See, D&D used to be wargames. And in wargames – as in real life – if the battle turned against a fighting force, there was a chance that the soldiers in that force would be like “screw this, I’m out.” And their morale would break. And they’d give up fighting. And once some of the soldiers started throwing down weapons and remembering important appointments they’d had to not get killed in battle that day, the rest would follow. And soon the force was broken.
Now, in the wargame days, morale was a troop-level thing. A unit-level thing. It was kind of a threshold beyond which too many soldiers had gotten dispirited and they stopped listening to orders and cut and ran. Basically. And it varied from unit to unit. Conscripts, volunteers, slave units, and other untrained non-soldiers had very low morale scores. They were likely to break unless they won pretty handily right away. Green soldiers could hold it together okay, but if things went really bad, they’d break. Veterans, fanatics, Spartans, those kinds of folks, they’d stay to the bitter end, no matter what happened. And the presence of strong commanders could swing things. The systems varied from game to game, of course, but morale was an important feature in many wargames.
And so, it got swallowed into D&D. At least, for the first few editions of the game, it did. Basically, individual monsters had a general measure of their willingness to die fighting adventurers. And it was based on the same sort of thing as troop morale. Cowardly, undisciplined, or chaotic creatures had low morale scores. Disciplined, brave, or lawful creatures had high morale scores. Mindless creatures, constructs, and magically compelled beings, their morale couldn’t break.
The way it worked was that the GM had this long list of general conditions. And whenever any of those conditions were met, the GM would check the monsters’ morale. Were the monsters ambushed or surprised? Check morale. Have the monsters lost 25% of their force? Check morale? Lost 50% of their force? Check it again. Was a monster slain by magic? Check morale. Did an ally die after 50% of the force was already lost? Check morale. Did the leader get killed or desert? Check morale. Has a monster been ordered to do something heroic and risky? Like cover a retreat? Check morale. Are the heroes offering food, gold, or surrender after the fight has been going badly? You guessed it. Check morale.
When the GM had to check morale, they’d roll dice against the monster’s particular morale score. And if the check failed, the monster’s morale broke and they were done. They’d surrender or flee or retreat or whatever. Of course, there was also a long list of situational modifiers for the morale checks. It was kind of a mess.
And so, by D&D 3E, morale was gone. Probably because GMs didn’t use the complicated morale systems with their lists of conditions and modifiers. The GMs who cared about it just winged it. And the GMs who didn’t care about it just had their monsters fight to the death anyway. And, to be fair, even AD&D 2E offered the alternative system whereby the GM would just decide when and if morale broke and run the monsters accordingly. Fast forward to today.
Today, morale is forgotten. Monsters and NPCs mostly fight to the death. And most players get totally caught by surprise – confused even – when I’m running the game and the monsters break and run. Or surrender. Or whatever. And I never get tired of watching players get completely thrown off when monster morale breaks.
Recently, for example, my players were traveling between two cities while trying to evade a bunch of mercenaries and escort a kid to safety. Along the way, they got ambushed by bandits. After a successful first round, things quickly turned against the bandits. And the bandits realized they had attacked the wrong travelers. And they really didn’t have a good avenue of escape. So, they surrendered. And the party had no idea what the hell to do with them. It was a great moment. It was the middle of the wilderness. There was no law to turn them over to. There were mercenaries following and the party couldn’t risk the bandits trying to opportunistically sell them out to the mercenaries. The party couldn’t slow themselves down with prisoners. And the idea of just executing the bandits didn’t sit well with some members of the party. Especially because the party had survived, and the only deaths had been on the bandit side. It was quite the issue.
And that is actually one of the reasons why I’ve been fighting the good fight to keep morale alive. Why I use morale at my table. Not because it’s realistic. Not because it’s easy. But because it adds depth to the sort of game I want to run. More importantly, I use it because I saw the really cute baby that got tossed into the sewer to be eaten by alligators with the bathwater.
Why it’s Fun to Run
As I said in the last paragraph before the heading, part of the reason I like the general idea of morale is that it adds depth to the sort of game I want to run. And I want to be clear about that. Because, in my comment section, I’ve noticed a lot of people fling the word “depth” around without really knowing what it means or how to judge it. Depth isn’t just a word that means “better” or “fun” or “complications” or “a thing I like.” Depth is really a sort of measure of the different ways the game can play out. In general, D&D combat has a certain level of strategic and tactical depth to it. That is, there’s lots of ways the players can engage their foes. But the problem is that there’s really only one good strategy. And it’s “race the enemy to zero hit points by dealing as much damage as you can.” So, most of the choices come down to “what will deal the most damage to the enemy or prevent the enemy from dealing the most damage.” Most. Not all.
And, in the end, every fight comes down to “whoever is left standing at the end is the winner.” And 99 times out of ten, that’s the players. Because that’s how the game is designed. So, every battle involves the players just piling up the corpses as fast as they can. So, the tactical choices – the moment-by-moment actions are many and varied – but the strategies are pretty shallow and the outcome of every fight is the same.
Now, notice that I didn’t just say “depth.” I said, “depth in the sort of game I want to run.” See all depth is not created equally. Lots of things add depth. But not always the depth you want. Adding a complex system of factional infighting and political intrigue certainly adds depth to a D&D game, but if the game is not about politics and factions to begin with, it’s useless depth. It’s depth that won’t make anybody happy. It’s wasted depth. Depth can detract from the game.
I don’t run simple dungeon crawls. But I also don’t run narrative, character-driven, story-gamey bullshit. I like a strong narrative with an action focus. My game is a game of heroic individuals making choices, living with the consequences, and doing dangerous, heroic things that only courageous and powerful individuals can do. My touchstone for fantasy adventure is basically the Peter Jackson, Lord of the Rings movies. Strong characters making choices and dealing with the consequences while also having awesome fantasy adventures.
So, how does morale add depth to that? Well, first, as I mentioned, it makes winning battles complicated sometimes. I mean, most of the time, when a monster’s morale breaks, it just runs away. And lots of monsters are basically just animals. So, the party either lets the monster escape or shoots it in the back or chases it down and kills it. But sometimes, especially when the enemies are humanoid and sentient, it puts the party in the difficult position of making a choice that’s either going to lead them down a dark path or else have consequences that bite them in the ass. Your morality, for example, is truly tested when you have an enemy at your mercy who would not grant you mercy if the positions were reversed. That sort of crap.
But beyond that, morale also adds other ways that the fight can end. And other strategies the players can employ. Every fight need not end with piles of corpses. They can end with monsters fleeing or surrendering. And the party – assured they are going to get the XP for winning the fight no matter what – can decide whether it’s worth finishing the fight down to component atoms or not. Moreover, the players can also use morale as part of their strategy. If they can open with a decisive move or take out an enemy leader in the first round, they can win the fight with a minimum of risk to themselves. Or if they don’t want to spend too many resources, the party can turtle up and make themselves unassailable, punishing the enemy just enough to make them rethink whether the fight is worth it.
Moreover, once the players have learned that enemies won’t fight to the death and that surrender and flight are viable tactics and that every fight doesn’t need to end with a mass grave, the players start to consider those tactics for themselves. They can surrender and negotiate when the fight turns against them. Or flee. Depending on the enemy, of course. Believe it or not, monster morale actually decreases the likelihood of player depths and TPKs.
Morale also becomes a great way to show the differences between monsters. For example, in the D&D universe, goblins and kobolds are cowardly, hobgoblins are disciplined, bugbears are savage, and gnolls and orcs are unrelenting. But what does that mean? Apart from just getting a bonus action to disengage or a damage bonus if you charge? If goblins and kobolds constantly flee and regroup, though, and gnolls and orcs always fight to the death, now you can SHOW those differences instead of just TELLING the players that, really, goblins are cowards and gnolls are rapacious.
And once the players start to learn the different monsters’ tactics and behaviors or if they do their research and learn about their foes, they can build strategies around them. A big, one round show of force will win a fight against goblins. But it’s a waste against orcs. Kill the kobold leader and the kobolds will run. But gnolls don’t even have leaders.
Morale even opens up new actions. Fighting wolves? Maybe you don’t have to even fight. Just brandish torches and scare them off. Fighting goblins? Let the half-orc barbarian march into the middle of the battlefield and throw an Intimidate check. The goblins might decide that there is somewhere else they’d rather be, ending the fight before it begins.
Which brings me around to another advantage: morale ends fights early. And I mean that in a couple of different ways. First, I mean that sometimes, the monsters will flee while they still have some fight in them. So, the five-round fight is over in three. Second, I mean that the players can employ tactics that allow them to avoid or reduce the length of combat by actively attacking the enemies in their morale. So, the party can actively shorten fights. And that’s a good thing for my kind of game.
See, I love action. But the problem with combat in D&D is that it isn’t scalable. I don’t mean you can’t have fights with big hordes of monsters and fights with single monsters. Well, D&D doesn’t handle large differences in party size either, but that’s still not what I’m talking about. What I mean is that every fight has the same level of complexity. If the party runs into a couple of wolves while traveling to the dungeon and then fights the goblin guards and then has a random encounter with some wandering spiders and then fights the boss goblin and his ogre pet, all of those fights eat the same amount of table time. They all take three to six rounds of play, they all need initiative, they all require the party to spend the same or a similar portion of their resources, and so on. And the variation between Easy, Medium, Hard, and Deadly fights is pretty small.
But with morale – and with some logical adjustments – some fights are shorter than others. Much shorter. The wolves might flee after they take any damage at all. Wild animals don’t risk taking serious injuries unless they are in danger of starving or protecting their young. The same with the wandering spiders, though insects and arachnids do tend to be more stubborn about staying to fight. But then, they are also less crippled by injuries. Bugs can lose a leg or two and still put up a fight. The goblins might flee, except they are defending their lair. And even if they do flee, they might flee to raise the alarm and then scatter themselves in amongst the other goblins in future encounters. The boss and the ogre are going to be a tougher fight. The ogre will probably keep fighting even if the boss is dead. Because ogres are stupid and temperamental. So, the party will have to decide whether trying to deal with the ogre first or beat the boss into submission first is more important. It’ll be a neat encounter either way. And the boss is more likely to surrender than flee. Maybe. It depends.
The point is, although all the fights will be shorter, clever use of the morale system means some of the fights will be less substantial than others. The wolves and spiders will feel like minor inconveniences that aren’t really worth pursuing. Which is what they are. Just random encounters.
And, the thing is, D&D has moved toward the party getting through a small number of larger, more complicated fights in a day than the old days. The party should get through four to six encounters of roughly equal scale, scope, and complexity in a day. With morale, with fights ending earlier, each combat takes less table time and chews up less of the players’ resources. So, they can just get through more action. And the action varies in scope and scale. And the players have more ways to deal with the action.
And all of THAT is why I’ve held onto morale. For years. But, I also understand that morale – and a fiddly mechanical system to adjudicate morale – can get really ridiculously out of control complicated. And I realize my system really isn’t for everyone because of that. I’m going to share it anyway because I think some people can keep these intricacies in their head. And I realize I also rely heavily on adjudication in some places to fill in gaps in the mechanical system. And I have every confidence that there are GMs out there who can use their actual brains to figure out how things should play based on cues from the mechanics.
The Angry GM’s Admittedly Complex and Kludgey Solution to Bringing Back Morale for D&D
Whenever a creature takes enough damage to make it go “oh shit, I’m really in trouble,” it makes a Wisdom saving throw. If the saving throw fails, so does the creature’s morale.
If you like these sorts of overly complicated, highly subjective mechanics, leave a tip by clicking on the goblin.
Now, I realize that’s really complicated and it leaves a lot open to interpretation. So, I probably should explain a few details. And I hope you’ll hear me out. Because, despite having to keep track of a complex rules system that requires you to roll an entire Wisdom saving throw periodically and then put a checkmark next to a creature on your combat tracker, it really does add a lot of depth. It just depends on you doing everything right.
First of all, let’s talk about the “oh shit” moment. Because that’s really what I call it. Every monster, during the battle, has one moment where they realize they are really screwed. And, while I’d love to say that I have a system for determining that moment, I really don’t. I have a few. But they all make perfect logical sense. It’s an easy judgment call to make. I call it “wounded, bloodied, or about to die.”
So, in D&D 4E, there was this condition called “bloodied” that was truly wasted potential. Because it didn’t do much mechanically. Like, very few things keyed off of it. And more stuff should have. But it was a great condition nonetheless. The logic is this: most of the damage you suffer during combat represents fatigue and bruising and strain and that kind of thing. Most attacks hit your armor or your shield or get partially parried or just represent grazes and surface wounds. But once you’ve lost half your hit points, the injuries and fatigue are starting to build up. You are visibly wearing down. You’re slowing. You’re limping. You’re struggling. Something. There is something visible about you that says, “this isn’t just surface wounds anymore, this is starting to endanger my life.” And when a combatant got bloodied – be it a monster or a PC – it was announced to the table. That last hit was a solid hit. And now the creature is really hurting. When it was a PC that got bloodied, that was usually a signal that they needed healing or help. When a monster got bloodied, the party knew they were making progress. It was a good moment. And that’s all it really had to be.
I still follow that rule. Once you’ve lost half your hit points, it is visible to the world that you’re beaten up and you’re feeling it. And it gets announced. That’s all.
Except, most monsters in my world – especially humanoids – also have to make a Morale Saving Throw when they get bloodied. Easy peasy. That’s the general rule.
Now, you might realize this has the knock-on effect of reducing the effective hit points of most monsters. Roughly speaking, under my system, my monsters have an average of 72.5% of the hit points they are supposed to have. And if you realized that, good for you. You’re good at math and analyzing mechanics. Now, if you think this somehow breaks the balance of the game, well, you’re wrong. I already explained above why it’s a good thing. And I only mention it here because I know someone is going to helpfully comment about how I’ve effectively reduced the hit points of most monsters if there’s a die roll to determine if they give up the fight when they are only half dead. As if I somehow missed that.
Not a bug. Working as intended. And it works well. Trust me. I’ve been doing this for YEARS.
Now, some monsters are a bit too powerful for that “bloodied” rule. Strong solo-type monsters, boss monsters, fanatics, whatever. To them, I apply a different threshold. I call it the “about to die” threshold. Basically, if a powerful monster takes a hit that leaves it with enough hit points that two more similar hits will kill it, it’s about to die. So, if the dragon takes 8 points of damage and is left with around 15 to 20 hit points, it makes a morale check. I use that rule for big fights. Fights that would be disappointing if they ended only halfway through. Or for leader-type enemies. This is part of that “scaling battles” thing I mentioned. During climatic, important, or plot-relevant battles, one or more of the enemies will follow the “about to die” threshold, instead of the “bloodied” threshold. It’s me acknowledging the fight should be more epic.
Now, I can mix and match these. So, in the final showdown with the goblins and their hobgoblin leader, the hobgoblin might use the “about to die” threshold, while the goblins use the “bloodied” threshold. But also, read on. Because I screw with this system a lot. And that’s when it gets powerful.
Finally, for minor fights with wandering monsters or mooks or whatever – you know, nuisance fights – I follow the “wounded” rule. As soon as the creature takes a hit, it checks morale.
Now, here’s the thing: if I WANTED to make this more systematic, I easily could. I could set an HP threshold for any monster in a fight. Just list it right after their HP in their stat block.
HP: 150 (30)
HP: 25 (12)
HP 10 (9)
In that case, the “about to die” threshold is set at about 20% of the monster’s maximum HP. The “blooded” threshold is obviously 50%. And the “wounded” threshold is anything less than maximum. Though you could make a case for 90% or 80%. I’m still fiddling with where the numerical thresholds should sit, to be honest.
So, how does a creature actually check their morale? Well, it’s a Wisdom saving throw, as I said. The DC is generally 12. But it could also be 7 if the creature is really super brave. Or super disciplined. Or it could be 17 if the creature is really cowardly and I want to drive home how cowardly the creature is. You’ll notice that this is also a simple rule. DC 12 plus or minus 5 depending on whether I want the save to be Easy, Medium, or Hard for the creature to make. You’ll also notice I could add a line to the monster stat block called “Morale Save DC.”
The other rule I follow is that creatures only check morale once. There’s no reason to do it more than once. Either the creature runs when its threshold is reached or else it is willing to fight to the bitter end. Mostly. Because, again, see below. And because I make the morale check as soon as the creature takes the hit that drops them below their threshold, I don’t even have to remember if the creature made their check already. I only make it when they cross the threshold.
And when they do make that check, I describe them making that check. I don’t say “and the monster takes out a d20 and checks his morale.” But, as part of my narrating the result of the hit, I describe the monster’s moment of doubt and that it either steels its resolve or else that it drops back and intends to leave the fight.
“You landed a solid blow. The goblin is forced backward by the might of your swing and you hear and feel several of its ribs crack. The creature looks panicked. It steps back, stunned and winded, and is frantically looking around for an escape route. It’s about to flee.”
Or:
“You landed a solid blow. The hobgoblin drops back a step, its armor dented. For a moment, it hesitates, glancing around the battlefield. But then its resolve firms. Its eyes narrow and it steps back up, ready to answer your attack with one of its own.”
And my players have learned that that is me narrating a morale check. And telegraphing the monster’s next intentions. If the goblin is about to flee, the players know they can safely ignore it and pick a different target. They won’t waste attacks on a creature whose morale has broken.
So, that’s it. That’s Angry Morale. When a creature is bloodied – or wounded or about to die – that creature must succeed on a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw – or DC 7 or DC 17 – or else its morale has broken and it won’t keep fighting.
Why Wisdom? (Edit)
So, this little section has been added after the fact to explain something that has been questioned A LOT. Like, a hell of a lot. In comments below. In e-mails. In Discord messages. A LOT.
Why is this based on a Wisdom save? Why not a Charisma save? Wouldn’t Charisma be better.
First, let me say this: if you think Charisma is the better call, then use Charisma. You can make a case for it. Go for it. It’ll work fine.
Now, second, let me explain why I chose Wisdom. I chose Wisdom for two reasons. First, Wisdom is the saving throw in D&D that is used for all other fear and madness effects. It’s used to resist the turning and abjuring ability of clerics. It’s used to resist spells like Antipathy (which has a fear effect), Command (which has a flee effect), and the Fear spell. In addition, it’s also used to resist other spells and abilities that dominate the mind, overwhelm discipline, or crush will. That includes spells like Compulsion, Crown of Madness, Dominate Person, and so on. In the Monster Manual, Wisdom saving throws are used to resist the Frightful Presence of dragons, the Horrifying Visage of ghosts, the Terrifying Glare of scarecrows, and so on. In every example in the D&D core rules where fear and panic are the result and a creature’s willpower and discipline have to overcome those things, D&D uses a Wisdom saving throw. Check it out in the books for yourself. Even when that fear is induced by something that could be explained non-magically. There is nothing inherently magical about the Frightful Presence of dragons by necessity. And that is why Morale is also a Wisdom saving throw. Because, it’s about discipline and willpower overcoming fear and panic. And because I want players to be able to use this system to their advantage – say, so they can try to weaken monsters’ morale saves with various effects that give save penalties – and because the players can see the pattern of what saving throws they have to make whenever they case a fear effect or fall victim to one, I have to be consistent.
Second, in reviewing the Monster Manual, I found that most natural creatures and unintelligent creatures have low Charismas. There’s a general pattern of Charisma following Intelligence. Which makes sense if Charisma “measures your ability to interact effectively with others” and if it “includes such factors as confience and eloquence and can represent a charming or commanding personality.” Now, I realize confidence is mentioned there. And the projection of confidence is definitely a big factor in Charisma and that does come willpower. But it is also not, in and of itself, willpower or mental resilience. If you look at some of the animals who are lacking in Charisma, you see apes and baboons, bears, badgers, boars, wolves, and wasps. These are creatures who are well-known for being unrelentingly fearless. They are creatures that are difficult to scare off. My morale system should reflect that. The variations in Wisdom are much less extreme across the Monster Manual because Wisdom follows the senses and dangerous, violent, predatory creatures tend to have good senses. So, it is better to base the saving throw off Wisdom because the creatures that have decent to good Wisdom scores are also the creatures that should be hard to scare off.
The interesting thing is that a number of people arguing have pointed out that Charisma is the ability score of willpower and self-discipline. And, well, it isn’t. There actually ISN’T an ability score for willpower or self-discipline or mental resilience. If you read carefully the definitions from PHB 173 to PHB 179, you won’t find any mention of it. You can make a case that “force of personality” and “confidence” are affected by willpower and discipline. And I concede that point. It’s closest the definitions get. But if you consider all of the other mechanics in the game and look at what saving throws are targeted by what effects – spells, class abilities, monster abilities, and so forth – what you find is that Wisdom is the saving throw of wisdom and displine. Hands down. And it’s more important to follow the way the game implements the mechanics than the technical definition.
But, by all means, use Charisma if you think it’s a better fit. It doesn’t affect things in the slightest. But I do suggest, then, that you explicitly make clear to your players that morale is not a fear effect like other effects in the game, it’s a personal effect. And also, I suggest you compensate by bumping up the saving throw DC to the high variant on pretty much all natural predators to compensate for the crappy Charisma scores they have.
Where is All the Depth?
I know what you’re now thinking. Or what you should be thinking. You should be thinking “where is all the depth? You promised depth. This isn’t deep. It’s a random roll to determine whether the creature has fewer hit points.” Well, calm your tits, there, McGee, I’m getting to it. I agree that that rule alone isn’t very deep. But it does open the door for a lot of depth.
For example, what does the monster do when its morale breaks? As it stands, I have several keywords that I assign to monsters that determine what the monsters do when their morale breaks. And those keywords are Panic, Rout, Retreat, Surrender, Rage, or Betray.
Panicked creatures have lost their minds with fear. They drop their weapons – if they have any – and run as far and as fast as they can. Heedless of opportunity attacks, mind you. So, if any player wants to be a dick and stab a fleeing monster in the back, they can. And, in my world, that’s generally viewed as pretty rotten behavior. Or, at the very least, dishonorable. Routed creatures don’t drop their weapons and flee. They withdraw and then move away. But they don’t care about their allies. Retreating creatures behave the same way, but they do care about their allies. They will call for a retreat and try to withdraw with their allies in good order. More importantly, if retreating creatures are cut off from escape, they will go back to fighting. Panicked and routed creatures will surrender if cornered.
Surrendering creatures make it clear that they don’t want to fight anymore and they are relying on their enemies to let them live. This usually leads to some kind of social interaction after the fight is over. Obviously, this option is reserved for lawful creatures who think they can rely on their enemies – the heroes – to respect the rules of engagement and behave in an honorable fashion.
Enraged enemies are fun. When their morale breaks, they keep fighting. But they don’t recognize their allies as allies. That doesn’t mean they turn on their allies. But it does mean that things that affect allies or key off of having allies don’t work anymore. And, if they find themselves without a target for their rage, they will attack the closest creature. Former friend or foe. Basically, they’ve gone berserk. Really berserk. And finally, Traitorous enemies turn on their own. They actually start fighting their allies. They don’t consider the PCs allies – though they might make friends in some interaction at the end – but they don’t consider their allies allies anymore and they attack their allies, ignoring the PCs. This is generally reserved for opportunistic mercenaries and sellswords who think the PCs will reward them for their betrayal. And it is also for summoned elementals, demons, golems, and other enslaved creatures – magically enslaved or just abused and brutally mistreated – who will turn on their masters if their morale breaks and control is lost. I love that last option. The players do, too. It’s fun.
Now, this is also easy enough to note in a systematic way. That same line that I could add to every monster stat block that lists the Morale Save DC could also list the monster’s behavior when its morale breaks.
Morale: Wisdom save DC 17 or Panic
Morale: Wisdom save DC 12 or Retreat
Morale: Wisdom save DC 7 or Rage
But those keywords also provide narrative and mechanical hooks on which to hang other effects. For example, if you really want to make gnolls terrifying. You can give them some kind of bonus when their morale breaks. Like extra damage or advantage on attack rolls or an attack they can only use when enraged. Or a “parting shot” attack when the creature becomes panicked. A routed dragon might explode in elemental fury to cover its escape. What might be the effect when a creature with telepathic abilities – especially some weird aberration – becomes panicked? And, obviously, if the party is fighting a goblin boss and his enslaved ogre, well, if the party can whittle the ogre down to “almost dead” and its morale fails – DC 17, because it’s an ogre – it might beat goblin boss to death.
So, there’s some depth right there. But now consider smart players who know how these rules work and use them to their advantage. If you have a spell or ability that can weaken someone’s Wisdom saving throws in some way, you can try to push on these sorts of conditions. You can try to break the ogre’s resolve. But do not, under any circumstances, try to break the will of the gnolls or the mind flayer with the psychic scream. That’s pretty neat, right? But can we go further?
Breaking the Rules of Breaking the Spirit
Remember in my last ranting BS article when I said I am all about general rules that are easy to keep in your head and then hanging other stuff off of them. Well, this is a perfect example. The simple rule is “when a creature is bloodied, it must roll a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or else its morale breaks.” But, there’s some exceptions. Like the “wounded” threshold or the “about to die threshold” or pushing the DC up or down by 5. Those are simple levers to tug on and easy enough to apply during the game or to scribble in the margins of your monster stat blocks. Then, there’s the set of keywords: Panic, Rout, Retreat, Surrender, Rage, and Betray. Sure, you can write up how those behaviors play out. But, as a GM, it’s pretty easy to choose actions based on those cues.
But there are lots of other ways to play with those basic rules. I’ve already mentioned hanging other mechanics off of them or using them to emphasize elements of the narrative. And I already hinted at the fact that because this is a Wisdom saving throw, it’s automatically tied into other elements. That includes, by the ways, modifiers like Advantage and Disadvantage. You could create leader-type enemies that grant Advantage on their allies’ Morale Saving Throws. Or create effects that grant Disadvantage.
Beyond that, though, you also don’t have to restrict yourself to the basic HP threshold trigger. I use that threshold for all monsters. But I also give some monsters extra triggers that also force them to check morale. For example, many normal animals in my games have to check morale if they take fire damage. Because many animals are afraid of fire. Many monsters that have lots particular vulnerabilities – especially if they are also mostly immune or resistant to damage – make Morale Saving Throws when they suffer damage they’re vulnerable to. Or, at least, they suffer Disadvantage on the Morale Saving Throw if the damage that pushes them over their threshold comes from a source of damage they are vulnerable to.
That adds a lot of character to the monsters.
Not only do I add different Morale triggers to certain enemies to emphasize certain traits, I also adjudicate actions based on the Morale rules. So, if a player wants to make an Intimidate check to try and break a monster’s morale, they can. Provided they spend an action. Their Intimidate check becomes the DC for the Wisdom saving throw. If the monster is uninjured or part of a force that has the PCs outnumbered, it has Advantage on the save. If the monster is below its damage threshold or its allies have already started to flee, it has Disadvantage.
And other NPCs can take so-called Morale actions too. I’ve had leader characters use their actions and skills like Intimidate or Persuasion to “unbreak” their allies morale. Effectively, they get to make a new saving throw using their skill against the NPCs Morale DC. If successful, the NPC gets their nerve back. I’ve also had some panicky creatures spread their broken morale. So, a panicked goblin who flees past an ally might force that ally to make a Morale Saving Throw to avoid also panicking.
In addition, there are some monsters that never check morale. Mindless undead, for example. And uncontrolled constructs. That is, constructs not under the direct control of another creature in combat. And I’ve even created magical effects that grant Fearlessness, which basically means NPCs don’t make Morale Saving Throws. They stay in the fight to the death.
All of these specific mechanics are things I can either adjudicate on the fly based on the simple morale rule — that when a monster says “oh shit, I’m in trouble” it has to make a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or else its morale breaks — or they’re effects effects that I can add to specific encounters or specific monsters to add an extra dimension to the game.
Recently, I started applying the same thing to NPC henchmen and allies. In an adventure I ran recently with a panicky teenaged sorcerer who the party was trying to protect, his morale kept breaking. And he panicked. And he stopped recognizing the party as allies. It led to some real ugliness.
And moreover, I wish I’d been at the design meetings for D&D 5E. But Crawford and Mearls and their buddies don’t return my calls. Like ever. I’m starting to think they don’t like me. Because there’s all sorts of other game effects that could have benefited from this general system. For example, turning undead and abjuring various magical creatures? That could just be hooked to the morale system. Same with spells like cause fear. And you could build some great abilities for warlocks and barbarians around this crap too.
And I have actually started using my morale system to streamline those mechanical effects.
And, as before, with the Tension Pool, I know other people will find other ways to use, expand, and drastically and unnecessarily overcomplicate this whole system. Which is also great. Because it’s simple but versatile and extendable. And if I were writing an RPG, it’s another one of those things I’d build in from the get-go.
But that’s just me dreaming again.
One roll is an advance over “roll whenever anything on the list happens” When I remembered to use morale in 3E, it became a cascade-of-failure. A couple of goblins would die, which would trigger morale checks (Ally is slain by magic), which some of them would fail. So a couple of goblins would run, which would trigger more morale checks (force is reduced to 50%).
(Yeah, I know there was no morale in 3E. I just used what I remembered from the 2E list, or maybe I found an illegal copy of the table on the internet, and used the modifiers on the creatures’ Will saves)
The system is good even if the sacred cow ability scores of d&d do make it weird. Wisdom IS the fuzziest ability score but whenever I use it for morale on-the-fly, I’m always on the fence about whether failing the save means it gives up and panics or if it means it doesn’t realize how much trouble its in and keeps fighting. Sometimes I’ve used Charisma because it feels more intuitive to me: the creature through its own strength of will steels its resolve. Of course the real solution is to have different ability scores or just an entirely separate “Morale” statistic.
If you’re using morale, you should always have an idea what failing a morale check looks like, based on what kind of critter it is. Beasties and brutes should run away, cowardly packs should either run or surrender, smart critters should start trying to cut a deal (information, treasure, maybe the goons offer to switch sides), really smart critters should trigger their escape plan (teleport, gaseous form, invisibility, whatever).
“I fail the morale check and get more dangerous” should be a rare condition, probably with a homebrewed Samson Option ability
If you don’t think the critter’s Wisdom (or Will) save is a good match, you could just say screw it and use their attack modifier if it’s a brute type. Or, since you’re using your big ol DM brain to decide if the target is DC 7 or 12 or 17 anyway, just go with an unmodified roll.
going with an unmodified d6 or d20 roll is also something I’ve done. I think. I’ve definitely done it recently because I ran an ad&d campaign for the first time a few months ago.
You could expand on the dichotomy of Wisdom and make it be if they fail their morale breaks because they are dying and overwhelmed. If they make the saving throw they are aware of what is going wrong and get a bonus showing an adjustment to tactics. You could mirror the loss key words with a bonus. Rage as barbarian, Regroup(bonus to movement), Bolster(Bonus to aid another actions), Parley(bonus to negotiations) etc.
I was thinking the same thing; Wisdom saves are weird. Angry himself made a good case for wisdom essentially being awareness in 5e with the exception of saving throws. So far I’ve been thinking of Wisdom saves as a measure of awareness of mind changing effects. It’s just to fit the square peg in the round hole.
Mechanically, you could just set the morale DC for the creature, not account for wisdom, and simply roll a flat d20 to get the same result. However, making it an ability check has the advantage of it fitting with the one action resolution system of 5e: “make an ability check that is modified by proficiency.”
A morale ability score would resolve the issue as you could keep the DCs constant across creatures and vary the morale score. It would fit with the action resolution system but adding whole new stat adds a lot of clunkiness IMO.
For now, I would personally go for wisdom as the lesser evil. It’s sufficiently integrated with the rest of the game that it would probably work best despite its fuzziness. While writing this I began playing with the idea of taking angry’s system but with having the leader (or the ally with the best charisma save) roll a charisma check instead—I haven’t yet thought it through but posted it separately below.
In regards to Wisdom saves:
While I accept that Charm Person really requires a Wisdom save because it has since 3e, I like to think that the Wisdom save represents the creature being aware enough they realize that these new thoughts and feelings telling them “this stranger is your friend” are fake. While the Charisma save against ghost possession represents actual force of will.
I received enough crap over various channels about this whole “Wisdom saving throw” and from people explaining why Charisma was a much better fit over various channels – some perfectly fine like this and some rude to the point of being moderated out of existence – I received so many of these that I added an explanation to the article under the heading “Why Wisdom.”
Please scroll up to the article and check that out for the full explanation.
As someone who read your article a little late (after the edit), I was lost when I got to the “Why Wisdom” section, because by this point you still hadn’t explained about your morale rules and wisdom wasn’t even mentioned yet…
The wisdom saving throw is only introduced after the heading “The Angry GM’s Admittedly Complex and Kludgey Solution to Bringing Back Morale for D&D”…
Maybe you should move the “Why Wisdom” section to after that heading in order to make the article clearer for future readers?
Oops. Put it in the wrong spot. I’ll fix that.
… and fixed. Sorry. Good catch.
Wisdom is the saving throw used for all fear effects in D&D 5E. Check the various spells, monster abilities, class abilities like turning, and so on. Wisdom save = resist fear and avoid panic. That’s what it does in the game.
I’ve always winged morale and used it inconsistently. I like the idea of writing it into the stat blocks themselves (along with listing other conditions which can only happen once in a combat). I also really like the idea of leader types having training that lets them bolster morale (spend a reaction when someone would make a morale check to grant advantage on the check).
As always, a great article that gives good food for thought.
I really like hearing hints about the angry rpg. Is it likely or unlikely that it will be finished and a availible to by sometime in late 2020?
What are you talking about?
https://theangrygm.com/angry-maguires-angry-manifesto/
He covers it here.
Have we any idication as to planned release date? I understand that an RPG system would take a long time to create, but do we have a rough estimate of which year?
He didn’t answer so who knows? But I do think my initial guess was a bit too optimistic. Angry has never developed a game, and is pretty new to publishing. Besides that he has had some health problems, hope those are better now but I don’t really know. I would not expect the game to be finished before 2022. There is too much that could go wrong, and even though he has others working with him he is the main developer.
I am editing this comment because it was posted by a probably well-meaning asshole and it’s a violation of my ‘only one asshole is allowed on this site and I got here first.’ Most of it is a smug psychoanalysis of me by some internet pseudo-intellectual who has no place posting shit like that and is hopefully smart enough to let it end here lest they end up getting banned. That said, I don’t believe in covering up actually criticism. Just insulting criticism. So, I’m going to summarize the criticism as fairly and objectively as I can.
Summary: it is likely that The Angry RPG will not appear anytime in the near future, if at all, despite any of Angry’s insistence otherwise because Angry has exhibit a pattern of behavior whereby he starts many projects and fails to see them through to conclusion. See the Megadungeon series as an example. And this is a pattern of behavior typical of those trying to effect large-scale in an industry or medium. And it should be forgiven because there are plenty of good and useful ideas on this website.
That gets the main point across. Hopefully, the asshole in question will leave it at that and not try to tell me how he didn’t mean to be insulting or condescending or how the whole thing was actually complimentary really. Because I’d hate to have to ban anyone. But I have zero patience for this shit.
Let’s see how smart they really are.
– The Angry GM
He seems pretty serious about it. Said he was farther along than you would think on his podcast when they were on digressions and dragons. I miss that show.
mm hmm
Not to speak for Angry (I do not!), but it looks like finishing off the Kickstarter book project will take him through the end of 2019 (mostly recuperating time and making sure everyone is happy), then he said that he wouldn’t start really writing the Angry RPG until he was done with the Megadungeon (because the Megadungeon needed to be finished with his D&D hat on, not get confused with the Angry RPG), so if he does decide to finish the Megadungeon that will take a chunk of 2019/2020, by which time it takes, what 18 months to three years to get a book sorted and ready?
TLDR? Doubtful. But hope springs eternal!
Sorry I was unable to respond sooner. Which has been taken as an opportunity for others to answer for me or even to post condescending and belittling psychoanalysis of me in the guise of back-handed compliments about what an utter genius I am.
I was out of town for a few days fetching 800 pounds of books from Ohio and meeting with a publisher about some distribution issues.
Anyway, the Angry RPG will be entering a closed and limited alpha playtest state in Q4 of this year and will be tested throughout the end of the year. Once the very basics of that are done, design and development of the full system will likely take all of next year, with bouts of closed and tightly controlled playtesting throughout. It’s a very big, very ambitious game. That said, some of the design goals involved keep it from being too big and ambitious. One of the biggest goals is to keep the game’s actual “size” down. That is in terms of how much crap you have to buy in what form and the sheer volume of materials and also in terms of the approachability of the game.
Obviously, poor playtesting results at any stage will require things to be substantially reworked, so it’s pure conjecture to talk about when the game will enter a more open playtest state, start seeking funding, and move toward publication, but the current timeline projects that stuff to happen sometime in 2021. So, the earliest publication date would be Q4 2021. Now, that is actually a year off the initial five year plan that I have been following since 2015. But as several people noted below, a number of health emergencies cropped out, publication of the Angry book hit a number of snags and got dragged out, I ended up having to move from one state to another unexpectedly, and a few other issues. Honestly, given all of that, it’s a wonder I’m only one year off of my five plan.
Thanks everyone else for weighing in.
Thanks for replying Angry. This might be the first crowdfunding project I back. Praying for your health.
Great article like always.
I’ve used morale for my monster, but it was more on the fly than well thought. And thanks for the different kind of morale breaking state, my creatures were always fleeing. It will be more interesting now !
2 points about the article:
– there is a missing quote mark at the beginning of the “He Who Fights and Runs Away…” part, at : “buy our small-unit, tabletop …”
-as a French Person™, I bugged so hard when you talk about “Esport de corpse”. Please, I raised the white flag, don’t do that again.
Thanks, this is a really useful system I’m going to add to my games. I’ve tried to consider how creatures might react as they lose, but it’s always been kind of vague notions for certain fights, not a good general rule.
I know the difficulty ratings in 5e are a bit nebulous, but do you find that you tune the encounters a little harder for fights that have a good chance of ending early?
This is a good one.
Not arguing for “realism” here, but a couple thoughts that might be interesting.
In military theory, a unit is counted as “destroyed” when it takes 30% casualties. Thirty. Percent. That’s KIA *and* wounded. In practice, the disruption this causes prevents the unit from being an effective fighting force until it rallies (which it may not ever, as happened frequently in WWII when huge formations got surrounded). Interestingly, this ratio seems to hold pretty well across both history and the size of the unit in question.
The history of the American Revolution is largely a history of morale: most American troops, especially militias, were an active danger to their own side, liable to run and cause a position’s collapse. Washington’s main brilliance as a general was how he mitigated this. Like Sauron’s.
And, of course, we have Alexander, a 1973 design by Gygax himself, in which morale plays a central role in the battle of Arbela/Gaugamela. Basically there’s a few turns of eventless shoving and then one side slaughters the other, which happened historically.
Morale adds an incredible range of choice to the game, including factoring in player tactics as you mention. One reason old-school undead were so feared was not their numerous invulnerabilities (though those helped) or even their level drain. It’s that they had unshakeable morale. There’s a lot of evidence that smart old-school parties tried to kill a couple enemies and scare the rest off, as they got experience for *encountering* monsters in the old rules. If you went after undead, that automatically ratcheted up the tension.
Plus you had a lot of RP opportunities. Yeah, yeah, combat as war, you all know this…but I think it’s worthwhile to examine what that combat-as-war actually did for the game, and for, you know, FUN.
More ways for the players to interact with a made-up world tends to lead to more fun in my decades of playing experience. And it’s also IMMERSIVE 😉
You say “combat as war”–remember that in the medieval and early-modern period, war-combat was often part of a process of “armed negotiation”–armies would approach each other menacingly, would clash, would run, and all of these factors shifted the balance of negotiations at the diplomatic table. Florin is fighting Guilder today in alliance with Markland, but tomorrow Florin and Guilder might be at peace, with either or both at war with Markland.
Old school play did a lot of that in dungeons. Today, the goblins and the ogre are wearing the same badge of the Dark Master. Kill a goblin or two, place a couple of jugs of good dwarven liquor on the table, and maybe the goblins are wearing your badge and fighting the ogre and his Dark Master. (Goblins aren’t ideologically committed Dark Master-ists, they’re cowardly followers).
Absolutely. And it makes things potentially much more interesting. Especially if you can have an inherent alignment, which makes allying with various denizens more challenging for some.
I think that this is an excellent system, as always.
I am just a bit surprised that you embraced an individual-level approach instead of the old troop-level approach: the trigger for the morale check of an NPC is the loss of his own HP. I see that this makes the system more general. On the other side, a troop-level approach may lead to reward strategies like “kill the leader to disband the followers”. I am curious: if you have time, can you please elaborate why did you take the other path?
D&D has moved away from unit-level wargaming to mostly fighting boss monsters, and encounter-balancing meatshields for the boss-monsters. (The meatshields may be in a different combat, but they’re basically there to drain some PC resources before the big boss fight.)
I think this system allows exactly that. After all, if a morale check is required whenever a creature has an “Oh shit!” moment, then the death of their leader could totally be such a moment for creatures with a military heirarchy. It would be an additional check over and above the individual check for dropping below a health threshold.
Remember, repeated checks are the equivalent of Disadvantage on the check.
One’s own HP is just one trigger for a morale check. You can put in others on an encounter to encounter basis (including the death of a boss or hired muscle) as described by Angry.
Wow I love this system. In almost every fight, I feel like there’s a point where the PC’s victory is assured, and I’m just waiting for them to kill everything. This is so much more satisfying. I feel like I’m constantly trying to change up my fights so it’s not just PCs vs NPCs in a hit point race, and this will really help!
Can you explain why you varied the morale DCs instead of simply providing advantage for brave monsters and disadvantage for cowardly ones? You mention that leaders might be able to grant advantage to morale saves, but that could be handled like bardic inspiration with an added die based on the leader’s effectiveness (e.g. d4 for an average leader, d6 for an inspiring leader, etc).
Simple.
It leaves a lever open for the GM to use. (or the players if they laser aim)
A/DA don’t stack (and negate) and 5e doesn’t have a lot of always-on A/DA (I think Magic Resistance is the big one) primarily so the GM can impose either freely.
I’m not buying it, varying DCs flips the 5e method on its head. Difficulty class is supposed to be externally set and then the ease at which one passes is based on internal characteristics. For example, everyone has to hit the same number to hit someone in plate, but characters get different bonuses to that roll (either numeric or via advantage) which is where the variation in outcome comes from.
Also the +5 or -5 to the DC Angry suggested is the same average impact of advantage/disadvantage (see https://theangrygm.com/probability-for-gamers/).
The morale roll described sounds similar to the concentration rules (e.g. an event happens that can interrupt an activity, requiring a check to see if said activity continues, be it keeping a spell up or continuing to fight). Having a Brave trait for monsters that gives advantage on morale checks is exactly the same as the War Caster feat.
Well, let’s say you have a fairly disciplined but low-wisdom (i.e. fairly naive/trusting and not very aware of their surroundings) unit of Knights or some-such, as well as a very disorganized group of high-wisdom hunters and trackers. The Knights should be less likely to break, right? The hunters aren’t used to prolonged conflict, in this example, or even to their prey fighting back, so they are much more likely to break than the knights.
Now say there’s some active effect (either a spell or a leader or whatever) that grants all these folks advantage on their saves. Should the hunters and trackers be less likely to break than the Knights? That seems un-intuitive, and I don’t think my players would buy it (nor do I, for that matter).
There are other ways to handle this rule — I’ve played a lot of warhammer, so my inclination is a 2d6 roll-under, and you might vary which save it is depending on the unit (charisma for bravery, intelligence for tactics, wisdom for self-control, or whatever), but if you want to use one saving throw for everyone, adjusting DCs makes more sense to me than granting advantage/disadantage.
Also, I absolutely adjust DCs based on who is trying a thing, and the context in which they are doing that. My street-wise rogues should be better at finding criminal contacts or info that’s on the DL than my scholarly wizards, even if both have the same int/investigation (or the wizard has a higher). Sometimes it’s easier to use advantage, but sometimes not.
Angry included the three levels at which morale saves are made. In your example, I’d have the knights make the save when they are “About to Die” and the Hunter’s make the save at “Wounded.”
You can also look at the ranged weapon rules and how they interact with cover to see how the designers would handle things that really need more than just advantage/disadvantage. Specially, at long range the attacker has disadvantage, but you then add three levels of cover with bonuses associated with them (partial +2, 3/4 +5, total = can’t target).
So I would change leadership bonuses to either numeric (e.g. the ranged attack model) or bonus dice (e.g. bardic inspiration/bane/bless model).
In a game where DC’s are not constant (e.g. the door is weaker to barbarians than wizards) it makes sense to vary DCs. But Dungeons and Dragons 5e is not that game.
I was also going to mention that Wisdom might not be the best save, then read Angry’s additional section about that and changed my mind.
“Also the +5 or -5 to the DC Angry suggested is the same average impact of advantage/disadvantage (see https://theangrygm.com/probability-for-gamers/).”
It seems like you’ve answered your question. The variance in DC seems to be a shorthand for advantage/disadvantage, and with Angry’s stated design philosophy of decreasing cognitive load, why roll multiple dice when you can just adjust the number you’re shooting for to get the same effect?
If we are talking cognitive load, then I’d argue having a different rule for for one system that is mechanically the same as the default solution adds more cognitive complexity. You have to remember that morale acts differently than every other save in the game. Also, its a simpler task to say which die is bigger or smaller than to add two numbers together, so either way the cognitive load for advantage is less
You should buy it. That’s exactly the correct reason. Advantage and Disadvantage don’t stack. So, if there are monsters that automatically have Advantage or Disadvantage on their Morale Checks by virtue of their stat block, the players can’t do much to affect Morale. And that is something I want them to be able to do. And monsters too. Give each other Advantage and Disadvantage on Wisdom saving throws situationally to pull on Morale during combat as a tactic. @Sapphire Crook has it exactly right.
Now, I am with you that it’s a little weird to vary the DC based on the likelihood of the creature fleeing, though I assure you the actual base DC of 12 is, in fact, set externally. I just didn’t explain the entire development of the DC mechanic and how it ended up that way. But if you read carefully, you’ll note I was pretty clear that I recommended simply setting the DC at 7, 12, or 17 based on your gut. But people piss and moan at me whenever I dare to suggest the GM should use their brain, so I offered a bit of logic to make it more systematic. And, while I’d be happy to explain how and why those particular DCs arose and precisely why they do exactly fit the D&D 5E system for setting Saving Throw DCs and then I cleaned up the kludge that resulted to make a simple rule of thumb out of it, I’m also curious whether you’ve actually TRIED this stuff the way I wrote it before you decided you could speak for how and why I designed it, how and why I did it wrong, and how much cognitive load it involves by being so out of whack with the D&D 5E system.
In short, try it before you think you’re qualified to explain it. And if you’re going to explain something for me, at least get it right.
That makes sense. I could have been more clear, I wanted to hear from you the reason why you chose to do it that way. You don’t design stuff accidentally and I wasn’t able to work out the logic of the change. And you are correct that I haven’t tried it, my group has not had a session since the post went live.
Am I correct that the nature of the the current game (e.g. lots of other ways to gain advantage on wisdom saves, and it obviously not being designed with morale checks in mind) mean that setting DCs differently is the best lever to get the the desired outcome?
I would actually love for an explanation about the math/logic behind the suggested DCs, but I may be in the minority on that one.
Reading through this, I kept thinking of the honor stat mentioned in the DMG. For some reason, I am not super keen on just linking it to wisdom saving throws, probably because everything and its brother calls for a wisdom saving throw.
I tend to think of honor as tied to courage, or cowardice if you have low honor, so at least in my head it seems like a good match. I’ve always liked the sound of the honor and sanity optional stats, but struggled to use them in a meaningful way, so I am curious what your thoughts on them are.
If your playing 5e then Charisma probably works better. Wisdom save is a good generic hiuserule because it applies to a wider variety of rules/editions. But you can tweak it for the specific game you play.
I like the simplicity of “when a creature thinks ‘oh shit’, do the morale check.” Perhaps along with a list of examples of when that might be (leader gets killed, hurt by fire, hp below 50%, a few hits from day etc). And that you only do it once.
It can be quite tedious if systems reverse that: “When x, y or z, do the morale check”. Especially as it is typically not x y or z, but half the alphabet.
This makes it easy to use, and a grand improvement over ‘everyone fights to the death’. Not only is that a bit boring in my humble opinion, it also makes combat last far longer than is needed. You typically know if you’re winning after a few rounds, then it just becomes a chore. More so because people know they are winning and will stop using their most powerful stuff, slowing down the progress.
Yes. I do too. And you’ll notice I said pretty clearly that THAT is what I do. Just do the check and set the DC when it feels right. But every time I ask GMs to use their brain, their gut, or their instincts, I get a bunch of whiners screaming that things need to be more systematic and objective. Which is why I said all that shit about “if I had to come up with a systematic approach, I’d use these DCs and I’d follow these rules.” But you don’t need to fall for that crap. Just treat all my systematic crap as examples and wing it. That’s really the best way.
While thinking about Angry’s system and replying to a post about Wisdom saves above, I began playing with the idea of taking angry’s system but having the leader (or the ally with the best charisma save) roll a charisma check instead.* Under that system, a more charismatic leader would be better at saves to keep a group together but the Morale Save DC would vary based on the creature that hit its threshold. As long as the leader stands, the modified die roll should be the same for all creatures.
This system would change player incentives; they would again be more focussed on the leader to break overall morale (not necessarily a good thing but not necessarily bad either). Breaking the morale of individual creatures would simply consist of HP damage.**
One question under this system would be what to do with a single creature without an ally or leader. Absent a leader, would one: 1) roll a flat d20 (Cha 10); have it’s goal be its leader (food Cha 8; protect kids Charisma 20); have it make charisma check; or make a Wisdom save. All seem clunky, making me prefer Wisdom again as the lesser evil.
Alternatively, one might use Leader Charisma to add another layer of depth to angry’s system by using it for specific creatures only: “Inspiring leader. This creature makes morale saves for those it leads based on it’s charisma and proficiency bonus.” This might work best.
As you can see, I haven’t quite thought it through but I thought I’d throw my random thought out here anyway. Perhaps it’ll spark new ideas or is somehow useful to someone.
*Add proficiency bonus when appropriate to the monster/NPC. I would do a charisma save but charisma saves are also weird in 5e.
**Within angry’s system creatures could easily have specific morale condition keywords such as “fears fire.” HP: 150 (15 or fire)
I don’t like Wisdom saves and yet I keep coming back toi it as the lesser evil. For reasons lost in time and space, wisdom save proficiency is a common save in the Monster Manual. Probably better to just use the Wisdom-based system as is and have inspiring leader be: “creatures under an inspiring leader have advantage on their morale checks”
Moving on…
Use Charisma to *rally*.
This is a special action by a creature that could presumably do it–inspiring leader or the like. As an action (possibly even a bonus action!) the creature could attempt to remove the Shaken/failed morale condition from one or more creatures it could see. Treat this as the equivalent of a spell using the caster’s CHA.
This could make big fights more interesting, especially with creatures who know tactics or have a well-defined command structure (the role of a sergeant in a military squad is often to convince grunts to keep fighting). It could also provide for some dramatic swings.
To keep things simple, mandate that this roll is not subject to advantage or disadvantage.
Most creatures don’t fight with a leader. Defacto or otherwise. Many creatures in D&D are meant to be fought alone. So, it’s not really a good universal morale mechanic. Isn’t it better to build the universal system to work with all critters and combats and then allow leaders to interact with that system by, say, having an ability that lets them use Charisma checks to bolster allies or reverse morale failures? Which is what I already did?
I just noticed you’ve dispensed with grawlixes in new articles. It’s a sad moment.
I had to look up what grawlixes are; it’s indeed f$&%ing sad.
yes. agreed.
This looks like a great option to explore for my upcoming ‘fantasy law enforcement’ campaign. One genuine question; how badly does the ability to intimidate to force a morale save affect combats? I imagine if players knew about these rules they could build a ‘morale-buster’ PC with expertise in intimidation etc.
Would the ability to force a save every turn (when the DC could be quite reliably high) not prove so effective as to be a non-decision at times? Or am I overestimating its potential in my head? Would you allow for repeated intimidation attempts? Balls, that was a lot more than one question…
There’s nothing really substantially different about building a ‘Morale Buster’ PC that specializes in intimidation and scare tactics than there is about building a ‘Face Buster’ PC that specializes in axe-to-face and HP destruction tactics. Both are means to win fights. The intimidation guy would shine in certain scenarios, while the axe-to-facer would shine in others. And realistically, the Morale Buster is going to be able to do other stuff as well, as will the axe-to-facer.
For a law enforcement-type campaign, I’d imagine the ability to growl down people you should be arresting instead of killing would be pretty important.
The difference would be that, as soon as the ‘bloodied’ state was announced, everyone knows the opponent’s morale saves won’t have advantage, and that one successful intimidation would end their fight. OK, this is less a problem when fighting a large number of equal opponents, but for boss fights or fights with one clearly more dangerous opponent, that’s usually far more useful than one attack action. Get everyone in a round to try intimidating and they’ll very rarely fail.
I guess it’d largely depend on what morale failure looked like; if it meant berserkery as often as retreat, it might stop people relying on it.
I believe Angry mentioned that enemies only check morale once per battle, barring special circumstances. So you probably would not be allowed more than one intimidation attempt, and if the enemy already made their save you might not even get that.
I’m curious, if the foes rout but the party decides to kill them all anyway do you continue the combat, describe the slaughter, or do a pursuit scene? And if the enemy surrenders outright?
I imagine you’ll say it varies based on who the people routing are and the role they have in the story. A random encounter where the party is bloodthirsty and the foes are broken could be narrated as a slaughter, but a scene with an important foe might warrant a chase scene. Or if they are the type to surrender but see that the party doesn’t care then the combat would just follow the initiative, but if they surrendered and are pitiful little creatures they might whimper and beg rather than resume fighting. Use our DM brains and whatnot.
In his book (and I’m sure on the website but I’m not going to hunt down the link) Angry goes with the idea that an encounter is about answering a dramatic question “can the PCs defeat the enemy?” Once morale is broken and the enemy is running the answer to the question is “yes”. The PCs are then left with one more meaningful choice “what to do with the fleeing enemy” once the PCs have indicated what their intent is “not let them escape” and what their approach is “run them down like the dogs they are and kill them with my sword” Angry has to determine can the PCs succeed, is there a reasonable chance of failure and what is the consequence for failure. Once he has all three questions answered he can decide whether more dice rolls are needed or if he can simply narrate the outcome.
Since you’ve already got a cool tension dice mechanic, what if you shoehorned this in too?
When an action shows that the odds aren’t looking great (dead ally, player casts a high level spell or has a critical hit, etc.) you add a dice. If a player spends an action threatening the enemy or casts fear or whatever you roll the dice (or if it hits six).
Maybe if the players force a roll and there’s a 6, you reset back down to zero so the players don’t just keep intimidating.
Especially cowardly enemies would start with dice already in the pool (hence waving the torch to scare off the wolves before battle).
Rallying moves by the enemy leader, or the appearance of reinforcements, or whatever can remove a dice.
Extending your keywords slightly, “1/3 of goblins panic on each morale fail.” or “one Ogre goes berserk on every morale fail after the first” or even weird stuff like “Dragon retreats if more 1’s then 6’s are rolled”: basically giving some instructions so a GM can orchestrate a plausible break down of the enemy forces over multiple checks. That’s a little more complicated instructions, but in return you don’t have to roll per creature.
It gives you a marker of how the battle is progressing to key skills/events off of too. Maybe the rogue gets advantage when the tension pool is over half full (the battle has become chaotic). Maybe the villain casts his powerful magic spell after the first time the pool is reset.
I think the tension pool is generally meant to create tension within the players, and represent the tension their players feel. So, it feels weird to have the “complication” be a good thing (their enemies breaking and running, or whatever).
I also wonder what you gain from this approach, as opposed to the approach outlined in the article? This seems way more complicated than it need be, and I don’t see much additional benefit.
One of my takeaways from the evolution of d20 systems is that players can only keep so many systems in there heads, so you should use a small number of mechanics broadly. So I was playing around with “how far can I push tension dice before they become clunky?”
What do you gain? Stacking dice draws player attention, so forcing a retreat/surrender isn’t just an outcome but becomes what the combat system is “about”. That may or may not be desirable, but it’s an effect. I like that the morale becomes a unit thing rather than an individual thing: it feels more natural that the squishy mages in the back break first even if they haven’t taken any damage. I also like the idea of keying powers off of tension dice, because I think it could give an interesting flow to a battle. Start with small skirmishing moves. As the tension ratchets up, your special attacks get better and now you go all out. The dice are cleared, and now everybody is catching there breath a little. You’ve got a little space to cast healing spells, maybe parlay. I also like the swap of tension dice from bad to good: it’s a dangerous world and threats are coming. But you’re the heroes: once your back is against the wall, you’ve actually got the advantage.
Even if it’s ultimately not worth the complications in practice, it’s interesting to see how the mechanic of a d20 check and the mechanic of tension dice can achieve the same outcome, but highlight different aspects of the event being simulated.
But that’s not what the tension pool is for. And the two things being modeled are totally and completely different. Not related at all. Why would I cram them together?
One other thing that may factor into why morale systems have fallen down the memory hole: the long shadow of the video game industry. In older JRPGs, enemies running away was overall treated as an uncontrollable way of losing a battle, not a potential win condition as it’s presented here — and of course, running was the only form of morale break they represented. This was not fun, so newer JRPGs largely dispense with enemies escaping except as a plot element. Thus, newer players coming into a tabletop game that’s obviously very combat-focused on its face would need to reverse their thinking relative to their old touchstones to even consider the possible fun factor in enemies doing things other than fighting to the death.
This is a really excellent point. I’ve been playing for years, but only recently started running a game. My (newbie) players treat it like a video game: Go from plot-giver to plot point without question; slay all the non-humanoids; leave no one alive. Another more experienced player joined our group for one session and shocked everyone when she said something about trying to befriend the Goblins. One of my original players said, scandalized, “You can make FRIENDS with them???” and she said, “Sure. You can make friends with anything.” Blew. His. Mind.
I didn’t really think about the video game aspects, and how morale break would be seen as absolutely both a loss, and Not Fun in that context. Makes a lot of sense though…
I can’t recall how many times this has come up in my games, only to leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouths because I (or whoever was GMing) wasn’t sure how to handle it. Players who wanted to try out their shiny Intimidation skill, only to find it had no real mechanical effect in combat outside of overly specific feats. I often have enemies rout and start fleeing once the battle seems “decided” in the players favor and the tension has started to wane. Sometimes the players liked winning that way, sometimes they kinda hated it, and I wasn’t sure how to tell the two apart.
In short, this system is brilliant and solves a host of issues I’ve never had a good answer for before. Thank you Angry!
I thought Wisdom made perfect sense, but not even for the reasons stated. Wisdom is, (and I believe always has been?) the stat for Perception and Healing, as well as seeing through illusions. To me Wisdom is the most logical choice: the ability to think about/ feel how much danger one is in (perception); to assess survival chances (perception + healing); and intuition to determine whether one will make it out alive. I think Wisdom is the pretty obvious choice, but that’s just me. Backed up by the mention of all the critters (bears, badgers, wolves) having high Wis… those are animals which are known for having both good survival traits, and instinctive behavior. Whether or not to flee doesn’t seem so much a logical choice (Intelligence) or one of Will (usually anyhow), but one of pure instinct… the instinct for self-preservation.
Hearkening back to a couple of old Angry articles about better designing encounters, it strikes me that a morale system actually serves one purpose: a trigger to tell the DM when it’s time to have the enemy change their goals, or their wants anyway. The tricky part always being it’s hard to do that on the fly, and this is a good way to do it.
As always trying to leech good hacks for older systems, I’d guess under 3.5 this would basically be a WIS saving throw at DC 12 instead (I don’t know the design considerations as well as others here.) If so, that produces some interesting quirks: divine casters tend to stand their ground a little more than their martial counterparts since WIS is usually the dump stat for the latter.
It can be “story-rationalized” any which way. An opposing thought might be that – of course it’s the cleric who sticks it out to the bitter end because of their faith and devotion, while the fighter is much more apt to say “I can tell when I’m about to lose a fight, and I care more about my life than I do my pride.”
Thats why I love his variable DC thing. For fighters who are of the belief that winning matters more than life they might have an easier DC — or a harder DC but paired with Rage, depending on the fighter.
See? Each race / monster already has a general personality, and with how flexible the system is their ‘flavor’ (in my mind) matters much more than whether their save roll is 2-4 points better. Because its the mechanic-flavor that will really change the feel of the fight and engage your players in different strategies.
It only asks for some very soft planning to be very effective. It’s beautimus.
I’m not necessarily recommending this – I’m sure its been thought of and I haven’t tested any of it yet but if the wisdom thing really bugs you /your table you could use 5e’s proficiency bonus instead, or your games equivalent, or some convoluted equation based on character level / monster challenge rating (or just give the overrall encounter a rating and add that, or add nothing and lower each DC’s by 2-3 points). I’m not saying the probabilities of all those work out, just that no one is glued to wisdom.
BUT in D&D this kind of roll IS already covered by wisdom. And has been for a long time. So unless you already cared about changing wisdom, this doesn’t hurt.
Its been a long time since I did 3.5, but I think you could very reasonably get away with using the system the way Angry originally explained it. If my memory is accurate the DC’s differences aren’t huge until higher levels. But again, his DC’s are 7, 12, 17. A monster can have all 3 difficulties with a different effect: Withdraw at 7, Surrender at 12, Panic at 17 – if morale fails. And depending on the situation you can decide which morale check they would need to make. And if you plan that per monster type you can wing it from there pretty easily, and even modify it last second if the situation gets crazy.
So as the levels do go up, maybe just slide the DCs up a few notches – instead of the relevant DCs being 7, 12, 17, they become 12, 19, 22; you’re still preserving a 5-point window in each case. Or you could stretch the DCs in one direction if you think the enemy is more likely to withdraw than panic: 7, 15, 19. Et cetera, et cetera. Cool!
I just want to say that I really like how this system adds an additional way to differentiate enemies. Ambush predators and other wild beasts will attack if they have the upper hand, but they’ll probably panic and retreat as soon as they take injuries, while trained and disciplined fighters are hard to break, fighting to the bitter end. And zombies can feel relentless and difficult to kill without actually having more hitpoints, because they never check morale and you have to knock off every last hit point.
I also like how morale can change the optimal strategy, whether it’s “The hobgoblins have that ogre slave-fighter, and they tend to have bad morale and turn on their allies when they break. Focus fire on him to push him over, and he’ll squish some hobs for us” to “Try and hit a bunch of orcs with a fireball, if we can knock a bunch below half health at least some should break” to “Zombies never break or flee, we’ll need to roll out the big guns for this one”.
Plus you can also have the player’s actions affect what people do when their moral breaks. So if the players get a reputation for killing surrendered foes (whether it’s genuine or the result of enemies tarnishing their reputation), then suddenly enemies who would surrender retreat or fight to the death instead.
Also, a couple of thoughts. First, I feel like you should have an alternate mode for Panicked, which works the same except that if cornered, instead of surrendering these enemies attack until they see a line of escape. This would be mostly reserved for animals out of their minds with fear and pain, who want nothing more than to get away and will blindly attack anything that blocks their escape.
Finally, one more option for when morale breaks (one I’d use pretty rarely, mainly for zealots, berzerkers, and possibly paladins if you’re running an evil campaign). The idea as that when these enemies break, they’ve officially lost all hope of making it out alive, and all they care about now is doing as much damage to you as possible before they go down. Enemies in this specific state would gain substantial attack bonuses (advantage on attack rolls and an extra damage die, maybe), but would also grant advantage on all attack rolls against them (or some similar penalty to defense). Don’t really have a good name for it… Wrathful, maybe?
Love this. I have thoughts that are halfway between suggestions and questions, as I haven’t play tested any of this, just curious about these tweaks to your idea.
It occurred to me that in my experience with fights, you can have multiple “oh shit” moments, and that they correspond roughly to what you said – first damage, bloodied, near death. And that these correspond to being easy, medium, and hard to resist. And 5e has a system for easy, med, hard.
Why not have all monsters roll at each stage, DC 5/10/15 accordingly? Cowardly monsters get disadvantage, brave get advantage.
All the rest unchanged, this feels more like the rest of the general rules to me.
Generally when I assign a stat to a new trait, I pretty much do so by thinking of what archetype would be best at it. High wisdom means clerics and druids are the least likely to break rank and flee. High charisma means bards, paladins, sorcerers and warlocks are the bravest. Given that, I’d probably most likely default to wisdom, given that a religious fanatic would be likely to keep fighting till the end, and paladins also have wisdom as a proficient save, so that way they get to be brave too, while not making warlocks/sorcerers/bards extremely brave.