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The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters
- The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, Book 1
- Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins
- Length: 25 hrs and 21 mins
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Publisher's Summary
From the creator of the popular blog The Monsters Know What They're Doing comes a compilation of villainous battle plans for Dungeon Masters.
In the course of a Dungeons & Dragons game, a Dungeon Master has to make one decision after another in response to player behavior - and the better the players, the more unpredictable their behavior! It's easy for even an experienced DM to get bogged down in on-the-spot decision-making or to let combat devolve into a boring slugfest, with enemies running directly at the player characters and biting, bashing, and slashing away.
In The Monsters Know What They're Doing, Keith Ammann lightens the DM's burden by helping you understand your monsters' abilities and develop battle plans before your fifth edition D&D game session begins. Just as soldiers don't whip out their field manuals for the first time when they're already under fire, a DM shouldn't wait until the PCs have just encountered a dozen bullywugs to figure out how they advance, fight, and retreat.
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What listeners say about The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters
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- Cameron
- 2021-04-20
your players won't stand a chance
loved it, everything a DM needs to get the upper hand on their sneaky players
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- Ryan
- 2021-03-13
Essential reading for DMs looking to improve
I’m not the DM who tries to kill their players. I’m not adversarial and think deliberately confrontational DMs who seek to “win” by denying victory to their players diminish the game.
However, I do want to challenge my players and make combats more interesting, especially as higher-level combats risk turning into drawn-out mechanical slug-feats.
This book opened my eyes to better ways to play monsters and make combats win more memorable and more of a celebration of the party’s teamwork and tenacity.
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- Jon Ross
- 2021-08-12
Not Bad, BUT not useful beyond a limited scope
I don’t regret buying this or spending my time listening to it but there is a lot that this book isn’t.
It isn’t a look at fantasy small arms, close quarters tactics. Not a theoretical look at fantasy gorilla tactics in a forest.
What it is simply is a min/maxing rules lawyer look at specifically 5e rules and monster descriptions.
I have played table top war games and I am a min/maxer at heart. I fight against it at the design stage of my characters because min/maxing is often story poison but I appreciate a good combo. And that’s what this book is.
I don’t play 5e for complex reasons: 4e annoyed me because they could have called it D&D tactics and released it as a table top game and I would have been onboard. Pretending it was a sequel to 3.5 it wasn’t. 5e is another coat of paint on what should have been it’s own related system.
But if you don’t have the time to play dozens of war games or aren’t a natural min/maxer this is a handy guide on how to use about three dozen monsters well.
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- Brandi
- 2022-12-03
Every Game Master Needs this
A well read and well put together book. This is a must read for any game master out there. The light humour makes listening to the research enjoyable and has saved me countless hours on prep and research.
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- Scout
- 2023-04-27
very informative
great book for all DMs, listened to it while I would do my housework and will definitely listen to certain sections again when I'm gonna be using them in game.
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- Anonymous User
- 2022-01-20
This will really change how you run your Monsters
Well there isn't really a story but why would there be? if you're a DM then you should give this a listen!
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