Monster Morale

One of the problems some people have with the morale system defined in Men & Magic is that, aside from the occasional note in Monsters & Treasure all monsters are treated the same. Ogres will flee about as often as orcs. To some people, this seems absurd. Ogres ought to be made of sterner stuff.

Part of this attitude probably stems from the Basic/Classic line of D&D. Either B/X or BECMI introduced Morale ratings in monster listings. People who started with Classic thus probably feel a little lost when exposed to OD&D, which expects GMs to decide on a case-by-case basis. The trick is that OD&D differentiates most monster morale behaviors not by a general rating, but by what each monster considers a "highly dangerous or un-nerving situation". Goblins, obviously, think sunlight is unnerving; cavemen think magic is unnerving; berserkers and minotaurs don't think much of anything is unnerving.

One thing I propose, to get something with slightly the same feel as Classic morale, is to not count any situation as "dangerous" for a monster unless:

1. average opponent hit dice is more than their own, and
2. number of opponents is equal or greater than the number of monsters; or,
3. number of opponents is more than total hit dice on monster side.

Example 1: Ten orcs facing typical adventuring party. Even if the party is high level, orcs and monsters in general will go by the average hit dice of ordinary men: in other words, 1 hit die, same as the orcs themselves. Orcs will only make a morale roll if they are outnumbered by the party, or the party displays amazing firepower.

Example 2: Five ogres facing typical adventuring party. Ogres will only check morale if there are 20+ people in the party. If there are 17 members of the party, ogres will check morale after one of their number has been slain. If there are 9 members of the party, ogres will check morale after three ogres have died.

Example 3: Five ogres facing six adventurers who have polymorphed into hill giants. Since the party appears to be creatures with more hit dice, and there are more "giants" than ogres, the ogres will check morale.

Morale in OD&D

I've seen the topic of "the absence of morale rules in OD&D" come up on the forums, so I thought I'd talk about it briefly. First, let's look at the morale rules, which are in the LBBs, after all. They are right after the Reaction and Loyalty tables:

Non-player characters and men-at-arms will have to make morale checks (using the above reaction table or "Chainmail") whenever a highly dangerous or un-nerving situation arises. Poor morale will mean that those in question will not perform as expected.
Men & Magic, p. 13

The "reaction table" being referred to is the infamous 2d6 table. So, roll 2d6, add or subtract the loyalty modifier, and look up the reaction.

What's missing is an explanation of this for people who aren't experienced wargamers. I'm not, which may explain why we weren't very diligent about morale back in my high school days. I eventually learned the rules via the AD&D DMG. But what a non-wargamer buying the LBBs back in the '70s would have needed is, first, maybe a better indicator of where the morale rules were, like a bold "Morale Roll" heading; and second, an understanding of what the Reaction table terms would translate into in terms of troop behavior.

The easiest interpretation is:

• "Hostile" means orderly retreat
• "Attempts to Attack" means disorderly rout
• (optional) "Uncertain" means stand ground, but do not advance further or press the attack

There are a couple creatures in Monsters & Treasure with specific morale notes, mostly on unusual morale roll triggers. For example, sunlight triggers a check for goblins and undead, magic triggers a check for cavemen, and berserkers do not check morale (and maybe trigger morale checks for normal men fighting against them.) This is actually fertile ground for creativity; we could redefine behaviors for a new monster, such as:

• "Rout" or possibly even "Retreat" is replaced with "attack enemies and allies indiscriminately"
• Instead of fleeing on a rout, monster sits down and ignores the conflict (Hippy Monsters?)
• Morale check triggered by bad omen for superstitious monsters, or by spilled treasure for greedy monsters.

Turn Undead as Morale Roll

Delta's got a post about turning undead, and there's a recent forum thread or two about turning undead, so I figured I'd revisit the topic. I've previously interpreted it as more of a command ("Depart, foul spirit!") backed by tremendous faith than as a power; but in addition, I've been thinking of it more, lately, as a morale roll. It's the presence of a person of great faith, combined with that command, that shakes the resolve of even the mindless undead, causing them to flee the cleric's presence. It's just like a famous hero telling a bunch of goblins "Flee before my might!". If the goblins know the hero by reputation and it scares them, they flee.

In light of this, here is how I resolve the trouble spots Delta mentions:

What does the cleric actually do?

Anything that makes it clear that the cleric is a cleric.

What does the cleric need to produce the effect?

Nothing in particular. Got a holy symbol? You can present it. Got holy water? You can sprinkle it. Don't feel like doing either? Then don't. All that matters is if the cleric does something obviously cleric-like.

How long does the effect last?

Up to a full day, or until something happens that restores the morale of the undead, like being joined by reinforcements or a command from a leader.

How often can the cleric do this?

Once per incident. If it doesn't work the first time, the undead aren't going to suddenly get scared just because the cleric tried again.

Can it be maintained?

No. What are you going to do? Keep announcing "I'm still a cleric"?

What if the undead can't flee?

Then they can't flee. They cringe, and they stay away from the cleric if the cleric stays away from them.

What if the cleric moves towards the fleeing undead?

It doesn't make them flee more, if that's what you mean. It's exactly like chasing any other fleeing enemy.

What if the cleric is close enough to touch the undead?

The undead are avoiding the cleric where possible. They will not choose to attack the cleric if they can leave or cower in the corner. However, there's nothing preventing them from attacking the cleric, if the cleric attacks them. Again, it's just like cornering frightened goblins.

Fearful Undead

I noticed something in OD&D I overlooked before: the undead might have to make morale rolls.

This came up because of the recent Delving Deeper errata. There's a note that ghouls have -2 to morale rolls in daylight. That's not in the LBBs, but it turns out that it *is* in Chainmail. In fact, Chainmail lists morale numbers for wraiths, specters and vampires, too. Only skeletons and zombies are fearless.

In contrast, the AD&D monster manual says that ghouls attack without fear. I seem to recall that later AD&D materials explicitly exempt undead from feeling fear -- so, no morale rolls.

My first reaction was "Screw it, the living dead shouldn't be afraid of anything except a cleric showing true faith. The Turn Undead roll is the only morale roll needed."

But we do have vampires afraid of the cross and of garlic. And a fear of sunlight or bright light isn't too far from genre expectations. Also, holy water. Not to mention that we could add unique fears to unique undead: forcing a ghost to view its own corpse might act like Turn Undead on that corpse, and zombies might be afraid of carrion birds.

So my current thinking is: the undead are not afraid of simple death and cannot normally be intimidated, but certain symbols of faith, light, or purity can trigger morale rolls.

Social Morale Example

Brendan asked for an example of the social morale idea I posted about earlier. I don't have the time to write up a complete example (got lots of spell stuff to work on,) but then it occurred to me: let's just play it out!

You are hired to transport a chest of taxes levied on the local populace from the village of Startham to the county seat of Nottingham. You've been told that if the monies do not arrive intact at their destination, you will be considered outlaw and hunted down; if it arrives without any obvious shortages, you will be rewarded 50 gp each. You have a written inventory to hand to the sheriff upon arrival.

You have been intercepted by 20 bandits, who lead you to the bandit king, Robin Hood (who may or may not be as pure and good-hearted as local legend suggests.) You are 1st level and can be any of the four main classes, but your ability scores are average (10 straight across.) You have up to 100 gp of equipment. You also have two pack handlers, two mules, and two burly mercenaries.

Go!

Social Morale

Practically everything any D&D blogger talks about is related to either combat or magic. I thought it would be nice to mention something different, even if this is only the germ of an idea.

A PC is in a negotiation with a monster. The PC has hirelings present, the monster has its underlings. Everyone present can hear what's going on and likely will have a reaction to it. The idea is: at certain points, such as when one side demands a major concession or makes an accusation, the onlookers need to make morale checks to determine how they feel about events.

I'm envisioning using the simple 5+ on d6 version of the morale check. Insults and threats from weaker participants provoke aggression from the opposite side; on the first 5+ roll, they hurl insults back, while on the second, they actually attack. Threats from stronger opponents provoke social "retreat" or "panic"; on the first failure, they are visibly frightened by the threat, while on the second, they either leave their master or surrender, begging for mercy or offering to switch sides.

Ghoul Paralysis

Monsters & Treasure is a little vague about the details of ghoul paralysis: no mention of how long it lasts, or whether it's a paralytic poison that can stop a person's breathing, a chilling touch that causes general immobility, or an overwhelming fear that prevents most voluntary actions, but not speech. As a consequence, later editions famously interpret ghoul paralysis inconsistently; sometimes, elves are immune; sometimes, it's permanent unless cured; sometimes, a duration roll is added.

In Chainmail, wraiths, wights, ghouls, and apparently even zombies have the same paralyzing effect, which appears to be fear-based rather than poison-based. The effect isn't permanent and can be easily ended. I think from now on, I'll use the following interpretation:

In the presence of ghouls and other walking or ghostly undead, all morale failures result in a paralyzing numbness instead of retreat or panicked flight; the direct touch of such a creature will also automatically cause this fear paralysis, preventing those afflicted from attacking, defending, or assisting others or themselves in any way and rooting them to the spot until all undead in the area are slain or driven away, or for a full turn at the least. Victims do get one attack on the round they are affected, but are vulnerable for the rest of the combat unless aided.

Elves and any character with 4 or more hit dice are immune to this effect and can shake victims out of it, if they can touch those afflicted; Remove Fear will also work. If ghouls are still present, victims can be paralyzed again.

Exploiting Hatred

I'm odd when it comes to games, especially video games. I'm not a console gamer at all; only game console we ever "owned" was a Magnavox Odyssey -- and really, we only had that a week, so maybe we just borrowed it. Didn't have much disposable income to play games in the arcade, and I was slow to get into PC games, usually getting into a particular game after everyone else has moved on to the next shiny thing.

So, I've played video games a lot in the last couple years, but I haven't played a lot of video games. I've mostly stuck to older FPS shooters that don't play like a deathmatch game, something more like a puzzle-style shooter: old Doom, Heretic, Hexen, that sort of thing. I prefer taking my time, trying to avoid dealing with too many monsters at the same time; I treat it very much like a dungeon crawl, listening for sounds of monsters in the next room or looking for traps.

And tricking monsters into killing each other.

Clone Project: Miscellaneous Combat and Adventure Notes

There were a couple items in the naval combat section that could be generalized to combat in other situations. We can actually take the rules for miscellaneous actions on a ship and use them to define how much manpower and time are necessary to complete any task:

• Simple tasks: 1 person
  
• Minor group tasks: 3 people
• Major group tasks: 10 people
  
• Moving objects: 1 round
• Making a large change: 3 rounds
• Making a critical change: 5 rounds

From this, we can improvise things like "3 humans can smash open a door in 3 rounds". Which means that 9 humans could do it in 1 round, assuming they can all act on the door without getting in each other's way, such as by heaving a large log; this is close to the 10 men/1 round figure given for breaking down a door on a ship. Cutting through rope takes one swordsman 3 rounds (simple task, large change,) which again matches the original rules. Hacking through a wooden bridge would take 3 humans 3 rounds. Rigging rope to cross a pit (Tyrolean traverse/zip line) takes 3 people 3 turns.

In melee, if a character is unable to command hirelings, the hirelings will either loot, continue towards the last objective (but make morale rolls,) or retreat while defending themselves. Hirelings that break morale but can't retreat are forced off their position, falling to a lower surface (or falling overboard, for ship battles. If backed into a corner, they surrender.

The LBBs give another falling damage mechanic in Vol. III, page 30: figures forced to fall roll a d6; on any roll higher than 6 - the number of levels fallen, the victim takes damage equal to 1 die per 10-foot level fallen, 1 die per two levels if landing on water or another yielding surface. We can merge this with the rule for falling into a pit by accident this way:

If a character falls from a height of at least 10 feet, make an Avoid Danger roll, or an Avoid Accident roll if the fall was due to an unexpected drop rather than being forced to fall by an opponent. Add +1 difficulty for every extra 10 feet of distance. Failure means taking 1d6 damage per 10 feet, or per 20 feet if falling on a yielding surface like water. Falls of 60 feet or more always do damage, no situation roll allowed.

Because PCs and some monsters don't make morale rolls, it might be reasonable to whip up a quick ruling on forcing back an opponent: instead of doing damage on a successful attack, an attacker has the option to treat the damage die rolled as Change Situation roll; if <= 2, the opponent is forced back one pace. Player characters who are forced back have the option to take the damage rolled instead. Adjust the difficulty of the roll for a difference in size or strength.

We can also use Change Situation as a base target number for other kind of tricks or special combat maneuvers: tripping opponents, temporarily blinding them with sand, etc. For each of these, the player still has to make a d20 attack roll, followed by a d6 damage roll, but the damage roll is instead used to determine if the trick was effective.

Drowning is also a situation roll: Avoid Danger, +2 difficulty in a storm or whirlpool, +3 if unable to swim, +4 if wearing metal armor; victims in plate armor automatically drown, as do those unable to remove their armor. Unarmored characters who know how to swim don't drown in normal conditions unless forced to fall into water, in which case they gulp water if they fail an Avoid Danger roll, but have a chance to recover with an Avoid Accident roll.

Clone Project: Command Control

I should be doing galley-specific rules next, but I'm feeling low on energy, so I thought I'd skip to the much easier topic of command control. The big question on command control is: why is this in the naval combat section and not considered a more general part of combat?

The rules are pretty simple: you can give orders to your hirelings or underlings if they are within a range determined by your Charisma, 1" per point, halved if you are in melee yourself, shouting orders between cutlass thrusts. If the hirelings can see you better (standing on a higher deck,) you add +1 per 10' of height above the fray. For land combat, you could allow a similar +1 if you have a battle standard.

If you have lieutenants who are within range, they can relay your orders to those outside your range. Their range is one less than yours. I'd argue that the lieutenants can in turn use sergeants to relay orders even further; this would mainly be of use in mass land battles. On the other hand, maybe sergeants exist primarily as a loophole to avoid the Charisma limit on number of hirelings; each sergeant leads a group of warriors who are personally loyal to their sergeant, but only the sergeant counts as a loyal hireling.

Hirelings within range who do not break morale will follow orders as soon as they hear/notice the orders. Make an Avoid Accident roll each round until they receive the command. For medium to large groups, I'd probably do this in sub-groups of 20%, rolling 5d6; every 5 or 6 rolled means 20% of the hirelings were too involved in melee to notice. Obviously, this doesn't apply if the forces are not involved in melee yet, so a command to charge doesn't require a roll.