Indefinite Campaigns and Downtime in 5e

This week: A quick thought about 5e campaigns.

The (2014) 5e DMG presupposes that a campaign that has a more or less novelistic structure. It has a beginning, middle, and end, with different adventures linked together by the overarching story of the campaign.

That is far from the only possible or legitimate campaign structure. In general, I call campaigns "finite" when they focus on a fairly fixed group of PCs working together to accomplish a campaign-defining goal or solve a campaign-defining problem. An alternative campaign type is the indefinite campaign.

If a finite campaign is like a novel, an indefinite campaign is like a soap opera. It has multiple, overlapping and interleaved storylines, multiple central characters, but no fixed protagonists. Plotlines resolve or get abandoned, and characters come and go, but the campaign itself persists.

Indefinite campaigns can be highly immersive, and they only get better as they continue. They are like open worlds or sandboxes, taken to the next logical step. Not only can the characters do anything they want, but their decisions leave their mark on the setting and can influence the what other characters do.

For an indefinite campaign to work, characters who need to be resilient enough to be played over a long period, and interesting enough for players to want to play them for a long time. Yet, characters also need to leave play, either temporarily or permanently, often enough for the campaign to have a varied cast. Not all characters will be available for play at all time. Some will be engaged in downtime activities, such as healing, training, or crafting magic items. Some will retire, and some will die. Character death should be rare enough that the campaign isn't a frustrating churn of low-level PCs, but it should be common enough that surviving and gaining a level feel like achievements rather than forgone conclusions.

Additionally, players in an indefinite campaign need the freedom to try out varied character concepts and to pursue diverse character goals. All that freedom, however, needs to balanced with the DM's need for a coherent and believable milieu that supports the whole indefinite campaign. DMs running indefinite campaigns needs to be able to say no to their players, and their players need to be able to hear it.

Under the standard 5e rules, PCs have good survivability. There are, if anything, too many character options, so the challenge may be for the DM to decide what not to include. 

There are also some variant, optional, or often-overlooked rules in 5e that will be important to an indefinite campaign. They are, mainly, the rules that force characters to take downtime, give them things to do with their downtime, and turn time into a meaningful and limited resource for characters. Here are some of the important ones:

• Every race has a lifespan in its description. If nothing else, characters know their time on the Prime Material plane is limited.
• Living expenses need to be assessed regularly in an indefinite campaign, though "practicing a profession" can make them irrelevant in some cases. It may be a good idea to require characters to maintain a minimum lifestyle based on their level or tier, as some other games do.
• Training to gain levels is essential. It puts the brakes on adventuring, avoids the ridiculous 40-day progression from 1st to 20th level, and forces characters to be more aware of what is happening in their world.
• Slow natural healing is a variant rule that changes how long rests work. Instead of regaining all your hit points at the end of a long rest, you can spend Hit Dice. As usual, you regain half your previously expended Hit Dice at the end of a long rest.
• Injuries that occur when a character has been reduced to 0 hp (or when they fail a death saving throw by 5 or more) can require a character to take at least a little bit of time off to recover, or to find someone who will cast regenerate on them.
• Downtime activities give characters reasons to voluntarily take time off from adventuring. The exception is "Practicing a Profession," which is really just an excuse to ignore living expenses, but even it gives characters something to do while others are engaged in other downtime activities.

If you have a lot of players, you can run an indefinite campaign in the West Marches or open table style. But in that case, keeping track of everyone's multitude of characters might be a headache. You can relieve the headache somewhat by using 1:1 time. For every day that passes in the real world, one day passes in the game world. Characters who do two weeks worth of activity in a game session, then, aren't available to be played for another two real-world weeks. But that only relieves the headache, it doesn't make it go away.

With only a handful of players, there is less to track. It's a good idea to use a spreadsheet or calendar to indicate when each character's last activity was, when "today" is in the campaign, and when various future events (including the conclusion of downtime activities) will occur.

You also need to make some decisions about downtime activities that take a very long time, such as crafting magic items, building strongholds, and training for levels. All of those can take a character out of the campaign for months or even years at a time. (Worst case: a solo crafter making a legendary item requires 20,000 days, or almost 55 years, of downtime.) Players will be be rightly reluctant to do downtime activities that take too long. If a character has to be out of play for 200 days to make +1 armor, is it really worth doing at all? Even the 20 days required to train for levels 5-11 can seem like an eternity for characters who have adventuring goals. Who wants a castle if it takes you out of the campaign for 400 days to build it?

To mitigate this problem, you could simply reduce the downtime required for these activities. Xanathar's Guide to Everything dramatically reduces the time and cost of crafting many magic items, for example. You may also find, though, that it's convenient simply to advance the timeline by jumps of months at a time periodically. When some characters are involved in long downtime projects, you don't have to fill every moment of that with adventuring opportunities for everyone else. You can push the timeline forward as far as it needs to go whenever that's convenient and makes sense for your milieu.

What OD&D Got Right About Alignment

Alignment is an iconic feature of D&D. It's also the feature that has probably sparked the most arguments, which really shouldn't be any surprise. The most popular alignment system involves classifying all characters as "lawful," "neutral," or "chaotic," (whatever those mean) as well as "good," "neutral" (in another sense), and "evil" (whatever those mean). Players are expected role play their characters and make decisions in ways that reflect their chosen alignments. Up through the third edition, some classes had alignment requirements, and they could be penalized (sometimes very severely) for doing things that didn't match their required alignments.

And so, with so much at stake and such unclarity in the relevant concepts, arguments and debates were inevitable. The history of alignment in D&D is largely a history of attempts to make the concepts clear enough for players and DMs to understand exactly how to fulfill the requirements of classes that had the requirements, along with adjustments to the alignment requirements. Ultimately, in 5e, alignment is almost meaningless, as it has next to no mechanical consequences whatsoever.

I think almost every change to the alignment system over the years has been for the worse, starting with the Greyhawk supplement that come out a year after the original D&D rules. That supplement introduced the idea of alignment behavior. It forbade paladins from "chaotic acts," and it explained the chaotic monsters ought to behave erratically, unpredictably, and more randomly than others.

But in the original three little brown books, the "LBBs," there is no such thing as alignment behavior. Instead, a character's "alignment" is identified with the "stance" they take with respect to Law, Neutrality, and Chaos.

Law, Neutrality, and Chaos themselves are basically undefined. Instead, there are lists indicating which sorts of creatures can take which of those stances. Traditional villains and bad guys are on the Chaotic list, including vampires, orcs, and evil high priests. Some monsters on that list, including orcs, also appear on the Neutrality list. Humans can side with Law, Neutrality, or Chaos. Dwarves and gnomes go with Law or Neutrality. Elves are Neutral.

Consequently, the "alignments" in the original D&D rules look like "alignments" in international relations: loose alliances or groupings of factions with similar interests and goals. Law, Neutrality, and Chaos are the D&D equivalents of the West, the Communist Bloc, and the unaligned nations familiar to anyone living through the Cold War.

So, the first thing LBB alignment tells you about a character or monster is just who their friends and enemies are. Of course, only a certain kind of person would consider evil high priests their friends and unicorns their enemies. So, a character's alignment does tell you something about their values and personality, but it is far from the gamified moral and personality psychology that developed over the coming years.

Even without paladins and druids in the game (yet), LBB alignment choice has mechanical consequences. Here's the most comprehensive list I've been able to compile:

• Each alignment has its own language. Creatures of the same alignment can use it to communicate with each other. Creatures of opposing alignment who hear it won't understand, but they will attack.
• High-level clerics have to take a stance for Law or Chaos, never Neutrality, and they are penalized if they switch.
• Clerics who side with Chaos have "evil" in their level titles, up to "evil high priest," and they cast reversed versions of the clerical spells. (It's not clear if they can turn the undead.)
• Lawful high priests who cast the finger of death except in an emergency become evil high priests.
• Non-human character types are limited to certain alignments. Halflings must align with Law; dwarves and elves must not align with Chaos. (It's not clear if that applies to PCs or only NPCs.)
• Characters can persuade monsters of similar alignment into their service.
• Your alignment influences what happens if you are reincarnated with the reincarnation spell.
• Your alignment and actions together determine what sort of curse you suffer for ignoring a quest.
• Magic swords have alignments, (most often Lawful), and you take damage if you pick up a sword whose alignment differs from yours. A sufficiently powerful sword can change your alignment to match its own.
• There are helmets that can change your alignment to Law or Chaos.

(If I've missed some, let me know!)

Although there are spells like "detect evil" and "protection from evil," there is no direct connection between alignment and morality or behavior in the LBBs. Chaos and evil are strongly correlated, but they don't appear to the be the same thing.

Here's what I like about this system:

• LBB alignment is focused, simple, and complete. The whole system boils down to a matter of where a character stands in the Big Conflict of a campaign, and it includes all three logical possibilities.
• The system easily accommodates all character types. Take a character like Sage, from The Boys, who can be hard to categorize in modern systems because she is very disciplined and orderly even as she deliberately and systematically, sows chaos. No problem for LBB alignment. No matter how disciplined and orderly her behavior might be, she's on Team Chaos. Or consider a weak-willed character who is loyal to Law, but personally fails to live up to its demanding ideology. Again, no problem. They're Lawful, no matter how disorderly their personal behavior might be. The system allows for every possible way in which someone could side with any of the three alignments, including the possibilities of taking a stance reluctantly, half-heartedly, hypocritically, or ineptly.
• The system is easy to hack. Because the rules don't specify ideologies for Law and Chaos, the DM can make them up to suit their own milieu. It's trivial to just  replace Law and Chaos with something else: Capitalism and Communism, Liberty and Oppression, Imperialistic Religion 1 and Imperialistic Religion 2, Rome and the Barbarians, or even, if you must, Good and Evil.
• The system is vague in just the right way. Also because the rules don't list specific ideologies, but just names, it's clear to players that the precise meanings of Law and Chaos will be determined by the DM for the purposes of their particular milieu.
• LBB alignment is playable. The consequences of alignment choice in the LBBs are clearly specfied, especially by OD&D standards. Further, the consequences can be applied without figuring all the nuances of each faction's ideology. Like in the real world, the real question is who are you helping or hurting, much more than do your actions suit ideology X? 

There is still a possibility of a character avowing one alignment (probably Lawful), but not really acting like they're on that side at all. They might routinely pass up opportunities to strike a blow against Chaos, or help Chaos when the price is right, or refuse to help allies of Law against Chaos when it's inconvenient. Then the DM and the player should have a chat about where the character's loyalties really lie. The character might change alignment, or the DM might decide the character says they are loyal to one side, but in fact they are not.

My Blacknight campaign uses B/X for most things, but I use LBB alignment. Law, Chaos, and Neutrality are different sides in a cosmic conflict. If you change sides voluntarily, you can't use any alignment language for a year, as you are still attuning to your new affiliation. Your behavior can change your alignment, but only when your behavior amounts to changing sides in the conflict.

Cave Bears - B/X Monster Tactics

There are four kinds of bear in the 1981 Basic rules for D&D: Black, grizzly, polar, and cave. Neanderthals like to hunt the last of them.

Cave bears are tough opponents, even for Neanderthals. They have 7 hit dice, which is more than a white dragon, and their skin is tough enough to give them AC equal to chain mail. Plus, they move as fast as an unarmored human, and have three attacks per round, dealing 1-8, 1-8, and 2-12 points of damage, and if the first two hit, it deals another 2-16 with its hug.

According to their descriptive text, cave bears stand 15' tall and eat anything, with a preference for meat and, especially human flesh. The official description also says that they can't see well but have good noses.

Do Cave Bears have Infravision?

We know cave bears see poorly but smell well. The description indicates that they can follow tracks of blood, presumably by smell. In game terms, though, what does any of that mean?

"All non-human monsters have infravision and may 'see' objects by their heat up to 60' way in the dark," says page B29. Some monsters have especially good infravision, with a longer range. There's nothing to say cave bears are any different, apart from the mention that their eyesight is "poor."

Here's my suggestion: Thanks to their senses of smell, weak normal vision, and weak infravision, cave bears can "see" about 60' in all conditions. Beyond 60', they can smell you, but they can't see you. They have infravision, but it's not nearly as important to them as their ability to smell.

Cave Bear Weaknesses

Tough as they are, the weaknesses of cave bears are important. First and foremost, they have only animal-level intelligence. They aren't planning complicated tactics or even thinking much beyond the main biological drives of all animals: eating, reproducing, and surviving.

Obviously, cave bears can't make missile attacks. They might be able to figure out that the person throwing sticks (arrows) and rocks (sling stones) at them is hostile, but they have no clue about spell attacks, and missile attacks from beyond their range of vision might as well be coming from out of nowhere.

The fact that cave bears follow blood trails to their prey is easy for Neanderthal hunters to exploit. They can leave a blood trail leading a cave bear to a location where a score of Neanderthals are waiting in ambush with spears. The best locations will be the bottoms of gorges or ravines the bear can't climb, so the Neanderthals can throw their spears down at them.

Encountering Cave Bears

Cave bears want to eat, mate, and be left alone. They're pretty high up the food chain, without a lot of predators. They enjoy eating human flesh, but if they live in an area where there are Neanderthals, they've probably learned that two-leggers are dangerous. They'll happily attack lone humanoids, but they'll steer clear of groups, unless they are very hungry or they think their young are threatened.

In the stories I've always heard, mother bears become extremely aggressive and dangerous against people who find themselves between them and their cubs. I like that idea for bears in the game, and so I hang onto it.

You can skip reaction rolls for cave bears altogether and go with some rules of thumb. If the bear is encountering a lone PC, it attacks. If the PCs are between the bear and her young, she attacks. If the bear is extremely hungry, it attacks. Otherwise, it leaves.

However, especially for random encounters, you might not know how hungry the bear is. Here are some suggested reaction roll results:

• Immediate attack. Immediate attack.
• Hostile, may attack. The bear roars and makes a display, letting the PCs know they have impinged on its territory. This is their chance to leave. If they don't take it, the bear is hungry enough and territorial enough to charge them, going for whoever is nearest or smallest if it can.
• Uncertain. The bear doesn't know if the party is a threat, a meal, or carrying food. It makes its presence known, sniffs the air, and may move cautiously toward them.
• No attack. The bear leaves, unless the party gives it food. In that case, it takes the food and leaves.
• Enthusiastic friendship. The bear has decided the party will lead it to food. It keeps its distance (50' to 60' away) and follows them. It may become distracted later, but if the party thinks to feed it, it will continue following them for some time.

Cave bears have pretty good morale of 8, but they also have a survival instinct as strong as any animal's. They won't easily break off from fights once they're started, but they won't pursue fleeing foes they don't plan to eat. They will rarely make fighting withdrawals, if ever. When they need out of a fight, they'll retreat.

Cave Bears in the Dungeon

In the dungeon, cave bears typically wander in groups of 1 or 2. They are expected on the 7th level, but they appear on the sample tables for levels 4 through 7. Their lair size is also 1-2. Cave bears don't really form lairs the way more social monsters might. They live and hunt singly or in pairs, and that's pretty much it.

It's unsurprising that they'd be encountered higher up in the dungeon, as they need access to hunting grounds, which might include dungeon levels above where they live or outdoor area that access those levels.

Though the bears are tough, they aren't too tough to permit on the 4th level of a dungeon. A group of 4th-level PCs should be smart enough not to fight cave bears toe-to-toe, but they shouldn't have a hard time against it if they use magic (speak with animals might help, and web will hold them for at least two rounds) and ranged attacks, they can eat through its 29 hit points (on average).

Of course, cave bears do need to reproduce. They are giant grizzly bears, and grizzlies mate in May and June and give birth to one to four cubs in late winter. The cubs may stay with the mother for as long as three years. (Source)

So far as I've been able to tell, grizzlies don't live as mated pairs. So, I would suggest that encounters with one cave bear are with a solitary adult, while encounters with two are with a mother and cub. No stats for cave bear cubs are provided, so the DM has to make a choice. Depending how old the cub is, it might have the stats of a black, grizzly, or polar bear, or it might be a full, 7 HD cave bear, maybe with fewer hit points than momma bear.

Cave bears are omnivores who prefer meat. They need a water source, territory to hunt, and other cave bears to mate with. They could get all that underground, in principle, but in practice they'll need access to the surface. Caves are just too confined to provide enough meat to sustain a 15' tall bear.

Cave Bears in the Wilderness

A grizzly's territory can be as large as 600 square miles, which is about the size of one 24-mile hex or seven 6-mile hexes. Cave bears are three times the size of grizzlies, though, giving them about 27 times the mass of a grizzly. If cave bears lived in the same environments as grizzlies, their territory would have to be enormous to provide them with sufficient food: 16,200 square miles, or twenty-seven 24-mile hexes.

More plausibly, cave bear territory should have more abundant food sources for them than what a grizzly's territory usually provides it. Cave bears are giant bears, and they should live in areas where lots of animals are scaled up to match them. Lost world areas and the lands of giants suggest themselves immediately.

Cave bears do occur on two of the standard wilderness encounter tables—"prehistoric" and "barrens/mountain." The former is for lost world type areas, and the latter are fairly likely to include giants and dragons as well. Either (along with Neanderthals) might be predators of cave bears.

As giant grizzlies, we should expect cave bears to hibernate five or six months of the year. Wilderness encounters with them during that time will be in their dens. These might be lone males hibernating or a mother in a den with 4 to 6 cubs of various ages.

How Cave Bears Fight

Cave bears are not sophisticated fighters. If they are on the offensive, they attack prey who are alone or weak. If they are on the defensive, they fight whoever is fighting them. If someone is making missile attacks from less than 60' away, and the bear isn't already in melee, it'll charge them. It has no idea what to do in response to spells or ranged attacks whose source it can't see. It'll run away when subjected to those, but in a random direction that might be toward the source of the problem.

The bear's signature move is its hug attack, for 2-16 points of additional damage whenever it hits with both claws. This attack doesn't require any particular setup or tactics. Whenever the bear makes melee attacks, it makes its entire claw/claw/bite routine. In the lucky event that both claws hit, the extra damage comes along too.

Cave bears have decent morale, but they mainly want to survive. They won't fight just for the sake of fighting. If they can't identify the source of danger, they'll run (no need for a morale check). If they aren't hungry and they're facing a group of two-legged creatures, they won't start a fight. If PCs attack a cave bear and run away, the bear probably won't pursue for more than a round, and it definitely won't pursue once the PCs are out of sight. It'll wander off in the opposite direction and lick its wounds.

Cave Bear Treasure

Cave bears have treasure type V, which is usually the treasure of groups of intelligent creatures. It might include anything but copper pieces. You should almost always assume that any treasure in a cave bear den is incidental treasure that was carried by a something the bear ate. Cave bears won't use magic items in their treasure, and they won't care about the value of any gems, coins, or jewelry. You should certainly feel free to replace silver, gold, and platinum coins with trade goods suitable to the area. Cave bears are happy to eat merchants.

Goblins - B/X Monster Tactics

 What? Goblins? Surely the world doesn't need a writeup about how goblins work! There can't be anything new to say about them! But really, there are some interesting details to pull out of that little entry on goblins in Moldvay's Basic Rulebook. And I'm going to pull them out.

Besides, where would the Velocity Goblins be without goblins?

Goblin Basics

Goblins are the classic weak, evil humanoid monsters. They are small—probably about the size of halflings. They are ugly. They live underground, and they can see very well in the dark, with 90' infravision. But their eyes glow red in the dark, so you might be able to see that they are their, watching you, lurking beyond the reach of your torch.

Oh, and they sometimes ride dire wolves.

Dire wolves will get their own discussion in another post later. Goblins on wolfback fight differently than on foot. And dire wolves do sometimes live in caves, so there's no reason to assume that only outdoor goblins have dire wolf mounts. Even dungeon-goblins might have some dire wolf cavalry. Or should that be lupary?

Goblins are AC 6, indicating that they ordinarily wear leather armor and carry shields. Their damage entry is "1d6 or by weapon," and there is no indication of what sorts of weapons they can use. If you don't use variable weapon damage, goblins deal the same damage as anyone else using a weapon. If you use variable weapon damage, goblins are probably too small to use two-handed swords or long bows, but they can probably use halfling-sized weapons. Like halflings, goblins have 1-1 HD. Individually, they are pretty weak, with bad saving throws and bad attack rolls that are only worse in daylight. Goblins are also slow—as slow as humans in metal armor.

As weak as they are, goblins will not go outside in the day, and they never wander alone. Their morale is 7, which is average, but they know better than to get into fights they can't win. If they don't have at least a two-to-one advantage, they'll go for help rather than stand and fight.

Goblins and Dwarves

Goblins hate dwarves, and the feeling in mutual. Goblins always attack dwarves on sight, and dwarves usually attack goblins on sight as well.

But why?

The boring, mundane explanation is that dwarves and goblins like to live in the same sorts of underground locations, and they compete for resources. That would certainly lead to conflict and rivalry, but it's weak. Goblins and dwarves attack each other on sight. They aren't just rivals or competitors for limited resources. They have a deep hatred that makes any compromise, detente, or truce out of the question. They are in a state of perpetual war against one another.

Simple alignment difference isn't quite enough for it either. Goblins are Chaotic, and dwarves are Lawful or Neutral. The conflict between Chaos and the other alignments doesn't explain why goblins would attack dwarves in particular, and do so immediately, on sight.

I like to think of the Chaotic humanoids (goblins, orcs, etc.) as embodiments of specific flavors of destructive Chaos. For my game, goblins are not just creatures who happen to hate dwarves. They are the incarnations dwarf-hate. I don't mean that as a metaphor. I mean that, at least in my campaigns, hatred for dwarves isn't just an abstraction or an emotion. It has physical reality, in the form of goblins. It's what they're made of.

To encounter a goblin, then, isn't to encounter something that might hate dwarves, or even something that almost certainly hates dwarves. It is to encounter hatred for dwarves. And we're not talking a mere disliking for them. We're talking about the genocidal drive to destroy all dwarves and all things dwarven. That's why goblins attack dwarves on sight, and it's why dwarves usually attack them on sight.

Goblins are incarnations of dwarf-hate, but that doesn't mean they aren't more generally Chaotic as well. They are smart enough to cooperate, but they don't make sacrifices for the greater good. Their selfishness and instinct for survival mean stronger creatures (including their leaders) can bully them into obedience. They don't follow rules, but they do respond to threats.

When they aren't trying to hurt dwarves directly, goblins are causing trouble for any other civilized groups they can hurt. To goblins, anything that isn't strong enough to stop them is a potential target for their depraved violence and destruction.

Goblin Families?

I don't subscribe the conception of Chaotic humanoids as merely less-advanced humanlike civilizations, with families and villages and shamans and all that. They humanoid because they have some superficial humanlike characteristics: two arms, two legs, one head, feet and hands, etc. But the resemblance doesn't go much further than that.

In my Blacknight campaign, there are no male or female goblins, and there are no goblin children. Goblins arise in many ways. Some goblins used to be something else. For example, groups of dwarves who betray their clans, or dwarven clans that turn to Chaos, are apt to turn into goblins. Goblins are also able to make new goblins by feeding mandrake roots to sows. The roots grow into goblins over the course of 100 days, killing the sow and clawing their way out at the end of that time.

Wandering Goblins

Goblins wander the first level of the dungeon in groups of 2-8. In larger numbers, they can be found on the second and third level as well. If they see a typical party of 6 to 8 adventurers, they will run for help, unless there are dwarves in the group. If there are dwarves, the goblins will risk their lives to attack them and try to hurt them, if possible. Of course, if they can't feasibly get to a dwarf to attack, they'll flee and try to organize a larger attack later.

In the wilderness, goblins wander in groups of 6 to 60. However, their hatred of daylight should mean that they don't go far from the caves where they live. They appear on the default wandering monster tables for all but riverine and ocean environments, with about equal frequency in each. In areas without caves, they'll have some other sort of concealed shelter where they can spend the day. Any wilderness encounter with wandering goblins should be at night. Goblins hunt just after dusk and before dawn, when animals are active. They raid and pillage in the dead of night.

Goblins speak their own language and Chaotic, and they have the usual 20% chance to speak Common. It would be sensible to assume they speak Dwarven, or have a very good chance of doing so, but their description doesn't say that they do. I give them they same 20% chance to speak Dwarven that they have for speaking Common.

If the party includes any dwarves, there is no need for goblins to make a reaction roll. The goblins attack immediately, unless that's so obviously suicidal that they immediately leave to gather reinforcements.

Otherwise, goblin reactions are normal. Here are some suggestions:

• Immediate Attack. Exactly what it says, but if the goblins don't have a two-to-one advantage, they'll withdraw to organize an attack on the party later. Count a dire wolf as equal to four goblins in that calculation.
• Hostile, Possible Attack. The goblins make threats and demand something—probably treasure—from the party. They will attack if their demands are not met.
• Uncertain. The goblins are unsure whether the party is friend or foe, so they hedge their bets. They want to know who the PCs are and why they are there. They may offer themselves for hire, possibly in the Chaotic language, to see how the party responds. If it's clear that the goblins are not there to hire them as mercenaries or otherwise put them to suitably Chaotic work, they'll decide the PCs are enemies and treat them as such.
• No Attack, Leaves or Considers Offers. This one depends on initiative. If the party has the initiative and makes an offer, the goblins will consider it and negotiate. If the goblins have the initiative, they'll leave.
• Enthusiastic Friendship. The goblins seek employment from the PCs, hoping for the chance to fight against Law or dwarves or, best of all, Lawful dwarves. If the PCs turn out to be insufficiently opposed to Law and dwarves, though, this "enthusiastic friendship" will sour quickly.

Goblins in Combat

Goblins are slow, with poor hit points, attack rolls, and saving throws. They are susceptible to spells that affect "persons," including charm person and hold person. They are vulnerable to sleep. Especially in small or disorganized groups, that can make them seem like weak enemies.

They are smart enough to fight tactically, and they have a normal sense of self-preservation. So, they'll try to avoid most fights, except against dwarves. They prefer odds in their favor of at least two to one, counting any dire wolves as equal to four goblins.

Being so weak in melee, goblins should have missile weapons. Spears are especially good for them. They are too slow to skirmish and too weak to stand up in melee. So, they should try to throw spears at approaching enemies to weaken or kill them before those enemies come into melee range. Once the enemy is within 5', the goblins can fight with their spears as melee weapons. Since goblins carry shields, though, they may not be able to carry very many spears at once. Goblins on guard duty will have a supply of spears nearby and ready to grab (like the barrels of spears in The Keep on the Borderlands). Others might have force the weakest among them into "spear-bearing" duty, giving fresh spears to other goblins who have thrown theirs.

On foot, goblins will flee from skirmishing missile attackers. Against melee attackers, they will use cautious infantry tactics. They will form defensive lines, and they will advance on their enemies carefully. Thanks to their bad attack rolls (THAC0 20!), their only hope is to make as many attacks as they can, as quickly as they can. So, they'll try to gang up on enemies as much as possible.

When they aren't engaged in melee, win initiative, and aren't facing missile attacks, goblins will generally end their movement no closer than 30' from enemies in metal armor, 40' from leather-armored opponents, and 50' from unarmored opponents. The idea is to lure their enemies into closing to 25' or closer to the goblins in a round the goblins lose initiative. Then the goblins close, attack, and hope to win initiative in the next round. If they do, they'll be able to get two attacks in before their enemies get one.

That tactic won't work against enemies with two-handed weapons, and it will get them killed if the other side is making missile or spell attacks. It also won't work if the goblins don't have room to maneuver or to give ground. In those cases, the goblins will just advance and attack as soon as they can.

Goblin infantry fight in at least two ranks. That way, goblins from the second rank can replace losses in the first rank as they fall. Some DMs allow spears to attack from the second rank. If that's allowed, all the better for spear-wielding goblins!

Goblin cavalry work differently. Their dire wolves are faster than unarmored humans and faster than war horses. So, mounted goblins with crossbows make decent skirmishers. They can keep themselves 50' to 80' away from their enemies, while enjoying the benefits of short range.

Typical goblin wolf-riders, as described in Expert Rulebook, use spears rather than crossbows. They pose a little bit of a tactical problem. Their AC and speed suggest they should skirmish as light cavalry, but their spears are unsuited to that role. The spear's maximum range is only 10' further than the dire wolf's movement per round.

Wolf-riders with melee weapons and spears will try to capitalize on their maneuverability to take out enemy ranged attackers and spell casters first, if possible. Otherwise, they will close and attack melee enemies.

Goblins' dire wolves are semi-intelligent and trained. If their morale holds, they will continue fighting even when they have lost their rider—whether the rider has been killed or fallen to victim to a sleep or hold person spell. Casting sleep against wolf riders is generally not optimal. If the riders don't fall off and wake up immediately, their mounts are sure to wake them.

Sleep Spells

The sleep spell can eliminate 2-16 goblins at a time, most often hitting 9 or more. Its power depends on some details of how it's run at a particular table.

The book doesn't give an area of effect for sleep, but it's pretty common for DMs to assign it one. In such games, goblins who know they are likely to face magic-users should probably spread out to minimize the spell's impact, until they are able to swarm and surround enemies, who would also be put to sleep by the spell. (Or so the goblins assume!)

In my own game, sleep doesn't have an area of effect. The spell caster chooses targets from among those within range and line of sight. Thanks to their glowing red eyes, goblins can't avoid being targeted by sticking to the darkness. Spreading out would help avoid area effects like fireball, but not sleep. So, unless the goblins think they are going to be facing other area effects, they'll generally maintain formation in two ranks as much as possible, until they are able to swarm an enemy.

The Goblin King and his Bodyguard

The goblin king and his bodyguards are tougher than ordinary goblins, and they can fight in daylight without penalty. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that PCs would encounter a goblin king outside, in the daytime or otherwise.

The goblin king and his bodyguards are susceptible to sleep, but a single casting of the spell is unlikely to take out the king and his entire retinue of 2-12 guards.

There isn't much about the goblin king or his guards to suggest tactics much different from ordinary goblins. They can afford to be a little more aggressive, thanks to their better hit dice and damage.

The goblin king increases the morale of the goblins who are with him, but there is no reason to think these Chaotic monsters feel great loyalty or love for him. He's just the toughest, and so he's the one everyone else has to obey. That means goblins, including the bodyguards, won't spontaneously put themselves in harm's way just to protect the king.

If dire wolves are available, the privilege of riding them should go first to the king and his bodyguards, and only to ordinary goblins if the king and bodyguard all have mounts. 

When Morale Breaks ...

With morale of just 7, there's a good chance a group of goblins will fail a morale check. Those who are not engaged in melee will flee by the most expeditious route.

When they aren't mounted, goblins are as slow as humans in metal armor. If they fail a morale check, they know they are just too slow to get away from anyone. They have no choice but to surrender and try to buy their freedom with information or the promise of treasure.

In contrast, a dire wolf has movement of 150' (50'). A goblin on a dire wolf likely can get away from any human or demi-human enemy. If their enemy is in metal armor, they'll start with a  25' fighting withdrawal. On the next turn, they'll retreat if they must and run if they can.

Dire wolf morale is better than goblin morale, so it's possible for the goblins in a group to fail a morale check while wolf morale holds. In that case, wolves with riders will follow their training, but wolves who have lost their riders will continue fighting.

Goblin Lairs

The population of a goblin lair in a dungeon ranges from 6 to 60. Wilderness lairs range from 30 to 300. They will usually have access to the surface, which makes it easier for them to hunt and raid at night.

A goblin lair should have access to water and food. It should include quarters for the king and his bodyguard, a throne room, and quarters for the ordinary troops. Goblins are smart enough to set up a concentric defense. It should be impossible for intruders to reach their food, water, barracks, or king without first being observed and making their way through other guards. Typically, goblins will set up alarms and sentries who can identify invaders and fall back to engage them with the support of reserve guards. If that battle goes badly, they can either fall back to the king or the king and bodyguard can provide reinforcement.

In some areas, there are no caves for goblins to live in. Their lairs in those cases will be concealed or disguised as much as possible, to keep out intruders in the daytime while they sleep. Some goblins in swamps, for example, have lairs that look like masses of weeds, mud, and undergrowth, with hidden entrances and twisting, cavelike passages inside them.

Goblins value their treasure above all else. The king has no particular loyalty to his subjects, nor they to him. The king will have arranged the lair so that he can escape with as much treasure as possible if things are going badly for him. However, he'll need a way to know things are going badly before any fight reaches him. He's too slow to run away once his quarters or throne room are invaded. At the first sign of a credible threat to the lair, the king and bodyguards should start gathering as much of their treasure as possible, load it and themselves on dire wolves if available, and flee through the most convenient route of escape. The lair should therefore include an escape route for the king.

Where the goblins flee depends on what is available. Their likeliest course is to find nearby Chaotic humanoids (such as the hobgoblins in the Caves of Chaos in The Keep on the Borderlands) and attempt to combine forces against the threat.

Treasure

Individual goblins carry 2-12 ep. They have treasure type C in their lair. There is about a 28% chance for type C to yield no coins, gems, or jewelry at all. Coins in a goblin hoard are likely the proceeds of raids, and they are exclusively copper, silver, and electrum. Depending on circumstances, you might replace any of them with other goods of similar encumbrance and value that the goblins have managed to plunder.

According to their description, goblins don't have treasure type C unless except in their lair or in the wilderness. This is a little bit strange, since monsters usually don't have treasure outside their lair anyway. Why note this?

One possibility is that it's just a reminder that the goblin thralls of the local Chaotic magic-user aren't walking around with a lair's worth of treasure. I like a somewhat different interpretation, though. It's a reminder that some wilderness encounters with goblins are with whole populations of goblins on the move.

They could be goblins who have been driven out of their old lairs, fleeing with their treasure. Or they have run out of victims near their old lair. As embodiments of hate, goblins have a basic need to kill, torture, and plunder. When they run out of enemies in an area, they don't sit back and enjoy the peace. They set out in search of new victims, and they'd really like for those new victims to be dwarves.

Neanderthals - B/X Monster Tactics

Neanderthals sometimes keep white apes as pets. And since we were just talking about white apes. let's skip ahead to Neanderthals on the monster list.

Also called "cavemen," the B/X Neanderthals certainly don't resemble the Neanderthals of the real world. Don't get hung up on their name, and definitely don't try to learn anthropology from D&D rulebooks!

The "Neanderthal" entry actually describes two different species. The normal ones, being squat and muscular, are probably about as tall as elves but built like stereotypical dwarves. They are capable fighters, with 2 hit dice and a +1 bonus to their weapon damage. They fight about as well as a 2nd-level Fighter whose Strength score is 13 to 15. Their AC is 8, which may mean they usually carry shields. You could decide instead that their AC comes from being especially nimble or from wearing protective clothes that are almost, but not quite, as good as leather armor.

Then there are the other ones. Call them the "Neanderthal nobles." They're 10' tall, and they have 6 hit dice! Groups of normal Neanderthals seek out pairs of Neanderthal nobles to rule them, one male and one female. The nobles come from "a similar race," so it should be possible to find groups of Neanderthal nobles living together as well.

Neanderthals are among the few Lawful monsters. They have stone-age technology, but they are friendly with dwarves and gnomes, and they hate goblins, kobolds, and, especially, ogres. They have infravision as normal for monsters, out to 60'. They keep white apes as pets, and they hunt cave bears.

All that suggests neanderthals either live in deep caverns that are connected to the caves where all those other types of creature live, or else they live in areas where there are a lot of caves and competition over cave-based resources.

In my Blacknight campaign, goblins, kobolds, and ogres are typically not born goblins, kobolds, and ogres. Either they're made by magic, or they are former humans or demi-humans who were so corrupt they turned into monsters. Neanderthals have special hatred for ogres because, when neanderthals go Chaotic, that's what they become.

Neanderthals can make their own stone tools and weapons, but their friendship with dwarves and gnomes suggests that also trade for other goods. And since they are Lawful, we can assume they see themselves as allied with the dwarves and gnomes in resisting Chaos, especially as represented by the goblins and kobolds who actively seek to conquer and destroy those demi-humans. They may be able to call on dwarven and gnomish allies in their fights against ogres.

Encountering Neanderthals

Reactions

Neanderthals usually won't attack humans or demi-humans except to defend themselves. They are shy, and their default reaction to humans encountered randomly will be to leave. If humans come to them, the Neanderthals might be willing to trade items, treasure, or information, but they will try to keep the interactions as short as possible, and they'll keep humans on the periphery of their territory.

When encountering dwarves or gnomes, the response will be warmer. I give Neanderthals the same 20% chance to speak Dwarvish or Gnomish that they have for speaking Common, but they can fall back on Lawful with many dwarves and gnomes as well. They'll be interested in exchanging news and information, and in trading with the dwarves and gnomes, especially for exotic food and drink and metal goods. In return, they can provide the dwarves and gnomes with meat, animal hides, and troops.

When Neanderthals encounter goblins, kobolds, or ogres, they will almost always attack if they think they have the advantage. In the case of ogres, they will attack on sight and without hesitation. If they are outnumbered or the ogres have the advantage, the Neanderthals will be patient and try to find a good way to deal with the problem. But make no mistake. To a neanderthal, any ogre is an urgent problem that needs to be eliminated immediately.

The question of why Neanderthals attack ogres on sight needs an answer. In my Blacknight campaign, many ogres used to be Neanderthals, and they turned into monsters because they were so corrupt. I also like to think of Chaotic humanoids as embodyments of different kinds of Chaotic tendencies, often hatred of some sort. Ogres, then, could represent hatred for Neanderthals and their collectivist, cooperative way of life. It's not that ogres just happen to hate Neanderthals. It's that ogres are, basically, made of hate for those things. They are the will to destroy and desecrate everything Neanderthals hold dear.

Neanderthals in the Dungeon

Normal Neanderthals wander the 2nd level of a dungeon in groups of 1-10. They could appear on Level 1 in smaller numbers or as low as level 4 in greater numbers. They hunt in the daytime, so those who are encountered are probably on their way to or from their hunting grounds, which is likely a place where cave bears are routinely found. They may also be heading to or from a source of plant-based food, especially if they have vegetarian white apes to feed back in their lair.

Neanderthals do not wander with white apes in the daytime, except right around dawn or dusk. That's because white apes are nocturnal, but neanderthals are not.

A dungeon Neanderthal lair has 10 to 40 neanderthals on the second level of the dungeon, plus their two neanderthal noble leaders. It might also have 1 to 6 white apes, the Neanderthals' pets.

The lair is almost certainly a set of interconnected caverns, to accommodate the normal Neanderthals, their pets, and their leaders, but it could be a single, extremely large cave. It should have access to the surface, to water, and to hunting grounds (which could be on the surface or also underground).

It would be a mistake to assume that Neanderthals are stupid just because they use stone tools. Neanderthals are intelligent, and their lairs will reflect their intelligence. Assume instead that Neanderthals are master stoneworkers who typically lack access to the materials and resources needed to smelt metals. They will trade for metal goods, but their stone weapons and tools are at least as good as typical human equipment.

Their lairs will be organized to protect their most valuable people and treasures. They will have sentries and an organized defense. The approaching caverns will funnel invaders to choke points the Neanderthals can control. A favorite tactic is to lure attackers into a cavern where the Neanderthals can attack them from above with thrown spears.

At night, all the Neanderthals will be present in their lair, but only about a quarter to a third will be awake. Half of those who are awake will be on sentry duty, and the other half will be in reserve, ready to respond if the alarm is raised.

In the daytime, about a third of the group will be asleep, a third will be on guard duty (divided between sentries and reserve), and the rest will either be out hunting or doing work in the lair. Prime hunting time is from about an hour before dawn to about an hour after dawn.

Neanderthal nobles might be encountered as leaders of normal Neanderthals or in lairs of their own. On their own, they usually appear on the 6th level of a dungeon, in the same numbers as normal Neanderthals on Level 2. Like their smaller cousins, the Neanderthal nobles need access to food and water. For food, they likely need to be able to reach the surface to hunt land animals, or they need access to an area rich with cave bears. (And the cave bears probably need surface access themselves ...). Remember, not every entrance to a dungeon has to lead to Level 1!

Neanderthals in the Wilderness

In the wilderness, Neanderthals wander in groups of 10 to 40. These are large hunting or war parties. If hunting, they are after large prey, such as cave bears. If a war party, they might be on their way to or from a fight against ogres. Their lair will be somewhere within a half-day's walk, and they are much more commonly encountered in the day than at night. If encountered at night, though, there should a chance that a white ape is with them.

Neanderthals don't appear on any of the standard wilderness encounter tables. So, they're probably not all that common. They are great for "Lost World" type areas, or anywhere they can work as allies to a group of dwarves or gnomes or as enemies to groups of goblins, kobolds, or ogres.

A wilderness lair has 50 to 200 neanderthals. That's a village. It may be entirely underground, or it might have some above ground areas, especially for trade. In the village, there will be stone masons, weavers, potters, and other craftsmen, as well as hunters and foragers. The bulk of the lair will be underground, and its entrances will be hidden and well guarded.

Neanderthal Treasure

Neanderthals do not have much use for money. What coins they have are usually taken from ogres, goblins, or kobolds they have defeated, and they use them for decoration and for trade with dwarves and gnomes.

 

In place of copper pieces, Neanderthals are apt to have a supply of preserved meats, stone and bone tools, and decorations made from rocks. In place of silver pieces, they will have preserved hides and leather and woven goods. In place of electrum, they have stone and wood carvings and decorative beadwork. Their gems, jewelry, and magic items are either taken from their enemies or gifts from dwarves and gnomes.

How Neanderthals Fight

When they fight, Neanderthals skirmish with thrown spears, avoiding melee as much as possible. Every neanderthal carries five spears (range 20’/40’/60’) plus either a stone battle axe, a stone mace, or, rarely, a stone club.

 

Standard neanderthal tactics are meant for their usual enemies: cave bears, ogres, goblins, and kobolds.

 

Against cave bears, Neanderthals do not have a speed advantage, and a cave bear has no trouble hitting (and probably killing) a Neanderthal in melee. When hunting cave bears, neanderthals leave food to attract their quarry and take up a position, often high up, from which they can throw spears and kill the bear before it can attack them. To kill a cave bear, the neanderthals need to hit it with 7 spears on average. They only hit 40% of the time, though, so their ambush should include at least 18 Neanderthals throwing spears.

 

Against humans, demi-humans, and humanoids, Neanderthals without battle axes keep a distance of 45’ to 60’ and throw their spears before closing to fight with their maces or their last spear.

Those who have battle axes will keep a spear in reserve. They'll maneuver to a safe distance from their enemies (75’ from ogres, 65’ from goblins and kobolds) and wait for their enemies to come within 45' of them. Then they'll move in, attack with their battle axes, and switch to spears for the rest of the melee.

In general, Neanderthals with battle axes fight the way dwarves with battle axes do. I've written about those tactics before.

 

Neanderthals will try to choose their targets carefully, but they might underestimate the threat posed by unarmed, unarmored magic-users.

Being smart and fast, Neanderthals will consider the situation when deciding whether to retreat or make a fighting withdrawal. They will retreat if they think they can survive another attack and their enemy is either in metal armor or also engaged in melee with someone else. They'll make a fighting withdrawal otherwise, offering surrender if the initiative dice don't give them an opportunity to run away.

As Lawful creatures, Neanderthals will usually accept surrender from enemies (except ogres) and take them prisoner. Prisoners' fates could range anywhere from being held for ransom to enslavement to being tried and executed for their crimes.