Monsters
By now you will have encountered a number of monsters, some of which were easy to kill, others may well have been more difficult. As your party progresses, it will encounter more monsters and as your characters progress, you should find that ones that were a real challenge at first will become little more than troublesome pests. Here are some tips on how to deal with them.
Monsters have a great many aspects to them. How good are they at fighting and how much damage do they generally inflict are the most important. How fast they move and how quick they attack are two other areas that should be gauged. Finally what armour and unusual abilities do they have should be considered before charging into combat with them. There are two ways of going about this, one is to re-equip your party before setting out to attack a chosen monster, thus gearing up especially for the specific monsters. This however is time consuming and should be avoided if possible. Anything above a few orders and it may be better to go for option two. This is to specialise your party so that it is able to proficiently fight a certain range of monsters while avoiding others. Even if you chose the latter option, as your party becomes more experienced, you will find that the range of monsters that you can fight with your chosen equipment increases.
Typical monsters such as goblins, orcs and other humanoids appearing in small groups are best dealt with using missile weapons. The combat example in this rule book shows this clearly. The archers have time to cut the monster numbers down before melee begins. By this time your party may well have a distinct advantage. This is an excellent tactic when they do not outnumber you by many and each monster is not particularly powerful
Monsters such as centaurs are fast on the ground, they will charge your party trampling and kicking in all directions while your characters are still spanning cross-bows. Against fast and powerful creatures that only appear in small groups, it may be best to avoid using missile weapons unless your characters are really proficient in this area. Long reach weapons may be your best choice. Spears and other pole arms are recommended although one-handed weapon and a large shield are also a very wise choice.
Other monsters form large packs. Hoards of goblins will surround each character slicing away with daggers and spears. This is a problem for spell users and archers. Against these, fast weapons that inflict small amounts of damage are excellent. Larger weapons may well do excess, wasted damage and you may find your characters are losing valuable time in recovery. As these monsters rarely do much damage light armour that does not hamper is also a bonus (except for dwarves).
Large monsters such as dragons have thick scaly hides against which small weapons are ineffectual. As these monsters can sometimes kill in a single strike, heavy armour is a must for all characters close to the front. Even those at the back may be in danger due to the sheer size of the creatures. Big weapons are also a must unless your characters have very magical weapons of a smaller calibre. Doing large amounts of damage in a single blow is the best way of defeating them. A character may well spend the entire combat bouncing sling stones of their hides without so much as scratching them.
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