Adjudicating Enemy Intelligence (retaliatory effects)

Delzhand

I'm DM'ing a 4e campaign, and one thing that I haven't quite worked out is how to determine enemy "meta" intelligence. For example, if the party rogue uses Riposte Strike, how would you determine if the enemy knows that "Riposte Strike" gives the rogue an immediate interrupt if she's attacked?

I guess the question is "In game thinking, how would the enemy know how Riposte Strike differs from a basic melee attack?"

Mojo_Jojo

It depends. Do you let your players know exactly what each enemy attack does?

Aegeri

It's up to you. If you want to play DnD tactics, then really who cares and you should go all out. If you want monsters to act with a certain personality, then just think within certain logical bounds. A moronic or stupid enemy is likely to attack whatever is closest and not really try to do anything fancy. A very tactically savvy creature may be smarter, attempting to make use of flanking, guarding its own flank and trying to direct allies to be more effective.

Delzhand

Well, they're level 1 (2 now), so it's not like they've encountered anything with interrupts. I've been playing it however seems natural. Humanoids with decent intelligence will generally avoid provoking opportunity attacks, but they won't deliberately avoid player abilities that interrupt. I just figured in the heat of battle it's hard to tell the difference, and if they avoided it every time the player would just stop using that ability, which is no fun.

I just didn't know if there was anything official. I couldn't remember seeing anything in the DM guide, but I didn't read it cover to cover.

delroland

I generally assume that the monsters don't know what abilities a player might have until those abilities are used in combat, or unless the monsters already know who the characters are. The higher in levels, the greater pre-battle knowledge of the monsters.

Essentially, random kobold A isn't going to know the powers of Bob the Fighter. However, most everyone knows what King Conan can do, because he is a world-reknowned certified badass.

Rough guideline:
Heroic: monsters don't have a clue, and they are only aware of powers used in the fight.
Paragon: as soon as a character uses a power or two, the monsters go, "Holy crap, it's that guy!" At that point, they know the character's entire power set.
Epic: monsters know everything the characters can do and fight appropriately.