There is a lot to balance while being a dungeon master of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Whether it’s a pre-built one-shot or an adventure that takes years to complete, DMs have to balance loot, the overarching plot, and often the actions of their players to make a seamless world.
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One thing that can be hard to hone in on is how to play each of the different monsters you use in combat. One that is exceptionally odd to figure out is the clockwork modrons. Creatures of the plane of Mechanicus, they can be rather hard to accurately mimic in combat. But, thankfully, there are some tips to help.
8
Understand The Hierarchy
Ranks And Titles
Modrons stick to a strict hierarchy when it comes to what they do. Monodrones are the lowest foot-soldiers, who take orders directly from duodrones or similar higher-ranking modrons.
Modrons don’t understand anything about the ranks above them except for the one directly above them. So a monodrone would only think a pentadrone is an odd-looking duodrone.
You can replicate this in combat pretty easily by having your upper modrons verbalize orders to their lower-caste counterparts. This shows how they work and lets your characters understand who to focus on in combat.
7
Have Them Seek Order
Everything In Its Place
As the natural inhabitants of the clockwork world Mechanus, modrons want everything to be in order at all times. Knowing this, they do not look fondly on anything chaotic or out of the ordinary.
This can also be something that you utilize in your modron combat scenarios. Any actions your characters make that are odd or unusual should be noted and challenged by the nearest modron, as it would be an affront to their ideals. Much like evil is an affront to most paladins’ code of ethics. Lighting fires, destroying things, or just being in the way of the modrons is enough to get their attention.
6
Make Them Stronger In Mechanus
Home-Field Advantage
Like any monster, if your campaign calls for your adventurers to fight the modrons in their home plane, they should get a home-field advantage of some sort. These don’t have to be as deadly as lair actions, but just something that shows they have mastery over their natural domain.
One of these ways is built into their stat block, being that they can use telepathy with one another while in their home plane. This can make them much more tactically sound and maybe even able to call for reinforcements. It could also be as easy as boosting their numbers or their HP.
5
Work As A Team
Stronger Together
Modrons have special abilities that allow for higher-status modrons to help out their weaker variants. Perfect Synchrony, Upgrade, Troubleshoot, and Supervise Work are all great examples that make having multiple different ranks working as a team that much more effective.
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Each of these boosts the abilities, attacks, and stats of the lower-ranking modrons as long as there is a higher-ranking one within a certain radius. The big takeaway is having all of the modrons work as one collective unit, usually in a small radius to one another. That way, they build off one another.
4
Attack From Different Angles
Land & Air
Many modrones, namely the tridrone and quadrone variants, have wings in which to survey their lessers. This can be a great boon for them in combat, and it is something that you should utilize as the DM.
Keeping higher-ranking modrons in the air to oversee the battle and give out orders while having a group of lower modrons attack on land is a great way to challenge mid-to-high level parties and show off how they work as monsters.
3
Try And Capture Your Party
Knock Down, Knock Out
Duodrones and some higher-ranking modrons have special moves to capture those that go against their ideals. Utilizing these moves, like Pressure Point Jab, which can knock weapons out of the hands of the character, is great for adding tension to combat.
Having a main party member lose their weapon mid-combat is never a good thing. Neither is a party member being abducted due to the duodrone’s Deft Binding action. These are great abilities to use, and ones that will differentiate modron tactics from that of a normal bandit or monster.
2
Look To Other Constructs
Flesh And Steel
One of the best ways to prepare to run a new and challenging monster is to look towards easier and similar ones you may have already run. Modrons are technically constructs, despite their organic components.
This means looking to other constructs is a good idea to get a sense of the mentality and strengths to look at when considering modron tactics. Other constructs that you may look at are golems, homunculi, and animated weapons/armor.
Homunculi would be arguably the closest approximation to modrons for their reliance on orders and ideals related to their masters.
1
Have Them Work Towards The Greater Good
Better For “Everyone?”
While most monsters will do their best to beat your party in combat, either for their loot or just to eat your party for sustenance, they should have some amount of self-preservation. Modrons often lack that selfishness.
Modrons, at any level, only work to further the ideals of order and the Primus. Their individual lives are put towards that goal, often fully. Knowing this, retreat, healing, and other life-preserving tactics should be eschewed for the larger goal that the modrons have in mind during combat.
