Are there rules on troop morale? Or just whatever the DM feels is likely behavior from NPCs? I do remember that Haley managed to demoralize the thieves guild flankers that one time she fought Bozzok; what meta game action would have been actually happening?
Roy has boobies!
Heh…I actually went looking for the Girdle of Gender-Change strips so I could claim “Literally!” and only remembered that Elan does a call-back on that line during the actual scenario when I found it. I love this comic!
There’s morale mechanic as such in 3rd edition. There are morale effects, which can give someone a bonus or penalty on specific die rolls, but those are usually caused by spells or special abilities. There’s no rule that says, “If you’ve seen five of your buddies get killed, roll a die to see if you run away.” There used to be, up through (IIRC) 2nd edition, but was replaced with the idea that the GM is also a roleplayer, and should determine if a group of monsters runs or stands their ground based on his conception of their personalities and motivations. If he thinks a group of goblins should be particularly cowardly, then he has them run away as soon as they suffer a single casualty. If he thinks a group of cultists will fight to the death, no matter what, then that’s what they do.
In practical terms, what usually happens is that most encounters against large groups of enemies eventually reach a tipping point where it’s clear that the PCs are no longer in any real danger from the encounter, and the rest of the fight is going to be them gradually grinding their way through the rest of the bad guys. That gets boring pretty quickly, so it’s usually a good place for a sudden morale failure.
There used to be actual morale checks, and groups of NPCs that failed them would take whatever course of action the DM deemed appropriate for a group with broken morale–usually, that would mean fleeing or surrendering, but it could also result in other panicky behavior.
I don’t see any reference to such checks in the SRD, but there is a category of bonuses and penalties for morale. Aside from specific sources like bardsong, however, I don’t think there are any hard-and-fast rules for a DM applying morale effects. What Haley did with the flankers would probably be modeled with an Intimidate check; she probably would have gotten a circumstance bonus from having one-shotted the previous flankers; a DM might apply that as a morale penalty on the flanker’s attempt to resist, but it amounts to the same thing.
In this particular case, it would be up to the DM to decide if the circumstances warrant inflicting a morale penalty on the troops, and if so, how much of one. These are probably pretty hardened troops from a life-is-cheap empire; as a DM, I would not apply a morale penalty to their combat ability just because their fellow soldiers are getting cut down and mind-controlled. I might apply one if they had to resist a fear effect (a spell or intimidate attempt, for example) or something of the sort. If Elan cast Mass Suggestion and suggested they run away, for example, they’d probably get a -1 or -2 on their saves.
Heh. “That badass there is killing five of us every time he swings his greatsword - what’ll I do if he snarls at me?” 
I’m astonished Tarquin’s soldiers have any loyalty to him. He doesn’t care about their lives at all, throwing them away for “bonus action” at the arena. Of course, this is SOP for comic book villains and their henchmen.
On the other hand, though, “That badass is killing five of us at a swing” can easily turn into “he’s killing our buddies! We’re going to make him pay even if we have to die to do it!”. But “That guy is forcing us to kill our own buddies” can’t exactly lead in to “We’re going to make us pay”.
Part of the morale thing is ‘suspension of disbelief’ with players.
“Oh come on now! We’ve killed 297 Orcs and those last three are still fighting to the death? Why the &%#@ aren’t they running for their lives?”
So in the flanker’s morale comic in question, what does Haley gain by driving off all the flankers? I know very very little about D&D, but I thought flanking gives Bozzok a bonus to hit, not to damage, and Bozzok says he’s already hitting her “every time”.
There are a number of classes that get “precision damage” of various types. Rogues get extra sneak attack damage when they attack a flanked enemy or if they catch the enemy by surprise. So instead of stabbing someone for D6+3 damage with your knife, a level 10 Rogue might do D6+3+5d6 damage.
Yup, and she specifically says she’s doing it so he can’t get that sneak attack damage.
Oh! Sneak attack damage! I should have realized that’s what it was, since every thief character (and Haley) mutter that phrase dozens of times in that section of the archive. And that’s why Bozzok says he’s hitting her for regular bastard sword damage (every time), as opposed bonus sneaky damage. Got it, thanks!
You’re welcome. You can do some silly things with the ability, like a Tiefling character of mine who liked to sneak attack people with Meteor Swarms. Or my “Batman” build who can murder everyone in the surprise round even if they ambush him.
Who’da thought Durkon could die, keep going as a vampire… and get zero character development from it?
There really hasn’t been opportunity for much; the scenes with him not being a thrall have mostly involved fighting. But we’ve seen some; his glee in snapping Z’s neck for example wasn’t very old-Durkon.
That’s the whole point. Durkon will seem perfectly normal… at first. Then things will get scarier and scarier.
Oh, I don’t know.
Not really the same. Killing your enemy in open combat, and being excited that your combat skills are up to snuff, is quite a bit different than executing an unconscious, helpless opponent with glee.
Indeed it is! My guess is we’ll be seeing more such acts that are discordant with the Durkon we used to know.