Live to Tell the Tale: Combat Tactics for Player Characters

by Keith Ammann

From the author of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes an introduction to combat tactics for Dungeons & Dragons players.

On the heels of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing—a compilation of villainous battle plans for Dungeon Masters based on the author’s popular blog—Live to Tell the Tale evens the score, providing beginning and intermediate D&D players the tools they need to fight back. Examining combat roles, class features, party composition, positioning, debilitating conditions, attacking combinations, action economy, and the ever-important consideration of the best ways to run away, Live to Tell the Tale will help you get the most out of your character’s abilities.

Genres: Fantasy, Role Playing Games, Dungeons and Dragons, Gaming, Games, Fiction

224 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 7, 2020

About the author

Keith Ammann is the ENNIE-winning author of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters, MOAR! Monsters Know What They’re Doing, How to Defend Your Lair, and most recently Making Enemies: Monster Design Inspiration for Tabletop Roleplaying Games, as well as the blog The Monsters Know What They’re Doing (themonstersknow.com). He’s been a role-playing gamer and game master for more than thirty years. He likes to play outwardly abrasive helpers, out-of-their-element helpers, and genuinely nice, helpful helpers. Mostly, though, he plays non-player characters. And monsters.

Reviews

[Stewart Tame · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first heard of Keith Ammann when I stumbled across a copy of his first book, The Monsters Know What They're Doing, at a local bookstore. I enjoyed it immensely, and have been a fan of his work ever since, buying every book the minute I see it. But I somehow missed his second … until now.

Live To Tell The Tale flips his usual MO. Instead of writing about tactics for various creatures to use in fantasy combat, he sets his sights on the adventurers fighting them. Although he's writing specifically with the rules for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons in mind, his general approach can be adapted to other systems–or even just writing a story--without too much effort. Approximately the first half of the book discusses strengths and weaknesses of the various character classes, fighting roles and styles that work best with various ability scores, and tips for getting the best use out of spells and feats. The latter half of the book puts his ideas into practice, with scenarios for several different character levels that show how the battles progress with his tips put into practice.

It's an interesting idea, and a logical follow-up to The Monsters Know What They're Doing. I didn't find it as compelling of a read for some reason. For one thing, the tactics for characters rely a lot more heavily on the specific intricacies of the 5e rules. Figuring out whether a particular monster is likely to be an ambush predator just from the stats given for it is much simpler than trying to figure out if a specific character class still gets an extra attack at 5th level in … (this is going to reveal my ignorance of the current RPG market) GURPS or not.

The book does liven up when Ammann starts presenting his examples. I particularly liked how he started off by having the low level party do the typical newbie tactics at first. They didn't fare well. Then he rewinds and shows how much better they do implementing the tactics he talks about in the first half of the book. The final chapter, in which a fairly high level party takes on an adult Black Dragon and its Hatchlings in their lair, had me on the edge of my seat. The adventurers in each chapter are lots of fun. I'm particularly fond of Micklehast, the Wrathful, a halfling barbarian, no less! I would happily read a book of his adventures.

While I generally found his three books about Monsters to be more interesting, this one is still fun. And you certainly can't consider yourself a proper Keith Ammann fan without reading it.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a pretty good dnd combat strategy guide for those new and returning dnd players. Definitely check it out for yourself if you play dungeons and dragons.

[Austin Whipple · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well thought out read on how to squeeze effectiveness out of your character without min-maxing the life out of it. The characters are true to themselves, and still manage to be effective. The scenarios that make up the second half of the book really show what a careful, experienced (though not overly brainy) party can accomplish. I enjoyed it just as much as the Monsters book.

[J. Wootton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have limited experience with D&D and RPGs generally; I like them well enough, but they're not my first choice for tabletop or video gaming.

That said, Ammann's well-written guide to small-unit tactical combat in D&D is entertaining and helpful, containing sufficient stats and calculations to reveal "the math behind the curtain" while making the convincing case that as long as you play to the strengths of your character's role, the math will work itself out behind the scenes and you'll make an appropriate contribution to team combat. Most fun to read is the combat scenarios he lays out blow by blow, explaining the thinking behind each move with a diagram update for each round of combat.

One topic the book says too little about it is battlefield control and concentration spells. Ammann does a great job illustrating the use of natural terrain, but doesn't really discuss altering terrain to trap or manipulate enemy behavior or the importance of interrupting enemy spellcasters' concentration while shielding your own team's. These would be good to address in a future edition.

If you have to pick, Live to Tell the Tale is probably less valuable than Ammann's main series, The Monsters Know What They're Doing, simply because each class' strengths and weaknesses imply the combat style D&D expects that class to play, making player tactics reasonably intuitive. Monster motives & tactics require significantly more imaginative effort to work out.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

An analysis of what D&D players can do to fight better.

Some discussion of builds, with ability scores and feats and other choices, and character types such as tanks and spellslingers, and discussions of what to do in fights. Heavy on D&D specific elements and terminology.

[Kaitlin Jundt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great way to explain how the world of D&D works. I wish I would've had access to this a few years ago when my husband and I started playing with friends. I think I would've been a lot less confused.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent and useful book, especially for newer players who suffer from what my husband calls "Skyrim Syndrome," i.e. people who grew up in the video game generation and don't know/understand about party roles. Having played D&D for a few years myself and grown up playing war games with my dad, I though I knew a thing or two about tactics. But not really. I was just guessing. Ammann goes through each 5e class and explains ways to spec them and they types of roles they can play. Additionally, he goes through each combat role, explaining what it does and how it works. Finally, the end of the book contains several examples of how the roles and tactics can be applied in deadly encounters at various levels.

I liked the first few parts. Ammanns descriptions were useful and have made my drangonmarked fighter in our Monday group much more effective. His guidelines for when to use things like Second Wind helps take out the guesswork when you have other, more important, things to worry about during combat.

The last section with the combat details wasn't as useful to me. While it was nice to see the tactics in action, in none of the scenarios did the enemies roll higher initiative than the players. I would've like to see an example where players had to deal with a super powerful enemy going ahead of them. That's my only minor complaint, however, and it doesn't stop me from recommending this book. (I also tend to find the combat descriptions a little dry. For me it's hard to envision them written.)

So whether you're a new player, seasoned player or DM, pick up this book. I think you'll find something useful.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming back to D&D, thanks to my son, after last playing in 1983, has been one of the major silver linings to our pandemic experience. And then somehow finding time to join a virtual game here and there has been a thrill for me. But I quickly learned I was not doing my parties any favors being a bit out of my depth with 5E’s rules, especially around combat. Enter Ammann; this book is like a buff to my overall enjoyment of the game; it added at least 1d4 more fun to my most recent game; I’m confident that’ll eventually move up to 1d6. Granted, you can find most of this info scattered all over the internet (and on Ammann's website), but you also risk digressing into myriad internet holes. This book is very well organized and so clearly written. And Ammann deploys so many critical hits with his adjectives that I had to give him the full five-star treatment. For me, the best part of the book was the last section, in which Amman describes four play-by-play encounters at levels 1, 5, 9, and 15. I didn’t even mind reading this on Kindle. But I can’t wait to read the print edition of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing next.

[Lex · Rating 3 out of 5]

So. Much. Math. I did appreciate a lot of the strategy breakdowns, but it seems like the most useful thing this book has to offer is math: if the bad guy has X DC, what do I need to roll to beat it, and how does that affect whether I want to take risks to get advantage? When is advantage useless, statistically speaking? It's just... a lot of number crunching and some basic run-downs of what melee DPS, ranged DPS, tank, and healer roles do in a party. Second half is example scenarios that are just a bunch of circles on a grid - please, at least give me silhouettes on a grid so I can recognize what the different circles are!

A helpful but often frustrating book, which is also exactly how I feel about the 5e Player's Handbook so at least it's in good company.

[George Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for fantasy role players and game masters who want to improve their tactics on the table. I've been playing D&D 5th Edition since it came out in 2015, mostly as a DM, and I found some useful tips in Live to Tell the Tale. It was an entertaining read in its own right, too. I highly recommend this book.

[Jocelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the first read of many, as this book doesn’t necessarily have to be read in its entirety for the reader to get something out of it. I started D&D about a year ago, and the kindness of my DM and fellow players as well as this book have made it a throughly enjoyable experience.

[Garrett Emile · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t speak for myself, I’ve always DMed, but reading through gave me some pretty good ideas for combat. Maybe don’t read as a new player though.

[Casey Willett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having had the opportunity to read this cover-to-cover, I must say this is outstanding!

I've been a D&D Dungeon Master for 20 years, so I felt it would be a great idea to see all the insights Keith Ammann had to offer. I'm already a regular user of his other two works, "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" and "MOAR!" to add a level of sophistication to the tactics of the monsters in my adventures. It made sense to me to read the whole of this work, and boy am I glad.

He breaks the book down into four parts with smaller to digest sections to help a player with the tactics of their character. Each part seamlessly segues into the next to create a well-rounded understanding of what Ammann describes as the most challenging aspect of the game: Combat.

The first two parts start where any D&D game starts: Character creation and understanding how tactics work in the game. Everything from the importance of ability scores, the most likely roles of each class, and what to expect in the midst of combat are all dissected in these two parts. By the end, a player can get a strong understanding of how to engage in battle and start to synergize with the rest of their party.

The third part breaks down each class and several feats into the specific parts that make up their tactical prowess. This is the meat of the book. Do you know the difference between how a Swashbuckler and an Assassin handle Sneak Attack? How about the position a War Cleric takes that's different from a Trickery Cleric? What the hell is even the role of a Bard or a Warlock? This is where every player can benefit to learn the specifics of how their characters operate on the battlefield. This is the reason to read this book.

Finally, the fourth part shares four in-game examples of a group of characters. Each example pits a group in a Hard or Deadly encounter and shows how they can use the information given in this tome to overcome these difficult challenges. The best part is that each party is designed sub-optimally, showing that just using good tactics can benefit many a combat scenario.

All-in-all, I would suggest this book as required reading for any player interested in the 5th edition game of D&D.

My only critique is that the book can be a bit dry at parts. It is an informative book, albeit one for a game, which makes some of the material unnecessarily boring. However, this doesn't betray my 5-star review. Anything worth its value has some dullness to contend with and the end result makes the info dump absolutely worth your time.

If you play D&D, read this book! You won't regret it!

[Geordie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An advice book for helping your character survived in a (5th edition) D&D game.

It's good for, well, what it is. I've been playing for quite a while and a lot of this was stuff I'd already heard of. If you know the game well, the book won't be a huge help - heck, if you know the game moderately well, you can just web-search for specific needs or suggestions. I'd highly recommend the book for a new player, since it certainly has a lot of good advice. Nothing was groundbreaking, but it was all positive, and clearly told with good examples.

My only other complaint is, it is only about half combat tactics. At least half of the book is on optimizing character builds. Now, that's certainly useful (especially for very new players, or anyone with a cutthroat DM), but that's not what the book promises. I feel there could have been a lot more advice just on tactics. This would have been productive for teamwork in the game and situational risks, and also would have been more interesting than "if you're class X take feat Y, it's awesome."

[Luke Stacks · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seems less necessary and less revelatory than Ammann's first title, The Monsters Know What They're Doing, if only because there are so many other online resources dedicated to creating and using a Dungeons and Dragons character. I also find that part of the fun of playing the game is the emergent process of learning how to use your character economically, so consulting the tables in the book can feel a little like reading spoilers. Ammann carefully limns the rules, pointing the readers to what (for example) various status effects really mean. I expected more depth to the discussion on individual classes, especially in regard to preparing a sound roster of magic spells, which have many idiosyncratic and noteworthy elements. The combat examples at the end of the book are often engaging, but sometimes show off the absolutely frustrating aspects of rules, and seem to involve a ton of ability checks that can grind down the table.

[Rita P Smits · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend this book to anyone who likes to play D&D and wants to improve their understanding of the rules or their performance during encounters. The first half of it is awesome: it's straight to the point, accurate and interesting. Unfortunately, it is also extremely short. The second half of the book is less interesting, consisting only of several combat scenarios with parties of different levels.

The reason why this is not a 5-star review: there was much more I was looking for in a book about the tactical aspects of being a PC.

Some things that are missing and that I think should be there: general rules for character creation in relation to spells, guidelines on choices if you will (for example, what should you be looking for in your choice of cantrips?), examples of combos in character creation or between classes; party tactics for encounters (in the combat scenarios the players don't execute as a full party, they only behave optimally as individual units).

[Leif · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very basic and direct - which is entirely what many players new to the fifth edition of D&D likely need. I found the scripted narratives of small-unit simulated combat more interesting than the relatively straightforward but dull (because programmatic) earlier pages, which suggest that the ideal reader is able to dip in and out of the early sections after first reading with pleasure the latter third, where Ammann's ideas are tried, tested, and demonstrated. I would say this is less useful than The Monsters's Know What They're Doing, but the fact that this is for players and not the game master means the comparison isn't very meaningful. In any case, you're free to check out the author's blog for a flavour of his writing and of the advice he offers: which you can find here

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a great book for what it was. But it suffered from trying to be deep and wide and short. I appreciated the various walk throughs - my first time scanning this book, I had somewhat played a half-elven path of the totem barbarian and had just started with a wildhunt gloomstalker ranger. And now I'm about to play a ghostwise halfling circle of the moon druid. So reading through the classes and spells and feats held my interest a bit more. The game play itself with strategies would have been a lot more boring if you had to read this to understand. Instead I was able to read it to see if I was interpreting the rules correctly. The goblin encounter was actually my favorite - especially since it showed a failure and success scenario. Worth reading, and definitely I need to read more of the blog.

[Scott Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mediocre followup to Ammann's extremely good book about the fighting tactics of D&D monsters. What's in this book is very, very basic. Maybe good for the newest of players. More specific about the uses of the class features, spells, etc. would be good. Or specific combos that seem extremely helpful. But they're pretty spare in this book.

Finally, the entire scond half of the book (well, like 49%) is just a series of scenarios they run through with a set of mythical player characters. I get that scenario learning is used in the tactics schools of military academies, but here it really feels like someone realized there wasn't enough material for an entire book ("it's got to at least LOOK like it's almost as long as the first one!"), so they tossed in the second half as filler.

[Skaught · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not as cataclysmically excellent as The Monsters Know What They're Doing, Keith Amman's second book is still very, very, very good. Many players may find they already understand the kinds of tactics Ammann lays out in this guide, though they may not have examined them so clearly and explicitly. Also, unlike a DM's ability to meticulously understand the minutiae of monsters' implied tactics, many players spend quite a lot of time considering how best to play the one and only character they have at the table. To that end, not much in this book will come as a SURPRISE (unlike when reading TMKWTD, I had no "aha!" moments) but it does serve as an excellent tool for reinforcing what you may already know.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an avid D&D player for over 20 years, I found this book to be an interesting look at the application of more advanced tactics for D&D players. I enjoyed the fact that it employed a little bit of math to inform its decisions (D&D is a game that uses a lot of math, whether you like it or not), and highlighted that good tactics can overcome mediocre character-building decisions. But ultimately, the book seems a little bit unrealistic: it was fun to read, but I don’t know if I’ve ever played in a D&D game where this level of tactical decision making would have mattered, i.e., the DMs I’ve played with rarely throw challenging encounters at the players. As Yogi Berra once said, in theory, theory and practice agree; in practice they don’t.

[Dana Larose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, quick overview of thinking about strategy as a D&D player. Starting with categorizing the classes into potential roles in a D&D battle and then the last half of the book is walking through several scenarios and discusses choices the characters might make.

A big emphasis on the party actually working as a team instead of each player independently deciding what to do, which probably a lot of tables could use help with.

Somewhat embarrassingly, I learned from it that despite running games for a few years now, I've been doing cover/hiding/obscured vision wrong (in that I mostly hadn't thought about it)...

[Michael Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice analysis of how to be more effective in combat in 5th edition. The first 3 parts of the book were more interesting to me as they provided broad discussions on each class and how to approach them. The last part of the book was good for examples for different character levels and how they can approach tactics. However, I found the details too tedious to study and usually try to play in a more organic method based on how each character is wired, flaws and all.
Great book for those just getting into 5th edition and who are used to reading game strategy sites.

[Arthur Clingenpeel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have played D&D for many years and 5th edition starting in the beta test. I have not read or heard better discussions on tactics and combat game play. I have used the ideas in this book to my advantage as a player and as a GM. Action economy while using feats and class features is invaluable. I disagree with the idea that species features don’t matter. Darkvision, speed, immunity to spells or conditions all are pertinent to surviving combat and choosing a role. The descriptions of combat encounters helped me understand rules that I have struggled with. Great book!

[Brandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable primer on the combat and dungeon-exploring tactics of D&D. It emphasizes teamwork, designing characters to fulfill roles the party needs, and adequately using individual strengths in the moment so that the entire team works effectively and efficiently.

It is a good start that teaches fundamentals worth remembering, but I wish it had gone deeper. I want discussions of terrain-altering spells and concentration-based, multi-turn spells, for instance. Also, topics like crowd control, base defense, countering enemy spellcasters, and

[Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great book for players that dig nitty gritty, tactical descriptions! No matter what class you're playing from the PHB, there will be something in here for you to help understand your role in encounters even better. I did feel a little lost or zoned out with some of the wordier descriptions, so those parts weren't really enjoyable for me but, overall, this book was a well put together tactical battlemap for players of D&D 5e!

[Andrew Shaughnessy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is most useful for D&D novices, although to be honest I know experienced players who seem to think tactics are those little white mints. I've been playing 5th Edition since 2014 and still found some useful tips, especially the concept of standing/situational decisions. The book is written in an amusing, easy-to-read fashion by someone who clearly enjoys playing the game. Having bought it for myself, I've ordered a second copy for a new player joining our group.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking to better understand player strategy in RPGs, this book is a good choice. While I read it all the way through, it may be better used as a reference as you need certain types of information. However, I do recommend everyone read the introduction for some rather helpful advice on general tactics and play. Once you get your feet wet as a player in D&D, this book will provide some good insights on how to improve your knowledge and skills.

[Gary Lehman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book provides great insight on how to use your characters and increase the fun of the game. Allow your imagination to stretch the limits of the rules.

It does focus solely on combat tactics instead of broader use of skills. Which is important when you setup your character. Use that with consideration with these recommendations.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this as much as Ammann's book focused on monsters and how DMs should use them. Perhaps because there are just less classes, or perhaps because a good amount of the tips felt pretty obvious.

I think this book is more useful for newer players, but for more experienced players it doesn't quite cut it.