Enemies with multiple attacks/actions a round?

[Detective Costeau]

To be clear, this isn't a 'game too hard' post so much as me being confused at how the difficulty is actually implemented.
A lot of humanoid enemies I'm encountering seem to get multiple actions or attacks a round, and not in any way the player can duplicate.
E.g. Fezzik the goblin can attack twice a round with his greataxe. He's not using the fighter's extra action ability to do it, he doesn't have enough hit points to be a level 5 fighter to get the extra attack a round, he's just a low level goblin that gets multiple attacks a round arbitrarily. Is there some way for me to access this extremely useful ability?
Like I say, I don't mind difficulty, but I do find the enemies apparently getting to play by a different set of rules than I do kind of irritating.

[Recjawjind]

In 5e, there are plenty, PLENTY of creatures that innately have multiattacks without needing levels in any class that gets them. Its just something creatures can do. Even some cr 1/4 creatures. Thats just how it is.

Edit: Even some cr 1/8.

Edit 2: There is even a cr 0 creature that can make 2 attacks, "Young Griffon (Tiny)"

[RealDealBreaker]

Monsters (including humanoid monsters) do not have to follow the same rules as a PC. That has always been the case of monsters in d&d.

[medicinezombie]

If it's any consolation, monster rules are way harder than PC ones lol, PCs can level up and don't immediately die at 0HP.

Might as well be jealous of horses for running faster than your PC, or fish for swimming better, different shaped creatures work differently.

[Detective Costeau]

Well, learn something every day. Apparently there are rules for Goblins and Gnolls to get free extra attacks in the 5e monster manual. That feels weird to me (not used to 5e D&D, my experience is mostly with 3rd) but at least there is an actual explanation for it.

[Nodens64]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

Well, learn something every day. Apparently there are rules for Goblins and Gnolls to get free extra attacks in the 5e monster manual. That feels weird to me (not used to 5e D&D, my experience is mostly with 3rd) but at least there is an actual explanation for it.

The explanation is Multiattack tends to be an ability they have. Many monsters have multiattack features, if you want a more mechanical reason.. It's to even out the action economy and balance the combat against a party of player characters.

[Detective Costeau]

Yeah, I get that after looking at 5e monster stats. It just felt strange to me because I'm coming from mostly 3rd edition experience, where a stronger goblin meant that they had levels in a character class, rather than using a seperate 'goblin boss' stat block.

[RealDealBreaker]

Originally posted by Detective Costeau:

Yeah, I get that after looking at 5e monster stats. It just felt strange to me because I'm coming from mostly 3rd edition experience, where a stronger goblin meant that they had levels in a character class, rather than using a seperate 'goblin boss' stat block.

Giving monsters character class levels is really just a more janky way to make an enemy a reasonable challenge than just giving a monster an ability. No DM can honestly say that they prefer reverse engineering a class build to get specific abilities for their monster is more fun than just making the monster have those abilities and spend the rest of the time fleshing out some other part of the session.

[larhtas]

You have a great example here:
https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/monstres.php?vf=gobelin-chef
Multiattack is not link in any way to your hit point. It is an independant feature of the class or the creature

[larhtas]

If you compare my last link with this one: https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Fezzerk
You will notice that Fezzerk has exactly the same amount of hp. He his certainly using the same profile (or a variant of it).

[catatemydragon]

I just did a fight that the enemies could cast a spell, move, get 2 attacks... then do a spell, move, 2 attacks, move again... then use 2 abilities, a spell, 2 attacks... like what the hell is the actual action economy because if I can ONLY attack 1 time, or ONLY use 1 spell but they can do 4x the actions... I don't feel like playing completely unwinable scenarios