Of Monsters and Encounter Design

For those wondering, this is a follow-up my earlier post on the subject of lethality in DnD Next.

This time I’m discussing how to bring a little more of 4E into in 5E for those who are still new DMs and not used to tweaking full encounters or wanting to ramp up the “badassness” of the PCs.

If, for instance, we take the entry for an NPC “Bandit” from the Basic DMG pdf.  A Bandit has an AC of 12, 11 HP (2d8+2), has a +3 To Hit, and deals either 4 damage (1d6+1) in close combat or 5 damage (1d8+1) in ranged. They have no skill proficiencies by default.

Experienced DMs will immediately notice that three of our five main stats have an average number to use while also giving us a range. Some simulationists will want to roll each bandit’s HP and their damage, while making sure they wisely use both of their weapons.

That method, however, isn’t the subject of our discussion.  Let’s instead take a moment to refresh our memories concerning the stat blocks of 4E.  Each monster was labeled with a role (Skirmisher, Lurker, Artillery, Brute, Soldier, et al), as well as a possible classification such as Minion, Elite, or Solo.  These roles help DMs organize and plan for the proper creatures for their encounters.

Now, with 5E, determining a monster’s role as Lurker, Artillery, etc. is a little trickier than previous.  Each monster, by default, will have a limited number of useful roles given its stat block.  For now, we’ll leave our HP at 11.  Our Bandit could fulfill a Skirmisher or Artillery role easiest. We could simply denote each Bandit (Sk) or (Ar) as we design our encounter. Think of this as programming instructions. Our (Sk) Bandits will choose to fire a volley at foes before engaging in melee combat. Meanwhile, our (Ar) Bandits will choose to only fire from a distance until directly engaged or out of ammo (if you’re playing that way.)  We can make a Bandit into a Soldier by swapping their crossbow out for a shield. This increases their AC by 2 and increases their lifespan a bit further.  To create a better Lurker, we’ll note that our Bandit has a +3 to Stealth (They come equipped with a +1 Dex bonus). Now, to make our Brute we have a couple options. We can give the (Br) Bandit a more dangerous weapon, increasing their damage to (1d8+1) or (1d10+1) while dropping their ranged weapon.  Or, rather than changing their inventory at all, we can simply adjust our (Br) Bandit’s damage average to 5 or 6 instead of 4.  This will depend on your style of play and whether you prefer to roll all damage or use fixed damage for monsters to speed up combat.

Now, we’ve covered the main basic roles that our Bandits can easily play. (Controller and Leader are both technically doable but sort reaching for a Challenge 1/8 NPC.)  Now to address Minionizing, Elitifying, and (gasp) turning a Bandit into a Solo Boss Monster.

Minionizing is the easiest by far. Our Minion Bandit has minimum HP and should only hit for the average damage.  If you care to have your minions roll damage, cap their damage at the average. They should weaken your PCs while letting your players feel like badasses. If your Minion Bandit can kill a PC by accident, you’re doing it wrong.  Now, that being said, if you want your players terrified by a neverending swarm of bandits or kobolds, by all means, Minions are great for that option.  Dropping a dozen enemies and still having countless eyes shining in the darkness can absolutely spook a player. (Note: This works even better when using full narrative play as opposed to grid play for these moments. If a player asks why they can’t use the grid, simply tell them that you don’t have enough minis for what’s coming. Works like a charm.)  So, to recap, minimum HP for Minions, cap damage at average.  (Optionally, you can drop their HP to 1 and make them take no damage on a miss. That’s 100% 4E for you. I prefer the first method to keep the 3E/5E feel but YMMV.)

Moving on to Elites.  These foes are also quite easy to build.  Take your Bandit, give her maximum HP, a +2 to AC, and either raise her constant damage to 3/4 of the max damage or make the average her minimum damage if you roll damage. Now, your Bandit is hitting in a much more lethal range for many characters, is harder to hit, and takes more time to bring down.

Finally, the Solo.  Sounds easy right? Just keep pumping up the numbers, right? No. Absolutely not. Our real task here isn’t to just keep throwing higher numbers at the players. That increases the likelihood that someone will fall in combat, certainly. However, that does not help us create a more interesting opponent.  Instead, we’ll take the Elite template and do the following: increase HP to 1.5x normal maximum, and then find a monster (or monsters) of high enough Challenge and XP that it would be appropriate for your party. Steal two abilities from their stat block and graft onto your creature. In our instance, I’m stealing two abilities. One from the NPC Berserker (Reckless - Gain Melee Advantage for the turn, but all attacks against you have Advantage as well), and Multi-Attack (giving our Bandit two attacks per turn.) This raises our Bandit from being fairly dangerous to being downright lethal and hard to kill. Perfect for a Solo fight.

Now, the last question is concerning the quantity of XP to give for each enemy.  Our Bandits with roles will give standard 25 XP. Minions I recommend giving 1/2 XP for (13 XP in this case) because of their squishiness.  Elites should give x1.5 XP (38 XP) as they are significantly more potent than normal.  Solos should give 4x the normal XP rate (100 XP here) as they are intended with this method to challenges to parties of opponents.

Now, a word of warning.  Before you start trying to make Elite or Solo versions of creatures READ ALL THE MONSTER ENTRIES.  5E operates on “bounded accuracy” so that monsters that are Solos at level 2 will become Minion material at higher levels.  This doesn’t mean that you can’t make a pair of Solo Ogres (with a magical artifact or two even!) to teach your Level 6 or 8 PCs some humility, but these shenanigans will be harder to manage the higher in level you go.  Pay attention to abilities and how they interact with other monsters in your encounter. Few things are less fun than accidentally killing your PCs in an ambush meant to move the story along.

I hope this has been helpful. Good gaming, and remember, go have fun. That’s the point of a game.

DnD Next Beast List and Recommendations

Name (size, armor class, hit points, movement modes, skills, senses (PP=Passive Perception), special abilities (if any), attacks (damage and damage type))
Baboon (Small, AC:12, HP:3, Spd 30 Climb 30, Skills: None, Senses: PP11, Pack Tactics, Bite +1 (1 prc))
Badger (Tiny, AC:10, HP:3, Spd 20 Burrow 5, Skills: None, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP11, Keen Smell, Bite +2 (1 prc))
Bat (Tiny, AC:12, HP:1, Spd 5 Fly 30, Skills: None, Senses: Blindsight 60ft. PP11, Echolocation, Keen Hearing, Bite +1 (1 prc))
Blood Hawk (Small, AC:12, HP:7, Spd 10 Fly 60, Skills: Perception +4, Senses: PP14, Keen Sight, Pack Tactics, Beak +4 (4 prc))
Boar (Medium, AC:11, HP:11, Spd 40, Skills: None, Senses: PP9, Charge, Relentless, Tusk +3 (4 slash))
Cat (Tiny, AC:12, HP:2, Spd 40 Climb 30, Skills: Perception +3 Stealth +4, Senses: PP13, Keen Smell, Claws +0 (1 prc))
Crab (Tiny, AC:11, HP:2, Spd 10 Swim 20, Skills: Stealth +2, Senses: Blindsight 30ft PP9, Amphibious, Claw +0 (1 bldgn))
Deer (Medium, AC:13, HP:4, Spd 50, Skills: None, Senses: PP12, Bite +2 (2 prc))
Eagle (Small, AC:12, HP:3, Spd 10 Fly 60, Skills: Perception +4, Senses: PP14, Talons +4 (4 slash))
Flying Snake(Tiny, AC:14, HP:5, Spd 30 Fly 60 Swim 30, Skills: None, Senses: Blindsight 10 PP11, Flyby, Bite +6 (1 prc + 7 poison))
Frog (Tiny, AC:11, HP:1, Spd 20 Swim 20, Skills: Perception +1 Stealth +3, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP11, Amphibious, Standing Leap, no attacks)
Giant Badger (Medium, AC:10, HP:13, Spd 30 Burrow 10, Skills: None, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP11, Keen Smell, Multiattack Bite +3 (4 prc) Claws +3 (6 slash))
Giant Centipede (Small, AC:13, HP:4, Spd 30 Climb 30, Skills: None, Senses: Blindsight 30 PP8, Bite +4 (4 prc + DC11 Constitution of 10 Poison + Special))
Giant Crab (Medium, AC:15, HP:13, Spd 30 Swim 30, Skills: Stealth +4, Senses: Blindsight 30 PP9, Amphibious, Claw +3 (4 bldgn + DC11 Grapple))
Giant Fire Beetle (Small, AC:13, HP:4, Spd 30, Skills: None, Senses: Blindsight 30 PP8, Illumination, Bite +1 (2 slash))
Giant Frog (Medium, AC:11, HP:18, Spd 30 Swim 30, Skills: Perception +2 Stealth +3, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP12, Amphibious, Standing Leap, Bite +3 (4 prc + DC11 Grapple, Swallow Attack))
Giant Poisonous Snake (Medium, AC:14, HP:11, Spd 30 Swim 30, Skills: Perception +2, Senses: Blindsight 10 PP12, Bite +6 (6 prc + DC 11 Constitution or 10 poison))
Giant Rat (Small, AC:12, HP:7, Spd 30, Skills: None, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP10, Keen Smell, Pack Tactics, Bite +4 (4 prc))
Giant Weasel (Medium, AC:13, HP:9, Spd 40, Skills: Perception +3 Stealth +5, Senses: Darkvision PP13, Keen Hearing/Smell, Bite +5 (5 prc))
Giant Wolf Spider (Medium, AC:13, HP:11, Spd 40 Climb 40, Skills: Perception +3 Stealth +7, Senses: Blindsight 10 Darkvision 60 PP13, Spider Climb, Web Sense, Web Walker, Bite +3 (4 prc + DC11 Constitution or 7 Poison + Special))
Goat (Medium, AC:10, HP:4, Spd 40, Skills: None, Senses: PP10, Charge, Sure Footed, Ram +3 (3 bldgn))
Hawk (Tiny, AC:13, HP:1, Spd 10 Fly 60, Skills: Perception +4, Senses: PP14, Keen Sight, Talons +5 (1 slash))
Hyena (Medium, AC:11, HP: 5, Spd 50, Skills: Perception +3, Senses: PP13, Pack Tactics, Bite +2 (3 prc))
Jackal (Small, AC:12, HP:3, Spd 40, Skills: Perception +3, Senses: PP 13, Keen Hearing/Smell, Pack Tactics, Bite +1 (1 prc))
Lizard (Tiny, AC:10, HP:2, Spd 20 Climb 20, Skills: None, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP9, Bite +0 (1 prc))
Mastiff (Medium, AC:12, HP:5, Spd 40, Skills: Perception +3, Senses: PP13, Keen Hearing/Smell, Bite +3 (4 prc + DC11 Strength or Prone))
Mule (Medium, AC:10, HP:11, Spd 40, Skills: None, Senses: PP10, Beast of Burden, Sure Footed, Hooves +2 (4 bldgn))
Octopus (Small, AC:12, HP:3, Spd 5 Swim 30, Skills: Perception +2 Stealth +3, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP12, Hold Breath, Underwater Camouflage, Water Breathing, Tentacles +4 (1 bldgn + Grapple), Ink Cloud
Owl (Tiny, AC:11, HP:1, Spd 5 Fly 60, Skills: Perception +3 Stealth +3, Senses: Darkvision 120 PP13, Flyby, Keen Hearing/Sight, Talons +3 (1 slash))
Panther (Medium, AC:12, HP:13, Spd 50 Climb 40, Skills: Perception +4 Stealth +6, Senses: PP14, Keen Smell, Pounce, Bite +4 (5 prc) Claw +4 (4 slash))
Poisonous Snake (Tiny, AC:13, HP:2, Spd 30 Swim 30, Skills: None, Senses: Blindsight 10 PP10, Bite +5 (1 prc + DC10 Constitution or 5 poison))
Pony (Medium, AC:10, HP:11, Spd 40, Skills: None, Senses: PP10, Hooves +4 (7 bldgn))
Pteranodon (Medium, AC:13, HP:13, Spd 10 Fly 60, Skills: Perception +1, Senses: PP11, Flyby, Bite +3 (6 prc))
Quipper (Tiny, AC:13, HP:1, Spd 0 Swim 40, Skills: None, Senses: Darkvision 60 PP8, Blood Frenzy, Water Breathing, Bite +5 (1 prc))
Rat (Tiny, AC:10, HP:1, Spd 20, Skills: None, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP10, Keen Smell, Bite +0 (1 prc))
Raven (Tiny, AC:12, HP:1, Spd 10 Fly 50, Skills: Perception +3, Senses: PP13, Mimicry, Beak +4 (1 prc))
Scorpion (Tiny, AC:11, HP:1, Spd 10, Skills: None, Senses: Blindsight 10 PP9, Sting +2 (1 prc + DC9 Constitution or 4 poison))
Sea Horse (Tiny, AC:11, HP:1, Spd 0 Swim 20, Skills: None, Senses: PP10, Waterbreathing, no attacks)
Spider (Tiny, AC:12, HP:1, Spd 20 Climb 20, Skills: Stealth +4, Senses: Darkvision 30 PP10, Spider Climb, Web Sense, Web Walker, Bite +1 (1 prc + DC9 Constitution or 2 poison))
Stirge (Tiny, AC:14, HP:2, Spd 10 Fly 40, Skills: None, Senses: Darkvision 60 PP9, Blood Drain +5 (5 prc + blood drain)
Weasel (Tiny, AC:13, HP:1, Spd 30, Skills: Perception +3 Stealth +5, Senses: PP13, Keen Hearing/Smell, Bite +5 (1 prc))
Wolf (Medium, AC:13, HP:11, Spd 40, Skills: Perception +3 Stealth +4, Senses: PP13, Keen Hearing/Smell, Pack Tactics, Bite +4 (7 prc + DC11 Stength or prone))

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358676-Beast-Master-Ranger-List-of-Animal-Companions#ixzz3Dd8nvfEZ

This is an important list for anyone who likes to play a Ranger with an Animal Companion and all thanks should be given to Moorcrys on the ENWorld boards for compiling it.  The current rules for Ranger only allow Beasts that are Medium or smaller with a Challenge of 1/4 or less.  Now, as your Beast Master grows in levels, you gain better abilities to control your companion as well as having them grow in HP and gain the use of your proficiency bonus. I also recommend considering buying barding for your animal companion (if your DM allows it) as soon as you can afford it to extend the life of your companion.  Some, like the Giant Crab won’t need barding (Giant Crab is a nice option for the ability to Grapple two targets at once also) but you should always keep these sorts of things in mind.

Beast Masters are regarded as the “worst off” of the sub-classes and rightfully so.  All of their class bonuses are tied up in making their pet shine.  That said, understanding your Beast Master’s role in group is very important.  Your pet will dictate how you fight and what role you are capable of filling.  A Gnome riding the back of a giant badger that has multiattack and burrow will play very differently than a Drow stalking through the shadows waiting for their giant wolf spider to pounce.

DnD Next: Lethality - Warm-Up

Disclaimer: This is a short version of a discussion that will happen in greater length farther down the road.  This is based purely off the monsters in the first two adventures, the free basic Dungeon Master’s Guide, the Player’s Handbook, and the downloadable preview pages.

Well, DnD Next continues to throw around some pretty groovy flavor in its initial offerings.  Here’s the thing to know though: If you REALLY REALLY liked 4th Edition, you may want to stick with it. Next takes some of the smart things 4E did and applies them directly to 3rd Edition. This results in monsters that can absolutely turn you into paste at 1st and 2nd levels.

For example, a preview monster released is the Intellect Devourer. These little nasties have always given players a case of the heebie jeebies if they knew what was good for them. This hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s gotten worse. Now considered a Challenge 2 Monster (450 xp), the Intellect Devourer can feasibly kill a character in two rounds by reducing their Intelligence to 0 (essentially making them comatose) and then stealing their body by teleporting inside their head and eating their brain.  A fighter with an Intelligence of 10 will get turned comatose roughly 1/3 of the time with the probabilities at hand. If turned comatose, the Intelligence contest between the ID and the target to have their brain eaten is very hard to win if at Int 0.

That being said, a lot of emphasis has been placed that #1: Challenge is not the old standard of CR and #2: That XP is the proper way to build an encounter.  With this in mind, if we look at the ID’s XP value of 450 and compare it to the Encounter Building section of the Basic DMG, we find that for a party of four, the Intellect Devourer is in the “Hard” encounter range, damn near the “Deadly” mark. This should be the DM’s warning that while this large housecat sized brain may be eminently squishy, a game of rocket tag might just get underway if not handled carefully. Further, this creature, at level 2, could well be the entire point of a short adventure.  At this level of XP, it is a boss monster or at least a plot pusher.

So, what does this mean? Taking into consideration some of the other monsters at low Challenge Ratings (Allosaurus, Ogres, Cocktrices) high lethality is back. It can absolutely be circumvented through teamwork and DM’s are being reminded time and time again to not be sadists, and instead to be enablers of fun.  With these two points in mind, this should be a great edition for gaming.  Just don’t be surprised if player characters do get picked off on occasion. (And don’t you DMs out there be the dickhead who revels in TPKs either. You make us all look bad.)