D&D 5E 5e Hardcore: Monster Manual

[dave2008]

Dave, did you see my thread about the secret planescape origin of legendary / solo monsters? Definitely worth perusing. The TL;DR version: Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix II originated the idea of a "monster of legend"; compared to 5e's legendary monsters these "monsters of legend" had vastly greater defenses, though they lacked the boosted action economy of lair actions & legendary actions.

I did not - I will have to check it out.

Ooo! I've done a lot of ad-libbing with ogres in my game. I actually think the expanded options I'd give them map really well to the MM's paragraph headers under the "Ogre" entry (e.g. furious tempers, gruesome gluttons, greedy collectors, legendary stupidity, primitive wanderers). Some more specific things I've done:

• Gave an ogre a version of barbarian Rage, and gave another ogre an additional albeit random attack when reduced to 50% hit points or according to a specific trigger of that ogre's personality.
• Added a bite attack to an ogre's multiattack, but it was only usable against incapacitated enemies, and indicated the ogre bit a hand, foot, finger, ear, or other limb off the creature. I try to avoid giving monsters healing powers in my own design, but this would be an appropriately grisly place to do that.
• Gave an ogre a "sack" attack to grab a creature and stuff them into a sack and cinch it shut. While stuffed in the sack, the creature was blind to anything outside the sack. Cutting it free was possible as an action using a slashing weapon, which deposited it prone next to the ogre.
• Made an ogre so stupid that it misinterpreted all enchantment spells in the worst imaginable way possible. This was pretty hilarious, but then my group enjoys funny bits like this.
• Added automatic pushing and knocking prone to an ogre's Greatclub attack, describing it as getting thwacked by an uprooted tree.

These are really great - mind if I steal some? I really like the sack idea, an Ogre Sack Master maybe? I already have one with the auto push or prone (I have the target a saving throw though). it just seems like the obvious choice.

 

[dave2008]

Prince Rupert the 3rd level half-orc might disagree with you there. Any higher damage on that breath weapon and he would have been vaporized.

Right now, 3rd-5th level PCs can face an adult red dragon with some hope of surviving, especially with Healing Word and similar spells. If you bump it up to 20d12+40 (170) it becomes truly hopeless, "need not apply" as you call it.

Yes that would be. How about a bump to 91 (14d12)? I haven't looked at dragons yet, but that hits the 50% increase in DPR button pretty well.

 

[Quickleaf]

These are really great - mind if I steal some? I really like the sack idea, an Ogre Sack Master maybe? I already have one with the auto push or prone (I have the target a saving throw though). it just seems like the obvious choice.

Borrow away

I realize that the 4e aesthetic of "Monster Name + Adjective + Noun" is appealing to some, but I never was as organized about writing up an entirely new stat block for what was, essentially, a small addition to a monster. It's a matter of degree, of course, but mostly my approach maps to Volo's Guide pg. 98 on Unusual Abilities for Yuan-Ti. For example, giving a yuan-ti the sticks to snakes action option would seem sufficient to me; no need to write up a new statblock for a "Yuan-Ti Snake Sticker" or whatever.

So, if I was being more formal/professional about what I do spontaneously, it might look like...

[SECTION]Action Options
The following action options may be available to ogres, depending on their personality and equipment.

Sack. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: The target is swooped into the ogre's sack where it is restrained and cannot see outside of the sack. A creature wielding a piercing or slashing weapon can use an action to cut open the sack, thereby freeing the target who falls prone in a square next to the ogre.

And so on...[/SECTION]

 

[dave2008]

Borrow away

I realize that the 4e aesthetic of "Monster Name + Adjective + Noun" is appealing to some, but I never was as organized about writing up an entirely new stat block for what was, essentially, a small addition to a monster. It's a matter of degree, of course, but mostly my approach maps to Volo's Guide pg. 98 on Unusual Abilities for Yuan-Ti. For example, giving a yuan-ti the sticks to snakes action option would seem sufficient to me; no need to write up a new statblock for a "Yuan-Ti Snake Sticker" or whatever.

So, if I was being more formal/professional about what I do spontaneously, it might look like...

[SECTION]Action Options
The following action options may be available to ogres, depending on their personality and equipment.

Sack. Melee Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: The target is swooped into the ogre's sack where it is restrained and cannot see outside of the sack. A creature wielding a slashing weapon can use an action to cut open the sack, thereby freeing the target who falls prone in a square next to the ogre.

And so on...[/SECTION]

I was just having a little fun with the Sack Master

However, I do plan to give each entry a unique name, just to emphasize that these are not intended to replace existing MM monsters. They stand beside them as additional options.

I agree with idea of having a set of options you can just slap on different monsters, but that is not what I want to provide here. I want to go ahead and put them in a stat block so a DM doesn't need to do anything but grab the monster.

 

[Zardnaar]

Unfortunately it is precisely around this point (CR 13) the deficiencies of the MM gets painfully acute.

By this I simply mean to say that saying it's a five minute job to tweak a low level creature isn't really helpful...

Thanks though for your examples.



Sent from my C6603 using EN World mobile app

I pointed this out in late 2014 or early 2015.

Just ignore the encounter guidelines or stop using feats to stretch the game out combined with lowering CRs.

 

[dave2008]

I pointed this out in late 2014 or early 2015.

Just ignore the encounter guidelines or stop using feats to stretch the game out combined with lowering CRs.

Or make 100+ new and tougher monsters!

 

[Zardnaar]

Or make 100+ new and tougher monsters!

Knock yourself out. I think people are still in previous edition mode where people think CR mean a monster should be close to the PCs in power level.

It goes by xp. CR by itself who cares.

Design more CR 22 to 30 critters for level 15+ PCs.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yes that would be. How about a bump to 91 (14d12)? I haven't looked at dragons yet, but that hits the 50% increase in DPR button pretty well.

I'm not sure what you're asking here. 91 is the damage for an ancient red dragon; if you're asking whether taking on an ancient red dragon is hopeless for low-level characters, I think the answer is, "Not quite hopeless, but it will feel a lot like fighting Smaug." PCs can be expected to die left and right.

The details will depend upon how "low-level" they are and what their approach is, but at minimum it will be very exciting. Briefly.

If you're asking whether it would be appropriate to boost the adult dragon's damage up to match the ancient's, and then boost ancient's some more--well, I'm not a huge fan of stat inflation. That's not the direction I've gone when boosting my own dragons. An adult red dragon's damage already does as much damage as a 9th level Delayed Blast Fireball that's been charging for four rounds; increasing it further seems excessive to me, and hard to describe in non-numeric terms.

So the direction I've gone instead is to make them cunning and crafty, and give them the tools to be so. They've already got flight and high stealth; even just 5-7 levels of Dragon Sorcerer makes them terrifying (Greater Invisibility, Quickened Dimension Door, Quickened Hold Person IV, etc.) as well as being 100% thematically appropriate.

Imagine if the 17th level party fights their way past the dragon's minions and into his lair, only to find... that the dragon is out? Quick, stuff your pockets full of gold! But uh-oh, he was there all along (invisible and with good Stealth) and if someone doesn't have Perception Expertise or similar . Even if he doesn't get a surprise round, the PCs still have to deal with an invisible, Counterspell-equipped dragon who breathes a huge cone of fire hot enough to vaporize steel (63 damage) and then chucks a Quickened Lightning Bolt for another 8d6 (28) followed by three tail slaps, each strong enough to disable or kill a warhorse, at +14 plus advantage (because invisible) for a total of 51 points of damage. And BTW he's flying, and those tail slaps were made from 15' overhead as he buzzed you.

Alternate scenario: on round one, he drops invisibility to cast Quickened Hold Person IV, and then targets whichever PC failed the save with either (1) Fearsome Presence plus six attacks (claw/claw/bite/tail/tail/tail) for 166 points of damage counting auto-crits; or (2) Fearsome Presence and a grapple/grapple/bite routine on two paralyzed PCs, followed by a withdrawal as far as he can move to isolate the paralyzed PCs from the non-paralyzed ones, and then three more tail attacks for a total average damage of 122 (counting auto-crits) on the paralyzed PCs.

Do the PCs have counterplays available? Yes, they do, and I'd expect them to win the encounter (I hope). They could Counterspell the dragon's Hold Person IV with a higher-level slot and then Counterspell (from a different PC) his attempted Counter-Counterspell. They could cast True Seeing before even entering his lair. They could bring an army of skeletal minions and use them to create a strong point outside the lair and basically dare the dragon to attack them. (Likely to turn into a game of cat-and-mouse, that one; like playing Kriegspiel. Dragon is trying to attrition the skeleton army to death and/or pick off PCs; PCs are trying to use up the dragon's HP/spell points (or slots) and consumable magic items, and they need to do it before it gets too dark.)

But the point is that giving spells to a dragon is more than sufficient to turn it from a relatively straightforward fight into a game of play and counterplay, which in turn helps explain why the PCs are necessary. Sure, an army of eight hundred archers could theoretically kill this dragon if they got the upper hand in broad daylight; but the last three times someone tried something like that, they wound up leading an army of corpses. (Cue story about a dragon Polymorphing into a hummingbird and infiltrating the general's tent; cue another story about a three-day-long living nightmare fighting retreat against a dragon who keeps picking off humans by the score or by the hundred.)

I would generally aim for the monster to have at least one strong counter-play against any obvious strategy for the PCs to employ against him. I wouldn't aim to block counter-counterplay though. D&D is a fun game about monsters and treasure, not a military exercise in contingency planning.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not intended as a pejorative, really... did it come off that way, or did you read it that way due to other conversations you've had?

It's been used that way a lot around here for more than a few years, often in just the kind of phrasing you used, linking it to an edition or era of D&D, actually.

Sure... is the fun of playing any level primarily coming from the mechanics on the class advancement table? I wouldn't say so...

In the 'sweet spot,' sure, advancement and new toys and what they open up are a major part of the fun, so yeah, between enjoyment of them and indirectly, the new options they open up, 'primarily.'

No, that's not what I said at all. Bounded Accuracy can easily deliver level appropriate encounters... but it perhaps can't easily do so if you assume all of the following:

1: Straight up fight without substantial battlefield control, mobility, and tactical acumen executed by the DM.
2: Fight is with an individual monster
3: Monster is PartyLevel+X=CR where X is a static number (e.g. 2)

That sounds like excluding quite a bit, though.

The increase in CR required to maintain the "solo" feel will go up at a faster rate than the party's level will.

I don't recall if that was true for 3e CR (which just plain wasn't terribly dependable), it sounds about right for the 5e take, though...

Bounded Accuracy does a decent job of recreating the best D&D edition ever (3.5 E6)

Heh. E6 isn't an edition, it was a pretty drastic, well, 'fix,' I suppose applied to 3e. Game falls apart at 7th (really? 7th?), so never go there. I don't personally feel like it's the /best/ way to play 3e, hands down, but I'm sure lots of people would agree with you on that, and I doubt I could marshal persuasive arguments to the contrary...
But, yes, I can certainly see how it could have inspired BA.

And it can easily be dragged even further into an E6 style of game, without actually implementing E6.

I've been wondering when someone will come up with an E5 variant...

 

[dave2008]

Design more CR 22 to 30 critters for level 15+ PCs.

I've got a different thread for that