D&D 5E 5e EPIC MONSTER UPDATES

[dave2008]

I love 5e, but the whole basis of class balance is encounters/day, and they go and build a way to completely break that with Leomunds. You can argue that creative dming can fix that, but head over to the angry dm and read a good rant about how encounters should be party make up agnostic to honor player choices. Ie, don't 're-design to thwart leomunds.

I agree, but I just don't think that is possible with what I see from some people on the forums. Group 2 even with out Leomunds is going to chew threw encounters a lot more easily than group 1. Encounter A may be a fun exciting 3-5 round battle for group 1 and be a 1-2 round snooze fest for group 2. That may be what group 2 wants, but just because a group optimizes doesn't mean they want to chew threw all encounters. Now ideally, an adventure designed for mass consumption would have the flexibility built with tips and or modifications for playing it with both groups

 

[CapnZapp]

CapnZapp,
I updated the OP with an intro and explanation. If you get a chance, let me know what you think / if it is helpful.

Excellent - that's exactly the kind of commentary that helps me (and others?) to quickly "get" your hard work.

Zapp

PS The reason I'm asking is that I have my own ideas on how to improve WotC's monsters (not going to go into detail here, this is your thread). And in order to compare your resulting stat blocks I need to understand how you arrive there. So pointing out your changes from official DMG tables, what and where you don't just extrapolate their trends but tweak them, is extremely helpful. DS

PPS. I wouldn't worry too much about how different groups would find your monsters (too strong, not too strong etc). Not now when you clearly set out your goals and your plans for epic characters. At CR 15+ I think you can and should assume any DM interested in not simply using official stat blocks is experienced enough to know her group's strengths and weaknesses in detail.

 

[dave2008]

Excellent - that's exactly the kind of commentary that helps me (and others?) to quickly "get" your hard work.

Zapp

Great, and thank you for pointing out that this thread needed it.

PS The reason I'm asking is that I have my own ideas on how to improve WotC's monsters (not going to go into detail here, this is your thread). And in order to compare your resulting stat blocks I need to understand how you arrive there. So pointing out your changes from official DMG tables, what and where you don't just extrapolate their trends but tweak them, is extremely helpful. DS

Now you've got my attention! I would love to hear your thoughts about what needs to be improved about WotC monsters and how to do it. This is what I want from this tread, a discussion on how to improve things. Personally I am out of touch with the optimizing philosophy, my group doesn't have an issue with the MM monsters, so I would really like to hear the thoughts of someone with optimizing experience. If you feel like it, I love to here your thoughts.

PPS. I wouldn't worry too much about how different groups would find your monsters (too strong, not too strong etc). Not now when you clearly set out your goals and your plans for epic characters. At CR 15+ I think you can and should assume any DM interested in not simply using official stat blocks is experienced enough to know her group's strengths and weaknesses in detail.

That was generally my thought as well, but it is still a interesting exercise to think about.

 

[CapnZapp]

Feel free to comment in my Juiblex thread!

Juiblex stuffs

 

[dave2008]

Feel free to comment in my Juiblex thread!

Cap - I can't find your Juiblex thread, can you provide a link? I'm not having much success with the search function.

 

[dave2008]

Feel free to comment in my Juiblex thread!

Never mind, I found it. Thank you for the heads up.

 

[dave2008]

CR is on my mind lately. I've been having a conversation with CapnZapp on his Juiblex thread and he got me thinking about CR. The goal of this project was to give high CR monsters more punch because they just are not living up to their CR IMO. So I revised the table and beefed up the monsters in this thread.

Now it always concerned me that my creations differed from the official CR. So I had planned on making two versions of each monster, one based my table and one based on the WotC DMG table. However, that would be a lot of work.

So instead I am thinking of having only one version of the monster, but two CR values. One value based on my table and one based on the official DMG table. For example lets look at the Ancient Red Dragon. My version is CR 24, just like the official version. However, mine is a much tougher foe. If I use the DMG table I get a CR of 29. Thus, my revised stat block would read:

Challenge 24/29 (62,000/135,000 XP)

Would that be helpful or confusing?

 

[szymanski808]

I think it's an unnecessary complication. I believe if you're using these creature's in battle your probably in an epic level campaign, in which case people just need to step up their game, and it's the DM's job to make sure they understand their group well enough not to put them in deadly situations.

I think you should specify in the introduction that these creatures are not equal to the normal Monster Manual CR

 

[dave2008]

I think it's an unnecessary complication. I believe if you're using these creature's in battle your probably in an epic level campaign, in which case people just need to step up their game, and it's the DM's job to make sure they understand their group well enough not to put them in deadly situations.

I think you should specify in the introduction that these creatures are not equal to the normal Monster Manual CR

Good point about the intro, and thank you for your thought about the CR. Definitely not going to make a change now, but it is worth considering.

 

[mcninja]

I was going through some of the earlier creations and I noticed the Empyrean entry has a few glaring typos - it's referred to as a solar in the innate spellcasting and as a dragon in the legendary actions section.