Level Up (A5E) Do you want more monster complexity?

RangerWickett · Aug 12, 2020

How satisfied are you with monster design, mechanics, and gameplay experience in 5E as is?

I will say, 5E does a great job giving you enough rules to resolve a fight and let you remember a cool story afterward. Kobolds are not complex at all, but I have fond memories of an early 5E playtest where we ended up with two dwarves in a chokepoint, the one in front wearing plate armor and with the condition 'drunk' (which gave damage resistance in exchange for disadvantage on your attacks) and dodging so he was nearly impossible to wound, the one in the back stabbing repeatedly with a longspear, both of them laughing as they held off a horde . . . until the kobolds grabbed the drunk dwarf and dragged him away to his death.

But I know some people - myself included - like tactical combat with more decision points, and 5E's monsters in my experience don't often call for diverse tactics. If you're a fighter, and a pack of wolves attack you, you hit them with your sword until they're dead, and if you're lucky maneuver into a narrow spot so only one can attack at a time. If you're a fighter, and a giant attacks you, you hit it with your sword until it's dead. Fire elemental? Use a longspear if you have one so you don't get burned, but you still hit it until it's dead.

By contrast, video games like Monster Hunter and Horizon: Zero Dawn have creatures that have different weak points, and that change their tactics, which can force you to change yours. I try to throw at least a bit of discoverable weaknesses into prominent combats that I run.

For instance, I put my party up against an angel with mechanical wings. When she wasn't flying, the wings acted like a shield that gave her a monk's deflect arrows ability, but because they were mechanical, cold damage could freeze the joints and make the wings nonfunctional if she failed a save. And I teased that by having other mechanical critters earlier in the adventure have that same vulnerability, and had a nearby alchemist lab with some 'frost grenades.' The players thought they'd figured out the fairly obvious trick, but after the angel made her save, they realized the room they were fighting in had a pressure hose. So one PC blasted her with water, after which I said she had disadvantage on the saves. They felt clever for doing that.

Another design conceit I like is posing dilemmas. If you telegraph what a monster is going to do, and if that thing is sufficiently bad but can be mitigated with the right action, it can force players to adapt.

For instance, trolls have regeneration, so what if we said their blood could reattach a recently severed limb . . . and then we give them the ability to rip limbs off. If a troll hits with both claw attacks, it grabs onto the target and starts to tug. Tell the PC that he knows that at the start of the troll's next turn, he's going to have to make a Strength save or get an arm or leg ripped free. How do he and the party respond? Try to free the PC? Try to chop off the troll's arm (which should totally be an option)? Aid the PC so he has advantage on his Strength save? Set the troll on fire so he panics and focuses on putting himself out?

Finally, I like provoking movement. If a hellhound breathes fire, okay, whatever, you take your lumps. But if the cone it burned remains burning for the rest of the encounter, the PC will need to move out of that area. If you put some interesting terrain in the battle, and have a pack of hounds cutting off the PCs' available terrain, this can make the fight more mobile.

Personally, I think a bit of this mentality would make combat more interesting, but maybe you'd think it'd slow things down, or not be fun. I'm curious.

Charlaquin · Aug 12, 2020

I think 5e monster design is fine, but a little dull. I’d love to see Level Up embrace more action-oriented design. Give us some neat special actions on monsters that make them feel like more than bags of hit points with multiattack. Those simpler monsters are good to have in the toolbox, but some more monsters with exciting special abilities would be really useful to have alongside them.

Stalker0 · Aug 12, 2020

I think we can relearn a few lessons from 4e And pathfinder here. 5e abilities could use more punch and more variety.

Li Shenron · Aug 12, 2020

I agree I would like to have more complex monsters, but not as complex as in 3e, in that edition I often had the feeling that I wasn't able to fully play the monsters well because they had so many abilities.

I think 5e purposefully offers simpler monster in order to make sure beginner DMs and groups which generally prefer a kick-in-the-door low complexity playstyle are supported, and relies on a DM to complicate encounters in other ways.

But the MM should have offered options to upgrade monsters. It was sometimes talked about during the playtest years, but it never went beyond a couple of examples.

Rather than just having new monsters, I would like to have some plug-and-play abilities that could be applied to multiple monsters to increase complexity. In a sense, we can already just add feats and spells, but monsters-only abilities would be cool.

Charlaquin · Aug 12, 2020

Li Shenron said:
I agree I would like to have more complex monsters, but not as complex as in 3e, in that edition I often had the feeling that I wasn't able to fully play the monsters well because they had so many abilities.

I think 5e purposefully offers simpler monster in order to make sure beginner DMs and groups which generally prefer a kick-in-the-door low complexity playstyle are supported, and relies on a DM to complicate encounters in other ways.

Yeah, I thinks 3e’s problem was trying to build monsters like PCs. A single 3e PC is a huge undertaking to build and run, expecting the DM to manage several of them at once in every encounter was just beyond reasonable. 4e fully embraced the asymmetry of D&D play, making monsters that were both easy to run and exciting to fight against, but a lot of folks complained that it was too “gamist,” so now we have monsters that are kind of built like PCs with no class levels and few to no special actions or abilities, so they’re easy to run (even easier than 4e) but far less engaging to fight. I think if Level Up keeps the basic structure of 5e monsters but gives them more in the way of unique abilities and actions, we’ll be in perfect shape.

Li Shenron said:
But the MM should have offered options to upgrade monsters. It was sometimes talked about during the playtest years, but it never went beyond a couple of examples.

Rather than just having new monsters, I would like to have some plug-and-play abilities that could be applied to multiple monsters to increase complexity. In a sense, we can already just add feats and spells, but monsters-only abilities would be cool.

That would be pretty cool. I’m not sure that’s the way Morrus wants to go with it - the stated goal is for Level Up to work as a stand-alone game that’s compatible with 5e, rather than as a set of optional add-one to 5e. But who knows, maybe some monster building rules that could be used in conjunction with 5e’s monster building rules we could get a sort of stealth add-on.

Leatherhead · Aug 12, 2020

Do you want more monster complexity?

Not really. At least, "complex" isn't the right word to describe it.

What I want is something more akin to 4e monsters:
Each monster has 2 or 3 defining gimmicks (because they aren't reasonably going to be able to use more), and a clear combat style. Then append an "outside of combat" sub-section that gives them access to rituals and plot magic, or whatever pertinent bits of fluff abilities/powers to place them in the world should your players not want to kill them.

Also, I am fond of monster templates that allow you to customize monsters to suit your needs.

77IM · Aug 12, 2020

Beware of putting too much cognitive load on the DM. I already find that running an encounter with 5 different monster stat blocks is challenging. If you give those monsters even more stuff to do, my head might explode. Spellcasters are particularly bad; having more than 1 enemy spellcaster (mayyyyybe 2, depending) makes an encounter unrunnable for me.

I also think it's important to observe the difference between a "puzzle monster," where you have to figure out its weaknesses or learn its attack patterns, and a tactical challenge. Fighting a puzzle monster requires observation and deduction, plus the monster needs to live long enough for a few rounds of experimentation to occur. A tactical challenge is more about general principles and is more forward-thinking, like, "these guys are hitting us pretty hard, so we should fall back to the hallway" or maybe "that's the enemy spellcaster, somebody toss a monk at it." You can build an interesting tactical challenge by using boring monsters in interesting environments, with interesting equipment, or just with unusual tactics of their own. Building a puzzle monster is much harder because if you mess it up the encounter could go very badly. I really like your "posing dilemmas" idea as a sort of softer version of the puzzle monster.

All that said, gameplay options like this are exactly what I want out of Level Up. I don't give two hoots about character-creation options. Instead, I want cool things to do during encounters, adventures, and campaigns.

If you haven't already, check out the bestiary for 13th Age. I really like how they use the natural result of attack rolls to trigger monster abilities; it's almost like the monsters are on auto-pilot. In 5E, many Legendary creatures and lair actions work this way. They seem to have a lot of abilities going on, but the DM really doesn't have very many to choose from at any one time.

Coroc · Aug 12, 2020

RangerWickett said:
How satisfied are you with monster design, mechanics, and gameplay experience in 5E as is?

I will say, 5E does a great job giving you enough rules to resolve a fight and let you remember a cool story afterward. Kobolds are not complex at all, but I have fond memories of an early 5E playtest where we ended up with two dwarves in a chokepoint, the one in front wearing plate armor and with the condition 'drunk' (which gave damage resistance in exchange for disadvantage on your attacks) and dodging so he was nearly impossible to wound, the one in the back stabbing repeatedly with a longspear, both of them laughing as they held off a horde . . . until the kobolds grabbed the drunk dwarf and dragged him away to his death.

But I know some people - myself included - like tactical combat with more decision points, and 5E's monsters in my experience don't often call for diverse tactics. If you're a fighter, and a pack of wolves attack you, you hit them with your sword until they're dead, and if you're lucky maneuver into a narrow spot so only one can attack at a time. If you're a fighter, and a giant attacks you, you hit it with your sword until it's dead. Fire elemental? Use a longspear if you have one so you don't get burned, but you still hit it until it's dead.

By contrast, video games like Monster Hunter and Horizon: Zero Dawn have creatures that have different weak points, and that change their tactics, which can force you to change yours. I try to throw at least a bit of discoverable weaknesses into prominent combats that I run.

For instance, I put my party up against an angel with mechanical wings. When she wasn't flying, the wings acted like a shield that gave her a monk's deflect arrows ability, but because they were mechanical, cold damage could freeze the joints and make the wings nonfunctional if she failed a save. And I teased that by having other mechanical critters earlier in the adventure have that same vulnerability, and had a nearby alchemist lab with some 'frost grenades.' The players thought they'd figured out the fairly obvious trick, but after the angel made her save, they realized the room they were fighting in had a pressure hose. So one PC blasted her with water, after which I said she had disadvantage on the saves. They felt clever for doing that.

Another design conceit I like is posing dilemmas. If you telegraph what a monster is going to do, and if that thing is sufficiently bad but can be mitigated with the right action, it can force players to adapt.

For instance, trolls have regeneration, so what if we said their blood could reattach a recently severed limb . . . and then we give them the ability to rip limbs off. If a troll hits with both claw attacks, it grabs onto the target and starts to tug. Tell the PC that he knows that at the start of the troll's next turn, he's going to have to make a Strength save or get an arm or leg ripped free. How do he and the party respond? Try to free the PC? Try to chop off the troll's arm (which should totally be an option)? Aid the PC so he has advantage on his Strength save? Set the troll on fire so he panics and focuses on putting himself out?

Finally, I like provoking movement. If a hellhound breathes fire, okay, whatever, you take your lumps. But if the cone it burned remains burning for the rest of the encounter, the PC will need to move out of that area. If you put some interesting terrain in the battle, and have a pack of hounds cutting off the PCs' available terrain, this can make the fight more mobile.

Personally, I think a bit of this mentality would make combat more interesting, but maybe you'd think it'd slow things down, or not be fun. I'm curious.

More complexity of monsters is dangerous to the balance and BA.
For instance I stated the orcs (recurring enemies) in my latest campaign more like player characters. That changes combat a lot, it makes them much tougher but with less damage output. I did not instantly notice it, it rather showed up during play, when bigger groups of various orcs of different HD showed up for the fight.

clearstream · Aug 12, 2020

RangerWickett said:
How satisfied are you with monster design, mechanics, and gameplay experience in 5E as is?

I will say, 5E does a great job giving you enough rules to resolve a fight and let you remember a cool story afterward. Kobolds are not complex at all, but I have fond memories of an early 5E playtest where we ended up with two dwarves in a chokepoint, the one in front wearing plate armor and with the condition 'drunk' (which gave damage resistance in exchange for disadvantage on your attacks) and dodging so he was nearly impossible to wound, the one in the back stabbing repeatedly with a longspear, both of them laughing as they held off a horde . . . until the kobolds grabbed the drunk dwarf and dragged him away to his death.

But I know some people - myself included - like tactical combat with more decision points, and 5E's monsters in my experience don't often call for diverse tactics. If you're a fighter, and a pack of wolves attack you, you hit them with your sword until they're dead, and if you're lucky maneuver into a narrow spot so only one can attack at a time. If you're a fighter, and a giant attacks you, you hit it with your sword until it's dead. Fire elemental? Use a longspear if you have one so you don't get burned, but you still hit it until it's dead.

By contrast, video games like Monster Hunter and Horizon: Zero Dawn have creatures that have different weak points, and that change their tactics, which can force you to change yours. I try to throw at least a bit of discoverable weaknesses into prominent combats that I run.

For instance, I put my party up against an angel with mechanical wings. When she wasn't flying, the wings acted like a shield that gave her a monk's deflect arrows ability, but because they were mechanical, cold damage could freeze the joints and make the wings nonfunctional if she failed a save. And I teased that by having other mechanical critters earlier in the adventure have that same vulnerability, and had a nearby alchemist lab with some 'frost grenades.' The players thought they'd figured out the fairly obvious trick, but after the angel made her save, they realized the room they were fighting in had a pressure hose. So one PC blasted her with water, after which I said she had disadvantage on the saves. They felt clever for doing that.

Another design conceit I like is posing dilemmas. If you telegraph what a monster is going to do, and if that thing is sufficiently bad but can be mitigated with the right action, it can force players to adapt.

For instance, trolls have regeneration, so what if we said their blood could reattach a recently severed limb . . . and then we give them the ability to rip limbs off. If a troll hits with both claw attacks, it grabs onto the target and starts to tug. Tell the PC that he knows that at the start of the troll's next turn, he's going to have to make a Strength save or get an arm or leg ripped free. How do he and the party respond? Try to free the PC? Try to chop off the troll's arm (which should totally be an option)? Aid the PC so he has advantage on his Strength save? Set the troll on fire so he panics and focuses on putting himself out?

Finally, I like provoking movement. If a hellhound breathes fire, okay, whatever, you take your lumps. But if the cone it burned remains burning for the rest of the encounter, the PC will need to move out of that area. If you put some interesting terrain in the battle, and have a pack of hounds cutting off the PCs' available terrain, this can make the fight more mobile.

Personally, I think a bit of this mentality would make combat more interesting, but maybe you'd think it'd slow things down, or not be fun. I'm curious.

For me, the foremost need is for monsters that make better sense in the game world, given the mechanics of that world. Orcs with Athletics, for example. This should not be optional, it should be basic.

Once such a basic revision was done, then one might look for opportunities such as that you described for Hell Hound, to create advanced versions of creatures.

Neonchameleon · Aug 12, 2020

There is one place where the lack of NPC complexity has come to really annoy me because it's an utter fail at posing dilemmas and has a knock-on to provoking movement that is simple to fix. That is that most humanoid NPCs have almost exactly the same attack stats at ranged combat and in melee combat. This is thanks to the well-meaning but ill-considered rules allowing anyone using Dex for attack to use it with both ranged and finesse weapons, and allowing anyone using STR for attack to use it with both melee and throwing weapons.

The impact of this is that if you manage to trap the archers in melee all that happens is they stop shooting you with their bows with Dex + Prof doing 1d8+Dex damage and draw their shortswords with Dex + Prof that do 1d6+Dex damage. W00t! And you're only slightly better off forcing the burly warriors to use javelins rather than greataxes. Essentially there's no point getting into the back row or even gluing the enemy melee's feet to the floor, and this destroys the point of tactics.

The rule itself is based on a sensible one allowing PCs to do that. With PC classes it is a good rule, partly because it opens up archetypes (such as the swashbuckling rogue) and partly because of class features like the Barbarian's rage or the fighter/ranger's fighting style or the monk's flurry that encourage most characters to specialise in melee or ranged combat. But most NPCs, not having complexity or these class features, inherently shut down tactics.

I would therefore make the ability of Finesse weapons to use Dex for damage into a widely shared class feature and do the same for thrown weapons to use Str for accuracy. The Finesse propery only inherently gives Dex for accuracy and the Thrown Str for damage.

The casters have the same problem. Ranged spells in melee get disadvantage - but this doesn't affect saving throws inflicted. It's a simple rule that works against firebolts but not against fireballs or disintegrates. Where it works it's nice and elegant but all it does in practice is devalue certain types of spell in favour of yet more fireballs. Again this is a fail at posing dilemmas and provoking movement alike in exactly the same way. And again the fix is simple. Where the point of origin is not either the caster or inherently adjacent to the caster the target gets advantage on saving throws. (For extra sauce this could be written in such a way that a ground zero fireball centered on the caster does not give advantage on saving throws).