D&D 5E How would you improve monsters?

MGibster said:

My biggest problem is that the challenge rating doesn't really work. Very often, my players steamroll threats that at their appropriate CR. On rarer occasions they get curb stomped by something that shouldn't have been so challenging.

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Morrus said:

You're given carte blanche to redo the Monster Manual from scratch, with the caveat that you have to keep the same monsters.

What do you do? What changes do you make?

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• bring back the type/subtype distinction, Here's an example from a completely random page in the 3.5mm
  
  . Having just the type causes a lot of hassles, especially with spells but here is a discussion that probably ticks every single box at least once.
• Don't make me reverse engineer the proficiency bonus by subtracting an ability mod from an attack or something, there has to be some whitespace capable of holding a stray +N & a symbol or abbreviation.
  Spoiler: any of these ones for example

  

• Recognize that the words "Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from
  nonmagical weapons" are an overused abomination that in most games is little more than a waste of ink after a few levels & doubly pointless when those monsters start gtting a bunch of energy resist/immune tacked on
  • If a monster deserves it then great, give it a flat DR against whatever damage types are justified. This further differentiates between a build that takes fewer chances to hit but hits big & a build that hits smaller but makes more attempts to play the odds on attack rolls/saving throws giving both situations where they have a leg up or down*.
• Recognize that energy resist/immune are poorly applied & massively overused. Replace them with a flat value rather than 50%.
  • If some are justified great sure whatever, but there should be a direct correlation between the presence of energy resist/immune & vulnerable that somehow makes sense for the creature
• Bring back the terrifying monsters that shifted the whole battlefield calculation simply by existing on the map. They don't need to be the same monsters, but simply hinting that a wraith/ghoul/trog/etc was present was enough to cause fear in the past while actually putting one on the map immediately changed the whole encounter even before it was close enough to do anything.. in 5e they are pretty shrug worthy. In some cases this likely requires things like the return of touchac stat damage & similar at least as a concept somewhere.
  • You can still have neutered versions but the scary ones were a major set of tools in theGM's toolbox to shake things up.
• You can't sneak attack undead constructs & oozes because they lack organs or whatever required bits

tetrasodium said:

Recognize that energy resist/immune are poorly applied & massively overused. Replace them with a flat value rather than 50%.

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loverdrive said:

Just YES. 50% resistances and vulnerabilities are probably the most stupid idea of 5e.

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Morrus said:

You're given carte blanche to redo the Monster Manual from scratch, with the caveat that you have to keep the same monsters.

What do you do? What changes do you make?

Click to expand...

Minigiant said:

1. Organize them by type
2. Then alphabetically
3. Then figure out where I have major CR gaps
4. Add new monsters variants and environmental hazards to fill some gaps
5. Include some the quirks and focuses on social interaction with major intelligent species.

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billd91 said:

50% resistances make the game a lot easier to run

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