D&D 5E How would you improve monsters?

Benjamin Olson said:

I think intelligent, equipment-using enemies should be differentiated from proper monster monsters. Problematic-ness of grouping them in as monsters aside, they just have different needs. I would like more transparency in how "people enemies" work so that I can equip them differently on the fly, know how their weapons will function when the PCs loot them. If their weapons function differently than standard ones is it because the weapons are special or because of a special ability? What is their actual proficiency bonus? This is all eminently reverse engineerable and ruleable for me as DM, but that is just more work I have to do that could be streamlined.

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I agree. I would actually prefer intelligent humanoids to be 8n their own section with customisation rules (like giving them feats or individual special abilities). I like the idea of having an orc that the players don't know can rage, or smite, or something else until they do it.

Helps make humanoids more threatening and unpredictable in my opinion.

My main suggestions are covered above so I’m repeating for emphasis

• give monsters more skills and save proficiencies
• give monsters tricks other than swallow- like giants that grab and throw PCs, sweeping tails etc
• reactions other than parry - like the 4e bloodied breath ability
• allow monsters to use their schtick trick or spell effects AS WELL as other stuff not instead.

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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I've thought a lot about this.

• Change CR to a level based setup based on 4e's
• Slightly increase the complexity of the most boring monsters, especially the painfully boring beasts
  • Give all the nocturnal critters darkvision, or perhaps "dim light doesn't impose disad", or in some cases, both.
  • More stuff like Pack Tactics and knockdown attacks
  • Group tactics for pack creatures, like an action attack that sets up a reaction attack from an ally, etc
• Give leader type creatures stuff like the ability to use their allies as an AoE attack, eg, "Action: every hostile creature that is within 5ft of one of your allies within 60ft must make a dexterity save or take 1d8 damage. This damage increases by 1d8 for every one of your allies " etc.
• Create Templates for groups of monsters, including a group Tactical Action that works similarly to Legendary Actions, but makes a group more dangerous together than apart.
• Create other templates that optionally increase the complexity of encounters, while keeping most monster stat blocks very simple.

Maxperson said:

Has it ever worked? It didn't in 3e, either. I don't know about 4e.

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D&D is a fairly complicated game given the wide range of choices players have when generating their characters. I would consider it a success if the CRs just gave me a rough idea of what level a threat a creature represented to a party. As it stands now I find CRs to be less than useful.

Aside from the math stuff, and the role stuff, and the more bonus action/signature ability stuff that has been touted by most people here:
Make monsters easier to customize, and not by using the same rules that players use. For example, HD, which most monsters don't really use, and ends up being annoying when you try and recalculate stats.

Also, do a sanity check on mid to high end monsters. If they can be beaten almost risk free by this tactic:

Then they are bad.
Basically, after tier 2 of the game, monsters need some kind of advanced movement and/or viable ranged attacks in their stat block. There is no excuse.

MGibster said:

D&D is a fairly complicated game given the wide range of choices players have when generating their characters. I would consider it a success if the CRs just gave me a rough idea of what level a threat a creature represented to a party. As it stands now I find CRs to be less than useful.

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Eh, I think the issue is just that the range of damage is really quite large, and the higher CRs get the less useful they are. I'm very concerned about CR between 0 and 5 being relatively accurate. After that, I generally assume it probably doesn't have much to do with reality, but I do assume that it has very much to do with the maximum potential damage the creature could deal.

Also, the scaling of CR at high level is very misleading. The game knows that high CR doesn't mean as much. Our six PC level 13 party killed a Balor in one round before it could even act, but that's actually an easy encounter at that level for that many PCs! At level 14, we killed two Balors in two rounds. Granted, they did drop over half the party when they detonated, but nobody died.

I think 5e CR is as fuzzy and imprecise as you can reasonably expect the value to be unless you do what 4e did and put every monster on a treadmill where they have a bonus to everything equal to their CR and a fixed schedule of damage. That works, but it means that a level 5 party can't take a level 15 creature because the level 15 creature has +10 attack, +10 AC, and +10 saves to move the target number off the die for the level 5 party. The creature is just scaled out of range to make it an inappropriate opponent. That works, but it's also really boring because the game doesn't change; the numbers just get bigger.

Well, high-CR creatures certainly need an overhaul, but that’s old news, so I’ll talk about something else:

1. Most, if not all entries should have lair actions. These don’t need to be powerful; their main role would be to serve as a tool for the DM to use to make the lair feel like it belongs to the creature.

2. Entries should include a sample of the kinds of treasures that might be found in their possession and their lairs. These should include specific mundane objects and the like. The idea here is not to be comprehensive, but to provide inspiration.

3. Entries should include a list of priorities, instincts, motivations, and/or agendas that a DM can use or take inspiration from even without preparation (because: random encounter, or whatever). These should include what the creature will fight to the death for and what it won’t.

All of these, but especially the third, should be presented clearly in an easy-to-scan format – probably lists with bullet points.

Maxperson said:

Has it ever worked? It didn't in 3e, either. I don't know about 4e.

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CR in 4e took about a year and a half after launch to get right but worked after that. 4e really was released too early.

And off the top of my head (several of which have been mentioned by others):

• Every monster gets a "complete stat block" - all spells should be included so the DM can bring up the statblock and use it with no cross-referencing into other books.
  • Yes, this means there will be few monsters that are officially spellcasters. I don't see this as a big problem.
• CR should be functional to the point you can, if you are in a hurry, use the CR calculations to write down the parts of the monster stats you need.
  • There should be monster roles tied to this. MM3 on a business card style
• Bullet Sponge design needs to be reduced. Monsters should have more offence and fewer hp.
• Reactions are far more interesting than resistances. Instead of the fire elemental being immune to fire (for the same reason you can't punch a flesh golem) the fire elemental should e.g. flare and create a burst of fire around them.
• Engaging ranged monsters in melee should matter. Only professionals should automatically be able to switch from bows to finesse weapons and being in melee should often give the target of saving throw spells advantage.
• Most boss monsters (like Beholders) should be designed with counter-play or risk/reward choices (like hiding in the anti-magic eyebeam) in mind.
• Abilities that encourage people to move (like setting the ground on fire) are generally good. Ones which prevent movement (like setting glue on the ground) are generally bad.
• Encourage a mix of NPC fights in a combat and streamline the monster design to make this easier to run

Maxperson said:

Has it ever worked? It didn't in 3e, either. I don't know about 4e.

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Not really as much more than a yardstick to estimate against. It was always important for the gm to consider what they were throwing at the party & still is but 5e makes the bar so low that it barely matters if the gm badly sizes up the party.

loverdrive said:

I honestly don't understand how multiplication and division which are more complex operations that addition and subtraction, especially on double digit numbers that are pretty common on 5+ levels can make game easier to run.

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Half and double are extremely easy calculations that most people can do without meaningful mental effort.