D&D 5E 5th edition Monster Manual: I think the really nice art detracts from the mediocre functionality of the book.

[Skyscraper]

Thanks for the mention, @Morrus, which brought this to my attention! And for the plug, @Fion.



Basically, it's how difficult the encounter is for the players; it's an attempt to take into account the economy of actions. Fighting 8 kobolds at once is more difficult than fighting 8 kobolds one at a time.

It's in the section on building combat encounters near the end of the basic rules; in a nutshell, there's a multiplier that you apply based on how many monsters there are and the party size.

Sorry for not posting about this here... It's been years since I did anything related to D&D, so ENWorld kind of fell off my radar. My B.

Also, everything after the # is not necessary for the link... easier to remember asmor.com/5e/monsters

Ok thanks!

 

[Nebulous]

Well, I'm in the camp of "I wish more of the monsters had a more unique schtick." I think the 13th Age Bestiary did that really well, although i prefer the 5e ruleset WAY more. It will be interesting to see how 5e monster stat blocks develop in the next year or two.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Man it was so much easier to argue on the internet in previous editions when you could just say 'I think most players would agree with me that.. [insert personal opinion that no one agrees with]'. Now ya really have to work hard to deny the available evidence.

Do you have a list of those specific questions that were supposedly asked?

 

[pedro2112]

I prefer to make my monsters do what I want them to do based on their abilities, lore (and other info in the MM), and their context in the environment. Personally, I think that having a ton of "special abilities" actually hamstrings DMs and make each encounter with a particular monster very predictable for the PCs.

 

[Stalker0]

I think the 13th Age Bestiary did that really well

I really like the natural die roll effects used in the bestiary, to shake up monster attacks and keep things interesting. That said, I think 13th age uses this too much, but its a good mechanic to sprinkle in.

 

[Stalker0]

If people are having trouble building encounters with the whole 'CR is just a guideline, build by xp value x party level x party members', I point you to this wonderful website I found on reddit:

http://asmor.com/5e/monsters/#/main

Wow!!!!! [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] this should go in the news!

 

[Fion]

It very much should, with credit of course to @Asmor


Speaking of which Asmor, I have a suggestion based on another thread about adding Legendary/Lair actions to non-legendary mobs, the example was the Goblin Boss, making that fight feel epic. Obviously that would involve increasing its CR as well. So an option maybe down in the Encounter Total window, a check box or selection window for increasing the CR of a specific enemy based on adding a lair or legendary action (or even both).

Anyway just a suggestion, I see your adding new things nearly daily so keep up the good work.

 

[Asmor]

Anyway just a suggestion, I see your adding new things nearly daily so keep up the good work.

Say you want the Goblin Boss w/lair to be a CR 2. Check the 'Custom' source box. Search for 'CR 2'. Add to encounter.

Of course, if you absolutely need to have "Goblin Boss (in lair)" show up in your list, you can always fork it on Github and add it to your own local copy.

 

[Nebulous]

I really like the natural die roll effects used in the bestiary, to shake up monster attacks and keep things interesting. That said, I think 13th age uses this too much, but its a good mechanic to sprinkle in.

Agreed. They overused it to the point of utter redundancy. Still, that would be a very easy thing to import to 5e.

 

[CapnZapp]

I've only glanced through part of the book and that fairly briefly, but one of the things I thought to myself was how the number of spells the monsters received was actually limited. I know 4e was totally different, but in 3e and Pathfinder, monsters had way too many spells, IMO. I actually thought about making variant monsters, subtracting ALL Spell-Like Abilities and Spells and giving them one or two cool abilities instead.

Now, 5e doesn't remove all of the spells, but the Solar, for instance, doesn't have a bunch of SLAs AND the like 20th level casting of Cleric spells for a massive total number of spells it could use at any given point in time. Instead, it has a couple of spells and that's it.

I guess they couldn't remove spells from monsters, but it does seem like they at least limited it.

Limiting spells is a good thing.

The real problem is that any high-level monster needs mobility or it can be easily shut down by crafty players.

Any monster whose image suggests a possible solo encounter doubly so. There are way too many monsters without some way of resisting a Warlock's Repelling Blast, for instance. And yet they have no reliable ranged attack. The result is that the Warlock autowins.

Another bugbear is the way regeneration is completely and trivially shut down by an easily accessible cantrip.

Didn't the monster manual design team talk to the ones writing the cantrips???

Edit:

PS. Writing this in 2016.