D&D 5E (2014) Beefin' Up Monsters!

[PnPgamer]

Yeah, the base humaniods are kinda beefy and hit harder than one might expect. I'm trying to give a 1E feel with large encounter numbers so I'm using no-ability commoners, bandits and guards to represent their rank and file foot troops with the base MM versions with their racial special racial abilities as veterans.

my orcs were in pathfinder though, and their CR was 1/3 according to bestiary. the completely wrecked the pc's.

 

[Paraxis]

My players tend to optimize for combat, so a good number of my monsters have extra hit points, I do this when I design the encounter because I believe altering things like that once the game starts as cheating on the DM's part. I always keep within the range of possible rolled hit points.

Many 5e monsters are boring, they don't do anything but attack and do damage. So I give them extra things to do, this could be gear they carry, stuff to interact with in the environment, or just alter abilities on some of them to give them auras or on death effects.

You don't need to adjust the amount of damage done or the attack bonuses, those are all just about where they should be just keep the monster from being a sack a h.p that spams a basic attack.

 

[Sacrosanct]

One more vote for randomized HP here. I really prefer not all monsters to be the same. It keeps the players on their toes rather than them plan everything on a very specific X value for all monster types, and it can be translated into neat flavor options (big ass orc, scrawny bugbear, etc). Anything that takes away the cookie cutter feel is good for me.

 

[Nebulous]

I randomize on the fly usually. Some drop a little sooner or later than others.

As far as "beefing up", I experimented with layering some 13th Age powers onto monsters. It works well. Just a light sprinkling can go a long ways.

 

[Halivar]

First I'll add more. If that doesn't cut the mustard, I will add some quirky abilities that fit the monster's theme (also helps break up metagaming) and add commensurate XP value to the monster.

 

[trentonjoe]

Yeah I definitely prefer rolling. Players cant keep "expect" the foes to all drop at the same time, and it's fun to describe some foes as larger or smaller specimens. Also.... as DM... it allows for a bit of "creative" hp to avoid a TPK, whilst still keeping all dice in the open.

I am building an encounter with 6 Azers. RAW they have 39 hit points (6d8+12), I plan on giving one 20 hit points (1/6 of the possible if rolled), 28 (1/3), 36(1/2 kinda) 44(2/3), 52 (5/6) and 60 (max). I am still toying with it but I think I am going to give the 20 hit point the 3 cantrip, 1 1st level spell feat.

Keep the boys guessin'

 

[Sacrosanct]

I am building an encounter with 6 Azers. RAW they have 39 hit points (6d8+12), I plan on giving one 20 hit points (1/6 of the possible if rolled), 28 (1/3), 36(1/2 kinda) 44(2/3), 52 (5/6) and 60 (max). I am still toying with it but I think I am going to give the 20 hit point the 3 cantrip, 1 1st level spell feat.

Keep the boys guessin'

Yeah, and admittedly, often I don't even roll. I just give a random spread if dealing with mulitiple ones, similar to what you've done above.

 

[Roger]

Whenever I start feeling like the 5E monsters could use a hot beef injection, I consider the jackalwere. That CR 1/2 dude can solo an unprepared party without breaking a sweat.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Dausuul]

Just a quick topic here, but I notice that a common mistake in the group I play with: There's this tendency, coming from 3.5 and then 4e and then Pathfinder, to look at the monsters in the MM and think, "Gee, these guys are kinda weak and stupid. I think I'll give them a little boost." And then, during fights, people start dropping like flies.

Reminds me of the businessman whose interview process consisted of having breakfast with the prospective hire. If the guy salted his eggs before tasting them, that was the end of the interview.

I always start out a new edition running encounters strictly by the book, at the recommended difficulty. Once I see how the party handles a couple of fights, then I start to fine-tune the difficulty settings--amping up monster hit points if I think the PCs kill them too fast, cranking up the damage-to-hit-point ratio if fights are feeling grindy, adjusting the number and power level of monsters to hit the difficulty I want, and so forth. But I don't second-guess the designers till I see how everything plays out at my table.

 

[ren1999]

Consider switching Back and forth from monster roll damage to average damage when the party is getting slaughtered.

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