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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DaveDash" data-source="post: 6549856" data-attributes="member: 6786202">I've ran about 40 custom monsters now, and if you avoid obvious exploits and stick with the spirit of how monsters are created, it creates exceptionally good monsters that feel challenging at high levels.My experience simply does not match your theory. I think if anything you over estimate the lethality of certain abilities. Combat simply doesn't last long enough and you generally don't stack a ton of riders on one monster.Let me tell you players fear "bags of hitpoints" when those bags of hitpoints can do enough damage to kill them in one turn.Believe me, when I first read the DMG rules, I hated them. I thought they were hard work, inaccurate, and missing so many factors. But after actually using them a lot I have found the underlining assumptions are correct. It really does just come down to how much damage and how  quickly you can put it out, and how much damage you can withstand. Honestly unless you have an action economy advantage a lot of effects are not worth the cost of the action. A creature can teleport around willy nilly but it's not really doing damage while it's doing that, and in three rounds it will be dead. Better just to hit and hit hard.</blockquote>