Guilt Puppy
First Post
I monster (and, just for the record, use monster as a verb in everyday conversation, ie "god, taco bell monsters me something vicious"...) a fair amount, moreso as the PCs increase in levels. As I see it monsters are something best used for epic quests: They are strange and foreign, but adventurers don't just sit around all day, they travel into the heart of the strange and foreign and come out of it smiling.
When the party is of lower level, they're probably still existing within the safety of society... They'll still run into monsters here and there, in most cases because the humans/demi-humans they're up against like to use them as guardians (again, more frequently at higher levels, as you begin taking on more and more major NPCs...). Of course, there's the occasional random encounter if they're travelling through wilderness, but aside from that it's mainly NPCs that they encounter.
At higher level, though, it's time to ditch encounters within society... Mainly because, for high level to mean anything, there can't be all that many other people of their power level around. Some, sure, but IMC being tenth level means that their are only a handful of individuals or small organizations in a given area which could pose any threat to you. Fighting entire empires just isn't fun, so you eventually reach a point where you say "we've done everything we can here, it's time to explore places where these fools fear to tread!"
And that's when they go into the weird places of the world where monsters roam freely and eat you up a lot. Or, to look at it this way: The first half of the level progression (1-10) is to establish a sort of normalcy for the world, what human concerns are, et cetera. 11th-20th level are placed in contrast to this -- to epic quests, things which are distinctly different from the normalcy you've established. (some would cut it differently, say that this is what the ELH is for, but IMO beholders and mind flayers and dragons and the like are plenty strange, exotic, and lore-laden enough for me.)
Note that I also don't like to use monsters straight from the MM in cases like this... The big ones with plenty of mystique attached to them, sure, but where possible I like to steal something of appropriate CR, tweak its stats a little, its appearance a lot, and then suddenly the PCs are up against something they have no idea how to deal with.
Also, mind flayers with character levels rock. If you want to have intelligent but dangerous NPCs at high levels, check them out.
When the party is of lower level, they're probably still existing within the safety of society... They'll still run into monsters here and there, in most cases because the humans/demi-humans they're up against like to use them as guardians (again, more frequently at higher levels, as you begin taking on more and more major NPCs...). Of course, there's the occasional random encounter if they're travelling through wilderness, but aside from that it's mainly NPCs that they encounter.
At higher level, though, it's time to ditch encounters within society... Mainly because, for high level to mean anything, there can't be all that many other people of their power level around. Some, sure, but IMC being tenth level means that their are only a handful of individuals or small organizations in a given area which could pose any threat to you. Fighting entire empires just isn't fun, so you eventually reach a point where you say "we've done everything we can here, it's time to explore places where these fools fear to tread!"
And that's when they go into the weird places of the world where monsters roam freely and eat you up a lot. Or, to look at it this way: The first half of the level progression (1-10) is to establish a sort of normalcy for the world, what human concerns are, et cetera. 11th-20th level are placed in contrast to this -- to epic quests, things which are distinctly different from the normalcy you've established. (some would cut it differently, say that this is what the ELH is for, but IMO beholders and mind flayers and dragons and the like are plenty strange, exotic, and lore-laden enough for me.)
Note that I also don't like to use monsters straight from the MM in cases like this... The big ones with plenty of mystique attached to them, sure, but where possible I like to steal something of appropriate CR, tweak its stats a little, its appearance a lot, and then suddenly the PCs are up against something they have no idea how to deal with.
Also, mind flayers with character levels rock. If you want to have intelligent but dangerous NPCs at high levels, check them out.
