Level Up (A5E) Do you want more monster complexity?

[dave2008]

How satisfied are you with monster design, mechanics, and gameplay experience in 5E as is?

I will say, 5E does a great job giving you enough rules to resolve a fight and let you remember a cool story afterward. Kobolds are not complex at all, but I have fond memories of an early 5E playtest where we ended up with two dwarves in a chokepoint, the one in front wearing plate armor and with the condition 'drunk' (which gave damage resistance in exchange for disadvantage on your attacks) and dodging so he was nearly impossible to wound, the one in the back stabbing repeatedly with a longspear, both of them laughing as they held off a horde . . . until the kobolds grabbed the drunk dwarf and dragged him away to his death.

But I know some people - myself included - like tactical combat with more decision points, and 5E's monsters in my experience don't often call for diverse tactics. If you're a fighter, and a pack of wolves attack you, you hit them with your sword until they're dead, and if you're lucky maneuver into a narrow spot so only one can attack at a time. If you're a fighter, and a giant attacks you, you hit it with your sword until it's dead. Fire elemental? Use a longspear if you have one so you don't get burned, but you still hit it until it's dead.

By contrast, video games like Monster Hunter and Horizon: Zero Dawn have creatures that have different weak points, and that change their tactics, which can force you to change yours. I try to throw at least a bit of discoverable weaknesses into prominent combats that I run.

For instance, I put my party up against an angel with mechanical wings. When she wasn't flying, the wings acted like a shield that gave her a monk's deflect arrows ability, but because they were mechanical, cold damage could freeze the joints and make the wings nonfunctional if she failed a save. And I teased that by having other mechanical critters earlier in the adventure have that same vulnerability, and had a nearby alchemist lab with some 'frost grenades.' The players thought they'd figured out the fairly obvious trick, but after the angel made her save, they realized the room they were fighting in had a pressure hose. So one PC blasted her with water, after which I said she had disadvantage on the saves. They felt clever for doing that.

Another design conceit I like is posing dilemmas. If you telegraph what a monster is going to do, and if that thing is sufficiently bad but can be mitigated with the right action, it can force players to adapt.

For instance, trolls have regeneration, so what if we said their blood could reattach a recently severed limb . . . and then we give them the ability to rip limbs off. If a troll hits with both claw attacks, it grabs onto the target and starts to tug. Tell the PC that he knows that at the start of the troll's next turn, he's going to have to make a Strength save or get an arm or leg ripped free. How do he and the party respond? Try to free the PC? Try to chop off the troll's arm (which should totally be an option)? Aid the PC so he has advantage on his Strength save? Set the troll on fire so he panics and focuses on putting himself out?

Finally, I like provoking movement. If a hellhound breathes fire, okay, whatever, you take your lumps. But if the cone it burned remains burning for the rest of the encounter, the PC will need to move out of that area. If you put some interesting terrain in the battle, and have a pack of hounds cutting off the PCs' available terrain, this can make the fight more mobile.

Personally, I think a bit of this mentality would make combat more interesting, but maybe you'd think it'd slow things down, or not be fun. I'm curious.

I am trying to provide such a resource: 5e Monster Updates: Mythic, Epic, and Hardcore Monsters

I am hoping to make that a resource of more interesting, complex, and challenging monsters for 5e and LevelUP. So far most of the monsters are my own updates, but I have linked to @Demetrios1453 wonderful giants and would love to get the help from the community: comments on my creations or I can link to your creations.

Less talking and me creating!

 

[dave2008]

One of the big positives of 5E, is the simplicity of running the monsters, and the introduction of legendary actions and lair actions. I think if we are going to improve combat, the solution is not so much adding complexity, but adding variety and options.

I think the core question that should be addressed here, is why is the combat dull?

I've seen a few people say that there is not a whole lot of movement. You get into a melee, and you beat on the monster till it is dead. There is very little that forces (or encourages) you to change position. Wolves are a very simple example. All they do is run up to you and bite. Adding extra abilities (or modifications of existing abilities), or adding variations of existing monsters, could solve this issue.

Others have said that there's not a whole lot of encouragement to try something different. Once you start fighting, you repeat the same action round after round. I think this also ties into the issue of boring monster abilities. If the monsters keep doing the same thing over and over, without forcing a different action, nothing needs to change about the player strategy till the monsters are dead. Any injuries are easily healed, so tank and spank is the go to strategy.

I like the modular approach to design. Something that players can choose to add to existing monsters and their abilities, to make the fights more interesting. And I lean strongly towards the following:

-Monster formations: Templates for varieties of monsters (even wolves), that each specialize in something different. Players would be able to instantly add these templates to any group of monsters, to spice things up.

-New monster abilities: Abilities that force movement, or other combat actions. Or abilities that disable certain actions on a player. At the risk of making the running of monsters slightly more complex.

-Modifications to existing monster abilities: Also at the risk of making the running of monsters slightly more complex.


So here are some things I've come up with. A list of abilities/qualities that can be added to select monsters in a group, to make several of them have a unique role. For example, you could have one wolf with the meatshield ability, while another has acrobatic leap and chain attack or disperse. This would allow you to make a wolf leap in the middle of the party, and scatter them all. You could also have an alpha wolf with the leadership ability.

Movement related abilities:
These are abilities that allow the creature to more easily reach behind the front line.

Acrobatic Leap: As part of its movement, the creature can vault from any nearby wall, object or ally to jump into the fray. If it lands on an occupied square, that creature is pushed 5 ft. out of the square. With this ability the creature can also run across a wall as part of its movement.

Evasive roll: As part of its movement, the creature can move through an area occupied by an opponent, without provoking an attack of opportunity.

Forced movement abilities:
These are abilities that force the players to move.

Leap attack: If the creature leaps as part of its attack (provided it isn't already in close combat with the target), it automatically pushes the target 5 ft. back.

Disperse: The creature takes an intimidating action that forces all hostile creatures within 15 ft to dash 5 ft. away from it, and interrupting any concentration spells. Affected creatures can make a wisdom saving throw, equal to the creature's highest ability, to resist the effect.

Persistent breath weapon: If the creature uses a breath weapon, it can continue to breath it for as long as it chooses to, as long as it doesn't move from its position. It is however allowed to turn around and readjust its aim.

Lingering breath weapon: The breath weapon of the creature leaves a lingering effect that deals half the normal damage of the breath weapon. Fire breath leaves all the floor tiles (and water) that it hit on fire. Acid leaves puddles of acid, etc. These effects remain for the duration of the fight, unless removed.

Debilitating abilities
These are abilities that hinder the players.

Disarming bite: If the creature hits with a grapple-bite attack and gets a hold, it can immediately attempt to disarm its opponent with a strength check, and take the weapon for itself with its mouth.

Dust kick: If the creature starts or ends its movement near an opponent, it can kick up dust to blind the opponent. They must make a constitution save or be blinded for 1 round.

Cursed bite: When this creature hits with a bite attack, the target must save versus a curse.

Infectious bite: When this creature hits with a bite attack, the target must save versus poison.

Bleeding attack: When this creature hits with an attack, the target must save versus bleeding.

Tactics related abilities
These are abilities that encourage the players to change tactics.

Chain attack: If the creature hits with any of its attacks, it is allowed to make a free attack against another opponent within reach, that has not been attacked by it yet during this round.

Interlocking shields: If a group of creatures with shields forms a shield wall (by standing adjacent to one another), all attacks made against them are made at a disadvantage. Further more, all of them have the benefit of sharing the highest AC of any single member of their group.

Strength in numbers: As long as a group of creatures outnumbers their opponents, they enjoy the benefit of advantage on attacks and saves.

Leadership: As long as this creature is alive, he commands a group of minions who all get advantage on attacks and saves for as long as their commander is alive and within sight.

Spellshield: A group of spellcasting creatures can spend their turn (and each turn there after) blocking any and all spells against their allies. This ability manifests as a visible magical barrier in front of the group. If the concentration of any of the spellcasters is disrupted, the barrier is dropped. The barrier blocks only spells, not normal weapons or magically enhanced/enchanted weapons.

Spotter: As long as this creature is alive and able to speak, it can warn any allies within earshot, and make them immune to flanking.

Opportunist: If an opponent moves out of combat with this creature, it always gets to attack as a reaction. This negates the affect of the disengage action.

Necromantic touch: This opponent can touch one deceased ally on its turn as a full round action, to revive them as an undead. The undead ally retains all its normal abilities, but it is fully healed and now of the undead subtype.

Final strike: If the opponent dies, it gets one final attack against all creatures within reach. If the creature has a breath weapon, it may explode as its final attack, dealing the damage of its breath weapon to all creatures within range.

Clever girl: If the creature is attacking an opponent that is being flanked by an ally, they both attack with advantage.
(It can also open and close doors as part of its movement )

Boosting abilities
These are abilities that elevate the creature to the level of a boss or mini boss, by making them tougher to kill.

Meatshield: The creature has double its normal hitpoints and advantage on all saves.

Blooddrinker: This creature drains blood with bite attacks. Any damage this creature deals with bite attacks, it also converts to healing for itself.

Elemental shield: At will as a supernatural ability, the creature can activate or deactive an elemental shield that affects all other creatures who touch it.

Final form: When the creature is below half its maximum hitpoints, it transforms into another creature and heals back to full health. An animal could for example transform into a dire version of its type. Or a humanoid could transform into some undead or demon.

Great ideas! I will port some of them over to the: 5e Monster Updates: Mythic, Epic, and Hardcore Monsters

I would love to here your thoughts and suggestions of some of the monsters posted so far.

 

[dave2008]

I hope and trust the Level Up team isn't going to repeat Paizo's mistake of ignoring the competition.

By that I mean "look at Pathfinder 2".

That game has superior monsters to 5E. It's probably that game's best feature. It offers great inspiration on how to solve the issue discussed in the thread.

I don't think the LevelUp! team is currently interested in making a monster book. That is why I am compiling upgrade monsters here: 5e Monster Updates: Mythic, Epic, and Hardcore Monsters

I am doing it all web based this time (no individual PDFs), so it should be easier to navigate on mobile devices. I am also included typical monsters, not just epic ones. My hope is in a year or so we can have approx. 500+ monsters ready for tiers of LevelUp! when it releases. Love to get your input; however, I am not looking to tackle the solo problem like PF2e has*, 5e isn't set up for that.

*A monster's +5 lvl advantages in PF2e can't be fully replicated, but some of the concepts inherent in that design can be used in 5e.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Some people, including myself, fround the 2e monster writeups to be just plain obnoxious, leading to something that would be either ignored or cookie-cutter, presenting e.g. "A typical goblin tribe" as the only real organisation and sentences like "For every 40 goblins there will be a leader and his 4 assistants, each having 1 Hit Die" to be horribly deterministic. For me the high point of monster fluff came in, of all things, the 4e Monster Manual 1.

The first thing the 4e MM1 did right was presented differences between monster types in name and mechanics, so your standard kobold militia was called a "kobold tunneller" and your specialist ranged kobold was a "kobold slinger" whose sling shot pots of nasty stuff rather than being an archer. Meanwhile the standard goblin spellcaster wasn't a "level 2 goblin wizard" but a "goblin hex-hurler" with their private spells really selling the nasty and obnoxious nature of hex-hurling as a goblin speciality and how it makes them different from gnome illusionists.

The second thing the 4e MM1 did right was to present suggested encounters in each broad monster type. Sometimes this was dull, the equivalent of "An adult male lion, an adult female lion, and their two cubs" (with three different statblocks) while from memory the Aboleth entry and the Drow entry both included slaves of other species and most of them indicated a social hierarchy due to the multiple different types involved.

What I'd like to see is, for the sapient creatures, three separate organisations of a single paragraph each. For example:

The Knife Cave goblins are the third largest tribe in the Torpenhow Hills and are known locally for their intricate woad tattoos and their massacre of their rivals the Stark Ridge goblins despite the customary truce at the midwinter festival. The tribe itself consists of about seventy adult goblins, all combatants and at any given time a couple of dozen non-combatant goblins under twelve. Their leaders are Ruby the Bloody Handed, a [champion template] and their elder Naggla the Grey, Speaker for Kel'thaz [warlock template]. Scouting and raiding parties, frequently looking for livestock that in lean times may be human or dwarf, consist of not less than a dozen goblins lead by one of Ruby's four current favourites with only Sapphire and Cutter having remained longer than two years, or by Naggla's apprentice Flint.

The Varren's Quarter goblins are a goblin enclave in the city of Lavadeep. One of the poorest parts of Lavadeep, about 300 of the 500 people living there are goblins, making their living how they can. and packing like sardines into the slum because they know they need little room. Most of them can fight, having demonstrated the hard way that just because goblins are small and relatively weak they aren't prey, and a lot of them make their living with low paid work that doesn't require brute strength, often as messengers where their ability to slip through gaps can give them an edge, or house servants who are light on their feet because they don't weigh much and who can be quite literally overlooked by employers who would think it gauche to acknowledge a servant. More highly paid goblins include craftsmen, tinkers, entertainers, and vets (although few of other races will willingly go to goblins for medical care). Famous goblins within the community include []

The goblins within Buldgutz greenskin horde are...

All of which says a lot about goblins and how they are seen within the world and provides far more hooks than the dull 2e Monstrous Manual without saying that that's the only way to do things.

No thank you - that is too much specificity. I don’t want details on specific tribes, keep it generic please

 

[Faolyn]

Here's what I'd like to see:

I don't want to see a bunch of different types of each monster. For instance, there are ten or so different drow statblocks (not including ones for specific adventures). Are they really necessary outside of a drow-specific campaign or setting book? Now look at the vampire, which merely has a sidebar on vampire spellcasters and vampire warriors--mini-templates, if you will. Now, I'm not saying get rid of all those extra statblocks if they're sufficiently different; I'm just saying try to condense and have sidebars and mini-templates where possible.

At the same time, provide interesting variation within a monster species. For instance, take a look at the old Van Richten guides. These books provided ways to make unique individuals just by adding a different ability or two, or removing a standard one, or including a different weakness or resistance. There've been a few occasions of that in 5e so far (fiends who can summon other fiends, satyrs with pipes, different-patron deathlocks, etc.), and I'd like to see that expanded. For monsters--at least the more supernatural ones--provide a sidebar with some optional powers.

Make sure every monster fulfills a purpose. It's far too easy to create monsters just to fill space. Make sure each monster is necessary, interesting, and sufficiently different from existing monsters in both stats and lore. Make sure each monster has motivations of its own. Heck, a list of personality traits, like VGM and MTF had, would go a long way.

More templates! I know that in 5e, the templates are supposed to be math-free, which I like, but adding a few more would be pretty cool.

While this is probably not the right thread to include this in, I'd like to see a few other conditions. Bleeding would be good (make a DCX Con save at the end of your turn or take 1dX damage from blood loss; on a successful save, the effect tends on you; magical healing or expending a use from a healer's kit also ends the effect) and Confused (roll on this list to determine your action for the turn; can't use reactions or bonus actions). A lot of monsters cause confusion, and at least a few cause bleeding, and both would benefit from simple unified rules.

Perhaps make Giant into Humanoids with the Giant tag.

Make sure that beasts are of animal intelligence and lack magical abilities. Why are cranium rats and giant eagles beasts? Why are griffons and owlbears monstrosities? A druid being able to turn into a griffon isn't going to be OP if they can already turn into a flying animal of similar CR.

Have a new monster type: Spirit. For creatures that shouldn't be considered fey, undead, or elemental.

Personally, I dislike the monster types that everyone else is talking about, from 4e. Brute, Skirmisher, etc. I think it puts unnecessary constraints on the monster.

I'd like a better Habitat and Ecology section for each monster (just call it Ecology). The 2e monster books were often filled with wonderful plothooks and interesting tidbits of information because of these sections. Monsters are more than just blobs of hp!

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't think the LevelUp! team is currently interested in making a monster book.

Fair enough.

Reason I'm bringing up monsters is I would say new monsters is a big part of the picture, easily half.

But yes, crunchier charbuild is separate from that.