Fooling players who have memorized the MM

[DonTadow]

My players are mostly Dnd veterans who know the contents of the Monster Manual front and back. So in order to keep things interesting, I have to fiddle around with the standard abilities and stats of the more traditional monsters.

What are some of the best re-imaginings of standard monsters you have come up with or encountered? (Especially ones that have caught players off guard.)

Examples:

The "basilisk" actually has a fey template and turns things into trees.

Predatory animals (wolves, boars, bears, etc) all have breath weapons.

This troll doesn't regenerate but releases deadly spores.

Oops. These orcs have damage reduction--not so easy after all.


-R

The easist way for me to alter monsters and keep my pcs on their toes is simply to change their description and their name. What a technical name for a monster is and what the villagers call hiim is two different things. Finding alternative pictures for the monster (if you use images helps as well as creating your own descrptions).

 

[evilbob]

4) Strange terrain. Monsters in a fight scene where the environment plays an important role can keep the PCs looking away from Monster Stats. For example, fighting two Barghests is a pretty predictable encounter. Fighting those same Barghests during a hurricane is something entirely different.

This is an excellent suggestion!

I also second those who say to pick up a copy of the MM3. MM2 is 3.0, and 4 is... wonky. (It's best if you imagine a dragon-centric campaign, what with the dozens of pages related to dragon creature variants.) I dislike the new stat blocks as well.

I also have a player who literally has the MM memorized, and have made several adjustments to keep things fresh (coming up with "new" enemies that are really just MM creatures with one or two tiny things different, inventing new races that are really just MM races with a couple of cosmetic changes, etc.). The MM3 has also helped a lot.

But the main thing to keep in mind is to continue to allow Knowledge checks to reward players who invest in this skill - if someone has a +23 to knowledge (dungeoneering), they should be able to tell you just about everything about any ooze they come across, homebrewed or not. In other words, the characters should be able to figure it out, regardless of what the players know.


Also, for those talking about variant dragons, in general I'd say just to keep in mind that dragon CRs are lower than they should be because the game basically expects you to know what you're facing. Throwing a "wrong color" dragon at the party should be considered to have an EL something on the order of about 5 higher than normal.

 

[Voadam]

I find a mix of familiar and unfamiliar works well, so a hezrou demon and orc warriors from a demon cult stronghold is followed by encounters with demons cribbed from d20 modern or slayer's guide to demons.

Similarly my planar gate town outside of Acheron the LE war plane has factions of hobgoblins, asherake (Complete Minions) Azer, bladelings (MMII), fire giants, tieflings, duergar, and orcs with a sprinkling of rakshasa, zenzogin (Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary) Zenrithi (MMII), and faust (complete minions).

This way players feel grounded in a familiar D&D game but also face exciting new monsters that are unknown to them.

 

[sirwmholder]

If you can get your hands on a copy I would recommend Sword & Sorcery's: Creature Collection series. They contain quite a few different creatures to toss into the mix. I'm also a fan of removing a creature type and giving it a new one changing it's appearance where appropriate and letting the good times roll. An example of this... take an Ice Devil drop the Outsider hit dice and immunities... drop it's size down to medium and unable to summon another devil... make it an Undead, adjust the Slow ability to be CHA based and unleash your new Ice-melding Shadow Stalker.

Hope this helps,
William Holder

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Not exactly along the same lines, but I have a tried and true method for 'fooling' plaers who memorize the MM...

Every time a new player joins my group I clearly explain my gaming style and mention that I do *not* own any monster manuals.....

I have never had a problem with a player spending time memorizing monsters in my rather longish career as a DM.


My favorite tactic is similar to other voices here, describing the creature slightly different while still using the same mechanics. Everyonce in a while I will throw something completely out of left field at them just to keep them on thier toes.

And example of this, in an artic adventure chasing a BBEG Mage they encountered creatures similar to winter wolves... except they were very very hard to kill. In truth they were 'Ice Golems' in the form of a winter wolf... I just took the Wolf and applied the construct type to it

 

[joela]

template and class

Another friend of mine runs games where everything has at least one template and at least one class level.

That...is nasty. Fiendish barbarian troll. Ouch!

 

[CleverNickName]

I run a desert-based, Egyptian-temed campaign. To make the monsters a little more interesting and unique to the setting, I use a few tweaks:

- All dragons in my game have the extraordinary ability to change their scale colors to blend into their surroundings (like a chameleon). All dragons are described as pebble gray, sandy brown, sky blue, etc...the party generally doesn't know what "color" a dragon is until it uses its breath weapon.

- The "civilized" cultures of this world customarily embalm their dead shortly after death. So most corporeal undead monsters (from the humble zombie to the powerful lich) are wrapped in bandages and treated with pungent-scented oils and herbs. These all appear to be mummies until the party is close enough to notice something odd (like a mhorg's tongue, or a ghoul's stench).

- Water is scarce, so "ooze" creatures are made out of sand, not slime. Ochre jelly is "ochre sand," black pudding is "black sand," etc. The stats for these monsters stay the same; the only difference is the way the creature is described.

In addition to these general changes to monster types, I made a few changes to specific creatures as well. For example, kobolds and lizardfolk have the Earth subtype, and can burrow through sand. Some dragons do not cast spells, but rage like barbarians instead. That sort of thing.

 

[Meeki]

Very neat ideas clevernickname.

As mentioned before, I expect my players to only use their character knowledge when encountering a creature. Usually someone in the group with have an appropriate knowledge so they can make a check against the creatures HD +10 or 15 depending what it is.

In most cases the PC's do now know what they are going to fight next unless they are actively seeking a creature to fight. In the latter case it is usually a creature that is many many CR's above the group, so even with preparation the fight will be tough. I attempt to make sure my PC's don't metagame too much but there is no perfect system.

 

[Nyeshet]

Instead of making it an albino red drgon, you could make it a white dragon that's used a cantrip to colour itself red.

I had a DM once that stated that all dragons were brown, and unless we had ranks in Know (dragon) we could not tell them apart, know ahead of time of their breath weapon, alignment, or even their age category (and considering that the larger dragons start out medium - large, and the smallest ones end up around large - huge, that could be a significant thing to know). It made every encounter with a dragon a bit nerve wracking, especially as evil ones often pretended to be good to fool gullible humans into coming too near or doing some questionable deeds for them. Once we accidentally released an Ancient evil dragon that had been responsible for the fall of a major civilization several hundred years prior. On the plus side it turned out to be Lawful as well as Evil, and so it followed our prior arrangement and did not harm us after being freed. (Even good dragons might be dangerous to a good party. Paladins can fight each other, each upholding a separate good cause, after all.)

 

[robberbaron]

Ooh, dry oozes. That sounds sick and fun at the same time.