Monster Advancment problem

[Trainz]

Greetings,

When I DM, half of my games are prepared, and half of them are improvised, meaning sometimes I create combat encounter on the fly. At lower levels, this is fine, but when my PC's reach 10th level, I need to use boosted monsters as per the Advancment rule in the Monster Manual (p. 12).

My problem is, it is hard to use these rules on the fly. I need to spend five to ten minutes in order to make all the necessary adjustments.

My question: does one of you created a quick and simple way to boost the stats and CR of the monsters in the book ? If so, could you please post your rules here ?

Thanks for all replies.

 

[Shin Okada]

First, why you need to use advanced monsters? There are a lot of monsters in MM which creates challenging encounters for 10th+ PCs. You can just choose appropriate monsters IMO.

Second, It is somewhat easier to give Warrior levels to monsters, than to advance the monsters' HD. So something advances "By character level" are easier to handle. Each warrior level give +1 attack bonus and (4.5+Con modifier) hit points. Fort save is advanced by ( (Warrior level/2 )+2) and other saves are advanced by (Warrior level/3). Of course you would better give them more expensive equipment when they have levels. But if you want to go simple, it may work.

Third, if you run unprepared games often, try to make a list of monster stats to make encounters of various level. Also, it will be good to have a list of "typical characters" stats, say typical knights or typical town soldiers in your world setting. If you have note pad or laptop, make files in any format good for you to handle. If not, make physical file of those printouts and carry it whenever you play games.

 

[Uller]

Perhaps the Monster and Character generator will solve your problem when it comes out next month? I would guess that it will have handle monster advancement for you.

In the mean time, it might be a good idea to create monsters for 5-7 encounters suitable to your party and just keep them in your back pocket for when you need a "random" or improvised encounter.

In my experience, players can tell the difference between a prepared and an improvised encounter. If they see you whipping out notes, they are more likely to assume the encounter is important...

 

[nsruf]

Perhaps the Monster and Character generator will solve your problem when it comes out next month? I would guess that it will have handle monster advancement for you.

PCGen also does that. But for "on the fly" encounters, you would need a computer at the gaming table, of course.

 

[Trainz]

Thanks !

Thanks for all the useful input guys !