Level Up (A5E) Monster preview thread!

[dave2008]

5e's encounter building has at best a shaky foundation. CR as a system has always been inconsistent and seemingly eyeballed for about 3 seconds before someone goes "Yeah CR 7 seems about right". Certain 3rd level spells having the power of 5th level spells because they're "iconic" to encourage players to take them, when enemies also use them, makes it even worse. Simple or complex is irrelevant as far as I'm concerned, the important thing is that they function as intended. Being tied to CR for encounter building due to backwards compatibility is I suspect one of the most difficult challenges for the system, and thus one of the things I'm most curious about from a system wide perspective and not just fun character building.

Clarificaiton:
The encounter builder in O5e (DMG) uses XP not CR. Though that does bring up a point I think could use a deeper explanation. A good encounter builder provides a clear baseline assumption and then explains how to adjust things when your group deviates from the assumptions.

I find the RAW O5e encounter works well for one of my groups which has very little magic items (O5e was build on the assumption that magic items are not required) and is not very strategically or tactically minded. Which seems to be the default assumption of the O5e encounter builder, but that is never explained. However, once you get out that default the accuracy of the encounter builder diminishes. IMO a encounter should:

Clearly define:

1. Assumed party size
2. Assumed party equipment
3. Assumed party tactical ability (DM too)
4. Assumed party strategic ability (DM too)
5. Assumed party class composition
6. The degrees of difficult and what they reference (at full start or assumed amount of attrition)

Provide Guidance on:

1. How to adjust the guidelines for a group that deviates from any of 1-5 above.
2. Provide guidance on how to adjust the guidelines based on experience (ex: if your encounters, for whatever reason, are to tougher than the encounter guidelines suggest, what should you do to modify them)

 

[Stalker0]

Probably the biggest thing level up is bringing to encounter balance is the combat section for monsters. Aka we now have “standard behavior” to go along with those “standard stats”…which is a major variable of current CR

 

[Morrus]

Wow, dragons take up 84 pages!

• dragon lich (template)
• chromatic dragons
• essence dragons
• gem dragons
• metallic dragons

(plus another 3 pages for dragon turtle, if you're counting that)

We've laid out 251 pages of the monster book so far. It's going to be a really big book.

Pick one dragon. First come, first served.

 

[tetrasodium]

Wow, dragons take up 84 pages!

• dragon lich (template)
• chromatic dragons
• essence dragons
• gem dragons
• metallic dragons

(plus another 3 pages for dragon turtle, if you're counting that)

We've laid out 251 pages of the monster book so far. It's going to be a really big book.

Pick one dragon. First come, first served.

black dragon?

 

[Zaukrie]

Wow, dragons take up 84 pages!

• dragon lich (template)
• chromatic dragons
• essence dragons
• gem dragons
• metallic dragons

(plus another 3 pages for dragon turtle, if you're counting that)

We've laid out 251 pages of the monster book so far. It's going to be a really big book.

Pick one dragon. First come, first served.

I hope the low level ones are interesting..... That's a lot of pages.

 

[Morrus]

black dragon?

 

[Stalker0]

I really like the mechanic of consuming legendary resistances lowers the AC. Makes you feel like your still getting something for your trouble.

the adult one is 3 cr higher than the vanilla version and it shows, lots of good nastiness here! The darkness ability alone is the kind of thing I want my big boss to have, shaping the battlefield and providing good defense.

 

[dave2008]

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I haven't gotten through the whole preview in detail yet; however, I didn't see any Lair Actions. Do you do away with lair actions for A5e or is it that they are not OGL?

I will say I really appreciate the sample spell list for spell casting dragons. That is very helpful!

 

[dave2008]

I really like the extra abilities of the Great Wyrm black - nice work!

 

[tetrasodium]

The black dragon section is very impressive. I like how they(and chromatic dragons themselves) are presented as possibly being a terrible thing, maybe useful thing to have around, or maybe even an important part of a nation. Blightbane is a fun little example & I can't wait to read about the other named dragons who might have been around since dragons had that empire or are old enough to recall tales/stories of it from even older dragons no longer around.