D&D 5E [POLL] Your experience running monsters

[Schmoe]

I focus on tactics/roleplay to keep combat interesting, but I focus on mechanics to adjust the challenge. I often find that the mechanical RAW don't support the tactics.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

It varies a lot.

Mechanically:
Cannon fodder tends towards just being straight out of the MM/Volo's/AP. If there is more than one fodder, at least one of them will get a feat, cult boon, or a warlock's invocation (with one spell slot per long rest if necessary). For higher level ones, I prefer to play them smarter (the only solo monsters my party will encounter will have traps nearby) or give them whatever magguffin magical item I think they need.

I am planning on adding a bunch of the mystic's toys to celestials, fiends, and fey. I am borrowing an idea from recent years in Green Lantern, where the various lights make people feel the emotion that powers the light (not just make constructs), so being around fiends makes you feel disgusted or angry, fey can induce wild emotions, etc.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I have to say I'm surprised at the results. I know it's only 50ish or so votes, but based on the discussions we always have, I'd have thought that option 4 would be much higher, and not only a tiny 4%. I mean, in all of those other threads, the biggest argument is for stat block changes needed and folks even argued against everything other than stat block changes, like the fluff and RP elements (which excludes the option 5 voters). I've even heard people argue that using fluff and RP elements to boost up monsters is a cop out. So the results so far are a bit surprising to me.

I guess the lesson here is you can't assume how big a problem is by forum posts even within the ENWORLD site itself, let alone gamers in general. There appears to be a lot of people on this site who don't post many posts, but are still here reading and looking at things. So if 20% of ENWORLD posters feel a certain way, that doesn't mean 20% of ENWORLD users feel the same, for whatever topic it is.

 

[TwoSix]

I guess the lesson here is you can't assume how big a problem is by forum posts even within the ENWORLD site itself, let alone gamers in general. There appears to be a lot of people on this site who don't post many posts, but are still here reading and looking at things. So if 20% of ENWORLD posters feel a certain way, that doesn't mean 20% of ENWORLD users feel the same, for whatever topic it is.

Not particularly surprising, really...I imagine half the posts on the 5e forum are from the top 50 posters or so.

 

[robus]

Then it sounds like you are option 2. What it means by "increase their impact" is that RAW, you find them significantly lacking as a challenge for one reason or the other, so you make a focus on boosting those (like doubling HP, or maxing HP, or increasing damage, or giving abilities, or really focusing on the tactical/planning/intelligence of the monster to make them more effective in battle. That RAW just doesn't do it in most cases.

I voted 4 but the way you describe 2 above makes me want to pick it, but then I look at how 2 is described in the poll it's different. What am I not understanding?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I definitely do a mix of all of the options, so it’s hard to commit to one answer. I run plenty of monsters as written, and modify plenty of others. I modify to make a creature stand out (like a Orc Champion or similar) or because I’ve found that it isn’t as challenging as I’d like it to be for some reason (I tweaked a couple of abilities for the Marilith to make her more effective).

Sometimes, I’ll play around with mechanics to get what I want, other times I play with the monster lore or ecology to create more fully realized bad guys. No matter what I do, I try to always play NPCs and monsters as thinking beings who have motives and goals and who are not (usually) suicidal. They are not played as if their sole purpose is to be an encounter of X Challenge Rating to factor ibto the party’s daily XP budget.

So even though it’s not a perfect match, if I had to pick one option, I’ll say “I focus on the role-playing part.”

 

[Sacrosanct]

I voted 4 but the way you describe 2 above makes me want to pick it, but then I look at how 2 is described in the poll it's different. What am I not understanding?

It's really the difference between minor one offs here and there, and thinking the way the monsters were designed is fundamentally weak as a whole. So the difference between 1 and 4 (both choices that place focus on the statblock and not the flavor text or environment) is that #1 is where you'd rarely feel the need to boost up the stats for the monsters, and #4 you find yourself frequently if not almost always feeling like you need to do things like double HP, increase DPR, give extra abilities, etc.

does that help?

 

[dave2008]

Can you vote twice? I have two groups and run them different for each group.

 

[robus]

It's really the difference between minor one offs here and there, and thinking the way the monsters were designed is fundamentally weak as a whole. So the difference between 1 and 4 (both choices that place focus on the statblock and not the flavor text or environment) is that #1 is where you'd rarely feel the need to boost up the stats for the monsters, and #4 you find yourself frequently if not almost always feeling like you need to do things like double HP, increase DPR, give extra abilities, etc.

does that help?

I guess... i’ll stick with #4 then.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

In the days when I ran a 5e game I pretty much had to rewrite the monsters on the fly, if I didn't even the legendary foes were pretty much speed bumps. Pretty much every monster had their damage dice bumped up one die or sometimes doubled. Most had their AC bumped up 2-4 points and were usually given max HP. Often I'd give them special abilities on the fly, additional save or get hosed effects. I'd say "this Ogre is tainted by Juiblex and has some rot effect when he hits", etc.

I can't say I spent a lot of time outside the sessions doing this, as I said it was pretty much on the fly. RP wise I played them as they were supposed to be played IMO.