[Rant] Playing Monsters Poorly

[kigmatzomat]

I put hit points, saves, SR, DR and immunities on the same line so when I go to mark off the hp I'm reminded of the special features.

 

[the Jester]

See, this is exactly why I really like the new stat block for monsters.

 

[Dragonbait]

Every time I GM. Sometimes it's in my favore. The players were fighting against a bunch of duergar, and I forgot to keep track of spell durations (seriously, I had 1 duergar cleric and 10 warriors, some of which did enlage and some were invisible). The duergar cleric's summoned magic weapon was out 2 rounds longer than it should have been, and the duergar were enlarged 1 round longer than they should have been.

If the fight was fun, don't sweat it!

 

[Gundark]

I used to be terrible for things like this. Now I only sweat the BBEG. peons are supposted to go down. For the BBEG I go over it a few times and write notes in the stat block and underline or use a highligher for important stuff.

However this isn't perfect. I misread what a spell weaver could do. the fight wasn't have a interesting as it could have been...ie. over in 3 rounds.

 

[werk]

Big multi-stage battle at the end of a short dungeon involved a big dragon zombie that was sent after the party to buy time for the BBEG to make his escape (stage two). Perfect I think, big shuffling sack of hit points, that'll buy a few rounds, maybe more.

For some reason I started counting his movement wrong (it was getting late), and the party just ran around it and caught up with the BBEG in a hallway too narrow for the zombie to fit.

 

[Festivus]

I miss SR all the time. It should be in neon and flashing on the page for me to not miss it. I have recently taken to the habit of writing out the stat blocks for all the creatures into a standardized format of my own design for when I run combats, this way I never miss anything and have re-enforced the knowledge of the creature by writing it all down.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The duergar cleric's summoned magic weapon was out 2 rounds longer than it should have been, and the duergar were enlarged 1 round longer than they should have been.

YOU UTTER BASTARD!!!

 

[Dragonbait]

YOU UTTER BASTARD!!!

I made it up, unintentionally, when I later forgot to use the boss's poisonous bite and darkness abilities..

 

[Joshua Randall]

This isn't really monster specific, but I used to forget that stuned creatures drop whatever they're holding.

So if an enemy monk would stun the PC fighter, I'd forget that the fighter's longsword should now be on the ground. Or, say, if the enemy demon blasphemes the entire party, I'd forget there should be a lot of tasty loot on the ground ripe for the taking.

Lately I've been better at remembering that, though.

 

[Shazman]

Everyone makes mistakes like this. Let's face it D&D is complicated, especially when you have to keep track of tons of abilities and spells the NPC's and monsters have. There's no way to keep track of it all perfectly, especially late at night when you're tired.