Sometimes, a skeleton is not just a skeleton.

[smetzger]

This is why there are sooo many different monsters for D&D. All DMs want to surprise players every now and then.

I have no problem with you altering monsters in an adhoc way for 3.5. If you are an experienced DM then you don't need the EL crutch anyway. Since you have greatly reduced xp for slaying then the accurately adjusting the CR given your changes is also not as important.

One way to keep players on their feet is to change the descriptions of monsters.
I've also been thinking of adding some weaknesses and features to the elementals to spice them up a bit (but each elemental would be slightly different).

One trope in fantasy is that the Hero(es) defeat the monster by finding its weakness. This sounds like it would fit in with what you are trying to capture flavorwise. You may wan't to allow reasearch and knowledge checks to find the weakness, or Spot checks and something else while actually fighting the creature. If you want mechanics for doing this the 4e skill challenge may fit the bill.

 

[Bumbles]

You see a gazebo on a hill ahead of you.

 

[Switchback]

Sounds like you want to play a horror style game more than a standard one. I never ran more than one starter adventure in Ravenloft, but I seem to remember that setting having built in rules for fear and terror, that acted upon on characters whether they thought their characters would actually be afraid or not. Maybe something like that would be good here.

I think mixing and changing up monsters is always a useful tool, but if you were to use it in *every* combat, every monster, it seems to me it would take some of the tactical element out of the game. Though 3rd edition would work better than 4th in this.

If the central goal of the game is more survival/horror or finding ways to avoid and escape combat, and the heroes are not so much champions as underpowered commoners hoping to dodge their way through the dangers of the world, and the party is happy with such an arrangement, then why not?

 

[Korgoth]

If the central goal of the game is more survival/horror or finding ways to avoid and escape combat, and the heroes are not so much champions as underpowered commoners hoping to dodge their way through the dangers of the world, and the party is happy with such an arrangement, then why not?

That's not true at all. Look at classic Sword & Sorcery rogues (in the generic sense) like Conan. He often doesn't want to fight... fighting gets you killed. He wants to get the gold, the girl and maybe the glory; he wants his skin to be intact.

Why would an adventurer want to fight? Even most soldiers don't want to fight. Fighting gets you killed. An adventurer is distinguished by his willingness to face danger in order to score a great reward, not by having a death wish.

I wouldn't call a judicious adventurer like Conan an "underpowered commoner"... I'd call him "smart". He's not Rambo (a guy who relies on script immunity to intentionally wade through hundreds of mooks just because) and I don't think of D&D adventurers like Rambos either. Sure, they want to be good at fighting... in a world like that, being bad at fighting can be hazardous to your health! But just because an adventurer cultivates a masterful skill at fighting doesn't mean he therefore tries to fight everything that moves! We're not grinding Thundertusk Boars here.

 

[Drowbane]

I think I understand what you're getting at, lets hope. My DMing philosophy is that Rules are for the players, for the DM they're just... "guidelines". I tend to use Mutants & Masterminds to devise "low PL" (usually monster's HD or HD -2) powers to add to otherwise normal D&D monsters. Keeps my players on thier toes. Additionally, routinely subjecting the PCs to high CR (4-7 above thier average level) might have a chance of teaching them to run away when they have to and to use tactics to bring the beast down.

 

[Runestar]

Why would an adventurer want to fight? Even most soldiers don't want to fight. Fighting gets you killed. An adventurer is distinguished by his willingness to face danger in order to score a great reward, not by having a death wish.

Because the rules so happen to favour combat over everything else?

What is the point of having so many options that are meant to enhance your fighting experience, only to be expected to run away from an encounter or find another means of working around it, rather than charge in guns-blazing? I want to see the result of hours of extensive character building/design, damnit!

 

[Tinker Gnome]

An Adventurer might want to fight to prove that they are the best and strongest in the land.

 

[Baron Opal]

One problem with D&D and trying to recapture that feel of S&S books in the game... is that the monsters are all well known. After 25 years of playing the game, you know that if you’re a 3rd level character, and you enter a room with 2 skeletons, you’ll likely mop the floor with them. No challenge.

Think about that for a second. In Sword and Sorcery novel terms, some evil wielder of foul arcane power, a master of the necromantic arts, goes through an evil ritual to raise the dead in a horrific form, and make them his servants. He lost part of his soul to do so...

How to bridge that disconnect? Make every monster an unknown factor. In other words, ignore the monster manual statblocks. D&D gives very specific rules on game mechanics for everything...

I agree with you. However, isn't there a chapter in the 3.5 MM or DMG which addresses this very issue? There are very specific rules for adjusting or modifying monsters. The necromancer in question can make 1 HD skeletons or 4 HD skeletons. They can have a cloak of shadows that grants them some concealment or not.

I don't have a problem with making creatures by fiat. And, I very rarely made an opponent by the book in 3.X; it was too much work for me.

 

[roguerouge]

I tend to be of the belief that you should reward people who put ranks into knowledge skills. Make players spend actions in combat to try to figure out what these things are. Remind players not to optimize their tactics when facing a new foe. (I had to burn a crap spell in the first round of a fight with a mind flayer last time. It killed me to not cast one of the two spells that I knew had a chance of working. He got away as a result.) Tell your role-players to play it as if they've never seen these things before and to get in their best zombie plague reactions. It's great if they feel it, but it's still role playing not real reactions.

 

[Betote]

That being said, Why can’t an owl bear have fire resistance? Why can’t a skeleton emit an electrical shock or life-stealing cold damage when hit? Why can’t trolls breed with giants, giving a subbreed of giants some regenerative ability? Why can’t there be 10 HD skeletons that just explode when reduced to 0 hp?

I wasn't aware they couldn't.

Give any monsters the ability you want them to have. If you think it's significantly more powerful than the standard monster, raise its CR 1 or 2 points. All those mathy things are just guidelines. Behind the screen nobody willl know if you did your homework, made it up or picket it up from a 3pp supplement