The Dungeon Master Experience - Instant Monsters Up!

[Saracenus]

Chris Perkins gives a master class on how to reskin, alter, and otherwise remake a monster on the fly. Not behind the firewall:
Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Instant Monster)

I have not done much of this myself in 4e (I have mostly DMed Encounters and LFR for this edition) but I have seen my friend Alphastream do some amazing encounter design for modules he has written al la the Perkins method.

Pirate Cat is another master of this DM Ninja art. His creativity with it blows me away (see he ongoing campaign breakdown for great ideas).

Enjoy,

 

[Mengu]

Hmm, I don't know, sounds like stuff I do every day. Barring LFR, I can't remember the last time I didn't modify a monster. I think I may have used some kobolds straight out of the book when I started, and maybe an ogre savage once.

A funky swap I did recently was the feral minotaurs I based off Barlgura, and a few encounters later I wanted to use a Barlgura and based it off a minotaur.

As the article says, find a monster of appropriate level and role with maybe a power or two you want to keep, strip away the fat, add some veggies and seasoning to taste, crockpot medium heat for 3-4 hours. Mmm tender and delish.

 

[MrMyth]

It's the sort of thing that is second nature to me by now - but I am confident there are DMs out there for whom this is useful, and that is exactly why I'm glad to see it showing up as free DM advice on the website.

 

[Badwe]

it also helps as a sanity check to make sure you're not crazy in what you're doing.

obviously he was trying to keep it simple, but i would have added that if you're moving more than 7 levels away (which the original DMG discourages) to take a look at the status effects the monster imposes as well as it's ability to negate certain status effects (higher level = more of each).

I used something similar the last time my group met: I was doing a shadows of the colossus inspired fight with something so big that even gargantuan would have been insufficient to describe it. I reskinned two earthquake dragons from MM3 as the feet, using their quake and attack abilities only as part of movement into or on top of the players. then i reskinned some sort of troll ghost as the hands, similarly making the attacks represent being hit by the full force of the hand instead of just a single "finger".

This also makes me happy because my players will be taking a brief jaunt across the astral sea in an astral skiff at level 11, and now i won't feel bad about scaling the lvl 25 astral kraken down to a more appropriate level.

 

[TerraDave]

I really like this series.

And yes, I also do this all the time. (I cut and paste out of the compendium, real easy). So today I deleveled a Marilith but made her a solo and "old schooled" a beareded devil, piece of cake.

Its a testement to 4Es current monster math. BUT the article reallly makes clear how to do it, has good examples, and is well written. And that counts for a lot.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Also a good indicator that the online monster builder does it corret: +1/-1 damage per level.
And a quick guide for creating minions: half average damage of a normal monster!

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

This series is excellent. It contains the kind of advice the DMG should be filled with.

This was already second-nature to me, but I've been DMing for a long time. Great advice for the less-experienced and a good reminder for those with more experience (or who may not have thought of this).

This just made me think of my highschool music teacher, who used to say, "if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage!" usually after I started "improvising." I didn't agree with him then, and I don't now. It applies equally to D&D, and articles like this illustrate why.

 

[Riastlin]

Definitely digging this series as well. Makes me wish that Perkins had done the Dungeoncraft articles as well since he always seems to have such a fertile mind for DM'ing. (Not to know James Wyatt as I actually really enjoyed his Dungeoncraft series for the most part).

 

[wcpfish]

In my review of the Dark Sun Creature Catalog (here), I gave a few re-skinning favorites of my own. This is a technique that makes you look so creative as a DM (shhh...don't tell!)

William C. Pfaff
President of Escape Velocity Gaming