D&D 5E +What Tricks and Shortcuts Do You Use To Make Monsters and other Hazards More Challenging?

[John R Davis]

I tend to give nearly every baddie a bonus action. Nothing huge just a move, a cantrip, an extra attack and such.

It action economy that wins the war and sometimes the PCs utterly overwhelm the monsters in this area

 

[Li Shenron]

Overly long title says it all, really, but to get more specific, I'm wondering what people do in their games to make the game more challenged, specifically without changing PC abilities at all.

Just "DM side", what are your tricks and shortcuts? Do you use enemies from 3pp, have you built a set of templates to give monsters combat roles, do you add special events to certain points in initiative to represent things like backup, or terrain hazards, etc?

Please don't crap on anyone's ideas, though. It's a sharing thread, not a harangue people who play differently than you thread.

Mainly two things:

1) using tactical suggestions from "The Monsters Know"

2) adding feats to monsters and NPC: my favourites are Martial Adept and Magic Initiate because they open up lots of options, but also a good old Great Weapon Fighter or even Lucky work wonder

 

[DeviousQuail]

Using opponents that have "stages" as challenges. After they take X damage they immediately interrupt the players turn. When this happens they undergo some kind of visual change to clue in the players. It can be as simple as shedding a piece of armor or as crazy as morphing into a completely different form. The monster gets a new set of hit points and any directly harmful effects on them are ended. It doesn't end something like hunters mark, flanked, prone, etc but would end most other spells and conditions. The monster then gets one action before the interrupted player continues their turn.

I've never had a bad encounter with these monsters and I find it a much better way to handle save or suck effects than legendary resistance. They don't get to just ignore your efforts, which is good. They also don't get steam rolled due to one bad roll, which is the problem legendary resistance was trying to solve. Solo fights are also more tenable since you know a monster with 2 or more stages is guaranteed to get at least one action in. There's nothing worse than an anticlimactic fight where the players kill the big baddy before they do anything.

Spoiler: Example Monster

From my first 5e campaign that I ran all the way back in 2015: the L-01 Construct. This construct had three stages and each stage was designed to be CR 3. Each stage of the construct has an AC of 15, 50 HP, and the standard immunities of construct creatures.
Stage 1 - The Heavy. It looks like a metal statue with electricity running in the crevices like veins. It is Large, has a 15ft speed, 10 foot reach, resists lighting and slashing, and has a stone sword attack that deals 2d6+5 slashing damage.
Stage 2 - The Spider. When reduced to 0 HP the Heavy throws off it's cumbersome armor and sword. Nine legs unfurl and the Spider (a metallic drider in appearance) breaks one off to use as a longspear. It is Medium, has a 25ft speed, 10 foot reach, resists lightning and piercing, spiderclimb, and has a spear attack that deals 1d10+5 piercing.
Stage 3 - The Core. When reduced to 0 HP the Spider's metallic bits mostly fall to the floor leaving a lightning and metal core floating in its place. It is small, has a 40ft speed, hovers, resists lightning and bludgeoning, has a lightning attack that deals 2d4+5 lightning damage (20/40 range), and when hit it sends out a force wave that pushes back all creatures in a 15 foot radius 5 feet and deals 1d4 force damage (DC 14 Strength save to negate).

 

[R_J_K75]

Sentient creatures usually always have magical items, as do their steeds, and use them too. Terrain hazards during a battle always ups the ante on a fight. Dangerous walkways over a lava pit in a red dragons lair are always fun for example. Sometimes I'll give more mundane monstrosities some extra power the PCs aren't expecting.

 

[Horwath]

More HPs are good, but to a point that target is just non threatening bag of HPs.
That is bad.

Extra attack or two if damage is low.

Also some area attack is always good.
Single target damage increase can knock out a single PC in a round and that could be non-fun for some, but having 5 PCs losing a 1/3 to 2/3 Hp from AoE and see them scrambling for healing and Dodging is better.

 

[Hussar]

One simple tactic for 5e is to remember that a grappling character (not the target, but the grappler) can still move. Nothing will freak out parties faster than having some critter grapple a PC then move back ten or fifteen feet. Definitely grabs attention. No pun intended.

Three dimensions is a big deal as well. Having stuff that can climb, hang on walls, that sort of thing, can really help. Makes choke pointing a bit trickier if multiple baddies can gang up, one "on top" of another.

Light if you can do it. Tracking what can actually see and at what distance is easier on VTT (I think) and it can really add interesting dimensions when you suddenly cannot see stuff.

 

[jgsugden]

1.) Environment: Use the environment. There is a huge difference between three orcs with battle axes and three more with bows in a 30 foot by 40 foot room and those same orcs in a forest where the archers are up a cliff and the battle axe orcs are hidden in bushes by the road. There is a huge difference between fighting a dragon in an empty cave and fighting in in a cave with high ledges, an underground lake, and pacthes of green slime or grey oozes.

2.) Intelligence: Pay attention to how smart the monsters are: And then use their smarts. If the enemy should be capable of making great plans, find ways to use great tactics for them. Alarms, traps, positioning, fodder allies, etc... are all methods of using their intelligence.

3.) Homebrew: The more you introduce homebrew, the less your players will trust that they know what they're facing, even when they face monsters from the books. After all, is that a normal beholder, or one with varaint eye rays? Is the Ogre Mage going to unload on us with cone of cold, or does this one have Wall of Force, Hold Monster or Antilife Shell? When your 10th level party is on a ship and a dozen 60 foot long tentacles start to wrap around the ship, are they dealing with a giant beast, an aberration, or something(s) else? What is your party's opening salvo against a 10 foot tall demonic creature with a giant rhino horn on their head and two axes for hands?

4.) Skilled magic use: Monsters that have access to magic have been using it a long time. They should use them as if they are experienced with the magic. Before I use a monster that has magic and spells, I always look at their expected situation and think about how they can best use their abilities. There is a huge difference between a wizard that just tosses out their lightning bolt and one that sets up the ligthning bolt by maneuvering enemies into a line.

5.) On the fly adjustments: Not every battle needs to be a life and death encounter, but sometimes the PCs need a wakeup call if their attention is waning. It can happen in any group. I usually have a couple story elements in place where enemies might be pursuing or messing with the PCs. I usually have a couple 'assassin' encounters on the ready and if the PCs are wading through an encounter I intended to be harder, it might be an ideal time for one of these assassin groups to try to catch the PCs unprepared. If the PCs are in the Dungeon of a Mad Mage, that mage might muck with their plans by throwing some chaos at them. If one of the PCs is a warlock that has not been attentive to their patron, the patron may pick that moment to deny the warlock their magic, or choose a different target for a spell.

6.) Merge encounters: If there is a nearby encounter available, I will let the next encounter flow into the current one by having them be alerted and join the battle. This is also one of the techniques I use to prevent the 'long rest after every battle' or even 'short rest after every battle' problems some DMs face.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Y’all have some awesome ideas.

 

[Jer]

I actually find I don't have to do much extra to make things challenging - but I suspect that's partly because my standard for 5e has been "double strength" encounters for a while now - using double the XP budget for a standard encounter given in the DMG (and then planning on having fewer encounters per long rest - it fits our playstyle better to have 3-4 combat encounters per long rest instead of 6-8, which is really why I made that change).

I also tend to look at the number of attacks the monsters in the encounter are making per round rather than the number of creatures in the battle. At the start of combat the monster pool should be doing slightly more attacks/round than the players are, so if I have to add a bunch of "mooks" (i.e. low hp/low XP monsters) to the pool to increase the number of attacks I'll do that. (I actually do that more for excitement than challenge, but the two blur together sometimes).

I also have brought over a lot of the terrain stuff I was using in 4e and try to make the dungeons more interesting so that there's some terrain for the monsters to use against the PCs (and for the PCs to figure out how to use against the monsters). Again that was more for excitement than challenge, but it ends up providing both.

 

[ART!]

Pretty regularly, I will give the current monster an attack or feature from another monster. I just kind of brainstorm about the monster and what other monsters are similar or remind me in some way of the one I'm looking at. I've been known to make non-undead monsters into undead ones, too. That kind of thing.