Dungeon Master Inspiration
DMI is a podcast made to share the tricks of the trade of DMs with a wide range of experience levels, from fresh, new DMs to wisened masters of the position.
We focus on exploring topics within the world of DnD that consistently pose problems to DMs, such as developing characters, the use of monsters & NPCs, and combat. You'll hear from a variety of DMs speaking on a plethora of intriguing controversial issues in-depth.
No matter where you are in your DnD journey, we've got something worth listening to.
Dungeon Master Inspiration
Mastering the Role of Monsters for Unpredictable and Exciting D&D Campaigns
Are your D&D campaigns lacking that certain spark, that edge of unpredictability? Ever thought about giving monsters a larger role to play? We're here to ignite your imagination and show you how resistances, damage types, and multi-attack can all be used to create more immersive and exciting combat situations. We're taking the gloves off and critiquing the flawed CR system - and urging all you Dungeon Masters to pay more attention to resistances and damage when selecting your monsters. And remember, spread out that damage among the party! Because nobody enjoys watching their character get taken down too easily.
Let's sway away from the traditional and talk about the thrill of facing swarms! Imagine your players battling it out with locusts or bats, or even grappling with the effects of exhaustion and bleed. Intrigued? Good! We’re shaking things up a bit by discussing how smaller monsters and status effects can turn your encounters into complex, mind-boggling puzzles. And wait till we get to the part about transforming your low-level goblins into fearsome threats!
We're not stopping there. Ever wondered when exactly should a creature retreat or keep fighting in RPG battles? We've got you covered as we analyze creature stats, special abilities, and even their background and motivations. We'll be contrasting evil and heroic party combat strategies and chatting about the impactful role of monsters in steering your campaign’s narrative. Whether you're a seasoned Dungeon Master or a novice, we promise a riveting discussion that will leave you with a multitude of tips and insights to create more engaging and memorable campaigns. Your adventurers won't know what hit them!
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Alright, so welcome back to episode 5 of DMI. Today I really wanted to get into the concept of monsters and what ways we like to use them to kind of grow the campaign and add a lot more attention to detail and a lot more immersion for my players, because when I use monsters poorly it's a horrible encounter and it's no fun for anyone.
Speaker 2:The monsters definitely are one of those things of people don't think about it, but they have that major role in how the campaign feels, especially.
Speaker 1:It's really challenging because there are so many good monsters in D&D that you really end up spending a lot of time picking monsters, only to have like a five minute combat and there's really nothing you can do about that. It adds so much to the game, so oftentimes I'll actually think of some monsters that I really want to use before I even start my first session.
Speaker 2:Especially if you have an enemy or someone who's going to be a consistent problem having something that's related to him or like, even if it's like you have a wizard who's messing with nature, having these like animals or something coming at the party not necessarily because the wizard's sending them there, but just because something's off can help theme that world a little better and make sure it makes sense Obviously theming something that we could go into for for hours, and I'm sure we will very shortly here.
Speaker 1:A big thing for me and this is a lesson I learned very early in my D&D career was paying attention to resistances and damage and not the CR. I mean, we've mentioned it briefly in a couple of episodes, but CR is probably the most messed up system in D&D. I don't know if you agree with that, but that's definitely my opinion.
Speaker 2:I don't look at the CR for a reason, because I know it's just not going to work out too well.
Speaker 1:I mean there are CR half monsters that can TPK a level five party pretty easily, then with how the system's set up, that should be basically impossible.
Speaker 1:Well, the thing that I think is crazy is CR bases it off of how much XP you're supposed to be giving them more than your party, at least versus how many resistances these monsters actually have. And resistances at early levels aren't a major deal, but later in the game, when your party has resistances and the enemies have resistances, it can make it rather challenging. But in early game really, you don't have that much variety in your damage unless you're like a wizard that has Chromatic Orb. Chromatic Orb is a really great spell because it lets you go past, but if it has a resistance to magic it's kind of rough for that source or to even get some very damage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like, if you're playing a like fire wizard or something like, who's only going to be using fire in this one damage type because that's their thing, especially at those early levels, if you put something that's like just immune to fire or resistance to fire, not thinking about it, it causes those. That player then doesn't feel like he's in the game anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's why actually the first thing that I check whenever I'm deciding a monster for my campaigns is I actually go through and I check the resistances first. So I think the most important thing that you need to consider when you're trying to make a combat more challenging for players is multi attack, when you're doing a single monster against a whole group of people it's no fun if they can only take one action per turn, unless it's going to be an ungodly amount of damage.
Speaker 1:And even still, I feel like a lot of small hits feels better than a couple large hits, because you're less likely to hit a single person and send them down. Because if you lose a single member of your party, combat becomes really quite challenging.
Speaker 2:You know, like in some of those crit, like for the look of the multi attacks, some of those monsters who have three or four attacks also just are devastating, but then you only put that there. So those attacks are going to really important for how that combat is going to feel. One creature with like four or five attacks like a dragon or something is going to be. You don't need anything else there because you already have four attacks coming at the party every single turn. But if you have, you know, like five, six goblins or something, they're only going to stab one, for example, those astral elves that I use in cosmic inspiration hit they can target all of their damage because they only get one or two hits per turn.
Speaker 1:They hit your character twice and they're running that radiant damage. They burst you down super quickly. Then the turn economies in the favor of the monsters. So I feel like multi attack is a actual, really good way to balance early level campaigns because you can kind of spread out the damage amongst your party. You're much less likely to just knock someone down and put the turn economy in the favor of the monsters, which is very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and especially early, because you don't have, you know, your 27 ACs and these like ridiculous high levels. Yet Having a lot of small things like hitting, it's like if you're gobbling three attacks but he's adding nothing, it's gonna make your tanks feel tankier. Your damage dealers feel that more like they do more damage Even though they're not doing anything more or less than they should be. It just feels more satisfying for those players to actually Experiencing, especially with like a boss.
Speaker 2:The first person going down is going to most likely be your tank or one of your big damage Dealers, which then means everyone else is either Vulnerable now because you don't have you a hundred health wall, or not gonna get the boss down because your hundred damage you turn from your wizard isn't there anymore. You got to spread the love of damage to every single member of the party. Is that is a everyone? Because, like your wizard obviously is only gonna have like 12 hit points or something silly. So unless your wizard is diving into the frontline, don't blow them up, because then that was, it's just gonna be. Oh, I'm sitting here while everyone else is playing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually my my favorite mechanic actually does a really good job at Spreading out that damage. I personally am obsessed with the swarm mechanic. I really think it's a fun trait and I don't think it is common enough in D&D. I think it's a unique idea that you could have like a whole horde of bats coming at you and realistically, as a DM, it's actually easier to manage because of the fact that you can just roll one attack, die and hit for 8% of this large swarm that's coming at them, whether it's rats or bats or something. Something low-powered that you can have a lot of it Kind of. It feels very interesting when bats are like coming and swooping down on the town and that's not something that you see as much in D&D. I feel like I don't know, have you seen that pretty commonly?
Speaker 2:The I haven't. I haven't had any DMs use it. I've used it before. I had a. It wasn't like a tiny guy, but I did a zombie as a swarm, which I felt was more fitting for zombies because they tend to just mob In like most media. So if wanted to do something a little different than just there's 10 zombies, go fight them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I like that idea. My issue with doing it was zombies is. I like having something a little smaller. I want the undead to feel really scary like. If I'm using an undead it's because I'm trying to scare you. That's why my undead are hardcore. But, um, I would like to reiterate, my undead are very much homebrew. They follow them a lot more along the lines of old D&D For those who know what old D&D was like. But for first, swarms, I love the idea of using bat swarms attacking a town, because let's talk about real-world issues Are you constantly gonna be having to have your adventurers bail you out from an orc raid?
Speaker 2:Not, you're not gonna have those big raids every time and having just we're going into another cave, there's another horde of goblins or cobalts or something. Just gets boring after a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like Realistically you could technically do a swarm mechanic for a locusts, which I think is a really fun idea for a campaign is the all these locusts are coming at this town. They're killing the town. Your first adventure could be literally helping the townspeople and the farmers Keep these locusts off of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah and then like, with some of that you can also pull that into being making it, so your heroes aren't starting off the bat as these grandiose like Herculean feats of we defeated a dragon, we defeated this massive thing, but we saved people, which is what, for at least a good number of places, what they kind of want. They want that the little guy taking on something too big but just starting on the too big without anything scaling up towards it kind of feels just unsatisfying for it.
Speaker 1:And I would say there's. There's definitely some things you can do in the early level to make it feel a lot more satisfying, because your Players a lot of them, unless you have, like that evil player that just wants to cause chaos they want to be a hero like. If you want to be a folk hero, easiest way to do it is go save the village from it, from a small disaster. It doesn't have to be major, and I think that's where even I sometimes fall into this trap of oh my god, you have to go and fight off a whole bandit camp at level one or two. Good luck, rather than just. Bats have been swarming your town lately eat, or Locusts have been coming in and eating all of the food and you have to go in and repel them and if you have a druid, that can be a really great time for them to shine those Because, tip, oftentimes you need to start a quest somewhere and when whatever, especially if it's a smaller area and you're not in like the big city of whatever setting you pick.
Speaker 2:The like bartender who ever is just giving you quest information isn't going to just have off the rip. Well, here's 12 bandit camps for you, it's gonna. Be well, this is a problem we're facing. If you want to go help deal with it and stuff like that, the locusts or the bats can kind of fit that Smaller adventure feel, while still being something significant to the world now with smaller monsters, especially later levels.
Speaker 1:I do enjoy using them and a way that I oftentimes will bounce them, as all tossing status effects like bleed exhaustion, paralyzes things that are relatively devastating into my damaging abilities. Which of those do you personally think is the scariest?
Speaker 2:because I know what I think would be the most terrifying so for the like status effects, I always find that the ideas of these creatures Making the party tired and exhaustion one of those it fits because you're not going to be fighting to go, I'm gonna be fighting like 20 goblins or something silly and by that point, just by the sheer number of times you're swinging your sword or casting your spells, you're gonna start getting more and more tired and each goblin is gonna feel like a bigger feat to fight than the last.
Speaker 1:So, like that exhaustion level can be one of the not necessarily scariest but most impactful for the See for me as a player, the one that I find the absolute most terrifying and I try to avoid as much as possible is I am terrified of bleed. Bleed in paralyze are the two mechanics that I think. If you toss them on a spell or an ability for a monster, you could take a wolf which is what? If I remember correctly, a CR1 or 2 monster, something super low. And if you give a wolf bleed on its claw, attack. I don't care if you're a level 8, character 8 fighter. You're gonna be afraid because that's gonna compound and that taking damage can really be quite devastating. Paralyze is the one that I would say, though, is far worse. Anytime you're being paralyzed, it's nearly impossible as a tank, because if they paralyze you, they just go around to the magic casters.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and especially if it's not just a unintelligent like wolves might just if they could paralyze you jump on the thing that's not moving and take it out of the fight. But if something more like a liches horde or something like that, that's going to have some semblance of planning and like a method, they are just going to ignore the tank. Now it's out of the picture, it's out of that picture form. So why wouldn't they just go at the thing that's still shooting them with arrows or magic?
Speaker 1:And I would say one that you can add paralyze to. That's kind of scary is you can give goblins like a lightning sword or a staff where they can fire these kind of electrical things, and it adds a lot, especially if you have that be like a magic item that the goblins stole. The only fear with that then is those goblins are more intelligent than a wolf and they might just be intelligent enough to shock down the tank and run behind the wizard and I play mostly spellcasters. I am going to be begging for my life if that's happening, because I need that tank.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and while I tend to be play evasive characters who would just, you know, either like Misty Step or something to get out of those positions, they're not going to be the ones who are targeted, because they're going to be like just a warlock shooting, an eldritch blast at them or something small like that, as opposed to your devastating casters whose whole plan is to devastate the enemy and by giving those goblins the opportunity to like steal from someone, it also can increase their threat or build into whatever world you want them to be in, as a plot device of oh we beat up, we beat these goblins now, and oh, they had this magic sword.
Speaker 1:Who's was it? Yeah, and I would say for me a big thing that I want to mention and this is actually more of a question because I've done a lot of talking Do you start off right, picking your monsters or planning your encounter Like do you build the encounter on the monsters or the monsters around the encounter?
Speaker 2:So for me that depends on what the it's dependent on what the encounter's purpose is. If it's a like just story, usually that encounter is going to build whatever the enemies are. But if it's like supposed to be your big fight or some feat they have to surpass.
Speaker 2:the monsters are what matter in that situation. So, like if you're in a town and for a campaign I've been working on, there's a spot where a bunch of people are attacking a town to force the party to go somewhere. For the plot reasons, those enemies as individuals aren't going to be doing much, but they are there and they are going to be kind of overwhelming, whereas somewhere else, where the enemies are what matters and not as much of the setting anymore, each of those enemies has a role to play in the fight.
Speaker 1:And I'll say like straight up, I usually actually plan. I plan my setting first and then after that I will actually plan my monsters, before I plan my encounters. Because what I like to do is I like to find monsters that I find interesting and I think would be rewarding for my players to fight against, and then, once I have made those decisions as to what I want my players to fight, I will actually go and sit down and I'll find, I'll research what kind of layers they like to live in, where they like to be, so that my players can actually fight it.
Speaker 2:and it be more of a realistic situation, yeah, but especially if you, I tend to go from like what I want the theme and plot to be and then down to those encounters and what my major story beats are going to be.
Speaker 2:And by picking that theme of like, if I'm doing a fan like high fantasy the gods are important type of campaign, they're going to be these mythical monsters, just based on the nature of where we are in the world, but then like, for instance, just a kind of classic example of the world, down to what I want my story beats are. So if I'm doing like a high fantasy, something with, like the Greek gods, I'm going to be. If I want something like a giant feet, I'm going to be find something that's interesting. So either like a sphinx, for, like a Greek theme, a minotaur, and the minotaur always is in a labyrinth. So then either that minotaur is what matters in that labyrinth or it's the labyrinth itself for what the plot needs to progress through. So if the goal is get through the labyrinth to the other end, then the minotaur is second. But if the goal is to fight the monotaur and defeat it, then that's what matters for that encounter to me.
Speaker 1:So is your goal usually to focus more on the combat or the story.
Speaker 2:So I want my, if I want. The story is always going to be what matters the most in any situation, but I want the combat and the encounter to be interesting. It's not fun to play a campaign where you're just charging into a horde of enemies over and over and over again. But having those encounters where sometimes your goal isn't necessarily to even fight the enemy If you can just get past them through this checkpoint or whatever, that's what matters in that encounter and it makes it a little more dynamic than just the monsters fighting.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm going to ask you a question. If you were to give a new DM advice on Testing their homebrew monsters, what would it be so for the homebrew monsters.
Speaker 2:What I've always done is I kind of just throw them in and I'm like, oh, this is an interesting idea, we'll see how it goes, and then I modify during it, which is a little bit of like just knowing how the combat needs to move. So if you have, like a new enemy that you're trying to build and he's kicking the party, you can include something to make that enemy either step back, back off. You can always just like the easy one, which, whether or not it's fun, is a up to your own interpretations is the classic cutting the health.
Speaker 2:Oh, add 200 now has a hundred health because the party wasn't hitting it enough, but kind of putting those little pieces of you get, you have to test it somehow, and especially if it's a plot monster, you don't want the party to know it's coming to them necessarily. So you can't unless you have two groups, and then you can test with one group and put it on with the other, which is, you know whatever.
Speaker 1:But that's actually closer to what I prefer to do. I actually run fight nights, and so I have a large group of D&D players where I'm lucky enough that I can say hey, I'm gonna grab the four of you, let's do a fight night and I'm gonna toss my homebrew monster that I want to test in mid midnight while they don't Know it, and then later, like a week or two later, my actual campaign will receive it, and Usually they are not pleased when they receive something that is a monstrosity.
Speaker 2:I have never been gifted enough to have like enough people to do that with, so what I end up doing is especially find some cool monster, and especially in like three five there was a lot of really cool high-level homebrew was I would do something similar, it was just be build the level 20.
Speaker 2:We're gonna fight a kid, not tonight and we'll see how it goes and then, if I want to, later I can, having already now fought other than kidna, include it and modify it, weaken it down a bit, so it's more fitting for whatever point we are at well, a Major point in contention for me and how we use monsters is my favorite monster and the thing that got me into Dungeons and Dragons was dragons.
Speaker 1:I absolutely loved the concept of a dragon and I actually Greatly disliked how 5e does dragons, and the reason for that is until fizzbans treasury of dragons came out, they were so one-dimensional. I mean, if you go to curse at the dragon horde, there is a dragon in there who is A white dragon, that is a named dragon that has a spell in fizzbans treasury of dragons Named after it that I sent you a picture of that when I found that last night. That thing is insane. It can capsulates everyone in ice and move sets their movement to zero. It has no spells in Horde of the dragon queen and I greatly disliked that fact that I feel almost like we have gutted the undead and dragons and beholders. There's too much from previous generations like before. They were definitely too strong, but now they are way too weak and that is my, my stance. What's yours?
Speaker 2:I think Dragons because of how well ought not well, but like often they're seen in just everywhere they were going to be toned down a lot to make them fit wherever you want them to. You can just plug a dragon in somewhere, but it does kind of detract from the full experience of like fighting this giant monster that's out to Hunt you down or kill you, especially in the horde of the dragon queen where, and I think like the first third of it, there's not really a dragon big dragon encounter that you have. Like I know there's a like swamp dragon out that you can see, but there's no like necessary, necessarily like actual dragon fights.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most of that comes in the rise of TM at, which is the, the sequel, and I will say dragons are Like really. I'm gonna be doing a book review of fizzman's treasury of dragons over on our YouTube channel, cuz I think it is such an impactful book. I think it's really well written because of the fact that it gives a lot of really good advice on how to build, play and create dragons that are meaningful, as well as giving some really terrifying and fun Spells and feats that you can use for them. That will just absolutely blow your party away and it's gonna feel less like a Dr. The game is named after dragons. Like, fighting a dragon should not be a minor effect, just like fighting an undead zombie Should not be an everyday encounter. That should be something that is truly meaningful. That's my stance on it and I I really don't know how many people kind of share my mentality.
Speaker 2:I think the I think the especially dragons on undead have been toned down a lot from where they were before with their Threat level and how scary it was to see them. But I do also think it's useful for them not to be as bad, because a Undead who just is going to sap your life slowly through non-traditional means is one of the scariest things possible and that could have been worked to still exist in this the world. But not one shot your, your wizard, for not being strong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when you're, when you're using your monsters for your thing, I think a big question for you should be how intelligent is the monster? Are we planning to have it kind of Rationalized losses, or is it a creature where, when things start to get hard, they're running away? And at what point? Honestly, if you were to like put a number value on it, what level of intelligence would they have to have before they start rationalizing losses like humans do in wars?
Speaker 2:so, realistically, any animal, even like a wolf or like coyote, any of those, even small animals, will Rationalize at some point. It becomes no longer worth it for them to even try to fight With like and this is just in nature, the way I like squirrel is gonna get away from a snake who the squirrel has no way to fight back. The squirrel just jumps around and makes it not worth it for the snake to put any more effort in, because it's only there for food. It's not going to sit around while its food is running away from it, because it just becomes too much of a hassle to go for it.
Speaker 1:So my question is at what point did we tip over from being more animal, like where our, our monsters are saying this isn't worth it, it's too much energy versus? I have a noble cause and I will fight till the death for that. I'm willing to throw at you anything to make sure this happens, because liches are there and Humans are there. But like what let? If you were to attach a number for a stat block, what number does it kind of flip to that kind of mentality where they can have these real strong goals?
Speaker 2:So I don't think there's like a strong number for it. It's To me at least, it's contextual to what is it like a human fighter like, even at this any level, it's going to have less conviction to Hunt someone down and kill them than a oath of vengeance paladin, like it just depends on what their Whole deal is really and there's no good way to like measure that. But it's a to me at the way, to figure out at what point should these enemies either flee, go like go, or continue fighting is. Can you, as the DM, rationalize in that situation Continuing this fight? So like if you have a hyper religious who are like we're murdering every single wizard and they actually believe that Wizards are evil, they're not going to back down from a wizard, they believe those wizards are the end of the world, whereas just a random grunt Is gonna see a wizard who's just blew up a platoon and go, turn around and be like, nope, not dealing with this today.
Speaker 1:So If you're going to be in a situation where your party needs to get out of the fight, are you? Which are you gonna have happen first? Are you going to make your party run away? Are you gonna make the monsters run away?
Speaker 2:That's a hard one to answer, but I think if the monster is able to Get out of this situation, especially if it's not an intelligent monster it is most likely going to be the one who has to leave, whereas the party the party should never feel like they have to flee an enemy because it's too scary, like, obviously, like there's things where it's like, oh, you have a dragon pushing them towards a thing To, whatever the next plot hook is, but at that, for those levels, it's not really a Threat as much as it like the dragon yes, if they are stupid and charge, it is going to eat them but it doesn't feel like this thing is a threat as much as it's like it's a wall that's slowly pushing me somewhere okay, yeah, because for me I would say it really depends on the mind counter.
Speaker 1:If my players are fighting other humans, they're fighting against a nation or a town I'm gonna make them run away because, especially if they're trying to like, for example, if I'm running an evil campaign and they're trying to force the villagers out of their home, they're gonna fight and they're gonna stand and fight. And if they're about to be TPKed, it's on them to run away. And usually when I have those situations where I'm making my players run away, I Don't allow my NPCs to make Opportunity attack rules as my players retreat. I think that's the better way to use the monsters and bend the rules to keep my party safe.
Speaker 2:Because if the party, just you know, attacks a village and then all die because they attacked a village and didn't just and Tried to escape, in most situations those, those villagers, aren't out for blood. They're just trying to keep you out of their house. As soon as you're not in their house, they're just gonna say, well, hope they're not gonna come back. We'll put up some walls, make it harder.
Speaker 1:They don't. They realistically don't want to come after you. They that's so much work for them. That being said, they may relocate, but I think in those settings it's I would rather have my party be the ones to step back a lot of the times especially in the evil.
Speaker 2:I think if you're going down the evil parties type of roots especially, it's the on the party to be the ones to back off, just because of the nature of how that Dynamic is, if you're in a evil campaign, your party is never going to be the ones like defending themselves. They might be if, like, a heroic party comes and is trying to fight them, but then you're an evil party, you're going to hunt them down. That's just how it goes, whereas if you're the heroes and you're trying to defend a place, the monster should be the ones to flee, almost because they're the ones attacking and You're just pushing them away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think I think that's a pretty safe way to do it. And if I had to, if a new DM was to come up to me and ask that exact same question, my answer would be I usually have my attacker be the one to leave. If your party is the one attacking, they should be the ones to flee, whereas if it's the enemy, you're gonna flee back to where you are safe if you're in a bad situation, and that's why I would say that would be the best way to do it, especially for the people who listening, who are looking for advice on how really to run these Encounters. Make sure that you focus on having your Enemies and or your players retreat to where they feel safe. If they don't feel safe where they're at, they should be the ones to flee, not the ones that are in the home field.
Speaker 2:There are ways you can switch that up a little bit. For this one I mentioned a little bit earlier, I have a campaign that opens with an attack on a town to move the party. The party isn't living there. They're not gonna feel safe in that position, even though they're being attacked, they're going to be the ones to leave because they're the ones who don't have the strength there to actually hold that space.
Speaker 1:All right, and with that we finished off our topic for today. Thank you everyone who listened. If you enjoyed our podcast, check out the rest of our content over on our YouTube channel or our website. Other than that, have a great rest of your day and we will see you next week.