Action Oriented Monsters | Running the Game

hey everybody matt covert here so you want to challenge your party with a solo monster for whatever reason maybe you want to make the wilderness seem dangerous and so a creature is going to erupt out of the earth and scare the crap out of your heroes but you don't want it to just be a speed bump a combat with no stakes and afterwards it felt like a waste of time because often in these scenarios the heroes are at full Elf as Matt O'Driscoll says and can use all their abilities and be pretty sure they'll be able to rest afterwards that's called going Nova the heroes with all their abilities ready able to use all of them without fear and if you're like me and you have more than four players at your table you need a really tough monster to challenge them well but do you though see that's the problem we all have if we're gonna challenge our players with a lot of monsters the game works pretty well if we want to use only one monster or even one big boss with a lieutenant and some minions then we need a tougher monster so we grab a higher CR monster but that makes the battle really swingy meaning it swings wildly and unpredictably the heroes pound on the monster because there are so many heroes and only one monster the heroes do a ton of damage and then one of two things happens the monster dies without ever getting to do anything the definition of anticlimax or the monster act and if it was tough enough to survive the entire party pounding on it then it's really nasty and when it attacks it will probably kill a character that is not fun so that's the problem challenging solo monster or boss can't be about toughness because the way the game is designed any monster tough enough to survive the heroes pounding on it is nasty enough to kill him and toughness it's not it's not interesting it doesn't make for an interesting battle that battle I described where the heroes all pound on an enemy while it does nothing then it acts and obliterates someone is boring it's a boring battle so we need new design and that's what I've been working on and it really is design this video is about building better solo monsters and it's not a system where you pick some options and you get a finished monster it requires us to be designers and invent new cool abilities and that requires you to think like a designer which if you're a DM you already are acting like a designer you just might not know yet I got a whole video brewing on the virtue of homebrewing your own rules and design so you'll see what I'm talking about this started when the chain of Akron we're going to fight their nemesis the black iron pact this is a team of enemy pcs a wizard robe cleric monk etc and I really wasn't looking forward to designing six 11th level pcs from scratch because one it's a lot of tedious work to most of which isn't relevant like I don't actually need to know their stats I just need to know their attack and damage bonuses which I can just make up I can just say this dude has plus nine to hit with this weapon and be done with it I don't need to know how he got that plus nine and I really don't need most of their skills three would produce a party that is insanely hard to run you know just a single high-level cleric it'd be a lot of work for one player to manage with spells and channel divinities and class abilities one person running six high little pieces forget about it finally four I don't think it would have produced a fun battle people act like D&D is symmetrical because monster stat blocks look sort of like character shoots with stats and skills but it actually is asymmetrical which is why most monsters have multi attack at levels where the PCs are only attacking once and lots of monsters have access to abilities the PCs can never get because they need those abilities to challenge the PCs if we make monsters follow the rules of PCs the fight becomes slower and more of a slog so instead I focused on actions I sat down and made up six different NPC villains and came up with actions bonus actions and reactions for all of them often custom abilities I made up and then I gave them villain actions which is basically legendary actions from the Monster Manual I gave them unique abilities they could use at the end of other characters turns not reactions new unique actions then because I wanted the battle to feel like a story with a structure and flow I made sure each of these villain actions fired on a different round round one the Rogues villain action fires round to the Munks villain action fires that was an incredibly successful design it worked it was an immediate hit with the players and the audience that gave the battle character it was never boring it was never a slog and because these bad guys weren't like CR 17 monsters with 270 hit points they weren't just high AC and tons of hit points the heroes actually made progress heroes and villains went down almost from round one this also was amazing because people talk about how hard high-level D&D is to run a black iron pact is like a lemon bubble and it was easy to run them it was fun and it could be easier because this was a new design and I learned a lot so that's what we're gonna do that's this video making better solo monsters using action-oriented design it requires you to invent new abilities but we're gonna do these together so you can sort of get the hang of it and to make things easier we're not gonna invent new creatures from scratch like I do with the black iron pack we're gonna pick two existing monsters and adapt them maybe we'll do another video after this one focusing on one or two entirely new monsters stay tuned we're gonna do a boss and a solo monster a boss is a really nasty epic enemy but he has some underlings to boss around so it's not literally the party against this one enemy a solo monster is actually just one monster versus the entire party and because I want this video to be broadly applicable we're gonna pick two monsters you might expect to fight at third level a goblin boss it's got boss right the name and an ankh a and all my notes are linked in the W starting with the goblin boss we first need to get into the right frame of mind and that means thinking about goblins what are they about Thea matically because these themes are going to tell us what kinds of actions our new goblin boss can take well they're pretty feeble they don't have access to awesome spells or great gear but they're crafty and mobile and rely on strength of numbers so our goblin boss is going to be about using his many goblin minions his weapon is his goblins first we're gonna buff his AC a little bit not too much third level characters can easily have plus 5 or plus 6 so a c-17 is a challenge but lots of attacks will still hit and super high AC is not good design because missing sucks more HP is better so let's give our Gobbo boss more HP a lot more he's got 67 hit points basically the same AC and hit points as a bugbear chief so there is precedent maybe a goblin that tough doesn't make sense to you because goblins aren't this tough by definition in which case you could just call this monster a bugbear so some people will just ask ok why not just use the bug bear chief and be done with it you will see why we leave the movement and everything else alone we're going to be concentrating on his actions first he needs things he can do on his turn normal attack actions let's give him multi attack for three scimitar attacks normal goblin boss gets two but the second one is that disadvantage that's funny but it's not a lot of help to us so multi attack for three scimitar attacks takes care of his melee attack he needs a ranged attack it doesn't matter how tanky your monster is it needs something for range even if it's really short range goblins use javelins let's give them to javelin attacks so multi attack either three scimitar swings or two javelins throws at this point pretty bog-standard boss monster and you can give your boss a spell like a can trip or even a first-level spell they can do every round why not monsters in the monster manual mostly get spells like pcs do with lists of all the spells they know at each level using the logic from the players handbook and that is terrible where dungeon master is we want options but too many options means we sit there wasting time trying to find the optimal choice ain't nobody got time for that a CR 10 Guardian Naga knows 15 spells yeah that's great if I'm gonna run Guardian Nagas PC for the next 20 hours and 10 encounters but for one battle I can't be happen with looking up all these spells to figure out exactly what they do so I'm making sure I'm casting the right one in the right moment not so a spell your boss monster can cast as an action every round no problem 15 spells too many now we get to the meat of this design so far all we've done is make our goblin boss more like a bugbear boss starting with his actions we begin focusing not on his stats but what he can do let's give him a bonus action lots of pcs have bonus actions why not our Gobbo boss what would be a good bonus action well I thought it would be cool if your goblin boss could call on reinforcements like once in battle at a critical moment a bunch of goblins show up but timing that right is hard to build into an action because this guy might not last more than three rounds so let's make his bonus action another goblin shows up yeah that's right every round this guy attacks someone and shouts get in here and a goblin arrives that is already super cool and I'm excited to run this guy and see the player's reaction when they realize every round of fresh goblin arrives now I might decide these are goblin minions identical in all other ways to a normal goblin but they only have one hit point that depends on how many goblins the PCs can kill per round if they can kill more of the Gobbo Perowne i might decide these are normal goblins and i am free to just decide well there are no goblins within earshot this round and lay off that ability where does the goblins show up like within a certain range of the boss does it appear adjacent to a PC I don't know I'm not worried about that in the moment during the battle I will decide based on the terrain and what makes sense I'm not here to make more work for myself I just want to come up with some dope goblin abilities because here's the trick this is my home brew nonsense this isn't the published rules set I don't have to worry about how this action is worded I only need to know how it works I already know how it works he shouts get in here and another goblin arrives done but we got lots more actions to cover what about a reaction lots of pcs have reactions reactions help keep a fight dynamic by giving monsters things they can do on the heroes turn but there's a trick to this remembering what triggers your monsters reactions and then recognizing that trigger when it happens is more mental overhead so the best simplest reaction is reacting to stuff your monsters do that's easy to remember next you could react to things that any PC might do like move or attack or cast a spell that's pretty easy to remember still legal but a much harder to keep in your head is reacting to specific things your pcs do like use inspiration or smite someone or spend a key you can invent reactions to these things and it can be really cool you know the anti monk who reacts to the monk spending a key that's dope but this was the problem with the black iron pact everything worked except their reactions because one there were six of them men to their reactions were very new Thalia so I forgot them lesson learned our goblin is going to react to one of his goblin minions dropping unconscious he's gonna shout you die when I say so after a goblin drops unconscious and the goblin regains one hit point he's prone but alive and can stand up move 15 feet and attack on his turn as normal this is another cool fun ability I can't wait to use that reinforces the theme of the boss using his minions a goblin boss's weapon of choice is more goblins and it may seem like a big deal but he can only do it once per round if a goblin dies each time a hero acts only one of them can be brought back we could decide this doesn't happen automatically the Goblet has to make us save but think about how long is this battle gonna last maybe five rounds probably three so we're talking about bringing about three goblins back to life if there's a save required now maybe only to come back maybe none so that's up to you I originally thought yeah let's give this a saving throw but now I think nah that's another part of this design I often come up with a bunch of abilities I'm really excited by then as we get close to game time I start to realize maybe I've overdone it and start to dial it back that's fine that's part of the process that's normal don't think it has to be perfect the first time you write it down don't think you can't change it as you go you absolutely can and should okay so we've got a bonus action and reaction now we need some villain actions villain actions are basically just legendary actions for our villains there are neat things our boss monsters can do at the end of another players turn not reactions there's no trigger other than oh you're done okay the Goblin boss acts using villain actions is a key to this process because it makes the battle dynamic and fun but I tweaked the idea of legendary actions a little I key each villain action to a specific round of combat in other words we're gonna come up with three villain actions for our goblin boss he can do the first one on round one the second one on round two etc this gives the combat shape it gives the combat pacing it makes the fight more of a narrative and it keeps the players engaged what the hell is he going to do this round and if I'm smart and a good designer the villain actions know what round they're used on in other words first round villain action should be neat but not devastating it's early in the battle let's not obliterate the heroes out of the gate and first round villain actions probably you should focus on positioning because the battle just started and our boss wants his minions to get into position then by the time we reach our third round villain action we know the battle is almost over probably a lot of our minions are dead let's do something really amazing a League of Legends alt basically so what are our goblin bosses Dillman actions well this isn't a shaman or a spellcaster so we want to stick with using our goblins which means just moving and attacking mostly and this is a restriction but keeping our villain actions themed to our monsters is important if any monster can do anything then they cease to feel like distinct challenges so round one Goblin boss villian action let's concentrate on positioning his minions at the end of some pcs turn the goblin boss shouts what are you waiting for and every Goblin gets to either move or since some of them are probably already in position attack not both and we should rule that this movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks but that's dealer's choice you may want your players to get a chance to hack down some of these minions depending on how many goblins are using basically if you're using a ton of minions let the heroes get attacks of opportunity on this movement otherwise it defeats the purpose of getting our minions into position this will really wake your players up this is not a normal monster you can see how these actions he can make new goblins with a bonus action he can move his goblins as a villian action really make him feel like a boss monster a genuine challenge the players are going to have to think outside the box to win and we got two more villain actions to do I think regardless of how many action-oriented monsters you intend to run in a single combat even an entire party like the black iron pact you only need one villain action per turn more is too much to track and frankly too much for the players to deal with goblin boss round 2 well everybody got into position last turn and the battles been going for over around now the boss knows who the most vulnerable PC is and also probably who is the most important PC let's let him react to that he points at a PC and says focus fire and all goblins may move to that enemy again this movement does not provoke now it's up to you to decide which goblins should I move you want to leave some behind to fight the other heroes and some goblins are probably already in melee with your target the goal is to make this PC feel surrounded by actually just literally surrounding them note these goblins don't get a free attack or anything it's just movement just positioning this is tactical just being where you need to be so that you can attack who you want to on your turn is huge and this ability is good for two reasons my goblins are now where they need to be and also you may be literally surrounded and unable to move okay so we got two abilities what's the last one well the danger is to go overboard and do something ridiculous we want something simple but effective and it's close to the end of the battle so there probably aren't a lot of goblins left so our goblin boss shouts kill and all goblins get two scimitar attacks on the one hand this is very simple just everyone left alive and adjacent to an enemy attack twice but this can literally wipe the party depending on how the battle has gone so far mind you there's no movement associated with this so no positioning some goblins will be standing there sadly unable to kill but that's also the point it needs some restrictions in order to stop it from being overwhelming 100% this will be a memorable battle that is the point this is not something we deploy casually it's a system we use when we really want to challenge the players but we want the feeling of a powerful singular villain okay so that goblin boss is pretty cool I would be excited to use it and I'm certain the players would have a blast fighting it but a boss monster has minions and maybe a lieutenant or two what if we want a solo monster literally just an entire third level party against one monster well let's pick a monster the players are likely to fight alone like a non keg on kegs are perfect because they're exactly the kind of thing we expect the players to fight as they're wandering around the wilderness and maybe you just want a monster to punctuate the journey okay just use a normal on gag but I often want to really challenge the players in this scenario so they feel like the wilderness is a dangerous place probably this creature is not part of a series of encounters the players will be dealing with in a single day which means they will be able to go Nova on this monster use all their abilities freely knowing they'll recharge again before anything else happens so this on cake needs to be nasty but not just a bag of hit points let's get started step one what is this creature well it's sort of a big insect thing isn't it it's got a carapace it gives it some armor it's got big mandibles and claws which for some reason the monster manual entry doesn't consider worth noting it can burrow underground and it has an acid spray attack plenty to work with the goal is to make abilities are cool but fit what the players would expect a creature like this to be able to do that's the challenge and that's why we start by just getting a sense of what the monster is about we start with a C and hit points and because we're adapting this monster to survive an entire party pounding on it for a couple of rounds it's gonna need more of both AC 14 is way too low but we still want folks to be able to hit missing sucks so let's bump it up to 16 for a third level party that's still totally hittable just a little harder hit points we really 39 hitpoints is nowhere near enough I mean this assumes you've got like six players if you have three or four it's a different story obviously unlike the goblin boss this guy doesn't have any minions there is literally nothing else for the players to do but pound on this thing so I haven't given 86 hit points you might think good lord that's too many but it's only one more than a displacer beast which is a cr3 creature so we shouldn't be freaking out too much it can move 30 feet and burrow ten feet but I don't think 10 feet is enough for my purposes for one thing I assume it needs to spend five feet of movement just going down one which only the five feet of movement to go over one to get away from the heroes so let's double his burrow speed to 20 this creature leaves a tunnel behind it so it's not like it's burrow ability makes it impossible to track or follow or attack and 20 feet means the heroes can easily jump in and go after it and it's a large creature so two people can stand abreast in his tunnel but 20 feet of burrow gives him enough movement to make the decision to jump down into the tunnel and follow a little more dramatic your allies on the surface won't have line of sight with you down there and since only two of you can stand it Jason to it in the tunnel the tunnel acts as its own challenge greatly limiting the force the heroes can bring to bear but that challenge is purely opt-in no one needs to go down into the tunnel will they of course they will but it's on them let's modify this guy's senses a little he's got eyeballs all over his head based on the art and they must do something so let's make him immune to being flanked flanking gating advantage is an optional rule so this isn't universally useful but it's cool now we need to give him some actions to use on his turn and we want to make sure he has some melee and range I mean it's got this cool acid spray attack but it's on a recharge of 6 which means it's probably only gonna fire once and the art shows them with these massive claws which the stat block ignores well we're not going to read or it so instead of a bite we're gonna give him a claw claw bite and when we figure out the damage we'll make sure the bite is nastier the bite can grab them that's great we're gonna keep that but it would be nice if the claws did a little some some so if both claw attacks hit the same target the target has to make a deck save or be knocked prone I might add and be knocked back five feet because prone is pretty useless but that's up to you the fact that both claws need to hit and you need to fail a deck save means this isn't gonna happen very often but it doesn't need to it's mostly just spice to make his manly action more interesting let's give him another action which is just two claw attacks but with 10-foot reach this is gonna give him slightly more utility in combat and make it hard for people to sit back in the second rank and his third action is his acid spray which I'm inclined to leave as is he's gonna have plenty of other stuff to do when we're done so recharge six isn't a big deal he should have a bonus action because the heroes do and what's good for the goose is good for the gander his bonus action will be a free claw attack on a prone enemy within ten feet this isn't that big a deal I don't think bonus actions should be epic but it can create a fun little combo where he claw claw bites knocked someone prone and then claws that guy again adding insult to injury the claw attacks shouldn't be a big deal maybe only a d4 he gets +3 from a strength but remember we don't need to follow those rules we can decide he only gets 2/3 of his strength with his claw attacks we're trying to challenge the players really push them not wipe them out now our solo insect beast is going to get three reactions and that is a lot it's a lot to keep track of but I just had three cool ideas and why not you can only take one reaction for turn so we have to remember that but when you're only running one monster I think keeping this stuff in your head is easier I want to give our acid insect more things to do with this acid so let's give them an acid glob attack which is a reaction to an enemy leaving their space someone moves the ankh egg hurls a glob of acid it gets an attack bonus and if it hits the target has to make a save or they're stuck and the acid does some damage maybe they're only stuck for one round and this is a reaction to leaving their space so you don't have to wait for them to finish their entire movement soon as the party's striker moves your glob them and they're stuck for a round second reaction more acid someone hits him in melee they crack his carapace and get sprayed with acid acid for blood classic xenomorph nonsense everyone loves that now I might limit this to only working the first time someone hits him rather than every time but since his first round reaction is almost certainly going to be acid glob we need to allow this to work later in the battle and probably of what I would actually do is I would say screw it he can take two reactions in a turn and say the acid for blood reaction only happens once the first he's hit last reaction is reacting to dying its death throes splatter acid on everyone nearby but let's say only within 10 feet we don't wanna go crazy ok 3 reactions is a lot but it's really only 2 on the first round and then one at the very end no big deal now we need some villain actions one for each of the first three rounds first villain action simple it burrows into the ground awesome it erupts out of the ground surprises the heroes attacks them one of them finally gets to hit back and then it dives underground very dramatic will definitely surprised the players and doesn't really do anything it just changes the conditions of the test which is great you thought you were gonna stand around bashing this thing until it died but the first thing it does is run back underground and lurk daring the players to jump into the tunnel it leaves behind a plus maybe it grappled someone with his jaws and now they're down there with it villain action to second round it burrows under someone and pulls them under ah now the squishy wizard or Ranger who thought they'd be able to stay in the back are down there with the Beast awesome another ability that doesn't do any damage just changes the battlefield in favor of the ankh egg finally villain action number 3 it clenches its muscles and sprays acid out of all the wounds the heroes have made in its carapace spraying everyone within 30 feet like an acid sprinkler this is a good final ability unlike his other villain actions this is some real damage real danger that's it now we have a non keg ready to take on an entire party and maybe make them think about retreating it has ranged melee it has a lot of positioning abilities and it has lots of ways to leverage its acid attack it has a lot of abilities 3 reactions 3 villain actions but each of these is only going to happen once you can actually list them in terms of which round they happen to make it easier to run I don't know I haven't tested this but I believe this would be a memorable encounter if it ends up being too nasty I can dial it back on the fly without the players realizing I was doing anything I mean he is pretty badass and depending on your party makeup number of players he might legitimately annihilate a third-level party but here's the thing this is basically a random encounter heroes on their way from point A to point B and this thing just erupts out of the ground so the heroes can just leave there's no moral imperative to stay in a fight and they're probably invading its territory it's just defending its own that being said if they stay in a fight I'd make sure there was a lovely tunnel leading to its lair or some awesome loot from previous adventures was stored only fair now you've probably already noticed that I haven't bothered to work out what these creatures attack or damage bonuses are and if I were about to run these creatures I would absolutely do that but whenever we talk about numbers some people start freaking out and that's not what this video is about it's about building monsters by focusing on their actions and making sure they can do many cool things in combat the attack and damage bonuses you can figure out on your own there's a table in the dungeon masters guide page 274 I think I've used this method a couple of times and it's pretty common for me to Ballpark some attack and damage numbers and overshoot then right before we start to play I look at the numbers again and I go that's too much so don't feel like you have to sit down and figure everything out in one go no one does that you'll work out some numbers you believe in and that's your first draft then later before the game starts some of those numbers will look wonky to you and you'll tweak them and that's your second draft and this process never stops you you run the game and you realize that some of the numbers needed more tweaking and you remember that for next time and every time you run and every time you cook up a new monster you're learning and redrafting that's it that's the action-oriented monster video which is based on a live stream we did and folks who were there for that and who watched the battle against the black iron pack have since used this system and reported back great success it's not simple it's not a function where you pour in some numbers and grind away and out pops a result you need to use your imagination and do some of your own design but that's part of the fun of being a DM designing your own nonsense and like everything else the first time you do it it might be crap it will literally be the worst monster you've ever designed because it's the first you'll get better every time you do it thanks for watching folks if you want to support the channel we got a store with a dope shirt in it and our 5e supplement strongholds and followers we're launching a Kickstarter for kingdoms in warfare real soon there's a link below to get an email alert when it launches and you'll probably see this system used for the new monsters in kingdoms and warfare of which there will be many until next time peace out

Channel: Matthew Colville

Views: 718,022

Keywords: Matt Colville, Matthew Colville, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, Dungeons & Dragons, Running the Game, Running D&D, Worldbuilding, Playing D&D, Playing Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying, Monsters, Monster Design

Id: y_zl8WWaSyI

Length: 26min 20sec (1580 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 15 2019