Having endured Cicadas for years as a child, Leaf Bug would absolutely emit a Deafening Cicada song to impare their prey.🍃🦗 Now I want a Leaf Bug Stat-block. 🤔
That sounds like fun! I'd build one from a customized Ankheg chassis, lull the party into thinking it's a familiar encounter, then bait & switch! *Party:* "Oh, we've faced these before. Piece of cake." *Cicada Ankheg:* "CHWEEE! CHWEEE!" *DM(grinning):* "Everyone roll a Constitution save, failure means you're Incapacitated. And Deafened. (hehehehehe) Helpless . . . "
you know i really love bugs to the point i made a whole fantasy world based on them and now i want to make a leaf bug stat-block. next time ill be bored ill make it and maybe upload it here (im not very good at balance though so maybe change some numbers)
Evoking a scene certainly leads to an immersive feel... the challenge is maintaining it over time. Play long enough and you start short handing descriptions, often without realizing you're doing it. Good to have a reminder to create evocative imagery! 🙂
One of my favorite DM encounters is when i had my players on a side quest to hunt a supernatural serial killer terrorizing a town. When in truth they were just fighting a level 10 rogue who was really good at hiding and knew his urban environment well.
Yeah, in a world with real magic, players often overlook mundane explanations. I had my players hunt a monster that was terrorizing a trade route through a dense forest. Turned out it was just some bandits with a costume and a few alchemic special effects. During the first encounter, they turned and ran, and I didn't even touch the dice.
This is immensely helpful! 1. Describe through senses, not statblock data 2. Enemies are individuals, so give them something to latch the Player's imagination on 3. Combine two monsters into one for something unique 4. Take the statblock of one enemy and paste it onto another enemy's description 5. Enemies want to WIN, or at least reach their goal, whatever it is. 6. Finding out what the goal is informs you how the encounter goes. I'd like to add: - Have all enemies have at least one ability that allows them to change the environment, or to break line of sight. - You're allowed to have the enemy to have a second battle phase - if they're down, maybe they come back up, mindless and frenzied. - It's fine to treat the enemy as a puzzle. If you can't hurt them until you figure something out, that's a unique encounter (example: a golem with a dial, that can be hurt only if you play Simon Says on it)
Your first addition actually addresses the combat field, which she talks about in her other videos. :) It's not really about the enemy so much as their surroundings. Anyway, what I came here to say is that "a golem with a dial, that can be hurt only if you play Simon Says on it" is a total nightmare from a player standpoint. There should always be multiple ways to attack a problem, and more than one solution; and those solutions should make sense in context and not just come out of absolute left field. The idea is funny, but it would make me want to scream lol
About two minutes in, I was thinking, "We definitely need to bring up The Monsters Know What They Are Doing". HUGE help, especially for somebody making the jump from player to DM.
The Monsters Know What they are Doing: Combat tactics for DMs by Keith Ammann is one of the few books I recommend getting in hard copy. So you can write notes and cross reference to the Monster Manual.
If your party are down for something a bit more intense, take advantage of the FULL action economy. Let monsters use bonus actions and reactions! For lower CR monsters, add abilities with a cool down. This gives combat a lot more of a dynamic feel and makes your monsters both less boring and more deadly. OR. You could just get Flee Mortals. That too.
I will never forget the absolutely buckwild combat when our party broke into a wildfire druid cult facility and discovered a lab full of dangerous experimental potions… and immediately released the genetically modified fire-spewing flail snails. That was a tricky one to be sure! Also, I am absolutely obsessed with the top you’re wearing in this video, it’s so cute!
Monsters are one thing, but also environments! I had this cave that had naturally growing psychic mushrooms. If you were in close proximity to them (enemy monsters too) they would have disadvantage on everything from the psychic screaming in their head. I introduced the players to this early in the cave system before the NPCs began ambushing the players.
One trick i use from time to time, especially with players that are more experienced, is calling monsters with a different name and giving them a local flavour. Take Goblins. We adventurers know everything about Goblins and, in some campaigns, have slaughtered millions of them. But to a poor villager fighting for every crop, hoping to survive the winter, they are terrifying terrors. They move silently during the night, stealing cattle or food, they "haunt" the near forest were nobody ventures past sundown because uncle Thomas from two farms away disappeared there, never to be seen again. The wise elders call them " Hognabbers" and it's tradition to leave a small offering for them every full moon, to be left alone. They are just actual goblins that exploit the surrounding population and keep captured humans as servants. The PCs could probably absolutely destroy them but the townsfolk told them they have magical powers(they don't, just high stealth) and they will use the servants as human shields in case of a fight. All of a sudden a simple tribe of Goblins became an interesting encounter, maybe a little adventure
I went kind of the opposite route with my most recent campaign. Everything is goblins. Goblins are goblins, orcs are big goblins, ogres are giant goblins, trolls are regenerating goblins, etc. In this world, goblins just get bigger and bigger as they age and they are prone to all kinds of mutations, so even the goblin goblins often have extra limbs and tumors and special abilities.
@@AnotherDuck Agreed, but it was more about the lore and mistery around them, because otherwise they are just goblins which some players could be a bit bored by
I may have gotten the message wrong, but I decided to pick random monsters from MM and see how I can reflavor them. *Wood Basilisk:* instead of turning creatures to stone, it turns them into wood. Also, it turns the earth where it walks into difficult terrain because of the vegetation. *Arctic Bulette:* replace burrow speed with swim speed, add cold resistance. Lives in arctic lakes/seas, attacks those walking on ice from below. *Mirror Dryad:* replace the ability to teleport between trees with an ability to teleport between mirrors, and druidic spells with illusion-themed spells. *Mutant Drow Ettercap:* created by drow magic from slaves as "shepherds of Lolth's sacred herds"; give an ettercap drow features and the ability to use manufactured weapons... wait, I think I created driders. *Nightmare Kelpie:* give nightmare a small, but annoying ability to charm humanoids, enticing them to mount them. When ridden, can whisk its rider away to Ethereal Plane, but cannot attack the rider. *Artifact-Eating Rust Monster:* replace the ability to detect metal with the ability to detect magic items, and the ability to corrode metal with suppressing the magic in magic items? The players will hate them so much. *Slasher Succubus:* replace the ability to make people charmed with the ability to make them frightened and add the ability to know the direction and distance to a person frightened by them. They need their victims to be frightened to drain their life energy, and love recreating scenes from horror movies with them. Well, that was a total waste of time. 😃
the Drow Ettercap sounds intriging to me -- to my mind's eye, it doesn't seem like a drider...unless you took a drider and replaced the spider-parts with mushrooms. very nice.
was running a horror campaign. I made an abberant monster that had a HUGE MAW. Would charge forward shoving things into it's mouth, the acidic saliva beginning to digest them while they struggled to get out. gelatinous cube reflavor for the win. And all the experienced players had NO idea. I LOVE reskinning monsters
I love to tell stories and want my players to feel immersed in that story by being as descriptive as possible and not just a group of stats and a mini. The descriptive and storytelling style is what I use in all of my games especially since I most run in theater of the mind style.
My funnest battle to run as a DM happened when I noticed that Blue Dragons have a burrow speed. "That building you're taking cover in? Shame if I dived into it and it collapsed..."
Thanks Ginny! Always the description sells the scene. And yes, I love to mix it up so that not all of the same ol monsters feel the same, while still giving enough for players to use previous experiences to feel empowered.
Some of my favorite fights ive designed included a monstrous scarecrow that devoured one of four senses at the start of each turn. Smell would cause the players to lose focus and have disadvantage, sight would cause me to hide the combat map for the turn, feeling would make them unaware of their damage taken, and hearing meant the characters couldnt communicate with one another. My favorite though was designed based on a villain who had the power of theatrics. At the start of every turn he would play a different song and to avoid big damage, the players basically had to fulfill a dance or story. Examples: "A song of tragedy", each player is split from their dance partner and must be within 10ft by the end of the turn or else they take damage. All the way to "A song of Comedy" all rolls are treated as either Nat 1 or Nat 20.
This makes me think of a Minecraft mob, shulkers. If I'm remembering correctly, they can teleport short distances, they have a chance of creating a duplicate shulker if they get badly hurt, and the projectiles they shoot track the player and on a hit make the player levitate for a few seconds. Now I want to see a shulker in D&D.
This channel is a fascinating example of ads being almost more enjoyable than actual videos and I absolutely love it. No other channel makes me go "Yay, time for the ad skit!" 😅
There was an old AEG book for 3rd Edition D&D... I cannot for the life of me remember which one it was, possibly "Evil," but I'm not 100% certain on that. It had a lot of advice on giving descriptions of creatures that were more realistic, I guess, in terms of how you would actually feel seeing them. One of the examples they gave was an encounter with kobolds. Kobolds are typically dopey little lizard dog monsters with spears. No adventurer is really scared of them. However, it described the scene similar to how you described the Cloaker encounter. It described their red eyes glinting in the torchlight, and when they emerge they at first give the impression of children until you can see the glint of their teeth and the steel of their weapons. It stuck with me and I try to be more descriptive with my monsters, just to add a note of realism, but also danger. When it boils down to it, even the dumbest monsters would be absolutely terrifying in real life. All of us would crap our pants if a troupe of goblins descended on our neighborhood. I'm a level 1 peasant, at best.
I supported the Kickstarter, in which they gave us multiple “monster packets”, with stats, abilities, special mechanics, bosses, and lairs. It was super inspirational and badass content that made me want to craft worlds to fit these beings in. Absolutely worth it
One of my favorite “random encounter” (pre-COVID) was a boar with rabies. The DM didn’t tell us until later, but the boat was using Barbarian Berserker stats. I got bit. (Only martial) Became a were-boar at the next full moon. TPK’ed my party. (Accidentally).
I love this idea and I am a big fan of reskinning monsters. I made a party of experienced players fight a shambling mound that was an orc that ate a cursed seed. Ended up being known as the "meth orc" combat
Great video Ginny. Absolutely agree, a well described scene will be much more fun for all involved over the simple "its a room of 4 orcs, they attack with axes, roll initiative". Love the mention of Keith's books, they are fantastic guides for dms on utilizing monsters abilities better and in synergy with their allies.
I had a combat recently where I set out to do exactly that. I used the Grimhollow Bogeyman in a tower and basically locked the players in magical darkness, surrounded by dozens of shadows. The goal wasn't kill them all, it was stay alive long enough to get the door open. It was the first fight I had them actually be afraid, not because the image i sent looked scary but because they couldn't just pour on the damage to win. I can't make every combat like that, but its so grand to make something close. I have some ideas for something like a sniper duel next which should be grand.
One of my favourite encounters as a DM was a group of Kobolds who made a home in the city sewer system. They used hit-and-run tactics using little tunnels they dug into the walls. To make things worse, they were also armed with crude gunpowder bombs due to narrative reasons.
I've recently had an encounter in icewind dale with Goblins who had scavenged an abandoned chart from dwarfen blacksmiths. Our party could have chosen to attack and kill the goblins but instead we successfully made efforts to solve the problem peacefully. It felt more satisfying convincing them then just get our weapons out and fight. I personally like it when not every encounter needs to be combat - or better said if there are other ways to solve possible combat encounters.
This is exactly the video i needed. I very rarely DM but what I struggle with every time is the encounters. I'm still really bad at balancing them and am afraid my players won't enjoy them. This really brings into perspective, that making an encounter fun ist not just about the balancing. Also there are so many comments here with great tipps, thanks everyone!
This is why I love Call of Cthulhu. Because any time a monster is on the board instant screaming terror ensues and your players never know if their actions are the right one 😂
I just need to say, i got into d&d about 6 months back, i wanted to know more and you Ginny make sense, so thank you, from creating better battles to just making more engaging characters you cover everything. thank you for the content I appreciate it.
I just got back into GMing (after about a 40 year break from it). One thing I do with monsters is that every monster is unique - custom designed for that encounter. The players may think they've seen it before, but they're probably wrong. It may look like an orc, but it will have strengths and weaknesses different from the last orc they saw. That helps keep the fear level up. And your advice on how to describe the encounter is great.
My favorite monster I made was in pathfinder an it was a huge TRex an it had natural camO kind of like the trex/raptor from the movies. The group went an found a group of hunters to help them track this thing down cuz non of them had the ability to come close to tracking this thing. At one time the bard was sitting on it and didn’t realize he was sitting on it complaining about how they can’t find it ! Very much enjoyed that monster.
Great insight. These are great suggestions for adding suspense as opposed to what I refer to as "chopping wood". Combat where you just chip away and hope you chip away faster than the "other guy".
I like both the advice, but in my opinion the second one is much more important since it engages directly with the problem of combat in dad being boring
My DM will often just describe the creatures our party encounters, not use the names of them. Partly because they often are using homebrew creatures. When he does outright say that we are encountering Goblins or other such, I know that he likely has some other sort of twist coming up.
I recently ran an encounter that was challenging because there were roughly 8 or so characters on the field, half NPC's and half PC's that were all about level 4 with the NPC's being roughly around level 2 each, however; it ended up being one of the best ones I've run thus far. The party was making their way to a nearby kingdom in a wagon when they got surprised attacked by a band of two Cockatrice's with beefed up HP, petrifying the bard NPC that they relied on for their healing in the cart, the horse, and getting them all to run out of the cart. These Cockatrice's were undead and looked like they were rotting off the bone, and it scared the absolute everliving shit out of them, especially after the two started turning people into stone, dealing decent damage, and generally had a lot of very creepy things going on. The party loved the entire encounter and had to strategize because none of them had ranged attacks, as the party was two rogues and a monk with only one of the NPC's having a crossbow for ranged attack, suddenly everyone had to decide if it was worth it to get close enough to get hits in and risk petrification, and at the very end, I rolled a dice and had it make that amount of attacks as it died, making about three bite attacks, and in the end? One of the rogues was petrified, the NPC ranger and Bard were right behind them, and everyone else left with low HP and were cheering when it finally went down. Hands down the best combat I've ever had the pleasure of running!
Evocative descriptions are good - especially for undead, many of which look similar. I try never to name an undead creature, only describing its appearance and effects.
Excellent advice! Monsters are made to be modified, and these are some great examples using narrative description to create wonder and terror in the game. It also goes into making the encounters more dynamic, where characters are using their environment and possibly even equipment to make the combats more dynamic---I thrust a torch into the inky black monster to see if it lets go of our mage--or I crouch below my spear, to ward off the attack from above--I look for the seam in the monster's flesh and use my hand axe to cut the mage free--I cut a hole in the creature with my dagger to create an air hole so the magic user doesn't suffocate. Combats that get the players thinking outside the box is what makes for interesting combats. Now, frequently, brevity is best. The most exciting combats, are fast, brutal, and dynamic, involving lots of movement and a fluid back and forth. But sometimes, especially if the party has never encountered this particular monster before, narrative descriptions are really called for. "The enraged water elemental finally comes to grips with you. It vomits, covering your face in icy cold water straight from the elemental plane. Water gets in your ears, eyes, nose--you feel water rush into your lungs and belly, distending your stomach. Freezing cold water rushes into your veins, pushing out your own warm blood, for 18 points of damage."
I really enjoyed these tips Ive already been dabbling with some of these ideas but some will be great additions to my combats Although I would like to take some time to tell you about my most favorite combat I ran The party had just made their way to the end of the maze but before they can enter the treasure room they encounter a large hunchbacked hag that gaurds the gate the barbarian recklessly charges in to combat the hag (extra reckless cuz no rage yet) she gets a hit off but now its the hags turn the hag reaches out her arms wrapping them aroung the barbarian giving them a tight squeeze and with the sound of snaping and cracking the barbarian fall unconcious and the hag drops them as their body falls to the floor with a thud they did win this encounter but it did not go as well as I intended as I only brought up a random stat block for a CR appropriate to the party level and didnt really look at then then said itll be fine ill just use this ability once then proceeded to roll a nat 20 on a 9d6 attack damge roll The reason this is my favorite fight isnt because it all went according to plan but because it put the fear of god into my players (and me ngl) but they still managed to pull out a victory I only wish I got on recording the look on their face when I had to start barrowing the d6s
Ive really been thinking about setting and choosing interesting monsters, mobs and bosses for my friends to battle against, but you really put this in a perspective I hadnt come to yet. Playing the monsters reactively is definitely a pitfall I found myself in, and you phrasing it that way made something *click* Thank you for this Ginny! I hope to really up my combat running skills with this.
The fucking banana wand in the ad killed me hahaha. I also highly recommend "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" for anyone looking to beef up their monsters' tactics!
Me trying to evoke a scene. That one guy screaming over me he fires his gun first and then goes into a 10 minute rant about always getting a surprise round because they mentioned holding their gun in their hand earlier.
I've always felt the description of beholders doesn't fit their statblock. They're described as being able to manipulate and shift reality, but their abilities really just make them powerful wild magic sorcerers with a non-humanoid appearance. I built a one-shot around a beholder menacing a small island, warping the fabric of time and space. Several of the inhabitants of the island changed skin tone, height, weight, gender, or species entirely. Bizarre alien flora and fauna appeared on the island. Gravity shifted in places, landmarks changed, strange structures appeared and disappeared from day to day. The beholder's lair itself was like a M.C. Escher meets Hieronymus Bosch painting full of monsters with random traits I rolled from tables. And the beholder itself, when the party finally cornered it, warped them into strange forms trying to defeat their psyche as well as their physical forms. The beholder inadvertently gave the party strange abilities of their own and they defeated the beholder at its own game. It was a wonderful adventure and if you have the time to make something similar I really recommend it.
As a still pretty new DM with only 1 year experience I am leading a group of friends (and strangers who became friends) which are even newer to the game than me. Therefore I usually start combat with descriptions - be it a blade flashing through the darkness or a group of large wolflike creatures feasting on corpses in front of them. My players know about hardly any Monsters, so I let them roll if their characters know about these creatures. Depending on the roll they get names, lore, abilities, resistances and more the better they did. Moreover I also use my freedom as a DM to create or recreate monsters which follow the same path like before. All my players seem to enjoy combat in this way although Im still trying to improve my descriptions and letting players get Inspiration more easily.
The fun isn't in rolling the numbers, it's in WHY you're rolling them. Love the vids & the great advice, keep them coming! 🐉 PS: Was great seeing ya unexpectedly on The Party the other day!
Another thing I've had great results with: don't just leave the personalities and theatrics to the named villains. Anything with an INT score above 3 is some kind of sentient, which means they can also be some kind of weird. Have fun with it. Have the bandit flub the stick up line, to the raucous laughter of their own crew. Were those two barbarian guards actually lovers? Well, now that you've downed one you might just find out. The wizard the mercenaries managed to recruit absolutely lied on his resume and he has NEVER seen combat. Or with the Cloaker example. They have a 13 Int. Maybe they have their own internal thing going on. Maybe the Alpha Cloaker has been kind of mean to Cloaker #3, so they're more likely to break rank to protect themself and then open up the Alpha to an attack. Have them bicker in Deep Speech about past grievances in the middle of the fight.
Great tips! I have yet to name a monster for my players. I describe sounds, smells, how the air feels, the things they see, how it moves, what it's limbs look like, etc. Had so much fun with some trolls, zombies, and drider (changed up the BBEG of LMoP for one), so much fun to see the reactions from the players and watch them squirming in thier seats trying to figure out what things are 😁
I had one campaign where I simply described monsters, and let the players name them. The mage and the fighter got into an argument about whether to call the gargoyles they had just fought, "whacknasties" or "stone demons."
This is wonderful advice. I'm great at strategy but have a lot to learn about DMing, so thank you. One problem in your specific Cloaker example is when the players rely on Yoyo Healing; Wait for the player to hit 0HP before healing. We need to remind them sometimes how dangerous that can be.
I couldn't figure out if this is pure satire when I just looked and clicked on this video. Now that you described making games much more interesting and fun, I am hooked.
Like you talked about, thinking like the cloaker, I end up modifying a lot of weaker creatures so that they can stay threatening. Like a hoard of zombies, if they get onto one of the players they begin to pile on and soon the weight of them is restraining the PC not to mention all the bites. Or, tactics - a goblin, seeing their friends being killed runs off for help, or there was a hidden trap lever. Or maybe this goblin has been around a while, give them a class and some levels, or even just some class abilities.
I love doing this. My players have faced a twelve-legged alien bug, a giant cuttlefish, and Jabba the Hutt, never realizing they were fighting an adult green dragon all three times.
In the TTRPG I am making, I have damage deal wounds to body segments rather than generic HP. While this usually makes a game "slower," it opens up the game to direct strategic most players will think of, like attacking a dragon's wings to keep it from flying. With these kinds of rules directly built into the system it helps GMs run the game because it's less stuff they have to make up on the fly.
I didn't create them but they definitely had a lasting impact on my party. They entered an empty house and found a coin pouch sitting in the middle of an empty table. Players are naturally greedy so they picked it up. Turned out to be a mini mimic that tried to bite their fingers off and once the one started a few more came out of cabinets. They survived just fine but the players spent the next year paranoid of any coin pouch they found.
Another thing which doesnt seem related at first is also just what the scenario and environment is. A scenario where your task isnt just to "kill the baddies" but also make sure they dont run or maybe protecting civilians or some special item can make players think fast and differently about even monsters they've fought a hundred times before. And sometimes even just adding a second or third tiered floor to force players to climb/run around to get up or down can really force players to think and use mobility options they didnt think to use before, not to mention natural difficult terrain perhaps from an old cave in or a building blowing up can have a huge impact if it covers an area big enough. Also having proactive traps going on, like maybe the kobolds made a firebreath cannon trap that keeps firing down the hall until the players can disable it or run behind it while in the middle of a fight. Monster encounters dont stop with a statblock. From what ginny said and just adding different objectives/sub objectives, even as simple as "a few of the ogres are running with loot" suddenly the players frantically trying to stop them but having to also deal with hellhounds running to intercept the party as the ogres run over a shallow river as difficult terrain.
One of the solo supplements you suggested previously has a massive keyword list to add complexity to whatever might be going down at the time. This would also be a valuable resource to apply to encounters - rolling up a couple of keywords on a situation and working out how they apply has the potential to make any such encounter memorable.
One thing I loved about the Critical Role campaign 2 final boss fight was how dynamic it was, with extra options for characters in terms of movement and strategy, and how the characters had to learn over the course of the fight what those options were. The most effective way of hindering and defeating the big bad wasn’t necessarily their normal tricks, but things they figured out as they went.
Another angle: remember that you can roleplay your monsters, or even talk to them as narration. Have them shouting or ordering to each other; show how their morale is manifesting through their actions, postures, expressions or even quick dialogues at the players; or even go so far as to talk directly to the figurines as the GM running them. "You know, you had one job. One job! You were supposed to guard these gates and call for backup if you got attacked; but, no, you had to try to out-dodge the rogue on your own. Now look at you, just a big pile of failure on the ground." "Okay, Ms Rogue, you splatted the back of his head with sneak attack and have time to survey the room before the next round. Have a +3/advantage Perception roll." Then give out some clue from the environment or from what the monster seemed to be trying to do before the ambush roll. Another thing is just remembering that actual creatures have morale and degrees of strategic capability, and they can be more or less resolute or clever about it, and they may try to achieve goals by the same kinds of social interactions as players do. Have them try to intimidate, or be intimidated by, the adventurers as situation calls for. Have them realize this isn't going so well and start panicking at a turning point in a battle. Have creatures be more or less desparate for food, treasure, defending their little corner or sanctum, etc. No army wants to be obliterated. No predator wants to die over lunch unless they are maddened by starvation. No one has perfect information, but they do have expectations that may not be fulfilled, and which may cause them to change their opinions or plans on the fly. Most creatures have backup or retreat/regroup plans. By adding these variables to scenarios, you can make encounters (which may or may not actually need to culminate in battle, for that matter), more interesting for the players to navigate. It also makes it more fun for everyone if the GM sort of straddles the "4th wall," sometimes totally immersed in what is being portrayed/described, and sometimes breaking out to give narrations and summations of the situations.
I recently ran a boss fight where the boss had low hit points and damage, but he a had a feature that made him add damage to each attack equal to half the amount of hit points he was missing, and every time he attacked he took 1d4 damage, attacking 3 times per turn. This made it so that the first round was un-threatening, but the players were able to notice the damage increase from each of his attacks, then the paladin hit him with a divine smite crit and did a whole ton of damage only for him to hit the party and almost down a couple of them in one round. The encounter suddenly became terrifying for them since it was no longer a numbers thing but a desperate need for strategy. It ended up with the group dealing as much damage as they could in one round and holding a polymorph for right before his turn so he didn't get to attack, then all of them holding their strongest attacks for the drop of polymorph to essentially get two rounds of massive damage. It was risky because if they didn't kill it, the next attack would have the capability to instantly kill a player or two, but they did manage to take him down and it ended up being not only a really fun fight, but one that had stakes and strategy involved.
Awesome tips as usual - especially the part about making the monsters strategic - this should help make the fights less boring when I'm DMing. Added to my Tips booksmarks. (Also loved your opening narration)
i'm a big fan of having challenges in d&d (combat, skill checks, puzzles) feel less like just a bunch of numbers and more like minigames. you could take this as literally as an old DM of mine did, with "quicktime events" (rolling a d20 as many times as you can to get a nat20 before time runs out, simulating having to sweat and work quickly to get something done right within time constraints) and even having some of us play a round of Just Dance to simulate doing a regional dance to impress a shopkeep into giving us a discount on items. you could also take this way less literally by just having there always be shit for the real life people to decide and work out themselves so they can feel accomplished, rather than just having a character roll well and do the thing automatically. i've seen examples of this with rolling a die not to solve a problem but to receive a hint, or, as ginny has illustrated here, having tough decisions to make during combat about what to prioritize/how to deal with the threat effectively. the worst time i ever had in combat was with a DM who only gave me a couple of attacks to use, all of which always dealt the exact same amount of damage with very little else to differentiate them, so i knew i just had to throw my dagger every turn to do the most damage. when there's no strategy, it almost feels like one of those mobile game ads where you just have to pick the bigger number - why should we even bother playing out the fight? this is all a long and rambling way to say that i agree, combat should be more than just big swings from monsters with big health bars; the PLAYERS need a reason to sweat, not just their characters.
I once ran a combat in the dungeon of a dark lord's abandoned fortress and had the party role various checks to see if their spells would work properly in the face of the dark magic that had saturated the place
I like trading out abilities, and making up new ones. I'd trade their Mirror Images for a straight up Minor Image, like the watch in the original Total Recall. way better tactically if most of the party is moving towards an illusion of a cloaker, putting the back line of the party wide open to a pouncing actual cloaker, and his buddies. but, I'm an Evil DM, and have been for decades. "clever girl" - the party's archery Ranger, realizing he's about to get flanked.
It's also a LOT of fun for me, the GM, (time permitting) to puzzle out how to use a monster or NPC's stats effectively. (Yes, hello, I do like maths... except the basics, I'm often off-by-one.) I remember doing some fiddling around in Deadlands, where I wanted to see for myself how, well... I could have an orphanage be a threat to a party. So I put three kids in sniper positions inside a very drafty log cabin, with excellent cover. Had 'em holding actions to spend on aiming. And if the party got inside, granny with a shotgun inside the door. I didn't end up using it, because while it did teach the effectiveness of defensive tactics... it worked a bit too well. I ended up just putting 2 bandits behind a barn door, one already injured, his brother unwilling to leave him. Bulk of the party took up defensive positions, with one standing out in the open, and trusting his luck. And burning *all* of his fate chips to not get shot, so when the party got some fate chips after the encounter, he realized he'd basically spent more XP surviving his own bad tactics than the encounter was "worth". Everyone was pretty green, so that was a rather good tutorial. I'll save the murderhobo orphanage for later, I guess. 😁
For me I give monsters special abilities. An Ettin might swing their club in a circle to force a Dex save against taking a heavy blow, a zombie might have the ability to grapple someone with a long tongue attack Left 4 Dead style, a powerful kobold who has pleased his dragon overlord might have a breath weapon, etc.
My trick is that I don't design encounters but "MOMENTS" so I always start either with a location, a moment in the story where combat is likely to happen, or where I want to give the PCs a challenge to overcome. Then I go looking for a monster statblocks that has abilities that suit the moment. For example I was running a 1980s suburbia Domain of Dread and wanted a 'Upside Down' like in Stranger Things and to use the drain encounter from IT for a 'Epic' Level Ravenloft BBEG Party. I wanted a scary ability for the monster and the Aboleth was PERFECT as it could use magic to lure a victim into range, then disease them to only breath underwater. I then gave it the 'invisible in water' ability of the Water Weird and the encounter started with a PC catching a glimpse of the #1 thing they desired in a drain. One of the PCs took the bait to rush head first into the drain only to end up in a narrow dark space filled with water and feeling a sharp numbing pain as they were attacked and diseased. The fighter jumped into the water while the rest of the party had to try and fight though the narrow drain space. All the attacks were at disadvantage due to invisibility, and the fighter was poisoned and lured deeper into the water by visions of the #1 place they wanted to be - separating them from their allies as they discovered that the sewers were in fact a flooded mirror image of the city above - a place where those who fall victim 'all float' - as they could now only breath underwater, and were enslaved/fed on by the aboleths. The PCs were never told what the monster looked like until there was enough blood in the water for them to make out the shape of a sharklike creature with tentacles - and only after a PC did a check did they learn it was a aboleth. While the PCs were then easily able to kill it the REAL challenge was that two of them were now under the Aboleths disease. Which ended up setting up the entire plot of the adventure of the PCs assuming it wasn't a big problem - only to discover none of them could fix it and they would have to search for a cure.
i dont have time to watch this video right now but i just wanted to add my thoughts on how to make a good monster, make it relevant/relate to the party, have it so that the monster is influenced by the parties desisions. for example, my friends were being murderhobos and decided they wanted to release their.. excrements onto their victims, this went on for quite some time until i decided to make a poop golem, it came about because the poop on their victims trapped the souls and stopped them from moving on and each small piece of soul poop joined together into a large golem seeking revenge on the ones who damned them. i gave it the basic moves like throwing large bits of poo at the party and havig a "soul screech" which ignored armour, my favourite part was when they tried to burn it but that just made it do extra fire damage because now it was a large poo golem on fire. it was disgusting but i think they got the message (which was to at least stop pooing on their victims) then right after they decided to release some urine onto the golem as they saw what poo could do and so decided to try something that wont bit them back, but after i muttered something about making a pee golem they simply responded with "i retract my pee"
Lots of great tips in this video and especially in the video at the end from a year ago, I've definitely been missing some stuff in my combat environments, and haven't gotten too far into painting miniatures yet, but could be kinda fun though? My last cloaker battle was pretty exciting after the troll battle was the most memorable, but even though the op warlock was doing well against the old singular guided campaign op orc rider battle horde, I think I lost them with too many newer characters wanting to go party instead, lol. I guess planning around epic parties isn't always as good, or exciting or epic battles aren't as exciting for people that wanted to do something else with all the orc riders anyway.
One thing I learned to do a long time ago, was allow monsters to be smarter than I am in their element. Back in 3ed at one point my players were battling a Dragon, who was well advanced enough age category wise to be a very powerful spellcaster, with the stupidly high Int and Wis that most Dragons get. My players brought out a spell that I'd completely forgotten about, from a book that was permitted at the table. Shivering Touch. Touch attack, deal 3d6 Dexterity damage. No save. Given that Dragons have horrifically bad touch AC and very low Dex, this was essentially an OHKO spell. Beat the Dragon's Spell Resistance (easy for any dedicated offensive caster) and you could one shot an ancient dragon with zero problems, especially if you Empowered it. So I just let the dragon be smarter than I am. The Dragon is also an incredibly potent spellcaster, with a very large Spellcraft score, of course it's going to be aware of a spell like this, that Dragons are exceptionally vulnerable to, and have measures in place to counteract it. "Contingency: Globe of Invulnerability" So yeah. Don't be afraid to retcon contingencies and plans around things that would be obvious to your *Monsters*, even if it's not obvious to you as a GM.
Just want you to know that I often quote your “combat is a math problem” argument whenever people in my game are complaining about threats and stakes. One of my fellow players in this campaign DMed another game I was in, and she had a tendency to discard rules if she thought they were too harsh… and the more she did that, the more combat just felt like “great, another session where we do math for 2 hours.”
In my most recent combat has a GM the party fought a troll and to its hounds. The combat began with the hounds wandering off from the troll looking for dead meat, the party was burying the dead that they found that had been dishonored in order to appease the spirits to prevent hauntings as it was a large necromatic scare in the area. The combat begin with the hounds basically going towards a freshly Dug Graves what the players trying to stop them this brought the two fighters up front and that's when the troll through a tree at them, this becomes a theme. Up next the fighter decides to square up with the charging troll The troll uses a grapple check to grab onto the fighter and shove him into the mud and then uses another action to snap a nearby tree and make it fall on top of the fighter. The fighter was the only one with the damage type needed to actually kill the troll. It then turned into do we get thrown around by the troll or do we help the fighter.
One thing I remember from way back is to use different monsters for one battle. I can see that this doesn't work for every setting because why would a cloaker work together with for example a minotaur or a mind flayer? (Although the mind flayer could have used his psionic powers for that, now that I think of it) But you could at least give the leader of the pack of cloakers slightly better stats and maybe an additional ability or something to distinct him more from the rest. And yes - definitly describe the monsters instead of calling out their names right away.
Having endured Cicadas for years as a child, Leaf Bug would absolutely emit a Deafening Cicada song to impare their prey.🍃🦗 Now I want a Leaf Bug Stat-block. 🤔
Make one!
That sounds like fun!
I'd build one from a customized Ankheg chassis, lull the party into thinking it's a familiar encounter, then bait & switch!
*Party:* "Oh, we've faced these before. Piece of cake."
*Cicada Ankheg:* "CHWEEE! CHWEEE!"
*DM(grinning):* "Everyone roll a Constitution save, failure means you're Incapacitated. And Deafened. (hehehehehe) Helpless . . . "
You have one. It's a cloaker
Ambush Beetles (patent pending). does the leafy pile thing, mimicking a trapdoor spider's tactics, with the same mechanics as a cloaker.
you know i really love bugs to the point i made a whole fantasy world based on them and now i want to make a leaf bug stat-block. next time ill be bored ill make it and maybe upload it here (im not very good at balance though so maybe change some numbers)
"Your monsters are individuals" is gold
Evoking a scene certainly leads to an immersive feel... the challenge is maintaining it over time. Play long enough and you start short handing descriptions, often without realizing you're doing it. Good to have a reminder to create evocative imagery! 🙂
I like dungeon world because it’s designed for shorter encounters, helps for narrative gameplay :)
One of my favorite DM encounters is when i had my players on a side quest to hunt a supernatural serial killer terrorizing a town. When in truth they were just fighting a level 10 rogue who was really good at hiding and knew his urban environment well.
Yeah, in a world with real magic, players often overlook mundane explanations.
I had my players hunt a monster that was terrorizing a trade route through a dense forest. Turned out it was just some bandits with a costume and a few alchemic special effects. During the first encounter, they turned and ran, and I didn't even touch the dice.
@@armedwombat6816 "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for these darned kids!"
That's so cool!! I might try that too!
This is immensely helpful!
1. Describe through senses, not statblock data
2. Enemies are individuals, so give them something to latch the Player's imagination on
3. Combine two monsters into one for something unique
4. Take the statblock of one enemy and paste it onto another enemy's description
5. Enemies want to WIN, or at least reach their goal, whatever it is.
6. Finding out what the goal is informs you how the encounter goes.
I'd like to add:
- Have all enemies have at least one ability that allows them to change the environment, or to break line of sight.
- You're allowed to have the enemy to have a second battle phase - if they're down, maybe they come back up, mindless and frenzied.
- It's fine to treat the enemy as a puzzle. If you can't hurt them until you figure something out, that's a unique encounter (example: a golem with a dial, that can be hurt only if you play Simon Says on it)
Your first addition actually addresses the combat field, which she talks about in her other videos. :) It's not really about the enemy so much as their surroundings. Anyway, what I came here to say is that "a golem with a dial, that can be hurt only if you play Simon Says on it" is a total nightmare from a player standpoint. There should always be multiple ways to attack a problem, and more than one solution; and those solutions should make sense in context and not just come out of absolute left field. The idea is funny, but it would make me want to scream lol
About two minutes in, I was thinking, "We definitely need to bring up The Monsters Know What They Are Doing". HUGE help, especially for somebody making the jump from player to DM.
As a Dm and a Cloaker, I greatly endorse this message.
Ginny is so gosh darn wonderful.
Smart, adorable and delightfully nerdy.
The Monsters Know What they are Doing: Combat tactics for DMs by Keith Ammann is one of the few books I recommend getting in hard copy. So you can write notes and cross reference to the Monster Manual.
Agreed. I have both that and Moar! Monsters Know What They're Doing. I use them when running sessions at our local RPG convention. Very useful!👍
That levelled up my DM'ing quite a bit. That, and re-skinning, so my players don't metagame too much.
I have the first and really want the second, it's a really good book!
100% agree. It is pretty much the only hard copy book I have.
I got that, then found out I already had those tactics in my head. maybe 3 stars.
If your party are down for something a bit more intense, take advantage of the FULL action economy. Let monsters use bonus actions and reactions! For lower CR monsters, add abilities with a cool down. This gives combat a lot more of a dynamic feel and makes your monsters both less boring and more deadly.
OR. You could just get Flee Mortals. That too.
I will never forget the absolutely buckwild combat when our party broke into a wildfire druid cult facility and discovered a lab full of dangerous experimental potions… and immediately released the genetically modified fire-spewing flail snails. That was a tricky one to be sure!
Also, I am absolutely obsessed with the top you’re wearing in this video, it’s so cute!
Monsters are one thing, but also environments! I had this cave that had naturally growing psychic mushrooms. If you were in close proximity to them (enemy monsters too) they would have disadvantage on everything from the psychic screaming in their head. I introduced the players to this early in the cave system before the NPCs began ambushing the players.
Absolutely love the "They Monsters Know What They're Doing" books, they helped me make some of my most memorable combat sessions!
One trick i use from time to time, especially with players that are more experienced, is calling monsters with a different name and giving them a local flavour. Take Goblins. We adventurers know everything about Goblins and, in some campaigns, have slaughtered millions of them. But to a poor villager fighting for every crop, hoping to survive the winter, they are terrifying terrors. They move silently during the night, stealing cattle or food, they "haunt" the near forest were nobody ventures past sundown because uncle Thomas from two farms away disappeared there, never to be seen again. The wise elders call them " Hognabbers" and it's tradition to leave a small offering for them every full moon, to be left alone. They are just actual goblins that exploit the surrounding population and keep captured humans as servants. The PCs could probably absolutely destroy them but the townsfolk told them they have magical powers(they don't, just high stealth) and they will use the servants as human shields in case of a fight. All of a sudden a simple tribe of Goblins became an interesting encounter, maybe a little adventure
I reskinned a myconid into a flesh monster that sprouted like tumors off of a cursed individual. Everything else was the same.
I went kind of the opposite route with my most recent campaign. Everything is goblins. Goblins are goblins, orcs are big goblins, ogres are giant goblins, trolls are regenerating goblins, etc. In this world, goblins just get bigger and bigger as they age and they are prone to all kinds of mutations, so even the goblin goblins often have extra limbs and tumors and special abilities.
Goblins are easy to customise. Just give them character levels from a class that seems like a good idea at the time.
@@AnotherDuck Agreed, but it was more about the lore and mistery around them, because otherwise they are just goblins which some players could be a bit bored by
I may have gotten the message wrong, but I decided to pick random monsters from MM and see how I can reflavor them.
*Wood Basilisk:* instead of turning creatures to stone, it turns them into wood. Also, it turns the earth where it walks into difficult terrain because of the vegetation.
*Arctic Bulette:* replace burrow speed with swim speed, add cold resistance. Lives in arctic lakes/seas, attacks those walking on ice from below.
*Mirror Dryad:* replace the ability to teleport between trees with an ability to teleport between mirrors, and druidic spells with illusion-themed spells.
*Mutant Drow Ettercap:* created by drow magic from slaves as "shepherds of Lolth's sacred herds"; give an ettercap drow features and the ability to use manufactured weapons... wait, I think I created driders.
*Nightmare Kelpie:* give nightmare a small, but annoying ability to charm humanoids, enticing them to mount them. When ridden, can whisk its rider away to Ethereal Plane, but cannot attack the rider.
*Artifact-Eating Rust Monster:* replace the ability to detect metal with the ability to detect magic items, and the ability to corrode metal with suppressing the magic in magic items? The players will hate them so much.
*Slasher Succubus:* replace the ability to make people charmed with the ability to make them frightened and add the ability to know the direction and distance to a person frightened by them. They need their victims to be frightened to drain their life energy, and love recreating scenes from horror movies with them.
Well, that was a total waste of time. 😃
That's so creative!! Mind if I hold on to some for when I DM?
the Drow Ettercap sounds intriging to me -- to my mind's eye, it doesn't seem like a drider...unless you took a drider and replaced the spider-parts with mushrooms. very nice.
@@sarahb.7175 of course I won't mind. 🙂
Interesting ideas ! Thanks for sharing. I can see myself using the first two in particular
I have saved all of them to a note, I will absoluitely get some use out of these!
was running a horror campaign.
I made an abberant monster that had a HUGE MAW. Would charge forward shoving things into it's mouth, the acidic saliva beginning to digest them while they struggled to get out.
gelatinous cube reflavor for the win.
And all the experienced players had NO idea.
I LOVE reskinning monsters
YES ! Thanks Ginny. This is exaclty what I want to see more of.
It's a narrative game ! Narate !
I love to tell stories and want my players to feel immersed in that story by being as descriptive as possible and not just a group of stats and a mini. The descriptive and storytelling style is what I use in all of my games especially since I most run in theater of the mind style.
Oh my god that cloaker description was terrifying.
My funnest battle to run as a DM happened when I noticed that Blue Dragons have a burrow speed. "That building you're taking cover in? Shame if I dived into it and it collapsed..."
Thanks Ginny! Always the description sells the scene. And yes, I love to mix it up so that not all of the same ol monsters feel the same, while still giving enough for players to use previous experiences to feel empowered.
Some of my favorite fights ive designed included a monstrous scarecrow that devoured one of four senses at the start of each turn. Smell would cause the players to lose focus and have disadvantage, sight would cause me to hide the combat map for the turn, feeling would make them unaware of their damage taken, and hearing meant the characters couldnt communicate with one another.
My favorite though was designed based on a villain who had the power of theatrics. At the start of every turn he would play a different song and to avoid big damage, the players basically had to fulfill a dance or story. Examples: "A song of tragedy", each player is split from their dance partner and must be within 10ft by the end of the turn or else they take damage. All the way to "A song of Comedy" all rolls are treated as either Nat 1 or Nat 20.
This makes me think of a Minecraft mob, shulkers. If I'm remembering correctly, they can teleport short distances, they have a chance of creating a duplicate shulker if they get badly hurt, and the projectiles they shoot track the player and on a hit make the player levitate for a few seconds. Now I want to see a shulker in D&D.
This channel is a fascinating example of ads being almost more enjoyable than actual videos and I absolutely love it. No other channel makes me go "Yay, time for the ad skit!" 😅
The book "The monsters know what they are doing" is amazing rescource
There was an old AEG book for 3rd Edition D&D... I cannot for the life of me remember which one it was, possibly "Evil," but I'm not 100% certain on that. It had a lot of advice on giving descriptions of creatures that were more realistic, I guess, in terms of how you would actually feel seeing them. One of the examples they gave was an encounter with kobolds. Kobolds are typically dopey little lizard dog monsters with spears. No adventurer is really scared of them. However, it described the scene similar to how you described the Cloaker encounter. It described their red eyes glinting in the torchlight, and when they emerge they at first give the impression of children until you can see the glint of their teeth and the steel of their weapons. It stuck with me and I try to be more descriptive with my monsters, just to add a note of realism, but also danger. When it boils down to it, even the dumbest monsters would be absolutely terrifying in real life. All of us would crap our pants if a troupe of goblins descended on our neighborhood. I'm a level 1 peasant, at best.
Flee Mortals by MCDM is going to be making some very interesting monsters.
Taking them from a big bag of hit points, to interesting battles.
I supported the Kickstarter, in which they gave us multiple “monster packets”, with stats, abilities, special mechanics, bosses, and lairs.
It was super inspirational and badass content that made me want to craft worlds to fit these beings in. Absolutely worth it
YES! Spread the word of our holy texts. Let the masses know of our salvation
Ever since I saw the Action Oriented Monsters video, I immediately began incorporating that because of its narrative feel. Can’t wait for the book!
I'm using it right now, and it's pretty amazing.
One of my favorite “random encounter” (pre-COVID) was a boar with rabies.
The DM didn’t tell us until later, but the boat was using Barbarian Berserker stats.
I got bit. (Only martial)
Became a were-boar at the next full moon.
TPK’ed my party. (Accidentally).
I love this idea and I am a big fan of reskinning monsters.
I made a party of experienced players fight a shambling mound that was an orc that ate a cursed seed. Ended up being known as the "meth orc" combat
Great video Ginny. Absolutely agree, a well described scene will be much more fun for all involved over the simple "its a room of 4 orcs, they attack with axes, roll initiative".
Love the mention of Keith's books, they are fantastic guides for dms on utilizing monsters abilities better and in synergy with their allies.
I had a combat recently where I set out to do exactly that. I used the Grimhollow Bogeyman in a tower and basically locked the players in magical darkness, surrounded by dozens of shadows. The goal wasn't kill them all, it was stay alive long enough to get the door open. It was the first fight I had them actually be afraid, not because the image i sent looked scary but because they couldn't just pour on the damage to win. I can't make every combat like that, but its so grand to make something close. I have some ideas for something like a sniper duel next which should be grand.
One of my favourite encounters as a DM was a group of Kobolds who made a home in the city sewer system. They used hit-and-run tactics using little tunnels they dug into the walls. To make things worse, they were also armed with crude gunpowder bombs due to narrative reasons.
Sounds like Tucker's Kobolds
Oh! The pink looks great on you!
Ginny always makes the best videos for D&D, and makes me rethink how I can improve plots.
Wonderful!
I've recently had an encounter in icewind dale with Goblins who had scavenged an abandoned chart from dwarfen blacksmiths.
Our party could have chosen to attack and kill the goblins but instead we successfully made efforts to solve the problem peacefully.
It felt more satisfying convincing them then just get our weapons out and fight.
I personally like it when not every encounter needs to be combat - or better said if there are other ways to solve possible combat encounters.
This is exactly the video i needed. I very rarely DM but what I struggle with every time is the encounters. I'm still really bad at balancing them and am afraid my players won't enjoy them. This really brings into perspective, that making an encounter fun ist not just about the balancing. Also there are so many comments here with great tipps, thanks everyone!
This is why I love Call of Cthulhu. Because any time a monster is on the board instant screaming terror ensues and your players never know if their actions are the right one 😂
I just need to say, i got into d&d about 6 months back, i wanted to know more and you Ginny make sense, so thank you, from creating better battles to just making more engaging characters you cover everything. thank you for the content I appreciate it.
I just got back into GMing (after about a 40 year break from it). One thing I do with monsters is that every monster is unique - custom designed for that encounter. The players may think they've seen it before, but they're probably wrong. It may look like an orc, but it will have strengths and weaknesses different from the last orc they saw. That helps keep the fear level up.
And your advice on how to describe the encounter is great.
My favorite monster I made was in pathfinder an it was a huge TRex an it had natural camO kind of like the trex/raptor from the movies.
The group went an found a group of hunters to help them track this thing down cuz non of them had the ability to come close to tracking this thing.
At one time the bard was sitting on it and didn’t realize he was sitting on it complaining about how they can’t find it ! Very much enjoyed that monster.
A good DM is a scene setter…like a movie director and writer…to immerse them in the world that is in the imagination.
Perspective of the Monsters and NPC's. It makes for a so much more immersive game❤.
Great insight. These are great suggestions for adding suspense as opposed to what I refer to as "chopping wood". Combat where you just chip away and hope you chip away faster than the "other guy".
So few times I actually enjoy sitting through the adverts. I love the content and the advertisements.
I like both the advice, but in my opinion the second one is much more important since it engages directly with the problem of combat in dad being boring
My DM will often just describe the creatures our party encounters, not use the names of them. Partly because they often are using homebrew creatures. When he does outright say that we are encountering Goblins or other such, I know that he likely has some other sort of twist coming up.
I recently ran an encounter that was challenging because there were roughly 8 or so characters on the field, half NPC's and half PC's that were all about level 4 with the NPC's being roughly around level 2 each, however; it ended up being one of the best ones I've run thus far. The party was making their way to a nearby kingdom in a wagon when they got surprised attacked by a band of two Cockatrice's with beefed up HP, petrifying the bard NPC that they relied on for their healing in the cart, the horse, and getting them all to run out of the cart. These Cockatrice's were undead and looked like they were rotting off the bone, and it scared the absolute everliving shit out of them, especially after the two started turning people into stone, dealing decent damage, and generally had a lot of very creepy things going on.
The party loved the entire encounter and had to strategize because none of them had ranged attacks, as the party was two rogues and a monk with only one of the NPC's having a crossbow for ranged attack, suddenly everyone had to decide if it was worth it to get close enough to get hits in and risk petrification, and at the very end, I rolled a dice and had it make that amount of attacks as it died, making about three bite attacks, and in the end? One of the rogues was petrified, the NPC ranger and Bard were right behind them, and everyone else left with low HP and were cheering when it finally went down. Hands down the best combat I've ever had the pleasure of running!
Ooooo leaf bug. I like it. :D
Evocative descriptions are good - especially for undead, many of which look similar. I try never to name an undead creature, only describing its appearance and effects.
The way you described that scene... I felt like I was there too! Well done!
Super informative video and a solid plug for The Monsters Know What They’re Doing!
I have that book. Nice read. I'm gonna turn it into a dice tray/vault someday.
Excellent advice! Monsters are made to be modified, and these are some great examples using narrative description to create wonder and terror in the game. It also goes into making the encounters more dynamic, where characters are using their environment and possibly even equipment to make the combats more dynamic---I thrust a torch into the inky black monster to see if it lets go of our mage--or I crouch below my spear, to ward off the attack from above--I look for the seam in the monster's flesh and use my hand axe to cut the mage free--I cut a hole in the creature with my dagger to create an air hole so the magic user doesn't suffocate. Combats that get the players thinking outside the box is what makes for interesting combats.
Now, frequently, brevity is best. The most exciting combats, are fast, brutal, and dynamic, involving lots of movement and a fluid back and forth. But sometimes, especially if the party has never encountered this particular monster before, narrative descriptions are really called for. "The enraged water elemental finally comes to grips with you. It vomits, covering your face in icy cold water straight from the elemental plane. Water gets in your ears, eyes, nose--you feel water rush into your lungs and belly, distending your stomach. Freezing cold water rushes into your veins, pushing out your own warm blood, for 18 points of damage."
I really enjoyed these tips Ive already been dabbling with some of these ideas but some will be great additions to my combats
Although I would like to take some time to tell you about my most favorite combat I ran
The party had just made their way to the end of the maze but before they can enter the treasure room they encounter a large hunchbacked hag that gaurds the gate the barbarian recklessly charges in to combat the hag (extra reckless cuz no rage yet) she gets a hit off but now its the hags turn the hag reaches out her arms wrapping them aroung the barbarian giving them a tight squeeze and with the sound of snaping and cracking the barbarian fall unconcious and the hag drops them as their body falls to the floor with a thud
they did win this encounter but it did not go as well as I intended as I only brought up a random stat block for a CR appropriate to the party level and didnt really look at then then said itll be fine ill just use this ability once then proceeded to roll a nat 20 on a 9d6 attack damge roll
The reason this is my favorite fight isnt because it all went according to plan but because it put the fear of god into my players (and me ngl) but they still managed to pull out a victory I only wish I got on recording the look on their face when I had to start barrowing the d6s
Ive really been thinking about setting and choosing interesting monsters, mobs and bosses for my friends to battle against, but you really put this in a perspective I hadnt come to yet. Playing the monsters reactively is definitely a pitfall I found myself in, and you phrasing it that way made something *click* Thank you for this Ginny! I hope to really up my combat running skills with this.
One of my favorite DMs would say, "This is the difference between 'Role Playing' and 'Roll Playing.'
The fucking banana wand in the ad killed me hahaha. I also highly recommend "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" for anyone looking to beef up their monsters' tactics!
Good tips. Atmosphere goes a long way in making combat more engaging, I think. A solid description that avoids using a name is a great start.
Me trying to evoke a scene.
That one guy screaming over me he fires his gun first and then goes into a 10 minute rant about always getting a surprise round because they mentioned holding their gun in their hand earlier.
I've always felt the description of beholders doesn't fit their statblock. They're described as being able to manipulate and shift reality, but their abilities really just make them powerful wild magic sorcerers with a non-humanoid appearance. I built a one-shot around a beholder menacing a small island, warping the fabric of time and space. Several of the inhabitants of the island changed skin tone, height, weight, gender, or species entirely. Bizarre alien flora and fauna appeared on the island. Gravity shifted in places, landmarks changed, strange structures appeared and disappeared from day to day. The beholder's lair itself was like a M.C. Escher meets Hieronymus Bosch painting full of monsters with random traits I rolled from tables. And the beholder itself, when the party finally cornered it, warped them into strange forms trying to defeat their psyche as well as their physical forms. The beholder inadvertently gave the party strange abilities of their own and they defeated the beholder at its own game. It was a wonderful adventure and if you have the time to make something similar I really recommend it.
As a still pretty new DM with only 1 year experience I am leading a group of friends (and strangers who became friends) which are even newer to the game than me. Therefore I usually start combat with descriptions - be it a blade flashing through the darkness or a group of large wolflike creatures feasting on corpses in front of them.
My players know about hardly any Monsters, so I let them roll if their characters know about these creatures. Depending on the roll they get names, lore, abilities, resistances and more the better they did.
Moreover I also use my freedom as a DM to create or recreate monsters which follow the same path like before.
All my players seem to enjoy combat in this way although Im still trying to improve my descriptions and letting players get Inspiration more easily.
The fun isn't in rolling the numbers, it's in WHY you're rolling them. Love the vids & the great advice, keep them coming! 🐉
PS: Was great seeing ya unexpectedly on The Party the other day!
Another thing I've had great results with: don't just leave the personalities and theatrics to the named villains.
Anything with an INT score above 3 is some kind of sentient, which means they can also be some kind of weird. Have fun with it.
Have the bandit flub the stick up line, to the raucous laughter of their own crew.
Were those two barbarian guards actually lovers? Well, now that you've downed one you might just find out.
The wizard the mercenaries managed to recruit absolutely lied on his resume and he has NEVER seen combat.
Or with the Cloaker example. They have a 13 Int. Maybe they have their own internal thing going on. Maybe the Alpha Cloaker has been kind of mean to Cloaker #3, so they're more likely to break rank to protect themself and then open up the Alpha to an attack. Have them bicker in Deep Speech about past grievances in the middle of the fight.
Great tips! I have yet to name a monster for my players. I describe sounds, smells, how the air feels, the things they see, how it moves, what it's limbs look like, etc. Had so much fun with some trolls, zombies, and drider (changed up the BBEG of LMoP for one), so much fun to see the reactions from the players and watch them squirming in thier seats trying to figure out what things are 😁
I had one campaign where I simply described monsters, and let the players name them. The mage and the fighter got into an argument about whether to call the gargoyles they had just fought, "whacknasties" or "stone demons."
This is wonderful advice.
I'm great at strategy but have a lot to learn about DMing, so thank you.
One problem in your specific Cloaker example is when the players rely on Yoyo Healing; Wait for the player to hit 0HP before healing.
We need to remind them sometimes how dangerous that can be.
I couldn't figure out if this is pure satire when I just looked and clicked on this video. Now that you described making games much more interesting and fun, I am hooked.
Like you talked about, thinking like the cloaker, I end up modifying a lot of weaker creatures so that they can stay threatening. Like a hoard of zombies, if they get onto one of the players they begin to pile on and soon the weight of them is restraining the PC not to mention all the bites.
Or, tactics - a goblin, seeing their friends being killed runs off for help, or there was a hidden trap lever. Or maybe this goblin has been around a while, give them a class and some levels, or even just some class abilities.
I love doing this. My players have faced a twelve-legged alien bug, a giant cuttlefish, and Jabba the Hutt, never realizing they were fighting an adult green dragon all three times.
In the TTRPG I am making, I have damage deal wounds to body segments rather than generic HP. While this usually makes a game "slower," it opens up the game to direct strategic most players will think of, like attacking a dragon's wings to keep it from flying. With these kinds of rules directly built into the system it helps GMs run the game because it's less stuff they have to make up on the fly.
I didn't create them but they definitely had a lasting impact on my party. They entered an empty house and found a coin pouch sitting in the middle of an empty table. Players are naturally greedy so they picked it up. Turned out to be a mini mimic that tried to bite their fingers off and once the one started a few more came out of cabinets. They survived just fine but the players spent the next year paranoid of any coin pouch they found.
The best DM advice video this month, maybe this year. Brilliant!
Honestly the best parts of D&D for me (besides the roleplaying) is immersion and strategy.
I love that you put probably in there
Another thing which doesnt seem related at first is also just what the scenario and environment is. A scenario where your task isnt just to "kill the baddies" but also make sure they dont run or maybe protecting civilians or some special item can make players think fast and differently about even monsters they've fought a hundred times before. And sometimes even just adding a second or third tiered floor to force players to climb/run around to get up or down can really force players to think and use mobility options they didnt think to use before, not to mention natural difficult terrain perhaps from an old cave in or a building blowing up can have a huge impact if it covers an area big enough. Also having proactive traps going on, like maybe the kobolds made a firebreath cannon trap that keeps firing down the hall until the players can disable it or run behind it while in the middle of a fight.
Monster encounters dont stop with a statblock. From what ginny said and just adding different objectives/sub objectives, even as simple as "a few of the ogres are running with loot" suddenly the players frantically trying to stop them but having to also deal with hellhounds running to intercept the party as the ogres run over a shallow river as difficult terrain.
One of the solo supplements you suggested previously has a massive keyword list to add complexity to whatever might be going down at the time. This would also be a valuable resource to apply to encounters - rolling up a couple of keywords on a situation and working out how they apply has the potential to make any such encounter memorable.
One thing I loved about the Critical Role campaign 2 final boss fight was how dynamic it was, with extra options for characters in terms of movement and strategy, and how the characters had to learn over the course of the fight what those options were. The most effective way of hindering and defeating the big bad wasn’t necessarily their normal tricks, but things they figured out as they went.
Another angle: remember that you can roleplay your monsters, or even talk to them as narration. Have them shouting or ordering to each other; show how their morale is manifesting through their actions, postures, expressions or even quick dialogues at the players; or even go so far as to talk directly to the figurines as the GM running them.
"You know, you had one job. One job! You were supposed to guard these gates and call for backup if you got attacked; but, no, you had to try to out-dodge the rogue on your own. Now look at you, just a big pile of failure on the ground."
"Okay, Ms Rogue, you splatted the back of his head with sneak attack and have time to survey the room before the next round. Have a +3/advantage Perception roll." Then give out some clue from the environment or from what the monster seemed to be trying to do before the ambush roll.
Another thing is just remembering that actual creatures have morale and degrees of strategic capability, and they can be more or less resolute or clever about it, and they may try to achieve goals by the same kinds of social interactions as players do. Have them try to intimidate, or be intimidated by, the adventurers as situation calls for. Have them realize this isn't going so well and start panicking at a turning point in a battle. Have creatures be more or less desparate for food, treasure, defending their little corner or sanctum, etc.
No army wants to be obliterated. No predator wants to die over lunch unless they are maddened by starvation. No one has perfect information, but they do have expectations that may not be fulfilled, and which may cause them to change their opinions or plans on the fly. Most creatures have backup or retreat/regroup plans.
By adding these variables to scenarios, you can make encounters (which may or may not actually need to culminate in battle, for that matter), more interesting for the players to navigate. It also makes it more fun for everyone if the GM sort of straddles the "4th wall," sometimes totally immersed in what is being portrayed/described, and sometimes breaking out to give narrations and summations of the situations.
I recently ran a boss fight where the boss had low hit points and damage, but he a had a feature that made him add damage to each attack equal to half the amount of hit points he was missing, and every time he attacked he took 1d4 damage, attacking 3 times per turn. This made it so that the first round was un-threatening, but the players were able to notice the damage increase from each of his attacks, then the paladin hit him with a divine smite crit and did a whole ton of damage only for him to hit the party and almost down a couple of them in one round. The encounter suddenly became terrifying for them since it was no longer a numbers thing but a desperate need for strategy. It ended up with the group dealing as much damage as they could in one round and holding a polymorph for right before his turn so he didn't get to attack, then all of them holding their strongest attacks for the drop of polymorph to essentially get two rounds of massive damage. It was risky because if they didn't kill it, the next attack would have the capability to instantly kill a player or two, but they did manage to take him down and it ended up being not only a really fun fight, but one that had stakes and strategy involved.
Awesome tips as usual - especially the part about making the monsters strategic - this should help make the fights less boring when I'm DMing. Added to my Tips booksmarks. (Also loved your opening narration)
Every video of yours inspires me to be a better DM. Thank you again
i'm a big fan of having challenges in d&d (combat, skill checks, puzzles) feel less like just a bunch of numbers and more like minigames. you could take this as literally as an old DM of mine did, with "quicktime events" (rolling a d20 as many times as you can to get a nat20 before time runs out, simulating having to sweat and work quickly to get something done right within time constraints) and even having some of us play a round of Just Dance to simulate doing a regional dance to impress a shopkeep into giving us a discount on items. you could also take this way less literally by just having there always be shit for the real life people to decide and work out themselves so they can feel accomplished, rather than just having a character roll well and do the thing automatically. i've seen examples of this with rolling a die not to solve a problem but to receive a hint, or, as ginny has illustrated here, having tough decisions to make during combat about what to prioritize/how to deal with the threat effectively. the worst time i ever had in combat was with a DM who only gave me a couple of attacks to use, all of which always dealt the exact same amount of damage with very little else to differentiate them, so i knew i just had to throw my dagger every turn to do the most damage. when there's no strategy, it almost feels like one of those mobile game ads where you just have to pick the bigger number - why should we even bother playing out the fight?
this is all a long and rambling way to say that i agree, combat should be more than just big swings from monsters with big health bars; the PLAYERS need a reason to sweat, not just their characters.
Brilliant thought Ginny! Thanks for doing this one - it should be well appreciated!
This is great advice for new DMs!! I need to learn how to do this
I once ran a combat in the dungeon of a dark lord's abandoned fortress and had the party role various checks to see if their spells would work properly in the face of the dark magic that had saturated the place
I like trading out abilities, and making up new ones.
I'd trade their Mirror Images for a straight up Minor Image, like the watch in the original Total Recall. way better tactically if most of the party is moving towards an illusion of a cloaker, putting the back line of the party wide open to a pouncing actual cloaker, and his buddies. but, I'm an Evil DM, and have been for decades.
"clever girl"
- the party's archery Ranger, realizing he's about to get flanked.
Good reminder. I am focused too much on mechanics - tracking initiative and such. I forget to describe
Wow awesome description of combat love it!
Woah, love the hair! Almost verges into cyberpunk!
It's also a LOT of fun for me, the GM, (time permitting) to puzzle out how to use a monster or NPC's stats effectively. (Yes, hello, I do like maths... except the basics, I'm often off-by-one.) I remember doing some fiddling around in Deadlands, where I wanted to see for myself how, well... I could have an orphanage be a threat to a party. So I put three kids in sniper positions inside a very drafty log cabin, with excellent cover. Had 'em holding actions to spend on aiming. And if the party got inside, granny with a shotgun inside the door.
I didn't end up using it, because while it did teach the effectiveness of defensive tactics... it worked a bit too well. I ended up just putting 2 bandits behind a barn door, one already injured, his brother unwilling to leave him. Bulk of the party took up defensive positions, with one standing out in the open, and trusting his luck. And burning *all* of his fate chips to not get shot, so when the party got some fate chips after the encounter, he realized he'd basically spent more XP surviving his own bad tactics than the encounter was "worth". Everyone was pretty green, so that was a rather good tutorial.
I'll save the murderhobo orphanage for later, I guess. 😁
For me I give monsters special abilities.
An Ettin might swing their club in a circle to force a Dex save against taking a heavy blow, a zombie might have the ability to grapple someone with a long tongue attack Left 4 Dead style, a powerful kobold who has pleased his dragon overlord might have a breath weapon, etc.
My trick is that I don't design encounters but "MOMENTS" so I always start either with a location, a moment in the story where combat is likely to happen, or where I want to give the PCs a challenge to overcome. Then I go looking for a monster statblocks that has abilities that suit the moment. For example I was running a 1980s suburbia Domain of Dread and wanted a 'Upside Down' like in Stranger Things and to use the drain encounter from IT for a 'Epic' Level Ravenloft BBEG Party. I wanted a scary ability for the monster and the Aboleth was PERFECT as it could use magic to lure a victim into range, then disease them to only breath underwater. I then gave it the 'invisible in water' ability of the Water Weird and the encounter started with a PC catching a glimpse of the #1 thing they desired in a drain. One of the PCs took the bait to rush head first into the drain only to end up in a narrow dark space filled with water and feeling a sharp numbing pain as they were attacked and diseased. The fighter jumped into the water while the rest of the party had to try and fight though the narrow drain space. All the attacks were at disadvantage due to invisibility, and the fighter was poisoned and lured deeper into the water by visions of the #1 place they wanted to be - separating them from their allies as they discovered that the sewers were in fact a flooded mirror image of the city above - a place where those who fall victim 'all float' - as they could now only breath underwater, and were enslaved/fed on by the aboleths. The PCs were never told what the monster looked like until there was enough blood in the water for them to make out the shape of a sharklike creature with tentacles - and only after a PC did a check did they learn it was a aboleth. While the PCs were then easily able to kill it the REAL challenge was that two of them were now under the Aboleths disease. Which ended up setting up the entire plot of the adventure of the PCs assuming it wasn't a big problem - only to discover none of them could fix it and they would have to search for a cure.
i dont have time to watch this video right now but i just wanted to add my thoughts on how to make a good monster, make it relevant/relate to the party, have it so that the monster is influenced by the parties desisions. for example, my friends were being murderhobos and decided they wanted to release their.. excrements onto their victims, this went on for quite some time until i decided to make a poop golem, it came about because the poop on their victims trapped the souls and stopped them from moving on and each small piece of soul poop joined together into a large golem seeking revenge on the ones who damned them. i gave it the basic moves like throwing large bits of poo at the party and havig a "soul screech" which ignored armour, my favourite part was when they tried to burn it but that just made it do extra fire damage because now it was a large poo golem on fire. it was disgusting but i think they got the message (which was to at least stop pooing on their victims) then right after they decided to release some urine onto the golem as they saw what poo could do and so decided to try something that wont bit them back, but after i muttered something about making a pee golem they simply responded with "i retract my pee"
Lots of great tips in this video and especially in the video at the end from a year ago, I've definitely been missing some stuff in my combat environments, and haven't gotten too far into painting miniatures yet, but could be kinda fun though?
My last cloaker battle was pretty exciting after the troll battle was the most memorable, but even though the op warlock was doing well against the old singular guided campaign op orc rider battle horde, I think I lost them with too many newer characters wanting to go party instead, lol. I guess planning around epic parties isn't always as good, or exciting or epic battles aren't as exciting for people that wanted to do something else with all the orc riders anyway.
One thing I learned to do a long time ago, was allow monsters to be smarter than I am in their element.
Back in 3ed at one point my players were battling a Dragon, who was well advanced enough age category wise to be a very powerful spellcaster, with the stupidly high Int and Wis that most Dragons get.
My players brought out a spell that I'd completely forgotten about, from a book that was permitted at the table. Shivering Touch.
Touch attack, deal 3d6 Dexterity damage. No save.
Given that Dragons have horrifically bad touch AC and very low Dex, this was essentially an OHKO spell. Beat the Dragon's Spell Resistance (easy for any dedicated offensive caster) and you could one shot an ancient dragon with zero problems, especially if you Empowered it.
So I just let the dragon be smarter than I am.
The Dragon is also an incredibly potent spellcaster, with a very large Spellcraft score, of course it's going to be aware of a spell like this, that Dragons are exceptionally vulnerable to, and have measures in place to counteract it.
"Contingency: Globe of Invulnerability"
So yeah. Don't be afraid to retcon contingencies and plans around things that would be obvious to your *Monsters*, even if it's not obvious to you as a GM.
Just want you to know that I often quote your “combat is a math problem” argument whenever people in my game are complaining about threats and stakes. One of my fellow players in this campaign DMed another game I was in, and she had a tendency to discard rules if she thought they were too harsh… and the more she did that, the more combat just felt like “great, another session where we do math for 2 hours.”
"probably."
😅
Great tips. Thank you for continuing to encourage us to up our game.
A cloaker that attaches to a victim and then binds to its mind, puppeting the player it grabs to attack others.
In my most recent combat has a GM the party fought a troll and to its hounds. The combat began with the hounds wandering off from the troll looking for dead meat, the party was burying the dead that they found that had been dishonored in order to appease the spirits to prevent hauntings as it was a large necromatic scare in the area.
The combat begin with the hounds basically going towards a freshly Dug Graves what the players trying to stop them this brought the two fighters up front and that's when the troll through a tree at them, this becomes a theme. Up next the fighter decides to square up with the charging troll The troll uses a grapple check to grab onto the fighter and shove him into the mud and then uses another action to snap a nearby tree and make it fall on top of the fighter. The fighter was the only one with the damage type needed to actually kill the troll. It then turned into do we get thrown around by the troll or do we help the fighter.
I initially read the thumbnail graphic as “are YOU monsters boring?” and was like, Damn Ginny! 😅
As always this was a phenomenal video and super helpful thank you.
One thing I remember from way back is to use different monsters for one battle. I can see that this doesn't work for every setting because why would a cloaker work together with for example a minotaur or a mind flayer? (Although the mind flayer could have used his psionic powers for that, now that I think of it) But you could at least give the leader of the pack of cloakers slightly better stats and maybe an additional ability or something to distinct him more from the rest.
And yes - definitly describe the monsters instead of calling out their names right away.