Mike Mearls Games

Monsters, Monsters, Monsters!

Added 2024-08-01 13:00:20 +0000 UTC

I’m almost done with the series on subclass design, with only the wizard to go. To let that series wrap up at the end of next week, I’m dropping in a post on monsters to balance out the schedule. It’s a little preview of the next phase of my work.

While I’ve been churning away on character stuff, I’ve also built a new approach to monsters that drops CR. CR is bad. It doesn’t measure anything useful. It scales badly. It mangles the action economy. It pushes monster design to a level of complexity that is bad for DMs and bad for fun games.

In my spare time, I rebuilt the core math behind monsters by modeling the character classes using the actual values from the material released into the creative commons license. By that, I mean that I’ve plugged in the actual damage kicked out by the actual spells and class features that characters can access. I then built a model that aggregates those values into what you can expect a single PC to dish out with each action they take.

That value allows you to build monster chassis that are designed to survive a certain number of PC actions. You can use that life span measured in player actions to figure out how many actions the monster takes before it dies. That in turn gives you a good estimate of how much damage it needs to kick out with each of its actions to materially affect the party.

For this system, the default encounter chews through 50% of a party’s resources. I chose that target because it scales easily. Halve the standard encounter to make it easy. Double it to make it deadly.

In place of CR, monsters have a level. Each creature is presented in a span of levels. For instance, a generic orc might have 1st to 4th level versions of the same stat block. Its hit points, attack bonus, and damage might change, but everything else stays the same.

Each monster is rated as a mook, a trooper, a champion, or an overlord. Two mooks are a match for one character. One trooper is worth one PC. A champion is worth two PCs. An overlord is worth four PCs. To build a typical encounter for a party of six 5th-level characters, you could use a 5th level overlord with two 5th-level troopers, or 12 mooks, or three champions, and so on.

Mooks and troopers use the standard rules for actions. Champions and overlords get access to two additional types of actions.

Counters are special actions that a champion or overlord can use at the end of a creature’s turn. Champions get their normal turn and one counter per round. Overlords get their normal turn and one counter per turn.

Counters allow those monsters to use specific attacks or actions, with one critical restriction. A counter can only target the creature whose turn it is. The DM can’t use an overlord’s counters to blast away at a single character on everyone’s turn. That limit ensures that overlords spread their damage around.

For champions, the counters I’ve designed so far tend to set up the champion’s next turn. I created an ettin armed with a trident and a net, like a giant, two-headed gladiator. His counter allowed him to restrain a character in his net, and on his main turn his trident attack had a significant damage boost against restrained targets. The net had an AC and hp to allow the rest of the party a chance to destroy it before the ettin’s main turn.

In addition, some monsters get special actions that trigger at the beginning of the round and/or at the end of the round. These special abilities are usually designed to add a level of drama and tension to a battle. For instance, a fire elemental might have a flame aura that it activates at the start of the round with a rating measured in a number of d10s. Each time it takes cold damage that round, the aura loses d10s. If its immunity to fire prevents it from taking damage, its aura gains d10s. At the end of the round, it projects sheets of flame that cause damage based on the dice in the aura. At the start of the next round, the aura resets and the process begins again. Ideally, this creates a fun encounter where the characters try to pour cold damage into the elemental while the azers that summoned it include it in the area of their fire spells to strengthen it. Do the characters go after the elemental, or try to take down the azers fueling it up?

I’m really excited about this approach and have been using it successfully in my own games. I love running dynamic encounters where a creature creates a sense of rising tension and pushes the characters to make tough choices. I might enjoy this so much that I’m writing an entire book of monsters to complement a book of new character options, all set in a new world I’ve created.

But that’s all stuff for another time. If you’re at Gen Con, enjoy the show! And as an example, here's a rough design of a troll. Haven't used this guy in a game yet, but might at a random session here at Gen Con:

Green Troll

Large giant champion, typically chaotic evil

Armor Class 13 (tough hide)

Hit Points:

· Level 5: 105

· Level 6: 115

· Level 7: 125

· Level 8: 140

Speed 50 ft., swim 50 ft.

Saves and Checks: Str +8, Con +8, Wis +6, others +4

Melee Attacks: 2 claw attacks 15 ft. reach, 1 bite attack 10 ft. reach

· Level 5 and 6: +6 attack bonus, claw 2d10 slashing, bite 4d6 piercing

· Level 7 and 8: +7 attack bonus, claw 3d10 slashing, bite 4d6 piercing

Area Attack: Noxious spittle, line 5 ft. wide, 60 ft. long

· Level 5 and 6: Dex save DC 14. Failure: 6d8 acid damage. Success: Half damage.

· Level 7 and 8: Dex save DC 15. Failure: 8d8 acid damage. Success: Half damage.

Troll Bits: If the green troll takes 15 or more damage from a single attack or effect, add 1d3 troll bits to the encounter.

Start and End of Round

· If the troll has 1 or more hit points, it gains a pool of 15 regeneration points at the start of each round. If it takes fire or acid damage, reduce that pool by that amount (minimum 0). At the end of the round, the troll regains hit points equal to the pool’s total.

Actions

· Attack: The green troll makes 2 claw and 1 bite attacks, or uses noxious spittle. If the troll hits the same target with both claw attacks, it may rend that target using its next counter.

Counter (1/round)

The troll can pick one of the following two options:

· Rend: The troll can rend a creature within 15 feet for 4d10 slashing damage. The troll can only rend a creature that it hit with both claw attacks on its last turn.

· Lunging Claw: The troll makes a single claw attack with 20 ft. reach. If it hits, the target must make a DC 16 Strength save or be knocked prone and pulled up to 20 feet closer to the troll.