I always struggle when I have to come for the stats of a powerful enemy or foe. In my campaigns, most enemies, allies and neutrals are humans, even the most prominent ones. My problem is with coming for stats for this powerful humanoids. The monster manual offers some strong humanoid monsters, such as the knight and the gladiator, but they only work for low level campaigns and there isn't even much variety (for example, I couldn't find any model to represent a powerful ranger). I guess that the most common option is to generate a character as if they were a PC, but there are many reasons for me to dislike that option:
Automatic characters generators don't work really well and doing by hand is a lot of work, as I usually have a lot of powerful NPCs and I don't want to pause the session for creating one if they want to attack any.
I would have to learn to use many completely new characters, which can be a huge problem in high level campaigns.
It is really hard to balance a character that does enough in his only turn to be a threat to the party while not being able to oneshot them with each attack.
My idea to solve my problems was to create monsters (what the manual calls a monster) by merging several monsters into one. That way I would be able to create quick monsters, calculate easily the CR (has if the monsters where separate) but for my players they would seem as a really powerful foe. My rules for this combined monsters are:
All the less monsters that compose this greater monster share the same space.
All the lesser monsters have separate initiative, so, in the eyes of the players, the greater monster would have several turns each round.
If the players attack the greater monster, the lesser monster that was last to take it's turn will be the one used to calculate the AC and the resistances and the one to receive the damage. If he dies, the greater monster would loose lesser monster, making the illusion into the players that with the damage they do to the greater monster, he becomes weaker.
Spells and anything that affects one target only affect one of the monsters of the greater monster. For example, if they cast true poly-morph, the greater monster would be transformed only until the turn of the next lesser monster and would become poly-morph again if the poly-morph lesser monster took it's turn again (in the eyes of the players it would be as it was resisting the spell with mixed results).
Each lesser monster cannot move if the total movement of the greater monster this round is more than the lesser monster's maximum movement.
This was a very basic overview of my concept but, still I think it needs a lot of feedback. The main problems I detected was that players can be surprised and fell cheated if their spell that are supposed to be good against one target doesn't work properly. Also, I don't know how to balance area damage, if they only do damage to the active lesser monster they would be very bad in fight that in reality is against many enemies. If they can affect all lesser monsters, in the other hand, they are OP. Currently my ideas for this greater monsters are the following:
A extremely powerful ranger: 12 scouts + 1 Assassin
A veteran savage ranger: 2 scouts + 1 berserker
My final boss for a high level campaign (a godly wizard that gave his body to a demon): Pit fiend + 2 Archmages
The Encounter Builder too is kind of cool. Assuming 5 characters in the party:
2 scouts +1 berserker = Hard at level 3
2 scouts +1 assassin = Hard at level 7
1 archmage +1 Pit fiend = Hard at level 19
2 archmages +1 Pit fiend = Deadly all the way to level 20
In the end, I see one problem. The players will notice that the thing they are fighting gets an impossible number of actions per turn. There are a variety of tactics in a boss fight with minions, and it's all about who you target first. You have rules for taking down the various parts, and they will be very frustrated to see all their spells fail or only partially work for no apparent reason, because usually you either want to take out the weaker guys first, so it's easier when you take down the boss, and that's why bosses have minions in the first place. Combining them makes it impossible for the players to use tactics at all, but the boss still can. As soon as the players notice what they are dealing with, they will default to area of effect abilities, and you already know the risks for that.
I keep editing my post, but on consideration, maybe the impossible number of actions thing isn't so bad as all that. It's only one guy. 3 actions, 1 bonus action, 1 reaction, so unless you give the Boss levels in Fighter that's pretty much it, but a level 20 fighter gets three swings each attack, can do this twice per action, and do this twice with Action Surge.
I can't tell you much else. It's a neat concept, so I hope it works out for you.
Generate a normal PC using the encounter builder in one tab, at whatever level you want the NPC to be, taking an ability score increase rather than feats. Then open a new tab and the Create a Monster. Transfer the stats across from the character sheet to the monster builder, but don't try to put in all of their special abilities: stick to those things that increase damage and defences, and then choose any of the things that you think really stand out about the character and turn them into simplified abilities. Also, add 100 hit points, because otherwise they will probably go down too fast.
This doesn't really take very long, and is certainly worth putting the time into.
The issue you have really is just that humans are only so powerful, and the human will max out, unless they ascend to godhood or some other transformation (technically speaking Orcus used to be a human). Read through all of the books and modules and the most powerful badguys that are still humans/elves max at CR 12 to CR 15. That is where strength of numbers and minions come in. A good bad guy has their right hand man, and maybe their favorite assassins, and both of them have crews. Got to get through the crew to get to the final battle.
There is some issues with building your own NPC bad guys, they take time, but even at high level, as CR is only about 1/2 to 2/3 of a level. So using an Archmage as examble (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/archmage) with a CR 12 he is about a level 18 caster, which is pretty impressive for a human, not a lot of humans get that high. So you can build your own caster, or just reuse the Archmage and switch out some spells for flavor. A powerful ranger would use Archer (CR5, about
If you want to just give some neat skills though for flavor, just give them the skill, that's not too game breaking. But taking 2 levels of fighter or rogue is not going to be that beneficial to a level 18 or 20 wizard. Combining features though isn't an issue, if something is neat for flavor, just give them that feature as long as it makes story sense. Making 2 knife attacks is kinda mute when he can just dominate your own fighter/barbarian, and then cast power word kill next round. Don't overdo your action economy to where your players cry foul. Even non rule lawyers get antsy if the BG is making 4 actions in a single turn and they are not being reactions.
I would suggest then adding a right hand muscle and some assassins, an assassins' assassinate feature can drop a PC pretty fast if they get the surprise drop, Add a name and use the Champion or Blackguard from Volo's Guide. As that is going to be about a level 15 fighter, or Warlord for a level 18 fighter, and then throw in some assassins' also working to help protect your BBEG. If you want a high level ranger look up Drow Shadowblade and remove sunlight sensitivity for a level 16 or 17 ranger. And a smart BBEG is not going to just slug it out w/ a powerful group of adventurers, he got to be that high level and powerful by being smart, make them smart. A powerful archmage could have multiple iron golems serving as guards, but hide along the way a wand of golem activation so your party could turn them off, or maybe the archmage has a Pit Fiend or Balor in his service (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/pit-fiend, https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/balor). Now we have some high CR monsters in the group and a reason to be there, and likely to last several rounds. And it can make sense them hiding in the shadows of the lair. If the PCs battled through the ranks to the final battle, It can be a brutal battle.
I always struggle when I have to come for the stats of a powerful enemy or foe. In my campaigns, most enemies, allies and neutrals are humans, even the most prominent ones. My problem is with coming for stats for this powerful humanoids. The monster manual offers some strong humanoid monsters, such as the knight and the gladiator, but they only work for low level campaigns and there isn't even much variety (for example, I couldn't find any model to represent a powerful ranger). I guess that the most common option is to generate a character as if they were a PC, but there are many reasons for me to dislike that option:
Automatic characters generators don't work really well and doing by hand is a lot of work, as I usually have a lot of powerful NPCs and I don't want to pause the session for creating one if they want to attack any.
I would have to learn to use many completely new characters, which can be a huge problem in high level campaigns.
It is really hard to balance a character that does enough in his only turn to be a threat to the party while not being able to oneshot them with each attack.
Finding foes to throw at your party is challenging when you limit yourself to the humanoid subset. It becomes near impossible when you then further restrict it to a Ranger archetype. If I scout the listings here at DDB, about the highest CR statblock for humanoids come in as Drow, Githyanki, or NPC statblocks. And then, if you are further restricted to just the MM, your selection drops drastically to the Archmage and Assassin.
My first suggestion would be to reskin other creature types into a humanoid form - if you were to switch to a re-skinned celestial, you then have CR 16, 21 and 23 "monsters" the latter two have legendary actions already baked in. Reskinning the Monstrosity creature type is a little more challenging as the bipedal body type is not there. Or, take a gander at the undead type, bipedal body type, some interesting mechanics to implement in your BBEG. For me, this is the quickest way to "find" a tailor-made monster for my campaigns. If you have access to VGtM and MToF, your options blossom.
My idea to solve my problems was to create monsters (what the manual calls a monster) by merging several monsters into one. That way I would be able to create quick monsters, calculate easily the CR (has if the monsters where separate) but for my players they would seem as a really powerful foe. My rules for this combined monsters are:
All the less monsters that compose this greater monster share the same space.
All the lesser monsters have separate initiative, so, in the eyes of the players, the greater monster would have several turns each round.
If the players attack the greater monster, the lesser monster that was last to take it's turn will be the one used to calculate the AC and the resistances and the one to receive the damage. If he dies, the greater monster would loose lesser monster, making the illusion into the players that with the damage they do to the greater monster, he becomes weaker.
Spells and anything that affects one target only affect one of the monsters of the greater monster. For example, if they cast true poly-morph, the greater monster would be transformed only until the turn of the next lesser monster and would become poly-morph again if the poly-morph lesser monster took it's turn again (in the eyes of the players it would be as it was resisting the spell with mixed results).
Each lesser monster cannot move if the total movement of the greater monster this round is more than the lesser monster's maximum movement.
Some of this feels a bit complicated to run at the table as a single entity. Your entry about polymorph really seals the deal for me here. Having to toggle conditions on, and off, during a combat encounter seems a touch hard to track. Especially if the party throws multiple conditions down. If your monster were several monsters, that's different. Each monster's condition stays put, but this would have the potential effect of flickering the condition on-and-off dependent upon what "part" of the creature is acting. Your movement entry implies that there is now a mechanic for determining how far the greater monster can move separate from the lesser monsters and this determines whether the lesser monsters can move respective of the greater monster?
Does the greater monster get more than one turn in the initiative order, or just the ability to take actions outside of its own turn? I'm aware that a group of monsters could have their own individual turn, but thematically that's not what's happening. I could see how the players might suspect some DM shenanigans if they come up against a single BBEG that has three full turns during the round.
This was a very basic overview of my concept but, still I think it needs a lot of feedback. The main problems I detected was that players can be surprised and fell cheated if their spell that are supposed to be good against one target doesn't work properly. Also, I don't know how to balance area damage, if they only do damage to the active lesser monster they would be very bad in fight that in reality is against many enemies. If they can affect all lesser monsters, in the other hand, they are OP. Currently my ideas for this greater monsters are the following:
A extremely powerful ranger: 12 scouts + 1 Assassin
A veteran savage ranger: 2 scouts + 1 berserker
My final boss for a high level campaign (a godly wizard that gave his body to a demon): Pit fiend + 2 Archmages
I would agree that this is an interesting concept and that it does need some massaging to make it run well. It's not without it's merits, but as it is presented, this mechanically provides too many questions on how to interact with it. The only alternative that I can offer is to take the individual components of the creatures that you are combining and make them one foe. Readjust the CR as best you can with the help of the DMG. (And yes, I'm aware that many out there don't think this is any help at all...don't fight me.) Take some time, if you have any, to test it out to see just how it drives. See if it needs a little more punch, or maybe waaay less. Not enough HP to survive 3-5 rounds or not down to half after the party has a good full swing at it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Greetings fellow DMs.
I always struggle when I have to come for the stats of a powerful enemy or foe. In my campaigns, most enemies, allies and neutrals are humans, even the most prominent ones. My problem is with coming for stats for this powerful humanoids. The monster manual offers some strong humanoid monsters, such as the knight and the gladiator, but they only work for low level campaigns and there isn't even much variety (for example, I couldn't find any model to represent a powerful ranger). I guess that the most common option is to generate a character as if they were a PC, but there are many reasons for me to dislike that option:
My idea to solve my problems was to create monsters (what the manual calls a monster) by merging several monsters into one. That way I would be able to create quick monsters, calculate easily the CR (has if the monsters where separate) but for my players they would seem as a really powerful foe.
My rules for this combined monsters are:
This was a very basic overview of my concept but, still I think it needs a lot of feedback. The main problems I detected was that players can be surprised and fell cheated if their spell that are supposed to be good against one target doesn't work properly. Also, I don't know how to balance area damage, if they only do damage to the active lesser monster they would be very bad in fight that in reality is against many enemies. If they can affect all lesser monsters, in the other hand, they are OP.
Currently my ideas for this greater monsters are the following:
The Encounter Builder too is kind of cool. Assuming 5 characters in the party:
In the end, I see one problem. The players will notice that the thing they are fighting gets an impossible number of actions per turn. There are a variety of tactics in a boss fight with minions, and it's all about who you target first. You have rules for taking down the various parts, and they will be very frustrated to see all their spells fail or only partially work for no apparent reason, because usually you either want to take out the weaker guys first, so it's easier when you take down the boss, and that's why bosses have minions in the first place. Combining them makes it impossible for the players to use tactics at all, but the boss still can. As soon as the players notice what they are dealing with, they will default to area of effect abilities, and you already know the risks for that.
I keep editing my post, but on consideration, maybe the impossible number of actions thing isn't so bad as all that. It's only one guy. 3 actions, 1 bonus action, 1 reaction, so unless you give the Boss levels in Fighter that's pretty much it, but a level 20 fighter gets three swings each attack, can do this twice per action, and do this twice with Action Surge.
I can't tell you much else. It's a neat concept, so I hope it works out for you.
<Insert clever signature here>
Generate a normal PC using the encounter builder in one tab, at whatever level you want the NPC to be, taking an ability score increase rather than feats. Then open a new tab and the Create a Monster. Transfer the stats across from the character sheet to the monster builder, but don't try to put in all of their special abilities: stick to those things that increase damage and defences, and then choose any of the things that you think really stand out about the character and turn them into simplified abilities. Also, add 100 hit points, because otherwise they will probably go down too fast.
This doesn't really take very long, and is certainly worth putting the time into.
The issue you have really is just that humans are only so powerful, and the human will max out, unless they ascend to godhood or some other transformation (technically speaking Orcus used to be a human). Read through all of the books and modules and the most powerful badguys that are still humans/elves max at CR 12 to CR 15. That is where strength of numbers and minions come in. A good bad guy has their right hand man, and maybe their favorite assassins, and both of them have crews. Got to get through the crew to get to the final battle.
There is some issues with building your own NPC bad guys, they take time, but even at high level, as CR is only about 1/2 to 2/3 of a level. So using an Archmage as examble (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/archmage) with a CR 12 he is about a level 18 caster, which is pretty impressive for a human, not a lot of humans get that high. So you can build your own caster, or just reuse the Archmage and switch out some spells for flavor. A powerful ranger would use Archer (CR5, about
If you want to just give some neat skills though for flavor, just give them the skill, that's not too game breaking. But taking 2 levels of fighter or rogue is not going to be that beneficial to a level 18 or 20 wizard. Combining features though isn't an issue, if something is neat for flavor, just give them that feature as long as it makes story sense. Making 2 knife attacks is kinda mute when he can just dominate your own fighter/barbarian, and then cast power word kill next round. Don't overdo your action economy to where your players cry foul. Even non rule lawyers get antsy if the BG is making 4 actions in a single turn and they are not being reactions.
I would suggest then adding a right hand muscle and some assassins, an assassins' assassinate feature can drop a PC pretty fast if they get the surprise drop, Add a name and use the Champion or Blackguard from Volo's Guide. As that is going to be about a level 15 fighter, or Warlord for a level 18 fighter, and then throw in some assassins' also working to help protect your BBEG. If you want a high level ranger look up Drow Shadowblade and remove sunlight sensitivity for a level 16 or 17 ranger. And a smart BBEG is not going to just slug it out w/ a powerful group of adventurers, he got to be that high level and powerful by being smart, make them smart. A powerful archmage could have multiple iron golems serving as guards, but hide along the way a wand of golem activation so your party could turn them off, or maybe the archmage has a Pit Fiend or Balor in his service (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/pit-fiend, https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/balor). Now we have some high CR monsters in the group and a reason to be there, and likely to last several rounds. And it can make sense them hiding in the shadows of the lair. If the PCs battled through the ranks to the final battle, It can be a brutal battle.
Finding foes to throw at your party is challenging when you limit yourself to the humanoid subset. It becomes near impossible when you then further restrict it to a Ranger archetype. If I scout the listings here at DDB, about the highest CR statblock for humanoids come in as Drow, Githyanki, or NPC statblocks. And then, if you are further restricted to just the MM, your selection drops drastically to the Archmage and Assassin.
My first suggestion would be to reskin other creature types into a humanoid form - if you were to switch to a re-skinned celestial, you then have CR 16, 21 and 23 "monsters" the latter two have legendary actions already baked in. Reskinning the Monstrosity creature type is a little more challenging as the bipedal body type is not there. Or, take a gander at the undead type, bipedal body type, some interesting mechanics to implement in your BBEG. For me, this is the quickest way to "find" a tailor-made monster for my campaigns. If you have access to VGtM and MToF, your options blossom.
Some of this feels a bit complicated to run at the table as a single entity. Your entry about polymorph really seals the deal for me here. Having to toggle conditions on, and off, during a combat encounter seems a touch hard to track. Especially if the party throws multiple conditions down. If your monster were several monsters, that's different. Each monster's condition stays put, but this would have the potential effect of flickering the condition on-and-off dependent upon what "part" of the creature is acting. Your movement entry implies that there is now a mechanic for determining how far the greater monster can move separate from the lesser monsters and this determines whether the lesser monsters can move respective of the greater monster?
Does the greater monster get more than one turn in the initiative order, or just the ability to take actions outside of its own turn? I'm aware that a group of monsters could have their own individual turn, but thematically that's not what's happening. I could see how the players might suspect some DM shenanigans if they come up against a single BBEG that has three full turns during the round.
I would agree that this is an interesting concept and that it does need some massaging to make it run well. It's not without it's merits, but as it is presented, this mechanically provides too many questions on how to interact with it. The only alternative that I can offer is to take the individual components of the creatures that you are combining and make them one foe. Readjust the CR as best you can with the help of the DMG. (And yes, I'm aware that many out there don't think this is any help at all...don't fight me.) Take some time, if you have any, to test it out to see just how it drives. See if it needs a little more punch, or maybe waaay less. Not enough HP to survive 3-5 rounds or not down to half after the party has a good full swing at it.
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain - Innocents Abroad