I’m writing a new campaign and I need good suggestions for enemy’s for my players as this is my first time being a DM. I was gonna include your basic ones of the undead and orcs but want something more challenging than those. Any ideas anyone?
Write the encounter first and use basic monsters as a place holder. Then research different variations of the creature type and see if swapping them makes sense. The choices should be based on the campaign design. Is it a multilevel dungeon crawl, a 100 mile journey over different environments, a haunted manor, a cave that leads to a dragon, etc.
Just note that the monster type won't always result in the encounter being more or less challenging. A creautre on paper may look like a best to deal with; but you players may devise tactics that neutralizes it with ease.
Allot of these monsters have things like death effects, auras or debilitating effects which can be challenging but they are an appropriate cr. Personally I tend to just pick what I think is cool.
I'll also say that making combat encounters very challenging and very complex right out the gate might be pushing it a bit - consider keeping things simple and building up to the more challenging or difficult encounters as you grow as a DM.
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Personally, I tend to homebrew a lot of my monsters, especially in the early game. I find, in a lot of encounters, my players tactics and knowledge trivializes the encounter if set up "properly" as per CR and such. What I will do, in a LOT of cases early on, is just add HP to the enemies during combat, to bring in the element of risk. Early one, having the enemies live for even a single round longer can really up the risk level, without going too far into customizing monsters and so forth.
As they start to level, I will search for more unique monsters with oddball abilities and stuff that make them a bit more challenging than a "normal" monster for their level might be. Shadows are a great choice that can REALLY shift the balance of a fight with a couple of solid hits. I will also offer the advice to closely monitor encounters as you scale things up, in case you end up taking a bigger step toward a TPK than you intended, lol. Same as I raise monster HP to extend an encounter, monsters sometimes die earlier than originally planned if I truly miscalculate an encounter.
It gets a LOT easier balancing things after level 5 or so. Everyone's damage output goes up by a decent bit and the PC's usually have enough HP to survive a couple rounds of bad rolls. Pre level 5, a single round of great rolls for monsters and crap rolls for the PC's can often be on the brink of a TPK, without any warning.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I’m writing a new campaign and I need good suggestions for enemy’s for my players as this is my first time being a DM. I was gonna include your basic ones of the undead and orcs but want something more challenging than those. Any ideas anyone?
Write the encounter first and use basic monsters as a place holder. Then research different variations of the creature type and see if swapping them makes sense. The choices should be based on the campaign design. Is it a multilevel dungeon crawl, a 100 mile journey over different environments, a haunted manor, a cave that leads to a dragon, etc.
Just note that the monster type won't always result in the encounter being more or less challenging. A creautre on paper may look like a best to deal with; but you players may devise tactics that neutralizes it with ease.
I don't know about challenging but there's a few interesting options
Allot of these monsters have things like death effects, auras or debilitating effects which can be challenging but they are an appropriate cr. Personally I tend to just pick what I think is cool.
I'll also say that making combat encounters very challenging and very complex right out the gate might be pushing it a bit - consider keeping things simple and building up to the more challenging or difficult encounters as you grow as a DM.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Personally, I tend to homebrew a lot of my monsters, especially in the early game. I find, in a lot of encounters, my players tactics and knowledge trivializes the encounter if set up "properly" as per CR and such. What I will do, in a LOT of cases early on, is just add HP to the enemies during combat, to bring in the element of risk. Early one, having the enemies live for even a single round longer can really up the risk level, without going too far into customizing monsters and so forth.
As they start to level, I will search for more unique monsters with oddball abilities and stuff that make them a bit more challenging than a "normal" monster for their level might be. Shadows are a great choice that can REALLY shift the balance of a fight with a couple of solid hits. I will also offer the advice to closely monitor encounters as you scale things up, in case you end up taking a bigger step toward a TPK than you intended, lol. Same as I raise monster HP to extend an encounter, monsters sometimes die earlier than originally planned if I truly miscalculate an encounter.
It gets a LOT easier balancing things after level 5 or so. Everyone's damage output goes up by a decent bit and the PC's usually have enough HP to survive a couple rounds of bad rolls. Pre level 5, a single round of great rolls for monsters and crap rolls for the PC's can often be on the brink of a TPK, without any warning.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I wouldn't try to find something super challenging right now. I would pick something that I think is cool and use that.