I have recently dipped my toe into homebrewing a complete campaign and having quite a blast doing it. However, I am running into a little bit of a roadblock. I have been successful so far in tuning the combat encounter between the players level and the monster's CR. The main issue is that I do not want to rehash the same monsters for multiple encounters. The party can fight goblins for so many fights before it becomes tedious.
So my question is, is there a cheat sheet or some guidance on how to scale a low-level monster for higher level PC's and vice versa, scaling a high-level monster for a lower level group? For instance, I am looking to have one of the demon lords as my "final boss" but do not think that the party will hang around/level to a high enough level to make the encounter pliable so how would I scale down said demon lord to an acceptable level to challenge the party but not totally destroy the party?
Low level monsters are fine for higher level groups, just add more of them, scaling things down is considerably more difficult. Use the guidelines for creating creatures to adjust damage, attack bonus/DC, hp, and AC for different CRs.
Another trick to keep monsters fresh is to re-skin them. You could use the goblin stat block with a different description and a bit different presentation.
A creature of appropriate challenge for your group could be re-skinned as a demon (lord0. Use the name and description of your desired demon lord and the stat block of a lesser powered monster.
Low level monsters can be beefed up by giving them a stronger monster as a leader, or "pets" of some sort. I find it easier to make an encounter tougher than to go the other way. Adding a spell caster is another way of making an encounter more difficult.
It happens to all of us that an encounter we thought was going to be tough ends up a cake walk and one we thought was going to be easy turns into a near TPK. Try not to let this throw you when it happens.
In terms of scaling up monster, you can totally just use an NPC stat block (like mage or assassin) and add size, alignment, senses, languages, and racial features like a goblin's nimble escape (Volo's Guide even mentions this to make an enemy goblin wild magic sorc).
Rise of Tiamat [spoilers, I guess] has section on how to weaken Taimat so as to NOT totally destroy your PCs. That might be a good reference.
Hey fellow DM's,
I have recently dipped my toe into homebrewing a complete campaign and having quite a blast doing it. However, I am running into a little bit of a roadblock. I have been successful so far in tuning the combat encounter between the players level and the monster's CR. The main issue is that I do not want to rehash the same monsters for multiple encounters. The party can fight goblins for so many fights before it becomes tedious.
So my question is, is there a cheat sheet or some guidance on how to scale a low-level monster for higher level PC's and vice versa, scaling a high-level monster for a lower level group? For instance, I am looking to have one of the demon lords as my "final boss" but do not think that the party will hang around/level to a high enough level to make the encounter pliable so how would I scale down said demon lord to an acceptable level to challenge the party but not totally destroy the party?
Low level monsters are fine for higher level groups, just add more of them, scaling things down is considerably more difficult. Use the guidelines for creating creatures to adjust damage, attack bonus/DC, hp, and AC for different CRs.
Another trick to keep monsters fresh is to re-skin them. You could use the goblin stat block with a different description and a bit different presentation.
A creature of appropriate challenge for your group could be re-skinned as a demon (lord0. Use the name and description of your desired demon lord and the stat block of a lesser powered monster.
Low level monsters can be beefed up by giving them a stronger monster as a leader, or "pets" of some sort. I find it easier to make an encounter tougher than to go the other way. Adding a spell caster is another way of making an encounter more difficult.
It happens to all of us that an encounter we thought was going to be tough ends up a cake walk and one we thought was going to be easy turns into a near TPK. Try not to let this throw you when it happens.
In terms of scaling up monster, you can totally just use an NPC stat block (like mage or assassin) and add size, alignment, senses, languages, and racial features like a goblin's nimble escape (Volo's Guide even mentions this to make an enemy goblin wild magic sorc).
Rise of Tiamat [spoilers, I guess] has section on how to weaken Taimat so as to NOT totally destroy your PCs. That might be a good reference.