I’m a first time DM and I wanna make good battles for my PCs the right way but I don’t know how to properly equip enemies with moves and abilities. HELP!
Generally, there’s stats for all kinds of monsters, including humanoid roles like Druids and Mages, Assassins, and Knights. Stuff like that. There’s likely a monster already built for combat for any NPC you want to turn into an enemy. Even if you need to refine it a bit, you at least have a template to work with. You can always swap out a spell here and there, or a primary weapon. “This guy’s an axe murderer. His whole thing is axes. The longsword action is now a battleaxe.” Then you change the dice you roll on attacks accordingly.
For the first couple of encounters/levels, I would suggest going easy on yourself and the players by just picking some existing enemies from the book. If the PCs cruise through them too quickly, you can always add a couple more goblins into the mix (saying they were holding back or sneaking around to attack from a different direction). In my first few sessions I definitely thought combat would move slower and it took me some time to get used to how quickly enemies (or PCs!) can get taken out.
Use monsters from the books - they come premade with abilities and stats. "Monsters" includes other humanoids like guards and animals like wolves. Use the encounter building rules to measure the difficulty of the encounters.
The difference between npc writeups and PC writeups is that the NPC writeups usually eliminate some of the complicated stuff PCs have access to, plus they tend to have lower stats. For example, consider the NPC priest when compared to a 5th level PC cleric.
Stats are significantly worse.
3 cantrips and 7 spells known (PC would have 4 cantrips, 9 spells, 6 domain spells)
No domain powers
Does not seem to have Channel Divinity
There's nothing saying you can't build NPCs the same way as PCs, but doing so will be a considerable headache to run, and they tend towards the glass cannon, which doesn't make for the best encounters.
One lesson to learn from how the books present enemies, is that as Pantagruel said above, they have less complicated stuff... Such as fewer spells. The reason for this is simple: PCs need to live through many encounters and face many different situations, including non-combat ones, over the long term. So the party cleric will have to do a lot more than attack, defend, and heal for one battle. The evil priest will only have to live (usually) for one encounter, so he doesn't need as many spells and other abilities. Odds are he's never going to use them. Matt Colville once estimated that the average length of a boss monster is about 4 rounds. So having more than say 4 regular and 4 bonus action spells won't do much for most NPCs anyway.
So again the lesson here is, knowing this, just give them the abilities they will need. That priest example posted above, provides you with an NPC that has multiple combat options and will provide a reasonable opponent for even-level players, but avoids detailing elements of the NPC that will, in a single encounter, almost never come up.
Now, if you are going to make an ongoing NPC, say a wizard in a tower who serves as a mentor to the party for many adventures, then 100%, make these people up as full characters. But you don't need to do that for a guy who's only going to show up once.
As others have stated, use the prewritten stuff from the PHB, DMG, MM, and other sources. Just keep in mind that those are only the “average” versions of those characters. If there are, say, 1 million bandits all over your world (that’s probably a low estimate figuring that your worlds population is roughly analogous to IRL) they will obviously not all have the same stats, but like BioWizard stated (BW is wise, I suspect a +4 or better personal Wis mod) they will only exist on paper/in your head until people roll initiative, and then their life expectancy drops to 0 in usually under 20 seconds (three rounds = 18sec) so does it matter? Half the time when I roll damage for minions I drop the dice, pretend to care, and just use the number from the book because about 40% of the time that’s what I rolled anyway (yay statistics!). Change whatever you like to suit your needs, but WotC has done the hard work already, use it. Stand on the shoulders of giants as they say.
I will ecco BW’s advice, if you haven’t checked out Matt Colville’s Running the Game series on YouTube you should. I started D&Ding a long time ago, and I still learn from him and rewatch some of his videos when I need to.
like BioWizard stated (BW is wise, I suspect a +4 or better personal Wis mod)
Ladies and gentlemen, this is me rolling a nat 20 on my Deception check and IamSposta failing the opposing Insight roll. :)
Everybody, don’t fall for it. This is their true attempt at deception. I could roll a nat1 on my (Persuasion) check and still be proven correct if you read BW’s other posts.
Ether that or they (he/she/what the heck is your preferred pronoun anyway) secretly have Expertise: Advice on better rollplaying.
I’m a first time DM and I wanna make good battles for my PCs the right way but I don’t know how to properly equip enemies with moves and abilities. HELP!
Generally, there’s stats for all kinds of monsters, including humanoid roles like Druids and Mages, Assassins, and Knights. Stuff like that. There’s likely a monster already built for combat for any NPC you want to turn into an enemy. Even if you need to refine it a bit, you at least have a template to work with. You can always swap out a spell here and there, or a primary weapon. “This guy’s an axe murderer. His whole thing is axes. The longsword action is now a battleaxe.” Then you change the dice you roll on attacks accordingly.
For the first couple of encounters/levels, I would suggest going easy on yourself and the players by just picking some existing enemies from the book. If the PCs cruise through them too quickly, you can always add a couple more goblins into the mix (saying they were holding back or sneaking around to attack from a different direction). In my first few sessions I definitely thought combat would move slower and it took me some time to get used to how quickly enemies (or PCs!) can get taken out.
Use monsters from the books - they come premade with abilities and stats. "Monsters" includes other humanoids like guards and animals like wolves. Use the encounter building rules to measure the difficulty of the encounters.
GOD BLESS
The difference between npc writeups and PC writeups is that the NPC writeups usually eliminate some of the complicated stuff PCs have access to, plus they tend to have lower stats. For example, consider the NPC priest when compared to a 5th level PC cleric.
There's nothing saying you can't build NPCs the same way as PCs, but doing so will be a considerable headache to run, and they tend towards the glass cannon, which doesn't make for the best encounters.
One lesson to learn from how the books present enemies, is that as Pantagruel said above, they have less complicated stuff... Such as fewer spells. The reason for this is simple: PCs need to live through many encounters and face many different situations, including non-combat ones, over the long term. So the party cleric will have to do a lot more than attack, defend, and heal for one battle. The evil priest will only have to live (usually) for one encounter, so he doesn't need as many spells and other abilities. Odds are he's never going to use them. Matt Colville once estimated that the average length of a boss monster is about 4 rounds. So having more than say 4 regular and 4 bonus action spells won't do much for most NPCs anyway.
So again the lesson here is, knowing this, just give them the abilities they will need. That priest example posted above, provides you with an NPC that has multiple combat options and will provide a reasonable opponent for even-level players, but avoids detailing elements of the NPC that will, in a single encounter, almost never come up.
Now, if you are going to make an ongoing NPC, say a wizard in a tower who serves as a mentor to the party for many adventures, then 100%, make these people up as full characters. But you don't need to do that for a guy who's only going to show up once.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
As others have stated, use the prewritten stuff from the PHB, DMG, MM, and other sources. Just keep in mind that those are only the “average” versions of those characters. If there are, say, 1 million bandits all over your world (that’s probably a low estimate figuring that your worlds population is roughly analogous to IRL) they will obviously not all have the same stats, but like BioWizard stated (BW is wise, I suspect a +4 or better personal Wis mod) they will only exist on paper/in your head until people roll initiative, and then their life expectancy drops to 0 in usually under 20 seconds (three rounds = 18sec) so does it matter? Half the time when I roll damage for minions I drop the dice, pretend to care, and just use the number from the book because about 40% of the time that’s what I rolled anyway (yay statistics!). Change whatever you like to suit your needs, but WotC has done the hard work already, use it. Stand on the shoulders of giants as they say.
I will ecco BW’s advice, if you haven’t checked out Matt Colville’s Running the Game series on YouTube you should. I started D&Ding a long time ago, and I still learn from him and rewatch some of his videos when I need to.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Ladies and gentlemen, this is me rolling a nat 20 on my Deception check and IamSposta failing the opposing Insight roll. :)
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Everybody, don’t fall for it. This is their true attempt at deception. I could roll a nat1 on my (Persuasion) check and still be proven correct if you read BW’s other posts.
Ether that or they (he/she/what the heck is your preferred pronoun anyway) secretly have Expertise: Advice on better rollplaying.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting