I'm planning out my encounters for the next few games and one of them takes place in a maze so I thought what better than to pick the low hanging fruit by adding Minotaurs throughout. Now, my group of four second-level characters can take on a single CR 3 Minotaur, (At least the encounter math adds up that way) but I'd like to have a few possible encounters where there are more than one of these beasts so I'm looking at scaling down the creature stats to something challenging without flat out neutering (no, pun) the creature.
I've gone through the DMG and reviewed the sections on creating your creature to get some guidelines but I was looking to see if more experienced DMs have any recommendations what to do when you are up-scaling or down-scaling a creature. It is just a matter of lowering the creature hit points or do you get more granular and eliminate abilities and adjusting stat blocks.
I know this question can easily fit into the "Do whatever works for you" category but I thought to ask for some insight.
I'm not sure if these are best practices are not, but off the top of my head, here are few knobs to turn.
To make things easier:
lower AC on the monster (it's fun hitting things)
lower saves on the monster (it's fun to have spell effects go off)
reduce duration of monster statuses and lower the saves required on their effects (the spider poison only lasts 1 turn instead of forcing a high DC save each round)
lower monster max damage (I generally keep monster number of attacks the same)
lower monster health (you can do this one first if you are trying to speed up an encounter)
To make things more difficult:
add hp
add lair actions/reactions
add minions or environmental effects
let the monster make use of terrain (and swimming/flying etc)
let the monsters be more likely to retreat early, or signal reinforcements
In your case, for fun level 2 encounters, or downscaling to that, I'd still keep a lot of creature abilities, because they can be cool effects, but reduce their damage and duration so that while you make characters concerned, you aren't instantly TPKing a party. Some of your minotaurs could be weakened, or have one horn, or have fought amongst themselves after being in the maze alone for so long, etc and now the maze has a story of its own. I also like medusas in mazes :)
Hope that helps.
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I'm not sure if these are best practices are not, but off the top of my head, here are few knobs to turn.
To make things easier:
lower AC on the monster (it's fun hitting things)
lower saves on the monster (it's fun to have spell effects go off)
reduce duration of monster statuses and lower the saves required on their effects (the spider poison only lasts 1 turn instead of forcing a high DC save each round)
lower monster max damage (I generally keep monster number of attacks the same)
lower monster health (you can do this one first if you are trying to speed up an encounter)
To make things more difficult:
add hp
add lair actions/reactions
add minions or environmental effects
let the monster make use of terrain (and swimming/flying etc)
let the monsters be more likely to retreat early, or signal reinforcements
In your case, for fun level 2 encounters, or downscaling to that, I'd still keep a lot of creature abilities, because they can be cool effects, but reduce their damage and duration so that while you make characters concerned, you aren't instantly TPKing a party. Some of your minotaurs could be weakened, or have one horn, or have fought amongst themselves after being in the maze alone for so long, etc and now the maze has a story of its own. I also like medusas in mazes :)
Hope that helps.
Thanks for the suggestions! As he Medusas in the maze recommendations. Yeah, she's in there too using the same downscaling theory I'll be applying to the Minotaurs since the fruit was hanging low and it's good once why no pick at it again.
One thing that I do that tends to work is I adjust the damage that the monsters can do. Instead of 1d6+2, I either make it 1d6 or 1d6+4 depending on if the encounter is too hard or too easy. It’s a subtle change but for me it’s always worked.
In general, you can split one monster into two by reducing damage and hp by 30-40%. For a reduced threat minotaur, that implies hp 46-53, damage 10-12; say, reduce damage from 2d to 1d, size to Medium, HP 7d8+21 (53).
I'm planning out my encounters for the next few games and one of them takes place in a maze so I thought what better than to pick the low hanging fruit by adding Minotaurs throughout. Now, my group of four second-level characters can take on a single CR 3 Minotaur, (At least the encounter math adds up that way) but I'd like to have a few possible encounters where there are more than one of these beasts so I'm looking at scaling down the creature stats to something challenging without flat out neutering (no, pun) the creature.
I've gone through the DMG and reviewed the sections on creating your creature to get some guidelines but I was looking to see if more experienced DMs have any recommendations what to do when you are up-scaling or down-scaling a creature. It is just a matter of lowering the creature hit points or do you get more granular and eliminate abilities and adjusting stat blocks.
I know this question can easily fit into the "Do whatever works for you" category but I thought to ask for some insight.
I'm not sure if these are best practices are not, but off the top of my head, here are few knobs to turn.
To make things easier:
To make things more difficult:
In your case, for fun level 2 encounters, or downscaling to that, I'd still keep a lot of creature abilities, because they can be cool effects, but reduce their damage and duration so that while you make characters concerned, you aren't instantly TPKing a party. Some of your minotaurs could be weakened, or have one horn, or have fought amongst themselves after being in the maze alone for so long, etc and now the maze has a story of its own. I also like medusas in mazes :)
Hope that helps.
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
Thanks for the suggestions! As he Medusas in the maze recommendations. Yeah, she's in there too using the same downscaling theory I'll be applying to the Minotaurs since the fruit was hanging low and it's good once why no pick at it again.
One thing that I do that tends to work is I adjust the damage that the monsters can do. Instead of 1d6+2, I either make it 1d6 or 1d6+4 depending on if the encounter is too hard or too easy. It’s a subtle change but for me it’s always worked.
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In general, you can split one monster into two by reducing damage and hp by 30-40%. For a reduced threat minotaur, that implies hp 46-53, damage 10-12; say, reduce damage from 2d to 1d, size to Medium, HP 7d8+21 (53).
minotaur