Coming up with new and engaging combat encounters can be an ongoing challenge for Dungeon Masters of all experience levels. Challenge ratings and aids such as the Encounters tool can help DMs craft balanced combat options suited for your player levels. But sometimes the dynamics of a party build or play style make a combat too easy or too difficult for a specific group, even if you’re in the accurate CR range.

If you struggle with making combat encounters that are too complex, too time-consuming, or conversely ones that feel too simple, the creature roles concept from MCDM’s Flee, Mortals! may be exactly what you need.

• What Are Creature Roles?
• A Quick Guide to Creature Roles
• Why I Love Creature Roles

What Are Creature Roles?

In a nutshell, creature roles are an alternative approach to crafting combat encounters that distill different enemies into the core function that they play in combat. A DM can think about which creature roles would present the best challenge for the player characters or in the current environment and pick some appropriate creatures from the list.

It’s similar to the way player parties might divide into different roles based on class or subclass choices. Your average Sorcerer isn’t likely to jump into the fray looking to make melee attacks, and typically a Barbarian isn’t lingering on the sidelines with ranged weapons. Creature roles are a way of setting up enemies in combat encounters in this style.

A Quick Guide to Creature Roles

So what are the roles that your monsters can divide into? Here are short breakdowns of all the types of creature roles presented in Flee, Mortals! plus examples of monsters that would fit those roles.

New Spins on Familiar Creatures

You may notice some monster names you’re familiar with but features and abilities that surprise you. Flee, Mortals! has reimagined many of the classic creatures from the 2014 Monster Manual and resources like Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse to work alongside their optional combat rules.

Ambusher Creatures

Ambushers are creatures that can become Invisible or are proficient in sneaking and hiding to make calculated attacks. They thrive in spaces where cover is abundant or when paired with other creature roles that make good distractions.

Goblin assassin: Can use its Sneak ability to Hide as a Bonus Action and create a 10-foot-radius sphere of magical darkness once per day with its Summon Shadows ability. The goblin assassin can see through this darkness.

Artillery Creatures

Artillery creatures excel at ranged combat. An artillery creature will try to move out of the range of their enemies’ movement or melee attack range and position themselves within distance to make their own strategic ranged attacks. They often provide cover fire for their allies in combat.

Skeleton: Their Bone Bow attack counts as magical and, on a hit, halves any Hit Points their targets regain before the start of the skeleton’s next turn.

Brute Creatures

As the name implies, a brute creature is known for its powerful melee attacks. Their attacks have a high success rate, and they hurt when they hit. They usually have a lot of Hit Points, too, so a brute is often the immediate threat that must be handled while other enemy creatures position themselves more strategically around the battlefield.

Hill giant clobberer: If the name “hill giant clobberer” hasn’t already sold you, these brutes have a versatile Multiattack, allowing them to either attack twice with a Greatclub or Rock or once with both. They also deal an extra 3d6 damage to Prone creatures, reducing the target’s Speed to 0 until the end of their next turn.

Controller Creatures

Creatures that specialize in debuffs, charms, or forced movement abilities fall under the controller creature role. Their abilities can be complex to run in an encounter and are impactful because they can disrupt or even prevent enemies’ attacks. Controllers tend to be a little less tough in the defense department, so they work best when paired with creatures that can defend them, such as brutes or artillery.

Harpy: The harpy’s Alluring Song has the potential to Charm any creature within 200 feet of them, preventing them from moving or attacking harpies on their turn. Add in their Beckon ability as a Bonus Action, and the harpy can also force their thralls to move as long as they have a Reaction available.

Leader and Support Creatures

Leader and support types share the same combat style, the difference being one of complexity. Both tend to utilize abilities that buff their allies or call for reinforcements. The main difference between the two is that a leader has a more complex stat block, typically including villain actions, while a support creature sticks to regular old actions, Bonus Actions, and Reactions.

Green Hag: The green hag can use their Granny Says ability to magically switch places with a willing target, potentially moving them out of harm’s way. Granny Says can also allow a creature to use their Reaction to make an attack. With the Get Gone ability, the green hag can use its Reaction to turn a target Invisible until its next turn to aid in imposing Disadvantage on an attack.

Minion Creatures

Flee, Mortals! has creatures called minions, which are designed to be simple to run. Their combat options are pared down to basic attacks, and they’re usually easy for the player characters to defeat quickly, including taking down more than one at a time. What these minion creatures lack in individual strength, they make up in sheer numbers. Minions are explicitly designed to be used as hordes of enemies so that players can have the experience of cutting through waves of foes in epic battles.

Hobgoblin Recruit: With their Tactical Positioning feature, non-minion allies gain a +1 bonus to their attack rolls for each hobgoblin recruit within 5 feet of their target. When a creature within 5 feet of the hobgoblin recruit reduces them to 0 Hit Points, their corpse unleashes Infernal Ichor, causing the creature who killed them to take 1 Fire damage.

Skirmisher Creatures

Skirmishers rely on their mobility to quickly move in and make calculated melee attacks before falling back. They tend to seek out opponents who are weaker against melee attacks, striking them before moving back to protect their compatriots. Skirmishers tend to pair well with each of the other creature roles. They also work well in tandem with other skirmishers.

Orc Bloodrunner: With their Unimpeded feature, an orc bloodrunner can occupy a Prone creature’s space. When entering a Prone creature’s space for the first time, the orc bloodrunner deals 1d6 Bludgeoning damage to the Prone creature.

Soldier Creatures

Similar to brutes, soldiers are designed for melee combat. Rather than emphasizing the sheer damage of their attacks, soldiers tend to draw fire away from the rest of their squad. Because soldiers tend to have high defenses, they’ll try to engage as many enemies as they can to steal their focus.

Devil Legate: While on their home turf or within 60 feet of a CR 9 or higher devil, the legate has Advantage on saving throws to resist powers, spells, and other supernatural effects. They are naturally resistant to nonmagical Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing damage.

Solo Creatures

A solo creature is exactly what it says on the tin, a creature designed to be taken on by itself. Solo creatures are meant to be a tough challenge for your players. These are the monsters who have a bevy of lair actions at their disposal, or villain actions, a variation of legendary actions created by MCDM. They will focus on trying to do as much damage to as many enemies as possible, as well as trying to take down the biggest threats as quickly as possible.

Kraken: The MCDM version of the kraken is a CR 26 solo creature that can entrap vehicles within 120 feet inside a Psionic Storm, making them a severe threat to ships carrying adventurers into battle. Among this kraken’s array of villain actions is The Ocean’s Wrath, a psionic wave that can deal 10d12 Psychic damage and cause any creature that fails a Wisdom saving throw within 120 feet to become Frightened. On a successful save, the creature only takes half as much damage and is not Frightened.

Why I Love Creature Roles

As a DM, I tend to be fairly player-driven, so while I prep the broad strokes of my story, I don’t always have every contingency planned out. This isn’t a play style for everyone but it works well for me and my particular brain chemistry and the executive dysfunction or decision paralysis I sometimes face when it comes time to plan a session.

The downside to this is that sometimes following player-driven stories means needing to set up a combat that I have not prepared for, and I’ll admit this is not one of my DMing strong suits. I keep random encounter charts readily accessible for a case like this, but with creature roles, I can evolve that process.

If I know I have a lot of ranged attackers or spellcasters in a party, I can make sure to add an artillery creature to the mix of enemies to trade volleys with them. If a player is playing a tank type, I can scan for good brute creature to lock horns with them rather than allow them to just cut through a weaker defense. And if I know my players like to deploy intricate strategies for every fight, I can toss in some controllers to disrupt that and make them think on their feet a bit more.

With creature roles as a guide, I can make quick notes about which broad types of creatures my players have the most engaging encounters. When it is time to fight, I can quickly pick some challengers from those groups and create a unique and satisfying battle on the fly.

Rules (And Roles) Are Made to Be Broken

Creature roles, like many other variations on combat encounters presented in Flee, Mortals!, can feel very different from the standard D&D rules as written, but they don’t need to be seen as a replacement for those rules. Creature roles are simply an alternative to the core system that might work better for a particular party.

These kinds of alterations for play style are baked into D&D. The 2014 Dungeon Master’s Guide even includes examples of different adventuring options to adjust your game to fit a desired play style. Remember that this game is yours, and each rule or variant style works best if it fits how you enjoy playing.

Do you think creature roles would work for your game?

Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond, Nerdist, and SYFY Wire. She DMs the Theros-set Dice Ex Machina for the Saving Throw Show, and has been a player on the Wizards of the Coast-sponsored The Broken Pact. Riley also played as Braga in the official tabletop adaptation of the Rat Queens comic for HyperRPG, and currently plays as The Doctor on the Doctor Who RPG podcast The Game of Rassilon. She currently lives in Los Angeles.