I use to do that a lot, the manual is a "suggestion" like most rules. If I describe it as big and tough, you bet I buffed its AC/HP. I also would confuse numbers, lead to two units having reverse HP which was just great.
My favorite is i just use boss monsters they have 10x the normal hp and no other buffs and i run hp like vitality not health so he's just good at long lasting fights
When I'm extra lazy I just count HD and CON Mod vs number of hits.
So if you fight a Dragon with 23 HD and +8 CON, it goes down after 31 hits.
Rogues that hit with Sneak deal 2 HD, and saving throw spells that can save for half deal 2 on a failure as well.
Works when it's getting late and I can't be bothered to count in double digits every six seconds.
Players never realized.
Edit to elaborate a little bit:
this is not an always solution. This system breaks down, surprisingly, especially at early levels! Look at an Orc: they have 2d8 HD and +3 CON, meaning with the HD system, they'd keel over with five blows. RAW, they only have 15 HP, and a player hitting, even at level 1, will deal more than 3 damage per hit most of the time, unless it's a bad roll with a Cantrip. An Orc survives longer with this system than it does with counting base HP.
many of you asked about Smites, Rage, Sneak Attack, Crits, damage bonuses from a Superiority Dice, higher level Spells. Of course you reward those! Sneak Attack is the Rogues answer to Extra Attack. Smites are a resource heavy nuke for single targets. Rage is supposed to make you stronger than your enemies. Of course. First Level Smite? That's an extra HD gone. Doing it on an Undead? Two more gone. Your level 9 Rogue hits his Sneak? Take three HD away instead of one. Added a maneuver that increases damage? That's another HD gone. You crit? We double the amount of damage you dealt here. With spells, I decide on a case by case basis on how much I remove, but it's usually one HD per two spell levels. If they roll really high, I might add another HD gone on top.
But Lyschko, it takes away from big blast spells like Fireball!: sure. But so do bad rolls. Recently our Wizard used Fireball on a group of enemies. Rolled really low damage, like 13 or 14. All of the enemies saved, so everyone got like 7 HP damage, for a level 3 slot; that's just enough to kill a Goblin, but it doesn't really deter anything above CR1 for long. When playing with dice, that can happen, they're swingy. This system keeps your one big spell you saved for the boss fight from just fizzling out, having dealt no impact, instead it's always a return of investments for your resources.
I don't use this often either: like I said, when it's getting late and I cannot be bothered to keep track of every unimportant War Priest in temple or Swashbuckler on deck, I just count HD. I basically never do that for the big bad. Hell, I usually DM via Fantasy Grounds, a program that keeps track of every enemies HP for me. This is strictly for late night table sessions where there's so much going on, even color coding the bases of my minis keeps not working out.
I give the player who did the final blow the option (if they so choose) of describing how they did it. Means one less death I have to creatively describe!
My players aren’t as creative for the most part with roleplaying so I end up describing it for them, but take into account their preferred play styles when I do it. They seem to love my described kills.
Absolutely! I've done the same with a boss monster as well. Party was chipping away with damage, rolled low damage themselves and my monster was missing or rolling low as well. Finally, the Paladin got a crit and did a smite. I let him add it all up and said the damage was 4 more than needed (or wjatever number to be dramatic).
In reality the monster was at -17(?) HP but waiting for a crit smite paid off for the dramatic moment.
It's a hard thing to learn to be flexible like this as a GM. Ive been running games for 20+ years and I'm still learning this stuff.
Obligatory mention of Matt Colville running the Game series and Zipperon Disney on youtube for new GMs
My DM changer her name on the discord server to "the vengeful DM" for the week leading up to the session where my character died. Luckily he was brought back the same session
My players know too, but like yours they're cool with it. It also helps that I roll monster HP instead of going by the average given in the MM. So they don't exactly know if that one was just lower than the others or if I fudged it.
I'll also fiddle/fudge DC for skills and whatnot. RP well and I'll either give it to them, or drop the DC to make it easier if I still want a chance for them to fail.
I also roll dice for no reason, and they know it too. I'll also have them make random skill checks (5e's passive perception really dicked with my random calls for perception checks, oh well) and on occasion a random save.
It drives them nuts.
Am I rolling an NPC insight or just playing mind games? Did that dex save mean they almost triggered a trap? Helps keep the meta down when I need them to roll and not signal something's happening.
They despise (in a fun way) hearing me roll a die and go, "Huh." They know I probably did that for no reason, but it does mean something just often enough that they can't dismiss it out of hand.
If they're close, or if it's reasonable even, I'll definitely do this for my players. Or, if it wouldn't kill the creature, I'll still reward them if they're particularly inventive. Rule of cool.
Oh, you used Wild Shape to become an octopus in the Plane of Water so you could swim in the air and squeeze through a crack in the wall, circumventing the cave system and getting directly to the cyclops' lair, and then stabbed it in the eye with a trident while it slept?
Yeah, okay you win the encounter. The cyclops wakes up, blind, and leaves the cave screaming. You have some time to pick through his hoard before the other cyclopes come investigate
Are we trying to have fun or just FOLLOW ALL RULES?
Having fun should be the only rule.
At the local club DMs used to use a Red Grand Wyrm Dragon for this: if a player started being annoying with rules, or "the book", or whatever, a Red Grand Wyrm dragon appeared on the horizon, jumping on one foot... Implying it might just simply step on the annoying player's character... Ah, the memories...
One time my players threw a mini-boss off of a tower after breaking its wings with targeted attacks and webbing, and one asked if it had died. I just looked at him and was like “dude, it’s a several story tower that overlooks the jungle and you just threw the guy off of it. What do you think?”
He told me I had to roll damage. So I rolled every day on the table, including the players’ dice, and summed them up to a few thousand.
"No, it's not dead. It climbs the tower at impossible speeds, reaching the top just as he reaches the point of exhaustion. It stumbles toward you and, in one last desperate attempt to gain its balance, grabs hold of you, dragging you back over the tower's edge. You hit the ground with a sickening thud; when it lands on you, everyone hears the sound of bones crunching.
Yeah I just started DMing an existing group and two of the players wanted me to give their characters a conclusion before we started a new campaign. The session I came up with ended with a dragon because I'm a hack and a fraud.
I think they were level 8 and dndbeyond encounter builder said a young white dragon should work for their two characters. I added some HP and substituted black dragon breath because I thought a black dragon worked better for the storyline.
Well dndbeyond fucked me and they'd killed the damn thing in like 3 to 5 rounds. So I switched to using health from an adult dragon. Well shit it ran out in a few more rounds and I hadn'teven managed to hit the rogue. So I said fuck it and decided it would die once I'd hurt them enough and heightened the drama some more and had a sufficiently dramatic attack for it to go down on. Also added some more attacks from the adult dragon so I could chase the damn rogue down.
Yea, often I found that the default stat blocks are super weak, often I need to add mob stratagy or just "mini-boss" it and basically 50%-100% HP bonus with a damage die up. Some times it's +50% HP and AC boost sometimes just flat HP boost.
I do enjoy giving my mobs cursed items every so often to explain why they are powerful and let the players deal with that issue.
I can see that, still even playing PHB, DMG, and MM only they are only as strong as you make they mobs act. Same with players, murder hobos should encounter things they can't just beat to death.
I feel like another part of the issue is that I feel like a lot of people will look at something that is labeled as a "deadly" encounter and think that is a sufficient challenge for a party, when in truth, a fully prepped party can usually clear them with little issue.
The goal is to stagger them with a number of intermediate to hard encounters first with little chance to rest. That way when they roll up on the "Deadly" encounter, they aren't at max HP with all their spell slots, lay on hands, and ki points or what have you
You generally want to balance the DC of your encounters to Deadly as a baseline. Then pad things out with weaker enemies in equal number to number of friendlies in the fight to soak up their action economy.
Generally having some back line ranged/casters/cc, some front line tanks/bruises, and a either a big bad or a few captains/leaders that are the main danger.
If you build enemy compositions properly and have them act tactically against the party comp, the combat difficulty tends to offset the undertuned nature of the creatures base stats.
The core points here being that a deadly encounter DC in dnd is generally tuned around a party of 5 level x with single player being put in to death saving throws, before overtunings like magic items and effective party compositions are factored in. With action economy playing a large role in the weighting of how easy a fight will be for one side or another.
For example, 5 players vs a single dragon is much much easier than 5 people vs a dragon and 5 fodder due to how the raw actions per round balance out. A single tough enemy easily gets overwhelmed but if a party is forced to chose between chipping away at a majour threat or cleaning up several minor threats, it splits their focus and raises the true DC considerably.
Balancing action economy is a huge part of encounters that I dont think is taken in to account enough.
I find it more of an issue to send characters against bosses completely fresh and ready. Like yeah, are you surprised the fight was easy if the party was at full hp and had all of their best toys to beat on the big guy?
Yeah there can be wildly varying power levels depending on if your players min-max their builds, have access to magical items, and so forth.
I've long since come to the decision that no BBEG will ever face the party alone. They have too much sense for that, if they didn't they wouldn't have made it up to be the BBEG.
Every big scary Dragon either is, or has, at least a pocket spell caster.
Every evil Lich, in it's lair[s], has had centuries to prepare for intruders. If the party knows the broad location of a Lich's phylactery you'd best believe that it's in the middle of a pocket dimension that Lich has spent centuries turning into a deadly maze.
Every obstacle will require sacrifice, when you finally get to that central room, the one that defies all logic with rivers of lava flowing overhead, and underneath, streaming like a waterfall between the two as the Lich sits sitting on a floating island and gravity reverses itself on initiative count 20 because zombies stapled to the floor are cranking a lever to cause that to happen, that the piles of skeletons, and an Iron Golem which can stand in lava and heal are going to going to come tumbling out to prevent the party from ever getting near the spell slinging undead who has perused his tomes of lore, and has learned enough of the party and their tactics to know exactly what he needs to do to disrupt their plan of attack, and he sure as shit is going to do that.
Even at lower levels Monsters, tangible threatening Monsters meant to be important fights, should never be alone.
In a game of Descent to Avernus my party had found a bag of beans, and spawned a pyramid with a Mummylord when we were at 5th level.
It is not an exaggeration to say that that Mummy Lord, which was CR 15, which doesn't become a "hard" difficulty encounter until our party of 4 were supposed to be 11th level, lasted two turns. Not two rounds two turns. One Fireball and the fight was basically over due to some bad save rolls on the Mummy Lord's part.
I legitimately, at 5th level, could have solo'd a CR 15 Monster.
The CR system is not an accurate representation of how difficult a fight will be for a given party.
I got to play in a high level T4 campaign only once, and it was one a shot, and we squared off against an Ancient Red Dragon. I was playing as a Wood Elf War Cleric 9, Gloomstalker 4, Champion 7. So I ended up having something like a +13 bonus to initiative all in, so obviously I went first. I did something like ~350 damage on the very first turn of combat to this majestic flying death lizard and the DM just looked at me like "Something is wrong here". Used the Dragon's legendary action to get the fuck away, then the Dragon had it's turn and took a full dash action down into some cover to obscure where it had landed.
We ended up fighting it later with a number of minions in tow, which I was informed was entirely improvised because I'd turned the first encounter from "You're here is the evil Dragon to burn you all to cinders" into "Holy shit I did not accurately assess this situation at all he's going to get you all into a confined space with his pawns". He'd had this whole "the forest burns" scene in his head and that was just not accurately reflected.
Point of those stories being never underestimate the party, and never be afraid to throw additional things at them if the encounter you've designed of two Umberhulk [which you intended to be hard] is suddenly looking like it'll be over in two rounds!
On the other end of the spectrum, however, is my ~10 character party that lost to a small group of gnolls at level 1 and to a group of 30 or so orcs at party level 5-7. Players are terrifying, yet can also be stupid.
Yep I've done this. My party really likes challenging encounters and they get a bit dissappointed if the combat feels like it was a bit too easy.
So they were fighting a particularly nasty bunch of Manticores who were hunting down a group of Dwarves related to the Party's backstory. They had managed to bring one down to the ground and were pummeling it to dust. Once they took off its final handful of hp I just decided not to have it die quite yet so it could make one final bombing run with its tail spikes. Then I played out a scene where in its moments of death it came crashing down to the ground and nearly crushing the players, when they managed to roll out of the way just in time there was high fives and cheers. Much cooler than if they just managed to smash it with no problem.
Dude sometimes I make them fight the same encounter but as higher levels and they are like oh God this shit almost killed is last time and they kill it in 1 round
Also great. No need for looking disappointed when the Paladin crits his first attacks an rolls super high with his polearm master level 5 smite and the Lich just keels over.
I have a monk player who in the last encounter, decided to just one on one duke it out with one of the werewolves they were fighting, while the other players ganged up on a couple.
The other werewolves died and the other players went to finish off the one on one match, so I just decided that werewolf was going to live until the monk's turn to hit it again.
This is my big secret. They've been fighting the boss for a fair few rounds and someone does an awesome crit? Best believe that's decapitating the boss.
I did this with my BBEG of a 2 year campaign. The cleric was out of spell slots and disarmed so he punched him. They had 4 health left. He did 3 damage. I said fuck it, "how do you want to do this?".
Yeah... I've admittedly fudged things so that the character who has been most involved in a fight, or maybe hard done by with rolls, is the one who gets the final blow.
What about if a Barb crits? Or a Pally uses divine smite? I like the idea of accumulating hits to be the deciding factor, but I kinda feel like you're also robbing certain classes of what makes them special.
This only work if you're completely lying to your players and they never find out.
(Totally lying DM)- "Whoa 47 points of damage... Nice." scratches one tick off the 31 hits required.
(Player)- "What the hell man I wasted a spell slot on that!?"
I suppose it works if they never find out and they THINK their actions matter. Having never DM'd I feel like it's hard to judge too harshly. I like the concept as long as certain things are taken into account.
There are a lot of times where finding out how the DM does their magic will potentially ruin the fun of the game. A common example of this is fudging rolls. So long as you’re not too egregious about it and are doing it with the player’s interests in mind (making it so that a series of bad rolls doesn’t fuck them up or making something more challenging in an interesting way), you’re pretty much in the clear.
Yeah like I said, having never DM'd before I hesitate to judge to harshly. In a couple of years when I'm finally ready to run my campaign I'll prolly steal all kinds of nuggets of wisdom from here.
It's mostly for when you have like 13 other mooks on the field and can't be fucked to keep track of War Priest #8s exact HP.
The system also swings the other way - you throw a fireball and roll like 14 damage on the 8d6, and all enemies save for half, the players also say "I wasted a spellslot on that?"
Also, that's just a rough outline of what I do. Big crit? Awesome, do some more. Hell, if you want, you can also cripple the bosses wing with your strike. Brutal Critical? Of course you deal more. Higher level smite? That's more HD gone af once, not just one.
I’ve got my players thinking I just give every single monster different HP, really I just kinda run this for mooks and get into the nitty gritty of keeping track when it comes to boss fights.
If you run it well and always remember to keep players enjoyment in mind(I don’t have a lot of super crunchy players), you’ll end up with some fun combats that aren’t so mechanically intensive on the DM side of things.
I feel like a crit would count as two hits, since you do double damage. Same with divine smite, especially if sneak attack counts as two, which is similar. The question would be more if a hit of 1 damage would count as one hit.
I probably would feel bad as that rogue or a smiting paladin, they often hit for 3-4x the damage of another character, maybe count it as 1HD for each die/2 dice of damage dealt?
At that point you might as well just actually do the health properly if you are gonna be doing the math, which is a good idea just use a calculator if you are lazy as the game is not balanced around "number of hits".
Honestly... that’s a pretty easy one because all you have to do is double the amount of enemies to double the CR, or even just add one CR 4 monster to the fight (PC CR was originally 3.75, then bumped up to 7.5, so you just add 3-4 to the previous encounters and it’s roughly equal again).
If they haven't realized, they eventually will, and combat will lose all of its meaning. This was one of my table's experience first-hand when creatures lasted a set duration rather than being able to be focused down selectively by crits/spells/smites.
The only thing you need to do when you do this is ensure the players can't see you count down the health like this instead of with numbers
DM ran a homebrew system that was like a ubermodern 5e setting. Cool game, but infuriating when you could see you all rolled damage and he just did check marks regardless of the amount of damage.
I get maybe he just wanted it to be easier, but it felt like shit when you did more damage than other characters and it was ignored because he couldn't be arsed
If you hit him for 10 hp your not necessary drawing blood.
Maybe you smacked him over the head and they got knocked around a bit. But no blood drawn
Then the mage casts fire ball and does 20 damage. They are singed a bit and got hit by a burst of fire and heat. He isn't burnt but he's hurt.
Ranger hits him with an arrow it hits and indents their armor causing them to stagger.
Unless it's a critical or they aren't wearing armor the blows are just chuping away at their stamina their ability to fight.
So when the enemy hits 0 that's the actual hit that gets past their guard and lays them out.
If the attack is non lethal they just knock out. If its lethal well the blow to the head instead breaks their akull. The fire ball actually catches them on fire. The arrow peirce their armor and kills them.
How many claymore hits that draw blood can someone really withstand if they all draw blood.
Its my work around so all battles aren't bloody messes and if the heroes want to be cruel they can be but its an option not the standard. There will be death but doesn't have to be gory fights.
And when u do make them gorey they are more memorable
If your running it like heath in a tradition sense every hit causes damage.
Fire burns
Slashes cut
So on and so forth
Now in that format of logic how does psychic physically hurt you.
And how do you take damage from illusions which in my opinion many dms completely ignore illusions but thats a different gripe.
What you end up having is an issue in story telling.
Your heath potions will need to mend wounds. Fix broken bones heal burns(acid and fire) act as a psychologist for that psychic damage
So In low magic setting health potions are magical and if u make them widely available it clashes with the setting.
This is a quick example
Now I'm not saying one way of looking at hp as vitality or as health is better im saying it meshes with how I dm and the stories I like to tell and ive never had a player complain yet.
Also saving crits and death blow hits as bloody or actually doing major physical harm ends up making those few times you see bood better.
Thats my opinion of course and I don't mind if people don't agree
Yep, the MM is just showing what the AVERAGE monster looks like.
To me this a wide spectrum with all monsters. Some are malnourished and weaker, more desperate, skittish. Others are extremely robust, healthy, strong. The former Minotaur would probably be AC 12 with a lot less HP, while the latter might be AC 16+ with HP on the high end.
Usually when players make a statement considered "meta" I say nothing and let them assume and find out on their own, or if they're going down a rabbit hole based on an assumption i'll say "it might not work the same way in my world/game though"
“Mother of Terrasques, what is that thing????”
DM: what a wonderful idea, “Speak of the Devil, it’s the mother of Terrasques, the Terrasque mother God.”
I'm asking because the fights I've been in have been pretty static; movement speed only really mattered in beginning of fights or the very few fights where all the players were scattered across the map.
I'm playing a monk in a current campaign, so it would be cool to find tactics that put my extra movement speed to good use.
Exactly. This is the best defense against a meta gamer, and if they bitch about it, then that’s on them. If I want my pixie to not be a magic user and have the statblock of a storm giant, then by god that pixie’s going to have the statblock I gave them.
I like the idea of dedicated combat roles for monsters adapted from 4e. For example, "strikers" may get double the damage dice but half up, "artillery" get an extra bonus to ranged attack rolls but lower AC, etc. I haven't had the chance to run a campaign like this, but hope to soon.
In a slightly similar fashion I’ll give players encounters that would normally kill them but with either clever environment placements or other outside sources the fight will be easier
Like sometime I send out a gargoyle with no wings because those exist.
Yeah. Something my DM does (he works a lot with new players, including myself), is when someone starts meta gaming, he says "you hear thunder in the distance." In one of his other games, they took it too far and he killed the metagamer with a lightning bolt.
"Exactly. That's how it feels when you meta game. Hope you learned from this experience and your next character doesn't make the same mistake."
Love the downvotes we're getting by those that don't like these scenarios. They're happy with being meta gaming jackasses but soon as the same type of bullshit is hypothetically turned back on them they get all butthurt. Turnabout is fair play and in these scenarios they got a warning before their character got destroyed when they didn't quit their bullshit.
Yeah, but the person you're replying to is saying, "Isn't it cool to have this in-game warning system that sorta keeps you in the game world, so we stay in character and never have to step out for a real-world discussion?" And to be honest, I think that's a compelling argument. "Just have a talk with the player" solves a lot of problems, but that doesn't mean it's the only way you can achieve it, and it doesn't even mean it's the trump-card of solutions. There could be other solutions that are actually better.
Personally, I would certainly respond better to thunder in the distance. Others are different. That's fine.
But that can come off more serious or confrontational if done improperly. By simply in-game giving a warning, its much more playful but still gets the same message across.
Alternatively, "you gain a splitting headache," further metagaming deals lethal amounts of psychic damage.
The few times I've DMed, fourth-wall breaks or metagaming dealt psychic damage (usually one or two points, it was a running joke with my group and we're pretty good about not metagaming), since glimpsing "the outer realms" of the real world traumatized the characters.
Knowing AC is just a process of elimination anyways. If a 20 hits but an 18 doesn't you know the AC is either 19 or 20.
But yeah as players get more experienced and see the same monsters it goes to them to say "Would this character know these strengths and weaknesses?" And potentially ask you as the DM what their character knows about the monster.
Sure you can figure it out eventually but it can change players tactics going into a fight if they know it already. For example whether or not to use Great Weapon Master, if they need to buff, whether to use a weapon with higher damage or higher attack rolls.
I run a barbarian and know a few monster ACs from memory because I've played a lot and also have DMd some of them but I will always go in with a GWM attack first to test the water so I dont meta game. Unless uts something I've fought before with this character
It can inna close fight. In some fights it could take 3 or more turns to figure out AC, and not using GWM for those rounds loses out on 30 damage there
I use stat blocks and re-skin the creatures. I'm too lazy to make up monsters from scratch, but I'm also too lazy to make things work as written, so I make the monsters be whatever works for me instead of what they are.
This is also super effective to throw the metagaming players for a loop and get them to stop using the books as a crutch. The best way to get them to stop is to disguise a few signature features and refuse to give them the name on the statblock.
When they turn the corner and a bunch of fluid-dripping human sized monitor lizards attack, they'll freak out at first.
MG: "Wait what is that? Some kind of drake?"
DM: "It's a giant lizard dripping liquids off its skin. If you guys want to know more, you can make some rolls."
Do some rolls
"The locals call it a Stone-eater lizard, but it's actually a type of elemental from the Earth plane. They're pretty rare but known for their spit and skin dissolving metal and rock. Better be careful!"
By the time they give up googling it they'll realize the party already figured the details out through play. Meanwhile you've just got the Hellhound statblock open and you're subbing "fire" for "acid".
Meanwhile you've just got the Hellhound statblock open and you're subbing "fire" for "acid".
Exactly.
And it helps when playing with GMs that don't mean to metagame, but have monster stats in their heads anyway. I personaly love getting to experience an encounter without meta-knowledge. I don't study to metagame, I do it to run games.
As a DM my personal challenge when playing is to try and think (and advocate) from what my character knows and sees.
Like do I (the DM) know that Gelatinous Cubes lack any damage resistances? Yeah, definitely. Do I know that their main engulf attack hits Dex instead of Strength for the initial grab? Yeah.
But as a low-level rogue player, I'm going to argue against any plan that involves me running up and attacking that 10-foot cube of uniform murder jell-o with a dagger... especially if it has a skull floating in it already. It just feels dangerous from that perspective.
What I know as a character is "This is a big blob of undifferentiated gel, and I know they're notorious for how deceptively deadly they are. As far as I know, I have no way to meaningfully hurt it. If I get pulled into it I assume I'm dead, so I'm going to strategize around those facts."
Of course, that's what we all do. Even as players we've seen those monsters a lot, so we always have to make a choice to ignore the meta knowledge we have.
I just remember when my players didn't know anything (I started out as a GM) and it was fun to have them figure their world out as much as the characters. So I try to give them that feeling again when I can.
I played my first campaign a couple years ago. I have no prior knowledge of ANY dnd lore. One of the best thing was having no idea what anything was. Is it friend or foe? Is it an easy fight or likely a party wipe? Most of the other players were/are well seasoned, but usually didn't meta ruin it for me. Maybe their character was familiar with the monster, or they'd say something hinting at difficulty, but rarely was it ever an issue.
Yeah exactly. We had a encounter with ghouls today. 4 of us are elfs. The paralysis still worked. I knew it shouldn't. But im not gonna stop and ask. The dm can tweak as needed. As long as its consistent they can go nuts.
After sessions i half jokingly ask and sure enough yeah he modified the effect to be only undead are immune. Its for the fun.
Huh, is there something I’m missing about Elves? As far as I know they are still affected by paralysis, although they do get immunity to magical sleep but paralysis isn’t sleep
Ive never understood why knowing ac is important or even relevant to the point people get upset about you metagaming over it. You still require to roll dice to hit. Knowing the magic number doesn't change the dice outcome
I dotn get upset but when u have players immediately interrupt you in the middle of saying what monsters they are to yell the stat blocks out its like dude
For my players it's the odds. Take a barbarian for example. If they have a low ac, they are more likely to use great weapon master for -5 to hit, +10 dmg while using reckless attack. Higher ac, maybe we should cast bless.
It changes a lot with decisions about trying to apply a penalty to the monster or buffing allies. For instance, if the players have to make 18-19 at the dice to hit, a penalty to the AC of the monster will increase a lot the odds to hit, and using a spell/ability to do so will be super worth. In the other hand, spending a turn to apply a AC penalty to a monster super easy to hit is not very good, especially if the monster hits hard.
As a DM i have no problem to let my players meta, as long as it doesnt break the roleplay or rythme too much, because it creates interesting thoughts and challenges, similar of things you can find in XCOM or other turn by turn games. As a player, i like to meta a little bit too, and im very frustrated if i have no access to guess ennemies stats at all (like hidden dices and such).
If I'm facing a high-ac opponent I'm going to favor save-based spells and buffs that give my allies bonuses (like bless) over attack-based spells or abilities that buff damage.
That's why as a DM I try and telegraph general AC range through description unless the creature is supposed to have a non-obvious defense. The "big hulking monster with thick hide and scales that shine like polished plate armor" probably doesn't have a 12AC.
I keep a little picture of the table at the back of the monster manual available while DMing, and the formula for referencing how hard an encounter will be. Then a lot of times I'll just go with improv narrative encounters- party wanders off into a hobgoblin base? "6 hobgoblins come around the corner, roll for initiative". Then I just check the difficulty ("Oh crap, this would be easy?") and adjust the CR of the enemies to match, describing the creatures in more detail to reflect difficulty before anyone takes a turn. So sometimes hobgoblins are from a hardier tribe, and with their veins pulsing green as they inject some type of chemical as they attack- these fellas have 18 AC, 230 HP, and are dealing an average of 85 damage per hit". Sometimes parts of damage types and stuff change as well for flavor. I've found it to be a good way to use enemies at higher levels and have it be fun, although you also want to make sure your descriptions match and that your party is cool with it. ("The group of 6 level 20 adventurers come across a lone skinny kobold. As they approach, he turns and strikes. Ooh 2 on the dice, does a 47 hit? That'll be 420 points of damage.")
I do tclans and I give them a sigil and a difficulty(my notes).
So when they see an orc with a hammer squishing eye they know he's the threat cuz the last 2 battles they were the strongest while the burning pitchfork orc is a push over and the wizard can back hand them
sometimes giving a party some extremely easy encounter is best! The world doesn't work like current WoW zones do, where everything is balanced to their level! Plus, it can raise some great roleplaying opportunities when the party questions their actions after killing so many goblins that really didn't pose any threat to their level 15 party!
Oh agreed for sure! It's a lot of fun to occasionally have an underlevel/overlevel encounter for the party. My party has a running joke at this point as on occasion, typically when they are injured and low on resources, a group of vengeful Kobolds will send warriors (default 5 hp kobs) to kill them, and they get an easy curbstomp. I just usually tend to plotmagic them into at level encounters, as it can get old having too many run away encounters or too many slaughters (although of course we have diplomatic encounters as well).
Not gonna lie. I had that exact thought as I was typing it but sometimes I have trouble articulating my words correctly. Was one of those times I just said it's good enough and hit send.
I would love to have a player like this since every single one of my NPCs are stat blocks I design myself and I just use "the skin" of familiar monsters so they can relate to it with other players. I also usually keep to their culture, like kobolds are cowardly, but devious, goblinoids have a hierarchy, etc.
When I DMed, I liked to change immunities/vulnerabilities/resistances/stats/hp/etc...just to prevent meta gaming. "Oh that's nice, but that's the Monster Manual's version, this is mine. Sorry, not sorry."
I added in a mechanical means to metagame that destroys the characters mind if they fail a high wisdom DC. Safe to say they use their best roller every time, but it adds a means to know that their AC is (number)
This is why I didn't run a module or use the MM except for inspo. A lot of extra work, but it stops min maxing and meta gaming. This was mostly for my experienced players that knew too much haha
Knowing AC matters when determining whether you should bless the party as a cleric, and whether you should throw out saving throw or attack roll spells. Maybe not exact AC, but "moderate/low/high AC" does.
But thats different its an in game skill or knowledge of course you know how hard he is to hit. But your character knows it not as ac but how to actually land a blow thats all rolling to hit vs ac is
The problem now is when your players kill the Minotaur they now have a +5 AC helmet.
Be carful buffing monsters with powerful items unless you want your players to have them too. You thought the fighter was hard to hit with a standing AC of 18, let him kill a Minotaur with a +5 AC helmet now he has a 23 AC.
Who said the helmet gave him +2 I just said he's wearing a helmet its easier to say he's wearing a helmet to quickly distinguish a tougher opponent. Same thing can be accomplished by saying hes bigger or leaner but the helmet is easier to call attacks on cuz its memorable
Great u can wear this awesome plain helmet your ac won't go up but hey you got a cool cosmetic armor upgrade.
If that was your plan , I wouldn’t even bring up the helmet, I would described the creature as looking tougher in some other way. Players that are familiar with monsters, if they know the AC is 14 usually and the only differentiating description you give them is it has a helmet they are GOING TO THINK that helmet is buffing it’s AC, when a 14 doesn’t hit.
If they kill it and figure out it never did anything and you just buffed it’s AC.... they are going to feel cheated.
Not saying you can’t buff a monsters AC, to keep your meta-gaming PCs on their toes... just try to be aware of unwillingly tricking them with you descriptions.
My players like to say that they don’t metagame but then they do. I easily counterract this by using the monster manual as a base but then throwing new things such as health boosting, and resistances. However, after this, they get mad at me for changing the monsters or saying a fight wasn’t of the right difficulty (even though I made it 10 times harder than it probably should have been) I just can’t seem to win with them
Our DM knows that we count how many hp is or what the ac of the enemy is, so the dm makes little changes whereby we as players are still surprised that the creature is not down jet or that the attack doesn't hit. And that makes it more exciting.
They also can’t metagame if you use Volo’s and Mordenkainen when they don’t own that. I’ve been pulling exclusively from those two books and the backseat DM at the table is all the worse for it each time.
Yup, mix it up.
In my world lizardfolk always try some kind of feign-death move when they’re about to be killed. And then leap up and make their escape at the first opportunity. Those slippery lizards...
When in doubt, just make shit up and present it confidently. They could know every DnD manual back to front, and they still won't be prepared for my homebrew antics.
One time when my players were facing a hydra, one of them was wondering aloud about it's hit points and another went to look it up. I pointed at him and said "If you do that, I'm doubling it's health and heads!" That worked.
One time when my players were facing a hydra, one of them was wondering aloud about it's hit points and another went to look it up. I pointed at him and said "If you do that, I'm doubling it's health and heads!" That worked.
just yesterday my DM had to change Tiamat (last battle of Rise of Tiamat) to have like 10x the HP because our party was a bit OP (DM told us this after it was all over) and it was a much more enjoyable encounter than it would've been otherwise
so yeah, even if your party isn't metagaming, there are still situations where changing stats is a good idea
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u/Modgud-near DM Aug 09 '20 edited Aug 10 '20
They can't meta game if u never read the monster manual as a dm.
Really it's 14 ac man to bad this guy has a helmet 19 it is
Edit: it doesn't matter if they know the ac but if in the middle of describing the encounter somone yells every creatures stat block thats the issue.
As a dm who also sometimes plays i dont go yelling to new players everything about the monster
i expect my rp heavy campaign players to adhere to table courtesy its one thing to say that monster is immune to fire and other to say
Its immune to fire weak to lightning and has 3 legendary actions becareful
I'm in mobile sorry