Forge of Foes Deep Dive

Mike dives deep into Forge of Foes - build and run awesome monsters for your 5e RPG!
Video Contents
00:00 Show Start
01:02 Forge of Foe's Main Advantage
03:23 Forge of Foes and 5e Modularity
05:33 Is Forge of Foes Compatible with Other RPGs?
07:35 The Book's Structure
12:25 The Quick Monster Builder and Stats by CR
22:32 Quick 5e Monster Stats Tool
23:30 Adding Monster Powers
26:57 General Use Stat Blocks
30:56 Using Stats by CR to Benchmark Existing Monsters
35:08 Monster Powers
35:46 Monster Roles
36:51 Other Lazy Tricks
37:58 Monster Advice Chapters
39:31 Alternative Takes on Encounter Building
41:54 Monsters By Adventure Location
42:40 More Monster Advice
44:11 Monsters by Story or Story by Monster?
44:54 Anticolonial Play
46:54 The Best 5e Monster Book
Forge of Foes
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[@willn9568]

Honestly this is incredible. It is absolutely the best and most practical table-friendly resource on monsters I can imagine. I drive around with a box of my favorite books. How could this not be my main monster book? I have the PDF, but seeing you walk us through this in this video has convinced me that I really want this in print. Thanks for doing this, and this is worth having as an edition to match any new version or edition. I’d pay y’all to reassess the tables and advice for 2024 to see if there are slightly different numbers that are better once we get a feel for the new power levels. Great job!!!

[@JunMiyazaki]

My favourite RPG supplement of 2024!

[@wewerepirates1116]

I have got a lot of use out of this ever since the 1.0 PDF was sent out. I have a lot of monster books, and there are some with great concepts but the stat block has problems. I've used the content here to tune those critters up for some great encounters. As much as I love Flee Mortals! I've had more value out of Forge of Foes. I pull out a monster from FM every few sessions for a crunchier battle, but Forge of Foes is like a value multiplier for other monster books. I've actually used Forge of Foes to tune Flee Mortals! monsters to better suit my needs. Also I want to say thanks for running a great crowd funding campaign. No mess of needless extras or add-ons to up sell expensive tiers, really fast turn around to 1.0 pdf, and quick overall completion.

[@mrshrekles]

I'm building my own system and every video you put out is so inspirational. Thank you for all the work that you do!

[@Hallinwar]

I hope it's gonna be good, wish you luck playtesting

[@bazyl40]

Bought it, paid around 1/3 of the book price in shiping, and then also paid for in country delivery. Wouldnt have it any other way. It was totally worth it. Book has great content and looks great. I am realy gratefull for the content that you provide.

[@Zr0din]

Agree that this is excellent work. I really feel that your supplements are the path to making new DM's. Giving people the tools they need in shorter format to make the transition from Player to DM in the shortest time. Now we just need more books with short segment scenarios like, "Quartershots: Lairs and Labrynths" and "Traveling Encounters Vol1-2". These books are small format 2 hour events that are formatted to be easy to see the information you need to run that encounter/event. The challenge is to make a book of these that can be woven together to actually make a campaign. Then you are doing some revolutionary stuff!

[@willn9568]

Yes! What you’re getting at is practical MODULARITY-basic building blocks that new DMs can grasp easily, interconnect, and learn to manipulate without getting overwhelmed or misrecognizing the underlying structure of an adventure-homebrewed or commercial.

[@Knopey]

Fantastic deep dive, thanks! My Forge of Foes arrived the same day as Shadowdark. Needless to say I was running around grinning for the rest of the day.

[@madoffler]

My players are always insisting on bringing along NPC's for their adventures and the Challenge rating to player level conversion table has been incredibly useful. I use it at least every couple weeks. I also really appreciate the section on decolonizing your game. Nothing but love for this book.

[@sentor98]

How do you like to convert player level to NPC cr for your total level number for the party?

[@dylanwatts1045]

I'm a couple of paychecks out, but I'm getting this soon! I've already been using the Monster Statistics table from the free sample

[@joboipi11]

I bought the book this week. I can't wait to receive it!

[@dcyphermanplays8233]

Oh I'm checking out that sample. I have a big fight coming up in my Drakkenheim game, this will be quite useful

[@foxman4730]

im proud to back up this good book, thanks to you all😍

[@sqoody7invegas625]

Definitely getting this book, at least PDF, I would say they probably did most work than anyone has to create system for creating and choosing monsters

[@rippedjack1]

Amazing podcast, Mike! You have an amazing ability to distill everything down into the key elements. I so often get distracted by all the trove of content in RPGs and you are able to ground us back to what really matters in the game. I printed out the CR table in Forge of Foes and can’t wait to use it in my adventures! Keep up the fantastic content! The community is lucky to have you!

[@flow6694]

By far my favorite book of 2023!

[@minimoose7890]

Oops, couple of marker-edits slipped thru, heh. Truly a deep-dive review of your lovely book.

[@jeaugust]

Forge of Foes has been incredibly helpful for me. The stats by CR table in particular is an absolute game changer. It makes it way easier to combine/modify monster stat blocks and validate power level when I'm doing prep. Plus as a reference guide, it's helpful when I'm tweaking the dials mid-combat. Honestly it's so insanely helpful, I can't believe the 2014 DMG didn't have a table like this laying out the math. I've copied this and put it into my DM screen, it's just become an absolutely fundamental part of how I run the game.

[@FamBoren]

This is a great book. I like having a hard copy and I really like to flip through it and pick up things/ideas here and there. It seems I discover new things every time I plan or run a D&D game.

[@davidrempel4862]

Purchased.

[@junderlandgames1186]

If you don’t already, I think you would be good friends with Mark Seifter of roll for combat, former paizo employee, and co-creator of Pathfinder 2nd Edition. He really gets into the math of it all. I would be interested to see you, Sly-flourish, on their show sharing your experience and perspective and go over your books. I would also like to see the math of forge of foes converted to PF2e

[@Galmir_]

So... A Foerge?

[@macoppy6571]

14:38 "What we wanted to do was normalize the expected threat of a monster at any given Challenge Rating." Alternatively, the DM could abandon the character level advancement mechanics entirely.

[@colinmpearson]

Mike, I love you, I own most of your books and I've Patreonized for some time now, let me help you out for once: Eberron's Daelkyr is pronounced "dal-keer", it's not "day-licker" - the "y" is after the "k".

[@patricks2645]

got myself the free preview, will probably be ordering a physical copy for myself soon. You once used a tool to calculate attacks/saves from a large group of creatures by only using one d20 roll, is tat in tis book or somewhere else entirely.

[@SlyFlourish]

It’s in here and the Lazy DMs Companion

[@patricks2645]

@@SlyFlourish thanks!

[@duncandomey8199]

I have the PDF, a real deep monster dive! How best to use this in DDB and with published adventures?

[@ericboeing1878]

What I still don’t understand is, how are we supposed to choose monster difficulty levels for our tables? Do we just use your CR numbers in place of WOTC’s CR numbers, so that for instance, for a party of 4 Level 4 PCs, 2 CR 1/2 monsters are “medium” difficulty, while a single CR 2 monster is “hard”? Or here’s a better question: I have a party of 4 Level 12 PCs. I want them to fight exactly 2 identical monsters, and I want it to be a hard, possibly deadly fight. What CR should those 2 monsters be? 18?

[@AlphastreamRPG]

It's a very good question! From page 68 of Forge of Foes, 4 level-12 PCs would face a Hard challenge with 2 CR 11 monsters. Using the DMG, each level 12 PC has 3k XP for hard, so 12k XP total budget. If you use the rules for multipliers, 2 foes is a 1.5x multiplier. Because of that, 2 CR-9 monsters would be a hard challenge (5k each, with multiplier = 15k XP). So, it depends on your approach. You can simply use the Forge of Foes table, or consider both options. My recommendation would be to look at how fights tend to run and adjust accordingly. If PCs are barely surviving, use the DMG method. Or, use Forge of Foes, but consider the PCs to be one level lower.

[@sqoody7invegas625]

perfect example of a cr 1/2 that is overpowered is Shadow