Never do this with your D&D monsters

[@theDMLair]

LAIRS & LEGENDS 2 - The Definitive 5e Resource Anthology | Embark on 30+ new 5e adventures. Battle over 100 new epic monsters. Overcome mind-bending challenges. Discover hidden treasures. www.kickstarter.com/projects/thedmlair/lairs-and-legends-2?ref=49iyqw Thieves Abound Episode 18 kzbin.info/www/bejne/qou9eqWbo7dmqs0 Thieves Abound Episode 19 kzbin.info/www/bejne/rZrUgKttprireck

[@Pieznake]

How did you send this four days before release?

[@ArvelDreth]

Something I think you're actually overlooking about the resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks is that this would apply to summoned creatures, an ally polymorphed into a t-rex or other giant beast, or something like animate objects. This resistance/immunity has a significant impact on these strategies that would previously have been very optimal.

[@phillipmiller-jackson8311]

I'm gonna be honest, I think Trolls are a common enough monster that adventurers would know about them to a point. Also, if you had a wizard who likes to burn, they should have burned them because purposely, not doing something you would normally do because of how the monster will react to it is meta gaming in itself.

[@TheCobraCom]

Yes, something more common like a troll would be in a scary lullaby, possibly. But in the case of more seldom, more powerful monsters there should also be a possibility that the folk tales are misleading or flat-out wrong.

[@jopestus]

Yep. There is nothing admirable on not playing the character just because the player knows things. Thats the definition of metagaming. A pyromaniac is a pyromaniac

[@yellingintothewind]

​@@jopestus It's some sort of monster - I kill it with fire. It's some sort of undead - I kill it with fire. It's some sort of human - I kill it with fire. It's a troll - I hit it with a stick.

[@BCYoshi]

Just think how many people in our world could tell you that vampires can't walk in sunlight, or werewolves are weak to silver. And we live in a world where that's just fantasy, not legitimate survival advice

[@ArvelDreth]

It could depend on the region your character is from. Some places may not have trolls and the stories their characters were raised on may not have included trolls. But, using Forgotten Realms for example, if you have a character from Nesme or the game takes place on the Sword Coast, you know about trolls.

[@feferson492]

Looks like they were just meta gaming in reverse That fire and acid stop regeneration isn't some arbitrary rule, it cauterizes or dissolves the tissue, that's why they stop regenerating

[@schwarzerritter5724]

It also makes sense from a gameplay perspective, because fire is easily accessible. Non-casters can throw flasks of oil and light them up with torches. How do you deal with a troll that needs lightning damage, rub a piece of amber on your hair and hope that is enough?

[@phantafan7965]

And especially when one of the players is using fire spells on anything else, it just seems off that they'd see two strong trolls that nearly killed their party members and wouldn't try using it. Especially given that a wizard probably has some great intelligence.

[@KingGramJohnson]

I was playing Pathfinder 1e with a group online, and our GM is very good at tweaking or reskinning monsters. He had us fight a gelatinous cube. We were way too high level to have to fear it, but the moment we threw fire at it, we realized our mistake...it was a napalm cube. Let's just say I've never forgotten that fight.

[@csgilmore3536]

I may need to steal this idea

[@KingGramJohnson]

@@csgilmore3536Do it! It was a wild surprise!

[@Teraclon]

@@csgilmore3536 May need to? I've already planned an encounter for it >:D

[@mdpenny42]

There are occasions where "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck", it's a duck. There are other occasions where "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck", it's a mimic.

[@jopestus]

I confused my players a bit with this lately. They arrived into a 40x40 room with a table in the middle. Three big chests in the surrounding walls. All of them have a lock that eerily resembles an eye of a fish. A majorly torn corpse leaning face first into the table one hand scretched towards the centre of a table. An ocean of dried blood around the corpse. It is holding book titled "how to recognize a mimic" in its table-hand. What has happened? Where is the mimic?

[@MagiofAsura]

.....so why didnt any players roll arcana/nature check to see if they recognize the creature?

[@alexj1989]

We did, just didn’t get their weaknesses. It is actually a society check. Apparently PF trolls have society. 😃

[@sitnamkrad]

3:20 Aaaand here's my issue with the whole "troll metagame" thing. You have a character that loves fire, and for some reason this character didn't use it on the one creature it would be very useful against? Why? Sounds to me like the player was metagaming to the opposite extreme. Intentionally not using an element because you know it's the creature's weakness, is still metagaming. Iconic creatures are iconic because we recognize them. That includes methods on dealing with said creature. Our brains get happy when we learn things, but even happier when we get to apply that knowledge. Do you want them to fight an iconic creature or not? Then let them fight an iconic creature in the iconic way. If you want to surprise your players, change the creature. But asking players to ignore weaknesses, or worse, intentionally do the opposite, is in my opinion just making the game worse.

[@bsparky01]

I dropped some trolls on my players while they were traveling on the edge of a swamp. Never used the "T" word and described them similar to yours. One of the characters does firebolt almost every turn by default so I knew the regen wasn't going to be a big problem, but all the characters are squishy and I made the trolls hit like a truck. They could hear more coming towards them, vocalizing with each other to hone in on the characters. They got the first few down but took some hits, then made a mad dash for the town they were headed to a half days journey away. Turned the second half into a skill challenge to keep ahead of the pack. Really excited my players, had them on the edge of their seats for a couple hours 😊

[@williamgordon5443]

The problem I have with throwing unknown (or tweaked) monsters at players is that I would think that adventurers would talk to people about known monsters in the area. Talk to the guard captain. Visit the tavern and talk to any visiting adventurers. Check for any written records of monsters in the area. Why would any adventuring group go out into the wild without any idea of what monsters are in the area. So you came across a completely unknown monster that not one soldier barely escaped from who said, "thank goodness it was afraid of fire."

[@primeemperor9196]

"Half the hitpoints." Bro, I have a cleric who loves Guiding Bolt and is blessed by the Dice Gods. I try that, and it's not gonna matter how high I make the damage because the monster will be dead.

[@mmcalli0]

A cleric rolled a natural 20 on guiding bolt and completely destroyed my wight boss 😂

[@Scorpious187]

There's a reason my Life Domain cleric's Guiding Bolt spell is renamed "Tactical Nuclear Strike" in Roll20, lol.

[@feferson492]

@@mmcalli0 paladin two-shot my wight twice

[@waffleswafflson3076]

If you live in a fantasy world that has trolls its sensible that at some point in your characters life he would have heard folk lore regarding the trolls weakness. We're not talking about Mindflayers or some esoteric thing here.

[@phantafan7965]

And why wouldn't you use your fire spells on a big evil troll that nearly kills your party, when you normally hit everything with it.

[@dancorneanu9144]

A bit late, but did any character have a background in medicine? Or a soldier? Or seasoned adventurer? Cauterize the wound. The reason for troll regen or any regen is cell dividing. Cauterize the wound and that is common knowledge. Amputation.

[@rgott1234]

I've always thought the "immune or resistant to non-magical weapons" was to show why the NPC guards and general population can't easily deal with the monster.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

I've always thought it was a leftover from older editions where casters had half the spellslots and no cantrips. Casters had to rely on weapons as well once they ran out of spell slots. All it does in 5th edition is nerving martial classes.

[@TA-by9wv]

​@@schwarzerritter5724Completely wrong. By spell casters you mean magic users and illusionist. They memeorize spells. If they use a sword they'll get a hefty penalty for using it. The purpose of needing magical weapons to hit cerrIn supernatural foes is to simulate demons, elementals, and lycanthropes shrugging off mundane weapons. Usually these foes require a certain magical plus or higher in addition to either cold iron or silver weapons.

[@farrex0]

@@schwarzerritter5724 True, but there are also plenty of enemies that are resistant or even immune to magic. When I was playing a half caster, I remember being useless around those enemies and they were common. Also, the most common resistances are to fire and poison, most spells are of those damage types. Most magical weapons tho, they say they count as magical in order to bypass resistances. Without giving a damage type. So, they are the most likely to not have to deal with damage resistances at all. So, in reality they are not the ones not getting nerfed... unless the DM has not given them a magical weapon.

[@ArvelDreth]

​@@TA-by9wvdepends on the edition. In AD&D 2e, magic users would still use slings or darts.

[@TA-by9wv]

@@ArvelDreth Daggers, staffs, and knives as well. Other weapons give them a -5 penalty to hit. This can change slightly if weapon proficiencies are used.

[@MagiTycho]

I use knowledge checks in my game to see what information my players get for monsters they havent seen. I also do like to be able to show pictures to the players when I can.

[@chazzerine7650]

Our table uses roll20, so I can easily grab an image of a monster that looks like the monster, but isn't a dead giveaway.

[@IronicCliche]

Love how PF2 and D&D 3.5 gives you templates to create unique monsters that are reasonably balanced. PF2 also has rules for recalling knowledge so that you can use in-game knowledge.

[@josiahrodes7974]

Your characters were metagaming while attempting to not metagame lol. At some point just play the damn character. I don't use fireball because my enemies were weak to fire. I use it because it does big damage in a big area. It's extremely silly to purposefully avoid certain attacks and spells because you as the player would know it works very well. If it's in your arsenal, use it. There's a fine line between avoiding certain things for the sake of roleplay and making your character hilariously stupid because, "they wouldn't know this".

[@phantafan7965]

Exactly. If you were a Maul wielding martial you wouldn't suddenly switch to your longsword when fighting a skeleton.

[@alexj1989]

I didn’t avoid any attacks Krobby would usually use. Fireball was out due to the innocent people in the way.

[@phantafan7965]

@@alexj1989 Was there no way to place it sort of behind them?

[@alexj1989]

@@phantafan7965 The hostages were right in the middle of the trolls. There was no way to place a fireball without hitting them.

[@TrixterTheFemboy]

@@alexj1989 oh right I completely forgot about the hostages lmao

[@dennisthornton4434]

But adventurers would know trolls, goblins, kobolds by description. Characters go into a dungeon without knowing about the monsters they might find?

[@UristMcKerman]

Characters do know, most likely. But PCs need to succeed wisdom, int or nature check to determine if they can identify creatures during stress of encounter.

[@007ohboy]

​@UristMcKerman So you make your adventurers roll for petty stuff like opening a door that's already busted in half?😅😂

[@007ohboy]

I need a Nature check to identify a cow. 😅😂

[@davidtherwhanger6795]

If the characters already KNOW what creatures are in the dungeon means those characters have already ran thru that entire dungeon. Or some other group has successfully. But that also means the dungeon was effectively cleared. So new monsters would have repopulated the dungeon at some point. Those should not be the exact same ones.

[@sleepinggiant4062]

Common monsters like goblins and kobolds, yes. Rare monsters, no. This is very world dependent and should be discussed with your DM. In my game, adventurers are very rare, and monster knowledge is based on rumors (and likely wrong). Volo's Guide is not readily available to everyone.

[@josephcarriveau9691]

Chief, if your players were playing characters that exist in a world with trolls and they're going out of their way to ignore everything that they, and their characters, would definitely know about trolls wasn't them carefully avoiding metagaming, it was them metagaming as hard as they possibly could. Your characters aren't blank slates and walking oblivion. They exist in the same game world as the NPCs. They aren't ignorant of that world. Your character is as likely to know factoids about how to fight a troll as you are to know factoids about how to survive a wild animal attack. If you've ever heard that you should stand your ground and increase your size when dealing with an angry bear or bull, your character has heard about fire and trolls.

[@carlfishy]

I live in a world where vampires don't even exist, and I've known how to kill a vampire since I was about 9 years old. The idea that people who live AND ADVENTURE in a fantasy world haven't grown up hearing stories about different kinds of monsters, and common folk knowledge like "burning things stops them growing back" stretches credulity far more than assuming they know them.

[@ArvelDreth]

​@@carlfishyyou say that but the rules for killing vampires changes from story to story.

[@ArvelDreth]

Depends on the setting and where the characters are from etc

[@deathclawproductions6723]

@@ArvelDrethI mean, for vampires you can generally bet that a stake to the heart and sunlight are going to be safe bets.

[@ArvelDreth]

@@deathclawproductions6723 well a stake through the heart would kill anything that requires a heart to live, and in some stories sunlight is just an inconvenience rather than deadly. But yeah in D&D, unless they have some kind of crazy magical ability that changes this, sunlight kills. But again you could be playing in a setting where the rules are different. In the end it's best for the DM to just call for a knowledge check.

[@iangrant1299]

Metagaming or using information gathered in the background game? Characters would talk to other adventurers, explorers, soldiers, even each other. In a world with Trolls, there is also a world with Troll Killers. Only truly novel creatures wouldn't be recognized within a few moments.

[@flarescareb]

This might be an unpopular opinion but I don’t think counterspell is as big of an issue that you make it appear to be. Sure, it’s a great spell but there’s several ways to get around it and every person I’ve encountered that uses counterspell doesn’t counterspell every, single, thing.

[@urfork1]

Yeah, especially around that topic in this video it seemed like he was advocating for changes that were more about winning against your players rather than letting them have fun, counterspelling that big spell at a clutch moment.

[@TaylorRussell_TheAnimator]

Its the meme, man. KZbinrs be chasin' that sweet, sweet meme of calling counterspell horrible when in reality it's just as much a tactical choice as using any other spell or ability. It's just crummy DMs using the "this controller is broken" excuse.

[@chazzerine7650]

Every counterspell is one less encounter-ending fireball or hypnotic pattern after all.

[@archmagemc3561]

Counterspell in 5e is just dumb for one thing, you can counterspell a counterspell. That is so bad.

[@TaylorRussell_TheAnimator]

@@archmagemc3561 incorrect

[@ADT1995]

I usually tell my players that if I want them to be surprised I'll modify the monster. My justification for it is that in a world of adventurers and heroes legends get passed down, and also that they would know how to fight trolls in the same way I would know to make myself look as intimidating as possible if I cone across a bear or to wear a mask backwards if I am in an area with tigers despite never confronting tigers or bears (or lions for that matter). Each DM has a different way to approach it. I'm not saying my way is right, but I don't get too worked up about metagaming monsters.

[@d_camara]

Try also adding vulnerabilities alongside resistances, make your encounter unique by making the players discover they can electrocute your HP sack for double damage while piercing damage isn't effective. That's way more memorable than a regular HP sack!

[@davidtherwhanger6795]

I like going old school with Zombies and Skeletons. Both are either immune to Piercing Damage, or take only 1 damage from that. Zombies, as their flesh is dead and no longer hurts, take half damage from Bludgeoning Damage, but double damage from Slashing damage. Skeletons, as they have no flesh and are mostly empty spaces, are opposite of the Zombies. Double from Bludgeoning, but half from Slashing.

[@bryanstephens4800]

The idea that something as common as a Troll is hurt by fire makes as much sense as knowing silver hurts werewolves. I think this was metagaming. If monsters exist in a world there will be things passed down on them just like werewolves and vampires.

[@tscoff]

Your player who was playing the goblin was metegaming by NOT burning the trolls. He should have stuck with his character’s normal love of fire because that would have been in character. I have done that in the past as a player. Sometimes to use damage types that would work against the monster and sometimes to use damage types that the monster was resistant to.

[@EposVox]

How do you recommend communicating these differences in combat? I find it cheesy when I hear “you notice this doesn’t seem to do as much damage” or something - but I struggle to come up with a better idea for my own DM-ing

[@LordDany]

sometimes i alrigth state no thid will not deal damage sometimes

[@adamhubbert8896]

I didn't know they were trolls, but I knew fire was the answer. Fire is always the answer.

[@DramakilzU]

What I like to do is if the party is having trouble figuring out how to find a monster’s weakness (or if the party doesn’t want to metagame), they can use a free action to make an Intelligence check to figure out the weakness through hints. For example, “you notice the troll seems to intentionally avoid any of the torch sconces that are lighting the room.”

[@petersmythe6462]

"force themselves down the player's mouth and claw them apart from the inside out." Imagine the gnome was the only survivor because they couldn't physically swallow the tiny-sized trolls?

[@Mazortan]

Introduction literally describes meta-gaming, but instead of optimising it was aimed to be as ineffective as possible, especially if one of the characters usually uses fire. If you all enjoyed those 5 hours - more power to you, but that sounds like cutting your nose off to spite your face. I would be miserable.

[@Lrbearclaw]

One thing I have always liked to do is change Resistances when you change the theme. With Trolls, my favorite variant I found was the "Chaos Troll" where on its turn you roll a d6 to change what element(s) it is weak to and it adds an element to its claw/rend attacks.

[@rcschmidt668]

Thanks, Luke! I like the idea of having the monsters use the magic item the party could win. For trolls, a boss troll might have one type of fire sword, but it can’t attune, and thus it takes fire damage each round, but the character takes weapon damage plus high strength plus fire damage.

[@OceanusHelios]

I think the metagaming argument can be taken to absurd levels. It's almost like if werewolves were real, real people fighting them wouldn't try silver bullets. In a world built on lore, built around a certain lore....the Characters Will Know the Lore and it will be talked about often in those worlds. Lore spreads through rumors. People would know how to fight trolls, especially if they were not completely alien to the world. People living in that fantasy would know a lot of lore...about places, creatures, and things. When you have components, like one for a regeneration potion, and the DM has a lore that says "potion requires eye of troll, do not burn, simmer over the lowest heat possible but never bring to a boil...best to cook in a double boiler and with heat not strong enough to burn the skin....simmer for 12 days)... That might indicate that yeah, fire might mess with Trolls regenerative juju. Characters would know of the local legends, the rulers, the local heroes. Does this make it more difficult for the DM to bring in surprises? Well yes. But it would be important for the DM to let the players know ahead of time, "Oh yeah, well these creatures have a reputation....and this is the old wives tale and rumor about them." In fact, with some monsters, for their characters there might have been fairy tales told to them as youths about ways in which monsters were defeated.

[@conundrum60690]

I gotta agree with everyone else. Zero chance I as an adventurer am going to go dungeon diving without find out the common monsters. Some unheard of eldritch horror? Sure I could see not knowing about it, but everyone knows trolls orcs etc.

[@DBArtsCreators]

A few additional ways to tweak monsters for combat without needing to make more challenges: * Have varied groups of enemies (say, instead of 4 trolls, have 3 trolls and 1 Iron Golem * Don't pay attention to CR. Keep enemies fitting for the area (strong or weak) and let the players figure out what to do. You just need to try and wipe them out (or do whatever else it is the enemies might reasonably do to them) * Let the enemies (where it makes sense) use regular actions (dashing, dodging, hiding, etc), and give them different equipment that changes up what they can do. * Have the enemies use tactics & call reinforcements (not simply rotating to heal, but baiting the players into a trap or damaging the location to change the terrain).

[@UristMcKerman]

Recall Knowledge would've resolved it quickly (well, if they succeded).

[@alexj1989]

We succeeded once, which gave us some information, but not their weaknesses.

[@farrex0]

@@alexj1989 Indeed, a low roll should give some information for the characters to figure it out. For example, the low roll would be, "you that some kind of damage type impedes their regeneration, but you can't remember which" . So now the characters can cycle between damage types until they find the correct one.

[@alexj1989]

@@farrex0 That’s the GMs call. I don’t remember exactly what we got, but I know we didn’t get any weakness.

[@feferson492]

@@alexj1989 for you to succed and not get critical information is pretty lame

[@absurdian8208]

Yeah, about that... My players trend to fail their recall knowledge rolls and the last combat with an hydra lasted 2 sessions

[@MagickMan65]

Thanks for sharing your advice, Luke! Always appreciate it, and use a good portion of it when I can.

[@jakodar]

My players are used to me throwing tweaked or customized monsters at them. I do it often and then we talk about it after the sessions. I like the video and the steps Luke gave. I took notes so that I can process them, try them out and add to my Monster-Lab Chop-Shop document.

[@extrakrispy81]

Hearing this beginning and the argument between player knowledge vs character knowledge. Something I've started doing is allowing players to make skill checks so that their characters can piece information together. For instance, a character with proficiency in medicine or survival could've rolled a skill check. On a success, their character could think "oh, cauterizing a wound stunts the growth of new tissue. Perhaps cauterizing a trolls wounds would stop the regen". Something similar can be used against pretty much any gimmick monster. Encourage your players to use creative skill checks during all pillars of play.

[@johnhannas3959]

Years ago, I ran a 3.5 or PF1 adventure where one of the BBEG's dragon was a "Fiendish, Half Black Dragon Troll". Players loved and hated it at the same time. Acid: Immune, Fire, DR 5, Otherwize normal troll abil's. Also, in my world, kobolds were offspring of 2 different dragon types that shared none of their abilities (the dragons always roll a nat 1 on breeding) . They simply worshiped dragons. Red & Green dragon mate = Christmas tree goblins. The green & black goblins alerted them in a swamp/bayou and there were other fiendish creatures around.

[@johnhannas3959]

PS: A couple of the players were unrepentant MinMaxers that I allowed and I was a very courtious looser that did not mind they tor thru some of my Ideas. I was some of the time to activly trying to kill them, but alas to no avail. I knew them for several years and knew they were MinMaxers (Thom: Iajatsu Focus w/ 2 blades? - 3.0).

[@darrenpellichino2923]

I 100% make monsters resistant to all forms of piercing bludgeoning or slashing not just non-magical. But I seldom do all three so they can find a way to get good damage. I also like adding some unique abilities to give them a little flavor. The party we have does so much damage that they easily kill way above their level. I also find that the room layout along with a little bit of dramatic roleplaying can make the whole encounter feel deep. So far everyone helps out to keep it moving along.

[@Overkill2217]

I've been adjusting monsters for my players for a while. I use most of these techniques already, but there are some really good advice here that I'm going to use ASAP

[@ForteGigasGospel]

Honestly I feel this where things like, Boss Goblin, Orc Warchief, etc all come into play, sprinkle them around, especially when players start getting high up, as ways to make some of the enemies different, even without making them visually different.

[@StuffSayoSays]

Let's be real here, your players are super metagaming to play down their characters knowledge of fighting a VERY well known monster in almost any fiction, just to make the fight harder for themselves. Children in villages has been told many tales of many dangerous monsters roaming their world, and of course veteran adventurers would have told tales of their encounters with all sorts of monsters, how they survived and how they defeated it. Don't tell me a random peasant child in a small fishing village knows more about Troll, Vampire, Undead, and whatnot's weakness that the actual PCs who decided to be adventurers? LOL!

[@ADT1995]

As a player I was once guilty of doing this, my DM afterwards told me that I didn't have to do that and that if he wanted to surprise me he would, he also told me that he didn't expect my characters to be stupid. The discussion I had with him after that really changed my outlook on metagaming and I have adopted his views on that in my own games.

[@foxfireinferno197]

This is very game world dependent. In some worlds, monsters are so rare there's no such thing as "common knowledge". But that's what knowledge checks are for.

[@jeebay5188]

My groups party was in a jungle and they had been traveling for a few days to get to their destination. So I took the displacing attribute from a displacer beast and tacked it on a tiger as a benefit for being in its natural habitat. No other powers or special abilities, just an adult tiger. Because of this tweek it took them longer to kill it of course but they survived, when they finished their objective and returned to town they found out why due to asking the natives. They were told that the local tigers had this innate ability due to being in their natural environment. I do little things like that, nothing game breaking but enough to give my players pause.

[@GarrettCARROTZ]

an idea i had was to make something like a "fireheart troll" which are lesser known variants, so players or their characters obviously wouldn't know of them. Trolls I would rule to be common knowledge, so if they ask, "Is it weak to fire?" I would reply, "As far as you know." The fireheart troll ABSORBS fire instead, and can use their reaction to shoot it right back. A successful perception check might reveal some differences from normal trolls; a fiery glow from its mouth, coal-like protrusions from it's shoulders. Since they use fire to regen, hitting them with ice or dousing them will stop it. This can be done with other elements too. Rock trolls? Thunder or force damage, heck maybe even bludgeoning. Dark trolls? Radiant or lightning. You can get really creative with it imo.

[@EmilyMemily-it3xp]

20:16 a troll going into someone’s mouth is. Suicide. lol

[@Kobold_Bard]

Regarding the PCs not knowing about a certain creature type, it kind of depends on the characters: wizards and clerics might have read about them in their studies (allow a Arcana or History skill check) and melee fighter types may have heard stories from veterans or teachers (all a History skill check); you get the idea. It's a different story in the case of unique or special monsters (For example, PC's from the western part of Faerun would probably never heard of a Huli Jing that had for some reason decided to travel to their part of the world.(from Kobold Press's Tome of Beasts).

[@petersmythe6462]

I mean I would argue that rolling a pretty easy knowledge check nature or history would be enough for the party to know what trolls are and a few let pieces of information about them. It's not metagaming to use background knowledge your character has.

[@cermence3931]

7:17 1 - Lean into the theme (what the creature is well known for) 7:43 2 - Decrease hit points, increase damage output (shorter, but more adrenaline-inducing combat) 8:57 3 - Add or Change Resistances and/or Immunities 9:38 4 - Add conditions to the creature's attacks 10:16 5 - Add custom abilities 11:04 6 - Modify existing abilities (Disabling/Enabling them under the right conditions) 11:39 7 - Increase DCs (in 5e, according to the PCs' saving throws) 12:44 8 - Reflavour/Reskinning to better fit the adventure 14:10 9 - Never use the monster's real name 14:42 10 - Make it cagey (Hit and Run, ranged attacker, abilities that bypass Opportunity Attacks) 15:31 11 - Make it a Spellcaster (increase HP, figure a way to overcome Counterspell such as a puzzle ability) 16:59 12 - Give it stages (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3..) according to what happens in the encounter (Phases mostly change at HP thresholds) 17:42 13 - Attack, at a Price 18:36 14 - Give it a Magic Item (mostly consumables for lieutenants) 19:44 15 - Resize it 20:12 Implementation Advice (Announce that there will be changes to monsters they may know well from the rulebooks, or leave discoverable in-game hints to the modifications you've made; readapt creatures to other locations)

[@strix4609]

It's funny that we talk about Trolls, but my table is in a lab where a "biomancer" wizard used Trolls to study the regeneration thing, and use it to fuse creatures together. Hell Hounds has been with Hives, which made Hive Dogs : Dogs where their head have been replaced with hives. In combat, Wasps fly around, making the Hive Dog under the effect of a "Poison Spirit Guardian" ability, and they summons swarm of Wasps !

[@jrester8444]

Once, in a homebrew horror Pathfinder game I ran, I used nine Lemures marching in formation in a tight corridor. I described it as a writhing wall of flesh. At fourth level, the PCs totally could have wiped them, but because of its unusual description, they all ran to the hidden Maxim machine gun they discovered outside. Good times!

[@Chief_Hiccup]

In one of my recent games I was using Slaadi as the protectors of a Wizard's experiment lab. The change I did was so that the Blue Slaad only infected a victim if the bite attack landed. None of the party had "Remove Curse" and I didn't want to kill them all.

[@JMcMillen]

One way I've come up to solve that is to let the party, in advance, find a meta-magic item that allows them to charge the item with an appropriate level spell slot to then be able to cast the spell for that item. It's particularly useful for those odd ball utility and cure spells that characters never think they need to memorize, until it's too late.

[@kotabear0172]

My campaign is heavily inspired by the game Horizon Zero Dawn, so all animal based monsters have increased defense and some other surprise things added due to being metal creatures

[@karsonkammerzell6955]

To the mention about increasing damage and not HP all I have to say is that I believe the Hobgoblin stat block is the best designed thing I've found as a base material to work with The AC is high owing to what is described as martial prowess, HP is low enough that they can only take one or two hits, and their damage is enough to be threatening. I really love it as a metric on what to use to showcase a skilled, but mortal, opponent.

[@uwtartarus]

I appreciate the inclusion of PF2e stuff alongside the 5e stuff. 👍

[@matthewesch8758]

13:33 - this idea of simply describing a critter differently was explicitly noted in the 2e campaign setting of Spelljammer.

[@kpny8484]

My players had decided to go up the snow covered mountain despite all of my efforts to tell them otherwise that this was a bad idea. So I naturally had them fight an ice troll. Leading up to the encounter, I had a speaker under the table and played some howler monkey calls every now and then, telling the players they could hear these calls as they continued up. They had no idea what an ice troll sounded like, but now they do.😁

[@MechbossBoogie]

This is why in my Pathfinder game I made my own Bestiary. My trolls were covered in fur and weak to light, my basilisk was serpentine, could burrow, and its gaze dealt Dex damage where if it knocked you to 0 Dex then you would turn to stone instead of just failed save=statue, to name a couple.

[@chapandonaweb6142]

PF2e has a rarity tag on every monster, in my table we stablish that assuming the characters know how common monsters work isn't metagame. It's like you knowing that tigers are solitary and carnivores even if you never saw one personally

[@georgelaiacona111]

I have players that like to RP like this. But, since both the Cleric and Wizard rely on Fire-based spells, they "figured" this out early. Now, when they battled the Vampire, the Old-Standby of fire spells didn't work, and the only new player in the group who actually didn't know tried a Divine Smite and figured it out. What I do is "tweak" my monsters to get them something new. For example, they party encountered a Hydra. Metagaming, they know they just needed to stand back and hurl missiles - up until the Hydra began to spit poison with great accuracy. Each Head. Which meant lopping one off created two new spitters the next round! Now the group must feel-out encounters and figure out the differences that they don't know, bringing discovery back to the game. I also don't send only one spell-caster against the party - they gang up. Safety in numbers. Thank you for this excellent video.

[@MalloonTarka]

I once increased the hitpoints of a monster by a *lot,* but I feel it was for a good reason: It was the tutorial monster in the oneshot, meant to let the players get a hang of their abilities and the types of things monsters would do _before_ they met the main encounter. In my initial tests the monster got maybe one hit in before the player characters' damage annihilated it. So I made it more beefy. Did it mean the oneshot turned into a twoshot? Yes. Do I think the players were better prepared and thus the main encounter was the better for it. Also yes.

[@olivereklund7641]

One time i was playing DND and we were exploring a dungeon. We went into a room and the DM explained how there was a strange 4-legged monster running around the room, we chould barely picture what he explained. Then it suddenly an up to us and exploded. As it turns out, it was creeper from minecraft.

[@vodostar9134]

A couple of weeks ago in a desert setting, my players ran into some trolll. Being in a desert setting, they weren't bothered by the sun... or fire. They also spit acid, so that doesn't bother them either. But they don't like water. Maybe that's why they're hanging out in a desert. It takes ice or water damage or submersion in water to keep these guys from regenerating. The party had a hard time before they figured it out. My monsters are always purpose designed for the adventure although I do have some standard go-tos based on the setting (like orcs, but not necessarily 5e orcs.)

[@Reapor234]

In regards to resistances and immunities to magical BPS damage: What I've started doing is removing the blanket "magic damage bypasses all" and branching out with the various metals already in the game. Constructs are immune to all non adamantine damage; monstrosities (besides lycans) are resistant to all non magical; aberrations and fiends are resistant to all but silvered damage; fey are resistant to silvered/magical, but damaged normally by regular weapon damage (instead of adding Cold Iron). Likewise, a magic weapon can't be silvered because it messes with the enchantments. Adamantine is hard to enchant because of how dense the metal is. This means my players, a party that all primarily deal weapon damage, have to carry an assortment of weapons to make sure they succeed. In addition, I also give every creature a thematic vulnerability that can be exploited, or a feature similar to Flesh Golem's Fire Aversion; something the players can figure out/ research ahead of time in order to use to their advantage.

[@ZanarkandAce]

I like to study up on the hunting strategies of real world creatures for inspiration in my combats. My players didn’t know what to do against the wolves that did everything they could to avoid taking damage. It was an escort mission with women and children and the players HATED the ever-present howls from wolves that only entered line of sight when the party was distracted

[@briefepithet]

You've all heard that if you have a rattlesnake bite, you need to suck the poison out. You've all heard various things about bears, and sharks, and alligators. If you lived in a world with trolls, you would have absolutely heard about regeneration being cancelled by fire. It isn't "metagaming." As a DM, I expect players to pay attention and use their knowledge. Your knowledge of the game is nothing compared to the knowledge your character would have from growing up in the world of the game.

[@thomaspetrucka9173]

I do increase hit points on my monsters, BUT...my group is 7 players, and if I want everyone to get a turn in combat, I usually have to bump the HP. I'm still able to convey pace and urgency using tone, lair elements, and roleplay. I think it goes a long way. I've kind of shifted away from this problem by homebrewing almost all of my monsters, though. 😅 Usually starting with one of the 5e statblocks.

[@hosermandeusl2468]

I would refer y'all to the back section of the PHB, "What Every Player Knows", oft overlooked by players, it contains the brief stories heard around campfires & in taverns that inspired them to become adventurers in the first place.

[@egggnome6266]

Having a mage whose 'go to' is fire magic that doesn't use fire magic because the player is pretending he doesn't know troll's weakness is fire isn't role-playing.

[@michaelmuirhead910]

Excellent DM advice! I’m absolutely doing this. I honestly forgot how much fun it can be to run games as a DM. Thank you for sharing so much great content about being the DM.

[@SamuelDancingGallew]

On the note of Counterspell, how about making it exclusive to Wizards, and have it consume EITHER the Action or the Spell Slot. So it allows you to say: "No, not that spell." Without completely ruining a Creature's Turn.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

Why is making monsters immune to slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage a good idea, especially if it also includes magical damage? It makes the battle more difficult for martial classes. Sure, you might point out they have to think more strategically and use the environment to their advantage, but it makes no difference to casters; they can use the same spells and cantrips they use on every other enemy.

[@jonhaynie1987]

I do reduce hit points a little bit, but I don't double damage unless it makes sense narratively. Other than that, the only real change I make is to play the monsters as if they know what they're doing and also want to live. I don't just make them stand there and get reduced to zero hp. They use tactics and will try to escape after a certain damage threshold.

[@mos5678]

Meanwhile, What kinda troll we talking about? Are we talking mountain trolls, rock trolls, cave trolls, crystalline, wood, swamp, ash, river, hedge or ice? Not all trolls have to have acid/fire as a weakness. Sonic/Force or Light vulnerability are also common troll weaknesses if we look outside memestream dnd.

[@Wherearemyfingers]

taking on my first campaign as dm, these videos are pretty useful

[@dukejaywalker5858]

I think the purpose of "resistance/immunity to non-magical damage" is more useful as a narrative device for the setting. i.e. even an army of soldiers would be ineffective against certain enemies. A single werewolf could singlehandedly take out an entire town, even if every person in the town were attacking it. Cue the PCs with their magic stuff!

[@SharpsKC]

I'm happy they had fun. As a DM I would be frustrated. If the PCs wanted to play dumb or if everyone had dumped INT. We've all been in parties were more people had a 8 INT than a 8 STR or 8 CHA. I would have had one of the captives "bravely" suggest what to do. Of course they're dark elves so they probably just want to get the party on their side so they can escape or enthrall them.

[@ElJefeRules]

I’ve always argued that high level monsters having immunity to nonmagical weapons is more of a thematic design choice than a mechanical one. It means it will take more than an army of normal guys to bring them down.

[@RoninXDarknight]

I really don't get the hate on Counterspell given how easy it is to get around it and having it available to everyone makes combat more dynamic than simply standing there slugging away at one another. It has a 60' range and requires line of sight on the caster while they are casting their spell in order to use. Plenty of spells have longer ranges than 60' plus there's an entire feat designed to increase the range at which you can cast certain spells. Then you have things like Subtle Spell which shuts down Counterspell all on its own. And if you don't have that, you can always Ready a spell someplace where your caster can't be seen or out of range and set the trigger to be when you can see your target/are within range of it. There's definitely a time and place for jacking up the HP of a monster...just something that shouldn't be your default method of increasing the difficulty. It'll make for a hilarious story if a small fuzzy animal that should normally die from being sneezed on tanks your parties world ending abilities without batting an eye.

[@TaylorRussell_TheAnimator]

Meme. Its a meme to hate counterspell. But also sub-par DMs getting butthurt about the time counterspell derailed their whole campaign because their super cool BBEGs super neato spell was countered, instead of learning from it and becoming better DMs.

[@kyleward3914]

I had a troll encounter in a game once that was running over our normal session time. I was tired and basically begging the players to metagame. I knew at least one of them knew how to stop the trolls, even if other players were newer and might not. About a round before I was going to have an NPC with a torch run up, someone got it.

[@sleepinggiant4062]

#9 yes! Always describe the monsters instead of saying, 'you see a ghoul'! My players are really good at not metagaming when they identify a creature.

[@dividendjohnson4327]

A note for tip #2 if you're playing Pathfinder 2E. Be very, VERY, careful if you are halving HP and doubling damage on higher level or boss-type enemies. Because of how tight PF2E's math is higher level enemies will have higher to-hit bonuses, which means they've got higher to-crit bonuses, so that doubling of damage can very easily spiral into one-shotting the PCs. I'd personally recommend smaller tweaks, like bumping damage by a die size or something, instead. That or just don't use that method on bosses, and instead use it on their gribblies. Those guys are supposed to go down quickly anyway and mostly just waste party actions, so making them hit like glass trucks won't be quite as dangerous.

[@jebgordon6608]

I described goblins in one adventure as looking like gollum from Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings and I think it took my players three sessions to figure out that they were just different looking, but otherwise plain old, goblins.

[@shadowrodney]

I don't play much DnD but the moment I heard "regeneration per turn" I already knew that encounter should have been boss level xD healing enemies are tough even without hard hitting moves because they turn the battle into a battle of attrition.

[@Sephiroth517]

So... multiple veterans players... and none of the just asked to make an Intelligence check to see if their character knew an information likely to be considered as common knowledge for adventurers and other dungeon delvers ? Saucy songs about the mayor's daughters are not the only purpose of bards singing in taverns, they also tell stories of heroic deeds, and pretty likely a lot of them include trolls under a bridge ^^

[@StuffSayoSays]

Looks to me like the players are metagaming their PC's knowledge of a very well known monster in fiction to make the fight harder for themselves. Or perhaps the PC's are literally infants that they don't know anything about the world. Cause even children would have heard tales from their parents, veteran adventurers, or mistrals about well known monsters.

[@Kisnif13]

I'm really new as game master, i'm building my own world and rules, and to prevent monsters to be the same, i only created families of monsters (in the biology sens) that players can meet, and i'll create different species when i need it, so the players can never really do in "meta" cuz it'll be almost always new, and there is alterations that can occur from their magical nature (everything have a "magical" nature in my world, but it doesn't mean they can use magic) that will give them different stats or abilities. In short, i have few things fixed for my monsters and i'll create them in preparation of each session, ofc it can be re-used at some point, but i have a large choice to make a lot of variation during the same campaign, cuz monsters in my worlds are more like animals and plants than evil beings or races, ofc there are species that players can play that are not monsters, but I build this species to have a lot of variation too, in part predictable on their appearence, but as my ability system allow me to create anything (as players can), i have a really huge freedom to makes things interesting. Thanks for the video

[@ismirdochegal4804]

I'm currently running D&D 5e in Ravnica. There are no Dwarves or Gnolls or Yuan-ti in Ravnica. But the player do not need to know what statblocks I use. A Monster is what I say it is. And I say these Gnolls are just a fresh version of Minotaurs. The Dwarves (or better jet Duerger) are just simic-hybrids that can enlarge on command. (That's ancored in the Ravnica Lore.) And the Yuan-ti are also just part of the weird Mutations those Simic Scientists made possible in this world.

[@jasonplatts1394]

The non-magical damage immunity is a hold over from AD&D where is was much more common.

[@GonthorianDX]

I gave a spellcaster boss immunity to all damage, instead any form of healing will damage her. It took my party several rounds before the fighter smashed a potion of healing in her face and found out it started to mutilate her

[@maxhurst9878]

I had my party of completely new players fight a troll... After 1½ years of playing. They had no idea why it was still standing and I was describing their attacks tearing apart the troll but it was still standing. Eventually the blood hunter finally pulled his flame tongue and put an end to it. But a party of level 13 nearly fell to one dire troll

[@christianschmid1440]

MY mage is pretty stereotypical in that regard. 3 Steps of social interaction with unknown creatures: 1. greet them with my mage hand 2. if they turn out to be rude -> slap them with my mage hand 3. if they stay rude after being slapped -> greet them with a fireball 4. if they survive -> slap them with a fireball 5. repeat. 😂

[@FallofZee]

I pretty much give my players free reign to meta in combat because i almost entirely make my own statblocks for them to discover or its something common enough that their characters would know.

[@Insert_Bland_Name_Here]

I homebrew and change so much stuff in my games that, at this point, one of the players who does know a bit about the game and its monsters already has just given up on trying to rely on that player-knowledge he has. And he actually seems to appreciate that monsters aren't just lazily copy-pasted from the monster manual.

[@brockdrennan1716]

I once took an undead troll stat block, mixed it with a bodak's, spruced it up with a single Wisdom save reaction to screech and force a PC glance at the creature. It astounded them, easily made them feel in mortal peril, but they still slaughtered it in the 2nd round after only 1 PC went down. Fun, exciting, swift, very deadly, lol. (They got really lucky with a radiant attack before the paladin Smited it into oblivion)

[@thetimebinder]

Was the regeneration being described? If so, then the characters should have made knowledge checks to see what was going on.

[@fred_derf]

Not al trolls are susceptible to fire. War Trolls, for instance, are susceptible to acid damage not fire damage.

[@DarrylCross]

Of course then there are the Ether Trolls, who live in (or come from) the Ethereal Planes. They gain a lair action in which their cruel scrawling on the walls will either deal psychic damage or cause stun to creatures of the trolls choice with an Int score above 2 and aren't suffering the Blindness condition. Suddenly that Bear Totem Barbarian isn't feeling quite so tough now, is he? The Ether Troll's regeneration is stopped by taking Bludgeoning Damage from Hammers.

[@backonlazer791]

Every time I've ran a Troll encounter there's at least one player who asks whether their character knows what the creature is and what it does at which point I allow them to roll a knowledge check or they just happen to use fire or acid damage a lot. If the party's fire mage suddenly stops casting fire spells when they encounter a Troll it feels very contrived.

[@MatthewSmith-if7vd]

You just inspired me to create a new and unique creature for my sandbox campaign. Thank you. If ya wanna know what, just ask 😁

[@malcolmrowe9003]

As a player, I try to make several different damage types available to me, so that I can work round resistances and regeneration without metagaming as such. When we encountered trolls in our game a little while back I decided that my character would know about fire but not about acid and so was using a not very reliable fire - based magic weapon rather than the more likely to be successful Caustic Brew. Our ranger did some sort of ranger ability to assess weaknesses and resistances and the DM told him about fire and acid but the player did not say he was telling the rest of us, so I was in s bit of a dilemma ss to whether I could use this knowledge. Eventually the DM declared that the knowledge had been passed on and my Artificer used it to fairly good effect before being knocked unconscious.