MATT: Hello! My name is Matthew Mercer. I'm a voice actor and the dungeon master for Critical
Role here at Geek & Sundry, and while we may have touched on it in the past, today's GMing Tips is
going more in depth about the idea of customizing your creatures and characters for encounters.
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Whether you're running a party sized larger or smaller than the system was actually balanced for,
or you want to create your own strange new beasts, or have veteran players who have memorized the
entire Monster Manual and you still want to surprise them, there's a lot of good fun to be had in
occasionally customizing the creatures you use in your campaign. I'll be using mostly Dungeons and
Dragons examples here, especially Fifth Edition, but the general ideas and functions work for
pretty much any gaming system out there.
So, for smaller party sizes of one to three players, first off, consider the party makeup. Do
they have a decent healer? Do they have a lot of damage-dealers without a lot of defensive
capabilities? You want to make sure you don't create encounters or customize creatures or put
creatures in that will wipe them out immediately without some of those usual party dynamic
abilities. But you might want to consider adjusting some creatures to have attacks that
inflict conditions over just direct damage. Perhaps a smuggler throws sand as an attack that
blinds a player until they clear their eyes as an action. You could add a trip attack to some
combatants that knocks a target prone. Maybe a direwolf has a howl that can instill the
Frightened condition on a nearby target. These are examples of attacks that heighten the sense of
danger without directly overwhelming a small party with damage.
And if you want to add a powerful enemy for story flavor, but it could clean up against them? Scale
down a number of statistics to bring it a little closer to the party level. Lowering HP by a
fraction could certainly help, but the general defenses across the board can also take a little
hit, such as a reduction of saving throws, spell DC, and armor class. Gauge which enemies at their
level seem to give them a tough fight, and adjust your boss foe to be comparable, if a bit nastier.
Because nastier's always fun.
Now, attacks that can affect and lock down the entire smaller party can lead to an unfair TPK if
you aren't careful. Consider adjusting some of these abilities to affect a smaller line or cone
area, or perhaps reduce the Paralysis status it inflicts to just Restrained, if most or all can be
hit at once. Just in case.
You can even instill a story reason for the creature's weakened state, leaving a fear of the
healthy version to eventually come. (evil cackle)
For larger party sizes of six, seven-plus players, adding more hit points can help, but it isn't
always the answer. Just adding more HP to a foe only drags out a less-than-dynamic fight if you
don't find other ways to make the battle more interesting for the larger scope of combatants.
Here are a few ways that you can up the ante without dragging out the battle too much longer
than it's intended to be.
So for larger party sizes, that usually means fewer rounds of combat, so make sure those rounds
hurt. Consider a small bump in damage to most creatures. If it's a solo or small number of
villains, perhaps customize existing attacks or adding a new one that can affect multiple PCs. A
sweeping cleave that hits all creatures adjacent to them, or a slamming tail attack that hits
everything in a 15-foot line. An arcane ability that summons up crushing vines from the ground in
a 20-foot radius, grappling and damaging those caught in it. Stuff like that.
This allows your overwhelmed monster to keep up with the onslaught of many, many combatants around
them. And with that many PCs in the field, mobility for creatures can also be difficult.
Consider abilities that can allow it to escape or more quickly move about without a storm of attacks of
opportunity tearing its head off. Perhaps have an attack ability that also pushes the target back
ten feet, now allowing them to move about safely. Or a move ability that lets them teleport or leap
30 feet without fear of retaliation.
Here's also some fun general tweaks you could possibly add to it as well to liven up the combat.
You can implement damage milestones for the creature, which means when a foe gets below a
certain threshold of damage, they gain new abilities, or transform, like some crazy video
game boss fight. They begin to regenerate or grow a new limb, allowing additional attacks, or they
enrage and deal even more damage per hit while the combat drags out. Abilities that can add or change
the terrain of the battlefield are also a lot of fun. A salamander who leaves an ever-burning trail
in their path when they walk, and anyone who crosses that previously walked path now bursts
into flame and takes damage.
You can also implement minor lair actions for non-solo encounters. These are all experimental
ideas and mistakes will be made and you'll learn from them to find the real balance for the game.
That's part of the fun of running these larger or smaller games. I would recommend erring on the
less and then scale higher as you progress. That might help prevent an unintentional TPK on your
party when you were in the middle of just trying to get them in the mood.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed and learned something from the episode. You will see me on other
episodes of GM Tips here on GeekandSundry.com. I'll see you guys on the internet.
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