Good and Bad Monster Setup

What makes a good encounter and a poor encounter for your adventurers? Here is a little insight into TOMAGOMB monster setup (and perhaps into character creation game theory as well).

Hit Points

TOMAGOMB monsters need lots of hit points. Why? Because players deal tons of damage! A well-specced warrior or monk is capable of dealing over 100 damage a turn in the 20s, and casters can empty their CPD on amazing damage spells ("nukes") that will clean house in short order. HP becomes even more of an issue when the group is fighting a single opponent, or even just two to three. Larger groups of enemies can get by with less HP, though this does free them up to being decimated by an AoE (Area of Effect) nuke from a caster. This isn't always a bad thing, of course: some monsters shouldn't be an incredible challenge. Keep in mind the damage output of your party though, or you may find the boss monster you've set up was actually just a warm-up compared to the group's potential. More rarely, you might give a monster too many HP and the encounter will take forever, or worse, it was far too much and some group members die. Test the waters when the group is starting out, erring on the side of caution, until you get a feel for what they're capable of. Then sock it to 'em!

If you're still feeling shaky as to how much HP a monster should have, here is a very rough gauge you can go by until you feel more comfortable (and don't want to take the time to level up a monster using the monster classes): Take the level of the highest-level character for point of challenge, up to level 10: Level X 10 HP. Up to level 20: Level x 15 HP. Up to level 30: Level x 20 HP. Up to level 40: Level x 25 HP. Up to level 50: Level x 30 HP. Up to level 60: Level x 35 HP. This will generally yield you a monster which is not a total slouch, but not a boss encounter either. You can feel free to modify the HP up or down from there as you see fit. As a final note, feel free to round maximum monster HP to the nearest 10, or 50, or 100 to simplify bookkeeping.

Armor Class

AC is one of the greatest balancing factors in an encounter. A monk may go from king of the damage dealers against 3 AC to struggling for offense at 8 AC. Since each point of AC is effectively damage reduction, players with lower damage per hit but more attacks (often rangers and monks) will see their effectiveness dwindle with only a slight increase in AC compared to fighters and barbarians wielding two-handed weapons. In general, your encounters should not have so much AC that the low-damage-per-hit characters couldn't damage them, or only damage them by rolling maximum. On the other hand, if the player is asking for it (negative Str damage modifiers, etc.) then show them sometimes why their build is less than effective. If they can't damage a monster with 5 AC, how could they hope to stand against a warrior in full plate armor with a tower shield?

One rule of thumb for AC is, don't bring it above 3 AC for low-end encounters, 5 AC for low-mid encounters, 7 AC for mid-high encounters, and 10 AC for high-end encounters. Exceptions can be made of course, if the players encounter well-outfitted warriors or dragons or the occasional iron golem. But remember to let them have fun, first and foremost. Before you raise the AC, ask yourself if another ten, or fifty, or hundred or two HP (or with characters in the 50's, thousand or two) would have made the encounter suitable? HP is an easier fix than AC, but both are tools in your arsenal, and AC can be used as such, especially if certain characters need a chance to shine ("Krag [the barbarian] was really kickin' ass this session!").

Dodge

Lower on the totem than HP or AC, Dodge can also be used to tailor a monster encounter. Dodge can draw out the battle a bit in the same fashion as HP or AC, but not in the most fun way. Save high dodge for your most frustrating monsters (small agile fey creatures or higher level monks, for example) and leave HP to do most of the work you need on encounter balancing for battle duration.

Still blank on using Dodge? At lower levels, feel free to "forget" to roll Dodge in large encounters with multiple monsters if you want to speed up combat. When fighting a few more important foes, give them the respect they deserve and check their dodge every time. And for some cumbersome monsters, you might rule they don't dodge at all! Two examples include zombies and magma elementals, and in the elemental's case, it still deals damage even when it gets hit! When the group encounters a high-dodge monster, make it memorable... just don't make it happen all the time.

Statistics

With defense out of the way, let's examine the stat breakdown. What do monsters need out of Str, Dex, Fort and M.A., first of all?

You probably already ruled out Mental Aptitude, and that's often a fair assumption. However, you might pair the odd caster monster with a high M.A. score to make life a little harder on the stealth characters (though life sense and infravision may already make up for it a lot of the time). Also, if you have an enchanter in your adventuring party, you might pay a little more attention to M.A. than you otherwise would.

But what should they have? Give most of your monsters a fairly high, but not usually 20+, score in Fortitude. Scores of 10 to 18 are fairly acceptable. Instant death effects and other status effects generally key off of this stat, and those sorts of spells should be difficult to pull off. Exceptions exist, of course, but it's something to keep in mind. Besides, something should account for all of those HP, yes? ^_^

Should monsters have incredibly high Dexterity scores? Well, no, not necessarily. Some monsters are cumbersome, and it should show (golems, zombies, animated objects, etc.). Even fairly accurate monsters should probably only have a Dex score of 16 or so. Why? Because people love breathing that sigh of relief when they hear "...oh, and on that attack it just misses you." Again, there are exceptions, and sometimes they come in groups (a leapkin has high dodge, and 20 dex? Obviously, that monster wasn't designed to be your everyday encounter). But for the most part, stick to Dex scores between 7 and 17.

Alright, but what about Strength? Surely the monsters should be strong? Yes, that's definitely true, and to demonstrate why I refer you back to the section on AC. If you thought it could be bad with monsters, wait until you try to damage players. A level 2 frontlinesman can achieve 7 AC fairly easily! For this reason, Str (sometimes in combination with M.D.) is essential for combat monsters. Monsters lacking damage bonus or at least high-damage weapons are uber-chumps, meaning that they hardly pose a threat even to level 1 characters (to be honest, Light Acrinolian Infantry and Weak Zombies don't pose much threat either). If you have a very different sort of party (say, two monks, an assassin, and a druid wearing robes) then you can step back and analyze challenges a bit differently for your campaign. For most characters, assume several points of AC and act accordingly. Your monster should at least be capable of damaging the players (or most of them). Unlike some of the other sections, it's difficult to err on the side of too much Strength if you've been following the guidelines. Scores from 13 up to mid-20's are fairly commonplace, and even more epic encounters could have Str going to 30+! For those fights though, the group had better know who is supposed to be taking the hits.

Which brings us to Martial Discipline. Since you're modifying all of the monster's attributes by hand, M.D. seems a bit silly sometimes, but it's another source of damage when Strength seems inappropriate. Some very martially-talented monsters (high-level warriors or demons, perhaps) would benefit from some of the bonuses such as initiative and the increased critical rate. My advice is not to go crazy with M.D. for every monster you make. A score of 12 to 15 here and there is fine, but save anything higher for special encounters.

Finally, a nod to Luck. Luck doesn't matter 99% of the time for monsters, but there are occasional monsters in the world whom Fate favors (or disapproves of) that might have a different Luck score. Even then, it probably won't affect your battles most of the time, so assume a score of 10 and skip this stat.

Weapon Damage

This goes hand-in-hand with high Strength for keeping the players honest. If you'd like to make AC matter more (sometimes it should), consider the following examples (assume character level 6 to 10):


 * STR - 20
 * Damage - 1d6+9

or


 * STR - 13
 * Damage - 2d10+2

In our first example, the monster's minimum damage range is 10, high enough to start piercing pretty good AC on a regular basis, while the maximum damage is 15, high enough to pierce practically any AC but not terribly deadly to a solid frontlinesman. Yawn. In the second example, the minimum damage is 4, which almost any character with good equipment could block, yet it ranges up to 22 damage! For the first example, the fighter is practically guaranteed to take some amount of damage yet the maximum is unexciting, but for the second example the high range of variance means that sometimes the hit will be totally absorbed by AC, and other times the blow will be very painful! Increasing your damage range can make the game more exciting, so play with the numbers and see what works best in your campaign.

If you're still wanting clues: up to level 5ish: 1d6 to 1d8, up to 10: 1d8 to 1d12, up to 20: 1d8 (with mods) to 2d8 or 3d6, up to 30: 1d8 (with plenty of mods) to 3d8, up to 40: 2d6 (with mods) to 4d8 or 5d6, up to 50: weapon damage rolls don't actually scale up much from this point upwards. You can choose to do so, of course, but the greatest two-handed weapons in the game only deal 4d8 or 5d8 damage, so by that point you might experiment more with higher Strength or a greater number of attacks. Ancient dragons and Demon Lords can always make exceptions, of course... >=)

Number of Attacks

As the campaign gets higher level, this will become a consideration as well. For encounters under level 10, monsters that attack once (or at most, dual-wield) are quite acceptable and easy to manage. If you've followed the monster creation guidelines and level up a monster class, you shouldn't be far off for number of attacks either. However, for those of you (like me) who fly by the seat of your pants and come up with random figures at the last minute, some words of advice. If the monster has lower Dexterity, you can up the number of attacks one or two without totally upsetting the balance. It will be randomly more dangerous, but not consistently a powerhouse of death. If the monster has higher Dex, and hits like a truck already, fewer attacks would serve you better.

For some practical examples of numbers, most monsters above level 10 can probably afford 2 attacks unless they're slow and hit like trucks. Monsters in the 20's should do 2 to 3 attacks, depending on the encounter, in the 30's 3 to 5 is fine, in the 40's 3 to 6 is fine, in the 50+ range use your best judgement, 4 to 7+ is probably ok. Boss monsters can always break this rule of course (up to 2 more than usual works fine), but experiment before choosing something like 11 attacks per round or the party may end up very dead. If it seems like some of the players get a lot more attacks... that's fine. They probably don't hit anywhere near as hard as one of your monsters do if you've been following the guidelines here.

Spellcasting

At last we come to spellcasting, the bane of balance. Yes, if you've followed the monster guidelines, the monsters should be appropriately challenging for spellcasters (mostly follow the high HP guideline). What about when the monster casts spells back at the group?

My main advice is this: go hardcore on the defensive spells, and be gentle when it comes to the offensive spells. Oh, Einnol's Icepicks won't feel gentle when it hits, but it's a mercy blow compared to Call to Judgment. Yes, a frontline fighter who hasn't neglected his HP would survive that and probably recover just fine with a priest/cleric's help. But what if the rogue with 9 Fort was targeted with Call to Judgment? Or the group's priest/cleric for that matter? Anyone who has specced themselves for something other than Fort stands to die hardcore against a spell like Call to Judgment unless it's cast by an enemy about 10 or 20 levels lower than you. So, this can also be taken into account: lower the caster level until the spells seem like an appropriate challenge. Save your fully-powered casters for legendary battles, and put hedge wizards in charge of the everyday ones. Even a bumbling apprentice can unleash some whoop-ass if you're not paying attention to the group's encounter needs.

So now, just for fun (and boredom), the worst-designed TOMAGOMB monster following my own guidelines in reverse.