8 Rules for Making Monster Fights Epic
Battle Setups
- Always Ask 1. What situation will make your monster most effective? Sometimes, the answer is simple. Cover for ranged/spellcasters, close quarters for melee. Other times, think further. Does the monster mostly slow players? Add a time limit. Explosive burst upon death? Pair with fragile terrain, or oil to spread the fire. Every monster has something.
- Always Ask 2. Will the monster’s abilities be fun for the players? If the monster is too hard to hit, for example because it phases through walls, give the players another way to win. A powerful attack that your players will hate? Give them a way to avoid it. For best effect, use the ability, but in a fair way. For examples, see Shadow Demon, Banshee, and Dretch.
- In general, keeping the monsters’ abilities hidden is a bad idea. The same for giving monsters many abilities. Your players need to be able to fight intelligently, or they’ll be reduced to just whaling away with their strongest attacks. That gets boring fast.
- When you want to keep abilities hidden, make sure that the result of the abilities being used in a situation that the players will have to cope with, and have a way to do so. It should start a story/situation, not climax one. Even so, like any other idea, use this sparingly. Most of the time, you’re better off giving them the abilities via skill knowledge checks, NPCs, or by making it generally known.
Choosing Monsters
- When you start a campaign, you’ll be introducing monsters every fight. Once you have five monsters, you’ll want to go down to one type a fight, with the other monsters being ones that your players already know. Once you reach 15 monsters, go down to a new monster every few fights. Reusing an old enemy in a new way is often more fun than introducing new enemies.
- You do want a variety of enemies, and types of enemies. Having several types of the same enemy (drow, gnolls, hobgoblins, etc’) often gets pretty boring, even if the powers are wildly different. The players need to feel that the enemies are different for sufficent “Spice”. (In addition, having two or three different factions with different goals tends to open up opportunities, even if all the factions are working for the same big bad. Introduce differences between factions one detail at a time.)
- Not every fight needs to be epic. (In general, one if four is about right for intense fights.) Every fight should advance the story, however. Ideally, every fight should give the players a meaningful choice and/or be the result of a meaningful choice. (Meaningful as opposed to “Right or left?”. A lot of DMs push for huge campaigns, but a story that can be resolved in 1-3 sessions is a lot stronger than an, often endless, campaign.
- Having trouble making your fights interesting? That’s what this blog is for. Even if you don’t see your monster covered, you can look through this page for monsters divided according to fighting style, and adapt my ideas to your monster. I also have pages dividing monsters by Terrain, and spotlighting fights that show off ways to use Hazards, Traps (as part of combat), and exploring Non-Combat Monster Roles.
The rest of this page will present all of my monster articles that highlight different monster fighting styles.
Spellcaster
This section is about maximizing the spellcasters. I’ve marked the main spells discussed in my article, so that you can use these articles as “ways to use spell X”. See Drow Mage part 1 for ways to keep a spellcaster alive long enough to be an interesting threat in a large battle.
Dryad (CR 1) Entangle, Goodberry
Druid (CR 2) Moonbeam, Thunderstrike
Drider (CR 6) Darkness, Faerie Fire, Dancing Lights
Pit Fiend (CR 20) Fireball
Glabrezu (CR 9) Darkness, Confusion, Power Word Stun, Fly
Barlgura (CR 5) Disguise Self, Phantasmal Force (Uses for dummies)
Planetar (CR 16) Blade Barrier, Control Weather
Duergar (CR 1) Enlarge, Invisibility
Drow Mage part 1: (CR 7) Cloudkill
Drow Mage part 2 (CR 7): Evards Black Tentacles, Lightning Bolt and Invisibility, Alter Self, and Misty Step
Countering Troublesome Spells
Adult Green Dragon (CR 15) Hero’s Feast
Skirmisher
Hit-and-run fighting
Displacer Beast (CR 3) Both independent and as a minion
Incorporeal
Ranged
Vrock (CR 6) (Note: as one of the few monsters in D&D with ongoing damage effects, the vrock has a somewhat unique combat style)
Cyclops (CR 6) Poor aim, but deadly area effects (see article)
Ambusher
Quasit (CR 1) Also used to spy of PCs, and similar stealth tactics
Suprise Attack
Brute
Grappler
Maralith (CR 16) (More tank than grappler. Locks down PCs instead of moving them.)
Forced Movement
Reverse Grappler
Boss Monster Tactics
Lair Actions
Flyby
Unique Abilities
Young Gold Dragon (CR 9) Weakening breath (how to use)
Ice Devil (CR 14) Ice wall
Chain Devil (CR 8) Animate Chains (in the 2014 Monster Manual, the chain devil could turn up to four chains into living entities once a day. Ways to use them.)
Bone Devil (CR 9) Trapping PCs in place with a grapple like effect
Bearded Devil (CR 3) Ongoing damage effect
Dretch (CR 1/4) Radius of poisoned condition
Basilisk (CR 3) Petrifying Gaze
Earth Elemental (CR 5) Earth walk (the ability to walk through stone)
Water Elemental (CR 5) Unstoppable Movement
Spectator (CR 3) Gaze effects that stop movement
Heist Obstacles