Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 155 - Scaling Monsters

Episode Date: December 18, 2022

In this heaver-than-usual rules episode, we take a look at some of the rules in Pathfinder 2e and D&D 5e for making monsters more or less powerful.  We also talk about some game-system-agnostic ways to scale your monsters up or down.   #DungeonsandDragons #DnD #Pathfinder #DMTips Resources: Resigned:  How to Know When It’s Time to Go: https://www.amazon.com/Resigned-Know-Truths-Stigma-Quitting-ebook/dp/B0BLP2LCQJ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1AO4TAC6LM4AO&keywords=resigned   D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide   Pathfinder 2e Core Rulebook   Pathfinder 2e Bestiary

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. Those five lizard folk aren't just rank and file, they all have a level of rogue. Now the party has to worry about flanking and extra damage when they're flat-footed. Thank you so much for listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 155, a crunchy, rules-heavy episode about scaling monsters up and down. Before I get started, I once again want to thank this week's real sponsor, the book Resigned, how to know when it's time to go. This book is about taking responsibility for your career and getting out of a bad work situation. Resigning from a job is an emotional

process and there is a right and wrong way to handle this. The book is a guide to quitting your job with class and keeping your dignity and sanity intact. Resigned, how to know when it's time to go. Available on amazon.com in both print and Kindle format. It'd make a great gift for anyone who's considering a career change. I also want to thank this week's fake sponsor, Speakers. I have a great set of speakers, but the big, deep sounds don't come out anymore. These speakers are nothing but treble. If you like this podcast, please consider posting a link to an episode or to taking20podcast.com on your social media. It'll help spread the word about the podcast, and I'd love to see it continue to grow in 2023. Speaking of 2023, I wanted to have a little bit of a review of 2022. For the very first time, last year we had all of our expenses paid to keep the podcast going,

thanks to donations from wonderful listeners like you. Over the last 12 months, we've had about 13,500 downloads, which is a 72% growth over 2021. 70% of my listeners are from the U.S., which honestly is surprisingly low. That means 30 percent of you are listening to some weird American with a new divot in his head ramble about role-playing games. To all of you, from the bottom of my cold dead heart, thank you so much for choosing to download and listen. And an even bigger thank you to those who reached out via email, insta, and Facebook. And finally, to those of you who donated to the podcast to keep it alive, thank you so very much.

You're all amazing and I wish I could thank each of you in person. Maybe one of these days I'll get back to conventions and I'll meet you guys there. If you see me at a table or something, please come up and say hi. Fair warning. I've said this episode is going to be crunchy, and I mean it. Much of what I discuss on this podcast is fairly soft as far as technical topics go. Hopefully you get some ideas about kingdom building, running monsters, and tips for running unusual scenarios. I usually don't deep dive into game mechanics on this podcast, but a local listener mentioned the topic to me at a recent game night in my friendly local game store. He mentioned that he struggled with the concept and wanted to know how I adjusted monsters in my games. We had a great conversation,

but I thought I'd make a great episode too. So let's get this caveat out of the way. There are a number of tables and quotes that I'm going to reference from 5th edition and Pathfinder 2nd edition books. Unfortunately, these are just guidelines. Adjusting monsters is as much art as science, and my best advice would be to start with lower level creatures that will have fewer abilities to complicate adjustments until you get your sea legs under you. For example, adjusting a kobold scout? Fairly easy. Changing the eye rays on a beholder is a much higher risk and can result in a TPK if not done correctly. Finally, tinkering with something like an ancient red dragon should only be done after very careful consideration and likely a lot of playtesting. Most of the DMing

that I do is in 5th edition and Pathfinder 2nd edition, so I'm going to focus my discussion on those gaming systems for most of the episode. But the good news is that there's some creature adjustments that are universal, regardless of game system, from Starfinder to Delta Green to Fiasco, and these universal changes is where I'm going to start. 1. You can change creatures' weapons and armor. The equipment listed in any creature stat block is not set in stone. Not every Pathfinder Goblin wields a Dog Slicer.

Not every 5th edition Lizardfolk wields a Heavy Club and has a Shield. Those items listed in the stat block are typical for that creature. However, it's not a mandate. Who's to say that they're not wielding tridents or shortbows or wearing studded leather armor? Who's to say that they're not wielding tridents or short bows or wearing studded leather armor? One thing to keep in mind is that creature tactics will change if they're wielding and wearing different things. For example, that halberd-wielding kobold now has reach, so adjust their tactics accordingly. Also, be mindful of other adjustments that may need to be made if you change the weapon or armor.

For example, if you give a creature heavy or light armor, their speed may change. Another example would be if you change from a one-handed to a two-handed weapon, they may lose their default shield and AC may go down. If creatures are being scaled way up, then you can consider giving them even magical equipment if you wanted to. That kobold with a club is one kind of fight.

A kobold with class levels and a plus three club is a completely different fight. Suppose you're looking to scale up like a Githyanki warrior because you're facing a member of their version of a SWAT team. By default, it wields a normal greatsword, but it makes sense that this might be wielding a masterwork or maybe even a magical version of one. Those five lizardfolk I talked about earlier with heavy clubs and shields might be a medium CR1 encounter,

but they could have stolen a lot of equipment to give them better armor or better weapons, and it becomes a hard encounter very quickly. Similarly, those same five lizardfolk who are destitute, starving, with only improvised daggers and blades may just be an easy encounter for a level 1 party. Just like with PCs, the quality of the equipment the monsters have can have a dramatic effect on the difficulty. One of the easiest ways you can scale creatures up or down is by changing the equipment they currently use. 2. You can give creatures consumables. Whatever consumables are called in your game system,

you know those one-time use items that can heal wounds, boost abilities, change movement, and generally help creatures be better prepared for a wide variety of challenges. Remember those five lizardfolk I mentioned earlier? It'd be an interesting fight with no changes, but imagine those lizardfolk now all have potions of cure light wounds or level one cureounds potions available to them. Now, effectively, at the cost of an action or two, they have between two and nine additional hit points, making them a considerably tougher fight.

Now, imagine if they had potions of Blur, Invisibility, or Fly, and the encounter just became way more difficult. Same is true with Scrolls, O oils, one-time use tokens, magical dust, beads, rosaries, whatever magical items you have in your world that are destroyed when used. I'm assuming your game system doesn't allow you to use a potion twice. I mean, how would that even work? Drink it and then what? Hork it back up? Kiss someone? I don't know. Shit gets weird after that, so let's just call them consumables and they can only be used once. Giving creatures a one-time use item can up the difficulty of the encounter without overpowering the creature.

There is a huge difference between giving a hobgoblin a potion of invisibility that's a single use versus a ring of invisibility that has unlimited uses. The latter makes it a very, very tough fight. Same idea about a potion of bless versus a plus one weapon. One-time use versus constant effect. In previous episodes, I've talked about the TPK I DM'd where the party took on a white dragon way before they were ready. I've mentioned how I could have, and honestly should have, changed the encounter. Given the party more warning, given the party more opportunities to flee, and honestly should have, changed the encounter. Given the party more warning, given the party more opportunities to flee, and so forth. This white dragon was less feral,

but smarter than some of its brethren. There was an in-game reason for it, but that's not important right now. This smarter dragon had stashed healing potions on high outcroppings of rocks that it could reach, but walking creatures couldn't. The number of party members who could fly at that level was a big fat zero, so the dragon had free healing available to it just by flying up and hovering while it drank cure moderate wounds potions. The cleric cast a few spells at it while it was healing, and it turned its attention to the cleric. Grapple, fly up high, drop, doing enough hit point damage to take him well below zero, and the TPK was on. Had I taken away those healing consumables, the party may, may have had a chance, had they gotten lucky with some of their dice rolls. But the encounter was way too strong, and I had given

the creature way too much for a party at that level. So don't make that same mistake that I did. Make sure you tinker very carefully with your creatures. Third thing you can do, and I mentioned it earlier, you can scale up encounters by giving the creatures class levels if it makes sense. Those five lizardfolk aren't just rank and file. They all have a level of rogue. Now the party has to worry about flanking and extra damage when they're flat-footed. rogue. Now the party has to worry about flanking and extra damage when they're flat-footed. One well-timed strike by a lizardfolk can drop a wizard or take down half of the frontline fighter's hit points. Or, imagine the lizardfolk all have a single level and classes of what a

traditional adventuring party would be. One fighter, one ranger, one rogue, one cleric, and one sorcerer. Maybe they're bizarro world versions of the existing adventuring party. Now, tactics are going to be much more important for the party than just five traditional lizard folk all with clubs, and the combat just became significantly more lethal. Fourth thing you can do regardless of your game system, you can change the skills, capabilities, feats, innate spells, You can change the skills, capabilities, feats, innate spells, and lair actions of creatures. Creatures defined by the stat block are typical examples of that creature, but you can always vary it up. By giving them more or fewer skills, more or fewer feats, more or fewer abilities, you can scale their ability scores up and down.

So let's look at Pathfinder 2nd Edition and start with something fun like, oh, an Ancient Red Dragon. It's a challenge rating 14 creature, so it's meant to be a challenge for four 14th level characters. Imagine this Red Dragon has legends about it. It's not generic Red Dragon number 442. It's Dreadfang, or Rarkrom the Vile, or Scourge of Mount Kybor. This ain't your grandfather's ancient red dragon. This is something a little stronger. You could give it more spells, or the same number of spells, but at higher levels. You could give it feats to make its spells more powerful and more lethal.

Have it give off heat like a furnace, and give its claw attacks another 2d6 damage, and it sets you on fire with a critical hit. These changes can be made without changing a single saving throw, hit point, or creature immunity. What CR are we at now? Maybe with higher spellcasting, things like quickened casting once per day, clever counterspell, or spell penetration, you may now be looking at a CR 15 or maybe even 16 encounter with those abilities. Those abilities are only available once a wizard reaches about 12th level. So you may be asking, Jeremy, does that mean my dragon

has to also be a 12th level wizard? No. Nowhere in these game systems I'm going to talk about does it say that monsters have to follow the same build rules as PCs. Let's move over to 5e and use a spirit naga as our base creature. It's in the monster manual, by the way, page 234. The creature description states that they devote their time to developing new spells and enslaving mortals with which they surround themselves. Ooh, develop new spells, you say? Do go on. Oh, sorry. Spirit nagas live in caverns and ruins and have 60 foot of darkvision by default. But imagine, one that spent its entire life below ground in the pitch black of the Underdark. So had its mother, and her mother before her.

Give that Naga a tremor sense instead of darkvision, and your party's wizard who likes to move around with invisibility will be in for a nasty surprise and a lot tougher fight. Staying with the spirit naga, there's also a number of ways you could change their spellcasting to change the difficulty. Instead of blight, give it greater invisibility to make it a much harder opponent in combat. Or if the spirit naga lives close to a crevasse, give it the spell Gravity Sinkhole to cast close to a narrow ledge to forcefully deposit troublesome PCs a few hundred feet down into the deep dark. Whatever the hell's down there.

A crack that leads to the Underdark? An ooze or other creature that's learned to feed on creatures that fall off the cliff? Do whatever your evil heart desires and unleash it on your unsuspecting party. But don't stop there. You can change the base qualities and abilities of creatures as well. I could imagine a powerful naga that's developed a gaze attack, eye beams like a beholder, or breath that turns metal to rust. Any of a thousand other abilities that you can borrow from other monsters, or just make shit up as you go. I think you've got the idea, but if you have questions or want more examples, please feel free to reach out to me, either via email at feedback at taking20podcast.com or direct message on any of my social media presence.

Fifth thing you can change to increase or decrease the difficulty of a creature. Change the location of the battle. I've talked about this in previous episodes, but a fight with a creature can dramatically scale in difficulty depending on where the fight takes place. There are some areas where the monster would have, for lack of a better term, home field advantage. Fire-based creatures in a volcano, flying creatures in the air, or creatures that can trip or bullrush fighting at the edge of a cliff. Okay, let's get a little crunchier, like a, um, crunch bar? I know that's why you tune in for those high-quality similes like that, so keep listening.

I hope you enjoy them. So let's dive into the information in the 5th edition game system about creating and adjusting monsters. Open your Dungeon Master's Guide to page 273, Creating a Monster. Part of the D&D experience is the simple joy of creating new monsters and customizing existing ones, if for no other reason than to surprise and delight your players with something they've never faced before. An ice white? A necrotic dragon? A dragon totem cow? What the hell are those things? I don't know. Go stat them up because I'd love to see them. There's a great table in the Dungeon Master's Guide on page 274 that gives you approximate ranges by level of proficiency bonus, armor class, hit points, attack bonus, damage per

attack, and so forth. The table is meant to be a guide, not holy writ, but it's helped me more times than I can count when I need to scale a creature up or down pretty quickly. There are some caveats, though, that I would have for you. For example, powerful abilities like spellcasting can dramatically adjust a creature's challenge rating. The values given there are for typical creatures, but that doesn't mean that your creature can't fall outside of those norms. One piece of advice I would give you is that if you want to keep a creature about the same CR level, if you make one thing more powerful, like attack damage, scale something

else back like hit points or armor class. The more abilities you give a creature, and the more powerful those abilities are, the more you're going to have to adjust other values to keep it around the same challenge rating if that's your goal. Of course, if you just want to make a more powerful version, use the existing data to adjust your scaling appropriately. That Spirit Naga from earlier is a challenge rating 8. According to the table on page 274, it should have an armor class of 16 and at least 176 hit points. But if you look at this typical stat block, Spirit Nagas have an armor class of only 15, not very different, but only a paltry 75 hit points compared to 176, which is typical. That might seem low at first,

but the innate spellcasting, poison damage, and rejuvenation ability all scale that monster's CR up considerably. Let's switch over to Pathfinder 2e for a minute, because I've been playing a lot of that lately. I'm not a fan of version wars because I think people should play what they like, but second edition is really growing on me and I'm going to be fighting to change my existing Pathfinder 1e groups over to the new system. It has diverse class builds, something interesting at almost every level of every class, and the three-action economy is really easy to apply once you learn it. All I'm saying is don't poo-poo a game system you've never tried. I wrinkled my nose at Delta Green until I tried it,

and oh boy, I'm playing a one-shot over the holidays, and I cannot wait to get eaten by Cthulhu. If you want good details on adjusting creatures, look no further than page 6 of the Pathfinder Bestiary. Similar to 5th Edition's challenge rating, all creatures in Pathfinder Bestiary. Similar to 5th edition's challenge rating, all creatures in Pathfinder 2e are given a level for the standard representation of that particular type of monster. The level means that they are typically balanced for an encounter with four player characters of

that class level. Generally, they're scaled appropriately for a given level, but as you know, each party and each encounter is different. This level is given by assuming they will wield typical weapons, armor, and typical monster ability scores and capabilities and saving throws, and none of that's been changed. Like 5e's challenge rating, the level of a monster can be adjusted by making changes, but one thing that Paizo included in the 2e rule set are easy changes to creatures by adding the built-in adjustments of elite and weak. Elite monsters are stronger than the average example given in the typical stat block. Their armor class, their attack modifiers, their abilities against the party, their saving

throws, their attack damage, and skill modifiers all increase by two. If instead the attack has a limited number of times it can be used per day, like it can only do a swallow hole or a bite attack three times per day, you increase the damage by four instead of two. You also increase the creature's hit points based on its starting level. If it starts at level one or less, like a mephit or a hyena or Orc Warrior or something similar, you give it 10 more hit points. If it's between levels 2 and 4, so again, staying at low-level adventuring like a Lacedon, a Giant Scorpion, or a Minotaur, you give it 15 hit points instead of 10. If it's level 5 through 19 creature, which I know is a wide swath, more examples of those, by the way, than we can count. The Gibbering Mouther, Dragons, Elementals, and so forth, you give them additional 20 hit points. And then finally, if you're talking

about a creature that's level 20 or higher, like a Ravenor, a Conqueror Worm, a Pit Fiend, or Ancient Gold Dragon, an additional 30 hit points. Even when made elite, by the way, the size of the creature, the type of the creature, and the default equipment carry does not change. In general, an elite version of a monster is a one level higher challenge than the base monster. So that level 14 challenge red dragon that I mentioned earlier when I was talking about Pathfinder 2e, it just became a level 15 encounter just by giving it the elite template. Conversely, in Pathfinder 2e, if you want a weak version of a monster, you do the exact opposite. It's minus 2 to its armor class and attack modifiers and all the other things I mentioned previously. It's minus 4 on the damage for

limited per day attacks. It has lower hit points similar to the table I referenced earlier, but instead of plus 10, it's minus 10. Instead of plus 15, it's minus 15. So that level 14 dragon I was talking about earlier, a weak version of that same dragon would be a level 13 encounter. Why is it weaker? Maybe it's diseased, it has development stunted, or maybe it's fighting in an area where its powers just aren't as strong for some reason. These built-in adjustments in Pathfinder 2e are handy, but what if you want to be more freeform with your changes, or maybe change a creature by more than one level? Good news! Pathfinder 2e Core Rulebook, page 503, has it covered.

On that page are concepts called Simple DCs, which is good when you need to make up a DC for a certain creature and you don't have a specific level in mind. And level-based DCs, where creature abilities tend to be based on the level the creature, trap, or encounter. Also, in the Bestiary, starting on page 342, are details about a lot of different monster abilities that can be added to creatures to scale up their difficulty level. Let's say the party has to clear out a camp of ogres that have been raiding the local town of Siegberg. Now you want to gradually scale up the encounter, so you decide the camp uses the weaker ogres for grunt labor. Most of the camp are typical ogre warriors, and there are two elite leaders. The typical ogre in 2e has these stats, and this isn't meant to be comprehensive, this is just an example. Their armor class is 17, they have 50 hit points and plus 12 on their

attacks with an ogre hook that does 1d10 plus 7 damage. First the party catches up to the weak ogres that are pulling giant sleds made of lashed together trees loaded with stolen loot. Their skin maybe isn't as tough, so instead of AC 17 they have AC 15, and they have fewer hit points, 35 instead of 50. Their ogre hook is only plus 10 to hit instead of plus 12, and when it does hit, it only does 1d10 plus 5 damage instead of 1d10 plus 7. Their saves are lower, skills are lower, but they're still ogres. They're chaotic evil, large humanoids of the giant subtype. As the party gets closer to ogre camp, they start facing typical ogres with typical stats and typical equipment.

Finally, the two lead Ogre Warriors are elite, tougher, and with better equipment. Their AC goes from 17 to 19, hit points from 50 to 65. If you want them to have Ogre Hooks as well, then they're plus 14 to hit, doing 1d10 plus 9 damage. So as you can see, Pathfinder 2e includes rules for adjusting monsters by making them weak or elite, and DMs with practice can do this on the fly, sometimes mid-battle. But Jeremy, isn't taking time to adjust monsters more work? Yeah, at first. The more comfortable you get with it though, the more you make these changes, it almost becomes second nature. These days, I can adjust Pathfinder 1e and 2e creatures on the fly and do a lot behind the screen.

5e takes me a moment of thought since I haven't played that as much and I don't have those DCs memorized. But having a handy table behind my screen means that I can scale that Afridi up and drag it down if I need to, pretty much just in time. Last thing you may be asking is why. Why should we DMs take on this extra work of adjusting monsters in the encounters we run? I've got three reasons why I think you should take the effort to do it. One, make your world more realistic, and I know that's one of my standard answers. Outside of regimented and well-equipped

military units, there's no guarantee that every creature of the same species or ancestry will have the exact same weaponry and equipment. If you're fighting elves, for example, that are experienced fighting in phalanx formation, then sure, all of them are probably going to have a spear and shield, and all of them will probably have a xipho short sword for close quarters combat. However, if this is just an eclectic group that aren't built around fighting with the same weapons, then it's more likely they're going to have an assortment. For example, statting out city guards. It's entirely possible that some could have blackjacks,

while some carry short swords, some use pikes, some may have crossbows or daggers. Another reason why I think you should take the effort to scale creatures up and down is it gives more variety in creatures and tactics. Giving similar species of monsters different weapons opens up combat for different tactics. Those kobolds with short bows can engage the party at range without risking their ridiculously small hit point pool. Orcs with net and trident can entangle their foes before impaling them repeatedly. And equipping some dwarves for heavily armored frontline fighting, while equipping different set with flanking and piking abilities, or maybe even the ability to rain death with bows,

makes for a much tougher overall encounter. Third reason why I think you should take the effort. It keeps experienced players on their toes. Anyone who plays this game long enough starts memorizing certain statistics for commonly used creatures that they fight. 5th edition bugbears have a 16 AC because of their hide armor and shield. A pathfinder goblin has about 6 hit points and a small short sword and short bow. We learn this because we fight so damn many of them. By modifying default creatures in some way,

you can really shake some things up, mix it up, and keep the game fresh for all of us. This episode could go another 20 minutes, but wow, I am already long. I think you're starting to understand the techniques that can work for changing up monsters in your game world. I want to encourage all of you who are DMing this week, take a look at one of the monsters that'll be in combat with your PCs, scale its difficulty up or down, and see how it plays in your game. With time, this practice becomes second nature and you can do it on the fly, requiring little

to no additional prep work ahead of time. Take the time to practice this valuable skill, and I bet you and your players will have fun doing it. We're close to 2023, and I have some episodes already planned and working on for early next year, but I want to squeeze in some topics that you'd like to hear. If you have some ideas, please send them to me, feedback at taking20podcast.com, because I would love to hear what you'd like to hear. Tune in next week when the episode will release on Christmas Day, so it seems like a fitting topic would be holidays in your game world. Once again, I want to thank this week's real honest-to-goodness sponsor, The Book Resigned, how to know when it's time to go.

This book addresses the lies, the truths, and the stigma of quitting your job. In this book are stories from people like you and me who have quit their job, why they did it, and the good and bad experiences they had. Also before I go, I want to thank this week's other sponsor, Speakers. No matter what music I play, the speaker just keeps telling me how proud of me it is. I think I accidentally bought a motivational speaker by mistake. This has been episode 155, all about scaling monsters in 5e and Pathfinder. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production.

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