Oslecamo
2009-12-02, 10:53 AM
Introduction
You tought this dead did you? Well, not while I have my lazarus pits copy-pasta!
Following the comic characters trend for guides, I've chosen a batman-related character to represent the optimized DM concept. Just like Ra's al Ghul, the DM can never be truly destroyed, controls a big chunk of the world and numerous minions and artifacts, and likes to give challenges to the batman. This way, one day the batman may be wise and experienced enough to take Ra's al Ghul's place as the ruler of reality.
Untill then, it's time for creating more puppets and send them to annoy the batman!
Why am I writing this guide?-Introduction
I see a LOT of optimization guides for D&D out there to all kind of classes and character concepts. But problem is, they're mostly for the players.
This puts many poor DMs at a corner where they can't properly challenge the party combat wise against those characters in crack, wich is bad.
Of course, the DM could just ban/overrule stuff to make the PCs go back to sane levels again, but then the players would probably be annoyed, perhaps even come crying to net boards for help or, worst of all, start throwing net-spawned arguments whitout any actual basis at the DM. Wich will probably lead to pointless dicussions and hate wich is worst.
Besides that, it's also important for the DM to properly challenge the players with new and interesting monsters with new and interesting tactics and abilities.
So I sit down to write this thread where DMs can come seek ideas and inspiration for making their players remember the "dragons" part of D&D, all while staying whitin RAW.
Here's what I plan to do in this guide for now:
1-Monster crunch
1A-Feats and skills
1B-Templates
1B-Advancing monsters HD
1D-Adding levels
1E-Items and treasure
2-Monster life
2A-How do the monsters and players meet.
2B-Monster groups and organizations
2C-Terrain and traps
2D-Monster tactics and mentality
2E-Solo Bosses
3-Examples
Disclaimer about CR:
I'm perfectly aware that the CR system is really wonky for determining a monster's power level, if there's even such thing. Fact is, a monster's challenge to the party is also heavily based on the tactics it uses, the conditions in wich it's fighting, other monster allies it has, the party itself and several other details. And when we start messing with feats and templates and advancing HDs more nasty stuff can happen. But, CR it's all we have to try to measure all of this by RAW.
So, my best advice on the matter is to try to stick to CR but also take some responsability and check out the final numbers yourself to see if what you're gonna throw to the party is too strong or too weack for them.
1-Monster crunch
1A-Feats and skills
Monsters really suck at picking their feats. The tarrasque picks toughness. Multiple times. While the party is doing those uber feat chains.
But remember, you can change your monster feats! This alone can greatly improve a monster's power and fun factor for both the DM and the party and is quite simple to do. Here are some sugestions:
Core feats
"Nom nom nom"
Ability focus: boosts an ability's DC by 2. Great for any monster with abilities with DCs. Think twice before puting it on save or die abilities. You don't want to instantly kill batman do you?
Improved iniative-if the monsters all act after the party, well, they're pretty much screwed. Players will normally improve their own iniative, so this feat helps the monsters keep up and at least no be caught flat-footed by the party's rogue.
Combat reflexes:A must for monsters with big reaches and a positive dex score.
Combat expertise:Many monsters have huge attack bonuses but really low AC, specially touch AC. This feat allows them to somehow mitigate that. It also unlocks other usefull feats.
Improved trip: Combos great with combat reflexes to keep PCs in a place.Also remember you can trip flying playing, stoping their movement for the turn.
Improved disarm:You can disarm the oponent from anything he's holding, including that cleric's holy symbol.
Improved grapple: Recquires improved unarmed strike, wich is normally useless for the monster in question, but worcks great for disabling casters untill they become able to spam freedom of movement.
Power attack:A must have for any melee monster, but they normally have it automatically anyway.
Improved sunder:Really evil if you use it in that super-expensive item. Great to keep the party's WBL in check in case they got too much treasure. You can use it to pretty much sunder anything but armor.
But it's best use is definetely to destroy holy symbols/spell component pouches! Remember, eschew materials only bypasses material components, not material focuses wich are also provided by the spell component pouch/holy symbol, so taking that feat won't completely protectthe casters from sundering.
Skill focus: It's not that great by itself, but it's good for monsters wich really need a good bonus in a certain skill like stealthy monsters for hide or caster monsters for concentration.
Weapon focus:Yeah it also isn't very strong but if you're in a hurry designing your monster(or if you think it's already strong enough) then +1 to attack is always usefull. More than run or toughness at least.
Noncore feats
“We could do that?”-Krork, orc warchief
Darkstalker:If your monster is trying to hide, PICK THIS! Players will come with all kinds of combos to get blindsight and mindsight and whateversight to try to find your monsters and then ambushing them when it should be the other way. Darkstalcker forces the players to always use spot and listen to detect their oponents even with those special abilities, and teaches them not to relay too much on dirty tricks. Lords of madness.
Shape shoulmeld+Open least/lesser/greater chakra Give your monster some incarnum goodiness. Remember, the monster character level will be equal to it's HD. Remeber to also pick Bonus essentia so you can actually channel chakra into those soulmelds. Magic of incarnum. Lots of diferent soulmelds to pick from.
Martial study: Basically a special 1 per battle power. Remember the monster's iniator level will be half the monster's HD. There's plenty to choose from. Tome of batle.
Martial stance:Can really spice up a monster. Remember the monster can always keep it active. Tome of batle.
Bind vestige, Bind vestige improved and Practised Binder:Get your monster some pact goodiness. You get limited powers, but you get to freack out your players as that shiny valuable fullplate disapears from the monster they just killed. Plenty diferent abilities to choose from. Tome of magic.
Improved flight:Fly speed below good maneuvarability has several limitations.This allows you to greatly improve those monsters mobility by raising the maneuvarebility. Savage species.
Swarmfighting:This cute feat allows to create your own custom swarms of small sized creatures and keep them a reliable threat to the players.
Meta-breath feats:Really evil as they don't actually cost anything but the feat itself. They also stack. Try to don't go too overboard with it if you don't want to instantly kill your players. Normally quicken alone is a nasty suprise, allowing that dragon to breath and do something else. Dracomicon.
Mage-slayer: Put this in a monster wich good mobility and reach and make sure casters won't be laughing in the frontline anymore. Remember that the player only realizes the monster has mage-slayer when said monster is threatening him. Also make sure the monster is doing some good damage with his aoo, since otherwise the caster will probably still pass the concentration check easily. Complete arcane, ironicaly.
Pierce Magical concealment:Make sure you hit those buff-protected casters with your mage-slayer monster. Complete arcane.
Pierce Magical protection:Codzilla? What codzilla? Combine with the above feats to teach casters some humbleness. Complete arcane.
Hold the line: Combine with improved trip to teach those uberchargers a lesson or two. Complete warrior.
Robillar's gambit: Really evil against melees. For a weaker effect try out karmic strike (complete warrior). It's not very clear if they stack. As Ra'sal Ghul, you have the final word, but be prepared for batman to persuade it's allies to turn it against you if you let it stack. PHB II.
Savage species and Libris mortis: Those two books in particular contain a LOT of usefull monster feats. Perhaps I'll go over them someday but not now. If you have the books just pick them up and go to the feat sections to get plenty of goodies to challenge your players.
As you may have noticed, a monster's character level for picking up feats is determined by it's number of HD. This means that, right, a monster with more than 20 HD is considered epic and can pick up epic feats. And there's a lot of monsters out there with more than 20HD while being of nonepic CR. Some may call this broken, but after level 5-6 PCs start to get nasty and you may need to pull the big guns to keep them challenged whitout doing an auto-TPK. Here they are, all from epic level handbook:
Epic feats
IT'S OVER 9000!!!!!
Blinding speed: If you can meet the fat dex recquirement it can be quite usefull, giving you benefits similar to haste.
Damage reduction:At epic level isn't that good, but for a monster of medium level it can be a great help.
Energy resistance: nasty if combined with monsters wich have vulnerability to a certain element, or also to allow monsters to shoot nukes over their own teammates whitout fear of hurting each other.
Exceptional deflection: Feat heavy, but definetely worth the look of that wizard's face when his shivering touch/orb of doom bounces off your BBEG.
Infinite deflection:Combine with the above to make your own wuxia-anime monstruosity wich deflects everything the party throws at him.
Great(insert ability score here):The most usefull epic feat for the DM, allowing you to either further strenghten the monster natural powers or meet other epic feats high pre-requisites. If you don't know what to pick, pick this.
Perfect multiweapon fighting:I'm sure there's some crazy combo in here waiting to be unleashed.
Epic destinies: For 3.X, made available by Wotc themselves. I personally prefer the blade of ragnarock one.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080428
As a last note on feats, remember, nowhere it says that monsters can't pick up flaws, so if you're short in feats for them feel free to give your monsters one or two flaws. And if you're at it, go ahead and give them a trait.
Skills
”Did you know that wood burns better than rocks?”-Mog, goblin weaponsmith
Monsters also aren't very smart at picking their skills, and normally they're in a completely messed up state. My sugestion is to clean it all up, maximize relevant skills and then puting whatever's left on whatever you like, be it knowledge:adventurers or profession: monster.
A monster can have a total of ranks on a skill equal to it's HD+3. It may pay off to remember the epic uses of skills for monsters with lots of HD.
Relevant skills for monsters:
Spot and listen:Your first priority no matter what. Your monster can't be a challenge if it can't find the party. If you are lacking in skill points, then pick listen so you can at least detect in wich square the wizard is when either he's invisible or the monster has been blinded by some dirty trick.
Hide and move silently: Unless you're a full plate wielding ogre, it pays off to try to hide. Even large and bigger creatures normally have enough HDs to make hiding a viable strategy.
Balance:Beware of grease. 5 ranks shall be enough.
Jump: That wizard tought it was safe up there? Make him think again. Monsters with high strenght can get some sick jump modifiers.
Tumble:Nice for low levels, becomes weaker as the monsters gain better and better mobility
Bluff:Keep your rolls for this secret or the players will notice it right away. Also don't ask them to roll sense motive, just ask for their modifiers before hand and then roll it yourself. Combine it with sending spell to screw up with their mind.
Escape artist:It helps in a suprisingly big number of situations.
Sense motive:For when you don't want your players to talk their way out.
Skill tricks
"Watch me pull out your head out of this hat."-ogre magi
Like flaws, nobody says monsters can't pick those up. There are some that are really worth looking at. All from Complete scoundrel:
Clarity of vision: Nonmagical See invisibility. Remember, it worcks against ALL kinds of invisibility, including the dreaded superior invisbility spell. Very usefull against optimized arcane casters.
Shrouded dance: Can be usefull for stealth based monsters, allowing to gain concealment as a move action.
Sliping past-Ignore penalties for squeezing. Great for big monsters in closed areas.
Twisted charge:Change direction during a charge. Almost a must have for charging monsters.
Acrobatic backstab:Make the target flatfooted. Usefull for monsters with abilities that depend on the target being flatfooted.
1B-Templates
I'm a vampire now. Do I glitter in the sun? AAYYEEEE!!!-random twilight fangirl, after acquring vampirism, last words.
Templates are a quick way of spiffing up a monster, altough they normaly change the CR. Like feats, certain templates may be more usefull to certain monsters than others.
Also, there's two main kinds of templates. Some pretty much just give abilities(bonus). The others take and give abilities, the main example being skeleton and zombie(replace).
Bonus templates
Evolved undead:Ra's al Ghul's favorite, this cheap template increases an undead's strenghts and then gives a special usefull power. Can be added multiple times. Libris mortis.
Ghost:the classic "can't touch me" spirit. +3 CR, but very powerfull when combined with monsters with special powers, since it boosts your charisma and makes you much harder to hurt. Not so good for melee brutes since you can't use str while ethereal, unless you have a ghost touch weapon.
Half-dragon: Players hate it, but Ra's al Ghul cares not for the hapiness of his minions! And for minions this template is, specialy large sized minions. Flight and a breath attack won't win you the day, but will slow down those pesky flying batmans wizards Works specialy well with monstruous vermins, but any large creature with low CR will do great. Also fat strenght bonus+high speed flight to keep bashing batman in melee. Core.
Half-golem: For all your cyborg needs. Comes in diferent types, with iron being the strongest but also vulnerable to rust. Fat STR bonus is the main advantage, togheter with nat armor and special abilities depending on the type you transformed. Also, golem spell immunity. One decision you need to make is if your minion becomes a construct(gaining contruct immunities but losing con). Monster Manual II.
Multi-headed: pretty crazy template, adds extra heads to the base creature! Each head comes with extra HD, it's own attack, superior multi weapon fighting(multiple atacks whitout penalty), extra nat armor and Con. Now here's the trick. The more heads you give to the monster, the higher the CR, but each extra +1CR gives more heads. For example one more head is +1 CR, but give 4 heads and it's just +2 CR. That's 8 extra HD(with BAB, skills and feats included!), 4 more attacks, +16 con and +4 nat armor! And you can go up to +29 heads with +9 CR! That's a whooping 58 extra HD, +9 nat armor, +29 extra attacks, and...Well, just sick. Even stronger than HD advancing. Use few heads to make super monsters, and a lot of heads for memorable batles. Also make sure to find a way to give the monster pounce so it can attack with all heads after moving.
The max nº of heads you can give however is based on the creature's size. Extra heads give extra head based special attacks like breaths, but the CR also increases. If the monster doesn't have breath atacks, you can give the template offers the possibility of giving them one (altought somewhat weak), and even an hydra-like ability to make cut heads regrow!
Monster of legend: Pretty much what it says. Fat bonus to saves, abilitiy scores, one special activated ability (5th level cleric casting is specialy juicy), two special passive abilities (permanent spell turning is awesome) and some other stuff. Just for +2 LA. Great for when you want to quickly make an elite monser or BBEG. MM II.
Phrenic creature: for the psion lovers, this template gives a bunch of great psi like abilities to challenge batman. Empty mind, force screen and precognition alone are a great defensive buffs against magic. Mind thrust is a powerfull ranfed attack. For the non psion lovers, it's still usefull with some reflavoring, just remember that a creature with psi like abilities is assumed to augment those psi like abilities to the max of his ML. Psionics handbook (3.5 one, beware of the 3.0 one)
Pseudonatural creature:Originating from the plane of b\, this template is specialy usefull for small mooks, because it gives true strike 1/day to make sure they hit a party member before going down whitout increasing their CR, as long as they have 3HD or less. Also, tentacles. Lords of madness.
Shadow creature: very nice to make stealthy monsters, and also to make any monster more durable with just +1CR. In particular, it bypasses the need for cover to hide. Extra speed bonus is always welcome. Save bonuses, mirror image and fast healing are all good to keep it going once it's discovered. Goes well with anything that isn't fighting in broad daylight. Lords of madness.
Vampire: A lot of bonuses and penalties, this is one is best left to elite monsters and BBEGs due to all of the bookeeping, but can do for some quite good batles if you know what you fully use their abilities. Core. Libris mortis offers some interesting variants.
Vecna blooded: four words: COMPLETE IMUNITY TO DIVINATION! No ifs. No ways to bypass it. F**** scrying, knowledge skills, bardic knowledge, metagame knowledge and whatever other cheap tricks batman calls, he can't see it. These are Ra's al Ghul's most trusted minions. Nobody will see them coming. And even if they see, they can gain a super displacement for 1 minute 1/day. True seeing is a divination spell, so make the Vecna blooded minion an illusionist for extra nastyness. From MM V, and a cheap +1CR. There are other god blooded templates there, but this one clearly stands out.
Were-something: Coming in all kinds of shapes and sizes, this template actualy adds HDs to the monster. Clearly tailored for brutish monsters, the main advantage is hiding as a normal animal untill Ra's al Ghul orders them to strike at batman. Core
Replace templates
Brood spawn: Resistance if futile. You will all be assimilated. Nice bonuses for combat, usefull SLAs, and a single one escaping from the party means it will eventualy begin a new infestation. From elders of evil.
Living spell:Not your usual template, this turns a spell into a walking monster wich keeps repeating it's effects on whoever it touches! Kinda one trick pony, but makes for a great suport dude for your big fat minions. Either benefetical spells to buff them or ofensive spells against the party.
Mob and Unit templates: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129179)created by yours truly, those templates allow you to turn lots of small weak creatures into a big nasty monster of doom!
Revived fossil:Ra's al Ghul pits on a budget. This one is specialy usefull to creating low CR mooks, as RF gain a fixed extra HP, claw damage and armor bonus dependant on their size, not their HD. Baboons are particulary nasty, but anything with good physical scores will do. Libris mortis.
Skeleton: Classic undead template. Remember they can use weapons! Quick, hard and quick to make as it has no feats or skills. If you want to increase the challenge, claim they were created by someone with corpsecrafter feats and give them the bonuses! As RF, works well with creatures with high ability scores. Core. Libris mortis offers extra special variants.
Zombies:the other classic undead template. One action per turn is a b****, but they at least can fly with wings. Partial charge allows them to move and attack on the same turn. Alone they aren't that dangerous, but they have lots of HP, and their bigger number of HD allows them to hit hard, specialy if the base creature had an attack with good base damage. Combine them with suport monsters who can tie down the party, or use them as walking obstacles! Core. Libris mortis offers extra zombie variants at the end of the monsters section, in particular one that greatly increases the speed and allows for multiple actions(but still just one atack).
Just like monsters, there's plenty of templates out there, and I didn't memorize them all so if you know any cool one that isn't above, feel free to point it out! I'll probably add more onmy own iniative as I remember them.
1B-Advancing monsters HD
We'll make him bigger, stronger, faster... Less explody-space pirate, trying to rebuild Riddick
This is another fast way of increasing monster power. Monster with extra HD are suposed to represent exceptional individuals. Or Ra's al Ghul mad experiments. Or individuals breed and trained to kill certain overconfident humans. Your call.
Altough it's based on a lot of rules and tables, monster HD advancement boils down to this:
Each extra HD gives +1 to the monster's SR, skills(if it has int), and CL, if it has any.
Each 2 extra HD grant +1 to the monster's good saves and the DC of non SLA abilities.
Each 3 extra HD grants one extra feat and +1 to the monster bad saves.
Each 4 extra HD grants +1 to an ability score of your choice.
BAB increases dependant on the creature type. Undeads for example get +1 for each 2 HD, while outsiders het +1 for every HD.
The CR increase is based on the type of HD you're increasing. Stronger types advance their CR faster, while weaker types advance their CR slower.
Aberration, construct, elemental, fey, giant, humanoid, ooze, plant, undead, vermin +1 per 4 HD added
Animal, magical beast, monstrous humanoid +1 per 3 HD added
Dragon, outsider, +1 per 2 HD
This is actualy an advantage to the weak creature types! An angel gets +1 CR for geting 2HD, and that results in +2 BAB, 9HP, +2 SR(if it had any) +1 to all saves and +2 to it's skills.
Meanwhile, an undead gets +1 CR for gaining +4 HD, but that results in +2 BAB, +2 to will save, +1 to fort and reflex, +4 SR(if it had any) 26 HP +4 to all skills and a feat(if it has int).
This way relatively weak monsters can be greatly improved just by increasing their HD.
Unlike players, monsters can get more than 20 BAB with HD increase, but they can still only make up to 4 iterative attacks with a single weapon.
Adding enough HDs this way can increase a monster's size. Check out the monster's entry. This however increases the monster's CR by +1 on itself, lowers dex and may make it harder to fit in the base tunnels, so sometimes you may wish to skip it.
Extra combo: templates based on HD+HD advancement!
Simply, advance a weak type of creature several HD, then slap a template on it that's based on it's total number of HD. It'll almost always result in a quite powerfull and flavourfull creature for it's CR, even with few optimization of Ra's al Ghul's part. Specialy good to suprise and challenge more optimized parties when your brain is feeling lazy.
1D-Adding levels
My name is Spidew Montoya. You killed my warlord. Prepare to die.
Now making monsters bigger and nastier is all fine and dandy, but sometimes you want to give them abilities that aren't directly related to their bodies. You want bugbear samurais and ogre mages, or just want to let Batman taste his own tricks. That's when Ra sens his minions into hellish training so they can get some levels.
If you know your way around classes, adding them to monsters is quite easy. Just consider that you were multiclassing, and add the class bonuses to the monster stats.
Before actualy adding levels...
I'm elite, you're not!-goblin warblade
...The monster automaticaly gets the elite array of scores! Basicaly you get to add +5, +4, +3, +2, +0, -2 to the monster stats as you wish. Plus, the monster now counts as NPC, and gets extra money to spend in gear(see the next section for advice on how to properly equip monsters)! This alone increases the monster's power, whitout mattering what class you actualy give them! Sweet!
Class association
The cheese!
Now the first matter we need to clear up it's associated class levels and non associated class levels. Basicaly, the books say that normaly class levels add +1 CR on a 1 to 1 basis. However, if you're giving the monster class levels that don't play directly to their strenghts (like giving wizard levels to a troll), then the CR only increases 1 by each 2 class levels, untill the monster has as much non associated class levels as racial HD.
Problem is, how do you know that a class is associated or nonassociated with a certain monster? The troll for example. Giving it wizard levels sounds like a bad idea, at first, but let's look more carefully.
First just 2 wizard levels. It's stats get improved. Let's put the +5 at int so he gets 11 int and can cast 1st level spells. Scribe scroll isn't that usefull, so we'll use the variant wizard that swaps it for a fighter feat. We'll get a bat familiar for a blindsense scout, or trade it for something else. Yes we can do that. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantcharacterclasses.htm) The troll gets +17 hp from it's extra two HD, thanks to his fat con, +3 to his will save, that was pretty weak before, +1 BAB, and can cast two or three spells for some utility. Like grease to hold the party's cleric at bay while it closes in. It can also now use scrolls and wands, wich he can afford with his NPC wealth.
Not too shabby, right? The troll has CR+1, but it's gained a series of considerable bonuses.
Now let's give it 6 wizard levels. It can now cast 3rd level spells( he gained two stats increase at 8th and 12th level, so let's increase his int to 13), so it can fly, see invisible oponents, become invisible himself plus plenty of other stuff. It also gained a good chunk of HP, two extra fighter feats total, +3 BAB total, +2 to ref and fort and +5 to will, and can now speak with his familiar. Plus trolls stats.
It's total CR is 8. If used properly, he's quite a challenge to the party.
And now a more extreme example, Tiny the stone giant wizard. He begins CR 8 and with 14 HD. Give him 14 wizard levels and now he's CR 15. But he casts as a wizard 14. With stone giant stats. And can pick up epic feats. And his ECL is 28, so he gets a butload of money to spend in equipment!
So, my advice is, consider that all class levels are associated for normal monsters, and nonassociated for elite monsters. Tiny would make a great leader for a stone giant force, but a tribe made only of Tinys will just roll over the party. And once more, notice that nonassociated caps when you have as much class levels as racial HD, thus monsters whitout racial HD count everything as associated.
So, wich classes to pick?
My dad was a warrior. And a medic. And a sailor. And...
This section will be divided in two sections: fullcasters, like wizards, clerics and sorcerors, and nonfullcasters, aka everything else. Notice that monsters wich have natural spellcasting like dragons and Rakasha can improve that spellcasting by taking levels on the related class. So for example, a rakasha with 3 levels of sorceror would cast as a 10th level sorceror.
Also, if giving caster levels to a monster, seriously consider giving it the practised spellcaster feat to improve it's CL!
Fullcaster classes. Unless the monster has natural spellcasting to improve, giving the monster fullcaster levels is basicaly like giving it some extra special powers.
Cleric: quite good actualy. Improves fort and will, and the two domains will come with special abilites. You can easily get two feats for free (like weapon proefecincy and focus from war and improved iniative from celerity). Cleric also has plenty of good and medium level usefull buffs, like shield of faith.
Druid:Enchanting your own natural attacks may be usefull, but the animal companion be too weak and wildshape needs a lot of levels to come online. Either give it to very low level monsters or as nonassociated, or pick cleric.
Sorceror:Not much to see here, besides improving monsters with natural casting on this, but if you want to spam one or two 1st level arcane spell it can be worthwhile.
Wizard: Like I already pointed out, you can swap scribe scroll for a fighter feat, and the will save bonus comes in handy for a lot of monsters.
Nonfullcasters.: This is where the true gold lies for quick improving!
Barbarian:RAGE against the batman! Great for any combat monster, extra speed comes in handy also. Lion totem barbarian crom complete champion is a quick simple way of giving your monster pounce.
Bard:Mainly usefull for a suport monster, singing to boost his allies. Unfortenely, multiples don't stack, but you can "cheat" your way trough this by making two bards, one normal, the other with dragonfire inspiration(dragon magic)! Also words of creation(BOED) to double the bonuses, altough technicaly only goody two shows can use this one.
Binder:With the improved biding feat, you can further increase the monster's ability to use vestiges!
Crusader, swordsage and warblade: If you know your way around Tome of Batle, those three classes can all quickly give a bunch of special abilities to any monster in the form of feats.
Fighter:Two levels, two feats, and plenty of armor and weapon proefeciencies on top. You can also add multiple levels to gain the special fighter alternate abilities like dungeoncrasher and the Complete Champion one where you can sacrifice BAB for extra will save.
Paladin: Not that shiny, untill you combine it with a monster with high charisma(and there's plenty of them out there), and then it ROCKS! Divine grace boosts your saves to the sky and beyond, and smite evil will hurt something bad. You can trade the mount for charging smite(PHB II), and turn undead can channel divine feats to add charisma to damage (Complete divine).Remember the evil paladin variants (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantcharacterclasses.htm) if you don't feel like sending goody two shoes against batman.
Ranger:Not that usefull, but could work if you want to make a semi stealthy tracker sniper monster.
Rogue:Sneack attack stacks great with stealthy monsters with lots of attacks. Consider also the ninja class wich grants sudden strike(only works against flat footed oponents), but allows you to become invisible by yourself. Is that a plane? Superman? No, it's a ogre ninja!
Monster prestige classes. The following prestige classes were created precisely to be used by monsters.
Beholder mage:casts as a soceror, learns as a wizard, and can reach 9th level spells with 9 levels of this prc. And only beholders can take it, so screw batman. You lose the ability to use the eyestalks for rays one by one, but instead they can cast spells. As a free action. Multiple times per turn. Train your diabolical laughter if you plan on unleashing this on the party. Sure it would need to be CR 22 to cast 9th level spells, but a beholder mage 7 casting 7 spells per turn from level 1 to 7 is still pretty sick for CR 20. Lords of madness.
Dungeon lord: If you love building dungeons filled with traps, then this is for you. Gives bonus to all the dungeon lord minions, including the ability to don't be hindered by any of the dungeon traps, scrying everywhere and teleporting anywhere inside it. And then animating a part of it just to make batman go WTF! Dungeonscape.
Fiend of blasphemy: For demons and devils, this prc focuses on a mastermind who enslaves lots of weak cultists and sends them forth to do their biding. Plus some cleric casting, up to 5th level spells in 5 levels. Besides that the main advantage is allowing cultists to use your SLA as cheap effecient canon fodder. Takes some work to make it worthwile, but very flavourfull.
Fiend of corruptionThe typical seductress, this demon/devill specializes in offering false gifts. More fit for heavy roleplay campaigns, as it's abilities work slowly and are based around a lot of talking, but great if you want an NPC to screw with your player's heads. Just remember to cranck up her bluff skill or batman may enslave her for his own purposes.
Alternatively, it also makes a good suport monster, or an evil leader herself, using her corruption abilities to buff her minions.
Fiend of possession:Become a spirit that enters objects and uses them to do their biding! Includes such goodies as boosting the possessed item or cursing it, animating the object (up to colossal), and eventualy possessing living beings. Virtualy undetectable while possessing the item if played smart, it will surely make Batman question his own sanity.
All three above from fiend folio.
Dracomicon: Plenty of prc for dragons. May do a run down after finishing the rest of the guide.
Lords of madness: besides the beholder mage it's filled with other goodies for aberrations of all kinds.
Savage species: Plenty of monster prcs.
1E-Items and treasure
One ring to rule them all-Sauron
No matter what he says, Batman relies heavily on equipment, so it's only fair Ra's al Ghul minions turn his tricks against him.
Now some monsters are savage things that really shouldn't use any kind of equipment, but for everything else, they should use anything and everything they can get their hands on.
But alas, altough your budget is unlimited, as an overlord you still don't want to pay too well your minions. It just wouldn't be ethic. So, where can they get equipment in a fair way?
One, their own random treasure. Technicaly speaking, you should roll beforehand the treasure of each of your monsters, and then make the monster equip anything usefull. But who rolls random tables nowadays? Heck, even the adventure modules come with pre made equipment for all monsters. So, we can use the average monster treasure to see how much "budget" each minion has.
Average treasure per CR.
1 300 gp 11 7,500 gp
2 600 gp 12 9,800 gp
3 900 gp 13 13,000 gp
4 1,200 gp 14 17,000 gp
5 1,600 gp 15 22,000 gp
6 2,000 gp 16 28,000 gp
7 2,600 gp 17 36,000 gp
8 3,400 gp 18 47,000 gp
9 4,500 gp 19 61,000 gp
10 5,800 gp 20 80,000 gp
If a monster has class levels, it counts as an NPC, and thus gets even more treasure! Unfortenely, the NPC tables are protected by the scary wizard of the coast, so you'll need to consult the DMG for them. You are expected to spend this money in good equipment. High CL potions and scrolls are a good way of spending said money whitout making batman too rich when(and if) he defeats your NPC.
Or, if you can't be bothered with all the gold math, and don't want to hand out batman too much free money, just give the monster the class levels and claim that he spent all his money on booze.
So, what do we do with it? First of all, keep it simple. You'll have to equip dozens of minions, so better to give each one just two or three strong items, except if they're named minions, in wich case you should take your time giving them a lot of trinkets so he lasts more than one round against batman.
Anyway, your minion items can be divided in two main categories. Permanent items give a constant bonus and will fall on the batman's hands if he's victorious. Expendable items have limited uses, so you get more bang for your buck while denying batman of loot.
Permanent items
T-rexes with F14s!-Calvin
Airships: The rules are in the Eberron books. Pimp it up. Give it crew. Make batman fight a batle he won't forget so soon. Granted, it's a lot of bookeeping. Check out the tactics section(soon to come) for more details and sugestions on this.
Melee weapons-if the monster has hands and good physical scores, weapons normaly provide a better way of hurting batman. Besides enchanting them with nifty effects(or just plain +X/+X), some weapons offer extra options, like the extra reach of the spiked chain.
SPECIAL FOR HANDLESS MINIONS-Lords of madness provides the mouthpick enchantment, wich allows a monster to wield a weapon with his mouth. And make iterative attacks. Simply fabulous for all those monsters wich have just one big bite atack, like the purple worm.
Ranged weapons-if the monster has hands, ALWAYS give them ranged weapons. Javelins in particular are cheap and provide decent range. Crossbows are brutal with low str creatures (cough kobolds cough), heavy crossbows for long range sniping, composite longbows for a midle ground of damage and range. Daggers and darts are less efecient, but somewhat flavourfull and easily conceivable.
Armor-Most monsters walk around naked. This is simply unadmissible! Ra's al Ghul inisists all his servants who have a language to dress in fashion! Nonmagic armor is cheap and will improve AC. Notice heavier armor may hinder skills and even movement so don't go throwing fullplates to everything you throw at the party. In particular since they're worth 1.5 k gold each.
Masterwork tools-No, not the farming ones. The ones wich give +2 competence to a skill for 50GP. If nothing else, give some spot and listen material to your minions so they can see batman coming. Look out for usefull special materials. Riverine from Stormwrak is particularly usefull, giving half it's bonus as deflection!
Stat enanchers-As simple as you get, but pretty effecient.
Siege weaponry: Expensive and static, but deal big damage. Better suited for monster fortresses and defences, or mount them on top of other big monsters. One minion will take several turns to get just one shot, but several minions can work at the same time to make it shoot every round, assuming you have one minion for each fullround action the weapon will need to reload/prepare/aim/fire. Available in the DMG, Stormwrack(has gunpowder stuff!) and Heroes of Batle.
Ring of deflection- to keep those touch attacks at bay.
Boots-Speed, flying, striding, and several other choices, all great for enanching mobility. You just need one pair tough.
Expendable items
I've been saving this for a special ocasion!-Flonne, angel assassin.
Alchemist's fire/acid-since they're touch atacks to hit, they allow low minions to sucessfuly hit the party. Eberron books have some more varieties of those. Feel free to homebrew your own stronger alchemical substances, just share the receipt with batman for fairness.
Potions-Ah, the big expendable item of choice. Anyone can use them, but it takes a standard action, so better to drink them before combat starts. Spending a round during combat to drink a potion is a waste of a minion. Thus potions are best suited for agressive/skillfull monsters wich know they'll enter a fight soon, so they drink their potions beforehand. Inner dungeon guards who will hear their companions being killed by batman before actualy spoting them also works well.
Potions can replicate any spell fro level 1 to 3, but CL can go up to infinity and beyond. Formula is 50xspell levelxCL. Here are some of the best sugestions, altough there's plenty of spells out there, so I probably missed several.
Blinding scales:nat armor becomes deflection bonus? Force batman wizard to roll something above 2 to hit your big fat monsters? Yes please. Races of the dragon.
Divine favor:+X to hit and damage based in CL, always good.
Expeditious retreat: to reach batman faster.
Haste:great all around combat buff.
Heroism:should be called villanism.
Fly:So you tought you were safe up there did you...?
Jump:Fly on a budget.
Invisibility:What was that sound again?
Mage armor:+4 armor whitout any pesky encumbrance.
Magic weapon: to enchant ammunition or if the minion doesn't have enough budget for an actual magic weapon. For natural weapons, magic fang.
Protection from alignment:Works better if the party has all similar alignments, but even then, it's a cheap anti mind control tactic.
Shield of faith:moar deflection bonus, altough it doesn't stack with other sources.
Silence:sound? What sound?
Scrolls:You'll need either spellcasting monsters, or give your monsters UMD ranks. Either way, they're the supreme expendable item, allowing your lowest minions to throw all and any spell. I won't bother leaving a list of good spells here since there's just too many. Just search one of the many batman guides out there and make your own combos. Just try to don't go mad with power as batman.
Wands: Cheaper and easier to use than scrolls, but just spells from lv1 to 4. Remember you can buy them partialy, so for example for 75 gp you can get a wand of ray of enfeeblement with 5 charges, easily afordable by any of your minions. Again, search the batman archives for good spell sugestions, or heck, open your own books and pick whatever you find funny! You paid for those spells, so give them an use!
Remember however, don't go overboard with just combat items and stuff your minions with some shiny coins, jewels, and refined art with part of the budget. You wouldn't want batman to think you only want to make his life a living hell, would you?
For extra points, make extra detailed descriptions of random items the players find, then watch as they start throwing every divination trick they have trying to discover an hidden power that isn't there. Or heck, satisfy their wishes and give the item a secret special power that unlocks a sidequest or something.
1F-humanoid NPCs
I may be of edible size and womanly strenght, but I'm a great warrior!-gnome NPC.
Dragons, dinossaurs, demons, fairies and stuff with tentacles is all fun, but sometimes you want to challenge batman with something more human. Or elvish. Or dwarfish.
Unlike most monsters, humanoids lack special abilities, and thus rely mostly on their class and equipment to be a threat. In this section I provide a guide to help you create challenging NPCs from humanoids more easily. This is for expendable minions only however. For more fleshed out NPCs who you want to last more than 1 hour, take your time building them as you would do for a PC.
Basic races overview
Dwarf: tough both physical and against magic, and the charisma penalty rarely hurts. The slow speed however does. Better for heavily armored NPCs.
Elves:Not that popular as a PC race, they make actualy good NPCs focused in ranged combat, or spellcaster NPCs. The low con really doesn't bother you, because they're bound to die. Sun elves are your best bet for wizard NPCs, in particular because they can take faery mystery initiate (races of destiny) to get int to life instead of con.
Gnome:blah blah they make good illusionists, but the real gold is in the super whisper gnome (races of stone), with 30 base speed, silence, bonus to con AND dex, sick bonuses to hide and move silently for some really nasty sneaky NPCs.
Goblins: Air goblins get a whooping +4 to dex (srd), making them a good choice for any dex based class. Otherwise, kobolds and others are better as your small minion race. If you don't feel like using the cheesy whisper gnomes, goblins are your second best bet for quick sneaky NPCs, as they get bonus on move silently and are small.
Halflings: The trick here is the bonus on thrown weapons, wich can make halflings good npcs focused in this style of combat. Strongheart halflings get an extra feat instead of the +1 bonus to all saves, altough both are good for expendable NPCs.
Humans:Extra feat, extra skill points, good for everything nuff said.
Kobolds:The classic minion race, because of their low CR. Notice however it only applies to NPC classes. A kobold fighter 1 is still CR1. Low str is hardly a problem when you're flinging spells or shooting crossbows. If you go by certain splatbooks, they count as dragons and thus you can give them dragon related feats out of the bat for extra nastyness. They were also buffed to have bite+2 claw atacks, wich makes them quite nasty if you give them a class with abilities that trigger on each atack, like rogue.
Orcs:Water orcs are strictly better, geting swim speed and +2 Con whitout losing anything. If you're making agressive strenght based NPCs, they're the way to go, otherwise you should probably look somewhere else.
Half-orcs and half-elves are, well, weak, and should only be used for fluff purposes or if you don't want your NPC to be that strong.
What classes to use?
First, you need to decide NPC or PC classes. NPC classes are better for minions against low-medium level parties, but PC classes give out all kind of nifty abilities.
Plus, the CR of a creature with only NPC levels is just -1 that the CR of a creature with class levels(1/2 if it hast just 1 NPC level). This quickly becomes pretty weak for NPCs.
My advice? NPC classes become pretty much useless at medium-high levels, unless you're throwing hordes of small enemies at the party.
So a quick review of NPC classes before we move on.
NPC classes
Adept:spellcaster NPC. Has a limited spell list, but he automaticaly knows his spells. Works well as an artillery plataform and suport base.
Aristrocat:gets extra money only. Not the best thing to throw at the party.
Comoner: Those are the people ravaged by diseased and famine, whitout any special abilities. They'll probably don't want to atack the party in the first place, but if the party tries to atack a random person who you don't care about, make them a comoner.
Expert:8 chosen class skills gives him some good potential for skill based enemies. Load him up on scrolls and wands. Specialy good for stealth NPCs.
Warrior:The only NPC class with full BAB, and nothing more. For the frontline NPCs trying to hit batman with pointy stuff.
Note: simplifying NPC spells: You don't need to write down every spell known and prepared. Is the batle really going to last 30 turns? Just fill up half a dozen upper slots with the combat spells you expect the NPC to use.
Multiclassing is good:from my personal experience, giving out a lot of class dips can make good fast combat NPCs, to make up for the lack of natural abilities. Two levels of fighter for two feats, barbarian for rage+fast movement/pounce, a touch of warblade and crusader on top, and presto!
Screw versatility:PCs like to be able to do several things. NPCs can afford to be 1 trick ponies and then die. Focus each NPC resources in just three or four things (normaly melee, ranged combat/mobility, and defenses).
NPC equipment:
Lots of small items: costs are exponential on D&D, so better to have an armor+1, amulet of nat armor +1, ring of deflection +1 than an armor +3. Don't forget stat boosters, and amulet of resistance. Ignore anything that doesn't directly raise your numbers or increases your mobility.
Pre combat buffing:Pretty much essential. If they don't have spellcasters of their own, use some kind of distraction. A fog cloud. One of them sacrificing himself to buy the others time. Then let the NPCs drink their potions and read their scrolls bought with their extra money and they should become considerably stronger. There's really no other way unfortenely.
You tought this dead did you? Well, not while I have my lazarus pits copy-pasta!
Following the comic characters trend for guides, I've chosen a batman-related character to represent the optimized DM concept. Just like Ra's al Ghul, the DM can never be truly destroyed, controls a big chunk of the world and numerous minions and artifacts, and likes to give challenges to the batman. This way, one day the batman may be wise and experienced enough to take Ra's al Ghul's place as the ruler of reality.
Untill then, it's time for creating more puppets and send them to annoy the batman!
Why am I writing this guide?-Introduction
I see a LOT of optimization guides for D&D out there to all kind of classes and character concepts. But problem is, they're mostly for the players.
This puts many poor DMs at a corner where they can't properly challenge the party combat wise against those characters in crack, wich is bad.
Of course, the DM could just ban/overrule stuff to make the PCs go back to sane levels again, but then the players would probably be annoyed, perhaps even come crying to net boards for help or, worst of all, start throwing net-spawned arguments whitout any actual basis at the DM. Wich will probably lead to pointless dicussions and hate wich is worst.
Besides that, it's also important for the DM to properly challenge the players with new and interesting monsters with new and interesting tactics and abilities.
So I sit down to write this thread where DMs can come seek ideas and inspiration for making their players remember the "dragons" part of D&D, all while staying whitin RAW.
Here's what I plan to do in this guide for now:
1-Monster crunch
1A-Feats and skills
1B-Templates
1B-Advancing monsters HD
1D-Adding levels
1E-Items and treasure
2-Monster life
2A-How do the monsters and players meet.
2B-Monster groups and organizations
2C-Terrain and traps
2D-Monster tactics and mentality
2E-Solo Bosses
3-Examples
Disclaimer about CR:
I'm perfectly aware that the CR system is really wonky for determining a monster's power level, if there's even such thing. Fact is, a monster's challenge to the party is also heavily based on the tactics it uses, the conditions in wich it's fighting, other monster allies it has, the party itself and several other details. And when we start messing with feats and templates and advancing HDs more nasty stuff can happen. But, CR it's all we have to try to measure all of this by RAW.
So, my best advice on the matter is to try to stick to CR but also take some responsability and check out the final numbers yourself to see if what you're gonna throw to the party is too strong or too weack for them.
1-Monster crunch
1A-Feats and skills
Monsters really suck at picking their feats. The tarrasque picks toughness. Multiple times. While the party is doing those uber feat chains.
But remember, you can change your monster feats! This alone can greatly improve a monster's power and fun factor for both the DM and the party and is quite simple to do. Here are some sugestions:
Core feats
"Nom nom nom"
Ability focus: boosts an ability's DC by 2. Great for any monster with abilities with DCs. Think twice before puting it on save or die abilities. You don't want to instantly kill batman do you?
Improved iniative-if the monsters all act after the party, well, they're pretty much screwed. Players will normally improve their own iniative, so this feat helps the monsters keep up and at least no be caught flat-footed by the party's rogue.
Combat reflexes:A must for monsters with big reaches and a positive dex score.
Combat expertise:Many monsters have huge attack bonuses but really low AC, specially touch AC. This feat allows them to somehow mitigate that. It also unlocks other usefull feats.
Improved trip: Combos great with combat reflexes to keep PCs in a place.Also remember you can trip flying playing, stoping their movement for the turn.
Improved disarm:You can disarm the oponent from anything he's holding, including that cleric's holy symbol.
Improved grapple: Recquires improved unarmed strike, wich is normally useless for the monster in question, but worcks great for disabling casters untill they become able to spam freedom of movement.
Power attack:A must have for any melee monster, but they normally have it automatically anyway.
Improved sunder:Really evil if you use it in that super-expensive item. Great to keep the party's WBL in check in case they got too much treasure. You can use it to pretty much sunder anything but armor.
But it's best use is definetely to destroy holy symbols/spell component pouches! Remember, eschew materials only bypasses material components, not material focuses wich are also provided by the spell component pouch/holy symbol, so taking that feat won't completely protectthe casters from sundering.
Skill focus: It's not that great by itself, but it's good for monsters wich really need a good bonus in a certain skill like stealthy monsters for hide or caster monsters for concentration.
Weapon focus:Yeah it also isn't very strong but if you're in a hurry designing your monster(or if you think it's already strong enough) then +1 to attack is always usefull. More than run or toughness at least.
Noncore feats
“We could do that?”-Krork, orc warchief
Darkstalker:If your monster is trying to hide, PICK THIS! Players will come with all kinds of combos to get blindsight and mindsight and whateversight to try to find your monsters and then ambushing them when it should be the other way. Darkstalcker forces the players to always use spot and listen to detect their oponents even with those special abilities, and teaches them not to relay too much on dirty tricks. Lords of madness.
Shape shoulmeld+Open least/lesser/greater chakra Give your monster some incarnum goodiness. Remember, the monster character level will be equal to it's HD. Remeber to also pick Bonus essentia so you can actually channel chakra into those soulmelds. Magic of incarnum. Lots of diferent soulmelds to pick from.
Martial study: Basically a special 1 per battle power. Remember the monster's iniator level will be half the monster's HD. There's plenty to choose from. Tome of batle.
Martial stance:Can really spice up a monster. Remember the monster can always keep it active. Tome of batle.
Bind vestige, Bind vestige improved and Practised Binder:Get your monster some pact goodiness. You get limited powers, but you get to freack out your players as that shiny valuable fullplate disapears from the monster they just killed. Plenty diferent abilities to choose from. Tome of magic.
Improved flight:Fly speed below good maneuvarability has several limitations.This allows you to greatly improve those monsters mobility by raising the maneuvarebility. Savage species.
Swarmfighting:This cute feat allows to create your own custom swarms of small sized creatures and keep them a reliable threat to the players.
Meta-breath feats:Really evil as they don't actually cost anything but the feat itself. They also stack. Try to don't go too overboard with it if you don't want to instantly kill your players. Normally quicken alone is a nasty suprise, allowing that dragon to breath and do something else. Dracomicon.
Mage-slayer: Put this in a monster wich good mobility and reach and make sure casters won't be laughing in the frontline anymore. Remember that the player only realizes the monster has mage-slayer when said monster is threatening him. Also make sure the monster is doing some good damage with his aoo, since otherwise the caster will probably still pass the concentration check easily. Complete arcane, ironicaly.
Pierce Magical concealment:Make sure you hit those buff-protected casters with your mage-slayer monster. Complete arcane.
Pierce Magical protection:Codzilla? What codzilla? Combine with the above feats to teach casters some humbleness. Complete arcane.
Hold the line: Combine with improved trip to teach those uberchargers a lesson or two. Complete warrior.
Robillar's gambit: Really evil against melees. For a weaker effect try out karmic strike (complete warrior). It's not very clear if they stack. As Ra'sal Ghul, you have the final word, but be prepared for batman to persuade it's allies to turn it against you if you let it stack. PHB II.
Savage species and Libris mortis: Those two books in particular contain a LOT of usefull monster feats. Perhaps I'll go over them someday but not now. If you have the books just pick them up and go to the feat sections to get plenty of goodies to challenge your players.
As you may have noticed, a monster's character level for picking up feats is determined by it's number of HD. This means that, right, a monster with more than 20 HD is considered epic and can pick up epic feats. And there's a lot of monsters out there with more than 20HD while being of nonepic CR. Some may call this broken, but after level 5-6 PCs start to get nasty and you may need to pull the big guns to keep them challenged whitout doing an auto-TPK. Here they are, all from epic level handbook:
Epic feats
IT'S OVER 9000!!!!!
Blinding speed: If you can meet the fat dex recquirement it can be quite usefull, giving you benefits similar to haste.
Damage reduction:At epic level isn't that good, but for a monster of medium level it can be a great help.
Energy resistance: nasty if combined with monsters wich have vulnerability to a certain element, or also to allow monsters to shoot nukes over their own teammates whitout fear of hurting each other.
Exceptional deflection: Feat heavy, but definetely worth the look of that wizard's face when his shivering touch/orb of doom bounces off your BBEG.
Infinite deflection:Combine with the above to make your own wuxia-anime monstruosity wich deflects everything the party throws at him.
Great(insert ability score here):The most usefull epic feat for the DM, allowing you to either further strenghten the monster natural powers or meet other epic feats high pre-requisites. If you don't know what to pick, pick this.
Perfect multiweapon fighting:I'm sure there's some crazy combo in here waiting to be unleashed.
Epic destinies: For 3.X, made available by Wotc themselves. I personally prefer the blade of ragnarock one.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080428
As a last note on feats, remember, nowhere it says that monsters can't pick up flaws, so if you're short in feats for them feel free to give your monsters one or two flaws. And if you're at it, go ahead and give them a trait.
Skills
”Did you know that wood burns better than rocks?”-Mog, goblin weaponsmith
Monsters also aren't very smart at picking their skills, and normally they're in a completely messed up state. My sugestion is to clean it all up, maximize relevant skills and then puting whatever's left on whatever you like, be it knowledge:adventurers or profession: monster.
A monster can have a total of ranks on a skill equal to it's HD+3. It may pay off to remember the epic uses of skills for monsters with lots of HD.
Relevant skills for monsters:
Spot and listen:Your first priority no matter what. Your monster can't be a challenge if it can't find the party. If you are lacking in skill points, then pick listen so you can at least detect in wich square the wizard is when either he's invisible or the monster has been blinded by some dirty trick.
Hide and move silently: Unless you're a full plate wielding ogre, it pays off to try to hide. Even large and bigger creatures normally have enough HDs to make hiding a viable strategy.
Balance:Beware of grease. 5 ranks shall be enough.
Jump: That wizard tought it was safe up there? Make him think again. Monsters with high strenght can get some sick jump modifiers.
Tumble:Nice for low levels, becomes weaker as the monsters gain better and better mobility
Bluff:Keep your rolls for this secret or the players will notice it right away. Also don't ask them to roll sense motive, just ask for their modifiers before hand and then roll it yourself. Combine it with sending spell to screw up with their mind.
Escape artist:It helps in a suprisingly big number of situations.
Sense motive:For when you don't want your players to talk their way out.
Skill tricks
"Watch me pull out your head out of this hat."-ogre magi
Like flaws, nobody says monsters can't pick those up. There are some that are really worth looking at. All from Complete scoundrel:
Clarity of vision: Nonmagical See invisibility. Remember, it worcks against ALL kinds of invisibility, including the dreaded superior invisbility spell. Very usefull against optimized arcane casters.
Shrouded dance: Can be usefull for stealth based monsters, allowing to gain concealment as a move action.
Sliping past-Ignore penalties for squeezing. Great for big monsters in closed areas.
Twisted charge:Change direction during a charge. Almost a must have for charging monsters.
Acrobatic backstab:Make the target flatfooted. Usefull for monsters with abilities that depend on the target being flatfooted.
1B-Templates
I'm a vampire now. Do I glitter in the sun? AAYYEEEE!!!-random twilight fangirl, after acquring vampirism, last words.
Templates are a quick way of spiffing up a monster, altough they normaly change the CR. Like feats, certain templates may be more usefull to certain monsters than others.
Also, there's two main kinds of templates. Some pretty much just give abilities(bonus). The others take and give abilities, the main example being skeleton and zombie(replace).
Bonus templates
Evolved undead:Ra's al Ghul's favorite, this cheap template increases an undead's strenghts and then gives a special usefull power. Can be added multiple times. Libris mortis.
Ghost:the classic "can't touch me" spirit. +3 CR, but very powerfull when combined with monsters with special powers, since it boosts your charisma and makes you much harder to hurt. Not so good for melee brutes since you can't use str while ethereal, unless you have a ghost touch weapon.
Half-dragon: Players hate it, but Ra's al Ghul cares not for the hapiness of his minions! And for minions this template is, specialy large sized minions. Flight and a breath attack won't win you the day, but will slow down those pesky flying batmans wizards Works specialy well with monstruous vermins, but any large creature with low CR will do great. Also fat strenght bonus+high speed flight to keep bashing batman in melee. Core.
Half-golem: For all your cyborg needs. Comes in diferent types, with iron being the strongest but also vulnerable to rust. Fat STR bonus is the main advantage, togheter with nat armor and special abilities depending on the type you transformed. Also, golem spell immunity. One decision you need to make is if your minion becomes a construct(gaining contruct immunities but losing con). Monster Manual II.
Multi-headed: pretty crazy template, adds extra heads to the base creature! Each head comes with extra HD, it's own attack, superior multi weapon fighting(multiple atacks whitout penalty), extra nat armor and Con. Now here's the trick. The more heads you give to the monster, the higher the CR, but each extra +1CR gives more heads. For example one more head is +1 CR, but give 4 heads and it's just +2 CR. That's 8 extra HD(with BAB, skills and feats included!), 4 more attacks, +16 con and +4 nat armor! And you can go up to +29 heads with +9 CR! That's a whooping 58 extra HD, +9 nat armor, +29 extra attacks, and...Well, just sick. Even stronger than HD advancing. Use few heads to make super monsters, and a lot of heads for memorable batles. Also make sure to find a way to give the monster pounce so it can attack with all heads after moving.
The max nº of heads you can give however is based on the creature's size. Extra heads give extra head based special attacks like breaths, but the CR also increases. If the monster doesn't have breath atacks, you can give the template offers the possibility of giving them one (altought somewhat weak), and even an hydra-like ability to make cut heads regrow!
Monster of legend: Pretty much what it says. Fat bonus to saves, abilitiy scores, one special activated ability (5th level cleric casting is specialy juicy), two special passive abilities (permanent spell turning is awesome) and some other stuff. Just for +2 LA. Great for when you want to quickly make an elite monser or BBEG. MM II.
Phrenic creature: for the psion lovers, this template gives a bunch of great psi like abilities to challenge batman. Empty mind, force screen and precognition alone are a great defensive buffs against magic. Mind thrust is a powerfull ranfed attack. For the non psion lovers, it's still usefull with some reflavoring, just remember that a creature with psi like abilities is assumed to augment those psi like abilities to the max of his ML. Psionics handbook (3.5 one, beware of the 3.0 one)
Pseudonatural creature:Originating from the plane of b\, this template is specialy usefull for small mooks, because it gives true strike 1/day to make sure they hit a party member before going down whitout increasing their CR, as long as they have 3HD or less. Also, tentacles. Lords of madness.
Shadow creature: very nice to make stealthy monsters, and also to make any monster more durable with just +1CR. In particular, it bypasses the need for cover to hide. Extra speed bonus is always welcome. Save bonuses, mirror image and fast healing are all good to keep it going once it's discovered. Goes well with anything that isn't fighting in broad daylight. Lords of madness.
Vampire: A lot of bonuses and penalties, this is one is best left to elite monsters and BBEGs due to all of the bookeeping, but can do for some quite good batles if you know what you fully use their abilities. Core. Libris mortis offers some interesting variants.
Vecna blooded: four words: COMPLETE IMUNITY TO DIVINATION! No ifs. No ways to bypass it. F**** scrying, knowledge skills, bardic knowledge, metagame knowledge and whatever other cheap tricks batman calls, he can't see it. These are Ra's al Ghul's most trusted minions. Nobody will see them coming. And even if they see, they can gain a super displacement for 1 minute 1/day. True seeing is a divination spell, so make the Vecna blooded minion an illusionist for extra nastyness. From MM V, and a cheap +1CR. There are other god blooded templates there, but this one clearly stands out.
Were-something: Coming in all kinds of shapes and sizes, this template actualy adds HDs to the monster. Clearly tailored for brutish monsters, the main advantage is hiding as a normal animal untill Ra's al Ghul orders them to strike at batman. Core
Replace templates
Brood spawn: Resistance if futile. You will all be assimilated. Nice bonuses for combat, usefull SLAs, and a single one escaping from the party means it will eventualy begin a new infestation. From elders of evil.
Living spell:Not your usual template, this turns a spell into a walking monster wich keeps repeating it's effects on whoever it touches! Kinda one trick pony, but makes for a great suport dude for your big fat minions. Either benefetical spells to buff them or ofensive spells against the party.
Mob and Unit templates: (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129179)created by yours truly, those templates allow you to turn lots of small weak creatures into a big nasty monster of doom!
Revived fossil:Ra's al Ghul pits on a budget. This one is specialy usefull to creating low CR mooks, as RF gain a fixed extra HP, claw damage and armor bonus dependant on their size, not their HD. Baboons are particulary nasty, but anything with good physical scores will do. Libris mortis.
Skeleton: Classic undead template. Remember they can use weapons! Quick, hard and quick to make as it has no feats or skills. If you want to increase the challenge, claim they were created by someone with corpsecrafter feats and give them the bonuses! As RF, works well with creatures with high ability scores. Core. Libris mortis offers extra special variants.
Zombies:the other classic undead template. One action per turn is a b****, but they at least can fly with wings. Partial charge allows them to move and attack on the same turn. Alone they aren't that dangerous, but they have lots of HP, and their bigger number of HD allows them to hit hard, specialy if the base creature had an attack with good base damage. Combine them with suport monsters who can tie down the party, or use them as walking obstacles! Core. Libris mortis offers extra zombie variants at the end of the monsters section, in particular one that greatly increases the speed and allows for multiple actions(but still just one atack).
Just like monsters, there's plenty of templates out there, and I didn't memorize them all so if you know any cool one that isn't above, feel free to point it out! I'll probably add more onmy own iniative as I remember them.
1B-Advancing monsters HD
We'll make him bigger, stronger, faster... Less explody-space pirate, trying to rebuild Riddick
This is another fast way of increasing monster power. Monster with extra HD are suposed to represent exceptional individuals. Or Ra's al Ghul mad experiments. Or individuals breed and trained to kill certain overconfident humans. Your call.
Altough it's based on a lot of rules and tables, monster HD advancement boils down to this:
Each extra HD gives +1 to the monster's SR, skills(if it has int), and CL, if it has any.
Each 2 extra HD grant +1 to the monster's good saves and the DC of non SLA abilities.
Each 3 extra HD grants one extra feat and +1 to the monster bad saves.
Each 4 extra HD grants +1 to an ability score of your choice.
BAB increases dependant on the creature type. Undeads for example get +1 for each 2 HD, while outsiders het +1 for every HD.
The CR increase is based on the type of HD you're increasing. Stronger types advance their CR faster, while weaker types advance their CR slower.
Aberration, construct, elemental, fey, giant, humanoid, ooze, plant, undead, vermin +1 per 4 HD added
Animal, magical beast, monstrous humanoid +1 per 3 HD added
Dragon, outsider, +1 per 2 HD
This is actualy an advantage to the weak creature types! An angel gets +1 CR for geting 2HD, and that results in +2 BAB, 9HP, +2 SR(if it had any) +1 to all saves and +2 to it's skills.
Meanwhile, an undead gets +1 CR for gaining +4 HD, but that results in +2 BAB, +2 to will save, +1 to fort and reflex, +4 SR(if it had any) 26 HP +4 to all skills and a feat(if it has int).
This way relatively weak monsters can be greatly improved just by increasing their HD.
Unlike players, monsters can get more than 20 BAB with HD increase, but they can still only make up to 4 iterative attacks with a single weapon.
Adding enough HDs this way can increase a monster's size. Check out the monster's entry. This however increases the monster's CR by +1 on itself, lowers dex and may make it harder to fit in the base tunnels, so sometimes you may wish to skip it.
Extra combo: templates based on HD+HD advancement!
Simply, advance a weak type of creature several HD, then slap a template on it that's based on it's total number of HD. It'll almost always result in a quite powerfull and flavourfull creature for it's CR, even with few optimization of Ra's al Ghul's part. Specialy good to suprise and challenge more optimized parties when your brain is feeling lazy.
1D-Adding levels
My name is Spidew Montoya. You killed my warlord. Prepare to die.
Now making monsters bigger and nastier is all fine and dandy, but sometimes you want to give them abilities that aren't directly related to their bodies. You want bugbear samurais and ogre mages, or just want to let Batman taste his own tricks. That's when Ra sens his minions into hellish training so they can get some levels.
If you know your way around classes, adding them to monsters is quite easy. Just consider that you were multiclassing, and add the class bonuses to the monster stats.
Before actualy adding levels...
I'm elite, you're not!-goblin warblade
...The monster automaticaly gets the elite array of scores! Basicaly you get to add +5, +4, +3, +2, +0, -2 to the monster stats as you wish. Plus, the monster now counts as NPC, and gets extra money to spend in gear(see the next section for advice on how to properly equip monsters)! This alone increases the monster's power, whitout mattering what class you actualy give them! Sweet!
Class association
The cheese!
Now the first matter we need to clear up it's associated class levels and non associated class levels. Basicaly, the books say that normaly class levels add +1 CR on a 1 to 1 basis. However, if you're giving the monster class levels that don't play directly to their strenghts (like giving wizard levels to a troll), then the CR only increases 1 by each 2 class levels, untill the monster has as much non associated class levels as racial HD.
Problem is, how do you know that a class is associated or nonassociated with a certain monster? The troll for example. Giving it wizard levels sounds like a bad idea, at first, but let's look more carefully.
First just 2 wizard levels. It's stats get improved. Let's put the +5 at int so he gets 11 int and can cast 1st level spells. Scribe scroll isn't that usefull, so we'll use the variant wizard that swaps it for a fighter feat. We'll get a bat familiar for a blindsense scout, or trade it for something else. Yes we can do that. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantcharacterclasses.htm) The troll gets +17 hp from it's extra two HD, thanks to his fat con, +3 to his will save, that was pretty weak before, +1 BAB, and can cast two or three spells for some utility. Like grease to hold the party's cleric at bay while it closes in. It can also now use scrolls and wands, wich he can afford with his NPC wealth.
Not too shabby, right? The troll has CR+1, but it's gained a series of considerable bonuses.
Now let's give it 6 wizard levels. It can now cast 3rd level spells( he gained two stats increase at 8th and 12th level, so let's increase his int to 13), so it can fly, see invisible oponents, become invisible himself plus plenty of other stuff. It also gained a good chunk of HP, two extra fighter feats total, +3 BAB total, +2 to ref and fort and +5 to will, and can now speak with his familiar. Plus trolls stats.
It's total CR is 8. If used properly, he's quite a challenge to the party.
And now a more extreme example, Tiny the stone giant wizard. He begins CR 8 and with 14 HD. Give him 14 wizard levels and now he's CR 15. But he casts as a wizard 14. With stone giant stats. And can pick up epic feats. And his ECL is 28, so he gets a butload of money to spend in equipment!
So, my advice is, consider that all class levels are associated for normal monsters, and nonassociated for elite monsters. Tiny would make a great leader for a stone giant force, but a tribe made only of Tinys will just roll over the party. And once more, notice that nonassociated caps when you have as much class levels as racial HD, thus monsters whitout racial HD count everything as associated.
So, wich classes to pick?
My dad was a warrior. And a medic. And a sailor. And...
This section will be divided in two sections: fullcasters, like wizards, clerics and sorcerors, and nonfullcasters, aka everything else. Notice that monsters wich have natural spellcasting like dragons and Rakasha can improve that spellcasting by taking levels on the related class. So for example, a rakasha with 3 levels of sorceror would cast as a 10th level sorceror.
Also, if giving caster levels to a monster, seriously consider giving it the practised spellcaster feat to improve it's CL!
Fullcaster classes. Unless the monster has natural spellcasting to improve, giving the monster fullcaster levels is basicaly like giving it some extra special powers.
Cleric: quite good actualy. Improves fort and will, and the two domains will come with special abilites. You can easily get two feats for free (like weapon proefecincy and focus from war and improved iniative from celerity). Cleric also has plenty of good and medium level usefull buffs, like shield of faith.
Druid:Enchanting your own natural attacks may be usefull, but the animal companion be too weak and wildshape needs a lot of levels to come online. Either give it to very low level monsters or as nonassociated, or pick cleric.
Sorceror:Not much to see here, besides improving monsters with natural casting on this, but if you want to spam one or two 1st level arcane spell it can be worthwhile.
Wizard: Like I already pointed out, you can swap scribe scroll for a fighter feat, and the will save bonus comes in handy for a lot of monsters.
Nonfullcasters.: This is where the true gold lies for quick improving!
Barbarian:RAGE against the batman! Great for any combat monster, extra speed comes in handy also. Lion totem barbarian crom complete champion is a quick simple way of giving your monster pounce.
Bard:Mainly usefull for a suport monster, singing to boost his allies. Unfortenely, multiples don't stack, but you can "cheat" your way trough this by making two bards, one normal, the other with dragonfire inspiration(dragon magic)! Also words of creation(BOED) to double the bonuses, altough technicaly only goody two shows can use this one.
Binder:With the improved biding feat, you can further increase the monster's ability to use vestiges!
Crusader, swordsage and warblade: If you know your way around Tome of Batle, those three classes can all quickly give a bunch of special abilities to any monster in the form of feats.
Fighter:Two levels, two feats, and plenty of armor and weapon proefeciencies on top. You can also add multiple levels to gain the special fighter alternate abilities like dungeoncrasher and the Complete Champion one where you can sacrifice BAB for extra will save.
Paladin: Not that shiny, untill you combine it with a monster with high charisma(and there's plenty of them out there), and then it ROCKS! Divine grace boosts your saves to the sky and beyond, and smite evil will hurt something bad. You can trade the mount for charging smite(PHB II), and turn undead can channel divine feats to add charisma to damage (Complete divine).Remember the evil paladin variants (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantcharacterclasses.htm) if you don't feel like sending goody two shoes against batman.
Ranger:Not that usefull, but could work if you want to make a semi stealthy tracker sniper monster.
Rogue:Sneack attack stacks great with stealthy monsters with lots of attacks. Consider also the ninja class wich grants sudden strike(only works against flat footed oponents), but allows you to become invisible by yourself. Is that a plane? Superman? No, it's a ogre ninja!
Monster prestige classes. The following prestige classes were created precisely to be used by monsters.
Beholder mage:casts as a soceror, learns as a wizard, and can reach 9th level spells with 9 levels of this prc. And only beholders can take it, so screw batman. You lose the ability to use the eyestalks for rays one by one, but instead they can cast spells. As a free action. Multiple times per turn. Train your diabolical laughter if you plan on unleashing this on the party. Sure it would need to be CR 22 to cast 9th level spells, but a beholder mage 7 casting 7 spells per turn from level 1 to 7 is still pretty sick for CR 20. Lords of madness.
Dungeon lord: If you love building dungeons filled with traps, then this is for you. Gives bonus to all the dungeon lord minions, including the ability to don't be hindered by any of the dungeon traps, scrying everywhere and teleporting anywhere inside it. And then animating a part of it just to make batman go WTF! Dungeonscape.
Fiend of blasphemy: For demons and devils, this prc focuses on a mastermind who enslaves lots of weak cultists and sends them forth to do their biding. Plus some cleric casting, up to 5th level spells in 5 levels. Besides that the main advantage is allowing cultists to use your SLA as cheap effecient canon fodder. Takes some work to make it worthwile, but very flavourfull.
Fiend of corruptionThe typical seductress, this demon/devill specializes in offering false gifts. More fit for heavy roleplay campaigns, as it's abilities work slowly and are based around a lot of talking, but great if you want an NPC to screw with your player's heads. Just remember to cranck up her bluff skill or batman may enslave her for his own purposes.
Alternatively, it also makes a good suport monster, or an evil leader herself, using her corruption abilities to buff her minions.
Fiend of possession:Become a spirit that enters objects and uses them to do their biding! Includes such goodies as boosting the possessed item or cursing it, animating the object (up to colossal), and eventualy possessing living beings. Virtualy undetectable while possessing the item if played smart, it will surely make Batman question his own sanity.
All three above from fiend folio.
Dracomicon: Plenty of prc for dragons. May do a run down after finishing the rest of the guide.
Lords of madness: besides the beholder mage it's filled with other goodies for aberrations of all kinds.
Savage species: Plenty of monster prcs.
1E-Items and treasure
One ring to rule them all-Sauron
No matter what he says, Batman relies heavily on equipment, so it's only fair Ra's al Ghul minions turn his tricks against him.
Now some monsters are savage things that really shouldn't use any kind of equipment, but for everything else, they should use anything and everything they can get their hands on.
But alas, altough your budget is unlimited, as an overlord you still don't want to pay too well your minions. It just wouldn't be ethic. So, where can they get equipment in a fair way?
One, their own random treasure. Technicaly speaking, you should roll beforehand the treasure of each of your monsters, and then make the monster equip anything usefull. But who rolls random tables nowadays? Heck, even the adventure modules come with pre made equipment for all monsters. So, we can use the average monster treasure to see how much "budget" each minion has.
Average treasure per CR.
1 300 gp 11 7,500 gp
2 600 gp 12 9,800 gp
3 900 gp 13 13,000 gp
4 1,200 gp 14 17,000 gp
5 1,600 gp 15 22,000 gp
6 2,000 gp 16 28,000 gp
7 2,600 gp 17 36,000 gp
8 3,400 gp 18 47,000 gp
9 4,500 gp 19 61,000 gp
10 5,800 gp 20 80,000 gp
If a monster has class levels, it counts as an NPC, and thus gets even more treasure! Unfortenely, the NPC tables are protected by the scary wizard of the coast, so you'll need to consult the DMG for them. You are expected to spend this money in good equipment. High CL potions and scrolls are a good way of spending said money whitout making batman too rich when(and if) he defeats your NPC.
Or, if you can't be bothered with all the gold math, and don't want to hand out batman too much free money, just give the monster the class levels and claim that he spent all his money on booze.
So, what do we do with it? First of all, keep it simple. You'll have to equip dozens of minions, so better to give each one just two or three strong items, except if they're named minions, in wich case you should take your time giving them a lot of trinkets so he lasts more than one round against batman.
Anyway, your minion items can be divided in two main categories. Permanent items give a constant bonus and will fall on the batman's hands if he's victorious. Expendable items have limited uses, so you get more bang for your buck while denying batman of loot.
Permanent items
T-rexes with F14s!-Calvin
Airships: The rules are in the Eberron books. Pimp it up. Give it crew. Make batman fight a batle he won't forget so soon. Granted, it's a lot of bookeeping. Check out the tactics section(soon to come) for more details and sugestions on this.
Melee weapons-if the monster has hands and good physical scores, weapons normaly provide a better way of hurting batman. Besides enchanting them with nifty effects(or just plain +X/+X), some weapons offer extra options, like the extra reach of the spiked chain.
SPECIAL FOR HANDLESS MINIONS-Lords of madness provides the mouthpick enchantment, wich allows a monster to wield a weapon with his mouth. And make iterative attacks. Simply fabulous for all those monsters wich have just one big bite atack, like the purple worm.
Ranged weapons-if the monster has hands, ALWAYS give them ranged weapons. Javelins in particular are cheap and provide decent range. Crossbows are brutal with low str creatures (cough kobolds cough), heavy crossbows for long range sniping, composite longbows for a midle ground of damage and range. Daggers and darts are less efecient, but somewhat flavourfull and easily conceivable.
Armor-Most monsters walk around naked. This is simply unadmissible! Ra's al Ghul inisists all his servants who have a language to dress in fashion! Nonmagic armor is cheap and will improve AC. Notice heavier armor may hinder skills and even movement so don't go throwing fullplates to everything you throw at the party. In particular since they're worth 1.5 k gold each.
Masterwork tools-No, not the farming ones. The ones wich give +2 competence to a skill for 50GP. If nothing else, give some spot and listen material to your minions so they can see batman coming. Look out for usefull special materials. Riverine from Stormwrak is particularly usefull, giving half it's bonus as deflection!
Stat enanchers-As simple as you get, but pretty effecient.
Siege weaponry: Expensive and static, but deal big damage. Better suited for monster fortresses and defences, or mount them on top of other big monsters. One minion will take several turns to get just one shot, but several minions can work at the same time to make it shoot every round, assuming you have one minion for each fullround action the weapon will need to reload/prepare/aim/fire. Available in the DMG, Stormwrack(has gunpowder stuff!) and Heroes of Batle.
Ring of deflection- to keep those touch attacks at bay.
Boots-Speed, flying, striding, and several other choices, all great for enanching mobility. You just need one pair tough.
Expendable items
I've been saving this for a special ocasion!-Flonne, angel assassin.
Alchemist's fire/acid-since they're touch atacks to hit, they allow low minions to sucessfuly hit the party. Eberron books have some more varieties of those. Feel free to homebrew your own stronger alchemical substances, just share the receipt with batman for fairness.
Potions-Ah, the big expendable item of choice. Anyone can use them, but it takes a standard action, so better to drink them before combat starts. Spending a round during combat to drink a potion is a waste of a minion. Thus potions are best suited for agressive/skillfull monsters wich know they'll enter a fight soon, so they drink their potions beforehand. Inner dungeon guards who will hear their companions being killed by batman before actualy spoting them also works well.
Potions can replicate any spell fro level 1 to 3, but CL can go up to infinity and beyond. Formula is 50xspell levelxCL. Here are some of the best sugestions, altough there's plenty of spells out there, so I probably missed several.
Blinding scales:nat armor becomes deflection bonus? Force batman wizard to roll something above 2 to hit your big fat monsters? Yes please. Races of the dragon.
Divine favor:+X to hit and damage based in CL, always good.
Expeditious retreat: to reach batman faster.
Haste:great all around combat buff.
Heroism:should be called villanism.
Fly:So you tought you were safe up there did you...?
Jump:Fly on a budget.
Invisibility:What was that sound again?
Mage armor:+4 armor whitout any pesky encumbrance.
Magic weapon: to enchant ammunition or if the minion doesn't have enough budget for an actual magic weapon. For natural weapons, magic fang.
Protection from alignment:Works better if the party has all similar alignments, but even then, it's a cheap anti mind control tactic.
Shield of faith:moar deflection bonus, altough it doesn't stack with other sources.
Silence:sound? What sound?
Scrolls:You'll need either spellcasting monsters, or give your monsters UMD ranks. Either way, they're the supreme expendable item, allowing your lowest minions to throw all and any spell. I won't bother leaving a list of good spells here since there's just too many. Just search one of the many batman guides out there and make your own combos. Just try to don't go mad with power as batman.
Wands: Cheaper and easier to use than scrolls, but just spells from lv1 to 4. Remember you can buy them partialy, so for example for 75 gp you can get a wand of ray of enfeeblement with 5 charges, easily afordable by any of your minions. Again, search the batman archives for good spell sugestions, or heck, open your own books and pick whatever you find funny! You paid for those spells, so give them an use!
Remember however, don't go overboard with just combat items and stuff your minions with some shiny coins, jewels, and refined art with part of the budget. You wouldn't want batman to think you only want to make his life a living hell, would you?
For extra points, make extra detailed descriptions of random items the players find, then watch as they start throwing every divination trick they have trying to discover an hidden power that isn't there. Or heck, satisfy their wishes and give the item a secret special power that unlocks a sidequest or something.
1F-humanoid NPCs
I may be of edible size and womanly strenght, but I'm a great warrior!-gnome NPC.
Dragons, dinossaurs, demons, fairies and stuff with tentacles is all fun, but sometimes you want to challenge batman with something more human. Or elvish. Or dwarfish.
Unlike most monsters, humanoids lack special abilities, and thus rely mostly on their class and equipment to be a threat. In this section I provide a guide to help you create challenging NPCs from humanoids more easily. This is for expendable minions only however. For more fleshed out NPCs who you want to last more than 1 hour, take your time building them as you would do for a PC.
Basic races overview
Dwarf: tough both physical and against magic, and the charisma penalty rarely hurts. The slow speed however does. Better for heavily armored NPCs.
Elves:Not that popular as a PC race, they make actualy good NPCs focused in ranged combat, or spellcaster NPCs. The low con really doesn't bother you, because they're bound to die. Sun elves are your best bet for wizard NPCs, in particular because they can take faery mystery initiate (races of destiny) to get int to life instead of con.
Gnome:blah blah they make good illusionists, but the real gold is in the super whisper gnome (races of stone), with 30 base speed, silence, bonus to con AND dex, sick bonuses to hide and move silently for some really nasty sneaky NPCs.
Goblins: Air goblins get a whooping +4 to dex (srd), making them a good choice for any dex based class. Otherwise, kobolds and others are better as your small minion race. If you don't feel like using the cheesy whisper gnomes, goblins are your second best bet for quick sneaky NPCs, as they get bonus on move silently and are small.
Halflings: The trick here is the bonus on thrown weapons, wich can make halflings good npcs focused in this style of combat. Strongheart halflings get an extra feat instead of the +1 bonus to all saves, altough both are good for expendable NPCs.
Humans:Extra feat, extra skill points, good for everything nuff said.
Kobolds:The classic minion race, because of their low CR. Notice however it only applies to NPC classes. A kobold fighter 1 is still CR1. Low str is hardly a problem when you're flinging spells or shooting crossbows. If you go by certain splatbooks, they count as dragons and thus you can give them dragon related feats out of the bat for extra nastyness. They were also buffed to have bite+2 claw atacks, wich makes them quite nasty if you give them a class with abilities that trigger on each atack, like rogue.
Orcs:Water orcs are strictly better, geting swim speed and +2 Con whitout losing anything. If you're making agressive strenght based NPCs, they're the way to go, otherwise you should probably look somewhere else.
Half-orcs and half-elves are, well, weak, and should only be used for fluff purposes or if you don't want your NPC to be that strong.
What classes to use?
First, you need to decide NPC or PC classes. NPC classes are better for minions against low-medium level parties, but PC classes give out all kind of nifty abilities.
Plus, the CR of a creature with only NPC levels is just -1 that the CR of a creature with class levels(1/2 if it hast just 1 NPC level). This quickly becomes pretty weak for NPCs.
My advice? NPC classes become pretty much useless at medium-high levels, unless you're throwing hordes of small enemies at the party.
So a quick review of NPC classes before we move on.
NPC classes
Adept:spellcaster NPC. Has a limited spell list, but he automaticaly knows his spells. Works well as an artillery plataform and suport base.
Aristrocat:gets extra money only. Not the best thing to throw at the party.
Comoner: Those are the people ravaged by diseased and famine, whitout any special abilities. They'll probably don't want to atack the party in the first place, but if the party tries to atack a random person who you don't care about, make them a comoner.
Expert:8 chosen class skills gives him some good potential for skill based enemies. Load him up on scrolls and wands. Specialy good for stealth NPCs.
Warrior:The only NPC class with full BAB, and nothing more. For the frontline NPCs trying to hit batman with pointy stuff.
Note: simplifying NPC spells: You don't need to write down every spell known and prepared. Is the batle really going to last 30 turns? Just fill up half a dozen upper slots with the combat spells you expect the NPC to use.
Multiclassing is good:from my personal experience, giving out a lot of class dips can make good fast combat NPCs, to make up for the lack of natural abilities. Two levels of fighter for two feats, barbarian for rage+fast movement/pounce, a touch of warblade and crusader on top, and presto!
Screw versatility:PCs like to be able to do several things. NPCs can afford to be 1 trick ponies and then die. Focus each NPC resources in just three or four things (normaly melee, ranged combat/mobility, and defenses).
NPC equipment:
Lots of small items: costs are exponential on D&D, so better to have an armor+1, amulet of nat armor +1, ring of deflection +1 than an armor +3. Don't forget stat boosters, and amulet of resistance. Ignore anything that doesn't directly raise your numbers or increases your mobility.
Pre combat buffing:Pretty much essential. If they don't have spellcasters of their own, use some kind of distraction. A fog cloud. One of them sacrificing himself to buy the others time. Then let the NPCs drink their potions and read their scrolls bought with their extra money and they should become considerably stronger. There's really no other way unfortenely.