DM'ing question

[questionmark693]

When you run an adventure, do you tend use monsters as they're written, or do you tend to restat them with better feats/skill points, maybe adding levels, things like that?

[sideswipe]

depends on level, if i like the monster, and if i think it would do well with levels.

unique monsters are very fun. but not all the time.

[Sir Chuckles]

It can be very situational.

There may be times, speaking from experience here, that a single Gelatinous Cube can nearly TPKO a party of 7 12th level characters. It is those times you undersell your monsters from then on out.

There are other times in which a party easily overcomes something that should be challenging with little to no sweat. That's when you tweak similar encounters to be more difficult, or play more intelligently.

[WeaselGuy]

Apparently, my group does too much damage too quickly, so when my wife DMs, she gives everything max HP...

[madtinker]

I don't use a lot of monsters. Instead, I like to build custom NPCs. Almost always with class levels. Monsters in my current campaigns are usually random encounters. When they are there, I use the stock monsters.

[Piggy Knowles]

A mix of both, really. I almost always tinker with monsters at least a little, often re-assigning feats or ability scores. I'm also pretty notorious for adding class levels to intelligent monsters, usually levels of martial adepts. There's nothing quite like the expression on your party's face when the fiendish monstrous scorpion Tornado Throws half the party into the next time zone, or when the formian warriors start using White Raven Tactics.

[j_spencer93]

Depends on theme of campaign but if they are not important really then as written but if they should remember the encounter a little fixing can not hurt.

[Haluesen]

I would say that it depends on the power of the party you are dealing with and what sort of adventure they are in. Changing feats and skill points from standard monsters to surprise the players sometimes can be good. Most of the groups I have run just stomp all over most standard monsters in the official books, so I tend to have to raise their health at the least, or advance their stats at most. It's something that you can learn with practice, trying to improve the monsters to fit your players without overwhelming them. But the extra bit of challenge usually adds fun for all involved. :smallsmile:

[Dornith]

I found custom enemies to be a bit of work, so I tend to reserve that for NPC's that are of particular importance, or are intended to be reoccurring characters.

[BWR]

It really depends. If I'm writing my own adventures, I'll usually just pick things straight out of the book. At most I'll give it a few more hp or switch a feat or two. Complete rebuilds are too much of a pain. If running adventures from BECMI with PF I'll often have to do a bit more work since some things will be either too weak or too powerful in PF.

[Malaqai]

Depends on theme of campaign but if they are not important really then as written but if they should remember the encounter a little fixing can not hurt.

Sometimes it hurts a lot . . .

[j_spencer93]

lol ya pretty sure my player's would agree.