Why don't intelligent monsters have magic items?

[heavyfuel]

Ok, some do. I know. Let's move on to the actual point of this, shall we?

Think about traditionally intelligent creatures. Dragons, Outsiders, Aberrations, Giants, Monstrous Humanoids, Fey, and some Undead. Very few of them have magic items listed in their stat block, and yet, all of them have treasure.

Why don't they use this treasure to make themselves stronger?

For example, even a non-magical masterwork Studded Leather armor provides creatures with no armor with 3 extra points of AC even if they don't have the proficiency since it has 0 ACP. It's also dirty cheap, even if you account for size increases.

As CR increases, it should be the norm that monsters have magic items to help them. Dragons, with their triple standard treasure hoard, should be fully decked with magic items.

[Venger]

Ok, some do. I know. Let's move on to the actual point of this, shall we?

Think about traditionally intelligent creatures. Dragons, Outsiders, Aberrations, Giants, Monstrous Humanoids, Fey, and some Undead. Very few of them have magic items listed in their stat block, and yet, all of them have treasure.

Why don't they use this treasure to make themselves stronger?

For example, even a non-magical masterwork Studded Leather armor provides creatures with no armor with 3 extra points of AC even if they don't have the proficiency since it has 0 ACP. It's also dirty cheap, even if you account for size increases.

As CR increases, it should be the norm that monsters have magic items to help them. Dragons, with their triple standard treasure hoard, should be fully decked with magic items.

because the designers are lazy and don't want to write them in the statblocks.

if you're looking for some kind of logical, in-story explanation, there is none. when I play in games or run them, adding gear, even simple stuff like you've suggested is a good way to make monsters a little more challenging for a tough party and give them more vendor trash

[Snowbluff]

They have power that items would give them in their statblocks. Their stats then to be high for their CR, compared to a PC of equivalent level without items.

THere are also books of items for dragons (Draconomicon), mindflayer (lords of madness), undead (Libris Mortis, books of the dead) ,etc. They're intended for monsters to use. Just understand that they should be considered more challenging/a higher CR with them.

Monstrous humanoids tend to get shafted, but they don't really have an economy or societal structure to allow them to make items. They can use normal people stuff though, so that can be good for gifting your party items.

[Darth Ultron]

The only real reasons are Real World Game Ones:

1.The stats in the monsters write ups are made to be generic, so it would be odd to say X character always has X item.

2.It's a lot of work to deck out a monster with a ton of items.

3.The type of items the monsters has, if very useful, would alter it's base challenge rating. And the rule books very much so seek to avoid this. A monsters with even a cheap, simple item and become very over powered.

4.The game has a ''legacy'' that monsters ''have treasure'', but don't ''use treasure''. The treasure is a reward for the players, not for the monster to use. And by the legacy, again, monsters do just have random treasure.

5.As a lot of monsters are non humanoid, they would have non humanoid items....that a humanoid, like the PC's can't use. And starting with 3E, and going down hill from there, this was deemed ''unfair'' and ''badwrongfun''. And the various writers just don't like the idea or don't want to use the idea that magic items shrink or grow to fit the user.

This is just something left up to the DM to do: Customize Monsters.

[Hua]

IMO, they leave that blank because what items they have depends on the creatures aims.

I had a dragon antagonist that used a metamagic rod of Widen so that anti-magic would fully cover his body. At that point it is down to melee and he is a dragon and the party were hairless apes.

Intelligent foes should always have the right magic items for their history.

[ericgrau]

They do by RAW:


Intelligent creatures that own useful, portable treasure (such as magic items) tend to carry and use these, leaving bulky items at home

That's in the treasure section. It's not in their stat-block because you need to roll for treasure.

[Bohandas]

Dragons traditionally do have a lot of magic stuff around.

And among aberrations the Mind Flayers at least are typically crawling with psionic items and weird biotech

As for giants, many types have penalties to mental ability scores so there's probably a much smaller percentage of their populations with the know-how to make magic items

[Arcanist]

The laziest thing you can do, and what I am personally a fan of doing, is using a bundle of items that monsters can pull out any any given time that is equal to a portion of their treasure. I find it unreasonable that a Hobgoblin can give out a +1 Longsword, but not use it in the encounter they died to give it out for.

Yeah, it can be annoying at higher levels when they can pull out more and more powerful magical items that do even more powerful stuff (stuff that can turn what was supposed to be an easy encounter, into a very hard one), but I feel that curve balls like that should be thrown. Just keep in mind to not give out anything you wouldn't feel comfortable with your players walking around with.

[ryu]

The laziest thing you can do, and what I am personally a fan of doing, is using a bundle of items that monsters can pull out any any given time that is equal to a portion of their treasure. I find it unreasonable that a Hobgoblin can give out a +1 Longsword, but not use it in the encounter they died to give it out for.

Yeah, it can be annoying at higher levels when they can pull out more and more powerful magical items that do even more powerful stuff (stuff that can turn what was supposed to be an easy encounter, into a very hard one), but I feel that curve balls like that should be thrown. Just keep in mind to not give out anything you wouldn't feel comfortable with your players walking around with.

Alternatively be perfectly fine doing that. If they kill and thus beat the item you think isn't kosher they've earned the right to use it.

[Arcanist]

Alternatively be perfectly fine doing that. If they kill and thus beat the item you think isn't kosher they've earned the right to use it.

That depends on the item to be perfectly frank. The ability to blow up a building on top of someone and do some 20d6 crushing damage and then spend the next 4 to 6 turns with an Antimagic Field to prevent them from popping out away from the rubble, does not neccessarily imply the maturity to handle, say for example, a Staff of Power, with a Wish Spell that uses up all remaining charges.

I kind of expect players to turn my epic Record of Lodoss Wars adventure into Slayers really fast.

[Quertus]

Intelligent monsters don't have items, because they know that adventurers will kill them for their loot. Much better to be naked, and give yourself the option to run away when the murderhobos come calling.

[RoboEmperor]

Because they think they're better than magic items.

My sorcerer often forgoes wealth because I can. Perhaps these monsters think the same. I got SLAs and Su abilities, why do I need to bother with magic items? I'll just hoard the gold for future savings.

[Thurbane]

I pretty much always have any intelligent monster use any magic items (that it's aware of) in it's own defense.

Obviously a Minotaur can't use a Wand of Magic Missile, but if there's a Potion of Invisibility in his hoard, and he knows what it is, he'll use it in the fight if things are looking desperate in the battle.

I always try to generate the hoard before the enounter, if I'm using random generation.

[HighWater]

Have you ever seen what happens to "monsters"?
The whole village goes berserk if they see one and if they can't kill it by themselves, they hire adventurers to do it for them!
Now imagine being a monster and considering going into the nice little town "BurnTheWitch" to buy some magic items...
Yeah... Today's no good, maybe tomorrow?...

The monster manual does say that the monsters in the book are pretty much generic John Doe's. And John Doe's don't get special stuff... Especially if they are a random encounter with random loot!

Personally, I don't do "random" encounters: if you don't get to hold session often, they REALLY detract from the plot. (Which doesn't mean that every combat I do have advances the plot.) If an enemy has enough wealth to buy something nice, they have spent it for something they can use (and which coincidentally one of the PC's could, too).

[Telok]

Artificer to lich: "Stop wasting my loot!"

[Kelb_Panthera]

They do by RAW:

That's in the treasure section. It's not in their stat-block because you need to roll for treasure.

Because people miss the line ericgrau here has quoted. They -do- have such items at the GM's discretion or according to a roll on the table. The table doesn't always generate particularly useful stuff, of course, but if the creature advances by class you'd probably do better to equip them according to the NPC WBL table then rolling on the treasure tables anyway.

It's not included in their stat-blocks (with specific exceptions) because it's expected that the GM will full in the blanks according to the guidelines given and adjust the EL of the encounter accordingly if necessary.

[King of Nowhere]

If you're looking for a plausible in-world justification, I have established that a dragon's magic aura interferes with items, so that any item carried by a dragon is at -2. So a ring of protection +2 worn by a dragon would give no benefit, and a ring of protection +5 would be worth only a +3. Plus it feels uncomfortable, so they do not wear magic items unless they know a combat is near. This stops dragons from scaling too much with items, although those who are older and more powerful still tend to own something good enough to be worth carrying.

Any other sapient creature that is high enough level to challenge the players has magic items appropriate to the level. A random goblin raiding band won't have anything, but the party stopped meeting those at level 3. Elite goblins are just as stocked as a similarly-leveled adventurer. Other high-CR monsters with human-like intelligence are just not considered sapient. Possibly I houserule them with a lower INT score. It also removes a lot of issues on whether it's ok to kill them.

[heavyfuel]

They do by RAW:

That's in the treasure section. It's not in their stat-block because you need to roll for treasure.

I never noticed that line. Glad to see I've been following RAW despite not knowing it.


Dragons traditionally do have a lot of magic stuff around.

And among aberrations the Mind Flayers at least are typically crawling with psionic items and weird biotech

As for giants, many types have penalties to mental ability scores so there's probably a much smaller percentage of their populations with the know-how to make magic items

Do they? I never fought a dragon that wasn't plucked straight from the MM and given some feats. Maybe that's just bad luck in the personal experience department.

Yeah, but what about creatures like Beholders. They're also super smart, why don't they have stuff like a ring of protection around one of their eyes?

Giants such as Trolls, yes. But Giants such as Fire Giants are just as smart and even wiser than the average human.


I pretty much always have any intelligent monster use any magic items (that it's aware of) in it's own defense.

Obviously a Minotaur can't use a Wand of Magic Missile, but if there's a Potion of Invisibility in his hoard, and he knows what it is, he'll use it in the fight if things are looking desperate in the battle.

I always try to generate the hoard before the enounter, if I'm using random generation.

I usually change generated random treasure to make sense for that creature. If the minotaur should have a +1 small shortsword, I change it to a +1 large grataxe and have them use it.