(Hopefully) Quick Advice on Encounter building

[TeChameleon]

Thanks in advance for any help offered-

Mostly just wondering about CR for a group of five inexperienced, but not completely new, level 4 players. Wanting to have an encounter with an evil Monk, and don't want to just kill them outright or have the Monk go 'squish' immediately.

[Unoriginal]

Thanks in advance for any help offered-

Mostly just wondering about CR for a group of five inexperienced, but not completely new, level 4 players. Wanting to have an encounter with an evil Monk, and don't want to just kill them outright or have the Monk go 'squish' immediately.

1 vs 5 is going to be hard on the evil Monk. Legendary actions are probably required to let them be a relevant threat.

Are you creating the evil Monk's statblock for the occasion, or would you rather use something already made?

[da newt]

Yeah - 1 v 5 is hard to balance due to the action economy of 5 attacks vs one turn of multi attack. In order to give the 1 a chance vs the 5 you have to crank up their damage capacity (and HP pool) to the point that they can drop one PC per round on average. This doesn't tend to make for a good feeling encounter especially for a group of newer players.

I'd suggest a boss fight with a couple henchmen and the boss monk vs the party. It's much easier to balance. Something like 2 berserkers and a slightly buffed martial arts adept would be a pretty good first swag. I'd also suggest a location w/ stuff for the monk to do cool monk stuff on (parkour).

[TeChameleon]

The 1 v 5 won't be quite as awful as it sounds, since the monk (for story reasons, believe it or not) has a perma-haste buff. Planning on making him a Way of the Astral Self monk, to further muck with the action economy. Also, it matters a bit less at this stage if he does drop a bunch of PCs, as he's only going to be doing subdual damage, as his aim is capture and enslavement, not simple murder.

Will keep the need for henchmen in mind, though, if I can't figure out how to tweak him for solo work soon.

Also, I'm not sure where good places to find pre-made characters are- if you know of a good stockpile of pregen mooks, I'm quite open to using one, or just modding it, but at this point I'm expecting to need to custom-make my evil monk.

[JackPhoenix]

Don't build it as a PC. Seriously, don't. PCs in 5e are glass cannons, and anything built like a PC will go down super fast. Feel free to steal appropriate abilities from the monk, but build it as an NPC. You'll want multiple weaker attacks... fitting for a monk to not one-shot the characters, and I'd opt for more HP or resistances/other defenses rather than extremely high AC... missing all the time is no fun for the players. Especially for a solo enemy, defenses are more important than offense.

Hard to make concrete advice when we don't know how difficult is the encounter supposed to be, or what the PCs are.

[stoutstien]

Don't build it as a PC. Seriously, don't. PCs in 5e are glass cannons, and anything built like a PC will go down super fast. Feel free to steal appropriate abilities from the monk, but build it as an NPC. You'll want multiple weaker attacks... fitting for a monk to not one-shot the characters, and I'd opt for more HP or resistances/other defenses rather than extremely high AC... missing all the time is no fun for the players. Especially for a solo enemy, defenses are more important than offense.

Hard to make concrete advice when we don't know how difficult is the encounter supposed to be, or what the PCs are.

Yea second this.

You could build an evil monk NPC a 1000 different ways that would work and feel better.

[da newt]

There are NPC stat blocks in the back of the MM (including the Berserker) and also in Volos (Martial Arts Adept) that can be handy as good places to start and tweak as desired. Spamming the stun attack below would probably work pretty well for you.

As mentioned, PC stats don't make for the best monsters as they tend to be more glass cannons (hi damage, low hp) compared to most monsters. For example the CR 3 'monk' below has 60 hp (11 hit dice) but just a +5 to hit where a lvl 11 monk would likely have a +8 to hit and a whole bunch of additional abilities.

Martial Arts Adept
Medium humanoid (any race), any alignment
Armor Class 16
Hit Points 60 (11d8+11)
Speed 40 ft.
STR 11 (0)
DEX 17 (+3)
CON 13 (+1)
INT 11 (0)
WIS 16 (+3)
CHA 10 (0)

Skills Acrobatics +5, Insight +5, Stealth +5
Languages any one language (usually Common)
Challenge 3 (700 XP)
Unarmored Defense. While the adept is wearing no armor and wielding no shield, its AC includes its Wisdom modifier.

Actions
Multiattack. The adept makes three unarmed strikes or three dart attacks.

Unarmed Strike. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a creature, the adept can choose one of the following additional effects:

The target must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving throw or drop one item it is holding (adept’s choice).
The target must succeed on a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw or be knocked prone.
The target must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or be stunned until the end of the adept’s next turn.

Dart. Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, range 20/60 ft, one target. Hit: 5 (1d4+3) piercing damage.

Reactions
Deflect Missile. In response to being hit by a ranged weapon attack, the adept deflects the missile. The damage it takes from the attack is reduced by 1d10+3. If the damage is reduced to 0, the adept catches the missile if it’s small enough to hold in one hand and the adept has a hand free.

[TeChameleon]

Thanks very much for all the help- this will make a big difference and hopefully make the scenario a bit more memorable for the players, and not just as a source of frustration.

[Segev]

One approach that would exceed even legendary actions would be to build him as multiple creatures sharing the same body. Make five of him, each with a slightly different attack routine, and roll initiative for each. It is one creature on the field, but acts at each of those initiatives, and has five "hit point bars." When a hit point bar empties, whichever of the five creatures last acted is removed from initiative, as he "starts slowing down."