3.5-I'm a new DM, and need (and will keep needing) help finding appropriate monsters!

[Gavinfoxx]

Daniel, if you are reading this, STOP.























I seem to be running into the, 'ACK! I need a monster that does <this thing>!' situation a lot. Is there a thread or a subforum or something where I can say things like:

"Ack! I'm running a game in fantasy colonial louisiana! What are some good low-level monsters for when the player character ISN'T trudging through waist-deep water?"

or

"Ack! I need a monster, as low a challenge rating as possible, that can be a pied piper (via suggestion? charm monster?) to an npc's familiar to do a 'find the missing familiar!' subplot! What's a good monster for this and what are some good clues that will be relevant when the party doesn't have Track or Scent?"

Is there a more appropriate place for this than, uh, this forum itself? I don't want to be making a new thread every time this topic comes up!

[Thurbane]

This is the most appropriate forum. You can keep posting new requests in the thread so long as you don't break forum thread necromancy rules...

[Gavinfoxx]

Thank you!

Also, in case it wasn't obvious everyone, I do need help with the examples!

[dantiesilva]

Hello and welcome, I don't know if it helps any but sometimes the best monsters are playable races that are worst then the monsters your party typically fights. You want a pied pipper, make a Bard Trapper who uses his skills to capture animals and sell them. What kind of familiar is it, and if said NPC doesn't know it is a familiar he wouldn't know to take it out of the range of its owner and give you a cat and mouse feel as the players every now and then get a vision of some place from their familiar. And when the party finally catches up to him he tries to sell them a bunch of animals (including said familiar) if party attacks he uses his Bard powers to have the animals fight the party to protect him. Now the party has to not only has to defend itself from these animals that only want to be free but can't because of the guy, but he will more then likely call the guards on them for attacking him (as he doesn't know the familiar belongs to said PC's). It adds a lot of choices for your players and makes it rather simple to play with a lot of RP choices and chances for your players to use their skills and special abilities (the familiar's link with its master, the survival skill to try and find the new place your familiar sent you, knowledge local to know where it is (or geography and other such knowledges), someone's ability with diplomacy if the guards get involved, the druid/rangers (or even fighter/barbarian if they put ranks into it) trying to calm down the animals from attacking them.

Perhaps the bard has a custom item that when played allows him to use Charm animal or enrage animal so long as he plays + x rounds after (think how bardic music lasts a few rounds before ending).

As for the whole colonial louisiana I tend to play high fantasy no real world stuff involved so its rather hard to suggest stuff. Umm Ash Rat (MM2), Automatons (they have some CR 3s MM2 again), Boggle could be a fun one (MM2 CR 3), Dire Toad, Hawk, and Snake are Cr 3,2, and 5 respectfully (MM2), Dread Guard CR 2 (MM 2), All three kinds of Felldrake found in MM 2 are low level and give the feel/imagination of fighting a dragonish creature/dinosaur, Fihyr could be really fun if the underark of your game has people of colonial having a fear of something happening as they are made from peoples fear, Fire bat, Jermlaine (perhaps have the party accidentally break its nest or something and its simply out to get revenge by being mildly inconvenient for them (think missing sock and such vs I'm going to beat you up).

Hope this helps you some, sorry it's not as detailed as you may have been looking for but with the little information I saw its the best I could quickly come up with.

Spoiler: Sample Idea

Show

As of late many peoples belongings have been going missing, and if that were not enough the streets have become dangerous at night. Those that survive say a black swarm appeared out of nowhere and began attacking them, the only reason they were able to escape was because they were able to get inside a busy tavern or grab a torch to get the swarm away. Last week four dead bodies were found near one of these said taverns, all the meat eaten down to the bones.

This happens to be a very low level encounter that can lead to much more powerful seeds. The things being stolen are unrelated to the attacks and are in fact a simple Boggle seeing something it wants unguarded and taking it, often times from those that have been killed the night before (forming a kind of symbiotic relationship with the many monster as it makes it harder to identify who's dead if they have nothing left on them. The main monster however is a swarm of Moonrats (MM2 P.151 CR1/4 for a single moonrat), which get stronger and smarter the closer it is to a full moon. And as they fight in swarms (10 minimum) its about a CR 3 encounter with the ability to go higher if needed. Now most parties will not think of "smart rats" as a boss and will no doubt ignore seeing one or two normal size rats as they are not dire rats. Depending on how many days this goes on a Finyr begins to form (CR 3) out of the peoples fear of going outside (which given this whole pandemic thing going on may add bonus points to your players). Finyr's like to cause as much fear as possible and do not tend to leave where they are created and destroyed if exposed to sunlight (or the daylight spell if it gets through their SR). So the moonrats kill people and the longer it goes on the more Finyr's the party is bound to encounter and have to stop (I would say no more then 1 spawn a week up until the party discovers and defeats the moonrats) and the boggle is simply there taking what treasure is left behind for his horde. He's not malicious or anything (unless you try to take his shines).

This allows your party to do detective work in an nonswamp muck water environment (as its inside a small town, or even a large town) and at most there will be 3 guards for a simple village of about 400 people (thats total so 1 per watch basically) meaning they can't cover the entire town when people are being attacked. So when they start patrolling the rats hunting ground a guard might notice them and tell his boss, but the rats would move on to a new ground as they are smart enough to know its not wise to stay hunting there anymore. Now your players have seen rats and the guard has said they saw rats near the crime scene making it more likely your players may pick up on the clue. However if not let them roll spot and listen checks if they are near where the rats are hunting at that time and if they pass they hear the commotion.

If the party has a speed of 40ft base speed they can get their in time to see the "black swarm" retreating from their recent kill (thus more clues of what the monster is) and they notice the boggle coming down out of the shadows of a roof to come and claim all the loot when they try to turn their backs or something. (Boggle hide and move silently vs parties Spot and listen checks. If they fail to notice the rats or the boggle now have a Finyr spawn the next day where that person died and have it go door to door in the area attacking people. The screams should draw the party who having seen with luck this black swarm would know this is not the same creature and something else (if they didn't they would be able to see the bodies left behind are not all skeleton with all their loot taken from them.)

Hope that sample idea helps

A more simple idea is Wizards have learned that their is a phase wasp coloney nearby and fearing their magical scrolls and books being destroyed has paid the party to go and destroy them before they can cause harm to his collection (as they love paper and again real world murder hornet thing going on) They are CR 2 each though so be a bit more careful as they will generally not be found alone.

[Gavinfoxx]

For now, I am very motivated to put the party through some of the many many varied monsters in 3.5e canon, possibly tweaked, rather than player character types!

[Zarrgon]

Well, yes you can ask right here. Many posters have a vast, vast knowledge of monsters.


Though just by your two examples...well....the monsters you want might not exist. But no real worry, just a sub forum over you will see the Homebrew one. And it even has a thread for homebrew requests. Need a monster that does x and x and y and is CR 3: just ask to have one made, just for you.

[gogogome]

My advice is don't throw fiends (Demons and Devils) at them unless they are veterans of this game because...
1. Universally they all have DR. Once it gets to 10/cold iron or something, no one but the two-handed fighter is gonna be dealing any damage unless the party buys the requisite gear and oils.
2. All of them have Greater Teleport. Which means it is going to be very hard for the PCs to score a kill and the fiends can just teleport next to the squishies.
3. They have a ton of save or dies. If a PC fails that save they're not gonna be having any fun.
4. A good deal of them have flight along with their DR and their Greater Teleport. PCs aren't killing them.
5. They are all practically immune to elemental damage except Sonic. Virtually all of them are immune or have at least 10 resistance to all energy types.
6. They have a summon skill that lasts 1 hour. Good chance of failing but if they succeed, that's potentially a TPK right there. So every encounter there's a 30% chance of a TPK.

[dantiesilva]

For now, I am very motivated to put the party through some of the many many varied monsters in 3.5e canon, possibly tweaked, rather than player character types!

Is this in reference to the Bard idea? If so it's the first thought that came to mind that made sense with no information about your players or characters. Or even world for that matter besides fantasy colonial Louisiana. Iit's sadly not much to grasp at and guessing at a CR range makes it difficult as well. Pixie for instance is a CR 4 and by moving it's ride ranks to handle animal (because what is it riding when it can fly and be invisible?) and swapping out one of its other spells for a spell of equal level (from the druid list) that would reasonably get an animal to follow it you can also have a fun encounter. As the Pixie wouldn't consider the familiar stolen, more like set free, borrowed, helping said pixie play a trick on the players.

I believe we as a community can help you if we have a bit more information to work with. Also I posted a few ideas for sample encounters for you if you were interested in my previous post.

[Fizban]

"Ack! I'm running a game in fantasy colonial louisiana! What are some good low-level monsters for when the player character ISN'T trudging through waist-deep water?"

Not enough context- if they're not trudging through waist-deep water, then where are they? There also aren't very many good *low* low-level monsters to begin with. There's a reason they call 1st level adventurers "pest control," and so many people default to 1 HD humanoids instead (1 HD humanoids aren't very good monsters either, for other reasons). Want specific answers, need specific questions.

"Ack! I need a monster, as low a challenge rating as possible, that can be a pied piper (via suggestion? charm monster?) to an npc's familiar to do a 'find the missing familiar!' subplot! What's a good monster for this and what are some good clues that will be relevant when the party doesn't have Track or Scent?"

As low a CR as possible is not a very good parameter. Further, most monsters with Suggestion or Charm Monster are not low-CR. If you want to find the missing familiar as a 1st level adventure, you'd probably be better off just having it wander off after some food (which could be carried by a weak but intelligent monster for nefarious purposes). The Book of Challenges has as its only EL 1 encounter a room full of animals from the familiar list that you have to get back in their cages as peacefully as possible.

If you want to do this with magic anyway, the lowest level spell is Hypnotism. But you'd still need to have them hypnotized into a box before being carried off or something, and familiars have high will saves from their master's class. Putting Hypnotism on a Grig or a Satyr would be perfectly reasonable. One or more Petals (MM3) could also have put it to sleep somehwere.

There aren't any particularly good clues for tracking down a tiny animal that has suddenly gone missing. Kinda why people have such a hard time of it. Through the magic of game mechanics it's easy enough to get around by having them buy or hire a tracking dog, which gets the scent of the familiar's bedding. Other than that, tracking is the only basic non-magical ability other than trapfinding which is really kept exclusive.

[Gavinfoxx]

Ack! I need a way to introduce Pearls of Speech and Pearlsteel and other Pearl-Based-Shenanigans! Also if anyone has any ideas for neat pearl themed stuff, I'm all ears.

What are some good monsters for a subtropical intertidal zone, suitable for parties under level 4?

[Saintheart]

What are some good monsters for a subtropical intertidal zone, suitable for parties under level 4?

Basically most stuff that has "marsh" in its environment tag should fit. Giant frogs. Lizardfolk. Also, bullywugs, out of Monsters of Faerun, also available on the PGtF web enhancement if you can find it.

[Gavinfoxx]

Ooh, that's good. Did dragon magazine ever do a write-up for Murlocs, so I could have basically the same creature but some more stat variety?

[Saintheart]

Ooh, that's good. Did dragon magazine ever do a write-up for Murlocs, so I could have basically the same creature but some more stat variety?

I don't know if they wrote up Murlocs specifically, but there are Warcraft conversions/specials in Dragon 299 and Dragon 320 which might help somewhere. That said, frankly given the look of the Murloc on a quick Google search, you could just about rename the Sahuagin from Core and that'd probably get you there.

[Thurbane]

Not sure about other sources, but there are Murloc d20 stats in the 3rd party Warcraft: Manual of Monsters book.

[Gavinfoxx]

So I want to make a Cryptoclidus Dinosaur (Monster Manual II and the MMII 3.5 update) a boss monster at the end of a Bullywug village extermination run as their 'god', and I wanna do a few things to it. For one, I was thinking of making it a bit beefier, advancing it's HD to 6, and changing it's feats to not suck and giving it the extra feat from it's hd. I'd also want to give it a very slow land speed of some sort, maybe 20 or 15 and Marsh Move, and specify that it's an air breather and give it Hold Breath. I'm also possibly thinking of giving it the Poweful Build trait to improve it's grappling capability for Swallow Whole.

I remember hearing MM2 is TERRIBLE at handling CR's, so what should the 'default' CR be? For example, I dunno how a Swallow Whole that works on Medium creatures should impact the CR, and what SHOULD the CR of such a creature be after my modifications?

[Telonius]

A game of "track the familiar" would be a great opportunity to give the party a helpful NPC and add some local color. Give them a fantasy Cajun-equivalent tracker - maybe a Ranger with a swamp-snake animal companion - who offers to help them track it if they do some plot-hook thing.

[Gavinfoxx]

I was thinking that the tracker is one of the other familiars, maybe a very cowardly dog. But I need an excuse for him to already have a Pearl of Speech...

Maybe someone infiltrated the Bullywug tidepools and stole it...

[Saintheart]

So I want to make a Cryptoclidus Dinosaur (Monster Manual II and the MMII 3.5 update) a boss monster at the end of a Bullywug village extermination run as their 'god', and I wanna do a few things to it. For one, I was thinking of making it a bit beefier, advancing it's HD to 6, and changing it's feats to not suck and giving it the extra feat from it's hd. I'd also want to give it a very slow land speed of some sort, maybe 20 or 15 and Marsh Move, and specify that it's an air breather and give it Hold Breath. I'm also possibly thinking of giving it the Poweful Build trait to improve it's grappling capability for Swallow Whole.

I remember hearing MM2 is TERRIBLE at handling CR's, so what should the 'default' CR be? For example, I dunno how a Swallow Whole that works on Medium creatures should impact the CR, and what SHOULD the CR of such a creature be after my modifications?

Two things to consider. One is the thread GITP did on recalibrating MM 2 CRs, which is here.

The other is Vorpal Tribble's rule of thumb for calculating a creature's CR in rough terms:

#1. Divide creature's average HP by 4.5 to 6.5.
4.5 for 5 HD or lower, 5 for 6-10 HD, 5.5 for 11-15 HD, 6 for 16-20 HD., 6.5 for 20-25 HD.

#2. Add 1 for each five points above 10 its AC is, subtracting 1 for every 5 below.

#3. Add 1 for each special attack (+2 to +5 or more if its got a decent number of spells in its spell-like abilities).

#4. Add 1 for each quality unless you deem it worthy of more. Add 1 for each resistance and 10 points of DR it has, and 2 for each immunity. Subtract 1 for each vulnerability.

#5. Add 1 for every two bonus feats it has.

#6. Divide total by 3. This should be its rough CR

[Gavinfoxx]

Anyone have any decent stats for a Lutrinal Guardinal of Small size?

[Gavinfoxx]

So one of my players has Rebuke Plants, and I am kinda interested in throwing a Sheengrass Swarm at him, but I don't want a TPK. I'll be encouraging them to get a bunch of Acidic Fire.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.a.../psb/20040521d

Any suggestions for that? I think it should be around CR 4 or 5, not CR 1. Is that about right? How do I prevent a TPK here? It seems like the way to beat this thing at super-low levels is 'an infinite amount of alchemist's fire or acidic fire and a riding horse'.

[dantiesilva]

The Spell Burning Hands deals 1d4 points of fire damage/ caster level, and anything in its area must make a save or catch on fire (Grass can catch on fire) so a single level 1 spell could in theory deal average of 2 damage in the first round with a possibility of an additional 1d6 from it now being on fire. Now unless that grass takes a Full Round action it has a 50% chance (roughly) to put the flames out on its turn (thus wasting its turn and stopping it from attacking your party). Stack on flasks of oil, alchemist fire, and other such things and your party should be able to deal with it rather easily at low level.

Round 1 2-10 damage from burning hands alone (from a level 1 PC, that's not including the whole party, just one person)
Round 2 1-6 damage if it didn't pass its save and is still one fire

It all comes down to your players having an idea of what they MAY be facing. Have random farmers talk about their heards being attacked by the grass in their fields lately, and then the next day that same place being baren with no grass there. Another person talk about how they saw strange silver grass, with his friend saying it was probably the morning dew. YOU as the DM have to Seed in what they will be fighting if you want them to do something and it not be a TPK. After all who is going to go around buying a store out of Alchemist fire just because they can?

[Gavinfoxx]

So I want an area where I introduce a lot of psionic materials (fancy crystals and similar, mostly, inks suitable for both magic and psionic tattoos, something capable of functioning as a location for minor types of rebuilding quests for psionic powers), and I want it to be guarded by a bunch of low-CR (below 6 or 7) psionic monsters, perhaps with a bit of a focus on psionic plants. Anyone have any suggestions beyond just putting the Phrenic template on a lot of things?