Chapter 9: The DM's Toolbox
As The Dungeon Master, you continually exercise your creative imagination to present new challenges to your players. You’re not even limited by the encounter rules in this book or the selection of monsters in the Monster Manual—only your own imagination controls what you can do. This chapter is all about going beyond the basics and making the D&D game distinctly yours. Customizing your campaign is a mix of art and science. Here is where you’ll find plenty of “crunch”— new rules for creating and modifying monsters and other challenges. This chapter also offers plenty of advice on giving your imagination free rein without unbalancing your game. Above all, it’s about having fun! This chapter includes the following sections.
✦ Customizing Monsters: Tools to help you adjust abilities or add specialized roles or class levels to existing monsters.
✦ Creating Monsters: How to create your own monsters to supplement those in the Monster Manual.
✦ Creating NPCs: How to create nonplayer characters, who are important villains and allies. They work much as the players’ characters do, using the same classes and the same basic rules.
✦ Creating House Rules: Advice on customizing your campaign with new rules of your own design.
✦ Random Dungeons: These rules let you create an adventure on the fly or provide starting points for a crafted dungeon.
✦ Random Encounters: A way to generate challenges on the spur of the moment—even without a Dungeon Master!
Creating Monsters
The Monster Manual provides hundreds of enemies for your adventures, but they aren’t all that’s available. You can customize existing monsters to increase their utility, making them stronger, weaker, or just different. Whether you want to bump an ogre up a few levels or turn it into an elite berserker, this section gives you the tools you need to tinker with monsters. You’ll also find rules for adding a class to a monster, mining the Player’s Handbook for combat powers. You can use several methods to adjust an existing monster: change its level, give it equipment, alter its appearance and behavior, and apply a template. Each of these approaches is discussed below.
INCREASING OR DECREASING LEVEL
Boosting a monster’s level is easy. Just increase its attack rolls, defenses, and AC by 1 for every level you add. For every two levels, increase the damage it deals with its attacks by 1. The monster also gains extra hit points at each level, based on its role. Decreasing a monster’s level works like increasing it, but in reverse. For each level down, reduce the creature’s attack rolls, defenses, and AC by 1 and drop its hit points based on its role. For every two levels, also reduce its damage by 1. This process works best for adjusting a monster’s level up to five higher or lower. Beyond that, the monster changes so much that you’d do better to start with another creature of the desired role and level range.
ADDING EQUIPMENT
You can add equipment to a monster to make it a little more challenging, or to put treasure into the characters’ hands. Equipment shouldn’t be random but should serve some purpose in the design of an encounter. Make sure to include any such items as part of the overall treasure you’re giving out for the adventure. Armor: When you add armor to a monster, you first need to determine if the armor is good enough to improve the monster’s AC. Start with the monster’s effective armor bonus—a measure of how much of the creature’s AC comes from its armor or from its thick hide. This number is equal to its AC minus 10 minus the higher of its Dexterity or Intelligence ability modifiers. Do not include the Dexterity or Intelligence modifier if the creature wears heavy armor. Subtract the effective armor bonus from the creature’s AC, and then add the bonus from its new armor. If the creature moved from heavy to light armor, you can also add the higher of its Dexterity or Intelligence ability modifier to its AC. If the creature’s statistics block does not mention any worn armor, use the higher of its original AC or its new AC after adding armor. Most creatures have naturally thick hides that provide an armor bonus to AC. If the armor a creature wears is not as good as its natural armor, it uses the AC bonus provided by its natural armor. Worn armor, such as a suit of chainmail, and natural armor, such as an insect’s carapace or a dragon’s thick scales, do not stack. For example, an ogre savage normally has an Armor Class of 19 (it’s assumed to be wearing crude hide armor). Its effective armor bonus is +5 (19 – 10 – 4 [Dex]). Giving the ogre chainmail instead would improve its AC by 1 to 20, since the armor’s +6 bonus is 1 higher than this number. Magic Items: A monster equipped with magic items can use the powers those items grant. Enhancement Bonuses: A monster benefits from an enhancement bonus to attack rolls, defenses, or AC only if that bonus is higher than its magic threshold, as shown on the table below. A monster’s magic threshold is an abstract representation of its equipment, power, and general effectiveness against characters of its level. If you give the monster a magic item that grants a bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls or to defenses, subtract the magic threshold from that bonus before you apply it. For example, if you give that 8th-level ogre savage a +2 magic greatclub, you add only a +1 bonus to its attack rolls and damage rolls, since its magic threshold is +1. Remember that a monster’s game statistics are set to be appropriate for its level. Thus, altering a monster’s attack, defense, or damage values is a lot like changing its level (see above). Avoid the temptation simply to give all your monsters better armor and weapons. Giving all your ogre savages plate armor and +3 greatswords may seem like a reasonable change, but now they have the attack, damage, and defense numbers of a higher-level monster—which makes them a tougher challenge than other 8th-level brutes. If you want to give a monster equipment that changes its attack, defense, or damage values by more than a point or so, consider also making those alterations as part of changing its level. For example, those ogre savages in plate armor and wielding +3 greatswords have AC, attack rolls, and damage rolls three points higher than normal. That’s pretty close to what a monster three levels higher would have (+3 to all defenses, +3 to attack rolls, and +1 damage), so you might as well make those ogre savages into 11th-level monsters and give them the extra hit points to go along with their other benefits.
COSMETIC CHANGES
The characters are delving into the jungle-covered ruins of an ancient city now haunted by the yuan-ti. There they discover strange arboreal humanoids with long arms that swoop into battle on the backs of giant wasps. What are these mysterious beings? This technique is useful for keeping players on their toes even when they know the Monster Manual backward and forward. Use the statistics of a given monster but completely alter its appearance when you describe it to the players. You can make minor changes to its powers as well, altering damage types or changing details of weapons (lashing tentacles become a whipping tail, for example).
Creating Monsters
The information on customizing monsters and the creatures provided in the Monster Manual and future volumes should handle most of your needs for monsters. When you really need to create something from scratch, the guidelines here will help you with the process.
MONSTER DESIGN STEPS
Following these steps won’t result in a fully designed and developed monster, but they’ll provide a good approximation.
1. Choose Level. The level of the monster determines its key statistics, including defenses, attack bonuses, and hit points.
2. Choose Role. A monster’s role suggests the kinds of powers it uses in combat. Chapter 4 describes monster roles more fully, and the Monster Statistics by Role table on this page shows how a monster’s role influences the statistics and powers you give it.
3. Determine Ability Scores. It’s helpful to think of ability scores in pairs, each pair corresponding to one of the three defenses (Fortitude, Reflex, and Will). Ability scores also help determine the monster’s attack bonuses, ability and skill checks, and Armor Class. On average, the highest ability score of a pair is equal to 13 + one-half the monster’s level. For example, the target score for an 8th-level monster is 17 (13 + 4). However, set the ability that governs the monster’s primary attacks to be 3 higher, or 16 + one-half the monster’s level. An 8th-level monster that relies on melee attacks should have a Strength of 20.
4. Determine Hit Points. Level and role determine hit points. The monster gains a flat number of hit points at each level, just as characters do. Use the Monster Statistics by Role table to set hit points.
5. Calculate Armor Class. A monster’s Armor Class is based on its level and role. Average AC is equal to 14 + the monster’s level, but some roles alter this target number, as shown in the table.
6. Calculate Other Defenses. A monster’s level determines its defenses. A given defense based on an average ability score is equal to 12 + the monster’s level. For every 2 points the ability score varies from the average, adjust the defense by +1 (if higher) or –1 (if lower).
7. Choose Powers. The most complex part of monster creation is creating powers for the monster. For inspiration, check the powers for creatures in the Monster Manual. That book has a list of monsters by level and role, so you can quickly look up other creatures that are similar to your new monster. Then either choose some powers that seem right, modifying them as needed, or create new ones of comparable effect. A monster needs a basic attack, which can be melee or ranged and is usable at will; some kinds of monsters might have a second basic attack. Then add one encounter power or rechargeable power per tier (one at heroic, two at paragon, three at epic).
8. Calculate Attack Bonus. The monster’s attack bonus is a function of its level and role. Powers that target AC typically have a higher attack bonus than those that target other defenses.
9. Set Damage for Attacks: Use the Damage by Level table to set damage for the monster’s attacks. Most at-will attacks should use the medium normal damage shown on the table. For attacks against multiple targets, the melee attacks of artillery monsters, and controller attacks that also include significant control functions, use the low normal damage column. For attacks that have low accuracy (including brute attacks) and the high-damage attacks of lurker monsters, use the high normal damage column. Use the limited damage expressions for powers the monster can use only once or twice a fight—powers that have encounter recharge or recharge rolls.
10. Additional Details. Monster design doesn’t stop once you’ve done all the math. Add flavor, appearance, and tactics to round out your creation.
Creating NPC'S
Nonplayer characters (NPCs) are the supporting cast in the drama that stars your players’ characters. Creating NPCs helps to bring your adventures and your campaign to life, creating a world that seems real. NPCs are typically humanoid beings with a clearly defined purpose in your campaign and distinctive personalities. One might be a paladin of the Raven Queen who stalks the land, a gloomy figure who could become enemy or ally. Another is the scheming cleric of Asmodeus who leads the god’s hidden cult, the main antagonist of your adventure. A third is a brutal yet honorable orc champion, a powerful warlord and another ultimate adversary or ally. All have a strong flavor based on their class and their connections to other parts of the world. That said, no NPC needs the depth of background, personality, and statistics that a well-crafted player character has. Many NPCs just need a name, a couple of skills, and a word or two about their place in the world and how it relates to the PCs. For example, the town priest Avarun worships Erathis and has a number of ritual scrolls that he can use: Cure Disease (4), Raise Dead (1), and Remove Affliction (2). You can also compose seven sentences to summarize an NPC’s essential elements so that he or she can interact with the player characters in a meaningful and memorable way. Occupation: The first sentence introduces the NPC, describing the character’s way of life. Physical Description: This sentence provides a brief summary of the NPC’s appearance. In addition to covering the basics (height and build, color of skin, hair, and eyes, and so forth), think about a distinctive quirk to help set the character apart in the players’ minds. Roll or choose a quirk from the table, or come up with one of your own. Attributes and Skills: Here is where you note whether any of the NPC’s abilities are markedly above or below average—great strength or monumental stupidity, for example. You should also mention any special skills he or she has, even if they’re not associated with the character’s occupation. These notes will help you create appropriate statistics later. Values and Motivations: Summarize the values that the NPC holds dear, and what spurs him or her to action. These factors can have an impact on the party’s interaction with that person. These details also help you decide how the NPC reacts to the characters. Behavior: This sentence describes how the NPC interacts with others—traits that will stand out in the players’ minds. An NPC might be urbane, sarcastic, loud and obnoxious, soft-spoken, or condescending. If this behavior is applied differently depending on who you are, people than with strangers, note that here. Useful Knowledge: Does the NPC know something that might benefit the PCs? This information might be purely for flavor, or it could be a key clue leading the PCs deeper into the adventure. Mannerism: Describe a memorable characteristic of the NPC, something for the players to remember. They might forget a name, but they’ll remember the blacksmith with the elaborate vocabulary. Roll or pick a mannerism from the table, or make up your own.
NPC MANNERISMS
d20 Mannerism
1 Is prone to singing, whistling, or humming quietly
2 Speaks in rhymes or meter
3 Has particularly low or high voice
4 Slurs words, lisps, or stutters
5 Enunciates very clearly
6 Speaks loudly
7 Whispers
8 Uses flowery speech or long words
9 Frequently uses the wrong word
10 Uses colorful oaths and exclamations
11 Constantly makes jokes or puns
12 Is prone to predictions of certain doom
13 Fiddles and fidgets nervously
14 Squints
15 Stares into distance
16 Chews something
17 Paces
18 Taps fingers
19 Bites fingernails
20 Twirls hair or tugs beard
NPC QUIRKS
d20 Quirk
1 Distinctive jewelry (earrings, necklace, bracelets)
2 Piercing
3 Flamboyant or outlandish clothes
4 Formal or very clean clothes
5 Ragged and very dirty clothes
6 Pronounced scar
7 Missing tooth
8 Missing finger
9 Unusual eye color (or two different colors)
10 Tattoo
11 Birthmark
12 Unusual skin color
13 Bald
14 Braided beard or hair
15 Unusual hair color
16 Nervous eye twitch
17 Distinctive nose
18 Distinctive posture—crooked or very rigid
19 Exceptionally beautiful
20 Exceptionally ugly
NPC DESIGN STEPS
When the Monster Manual doesn’t have the exact entry you need, use these guidelines to craft an NPC. Remember that many NPCs simply need a name, a couple of sentences of background, a key skill or two, and maybe a ritual. Most don’t have classes or even roles (in the monster sense). Only go to the trouble of adding game statistics if the NPC is going to serve as an opponent or an adventuring ally for the PCs. Otherwise, you’re doing too much work. Along the same lines, treat NPCs as you would monsters. That is, only give them the things you’ll need to run them in an encounter or an adventure. Don’t stat out an NPC as a player stats out a player character. That’s just too much work for what you really need. Most NPCs, even opponents, only need as much detail as a monster. In the rare case where you want to build a campaign long villain, then it might serve for you to fully stat out the NPC in PC fashion, but this should be the exception—the rare exception.
1. Choose Level. The level of the NPC determines key statistics, as well as its threat to the party.
2. Choose Race and Class. Decide which class most closely matches the NPC’s role. Some classes work well for more than one role, depending on the powers you select. Use the NPC class blocks that follow.
3. Determine Ability Scores. Use the standard ability array. Assign the six numbers as appropriate to the NPC’s class, applying any racial modifiers. Then adjust the scores to account for the NPC’s level, just as you would for a player character. The table below summarizes the total ability score increases at specific levels. (These increases are not cumulative.)
4. Determine Hit Points and Healing Surges. An NPC’s hit points are primarily determined by his class, role, and level, as described below. An NPC is, fundamentally, like a monster, and therefore the NPC’s hit point total must be close to that of a monster. NPCs can use healing surges. Like monsters, they have one healing surge per tier. So, a heroic tier NPC (1st–10th level) has one healing surge, and an epic tier NPC (21st level or higher) has three. Like player characters, NPCs can use their second wind once per encounter as a standard action.
5. Calculate Defenses. Determine the scores for the NPC’s Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses using the standard formula: 10 + 1/2 level + relevant ability modifier. Calculate the NPC’s Armor Class as you would for a player character, including bonuses from armor. After you have calculated these numbers, add any bonuses from class or race to all defenses. Then add the level bonus to represent improvements based on level advancement, as described in the “Level Bonus and Magic Threshold” sidebar. If you gave the NPC a magic item that grants a bonus to defenses, you must also subtract the magic threshold from that bonus, as noted in the sidebar
6. Choose Powers. As described below. At-Will Powers: Choose one. Encounter Powers: Choose one of the NPC’s level. Add an additional power of a lower level if 11th level or higher. Daily Powers: Choose one of the NPC’s level. Add an additional power of a lower level if 21st level or higher. Utility Powers: Choose one of the NPC’s level. Add an additional power of a lower level if 11th level or higher, and another if 21st level or higher.
7. Choose Skills. Pick a skill or two for the NPC to be trained in, using the information below.
8. Choose Equipment. Select weapons and armor from Chapter 7 of the Player’s Handbook, taking into account class and race. You can give the NPC a magic item of a suitable level, but if he or she is an antagonist, count the item as part of the treasure for the adventure.
9. Calculate Attack and Damage Bonuses. Calculate the NPC’s attack bonuses and damage bonuses as you would for a player character, then add the level bonus to each just as you did for defenses in step 5. The weapon you chose in step 8 determines the damage of weapon-based powers. If you gave the NPC a magic item, remember to subtract the magic threshold, just as you did for defenses in step 5.
10. Choose Rituals: Giving your NPC certain ritual scrolls might be appropriate, especially if he or she is an ally of the characters. Ritual scrolls work well for NPCs that aren’t ritual casters. Remember that villains can perform powerful rituals “off camera” to help drive your narrative.
Creating House Rules
As Dungeon Master, you wear several hats: storyteller, rules arbiter, actor, adventure designer, and writer. Some DMs like to add a sixth hat to that stack: rules designer. House rules are variants on the basic rules designed specifically for a particular DM’s campaign. They add fun to your D&D game by making it unique, reflecting specific traits of your world. A house rule also serves as a handy “patch” for a game feature that your group dislikes. The D&D rules cannot possibly account for the variety of campaigns and play styles of every group. If you disagree with how the rules handle something, changing them is within your rights. This advice can’t turn you into an expert game designer—we’d need more than a page for that. Instead, this is a basic introduction to the concepts behind rules design. Once you’ve become familiar with these ideas, the best way to learn more about game design is to play, see what’s fun and what’s not, and use your discoveries to guide your own work.
RULES DESIGN 101
Before you begin designing a house rule, ask yourself how necessary it is. A new rule won’t help your game if it keeps all the problems of the old one. Keep in mind:
✦ Why do I want to change or add this rule?
✦ What should the change accomplish?
✦ How should my new rule accomplish its goal?
Think carefully about the reason for changing or adding a rule. Are you reacting to a persistent problem in your campaign, or to one specific incident? Isolated problems might be better handled in other ways. More important, do the other players agree to the need for a change? You have the authority to do whatever you want with the game, but your efforts won’t help if you have no group. If a change still seems in order, consider what the new or revised rule should do. You need a clear grasp of the rule’s function before you can begin design. Start by thinking about intent—don’t worry about the mechanics yet. Imagine what you want to happen at the game table when the rule comes into play. Once you have worked out the rule’s intended function, write up how it works. This material doesn’t need to be exhaustive or resemble a legal code. You can modify the rule or make judgment calls during play. Playing with the new rule is the most important part of the design process. Keep a close eye on how the rule affects the game. Does it achieve the desired goal? Is your group enjoying the game more because of it? If not, try revising how it works—or even start over. A rule hardly ever works perfectly the first time.
EXAMPLE HOUSE RULES
Here are a couple of sample house rules, followed by discussions on their intended purpose.
FUMBLE Whenever you make an attack roll of natural 1, your turn immediately ends, and you grant combat advantage to all attackers until the start of your next turn. If the roll is part of a close or area attack, resolve all the other attack rolls before ending your turn.
A fumble, or “critical miss,” is a failed attack that leaves the attacker in a bad position. A lot of DMs like the symmetry of having fumbles on natural 1s to balance the possibility of critical hits on natural 20s. This rule models the uncertainty of combat, when even a skilled warrior can take a bad step or misjudge an attack so badly as to be unable to respond to any counterstrike. The exception for close and area attacks is something that you’d likely discover a need for in play. Such powers affect all targets at once, as opposed to those that let you blast one foe at a time, so it doesn’t make sense to cancel the remaining attacks. This way, if a wizard fumbles a single attack roll with fireball, the spell still fries the other monsters in its area. Characters using powers that give them multiple attack rolls will fumble more than other characters, because they’re rolling more attacks (and thus getting more natural 1s). The wizard in the party might get frustrated from fumbling in every fight just because he’s rolling three times as many attacks as the fighter. A fumble rule adds a sense of uncertainty to every attack, so it works best with players who like a random element of danger. It’s also a lot of fun to take advantage of a monster’s critical miss.
CRITICAL SUCCESS AND FAILURE On a skill or ability check, a roll of natural 20 is a critical success and a roll of natural 1 is a critical failure. On a critical success, the check automatically succeeds, and you gain a +5 bonus to checks with that skill until the end of your next turn. In a skill challenge, add one extra victory to the tally. On a critical failure, the check automatically fails, and you take a –5 penalty to checks with that skill until the end of your next turn. In a skill challenge, add one extra defeat to the tally.
This house rule extends the symmetry of natural 20s and natural 1s to skill checks. Some DMs don’t like the idea of skill checks that always succeed, or conversely, that have no chance in a desperate attempt. This house rule adds an extra layer of uncertainty and tension to noncombat situations, especially in skill challenge. Monsters and NPCs can gain the benefits (and take the risks) of this rule too, which might have unintended consequences in play.
RANDOM DUNGEONS
Did the characters unexpectedly wander into the Great Labyrinth below the minotaur city? Perhaps you find yourself with less time to prepare than usual, or you just want a dungeon environment that’s a little wacky. Whether you want to prepare something quick for tonight’s adventure or have some fun on a rainy day, creating random dungeons is a simple way to fill a sheet of graph paper. The tables provided in this section help you quickly create a dungeon environment. You can either draw the chambers and corridors yourself, using the examples provided here, or use pieces from any D&D Dungeon Tiles product to represent them. Dimensions are given in squares. To start, copy one of the areas pictured in this section onto a sheet of graph paper. If you’re building a dungeon on the fly while your players are at the table, lay down tiles to create the starting area or draw it onto your battle grid. Then pick an exit— or let the players choose one—and roll a d20, consulting either the Corridors table or the Doors table below.
HOW DOES IT END?
Following these instructions can lead to sprawling complexes that more than fill a single sheet of graph paper. If you want to constrain the dungeon somewhat, you can set some limits ahead of time to just how far it can grow. Don’t Leave the Paper: If a feature would exceed the boundaries of your sheet, cut it short or otherwise limit it. A corridor might turn or come to a dead end at the map edge. A chamber can become smaller, or be replaced by stairs or a dead-end corridor. One Level at a Time: Once you’ve created eight to ten chambers, stop. The result is a dungeon section that should advance your characters one level and give them about a level’s worth of treasure. You can either go back and erase doors and corridors on the map that you haven’t filled out yet, or find ways to connect them up with each other.
CORRIDORS
A dungeon can start with a corridor, or you can place a corridor as a separator between doors or chambers. Result of 1–19: If the corridor ends in a door, a chamber, or stairs, refer to the appropriate section and roll again on the tables provided there. If the passage divides at an intersection or has a side branch, choose a path and roll again on the Corridors table. If the corridor continues and also has a door or stairs, choose either the corridor or the door or stairs and roll on the appropriate table. You decide which square an opening, door, or stairway is in, either by drawing it on the map or aligning a dungeon tile the way you want. If the corridor dead-ends, choose a different exit and roll on the indicated table. Result of 20: A roll of 20 results in a random encounter of some sort, whether a trap or hazard, or one or more monsters. See the “Random Encounters” section starting on page 193 for help on working out what’s there.
DOORS
The first step in creating random doors is deciding whether they’re all easy to open or not. If you want doors of varying difficulty, consult the Door Types table first. The door’s material determines how hard it is to open, with difficulty increasing by tier (roll on the applicable column). Refer to page xx in Chapter 4 for details of different sorts of doors and portcullises. After deciding on the door’s difficulty, roll another d20 and refer to the following table to see what lies beyond.
CHAMBERS
Quite often, a door or corridor leads into a chamber of some kind. Although small rooms are possible, larger areas work better for combat since they allow more movement choices and varied terrain. The chambers provided in the following table are big enough to leave lots of space for the party and monsters or hazards. First roll on the Chamber Size and Shape table, then refer to the Chamber Exits table to determine how many exits lead out (the way in doesn’t count). You’ll have to decide how many exits are in which walls, or you can choose a suitable dungeon tile with the right number. For each exit that isn’t stairs, roll another d20 to see if it’s a door or a corridor. If your dungeon has only one floor, reroll a result that includes stairs, or substitute another kind of exit.
STAIRS
The existence of stairs presumes a dungeon with more than one floor. If you want to keep your dungeon simple, reroll stairs results from other tables or replace them with other kinds of features. For the purpose of this entry, “stairs” includes other means of going up and down, such as chimneys, shafts (with or without elevators), and ladders. The distance between the floors of your dungeon is up to you; 30 feet is a good starting number.
Random Encounters
Sometimes you need a group of monsters to challenge your characters on the spur of the moment. This section shows you how to populate those random dungeons with challenging encounters. This is also where we at last reveal the secret of how to play D&D without a Dungeon Master! A random encounter is usually less complex than one you craft yourself, but it doesn’t have to be any less fun. You can create interesting tactical challenges with a few die rolls.
ENCOUNTER BASICS
Before you create your random encounter, you need to establish its difficulty and basic nature. Then comes the tricky part: choosing specific monsters (or traps and hazards) to build the encounter. For traps and hazards, choose an example in Chapter 5 that’s closest to the level you want. For monsters, your best bet is to use the Monster Manual’s list of monsters by role and level. You can either choose the creatures you want from the list or roll them randomly. Let’s say you’re creating a commander and troops encounter for a 4th-level party, and you need 4th-level soldiers or brutes to fill it out. The Monster Manual includes four 4th-level brutes and three 4th-level soldiers. To choose randomly from the seven available monsters, roll a d8. If you get a result of 8, choose a 5th-level monster instead.
THE ENCOUNTER DECK
You can generate random encounters by assembling a deck of cards that represent monsters, traps, and hazards. The stat cards included with D&D Miniatures Game products are ideal for this purpose, since they present brief monster statistics for easy reference. This approach requires some preparation but gives fun and flexible results. Before the game, you need to assemble an encounter deck. For an adventure containing eight to ten encounters, aim for about fifty cards. You probably won’t use them all, but this mix allows a nice variety. Create a mix of roles close to the following list.
MONSTER MIX
✦ 18 soldiers or brutes
✦ 14 skirmishers
✦ 5 minions
✦ 5 artillery
✦ 5 controllers
✦ 2 lurkers
✦ 1 solo
Within this selection of monsters, put together a range of challenges along the following lines. In each case, “Level” refers to the level of the characters.
You can choose monsters at random, but you can create more interesting and flavorful encounters by working with a theme, such as aberrant monsters or evil cultists. Mixing themes works well—along with the aberrant creatures, for example, you could have a strong contingent of demons and demon-worshipers. Multiple cards might well represent the same monster.
When it’s time to generate an encounter, draw one card from the deck for each character in the party Each card stands for one monster of that role, with two exceptions. A card that indicates a soldier or brute represents two of the same monster, while each minion card represents four creatures. Once you’ve drawn all your cards, assemble an encounter using the following principles. Shuffle any cards you don’t use back into the deck for the next encounter.
✦ Each encounter should contain two brutes or soldiers plus two or three monsters of other roles. If your group has more than five players, add a monster for each additional character.
✦ If you draw a lurker, set it aside and draw another card. Build an encounter from the rest of the cards and the new one, then add the lurker to the mix.
✦ A solo monster is the only creature in the encounter. Return all the others to the deck.
If certain monsters seem to naturally fit together in a certain situation, simply choose them from the deck instead of drawing randomly.
You can add special characteristics to some of the cards in your deck to liven up your encounters and make them feel more like an adventure. Boss: Add a card for a powerful monster (six or seven levels above that of the characters) and designate it as the “boss,” the main villain of the adventure. The party’s goal is to defeat that monster. The first time you draw the card, don’t add it to the encounter—draw a replacement and shuffle the first back into the deck. Doing this give the characters their first tantalizing glimpse, setting up the later showdown with that enemy. The boss might be seen slipping out a door behind the other creatures, or standing at a safe vantage point to watch the progress of the battle. (This is a fine opportunity for it to utter a taunt such as “You’ve fallen into my trap, foolish adventurers!” and then laugh maniacally before getting away.) A really tricky boss might escape twice before finally confronting the adventurers. Another way to handle a boss monster is to leave its card out of the deck at the beginning of the adventure. After the PCs have defeated one or two monsters you’ve designated as key, shuffle the card into the deck. For example, you might decide that the boss will arrive after the party encounters your solo monster. Evolving Deck: To create a sense of progress, you can have your dungeon change over time. To do so, start with one encounter deck. As the characters advance through the dungeon, add in cards from a second deck of more difficult encounters. To use this option, you’ll need to create two encounter decks, with the creatures in the second of higher level than those in the first. Whenever the party defeats monsters, springs traps, or overcomes hazards in the first deck, replace those cards with an equal number of random cards from the second deck. As the adventure continues, the encounters become tougher and tougher. You can combine this option with a boss monster. In this situation, leave out the boss’s card until the characters defeat one or more creatures from the second deck. Then shuffle its card into the second deck. For an interesting variant, try giving the two decks different themes. The first deck might contain mostly vermin and beasts, while the second is made up of evil clerics, their undead creatures, and their humanoid guards. In this example, the characters are out to locate and destroy an evil temple. They start out encountering miscellaneous dungeon denizens but then run into members of the temple, leading to the final battle. Traps and Hazards: You can add traps, hazards, and interesting terrain features to your random encounters. To do this, include cards representing them, in addition to your fifty monster cards. Each time one of these cards comes up, add it to the encounter and draw another card from the encounter deck.
PLAYING WITHOUT A DM
This might seem to be strange advice for a Dungeon Master’s Guide, but it’s entirely possible to play D&D without a Dungeon Master. If all you’re looking for is fun and exciting combat, with no more than the barest hint of plot or purpose, a random dungeon with a random encounter deck is all you need. Someone needs to prepare the deck, and someone needs to run the monsters during the game. They doesn’t need to be the same person. All the players can decide together what the monsters do, and let the player who’s the target of an attack make that attack roll (or have the person to the left roll for the monsters). A random dungeon with no DM makes for a good way to spend a game session when your regular DM can’t play. It’s also a fun activity over a lunch hour, as long as your school or office is forgiving of a group of people rolling dice and shouting battle cries!