I'm getting tired of being unable to use certain monsters and encounters that I like just because I know the players...

And here's my main problem with reskinning/upgrading etc
>It keeps my players from knowing what they're encountering.

It's best if your players actually have an idea of what they're facing, otherwise they might as well just be fighting against the shadows in the DM's mind than any monster with a real stat. Of course, you've shamelessly admitted you don't care about that and will gladly alter monster stats on the fly, which is fine, but much like the whole upgrading/reskinning deal it's a thing for newbie DMs who can't handle their shit, or for newbie players who wouldn't even know that the DM can pull shit against them.

Ideally, you allow players to have strong hints or clues as to what they'll be facing so they can prepare themselves and fight a smarter battle than one of trial and error, and you can do things like banter after-game about the monster stat block you can show them to prove their lives are actually on the line here, and you aren't just fitting things to make a pretty story. Or, alternatively, abilities that allow players access to metadata/a loose form of metadata.

I think it's reasonable to not know what you're fighting. If the DM has a specific weakness or power in mind then they should be foreshadowed or explicitly described. if your players can't remember then tough luck.

>and you can do things like banter after-game about the monster stat block you can show them to prove their lives are actually on the line here, and you aren't just fitting things to make a pretty story. Or, alternatively, abilities that allow players access to metadata/a loose form of metadata.
You sound like a fucking chore to play with. We're playing pretend, where's the fun in always revealing my secrets? It literally doesn't make a different to you if you never see the man behind the curtain.

i just do whatever feels thematically appropriate, CR be damned, if your players are clever they will either run or win. I threw an Umberhulk at 3, 2nd level characters and they pulled through. People will die and thats okay, party fighter (4th lvl) challenged the Flind of a gnoll warband for safe passage, he dies but his death led to the rest of the parties escape and them sneaking into the gnoll camp and sowing some seeds of revenge.
TLDR; seriously just dont worry about it

Or it could just be a larger/more experienced/mutated/steroidal monster or the one you fought is actually a juvenile, but i agree its better to mix up the abilities than just bump ac and hp

Fucking this.

As the DM part of your job is keeping things from the players.
I hate hlw shitty players get about things there characters should have no way of knowing.
>i dance with this woman
>how long do you dance
>an hour
>okay whats your stamina? 47? You feel tired after 47 minutes, make a stamina test.
>bullshit! I can dance for 12 hours
>dancing with this woman is particularly strenuous, you feel the weight of the day pressing on you. Mechanicaly this means dancing with her is a strenuous activity and you can only do one of those for 1 minute per point of stamina without making a check.
>the book says dancing isnt a strenuous activity!
>and I'm telling you, dancing with her is. Now please roll your check.
>no, thats bullshit

He pouted the rest of the game and wasnt invited back. Later i showed the woman's stat block to another player, she was a demon that ate away at the stamina of anyone who stayed within 1d5 feet of her for more than 1 round. As the DM players need to accept that things i tell them will overide the book and i dont have to keep open notes for them to see.

They shouldn't know everything about it until maybe they've fought it once or twice, but knowing some things is pretty important, I'd say.

'I have secrets and I'll never show them to you' DMs are the worst. They seem to think that actually hiding information from the players is a good thing, somehow.
Just don't break immersion to give players information unless you're really fucking desperate.

If it's a monster the party already knows then there should be an indicator it's stronger, yes, like just 'steroidal'. But stuff like the environment and shit is really good because you don't have to betray player expectations and change the monster at all.

Oh dont be mistaken i completely agree with environmental effects especially when they play into a monsters favour

DMG page 274

Why is it lame when PCs are leveling up as well? How is that different?

What if you're playing a game/setting where the characters aren't assumed to have knowledge about the monsters they're facing?
Just because the health pool and attacks aren't set in stone doesn't mean the monster is some nebulous concept without a planned out description, tactics and concept. Which they can by all means research in game and IC to find ways to counter it instead of using OOC knowledge to metagame their way to victory.

You sound like you just want to play tactical miniature combat, which is fine, that's what DnD is best for in the end.

Players are unusual and the players don't fight players. If the players fought other players, it'd honestly be really shit, for reasons such as enemies pulling crazy shit from nowhere.

This isn't something I'd disagree with. The player was being given hints and wasn't taking them. That's the player's fault. You even mentioned that the guy was shown the statblock, which is something I mentioned and the other guy was likely disagreeing with.
It's the DM's fault if he gives no clues at all, though. If the DM lets the guy dance for twelve hours and there's nothing outstanding about the woman until it's too late 'because she's a powerful demon she knows how to hide all possible tells she's a demon!'

It shouldn't have to be OOC knowledge. It probably shouldn't betray OOC knowledge too much reasoning unless the DM is prepared to explain, but the deal is the DM should be dropping hints about monsters, from 'this monster is really powerful maybe you should run' in the form of it killing heroes in front of the players' eyes, to the simple fact that a fire-hating creature's lair is cold and has no lights.

Heck, even having an easy battle against enemy X so you can learn about enemy X's race works, but don't constantly bullshit stats on the spot for a massive spectrum of races without the players having any chance to apply their intellect.

Health isn't really a big point, but if the DM can manage it simply having a system that automatically tells you when an enemy is bloodied is enough. The players can try to hardcore metagame it by working out the enemy's health from that if they enjoy that, but they don't have to, and they probably won't. If they do, let them have their fun.
But it helps prove to them without you telling them that every fight is genuine, every fight has a chance of their character dying and that the enemies aren't just 'boxing with shadows'.
I get that feel far too often with certain DMs.

Hahahaha Nigga Just Increase Their Level Like Nigga Raise Their Defenses And Attack Haha

I mean, she knew how to hide it, but you cant hide the fact that youre draining someone slowly of stamina. Also the point is, i constantly deal with shit like this. Its gotten to the point there the only thing i hide anymore is the stuff i roll betwee games and during diwn time. I don't even roll dice anymore. I let players roll against themselves or pass the roll on. Funny enough that works out to the point where one guy has killed more than 12 PCs when the roll gets passed onto him. No one wants to sit next to him anymore. Same guy also never gets hit when every one rolls to see whos getting attacked

Just throw a larger quantity of monsters at them

>but you cant hide the fact that youre draining someone slowly of stamina
Why not? All they'd know is "Well fuck am I out of shape/tired."
If the player in question hadn't started furiously metagaming it and assuming DM fiat, he might have been able to work it out.

Just look at your party's "to hit" bonuses. Usually they will all be around the same value and compare that to AC through a d20 to see how low they would need to roll to miss the creature. You now know how often they will usually hit the creature.

Then divide the monster HP by the middle dice roll of the party weapon damage dice (including mods). Now you know how many turns you can expect the creature to survive against the party.

Between the two you can get an idea of how long the fight will go.

That's all reasonable enough. It proves that there are people who get angsty about this sort of thing.

Now, you could say that they're shit people, but I believe these people can be fine, it's just that they're not so content that they're happy with things just going as the DM describes, and really want that feeling that they're influencing the story, and the proof.

Though actually I'd say that's different to the other point I'd also been making that some DMs don't put enough effort into dropping hints towards shit like 'Yeah, this cave has scorch marks and inanimate skeletons littered around it and even some old, rusted weapons'

You cant hide the fact that they are becoming more tired. Thats what i meant to say. Like, there has so be some tell or giveaway that lets you know something isnt right.

>Ways to know how much HP, damage, armor, resistances and stat buffs are too much?
Between sessions our DM takes our sheets and pits them against the monsters he creates. Sort like playing chess with yourself.

It's a bit nuts, but using the important stats (that is, HP, AC, relevant Saves) and comparing them to the monster's, is a pretty good way to fine tune a given monster's lethality.

>Running combat for yourself

Your dm is a sadist or more dedicated than anything ive ever seen. You should be extremely grateful you have a dm like this and probably suck his dick a little.

Also i might start doing this with dcc and randomly rolled monsters

Just put more of them. If a lizardman is CR1 then put 10 lizardmen. If they kill those, then put 30 lizardmen. And so on

>Monster has magical item
I like to pull this trick every now and then.
If PCs manage to get the drops on the goblins, they can grab that sweet sweet potion of invisibility. But if they don't, well, expect an invisible goblin.

Also, I absolutely love to give one or two monsters among a group the occasional unique traits. This goblin is a parrying expert. This goblin gets 2 attacks. This goblin has a bunch of caltrops on him. This goblin ignores difficult terrain. This goblin has bard/leader inspiration powers. This goblin sold his soul for the Poison Spray cantrip.

>inb4 goblin adventurer party composed of all those goblins

just up all their stats, fuck it. A lizard man with the stats of an appropriate dragon and the DCs of its abilities bumped up to be appropriately high is still a lizard man fluffwise but also a decent challenge.

If goblins do absolutely nothing at this level, pit them against a dozen goblins and a Level 7 Goblin mage. The first spell the mage casts is an aoe buff that does something cool; the goblins are hasted and move/strike at near-speedster pace, or they goblins start flickering as they phase in and out of the etheric plane, or they all grow to the size of ogres. Or have the mage cast Fireballs recklessly, it's still a "goblin" encounter but their shaman leader happens to be real stronk.

Or make it a horde, literally 300 goblins, let your players go nuts with AoE a little

I got tired of this as well so I pretty much dropped all official stats for monsters and started winging it. I also took a more story/detail driven approach to combat that basically auto-buffs any enemy I want to make stronger for entertainment/plot purposes. Additionally any enemies I think are too weak to make a whole hour long encounter for are usually killed in one shot unless a player rolls bad.

How about the fact that 12 hour dance marathons in stuffy clothes fucking sucks, and players wildly overestimate their limits in things they are unskilled in

Just reskin CR level monsters
Or hell look up the rules for monster advancement

You don't have to go by the stats perfectly, just make sure there's a thematic reason for monsters to be that strong

>be some tell or
"roll a stamina check for dancing" WAS the tell.

I have a player exactly like this. Claims IC knowledge for everything, literally everything I kid you not. I said to her last session, well your character doesn't have an int20 an eidetic memory so
and she interrupts me and goes,
>well she doesn't have 20 intelligence but she does have eidetic memory and if she ever read it she would remember!
Her backstory is that she spent 50 years in a library doing nothing but reading and research so it's been quite a problem. The irony, I guess, is that she has missed every actual plot related clue, hook, twist and irregularity because she is so focused on shit like exactly what time of day it is, exactly what day of the week, when the solstice falls on the calendar, then ignores it (or more often argues) when shit doesn't like up. Like what is the point of carefully tracking every bit shoot by every guard in every round if you're going to miss the auto reloading magic multi-shot crossbow in the mix?

>Like, there has so be some tell or giveaway that lets you know something isnt right.
The fact that the DM told them that they were getting tired way before they should have?

Do you really need this when CR 1/2 scouts from the core 5e Monster Manual can still murder high level PCs?

Did we not have a thread about this earlier? Bounded accuracy is a hell of a drug.

Git good. Read about monster advancement and suddenly you won't have any more problems.

Google this: [3.5]Being Ra's al Ghul-Oslecamo's guide for DMs to improve their monsters.

Oh and templates, templates templates.

Half-Minotaur and Half-Ogre are good ones for all the monsters. For 1 CR you ll get a large sized creature with stats outta the roof.

This. First post best post.

This isnt a D&D issue, this is a shit GM issue. I have run a 1 to 20 campaign focused around goblins alone, and it worked perfectly fine. Scale that shit up. Those two goblins with quarterstaffs? Level 15 monks. That Hobgoblin wielding a Greatsword? Level 18 fighter.

CR is for new GMs who does not know how to create encounters get. You should not have a problem tailoring any kind of enemy to be equal to the party.

Sounds like utter shit desu
>You come across a gobiln! He is naked with a quarterstaff
'So, uhh, just a runt?'
'Actually turns out he can deflect all your missiles, hit you several times a turn and probably leave the material plane itself to go jerk off aside from stunning your entire party constantly.'

Don't use PC stats because
1) It doesn't follow any logical sense. You can't work out someone's abilities usually without looking it up in the PHB 'Oh, monks get these abilities'.
2) It's not heroic. You're fighting goblins. That's now what D&D was designed for, it's suppose to be fighting dragons and beholders and 'wow we took out this really big fucking beast that actually makes sense why it's so tough.'
3) PC stats aren't balanced to go against PCs. They have a lot of bullshit in them that's no fun for players. That sort of thing. Also they lack fun weaknesses to exploit.
4) You set up that a goblin is so-and-so tough before immediately betraying these expectations and making a strong goblin that's just a goblin, and doing this repeatedly. But this is basically 1).

If you want to keep using goblins, make them goblins. Don't just make it another fucking MMORPG where at level 1 a lynx is a challenging beast and at level 80 there's a lynx but it's literally reskinned blue but it still a challenge because it's blue. It's dumb, lazy shit. Use more goblins. Group the goblins into squads that move together. Use traps. Anything, anything but 'Goblin+10'.

>Just reskin CR level monsters
This. Take a higher level monster that's somewhat similar and tweak it as necessary.

Not him, but if a goblin warlord/priest has been uniting goblins across the world to summon an avatar of Maglu-what's-his-face (and given his god's blessing), you bet I'd want him to be a medium-to-hard fight even if the PCs catch him alone.

Sometimes a human is a commoner with a pitchfork, sometimes it's an assassin or even an archmage (and generally you can see it coming). Can't goblins or orcs have superpowers if they make sense in-universe?

"We defeated some asshole goblin who was literally an evil god's champion/high priest" is pretty satisfying too, especially if you get to see goblin religion/morale crumble around you after that victory.

I agree with you about using PC stats though. That's a recipe for confusion and lame gameplay.

>t.autism
'I need to know all the numbers, including knowledge my character couldn't possibly have, otherwise how can I possibly strip all of the mystery out of the game and reduce the experience down to crunching pure numbers and probabilities?'

>Didn't read the whole post

>3) PC stats aren't balanced to go against PCs. They have a lot of bullshit in them that's no fun for players. That sort of thing. Also they lack fun weaknesses to exploit.
>chisaipete.github.io/bestiary/creatures/mind-flayer
Yeah, it's the PC's that have the bullshit abilities.
I agree it is moronic to have a random goblin be lvl 15 monk, but when the PC's have progressed to higher levels it's ok to add 5-6 levels of fighter or barbarian or ranger to "elite" goblins. If the PC's are still dealing with goblin at this point, probably it is some band of highly organized skillful goblins, who have an objective in mind.

Why can't individual goblins train hard and get more badass than their fellows the way the humans, dwarves and half-orc in the party do?

CR is bullshit anyway. When you take into account party optimisation, environment, monster's abilities and interaction between them, CR becomes almost meaningless.

Honest way to send monsters you like on PCs despite their initial CR - give them class levels.

That's what knowledge skills are for.

They CAN do it, but it wouldn't make for a fun encounter

literally, LITERALLY, strawmanning

>LITERALLY

ZOMG LITERALLY YOU GUIZE

The trick is to be clear that, unless hiding their abnormality is part of the challenge, they seem different. This can happen mid combat
>as you swipe at the goblin, he skillfully parries your blow before launching a swift counter attack
It can be while rolling initiative
>the goblins pair off, protecting each other's back in a manner similar to skilled soldiers you've come across
Or while you observe them
>this group of goblins seems much more disciplined than normal, you see patrols at regular intervals and their equipment is unusually well maintained

The point is that the players should know if something is different than their expectations, unless the surprise is the intended point and factored into the encounters design.

Yeah, though giving "hints" can be quite dangerous. What you think is a hint most of the time gets interpreted in a very different way from the PC's. I guess that if they don't get it, you should outright tell them "those are goblins on crack, not normal lame goblins".

Not using actual class levels, just modelling them to match.

>Goblins are goblins, they dont get stronger!
Goblins can be PCs. You are literally saying PCs shouldn't be getting levels, because that ruins the expectations of those races power level.

I am the one you originally replied to, and
>Centered around goblins
You know what that means, right? They fight goblins all the time. They are fully aware of how varied they are, and know how to tell them apart.

You sound like an Autist who freaks out if I change anything from the stats a given enemy has in the monster manual.

No reason to break immersion just reinforce the hints you drop with additional anecdotes as things progress. At a certain point, player investment or the lack of it are the players problem.
Obviously bad DMs will do it poorly while bad players will fail to be invested enough to understand, but that is an entirely different issue anyway.

Nigga, that was my first post of the thread and entirely irrelevant to anything I said.

Whoops. Sorry, should have been to My sincerest apologies.

Have you tried not playing DnD? Why does people love that cluncky shitty system so much.

More Monsters
Monsters with better equipment
Advancing the monster in question
Adding class levels
Actually looking up effective tactics that can usurp stat superiority
Reimplement 2e PC limitations through race and certain parts of spellfluff
Ignore CR, add custom mobs, see how they play out
Nightmare Monster Team ups (Aboleth with Illithid under the effects of it's mucus for example)
Use Tome of horrors monster (Some of them, some are featured in D&D3.5, but are in Dragon Magazines)
Use Buffs
MONSTERS HAVE ITEMS TO CONSUME AND BUFFS
Monsters receiving divine assistance
Always having a proper patrol network with alert protocols/calling for help/retreating people who don't want to die
Enemies picking up ammo
Phenominal cosmic consequences for actions taken into the grander scheme of the setting
Understanding the travel and flow of information and memes in your setting.
Regional law, bounties, and active employment.

>this thread
Am I the only 5e DM who allows PCs to carry downed PCs at the cost of half speed?
Maybe I'm the idiot here, but in my games it would probably go like this
>20 scouts get a surprise round or whatever and focus-fire the Druid and Lore Bard to 0 HP
>Fighter and Monk grab the downed PCs, hold them Fireman's Carry style and GTFO
>Short chase sequence, martials dash the whole time, archers lose ground with arrow shot
>1 environmental action to pull out a potion, another to force-feed it to the downed PCs

If level 10 PCs aren't carrying at least one healing potion each I'd say they kinda earned those losses.

>start carrying the downed PCs away
>move 30 feet

>get focus fired on and shot

Are you retarded? The party would get killed.

Just remember not EVERY encounter has to be a tooth and nail fight for your lives. Several Dm's I have played with seem to think every encounter needs to be super buffed or CR+5.

Let the players murder some appropriate stuff too otherwise why bother playing, it's just a crap shoot and "Who can prepare more character sheets".

If the scouts can hide for a surprise attack, then there's enough cover for the retreating martials to flee through and not die, I think. I assume OP's problem comes from the fact his party can't do anything about the downed allies except let them die.

Of course if they're fighting on a bare plain the rest of the party is plain fucked, yeah, but in that case I'm curious as to how the enemy scouts got the drop on them.

I dunno, maybe a canyon ambush?

The moment the other two PCs start to pick up the other characters, they're fucked and going to get focused on too.

Oh, good call. I hadn't thought about that.

...I need to use canyon-style terrain more often. Let me jolt that down somewhere in my DM notes. Just in case.

Personally I think you should make smart enemies use every advantage they can, just like players will.

That being said, I'd make sure your players are aware of this, either by just stating it, or show NPCs using gradually better tactics.

>>You come across a gobiln! He is naked with a quarterstaff
>scaling a goblin without describing him as stronger than regular goblins
>not making him, for example, a goblin warlord with an intimidating set of scars, a show of status among his peers, comandeering other runt goblins and giving him and his squad crude but effective weapons and a certain level of unstable but devastating engineering

you're a fucking retard, i hope you never run a game