Interesting Monsters

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 Here are three quick principles for an interesting monster:

 

  1.  Give them interesting tools/abilities/skills. I'm thinking something mechanical or pseudo-mechanical. 8HD is an ability to tank hits, as is AC18 (though in slightly different ways). Incredible movement speed or climbing ability don't have a number attached to them, but still give unusual ways for a monster to interact with a party.
  2. Have the monsters leverage their interesting features. Tankiness lets them take a few hits, so these can sit up front and be bruisers. Agile creatures can get to the back of the marching order in, say, a turn, and attack the squishy magic-users.
  3. Have the monster be initially unpredictable, but easy to figure out. There's nothing more tense than coming upon a monstrosity and having no idea how it might fuck up your party. But after a successful or failed encounter, the party should have an idea of what it can do.

 

Has anyone done mixed-creature random encounters? Creating little parties of their own? Well, I'll do it right now!

 

  • Bruisers are 4HD, 12 AC, with the "unshovable" ability (cannot be unwillingly moved by human strength)
  • Climbers are 1HD, 10 AC, with the "spider climb" trait (can scale and traverse any rough surface)
  •  Spitters are 2 HD, 14 AC, with the "shooting" ability (can shoot projectiles from a medium distance)
  • Grabbers are 2 HD, 14 AC with the "grabbing" ability (can grab a held item and throw it 40 feet)
  •  Suckers are 1HD, 12 AC with the "vampiric" ability (recover HP equal to 1/2 damage dealt, no max)
  • Blenders are 1 HD, 10 AC with the "camouflage" ability (unseen if unmoving)
  • Shielders are 2HD, 16 AC with the "frontal defense" ability (+2 AC if attacked from the front)

 

And here's the table, roll a d10:

 

  1.  3 Bruisers (stand and block exits)
  2.  2 Bruisers, 1 Spitter (ranged attacks from behind bruisers)
  3. 4 Shielders, 1 Spitter (shielders block path to spitter)
  4. 1 Blender, 2 Grabbers, 1 Sucker (Blender is a scout, grabbers go for light sources, sucker bleeds everyone dry)
  5. 1 Brusier, 3 Suckers (Suckers will drain as much HP from bruiser without killing)
  6.  1 Bruisers, 1 Grabber, 1 climber (bruiser blocks, grabber rides climber, dropping in to grab light/scrolls)
  7. 3 Shielders, 2 suckers (suckers jump out, drain, then jump back behind shielders)
  8. 10 Blenders (big ambush)
  9.  5 Suckers (kill em quick!)
  10. 5 Grabbers, 5 suckers (throw suckers in then go in and throw them to safety) 

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