Schrödinger’s Minions

I’ve previously written about giving monsters as many HP as the plot requires in the past. But as I was talking on Twitter, harping on this idea which I bring up as often as I can, I realized I wanted to expand on it a bit more.

Big thanks to Nathan Dowdell, one of my Dice Monsters over at Patreon for the title suggestion.

A lot of times, I’ll head into combat with NO knowledge about my monsters, other than what they look like. Heroes have regularly faced off against nameless horrors, two headed trolls, powerful wizards, and goblin chieftains, all without knowing a single number. When a hero finally makes a strike strong enough that I feel like they should have hit, they make contact. A monster’s HP? Same as my previous post, they have as many as the plot requires. For weaker foes, called Minions in 4e, what I’ll do is that if the character hits and deals damage, if they roll really low on their damage roll, I’ll mentally that the monster is damaged, and another hit will kill it. On a high roll, the monster is outright slain. I simply don’t have the time or energy to track every single random orc’s HP. I’d rather move the story along.

Not only that, but spell casters annoy me in 5e due to the fact that you have to go and individually look up their spells. Instead, I’ll have their spells mimic spells I know. I’ll say, “Fire leaps from their hand with a whoosh!” And make the person roll a dex save, then roll a few dice to determine the damage. I don’t exactly remember the number or type of dice needed for a fireball, but I never explicitly said it was a fireball. It was a derivation of the spell.

My goal is always to tell an entertaining story that makes the heroes feel cool and heroic. How do I make sure that things still feel challenging? When the monsters attack, I use clever tactics. I create puzzles. As the heroes charge a two-headed skeleton spellcaster, he keeps dropping a hero through a whole in their feet, which opens up 50 feet away. The heroes realize they need to attack from range, or double up, since it can only cast that spell-like effect once per turn. When the monsters deal damage, it hurts the players, and once they hit the death-save zone, the power to keep them alive is out of my hands. That’s frankly where all the danger in an encounter comes from anyway, in those last panicky rolls to escape from death.

Now, do I always do this? Nope. If I’m running a premade adventure and the stats are right there on the page, I’ll absolutely follow it. If I get an idea for a monster from the monster manual and I can quickly flip to it, I’ll use the stats there. But my players trust me to create an interesting story, so if the monsters need to be a little flexible, they embrace it.

Do you do the same? If not, give it a try and let me know how it goes. Your players need not be the wiser.