G.2 Monster Combat Mechanics

G.2.1 Monster Actions

All monsters are able to make movements and take free actions, minor actions, and standard actions in the same way as player characters. Elite monsters can take an additional elite action each round.

Elite Actions

Every elite monster has at least one special ability which requires an elite action to use. Elite actions cannot be converted into standard or minor actions, and elite monsters cannot use a standard action to use abilities that require an elite action.

In general, elite monsters should be designed to attack multiple different PCs in every round. If the full damage output of an elite monster is brought to bear on a single PC, it will likely kill that PC quickly, taking a player out of the fight too early. Alternately, if that PC is able to avoid or resist the damage, it will trivialize the fight and remove the sense of danger. Instead, damage should be spread throughout the party to ensure that multiple people feel threatened and have to adjust their actions based on their personal danger tolerance.

Although splitting attacks between multiple defenders is usually a suboptimal battle strategy, it can be narratively justified in a variety of ways. It may be physically impractical for a monster to use all of its natural weapons on the same creature. Monsters may want to inflict debuffs on multiple attackers to reduce the damage they take, which may require dealing enough damage to inflict HP-based debuffs.

G.2.2 Encounter Balancing

In general, a group of PCs of a given level will have an appropriate challenge from fighting an equal number of monsters of their level. Alternately, they can fight a single elite monster of their level. You can generally replace one monster of a given level with two monsters that are two or three levels lower. Similarly, you can replace two monsters of a given level with one monster that is two or three levels higher. To make encounters easier or harder, you can change the number of monsters or the level of the monsters.

It is generally not a good idea for PCs to fight monsters five or more levels higher or lower than their own level. They may find that their attacks always miss, or never miss, and other aspects of the encounter may be similarly imbalanced in ways that are not easily remedied by simply changing the number of enemies.

There are many ways that you can make encounters easier or harder in ways that don’t simply involve changing the level and number of monsters. If monsters enter the battle gradually over time, rather than all at once, you can use a larger number of monsters without overwhelming the players. Similarly, having multiple separate fights without letting the players finish a short rest can dramatically increase the danger and difficulty of the later fights.

The terrain and physical location of a fight can also dramatically change its difficulty. Narrow corridors and tight spaces favor smaller groups, highly defensive characters, and mid-range spellcasters who can attack safely from the back lines. Wide-open terrain favors large groups, highly mobile creatures, and long-range combatants like archers. A party with good tactics can easily hold a five-foot tunnel against dozens or even hundreds of melee-only enemy combatants, even if they would be swarmed and killed easily by those same enemies in an open field.

G.2.3 Monster Knowledge

You can remember relevant knowledge about monsters by making Knowledge skill checks. Each monster has a set of associated information that you can learn with a knowledge check of the listed difficulty value. Most monsters have multiple tiers of information that you can learn depending on how good your Knowledge check is. All information recorded in these descriptions is accurate, though lower check results may not provide full context for a monster’s behavior or nature.