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2460121-Monster Playbook 1.1 PDF Printer Friendly
2460121-Monster Playbook 1.1 PDF Printer Friendly
2460121-Monster Playbook 1.1 PDF Printer Friendly
MONSTER PLAYBOOK
BY THE DUNGEON COACH
Contents
Villain Actions....................................................................... 3 The Dungeon Coach
Actions.................................................................................. 3 Medium Humanoid
Bonus Action ....................................................................... 3
Reaction(s)........................................................................... 3 Contact
Villain Actions..................................................................... 3 Email thedungeoncoach@gmail.com
Legendary Actions............................................................... 3 Discord https://discord.gg/NpU932E
Lair Actions.......................................................................... 3 Facebook https://facebook.com/thedungeoncoach
Passives................................................................................. 3
Villain Action Tables............................................................ 4 Resources for dungeon masters
‘The Witcher’ Style Monsters.............................................. 6 YouTube - The Dungeon Coach YouTube Channel
Make it Deadly..................................................................... 6 I create weekly videos every Sunday to help make your
Weaknesses, Resistances and Vulnerabilities................... 6 games more creative and more fun!
https://www.youtube.com/thedungeoncoach
Mechanical Knack Triggers................................................ 6
Mechanical Knack Statuses................................................. 7 DM’s Guild –Check out the other content I’ve published. I
Lure Table............................................................................ 7 will keep making more and more of my documents available
Causing a Stagger................................................................. 7 online from my large list of homebrew content!
“Chosen One” Traits............................................................ 7 https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=The%20
Witchery Solutions to Monsters....................................... 8 Dungeon%20Coach
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Open Game License v 1.0a Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, LLC.
System Reference Document 5.1 Copyright 2016, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, James Wyatt, Robert J.
Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell, Chris Sims, and Steve Townshend, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, D&D, Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Eberron, the dragon ampersand, Ravnica and all other Wizards of the Coast product names, and their
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This work contains material that is copyright Wizards of the Coast and/or other authors. Such material is used with permission under the Community Content Agreement for Dungeon Masters
Guild.
All other original material in this work is copyright 2020 by The Dungeon Coach and published under the Community Content Agreement for Dungeon Masters Guild.
A
balanced encounter in Dungeons and Here, you can start to spice things up with extra buffs, cool
Dragons usually involves roughly the same spells, or summoning reinforcements.
number of monsters as there are players.
This allows you to pressure your players as Reaction(s)
a Dungeon Master with hordes of kobolds
or goblins, a roving band of Orcs, and an To keep the battle flowing, think about the sorts of things
annoying group of bandits. that would trigger reactions. Perhaps the villain really doesn’t
Because combat works better with the party facing a group like fire and goes into a blind rage! Maybe FIRE actually
of enemies, it can lead to encounters with your villains feeling makes them stronger. Just be sure to be consistent with these
rather lackluster. This is because the party is always going to reactions. You can custom make these with a trigger effect and
have the strategic advantage as a group since they’ll always an action. Make sure not to get too complicated with these
have a full round of attacks while the Villain just has to sit because they can be easy to forget WHAT the triggers are in
there and get pummeled. It’s definitely not very epic. the heat of battle.
You can try to beef up your Villains with lair and legendary
actions, but that is often not enough to provide an EPIC battle. Villain Actions
One of my favorite content creators, Matt Colville, solves this
Villain Actions are separate from Legendary and Lair
with something he calls Action-oriented Monsters. I have
Actions and are designed to give mechanical support to the
taken this as inspiration to create this system of mine. If you
narrative you’re telling as the Dungeon Master. Usually, you’ll
want to see it in action, I made a full video about it on my
want 3 rounds of Villain Actions prepared for your average
channel linked right here: https://youtu.be/Xua9kgK9W1Q
combat encounter. You could consider even more for a long,
Villain Actions are basically BUFFED Legendary Actions,
epic battle.
you can choose to use these at the TOP of the round and go
I recommend setting them up in the following pattern: the
right away, or if you want to be nice you can use them after
Set-Up, the Twist, and the ULTIMATE. During the setup,
players turns like normal legendary actions. The only rules
the Villain will take a new position or order their cronies to
here are that you can’t take a Villain Action after or before
take a new formation. Ideally, this will be a bit of a red-herring
your own turn (or do it… you are the DM after all!) and you
in order to give the Villain some sort of surprise advantage
cannot do a Villain Action and a Legendary Action back to
in the Twist. The players are likely going to feel thrilled to
back (now THAT would be cheating)
have survived the Twist, but that was only its own setup for
These tables are for both new and veteran DM’s to inspire
the Villain’s ULTIMATE move. Check out the tables below
Villainous Actions for your monsters! There are 4 Tables for
for ideas on each of these Villain Actions to keep your games
different kind of Villain Actions (Generic, Set Up, Tactical,
fresh and your players challenged. Usually I have 3 Actions
and Finishers) and there are also 2 more tables on triggers for
for a Round 1 Set Up, Round 2 Twist, and Round 3 Ultimate!
Reactions and Passive abilities.
The Generic table is basic, actions, and bonus actions for the
villain’s turn. Your run of the mill villain using his servants Legendary Actions
as meat shields, casting nasty AoE spells, and the like. It also If you’re in love with Legendary Actions, this still all totally
includes simple legendary actions. Set up Actions are for round works with them. These are nowhere near as grand or EPIC
1 type villain actions to get the fight going. Tactical Twists as Villain Actions but serve as the monster still getting to go
are huge game changers where the PC’s will have to adjust to in between the players so its not just sitting there waiting.
something big the boss just did, and finally the Finisher is a big Little attacks, cantrips, or movement work great here to keep
last ditch effort for this EPIC creature to kill them! the beast feeling ALIVE!
The Triggers table is used for determining what causes
these reactions to “go off” and can be combined with any of
the generic actions to custom create your own Villainous
Lair Actions
Reactions. There are also passive triggers, which will activate You can still have fun Lair actions that occur at the beginning
anytime the players take a certain action or might just be a of each turn (Initiative 20) or have smaller actions occur at the
constant effect. These do not require the creature to expend beginning and middle of the turn (Initiative 20 & 10). These
their reaction and can be done an infinite number of times might be changes to the terrain, the arrival of reinforcements,
(since it’s “passive”) or something that interacts with a Villain Action.
Actions Passives
These can be very basic and standard monster actions, this is Lastly, you might consider what sort of passive abilities/traits
just what the creature does on its turn. Multi attack/ charges/ your Villain might have. This could be an aura that protects
etc. BUT I would make sure to try and give creatures a ranged them from certain types of attacks or just a bad habit of
attack of some kind as well so that its “Threatening Range” is attacking the person that dealt the most damage last turn!
more dangerous!