The ACKs core rulebook gives a series of guidelines on designing your own wandering monster tables. Besides having a mix of the 3 categories of treasure types, it recommends that the 1st "floor" of a dungeon, suitable for 1st level adventurers, have monsters with individual XP values between 1-15XP.
So, I'll first point out that level 2 starts at 20xp, which makes me want to assume that 1st should really go up to 19XP. However on top of that: there are not many monsters in the rulebook that fit this criteria that aren't already part of the table. In fact, the others seem to be mostly things like dwarves and elves who aren't necessarily the most common foe you'd want (unless they were some sort of adverserial faction and you didn't want to employ duergar or drow).
So, question time: do you have any supplements from other rules systems that you've converted that have any cool low level (eg: 1-19XP) monsters? Alternatively, have you made up any cool low level monsters that would lend themselves easily to porting (ie: the creature isn't intrinsically tied to your setting in a way that would be hard to ignore). Alternatively, do you use anything to make the existing monsters more interesting? The most common example would be kobolds having a focus on traps.
Another thing I'm considering is pre-shrinking groups of higher level creatures. This should technically be balanced, but I worry that even a low number of too high a level of foe could really wreck a low level party. Thus I'm not crazy about it, because which level you descend to is one of the main ways that low level players have to select their challenge level, so if even the 1st floor is very swingy they could end up feeling boxed in quickly. For this reason I'm slightly more interested in new creatures rather than trying to repurpose existing higher level creatures.
I think that this article http://theangrygm.com/megadungeon-monday-doors-and-dcs/ is a pretty solid argument against the need for more dungeon monsters. That said, my last dungeon for 1st levels featured burrowing monsters, which 1st level normally lacks.
I've always meant to read this series of blog posts, but never seem to find the time.
I'll say that, in my defense, part of what I'd like to do is have more minor variations and combinations like what he describes, but part of that is being able to design a decent wandering monster table for one dungeon that's distinct from another's. I'm less looking for more stuff "besides the kitchen sink" and more looking for more pieces to break off into smaller themed categories.
That's fair. Saying "Okay, so kobolds are trap lovers, and here's six variations on kobolds using the same basic traps" requires you to first say "kobolds are trap lovers." and even if you're going to make a dungeon that's all about playing beautifully on kobolds, you'll probably want six more monsters for the next six dungeons.
I'm trying to build up a bunch of wandering encounter tables myself. Some of the stuff I've been doing is to draft entries that are mixed groupings or groupings with different loadouts. This lets you stretch a given monster palette. An example for that age old classic, Orcs:
1d6 Orcs + 1 warhound
1d4 Orcs+1d4 Orcs riding wargs/wolves
1d4 Orcs + 2d4 goblin slave soldiers
2d4 Orcs
2d4 Orcs + 1 shaman (casts Bless)
1d4 Orcs + 1d4 Orcs with bows
This obviously works the best with human-intelligence enemies who have variations, but you could also imagine unconventional animal pairings - a giant crocodile that carries birds in it's mouth, for example. A second thing you can do to stretch a smaller palette subset is to roll on a motivations table. Something like:
fleeing from (roll an ML2 encounter)
having an argument
looting or carving up the corpse of X
lazing and snoring loudly
exploring/patrolling
engaging in organized activity (construction, tribal dance, etc.)
Some of these motivations are going to be obvious when an encounter is rolled, but having a table like this on hand can be useful when there are no contextual clues to indicate why these particular monsters are wandering.
Reskinning basic statblocks and giving them new behaviours also goes a long way. Since monsters really only have an HD score, most of their life and colour is going to come from description/behaviour/tactics, as well as the immediate context. "Moss-covered skeletons that rapidly close, fighting with unliving rage" feels very different than "brass-enameled skeletons, advancing in close order drill with spears at the ready", despite having identical stat blocks. I also think tough monsters with very low intelligence make for good encounters at low levels as well, especially if they're slow - the monster can be a sort of obstacle the PCs either work around or can lure into a trap. Another option is a tough monster with a specific weakness.
Here's a table I'm working on for (highlight to see - taking this precaution for any players that might be lurking) a sewer leading down into the ruins of an ancient magocracy...
brass golem, berserk
giant rats
Giant Frogs
Preta - small potbellied goblinoids with a hunger for gold (as kobold statblock)
it's funny, the stuff you're describing reminds me of something similar I had been bouncing around in my head, except instead of extra rolls I envisioned an elaborate die drop table. Something like dropping the 4d4 for kobolds onto a piece of paper, and then on the left side are ranges indicating what that particular die is equipped with.
[quote="Jard"]
Something like dropping the 4d4 for kobolds onto a piece of paper, and then on the left side are ranges indicating what that particular die is equipped with.
[/quote]
I wouldn't go that far into detail. If you randomly generate "everything", including the loadouts you can easily end up with no pattern - which may be what you want, but this just ends up with more of a same-y feeling, not less kobolds. Patterns are what makes certain humanoid groups stand out - these kobolds use spears, while these kobolds always engage from range with slings, etc.
A good lesson that i learned of DMing Savage Worlds: The variation in the layout of the fight has more impact that the actual enemies. A group of goblins behind a barricaded in a cramped room are very diferent than a group of goblins in a realy big empty room using bows an charging with spears, and they bot are diferent than a group of goblins in a room with a balcony that they use to keep their archers.
A good lesson that i learned of DMing Savage Worlds: The variation in the layout of the fight has more impact that the actual enemies. A group of goblins behind a barricaded in a cramped room are very diferent than a group of goblins in a realy big empty room using bows an charging with spears, and they bot are diferent than a group of goblins in a room with a balcony that they use to keep their archers.
[/quote]
absolutely, and it's definitely something i'll be trying to make use of in the future.
I read something interesting in a blog a few days ago, about always trying to have "5 things" for your players to keep track of at any given scope. In combat, if you had 12 goblins you would treat that as 1 "thing", but if 6 goblins have spears and 6 goblins have bows, that might be 2 "things". If you add in terrain and the overarching minigame of resource management in an old-school dungeon crawl, you're well on your way to a number of things to worry about in the range of 4-6.
That being said, I like to do variations within a theme, with either an entire dungeon or a wing of a large dungeon having a theme. "This is the kobold dungeon, there are more traps than usual." "this is the novice elemental cult dungeon, they have a few more magic users than usual, most of them casting burning hands" "this is the clockwork dungeon, it's full of little automatons who are immune to poison/sleep/paralysis. some of the bigger ones are slow but reduce damage."
Within each of them i'd have things like "in this room they have higher ground", "in this room the center of the floor has fallen in", "this room has an active pendulum trap", etc. etc.
If you look at some of the Dyson Logos dungeons that he actually populates (usually with LL stats), he does a good job of creating interesting custom wandering monster tables, although he's usually doing them per dungeon, and so instead of having the floor changing on certain rolls of the d12, he just has some very deadly encounters on the main table.
I read an article, long ago, about making creatures more than cannon fodder; I can't remember much of it, just that at the beginning of a dungeon were a handful of goblins (maybe?); however, these creatures had lived in the dungeon long enough to employ traps and secret entrances/exits well, enough so that even mid-level adventuring parties were so terrified of them as to plan to run as fast as they could just to get by. Parties were wiped by a handful of goblins, firing arrows through wall-slits, pouring oil and fire on the party, and splitting the group with secret doors. Being tough helps, but tactics can add extreme difficulty - and make things much more interesting, to boot!
You might be referring to the infamous "Tucker's Kobolds."
[/quote]
beat me to it. I think the principles espoused by tucker's kobolds, at least in moderation, represent ideals that Judges should aspire to whether or not they're making up new 1st floor monsters.