The Gaming Den

One of the few things I actually like about fifth Edition is that monsters have domain powers I can affect the world around them. However I feel this ability is still underwhelming. Are there ways this ability could work?

People have been making "lair effects" for decades, please don't credit 5th Edition for anything. They did not do a single thing that has not been done better before.

Anyway, the first thing you need to ask yourself is "Why do monsters get extra abilities while in their lair?" This can be answered pretty easily, but you need to answer it. Are lairs like Manses from Exalted, where natural power bubbles up that a monster can claim for themselves? Do monsters painstakingly create lairs with magical traps that they can quickly trigger? Does the innate magic of a monster infuse into the cave they live in, terraforming it into something similar to them? From that, you can devise their abilities.

A beholder, for example, has lots of magic, is smart, and charms minions into doing free work. If that sounds like a trap-filled labyrinth to you, congratulations! You have the beginning of a lair. All you have to do is fill the place with magical traps that activate when the beholder speaks a certain word, and you've got a lair battle.

On the other hand, some kind of aberration like an elder brain might warp the local space and cause the Prime Material to act more like a Far Realm or whatever, letting the mind flayers use more crazy powers. Maybe the elder brain can move freely around the warped space while mortals are hindered, maybe the elder brain can freely control the warped space itself to act as a secondary attack mechanism.

You know, stuff like that. Make a concept, give level appropriate thematic abilities, done.

I suppose I should have been more specific, but when you post via cellphone, that's what happens.

I'm currently playing through Tales of Zestria. One of the main factors of the setting is that powerful creatures can create influence over regions of the world. Like a monster that's cursing the land with endless rain, or failing crops, sickness, and various other things. By defeating the source of that power and making someone good into the Lord of the Land, you can bring blessings (which since this is a JRPG, mean game mechanical things like improved healing, refreshing treasure chests and stuff like that).

Is there any way to make something like that work? Where powerful monsters (probably CR10 or higher) can affect entire regions of the world?

The primary benefit for D&D style world building of creatures having lair bonuses is that it helps explain how there can be starter villages and high level monsters in the same world. If level appropriate opposition for high level characters is considerably less badass if and when it decides to come fuck with the low level human kingdom you were running around in at low level, then you have a reason for there to be a 4th level adventure over here and a 15th level adventure over there and not have to ask why the 15th level monsters haven't kicked the teeth in on your 4th level adventure location long ago.

But 5th Edition D&D doesn't have any high level monsters. We ran the numbers of how many peasant archers it would take to slay a Pit Fiend and the answer was only a couple dozen. There's not really a big difference between the monsters in an 18th level adventure and the monsters in a 2nd level adventure, so there's no world building problems to solve.

-Username17

This was meant to be applied to 3rd edition, with my monsters thread. My bad.

Wiseman wrote:This was meant to be applied to 3rd edition, with my monsters thread. My bad.

Frank still answered your question though. The only reason for monsters to be more powerful in their lairs is to make so that it isn't world breaking to have a low level adventure without some badass monster killing you.

Not the only reason? Lair fights and abilities tide to locations are cool.

Wiseman wrote:I suppose I should have been more specific, but when you post via cellphone, that's what happens.

I'm currently playing through Tales of Zestria. One of the main factors of the setting is that powerful creatures can create influence over regions of the world. Like a monster that's cursing the land with endless rain, or failing crops, sickness, and various other things. By defeating the source of that power and making someone good into the Lord of the Land, you can bring blessings (which since this is a JRPG, mean game mechanical things like improved healing, refreshing treasure chests and stuff like that).

Is there any way to make something like that work? Where powerful monsters (probably CR10 or higher) can affect entire regions of the world?

That's easy to do with just a handwave, and is, in fact, a classic adventure hook.

FrankTrollman wrote:But 5th Edition D&D doesn't have any high level monsters. We ran the numbers of how many peasant archers it would take to slay a Pit Fiend and the answer was only a couple dozen.

Hmmm. I ran this and got the following...

shooters	24	36	48	60
dex bonus	1	1	1	1
prof bonus	2	2	2	2
to-hit	16	16	16	16
normal hits	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2
crits	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.05
crit count/rnd	1.2	1.8	2.4	3
hit count / rnd	4.8	7.2	9.6	12
hit dmg	2.75	2.75	2.75	2.75
crit dmg	5	5	5	5
total dmg/rnd	19.2	28.8	38.4	48
rnds to kill (300hp)	15.63	10.42	7.81	6.25

This assumes:

• Level 1 Fighters with a Dex bonus of +1 (not really peasants but 5e doesn't have the Commoner NPC class).
• Longbows (d8) at 150ft (max normal range)
• Non-magic, non-silver arrows and bows (pretty good assumption for peasants)
• All damage is average. I didn't bother with forcing quanta that would occur in actual game situations.
• Book-standard Pit Fiend, nothing special added, no variant summoning rules used.

Now this is underwhelming for a CR20 monster, so I think your point holds in the broad sense, but it ignores the Pit Fiend's free fireball every round and the 60ft fly speed, which if used with any tactical acumen, will greatly hamper the effectiveness of archers that find themselves out of normal range (and therefore shooting at Disadvantage).

I am not quibbling; I just wanted to post this up here for future reference.

That means the Pit Fiend doesn't just laugh at the puny mortals and instead sighs and engages. "So we're doing this now. FIREBALL!" I can get behind that.

Does this make armies relevant in the setting? Can a platoon of pikeman and archers actually deter a dragon from attacking their castle and eating their princess and carting off their shinnies? And then does the lair bonus actually deter the pikemen from charging into the dragon's lair? (Do dragons get lair bonuses? I haven't even looked at 5e.)

Anyway, what about the mad scientist's workshop or laboratory? Consider that it contains everything they ever made, not the small arsenal of gadgets they can carry on a mission or plot. That includes things they made for extreme situations like tentacled kaiju alien invasions or robot zombie nazi uprisings that they won't use to fight/commit crimes, PSAs, and/or political statements. Is there a way to model that without a player keeping their anti-Mothra Canon (now with a tart lemony scent!) on hand just in case?