The Menagerie contains a lot of stat blocks for interesting monsters, spread out over twenty different creature types. Among those monsters, however, a not insignificant portion are generally unlikely to be used as combat encounters by default. This might be because a party of good characters will probably not be inclined to fight Angels, or a party that's well in tune with nature might prefer to befriend animals than to fight them. Similarly, there are many adventure locations where certain kinds of monsters just don't make all that much sense.
These situations can present a bit of a challenge when designing a monster compendium that seeks to be thorough with respect to the number of creature types represented. If, for example, a third of the book's entries are simply of no use most of the time, then a lot of that creature design could have been much better spent making monsters that are more generally useful. This is one scenario where a wide suite of templates can come in handy. The Menagerie contains fifteen templates, and each one changes the creature type of the base creature to something else or provides some other change that can help overcome this difficulty of use.
As mentioned earlier, Angels can be especially difficult to use as monsters in an adventure that typically expects good characters. The Fallen Angel template can step in to make these otherwise benevolent monsters wicked. An Angel that has turned evil can be a reasonable challenge for even the most good-hearted adventurers, whether they choose to slay it or subdue it to try to redeem it. This template does more than simply change the base Angel's personality and alignment, however. It also provides a new suite of interesting and challenging abilities to further represent its plunge into depravity.
Similarly, a group that doesn't like to fight animals might have less of a compunction if they only look like familiar creatures. They might be Aberrant Creatures, with tentacles or too many eyes, or perhaps even a Fungal Creature, an uncanny amalgamation of fungus that only vaguely resembles and behaves vaguely like the animal. In this way, the templates in the Menagerie can be applied on the fly to take an encounter that would otherwise make a party sad or uncomfortable and turn it into one that's more fitting to the table, without necessarily having to choose an entirely different monster. This is especially helpful when running a pre-written adventure where the challenges were already chosen without possibly having considered each potential group that might run through it.
Both of these scenarios are both important and likely. Yet there is another, perhaps simpler, reason for templates to be helpful. The Menagerie is written in a level-agnostic format. In order to help foster a sense of progression, the book recommends that a monster be pegged at the level it is first encountered, at least for a given adventure. This way, if a party encounters the same monster again after leveling up, the challenge feels appropriately easier. In such cases the challenge can be maintained by simply adding more of that monster at once. Each one is individually easier, but the action economy advantage supplies the challenge. This can be tangibly felt by players in a combat scenario.
But what if the party has leveled up too many times for even a large group to be relevant? Since level is incorporated into a character's Armor Class, there does come a time where lower-level monsters simply cannot roll well enough to hit reliably enough to be a challenge. In such cases, templates provide a great way to take a familiar encounter and spice it up, and provide a great justification for using a version of that monster that is once again level-appropriate. A Dire Creature, for example, is obviously going to be a more threatening version of it. Similarly, if enough of that creature are grouped together to become a Creature Swarm, traditional combat metrics no longer really apply, and the challenge is once again obviously higher and the reason for it is obviously apparent to the players.
However you use the templates in the Menagerie, they help customize your experience and ensure that all 385 monsters presented in the book can be relevant at any time you need it to be. Next week we'll take a look at another way that can be used to customize more intelligent monsters.
Commenti