Create Unique D&D Monster Squads for Better Encounters
Creating Groups of Monsters to Give Your Players More Interesting Encounters!
Why a Monster Squad?
In the majority of D&D combat encounters, players do not encounter just one, two, or three monsters. They find a half dozen or more, with variances between the monsters in size, abilities, hit points, and attacks. The reasoning behind this is pretty simple: fighting the same kind of monster gets really, really boring. So, to make sure encounters are not boring, Dungeon Masters will throw together some melee goblins, a goblin with a bow, and maybe even a goblin mage, and 99/100 times, this can make for engaging encounters.
But what about the 1/100 time? Or what if your players are very combat oriented, as many are, and want multiple combat encounters per session? Or what if you just have a great idea for a few new enemies, and you want to throw them together?
Well, that's when you homebrew a monster squad! Taking the time to put together a few unique monsters can breathe new life into your players and make your combat much more challenging. We will walk through this process together, creating a standard monster party that would easily fit into many campaigns.
Step One: Pick Your Monsters
Since what monsters your characters will be fighting could be highly dependent on your plot and setting, each DM will have to pick some monsters that act as standard enemies or antagonists. This could be packs of wolves, rogue elementals, or roaming demons looking to cause mayhem. Go through the monster manual, a creature codex, Volo's Guide To Monsters, or any other source you can think of to find some inspiration!
For this example, we will keep it classic, and select some goblinoids: a hobgoblin, a bugbear, and two goblins.
These monsters were selected because goblinoids have simple statblocks, are well-known by many players, and are easy to insert into most campaigns. Groups of goblinoids like these usually come in the form of bandits, scouting parties, or other such mischief makers. Let's run with that, and make this group of monsters into some roadside robbers.
For your campaign, you could have picked a handful of any number of monsters. The important thing is to focus on your total CR and monsters that you feel comfortable modifying. If you really want to break out your homebrew muscles, then go for it! Create some new monsters that your table has never seen, and catch them unawares when you spring your homebrewed group on them.
WorldSmith's monster generator could be helpful in this regard, as you can input your ideas and it will output a fully formed statblock that you can modify as needed.
Step Two: Making Some Changes
Now that you have your baseline monsters, we can identify how we want to change them for this encounter. Since we're working with a hobgoblin, two goblins, and a bugbear, we can look at each of their strengths and weaknesses, and find ways of modifying them to our purpose.
For these highway robbers, we want to make them more dangerous than your typical group of grunts. We want them to be able to work together, and in doing so, make each other stronger. Looking at the hobgoblin statblock, we can read that they prize strength and martial prowess above all else, and this is reflected in their strength and dexterity scores, as well as their Armor Class. Well, let's take one of their strengths and give it a little juice.
What was a regular hobgoblin is now a Shield Hobgoblin, a larger-than-typical hobgoblin that wields no weapon, only two giant shields and heavy armor. We increase its Strength by two, Constitution by one, and reduce its Dexterity by one to give us a new statblock, and update the AC for heavy armor. We give this hobgoblin the ability to give its allies full cover when positioned between them and the players, and add in another ability to intercept attacks directed towards enemies within five feet of itself. Let's give it a shove attack that does little damage, as it may need some sort of offense. Just like that, we have a hobgoblin with a unique statblock, a unique identity, and unique abilities.
We'll use the WorldSmith encounter generator to put together our vision for the rest of the group, getting CR calculations and balance tuned in correctly, and bam! We have a monster squad.
One of the goblins became a Goblin Shouter that focuses on moving its allies across the battlefield using its unique Commanding Roar ability. This ability works with the Shield Hobgoblin to make sure allies are under cover.
Another goblin became an Alchemist Goblin, a smaller, frailer goblin carrying dozens of vials and containers of various magical fluids. The Alchemist Goblin creates magical smokes, greases, and fires, making areas more dangerous to traverse for our players. This can help force players to focus on the Shield Hobgoblin, and gives the group some AOE and battlefield control.
Finally, our bugbear became the Bugbear Warrior. Wielding a warhammer and armor enchanted with the Haste spell, it uses its reach and long weapon to deal damage from around the Shield Hobgoblin. The Haste allows the Bugbear Warrior to quickly lance out and retreat, staying out of distance of our players.
So, you can see that this team has been assembled with some thought of strategy and tactics. Their abilities are powerful, play off of one another's, and come with striking descriptions to bring them to life.
Step Three: Building In Some Weaknesses
Lest you think that this monster squad is meant to TPK our players, we are going to build in some weaknesses. The last thing we want is for a simple encounter to become an entire session, and that seems certainly possible with this group—unless we give our players some advantages.
To start, we'll work on the linchpin of this goblin group, the Shield Hobgoblin. Its main weakness should be self-evident to the players: it has very little punching power. Additionally, it is extremely slow, leaving it susceptible to AOE attacks like Hunger of Hadar, Cloudkill, or someone simply lighting it on fire.
Speaking of fire, our Alchemical Goblin will want to avoid that. See, holding onto a bunch of flammable liquid makes it quite a target for a spell like Firebolt, or a thrown torch, or being pushed into the very fires it created.
Our Shouter Goblin can move others, but itself has a slow movement speed and low AC. If it hangs back, perhaps a pair of arrows is enough to do it in, and if it plays close to the Shield Hobgoblin, it'll limit its own ability to move it about the battlefield.
Finally, the Bugbear Warrior has to spend a full round recovering after Haste, and has a lower AC due to only using leather armor. It is the most well-rounded of the enemies, and will likely last until the end of the encounter, but it still has its weaknesses.
Working with WorldSmith helped create these monsters rather quickly, but you can also modify the stat blocks yourself with pen and paper, or on D&D Beyond's website. Now that we've made sure to give these modified monsters some weaknesses, they are ready to see battle.
Step Four: Deployment
The last thing to consider with these monster squads is where they will be fighting. With this monster squad, their strengths have been tailored to a mountain pass ambush situation, so that's where we'll put them. If you need help visualizing the terrain, the WorldSmith map generator can render a narrow pass perfectly suited for this chokepoint strategy.
As our players come up to the pass, the already narrow road will burst into flames on all sides, save a small opening between the flames ahead of them.
From his hiding spot emerges the Shield Hobgoblin, corralling the players in, baiting them into attacking him, only to have him suddenly pushed forward by the Goblin Shouter's Commanding Roar. Our players scramble back, getting pelted with acids and projectiles from the Alchemical Goblin, then targeted by the Bugbear Warrior's warhammer.
Visually and mechanically, our fight is infinitely more interesting than if we simply put a few goblins in our player's paths. The stakes are higher, the action feels more intense, and our players have to strategize and work together themselves to counteract their foes.
Looking Forward
Ultimately, this encounter will engage the players at the table, and excite them for future combats. In these future combats, we can keep coming up with modified monsters like we did today, homebrew a set from scratch, or combine new groups of previously faced monsters for more interesting combinations. What if there were two Shield Hobgoblins and three Bugbear Warriors? How would that change the combat, and what would our players need to succeed?
If you've created these monsters using WorldSmith, you create an encounter using your saved files. And don't forget, a tougher squad deserves better rewards—use the WorldSmith treasure generator to ensure the loot matches the challenge. This simplifies much of the work, and allows for changes to be made on the fly, as is needed in many encounters.
