If you’re going all-in with your party, you will want to face these creatures.
Why Use Low-Level Monsters?
Your PCs might be high-level characters, but how does that explain the sudden disappearance oflow-level enemies?
Swarming Goblins by Andrew Mar
The party has faced off against monsters below Challenge Rating Five for most of their career.
Now that they have reached eleventh level, those enemies shouldn’t just mysteriously evaporate from your encounters.
The monster and a ton of its minions is an entirely different story though.
Sepulcher Ghoul by Jason Engle
Nothing is stopping us frommaking a swarm of orcs, zombies, pirates, or the like though.
That being said, the swarms you make out of these monsters might function a bit differently.
It’s ultimately up to you which method to use.
Sepulcher Ghoul by Jason Engle
Let’s make some swarms of zombies as an example of each possible build.
Instead of tracking five separate monsters for your encounter, now you only need to track one!
After all, a swarm of half as many zombies shouldn’t hit as hard.
Clattering Skeletons by Aleksi Briclot
Special abilities like this can make running a swarm even more complicated.
This maintains the power of area-of-effect spells and abilities while still keeping things easy for you to run.
Spellcasters have enough of a leg up on martials as it is.
You Come to the Gnoll Camp by Billy Christian
The table reads as follows.
Looking back at our zombie stat block, the zombie has a +3 to hit.
Say your five zombies attack a Paladin with an AC of 18.
You See a Pair of Goblins by Aaron Miller
The zombies need a 15 or 16 on the die to hit an AC of 18.
Their attack bonus of +3 gets them to 18.
In other words,multiply the damage the creature deals by the number of attacks it has.
Battle Angels of Tyr by Fajareka Setiawan
Sometimes, creatures have access to multiple kinds of attacks.
Your PCs are high-level: they can manage a few extra points of damage.
Keep in mind, some character builds likebladesingersare capable of ratcheting up their AC to astronomical values.
For mobs made up of more than five creatures, online dice rollers are a godsend.
Typing “roll 10d20” into Google is a lot faster than rolling 10d20 in person.
Hopefully, these tactics encourage you to use more low-level monsters in your games.
Here are the best planes of existence to explore in D&D!
