I’ve talked before about making your goblins scary again but that was Pathfinder – in Dungeons and Dragons 5e, there a whole load of low-level monsters that could pose a real risk to your players.
The principle of making low level monsters terrifying is the same regardless of system. It is the same method you would use to make an easy antagonist deadly for your hero in a novel. That method is environmental situation.
By using the environment to put the heroes at a disadvantage you can convert what should have been an easy encounter into a life threatening situation. By having your monsters manipulate the environment (think traps and so forth) or use the landscape to their advantage, they can leverage their home turf to become truly scary.
Five deadly low-level monsters
Take this presentation, for example, from the Dungeon Dudes. they highlight how low CR monsters can be something for your players to worry about.
The monsters they talk about in this video are:
- Shadows
- Swarms
- Intellect Devourer
- Gelatinous Cube
- Kobolds
On their own, they might be easy to dispatch but use them in an ambush where the environment works in their favour and your players might start looking for the nearest exit.
The surprise is always better when foreshadowed
One of the topics touched on in the video is how it is deeply unfair to simply throw a bunch of monsters at your party out of nowhere. This is a good point. It is much more memorable when players barely survive an encounter that leaves them saying, “oh man, we really should have seen that coming”.
A little foreshadowing, especially when the players fail to notice the clues they are getting, can make an encounter epic. When the Gelatinous Cube attacks the heroes in the pristinely clean dungeon, they should instantly want to slap themselves for not realising what was going on.
How have you surprised your players with clues they overlooked until it was too late?
