Establish intriguing terrain for the lair to exist in, such as icy caves, subterranean chambers, labyrinthine jungles, cloudy mountain peaks, subterranean lakes, volcanic caves, marshy woods, idyllic ponds, mist-shrouded islands, ancient ruins, behind sparkling waterfalls, or in locations only accessible by unique travel like flying, deep-diving, or spelunking. To set up a formidable lair, consider including the following: From these monsters, we can get the gist of the mechanics of lair effects and actions. Sprites, who are mischievous by nature, could set up traps and hazards around their nomadic “camps.” These lair effects and actions will not be game-breaking, but they will provide additional challenges for players to overcome, adding a layer of depth to any encounter.īasic Rules monsters with lairs include the aboleths, dragons, wyrmlings, and unicorns. The area surrounding a Displacer Beast’s burrow could emit some sort of effect, like magical illusions that flicker or a stench that requires continual Constitution saving throws. In fact, I would argue that any magical creature being fought on its own turf should have a tactical advantage in the form of lair effects or lair actions, as they would want to protect against predators. However, defending in their own home, these goblins should have some sort of tactical advantage over the players, such as knowing where secret passages are for attack-and-run tactics, utilizing alchemist’s fire as defense techniques, and setting quick mechanical traps to keep invaders at bay. Players can easily handle batches of 3-8 goblins at a time with no problems, even at low levels. Imagine your adventurers entering a goblin stronghold. Let’s explore all the angles that a DM should explore to effectively use lair actions and regional effects. In addition to this article’s content, you may enjoy the popular DMs Guild book “ Home-Field Advantage – A Compendium of Lair Actions” to spice up lair actions. I propose, in addition to using interactive battle elements and hazards, a dungeon master should consider giving nearly all battles lair effects, lair actions, and possibly legendary actions. Even if a Dungeon Master doesn’t suffer from these problems, some encounters simply lack versatility and challenges beyond hacking-and-slashing monsters. With the challenge of homebrew monsters potentially being unbalanced or not fitting into your world setting, there are few options for a Dungeon Master to throw off their players. Players who are themselves Dungeon Masters know the tactics, vulnerabilities, and strengths of your favorite rules-as-written monsters and can often figure out what they are fighting, even if you keep its identity unknown. This article contains affiliate links to put gold in our coffers.įor the Dungeon Master with players well-versed in Dungeons and Dragons, planning unexpected and intriguing combat with frequently-used monsters can be a challenge. Here, you'll find not only contain great traps to use, but also clever ways to insert them into the adventure.Legendary actions and lair actions for D&D 5e featured image is The Horde by NathanParkArt, CC License. Sometimes traps are more difficult to spot, like the False Adventure entry. Not all traps are pits in the floor or snares that leave the victim dangling. In an effort to give DMs more options, this list has been updated with five additional traps for you to use to remind players that their characters are far from immortal. The original traps featured on this list were just scratching the surface of what's possible. Updated on August 9, 2023, by Jeff Drake: There are no shortages in the types of traps available for DMs to use against a party of unsuspecting players. Fatal traps should be kept to an absolute minimum though – if they are used at all. You should keep in mind the three basic trap types of annoying/diverting, damaging/debilitating, and fatal. Traps are a great way of reminding the players of the mortality of their characters. Sometimes players get their characters to a level where they’ve fought everything, and nothing seems to give them too much of a challenge. RELATED: Dungeons & Dragons: Every Musical Instrument, Ranked A trap suddenly springing on the party will certainly get their attention and make the players more alert. Sometimes an adventure can get monotonous, or perhaps it wasn’t as challenging as the DM originally thought. First, it is a great way to keep things lively. Although the players might disagree, there are many reasons for a DM to use traps when playing Dungeons & Dragons.
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