Monster of the Week #6

We were playing D&D last weekend with a new set of players with level 1 characters. To give them the traditional role-playing expeirnec, we opted for.... you guessed it... a dungeon!

Within the dungeon I wanted to give them a flavour of the different abilities and creatures they could experience.

So we ended up with (slightly modified/ buffed) Grimlocks - a super simple, easy set of monsters. I've never seen these before but I quite enjoyed some of their additional abilities, all of which weren't too hard for level 1 players, but they had a couple of unique traits that introduced them to the types of skills threats may have.

While not exactly a challenge, the fight taught the players how to discover and manage varoisut abilities which made for a rewarding fight.

Sometimes, its not always the crazy stat blocks of monsters that make fights memorable, but how they are used. Many of my fights use various types of monsters but with heavy modifications to make them slightly more unique. This fight with the Grimlocks was one such fight, and felt right to have it featured this week. If you have a low level party, these guys can offer a good punch to introduce players to how dangerous combat can be early on, but also offer them something more than just a handful of goblins - which they might be expecting.

If you've ever used one of these, we'd love to see in what way they were used, and how your party received them!

-J