Review the Creature’s Strengths

Pay equal attention to the creature’s strong points and find ways to maximize them. Intelligently played monsters can wreak havoc on even the most well-prepared group of high-level heroes. Start by identifying their strengths and then formulate plans to take advantage of them. For example:

· · Trolls boast regeneration, multiple attacks, and respectable Strength scores.

A group of trolls might attack in waves so that damaged individuals can retreat and regenerate lost hit points while the fresh troops press the fight.

A troll attacks three times each round; a haste spell increases this to six.

A troll’s great strength allows it to employ a variety of indirect attacks, such as rolling boulders onto opponents from atop a cliff.

Trolls armed with magical weapons, such as two-handed swords, could successfully attack characters with low Armor Classes and do considerable damage in the process (their damage bonus when using weapons is +8).

· · Everybody knows that vampires drain life energy, but they have a vast repertoire of powers including high mobility, various spell and weapon immunities, high Strength scores, formidable charm ability, and can conceal themselves by posing as normal humans or demihumans.

A vampire is at its best when it can attack a lone, high-level PC. One-on-one confrontations give the vampire a chance to use its charm gaze and attempt melee without fear of an overwhelming spell assault or clerical turning attempt.

A vampire can only be hit by magical weapons, so protecting itself with spells like invulnerability to magical weapons or antimagic shell allow the vampire to wear down high-level warriors without fear of the PCs’ blades slicing through it.

In a high-level campaign, mobility is the vampire’s greatest power. (Scarabs of protection and spells such as negative plane protection and restoration make level-draining undead considerably less formidable than they are in campaigns where the PCs have fewer resources.)

Gaseous form allows the vampire to move through barriers that are impassable to the PCs. A few pinholes in a wall, floor, or ceiling that has been reinforced with metal bars (to defeat passwall spells) allows a vampire to come and go as it pleases.

Time is also a vampire’s ally, especially if it is deep underground where it doesn’t have to worry about natural sunlight. If forced to retreat, a vampire can spend some time regenerating, then return—at full hit points—to harry its enemies from a new angle.

The vampire might pose as a resident from a nearby village who is here to slay the vampire. Players are not likely to recognize a vampire for what it is if the monster is running round with a wooden stake and mallet in hand.

Giant slugs have endless supplies of acidic spittle, immunity to blunt weapons, and boneless bodies that can fit through small openings.

Repeated acid attacks can wear down even the strongest characters, and the acid has a chance (however small) to destroy magical items and make high-level PCs a little less formidable.

Stoneskin can protect the slug from weapon attacks for a brief time, giving it more time to wear down the PCs. A spell engine could be setup nearby to absorb spells, or a chain contingency could be in place on the slug to activate spells like fire shield (cold version), lightning bolt, and other unexpected surprises.

A giant slug’s ability to squeeze into small places allows it to lie in wait for the PCs in a place that appears empty at first glance.

Minimizing weaknesses and maximizing strengths allows you to challenge the PCs and maintain tension without power inflation; foes become slightly harder to kill and a little more challenging in a fight.

There are other advantages as well. Players with high-level characters often are veteran players who are very familiar with most AD&D game monsters. Their encyclopedic knowledge allows them to strike immediately at a monster’s weak point, easily defeating the creature. If you take pains to minimize monsters’ weaknesses and exploit their strengths, you encourage your players to think creatively by providing a new challenge (thinking of a way to exploit the shielded weakness or avoid the amplified strength). You also restore some freshness to your campaign, because the players quickly learn that all monsters are not exactly alike. Since the players are no longer certain how much danger they face, they learn to respect the offensive capabilities of any creature they meet, which encourages them to consider alternatives to fighting.

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