Quick Encounter "Maker"

Hello, I was about to create a large page with all the monster tokens I need for my homebrew setting, sorted first by environment and then by CR rating. Before I spend time doing that, is there something I'm not seing that would make it a bad idea? Because I think it's a pretty clever idea but I'm not that clever :-) Thanks!

It is not a bad idea at all. This is exactly the approach used by Roll20 in every adventure module, though they are arranged alphabetically within groups on the Token page.

Oh that's good to know, thank you. It took me 15 minutes to create one page for one envrionment / biome, 5 or 6 to go - I'm banking it will save me some time during game play, especially since I want to try to railroad my players a little as possible (but as much as necessary). I wanted to make sure there wasn't some hidden discovered-later feature that would make the whole think either unusable or useless.

The only caveat I can think of is that if f you make changes to the default token of a monster, those changes will not be present in the tokens on that page.

Because tokens put on a page are instanciated? That's also very good to know. On Reddit, a contributor suggested that I use API scripts and tags to tag monsters according to various caracteristics (environment being one). I like the idea but it looks like a LOT of work - and subscribing to the pro version of roll20. How do DMs generally generate their random encounters?

Hi Vincent, both in the WoTC literature and online there are lists of creatures by environment, CR etc.  For contained environments such as the typical dungeon I tend to make sure the theme fits the WM table or vice versa, so a gelatinous cube is a real favourite, but how does that work in the environments we're in?  Could it move around, would it have cleared out the dungeon for us?  So if it is a dungeon level based on goblins, then goblin patrols, rats or whatever else might co-exist in some way with the main denizens of that area, or natural events (rockfalls, poison gas build up, shatterstone giving way underfoot).  Wilderness areas are easier in as much that you have more freedom,  so I consult those tables, filter by environment and then make a list of what I think works for the flavour of the adventure and again, natural events.  Final double check to make sure I haven't put something way OP in and that tends to be it.  To be fair though, with all that being said, I generally don't utilise wandering monsters...

Vincent M. said: Because tokens put on a page are instanciated? That's also very good to know. Correct. The default token is like a saved file (JSON object) that you are putting copies of onto the VTT. There is no communication between the two.This is a feature, not a bug, since it allows tokens in play to be individually customized. I.e. this goblin is stunned, but that one is not.

For non-story-related encounters, I prepare stuff that is most likely to happen while the party is travelling or staying in a location, depending on time of day or even season of the the year. IOW, things that make sense for the time and place.  I NEVER roll random encounters on the fly because it bogs down the game too much. I keep several generic "random" encounters on deck for that reason. For example, my current party is planning to travel overland from one city, through three small towns, to another small city. I've already determined (by die roll) that they're going to have an encounter along the road between the first and second small towns and my map shows that stretch of road passing near some mountains. It being the dead of winter with food getting a bit scarce, it's likely for some mountain beasties to come down to look for food. In this part of my world, that's going to be either wolves, dire wolves, or hill giants (no bandits because there's no merchant traffic around here in the middle of winter). Out of those three possibilities, I randomly picked hill giants, set up a map, tokens, random treasure, and planned the giant's strategy (taking into account that hill giants aren't very bright).  If the party decides, mid-journey, to change plans and go somewhere else, the environment that they're travelling through is still close enough that this encounter will still likely work. Encounters that have something to do with the plot line that my players are currently following will have specific monsters or NPCs that are part of the story. Also, when I'm in the mood and have spare time, I create more challenging encounters and place them in set locations in my campaign. The players may or may not find these encounters, but they may  run into them while travelling, or hear about them in tavern gossip or other information gathering sessions. I almost always save "exotic" monsters like undead, fey, etc. for set piece or plot related encounters. My players will never "just happen" to run into an Ogre Magi, Huli Jin, or young amethyst dragon. Vincent M. said: How do DMs generally generate their random encounters?