Never do this with your D&D monsters
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Something I think you're actually overlooking about the resistance and immunity to non-magical attacks is that this would apply to summoned creatures, an ally polymorphed into a t-rex or other giant beast, or something like animate objects. This resistance/immunity has a significant impact on these strategies that would previously have been very optimal.
3:20 Aaaand here's my issue with the whole "troll metagame" thing. You have a character that loves fire, and for some reason this character didn't use it on the one creature it would be very useful against? Why? Sounds to me like the player was metagaming to the opposite extreme. Intentionally not using an element because you know it's the creature's weakness, is still metagaming. Iconic creatures are iconic because we recognize them. That includes methods on dealing with said creature. Our brains get happy when we learn things, but even happier when we get to apply that knowledge. Do you want them to fight an iconic creature or not? Then let them fight an iconic creature in the iconic way. If you want to surprise your players, change the creature. But asking players to ignore weaknesses, or worse, intentionally do the opposite, is in my opinion just making the game worse.
I'm gonna be honest, I think Trolls are a common enough monster that adventurers would know about them to a point. Also, if you had a wizard who likes to burn, they should have burned them because purposely, not doing something you would normally do because of how the monster will react to it is meta gaming in itself.
Yes, something more common like a troll would be in a scary lullaby, possibly.
But in the case of more seldom, more powerful monsters there should also be a possibility that the folk tales are misleading or flat-out wrong.
Yep. There is nothing admirable on not playing the character just because the player knows things. Thats the definition of metagaming.
A pyromaniac is a pyromaniac
@@jopestus
It's some sort of monster - I kill it with fire.
It's some sort of undead - I kill it with fire.
It's some sort of human - I kill it with fire.
It's a troll - I hit it with a stick.
Just think how many people in our world could tell you that vampires can't walk in sunlight, or werewolves are weak to silver. And we live in a world where that's just fantasy, not legitimate survival advice
It could depend on the region your character is from. Some places may not have trolls and the stories their characters were raised on may not have included trolls. But, using Forgotten Realms for example, if you have a character from Nesme or the game takes place on the Sword Coast, you know about trolls.
Looks like they were just meta gaming in reverse
That fire and acid stop regeneration isn't some arbitrary rule, it cauterizes or dissolves the tissue, that's why they stop regenerating
It also makes sense from a gameplay perspective, because fire is easily accessible. Non-casters can throw flasks of oil and light them up with torches. How do you deal with a troll that needs lightning damage, rub a piece of amber on your hair and hope that is enough?
And especially when one of the players is using fire spells on anything else, it just seems off that they'd see two strong trolls that nearly killed their party members and wouldn't try using it. Especially given that a wizard probably has some great intelligence.
Your characters were metagaming while attempting to not metagame lol. At some point just play the damn character. I don't use fireball because my enemies were weak to fire. I use it because it does big damage in a big area. It's extremely silly to purposefully avoid certain attacks and spells because you as the player would know it works very well. If it's in your arsenal, use it. There's a fine line between avoiding certain things for the sake of roleplay and making your character hilariously stupid because, "they wouldn't know this".
Exactly. If you were a Maul wielding martial you wouldn't suddenly switch to your longsword when fighting a skeleton.
I didn’t avoid any attacks Krobby would usually use. Fireball was out due to the innocent people in the way.
@@alexj1989 Was there no way to place it sort of behind them?
@@phantafan7965 The hostages were right in the middle of the trolls. There was no way to place a fireball without hitting them.
@@alexj1989 oh right I completely forgot about the hostages lmao
Let's be real here, your players are super metagaming to play down their characters knowledge of fighting a VERY well known monster in almost any fiction, just to make the fight harder for themselves. Children in villages has been told many tales of many dangerous monsters roaming their world, and of course veteran adventurers would have told tales of their encounters with all sorts of monsters, how they survived and how they defeated it. Don't tell me a random peasant child in a small fishing village knows more about Troll, Vampire, Undead, and whatnot's weakness that the actual PCs who decided to be adventurers? LOL!
As a player I was once guilty of doing this, my DM afterwards told me that I didn't have to do that and that if he wanted to surprise me he would, he also told me that he didn't expect my characters to be stupid. The discussion I had with him after that really changed my outlook on metagaming and I have adopted his views on that in my own games.
This is very game world dependent. In some worlds, monsters are so rare there's no such thing as "common knowledge". But that's what knowledge checks are for.
Chief, if your players were playing characters that exist in a world with trolls and they're going out of their way to ignore everything that they, and their characters, would definitely know about trolls wasn't them carefully avoiding metagaming, it was them metagaming as hard as they possibly could.
Your characters aren't blank slates and walking oblivion. They exist in the same game world as the NPCs. They aren't ignorant of that world. Your character is as likely to know factoids about how to fight a troll as you are to know factoids about how to survive a wild animal attack. If you've ever heard that you should stand your ground and increase your size when dealing with an angry bear or bull, your character has heard about fire and trolls.
I live in a world where vampires don't even exist, and I've known how to kill a vampire since I was about 9 years old. The idea that people who live AND ADVENTURE in a fantasy world haven't grown up hearing stories about different kinds of monsters, and common folk knowledge like "burning things stops them growing back" stretches credulity far more than assuming they know them.
@@carlfishyyou say that but the rules for killing vampires changes from story to story.
Depends on the setting and where the characters are from etc
@@ArvelDrethI mean, for vampires you can generally bet that a stake to the heart and sunlight are going to be safe bets.
@@deathclawproductions6723 well a stake through the heart would kill anything that requires a heart to live, and in some stories sunlight is just an inconvenience rather than deadly. But yeah in D&D, unless they have some kind of crazy magical ability that changes this, sunlight kills. But again you could be playing in a setting where the rules are different. In the end it's best for the DM to just call for a knowledge check.
.....so why didnt any players roll arcana/nature check to see if they recognize the creature?
We did, just didn’t get their weaknesses. It is actually a society check. Apparently PF trolls have society. 😃
There are occasions where "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck", it's a duck.
There are other occasions where "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck", it's a mimic.
I confused my players a bit with this lately. They arrived into a 40x40 room with a table in the middle. Three big chests in the surrounding walls. All of them have a lock that eerily resembles an eye of a fish. A majorly torn corpse leaning face first into the table one hand scretched towards the centre of a table. An ocean of dried blood around the corpse. It is holding book titled "how to recognize a mimic" in its table-hand.
What has happened? Where is the mimic?
I was playing Pathfinder 1e with a group online, and our GM is very good at tweaking or reskinning monsters. He had us fight a gelatinous cube. We were way too high level to have to fear it, but the moment we threw fire at it, we realized our mistake...it was a napalm cube. Let's just say I've never forgotten that fight.
I may need to steal this idea
@@csgilmore3536Do it! It was a wild surprise!
@@csgilmore3536 May need to? I've already planned an encounter for it >:D
Your table sounds miserable... no one wants to fight two trolls for five hours because they "didn't know" their weaknesses.
If you have a table where its taboo to metagame please for the love of god throw them a bone and give clear and unambigous hints as to their weaknesses
In my opinion the table still metagamed, because it sounded like the character that usually loves fire intentionally didn't use it, because they knew it was the troll's weakness. They still acted on player knowledge, they just did the opposite of what would be optimal.
@@sitnamkrad Exactly! By trying not to metagame, the players did in fact metagame harder and made the encounter harder for themselves.
No, they were anti-metagaming.
This might be an unpopular opinion but I don’t think counterspell is as big of an issue that you make it appear to be. Sure, it’s a great spell but there’s several ways to get around it and every person I’ve encountered that uses counterspell doesn’t counterspell every, single, thing.
Yeah, especially around that topic in this video it seemed like he was advocating for changes that were more about winning against your players rather than letting them have fun, counterspelling that big spell at a clutch moment.
Its the meme, man. TH-camrs be chasin' that sweet, sweet meme of calling counterspell horrible when in reality it's just as much a tactical choice as using any other spell or ability. It's just crummy DMs using the "this controller is broken" excuse.
Every counterspell is one less encounter-ending fireball or hypnotic pattern after all.
Counterspell in 5e is just dumb for one thing, you can counterspell a counterspell. That is so bad.
@@archmagemc3561 incorrect
But adventurers would know trolls, goblins, kobolds by description. Characters go into a dungeon without knowing about the monsters they might find?
Characters do know, most likely. But PCs need to succeed wisdom, int or nature check to determine if they can identify creatures during stress of encounter.
@UristMcKerman So you make your adventurers roll for petty stuff like opening a door that's already busted in half?😅😂
I need a Nature check to identify a cow. 😅😂
If the characters already KNOW what creatures are in the dungeon means those characters have already ran thru that entire dungeon. Or some other group has successfully. But that also means the dungeon was effectively cleared. So new monsters would have repopulated the dungeon at some point. Those should not be the exact same ones.
Common monsters like goblins and kobolds, yes. Rare monsters, no.
This is very world dependent and should be discussed with your DM. In my game, adventurers are very rare, and monster knowledge is based on rumors (and likely wrong). Volo's Guide is not readily available to everyone.
"Half the hitpoints."
Bro, I have a cleric who loves Guiding Bolt and is blessed by the Dice Gods. I try that, and it's not gonna matter how high I make the damage because the monster will be dead.
A cleric rolled a natural 20 on guiding bolt and completely destroyed my wight boss 😂
There's a reason my Life Domain cleric's Guiding Bolt spell is renamed "Tactical Nuclear Strike" in Roll20, lol.
@@mmcalli0 paladin two-shot my wight
twice
I've always thought the "immune or resistant to non-magical weapons" was to show why the NPC guards and general population can't easily deal with the monster.
I've always thought it was a leftover from older editions where casters had half the spellslots and no cantrips. Casters had to rely on weapons as well once they ran out of spell slots.
All it does in 5th edition is nerving martial classes.
@@schwarzerritter5724Completely wrong. By spell casters you mean magic users and illusionist. They memeorize spells. If they use a sword they'll get a hefty penalty for using it.
The purpose of needing magical weapons to hit cerrIn supernatural foes is to simulate demons, elementals, and lycanthropes shrugging off mundane weapons. Usually these foes require a certain magical plus or higher in addition to either cold iron or silver weapons.
@@schwarzerritter5724 True, but there are also plenty of enemies that are resistant or even immune to magic. When I was playing a half caster, I remember being useless around those enemies and they were common. Also, the most common resistances are to fire and poison, most spells are of those damage types.
Most magical weapons tho, they say they count as magical in order to bypass resistances. Without giving a damage type. So, they are the most likely to not have to deal with damage resistances at all. So, in reality they are not the ones not getting nerfed... unless the DM has not given them a magical weapon.
@@TA-by9wvdepends on the edition. In AD&D 2e, magic users would still use slings or darts.
@@ArvelDreth Daggers, staffs, and knives as well. Other weapons give them a -5 penalty to hit. This can change slightly if weapon proficiencies are used.
Introduction literally describes meta-gaming, but instead of optimising it was aimed to be as ineffective as possible, especially if one of the characters usually uses fire.
If you all enjoyed those 5 hours - more power to you, but that sounds like cutting your nose off to spite your face. I would be miserable.
I use knowledge checks in my game to see what information my players get for monsters they havent seen. I also do like to be able to show pictures to the players when I can.
Our table uses roll20, so I can easily grab an image of a monster that looks like the monster, but isn't a dead giveaway.
If you live in a fantasy world that has trolls its sensible that at some point in your characters life he would have heard folk lore regarding the trolls weakness. We're not talking about Mindflayers or some esoteric thing here.
And why wouldn't you use your fire spells on a big evil troll that nearly kills your party, when you normally hit everything with it.
A bit late, but did any character have a background in medicine? Or a soldier? Or seasoned adventurer? Cauterize the wound. The reason for troll regen or any regen is cell dividing. Cauterize the wound and that is common knowledge. Amputation.
How do you recommend communicating these differences in combat? I find it cheesy when I hear “you notice this doesn’t seem to do as much damage” or something - but I struggle to come up with a better idea for my own DM-ing
sometimes i alrigth state no thid will not deal damage sometimes
Not this old trope again... I know trolls are susceptible to fire damage and trolls don't even exist in my reality! To think it's possible to grow up in a land with actual Trolls and the people (particularly adventurers) not know about trolls beggars belief.
The problem I have with throwing unknown (or tweaked) monsters at players is that I would think that adventurers would talk to people about known monsters in the area. Talk to the guard captain. Visit the tavern and talk to any visiting adventurers. Check for any written records of monsters in the area.
Why would any adventuring group go out into the wild without any idea of what monsters are in the area.
So you came across a completely unknown monster that not one soldier barely escaped from who said, "thank goodness it was afraid of fire."
I dropped some trolls on my players while they were traveling on the edge of a swamp. Never used the "T" word and described them similar to yours. One of the characters does firebolt almost every turn by default so I knew the regen wasn't going to be a big problem, but all the characters are squishy and I made the trolls hit like a truck. They could hear more coming towards them, vocalizing with each other to hone in on the characters. They got the first few down but took some hits, then made a mad dash for the town they were headed to a half days journey away. Turned the second half into a skill challenge to keep ahead of the pack. Really excited my players, had them on the edge of their seats for a couple hours 😊
Recall Knowledge would've resolved it quickly (well, if they succeded).
We succeeded once, which gave us some information, but not their weaknesses.
@@alexj1989 Indeed, a low roll should give some information for the characters to figure it out. For example, the low roll would be, "you that some kind of damage type impedes their regeneration, but you can't remember which" . So now the characters can cycle between damage types until they find the correct one.
@@farrex0 That’s the GMs call. I don’t remember exactly what we got, but I know we didn’t get any weakness.
@@alexj1989 for you to succed and not get critical information is pretty lame
Yeah, about that... My players trend to fail their recall knowledge rolls and the last combat with an hydra lasted 2 sessions
The idea that something as common as a Troll is hurt by fire makes as much sense as knowing silver hurts werewolves. I think this was metagaming. If monsters exist in a world there will be things passed down on them just like werewolves and vampires.
In my world knowledge about the most common monsters is common knowledge. Come on. Of course there are legends about them etc. It is not metagaming to know the very basics of the most common monsters that people encounter.
Then again, they can always be flavoured. Trolls are usually green. This one is pink with yellow stripes. It might be a bit different and up to the players to find out how.
Or it might have met some orcs who like to play with paint.
/Edited to add. The legends about monsters might or might not be accurate. They at least include a tiny bit of truth and are provided as a list according to the characters background in my table.
Yes, in your opinion all PC’s should know this. In my opinion, they don’t unless proven by roll.
@@Turtlpwr not all. Depends a lot. If you are from an urban background you might not know that. If you are from a frontier where people are clashing with them non-stop you much likely do.
@@jopestus To use the exemple we have here, trolls are probably not that easy to meet. Even in the wild, they can be found in specifical enviroments.
The world is vast and even the most experienced adventurers might not have seen the most of it.
Same for dragons, devils and demons, vampires. Very classic monsters, but rare!
I mean: can you immagine a world where trolls might be found and fought so commonly, that almost everybody knows about their weak points? Worst than zombie apocalypse.
@@Turtlpwr There are no bears in my area but I know the saying "If it's brown, lay down. If it's black, fight back. If it's white, goodnight." Do I know if these are true and effective? No I don't. Will I try them if the opportunity arise? Yes, if it keeps me alive.
There are no real life vampires or even trolls but anyone who enjoys fiction (not just DnD) knows how to deal with them. So if you're in a fictional world where these monsters are real, pretty sure that even if you haven't seen one, tales from veteran adventurers and traveling bards, and even stories told by parents to their children are spread through out the world. So a PC would have a great chance of having that knowledge.
Which isn't metagaming, but it's metagaming when the FIRE WIZARD STOPS USING FIRE SPELLS against a monster weak to fire.
Metagaming or using information gathered in the background game? Characters would talk to other adventurers, explorers, soldiers, even each other. In a world with Trolls, there is also a world with Troll Killers. Only truly novel creatures wouldn't be recognized within a few moments.
Your player who was playing the goblin was metegaming by NOT burning the trolls. He should have stuck with his character’s normal love of fire because that would have been in character. I have done that in the past as a player. Sometimes to use damage types that would work against the monster and sometimes to use damage types that the monster was resistant to.
Why is making monsters immune to slashing/piercing/bludgeoning damage a good idea, especially if it also includes magical damage?
It makes the battle more difficult for martial classes. Sure, you might point out they have to think more strategically and use the environment to their advantage, but it makes no difference to casters; they can use the same spells and cantrips they use on every other enemy.
I like going old school with Zombies and Skeletons. Both are either immune to Piercing Damage, or take only 1 damage from that. Zombies, as their flesh is dead and no longer hurts, take half damage from Bludgeoning Damage, but double damage from Slashing damage. Skeletons, as they have no flesh and are mostly empty spaces, are opposite of the Zombies. Double from Bludgeoning, but half from Slashing.
You've all heard that if you have a rattlesnake bite, you need to suck the poison out. You've all heard various things about bears, and sharks, and alligators. If you lived in a world with trolls, you would have absolutely heard about regeneration being cancelled by fire. It isn't "metagaming." As a DM, I expect players to pay attention and use their knowledge. Your knowledge of the game is nothing compared to the knowledge your character would have from growing up in the world of the game.
I think the metagaming argument can be taken to absurd levels. It's almost like if werewolves were real, real people fighting them wouldn't try silver bullets.
In a world built on lore, built around a certain lore....the Characters Will Know the Lore and it will be talked about often in those worlds. Lore spreads through rumors. People would know how to fight trolls, especially if they were not completely alien to the world. People living in that fantasy would know a lot of lore...about places, creatures, and things. When you have components, like one for a regeneration potion, and the DM has a lore that says "potion requires eye of troll, do not burn, simmer over the lowest heat possible but never bring to a boil...best to cook in a double boiler and with heat not strong enough to burn the skin....simmer for 12 days)... That might indicate that yeah, fire might mess with Trolls regenerative juju.
Characters would know of the local legends, the rulers, the local heroes. Does this make it more difficult for the DM to bring in surprises? Well yes. But it would be important for the DM to let the players know ahead of time, "Oh yeah, well these creatures have a reputation....and this is the old wives tale and rumor about them." In fact, with some monsters, for their characters there might have been fairy tales told to them as youths about ways in which monsters were defeated.
I usually tell my players that if I want them to be surprised I'll modify the monster. My justification for it is that in a world of adventurers and heroes legends get passed down, and also that they would know how to fight trolls in the same way I would know to make myself look as intimidating as possible if I cone across a bear or to wear a mask backwards if I am in an area with tigers despite never confronting tigers or bears (or lions for that matter).
Each DM has a different way to approach it. I'm not saying my way is right, but I don't get too worked up about metagaming monsters.
I really don't get the hate on Counterspell given how easy it is to get around it and having it available to everyone makes combat more dynamic than simply standing there slugging away at one another.
It has a 60' range and requires line of sight on the caster while they are casting their spell in order to use.
Plenty of spells have longer ranges than 60' plus there's an entire feat designed to increase the range at which you can cast certain spells. Then you have things like Subtle Spell which shuts down Counterspell all on its own. And if you don't have that, you can always Ready a spell someplace where your caster can't be seen or out of range and set the trigger to be when you can see your target/are within range of it.
There's definitely a time and place for jacking up the HP of a monster...just something that shouldn't be your default method of increasing the difficulty. It'll make for a hilarious story if a small fuzzy animal that should normally die from being sneezed on tanks your parties world ending abilities without batting an eye.
Meme. Its a meme to hate counterspell. But also sub-par DMs getting butthurt about the time counterspell derailed their whole campaign because their super cool BBEGs super neato spell was countered, instead of learning from it and becoming better DMs.
So... multiple veterans players... and none of the just asked to make an Intelligence check to see if their character knew an information likely to be considered as common knowledge for adventurers and other dungeon delvers ?
Saucy songs about the mayor's daughters are not the only purpose of bards singing in taverns, they also tell stories of heroic deeds, and pretty likely a lot of them include trolls under a bridge ^^
Looks to me like the players are metagaming their PC's knowledge of a very well known monster in fiction to make the fight harder for themselves. Or perhaps the PC's are literally infants that they don't know anything about the world. Cause even children would have heard tales from their parents, veteran adventurers, or mistrals about well known monsters.
"force themselves down the player's mouth and claw them apart from the inside out."
Imagine the gnome was the only survivor because they couldn't physically swallow the tiny-sized trolls?
Try also adding vulnerabilities alongside resistances, make your encounter unique by making the players discover they can electrocute your HP sack for double damage while piercing damage isn't effective. That's way more memorable than a regular HP sack!
The McDonalds fries were better years ago when cooked in beef tallow oil. Excellent bait for Goblin, Kobolds, and older Vampires. If you have a capable cook in your group. On the subject of meta gaming.
It should be remembered that in game, these creatures are real. Other people talk about them. Adventurer, share information, bards tell stories and sing songs about them. Everyone approaches in game knowledge differently. but the son of two high level adventurers might know all about Trolls and the bumpkin farm boy might not.
The "cut HP, increase damage" is pure bullshit through and through. DnD 5e isn't optimised with defense, it is optimised with offense, and always assumes monster is going to use the hardest hitting skills, no matter the circumstances, when calculating difficulty. Every single stat needs to be tuned up if the fight is supposed to be any challenge. If I cut my monsters' HP, every single fight would last exactly till the first turn of the party's sorcerer and not a second longer. Unless you suggest every single encounter should have a possibility to TPK or at least one-shot players on turn one.
This is why you use Knowledge checks. PCs know stuff about the game word. They know stuff the player's wouldn't know so don't even know to ask what they know. Making the knowledge does two things. It gives "permission" for players to know what they know out of character in character because it is in character avoiding metagaming issues for those who have a conniption fit over it. Second, it prevents combats from dragging on for players who really have no clue what they're fighting but the PC should know. The characters are right there facing the creature. If not book knowledge of PC reading before campaign start maybe it's tales they've heard in stories and tavern talk. Even if not they'll know a creature has resistance because a spell they used wasn't effective as it should have been by the way it shrugged off the attack. PCs know stuff. They are supposed to know stuff. Let them use it.
Love how PF2 and D&D 3.5 gives you templates to create unique monsters that are reasonably balanced. PF2 also has rules for recalling knowledge so that you can use in-game knowledge.
What I like to do is if the party is having trouble figuring out how to find a monster’s weakness (or if the party doesn’t want to metagame), they can use a free action to make an Intelligence check to figure out the weakness through hints. For example, “you notice the troll seems to intentionally avoid any of the torch sconces that are lighting the room.”
I mean I would argue that rolling a pretty easy knowledge check nature or history would be enough for the party to know what trolls are and a few let pieces of information about them. It's not metagaming to use background knowledge your character has.
I gotta agree with everyone else. Zero chance I as an adventurer am going to go dungeon diving without find out the common monsters. Some unheard of eldritch horror? Sure I could see not knowing about it, but everyone knows trolls orcs etc.
Not al trolls are susceptible to fire. War Trolls, for instance, are susceptible to acid damage not fire damage.
Meanwhile, What kinda troll we talking about?
Are we talking mountain trolls, rock trolls, cave trolls, crystalline, wood, swamp, ash, river, hedge or ice?
Not all trolls have to have acid/fire as a weakness. Sonic/Force or Light vulnerability are also common troll weaknesses if we look outside memestream dnd.
MY mage is pretty stereotypical in that regard. 3 Steps of social interaction with unknown creatures:
1. greet them with my mage hand
2. if they turn out to be rude -> slap them with my mage hand
3. if they stay rude after being slapped -> greet them with a fireball
4. if they survive -> slap them with a fireball
5. repeat.
😂
I didn't know they were trolls, but I knew fire was the answer. Fire is always the answer.
Wouldn't knowledge checks take care of the problem?
My campaign is heavily inspired by the game Horizon Zero Dawn, so all animal based monsters have increased defense and some other surprise things added due to being metal creatures
13:33 - this idea of simply describing a critter differently was explicitly noted in the 2e campaign setting of Spelljammer.
#9 yes! Always describe the monsters instead of saying, 'you see a ghoul'!
My players are really good at not metagaming when they identify a creature.
The players in the opening story did the right thing by not metagaming. However, as a GM, when the group first encounters a new creature, if they ask, I will allow them to make an appropriate skill roll to see if they know what it is. We don't play D&D anymore, but for Deadlands (i.e., Savage World), I will let them do Common Knowledge for more mundane creatures, or Weird Science for science stuff like automatons, and occult for the supernatural stuff. Now, most of my players did not invest in those other skills -- oh well, then I guess they don't know what they are facing. But I do let them make checks to see if someone has heard of this stuff. In D&D it was Nature or Arcana or Religion depending on what it was.
The "Counterspell is cancer" meme is getting real tired. I was running this huge boss fight with my group, and counterspell was getting thrown around left and right by both enemies AND allies and it was funny. every. time. There was literally a point where a player counterspelled one of the bosses' counterspell and everyone cheered. Why? well, 1. because its funny, actually. and 2.because the ones flinging the counterspells were using valuable spell slots that they COULD be using for a game changing offensive, and instead choosing to use those valuable resources to, y'know, protect the rest of the party. Because the boss couldn't get off that second cone of cold, our bard was still standing on their turn and managed to crit their psychic knife right in the face of the most annoying of the bosses. Oh wow, look at that, teamwork instead of magic grandstanding! It's almost like they put it in the game for a reason or something and everybody's just bandwagoning, but what do I know!
Once, in a homebrew horror Pathfinder game I ran, I used nine Lemures marching in formation in a tight corridor. I described it as a writhing wall of flesh. At fourth level, the PCs totally could have wiped them, but because of its unusual description, they all ran to the hidden Maxim machine gun they discovered outside. Good times!
Was the regeneration being described? If so, then the characters should have made knowledge checks to see what was going on.
One thing I have always liked to do is change Resistances when you change the theme. With Trolls, my favorite variant I found was the "Chaos Troll" where on its turn you roll a d6 to change what element(s) it is weak to and it adds an element to its claw/rend attacks.
I think the purpose of "resistance/immunity to non-magical damage" is more useful as a narrative device for the setting. i.e. even an army of soldiers would be ineffective against certain enemies. A single werewolf could singlehandedly take out an entire town, even if every person in the town were attacking it. Cue the PCs with their magic stuff!
I like to study up on the hunting strategies of real world creatures for inspiration in my combats. My players didn’t know what to do against the wolves that did everything they could to avoid taking damage. It was an escort mission with women and children and the players HATED the ever-present howls from wolves that only entered line of sight when the party was distracted
Specifically, McDonald’s French fries have beef flavoring in the oil.
They used to use beef fat, but I think it’s cheaper this way?
Not only were these trolls, but you were playing pf2e trolls, weren't you lol. I know from experience that troll in pf2e are whole different monsters. Glad to see some sneaky pf2e stuff in your videos. Its a treat!
I'm sorry but why would the goblin wizard who loves fire spells not use fire in this encounter? If anything he's metagaming by avoiding using the one thing he normally uses in this encounter.
Thanks for sharing your advice, Luke! Always appreciate it, and use a good portion of it when I can.
I'm happy they had fun. As a DM I would be frustrated. If the PCs wanted to play dumb or if everyone had dumped INT. We've all been in parties were more people had a 8 INT than a 8 STR or 8 CHA. I would have had one of the captives "bravely" suggest what to do. Of course they're dark elves so they probably just want to get the party on their side so they can escape or enthrall them.
7:17 1 - Lean into the theme (what the creature is well known for)
7:43 2 - Decrease hit points, increase damage output (shorter, but more adrenaline-inducing combat)
8:57 3 - Add or Change Resistances and/or Immunities
9:38 4 - Add conditions to the creature's attacks
10:16 5 - Add custom abilities
11:04 6 - Modify existing abilities (Disabling/Enabling them under the right conditions)
11:39 7 - Increase DCs (in 5e, according to the PCs' saving throws)
12:44 8 - Reflavour/Reskinning to better fit the adventure
14:10 9 - Never use the monster's real name
14:42 10 - Make it cagey (Hit and Run, ranged attacker, abilities that bypass Opportunity Attacks)
15:31 11 - Make it a Spellcaster (increase HP, figure a way to overcome Counterspell such as a puzzle ability)
16:59 12 - Give it stages (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3..) according to what happens in the encounter (Phases mostly change at HP thresholds)
17:42 13 - Attack, at a Price
18:36 14 - Give it a Magic Item (mostly consumables for lieutenants)
19:44 15 - Resize it
20:12 Implementation Advice (Announce that there will be changes to monsters they may know well from the rulebooks, or leave discoverable in-game hints to the modifications you've made; readapt creatures to other locations)
In PF2e, trolls are common (as in not tagged uncommon or rare). It is rather absurd to assume a group of professional mercenaries won't recognize them, especially once the regeneration becomes obvious. They're more likely to be paranoid about trolls and use expensive fire sources on things that might possibly be trolls, at least till they learn to correctly identify the real thing.
Consider that you can ask the average "man on the street" how to kill a troll, and fire will be high up on their list of ideas, and _we_ don't have to fear encountering real trolls. We teach our children how to deal with cars, wild animals, and other threats they will actually face out in the world. It seems rather obvious that in a world where trolls were a potential threat, people would grow up being reminded "if it might be a troll, kill it with fire".
Sure, a player can decide on a lark that their PC has never heard of troll, or in the moment panicks and screws up. That's fine, but it often falls into the trap of making an encounter harder than it ought to be.
Arent like 50% of the premade monsters common? The rules also specifically list a higher difficulty on recall knowledge if the creature is uncommon or rare so it assumes you still have to roll for common
"You can kill a troll by harming them with fire" isn't real world common knowledge, though. Trolls that regenerate is specifically a D&D thing, so you only find it in D&D-inspired TRPGs and products (for example, I don't personally know if in The Witcher trolls regenerate, but it wouldn't surprise me if they do). Like, if I ask my mother "what do you know about trolls?", she won't tell me "they're big ogres who regenerate and are weak to fire", she will tell me "they're big ogres who turn into stone under sunlight, but sometimes they are just little feys".
@@drakegrandx5914 That's fair enough, though I know tES trolls also regenerate quickly.
It would probably be better to ask "how do you kill something that regenerates in seconds", which will likely get "cauterize the wounds" high up on the options. The hydra was is the classical world creature where regeneration, even of severed heads, was a significant threat, and fire was the answer there, too.
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Increasing Damage output means dead players... increasing HP while leaving Damage output as is or even dropping damage output means the enemy takes a bit more effort to down, but doesn't one shot a PC or three every round. Seriously, a single Hell Hound with rolled HP (10 extra HP over average), caused panic in my level 4 party of 4... a Level 5 party of 4 nearly died to four Zombies and a Zombie Warrior (all at average HP)... most monsters punch above their weight class... the same level 4 party of 4 started to panic when they encountered 12 Troglodytes, despite having already killed half of them, when they realized Troglodytes get three attacks on their multi attack, because the Paladin got hit three times total by two Troglodytes (the second Trog moved to flank and with advantage got two of his hits in... no crits, just normal hits)... If PCs are doing things right, they can handle a little extra to even max HP (In small groups, I usually divide the group into 25% max, 50% average, and 25% rolled HP, on larger groups I tend to make min 1 Max, then roll a die close to or equal to the number of opponent three times to find out how many are average, how many are max including the one max I assured, and how many are rolled. Assuring 1 max HP one represents the Pack/Party/Group leader or toughest member... if an encounter has multiple types of foes, one of each type is max HP, then the rest are average or rolled, chosen by how the session has been going, average if it has been bad session up til then, rolled if they haven't had an encounter or have been having a good or even average session).
HP adds a little extra challenge; raising AC, to hit, or damage output per attack greatly increases the challenge and threat; increasing the number of hits, adding abilities, raising saves, changing resistance/immunity can drastically increase the challenge/threat level; adding vulnerabilities, lowering any quality (HP, to hit, AC, damage output, number of attacks, ability scores, saves) are ways to make encounters easier... Increasing Damage while reducing HP is not a balanced equation, that is like a -1 and a +5, the -1 barely impacts things, the party going second can means the damage output wipes them before they get a single turn while higher HP and lower damage is a +1 and -5, the net -4 means the party might need a round or three more to cut through the extra HP, but the foes aren't killing them as quickly in the time.
AS for the Metagame issue... simply ask your players to all make, Arcana, History, Nature, or Survival Checks (tell them to pick what is best for THEM... Arcana represents study of the magics surrounding the abilities, History represents having learned from folklore and studying tales of past encounters by other adventurers, Nature represents the knowledge of biology and creature types, and Survival represents a past encounter or related story from someone who encountered the foe or something similar before), maybe Religion instead of Arcana if it is something more on the Divinity Spectrum (Celestials, Devils, Demons, Undead, and the like), maybe drop Survival if the foe is something unlikely to have been encountered before, or drop Nature if it is not something naturally occurring (Aberrations, Constructs, the Divine stuff, Extraplanar from a non-Elemental Plane, Undead)... give a set of DCs to qualities based on the commonality (Trolls are able to regenerate, DC 5... Most Trolls are resistant to Poison, DC 10... Trolls won't regenerate for a round if hit with acid or fire, DC 15... Dire Trolls don't stay dead unless the fire/acid damage is 10 or more from a single attack, DC 20... etc.)... this allows players to use Meta Knowledge without Meta Gaming... it is always possible characters picked up some info about stuff someplace validly IC, give your players the chance to have the dice decide if they do, and you can always adjust things with advantage or disadvantage based on what source they are gleaning info from (The Fighter who lost his family to Trolls might have learned some stuff that day, so with advantage... the Warlock whose entire life was in a cult in the big city might have been told about trolls in the cult's teachings, but they were probably skewed with Cult Propaganda and so they have a disadvantage).
A note for tip #2 if you're playing Pathfinder 2E.
Be very, VERY, careful if you are halving HP and doubling damage on higher level or boss-type enemies. Because of how tight PF2E's math is higher level enemies will have higher to-hit bonuses, which means they've got higher to-crit bonuses, so that doubling of damage can very easily spiral into one-shotting the PCs. I'd personally recommend smaller tweaks, like bumping damage by a die size or something, instead.
That or just don't use that method on bosses, and instead use it on their gribblies. Those guys are supposed to go down quickly anyway and mostly just waste party actions, so making them hit like glass trucks won't be quite as dangerous.
Isn't there Counterspelling in Pathfinder 2e? Is it just like, unbelievably bad like in 3.5e's?
Though, lemme tell you. In 5e, I don't really have a problem with Counterspell both ways. If a player took the Counterspell, Silvery Barbs, or Shield spell, that's a timed resource, and 99% of the time, you, the DM, should be fine with it because you *want* your players to succeed. It feels good to stop an enemy from casting fireball, and saving the party from massive damage. Or a powerful Lich from casting Cloudkill.
Likewise, if a player is going to throw a fit over you, the DM, casting Counterspell on them, let them know it wasn't targeted at them. And actually mean it. If there's a Hobgoblin mage with Counterspell, have them counter the first spell to come out, even if it's the Cleric's sacred flame. Only if the party wizard has been spamming fireballs should that mage wait until the Wizard throws another one out, and, hey, maybe the Wizard tricks them by casting a cantrip too!
I'm currently running D&D 5e in Ravnica. There are no Dwarves or Gnolls or Yuan-ti in Ravnica. But the player do not need to know what statblocks I use. A Monster is what I say it is.
And I say these Gnolls are just a fresh version of Minotaurs. The Dwarves (or better jet Duerger) are just simic-hybrids that can enlarge on command. (That's ancored in the Ravnica Lore.) And the Yuan-ti are also just part of the weird Mutations those Simic Scientists made possible in this world.
On the note of Counterspell, how about making it exclusive to Wizards, and have it consume EITHER the Action or the Spell Slot. So it allows you to say: "No, not that spell." Without completely ruining a Creature's Turn.
Counterspell is so badly designed, it's embarassing. It seems like an afterthought. There's no mechanic for Harry Potter/LOTR spell battles. No creative back and forth. Just a nope button that shuts down agency. It's only fun for the person using it, and maybe not even them.
an idea i had was to make something like a "fireheart troll" which are lesser known variants, so players or their characters obviously wouldn't know of them. Trolls I would rule to be common knowledge, so if they ask, "Is it weak to fire?" I would reply, "As far as you know."
The fireheart troll ABSORBS fire instead, and can use their reaction to shoot it right back. A successful perception check might reveal some differences from normal trolls; a fiery glow from its mouth, coal-like protrusions from it's shoulders. Since they use fire to regen, hitting them with ice or dousing them will stop it.
This can be done with other elements too. Rock trolls? Thunder or force damage, heck maybe even bludgeoning. Dark trolls? Radiant or lightning. You can get really creative with it imo.
Ha exactly what I have preperad for my goup. I am 1st time DM in DnD. I have group of 4 lvl 1, setup is in bog, they are stuck in small peat mining village an there is something like democ hound. Yes inspiration is in Sherlock Holmes, at least for atmosphere. The hound is dire wolf with 2 abilities/howls. st is for frighting, 2nd is for calling adds. I planned this before I saw this and thanks for enabling my confiration bias.
btw why not to len player roll nature/arcana/survival/history check is they have information about monsters? Or like Int or wis check to determine they realise some of bread crums.
Oh, I disagree. Except in the case of truly alien enemies like certain kinds of Aberrations who live beyond the stars and are only encountered in the very pits of the most cursed cultist's hideaways, most monsters will have some word of mouth about them. The idea that trolls have never been encountered before by anyone the PCs have ever met requires more justification than that they've heard vague rumors that there are strange green skinned giants and fire or acid stops regeneration. If you asked 1000 random people how to deal with a Kappa IRL, you will still get 4 or 5 answering correctly that you should bow to them. (Because they will bow back, and the water in their heads will fall out, killing them.) And this is when basically no one in the world thinks Kappa are real. In a world where Trolls are probably more common than Tigers, you're asking people to pretend like there's no ability to access information about how to deal with one. That's ridiculous. It's not good RP to pretend you don't know something your character should know. It's not good RP to actively avoid experimentation in a battle because you want to avoid accusations of metagaming, when your character realistically should just know it.
I don't think a lot is gained from surprising players mechanically with monsters. I actually think most of the value of D&D is in having well known monsters that form effective benchmarks for power and impressiveness. If every monster has arbitrary power based on a wish to surprise players, I think a lot of that is lost to (in my mind) no gain.
I do increase hit points on my monsters, BUT...my group is 7 players, and if I want everyone to get a turn in combat, I usually have to bump the HP. I'm still able to convey pace and urgency using tone, lair elements, and roleplay. I think it goes a long way.
I've kind of shifted away from this problem by homebrewing almost all of my monsters, though. 😅 Usually starting with one of the 5e statblocks.
The problem with #2, (don't increase hitpoints) is that I run a larger than average group... when you have 7 players making 12 or so attacks before the monster gets to go, unless you go crazy on the hit points and defenses, the players will never know that the monster hits harder than it should, because 90% of the time, they will easily kill the monster before it gets a chance to go. When you have a large group of players, you absolutely MUST increase AC, resistances, and/or hit points, or the players will not be challenged at all. Sure, you can add more monsters instead, but that's not always feasible. When you have a single hydra in a 30-ft square room, it makes zero sense to try to cram two or more creatures in there instead of one.
To compensate for my larger mid-level group, I usually wind up increasing hit points by 50% (which is still less than the 75% increase of a 7-person party vs. the standard 4-person party) and when appropriate I add damage resistances and/or increased armor class. My party still finishes most combat in 3 to 4 rounds, which gives them a chance to flex their muscles and consider strategy to avoid or mitigate damage against their foes. My players love it and it has always worked for me.
Increasing DCs for monster abilities in 5E will not work. This is not because of poor 5E design but because of 5E working as designed. For the most part PCs are only proficient in two saving throws. Several saving throws will only be +0 or +1 for the entire game, -1 even in some cases. A monster ability that is DC 12 will have them fail roughly 50% of the time, which is a lot. For the characters who have +7 or +9 to a particular save, it's an on purpose feature they aren't affected as much by abilities that use that save. It's part of what makes them special to be just that good on a defense against something. Increasing DCs just make +0 save characters not play that combat and +7 save characters not feel so special anymore because they might as well flip a coin if they get to play that combat.
The title perfectly sums up how I feel about this video. 80% is worthless rant of how to make your encounters less memorable and less interesting. You only focus on the dropping to 0hp aspect. That's the fastest way for all of them to feel the same. Half the hp? Where's the time for tactical play? Let them discover all mosters' mechanics? Do they live in a world where other monster hunters don't exist? Don't let them prepare? What if a PC's whole concept is about gathering info and preparing countermeasures? What about reacting to changes in the environment? Destroying the magic item, so the invincible eldritch monster kills the conjurer and goes back to wherever it came from? Scratching the "e" off the golem's name, so it loses it's crazy self-repair function? Yeah, no, better "half the hp, double the dmg", then make every encounter based on "who bursts down who faster" theme. Pathetic. Better give the monster impossible mobility and a longbow, so your players can quit the campaign and stop wasting their time w/o feeling guilty.
Hearing this beginning and the argument between player knowledge vs character knowledge.
Something I've started doing is allowing players to make skill checks so that their characters can piece information together. For instance, a character with proficiency in medicine or survival could've rolled a skill check. On a success, their character could think "oh, cauterizing a wound stunts the growth of new tissue. Perhaps cauterizing a trolls wounds would stop the regen". Something similar can be used against pretty much any gimmick monster. Encourage your players to use creative skill checks during all pillars of play.
Regarding the PCs not knowing about a certain creature type, it kind of depends on the characters: wizards and clerics might have read about them in their studies (allow a Arcana or History skill check) and melee fighter types may have heard stories from veterans or teachers (all a History skill check); you get the idea. It's a different story in the case of unique or special monsters (For example, PC's from the western part of Faerun would probably never heard of a Huli Jing that had for some reason decided to travel to their part of the world.(from Kobold Press's Tome of Beasts).
A good way of dealing with the sort of metagaming situation at the beginning would be for the player to ask the DM "Does my character know this?" and possibly do a roll for it, depending.
It will certainly heavily depend on background on top of the creature's rarity in the setting.
...Of course, players going out of their way to act out of character to avoid metagaming is a whole other problem, and the players should probably reevaluate what they're doing because they're not thinking enough on why they're doing what they're doing.
I get it, though. Separating yourself from your character can be difficult for players. Players, just remember that it's okay to ask questions when you're struggling with metagaming.
Communication is important.
Speed should be careful unless you boost martials. At least in 5E martials already are at a serious disadvantage compared to casters and ranged, negating their turns for nothing while ranged and spellcasters can just keep doing things is just taking them out of combat for turns. Same as Stun, but only on Martials and with no saving throw. This would work if Martials deald 50% more damage than everyone else, so if they miss 1 in 3 turns they still break even.
I also recomend keeping most caster's HP very low. I like Mage's 40 HP. Spellcasters are very powerful so having that weakness breaks even. I preffer to protect them with knights or similar that can as a Reaction take their damage if within 5 ft or similar. This gives porpuse to tactics like Pushing Maneuver or even Shoving before killing the mage.
sometimes ROLEPLAYING can go too far. jsut becuz this character has not encountered TORLLs does not many noone knows what they are.. Ive never enocuntered a vasmpire but i do know many weaknesses that may apply
Some of your suggestions make sense Luke but there's a fine line between "tweaking" a monster and downright screwing over your players by making wholesale changes to a monster's stats/abilities. GMs should be logical & reasonable with amendments they make; otherwise, just create an entirely NEW monster if you want to make massive changes. Just going crazy to overcome meta knowledge can become a GM who's trying to cheat their players.
Use the monster the way they were written. Follow the theme.
My goblins terrify my players. 3e and PF1 both give goblins terrifyingly huge bonuses to stealth. They can sneak up on anything because of their average +13 to stealth. They will always try to ambush.
They’re only cowardly when they don’t outnumber the PCs. One will flee, ten will not.
Levels. Goblin leaders have levels. That 3rd level rogue in a group of five goblins is the one that scares the goblins to stand and fight more than the PCs scare them into running. The bigger the group of goblins, the more and higher level their leaders are.
I TPK’d a 5th level party with 4 goblins, three wolves and a 3rd level goblin rogue. Only one PC died in the initial ambush, but the goblins tracked them until they camped for the night and then attacked again while two of the three were sleeping. Not one goblin died, because they avoided the heavily-armored fighter in the initial ambush.
Cuaterization is well known effect of heat on flesh. A cuaterized wound never fully heals. Simple logic would assume a cuaterized troll would have difficulty regenerating. This isn't the meta gaming you are looking for.
Weaknesses to acid would be generally unknown.
Weaknesses to cold would be a mixed bag, some known and some unknown. The acts of hibernation and brumation were used as tools for primitive hunters, so we know cold has an effect on some critters innately.
The bag of holding vacuum bomb is massively meta gaming... but people hate hearing that one
Of course then there are the Ether Trolls, who live in (or come from) the Ethereal Planes. They gain a lair action in which their cruel scrawling on the walls will either deal psychic damage or cause stun to creatures of the trolls choice with an Int score above 2 and aren't suffering the Blindness condition. Suddenly that Bear Totem Barbarian isn't feeling quite so tough now, is he?
The Ether Troll's regeneration is stopped by taking Bludgeoning Damage from Hammers.
A few additional ways to tweak monsters for combat without needing to make more challenges:
* Have varied groups of enemies (say, instead of 4 trolls, have 3 trolls and 1 Iron Golem
* Don't pay attention to CR. Keep enemies fitting for the area (strong or weak) and let the players figure out what to do. You just need to try and wipe them out (or do whatever else it is the enemies might reasonably do to them)
* Let the enemies (where it makes sense) use regular actions (dashing, dodging, hiding, etc), and give them different equipment that changes up what they can do.
* Have the enemies use tactics & call reinforcements (not simply rotating to heal, but baiting the players into a trap or damaging the location to change the terrain).
Although I agree with your larger point that monsters with a twist can be funner (and also with your suggestions), I don't think it's meta knowledge for a PC to know a common troll regenerates, and that fire & acid are effective strategies against it. In the same way that I know without firsthand experience that a tiger or polar bear can swim (and retreating into a lake is not an effective defensive strategy), it stands to reason that most PCs/NPCs would know about trolls.
Forget CR, use monsters appropriate to the narrative, and if the PCs wipe the floor with them, let them (they'll love it), or they'll learn tactical retreat. If you absolutely must run monsters they've never heard of, then use monsters from another book (like Lairs & Legends, Monstrous Menagerie, etc).
I would think it would be common sense if the CHARACTERS were fighting monsters that kept regenerating cutting, slashing, and piercing damage, they would naturally think of doing some other type of damage like fire or acid that would In theory take longer to heal from. I wouldn’t call that meta gaming.
I would refer y'all to the back section of the PHB, "What Every Player Knows", oft overlooked by players, it contains the brief stories heard around campfires & in taverns that inspired them to become adventurers in the first place.
This is why in my Pathfinder game I made my own Bestiary.
My trolls were covered in fur and weak to light, my basilisk was serpentine, could burrow, and its gaze dealt Dex damage where if it knocked you to 0 Dex then you would turn to stone instead of just failed save=statue, to name a couple.
I'm really new as game master, i'm building my own world and rules, and to prevent monsters to be the same, i only created families of monsters (in the biology sens) that players can meet, and i'll create different species when i need it, so the players can never really do in "meta" cuz it'll be almost always new, and there is alterations that can occur from their magical nature (everything have a "magical" nature in my world, but it doesn't mean they can use magic) that will give them different stats or abilities.
In short, i have few things fixed for my monsters and i'll create them in preparation of each session, ofc it can be re-used at some point, but i have a large choice to make a lot of variation during the same campaign, cuz monsters in my worlds are more like animals and plants than evil beings or races, ofc there are species that players can play that are not monsters, but I build this species to have a lot of variation too, in part predictable on their appearence, but as my ability system allow me to create anything (as players can), i have a really huge freedom to makes things interesting.
Thanks for the video
It's reasonable to assume that, in a world where trolls are common, that knowledge on how to deal with them should not be especially esoteric. Any self respecting adventurer should know how to deal wit the more common beasties. Your pyromaniac wizard not using his firespells wasn't roleplaying, he was inadvertently metagaming and sandbagging by trying to avoid metagaming. The fact that this happened in PF2, where recall knowledge is a mechanic, makes it all the more ridiculous.
This is a prime example of blaming the DM/GM for the actions of the players. This is not something that the DM/GM can or should fix. The players had all the information they needed. They choose to make the battle 5 hours. Additionally, its ok if the players are not always surprised. Its fine for the DM/GM to tweak monsters for a surprise every once in a while but this creates even more work for the DM/GM and also can result in the players feeling tricked/deceived. My point is in the scenario presented the players have almost all the power over the length of the combat. Outside of bad rolls extending combat the players have the most control over pace. This is not a problem that the DM/GM should be trying to address by dedicating even more time outside of the game.
TL:DR not every game experience is the DM/GMs responsibility or the result of their actions. DM/GMs are not gods or super players they are just another person at the table and the culture that says otherwise leads directly to DM/GM burnout and frustration.
Agree with most things here, except the counterspell hate.
Casting counterspell is not free. If you know how to deal with it.
- It costs a reaction. That is a big deal
- It has a range of 60 feet, and requires sight. Get behind total cover or out of range.
Let us say your party's paladin and wizard both have counterspell. You simply run your monsters past the paladin, and attack the wizard. The most natural thing for the players to do, is for the paladin to use an opportunity attack, and the wizard to cast shield. Oops, no counterspell this round. (It might be metagamey if you specifically try to provoke from the paladin, and the monsters don't know he has counterspell, but it is not metagamey at all, to know to rush the mage in the back so your own mage can get their spells through).
Alternatively, instead of one good spell caster, just use two medium spell casters can cause trouble because you can't counterspell them both.
And in a world of counterspells, every mage should know, that you cast from 65 feet away whenever possible.
None of these tactics beats counterspell every time, or make it unusable, but that is not the goal, the goal is to make it players have to make tactical decisions. Maybe the paladin will not take that opportunity attack just in case there is a mage among the enemies, maybe the wizard will stand closer to the front lines so there isn't room for the enemy mage to back out of range etc.
And if and ONLY if your players understand what the monsters are doing to combat counterspell, you can start giving the monsters counterspell as well.
It becomes a fun little subgame of subtle movements by the casters to keep the enemy in range, but also be able to back out of range themselves, cast their spell, and head back in.
Advocates for reducing hit points to speed up combat. Then advocates for effective damage resistance to weapons. Later advocates for increasing HP on spellcasting monsters. Scratching head. I guess there is some nuance, like don't increase HP if it doesn't increase chances of something interesting to happen; that's just more arithmetic. But if there is a chance for something interesting if the monster doesn't die fast, increase HP.
As for counterspell, I've been thinking there ought to be some potential risk to the counterspeller. It should never be automatic. By trying to counterspell, you are messing with spell energy. Maybe you dampen it, maybe you augment it. Don't get me started on Silvery Barbs
I don't fully agree with not saying a monsters name, I think you should only do that if your players characters wouldn't know what the monster is. For Example, a goblin, Characters should know what a goblin is so there's no need to hide it. You wouldn't describe a dragon as a giant winged lizard with scales the size of your shields, the characters should know what a dragon is as they're a massive piece of history and are a critical part of living in the dnd world. The way I would do it is determine first what location each character comes from, what creatures or stories are most common in those areas, and then if the campaign starts beyond level 1 how well traveled are these characters. Once I've answered those questions I'd figure out which characters would by default know what creatures are what. Maybe Himothy from the south would never have met a troll in his life and there is no stories where he is from, But Sally from the north lived in a village that had to deal with trolls several times and she has first hand seen one before. If i'm unsure on if they should default know it I would just make them roll and determine the DC based on how likely it is they would have known or heard of this monster. But if theres a creature nobody would reasonably know of like say a Nothic, unless players or their characters have specific knowledge on them or Vecna then they're perfect for just describing without revealing. Which could be described as "A creature with one large eye, moving in extremely erratic ways, the creature resembled a hunched, misshapen humanoid with skin not unlike a knoll. You could see it's one large eye following your magic items(or spell caster if theres no magic items) closely." I'm sure you could make a better description but you get the idea.
The Kickstarter looks fine for 5e people, but it's kind of a shame that all that creativity can't also be focused into more OSR friendly material. Especially the Loot & Lore books look like they could be made more OSR/generic fantasy friendly fairly easily.