D&D 5E Strange Monster Stat Blocks

[robus]

Prepping for tonight's adventure and the Gladiator stat block (pg 346) puzzles me.

The Gladiator has a spear and a shield. It can make ranged attacks with its spear (throwing it away) or melee attacks with the spear and the shield.

It has multiattack 3 melee or 2 ranged. If 2 ranged that implies it has 2 spears to chuck? And if it's chucked its spears then all that's left to melee with is the Shield Bash which seems a bit clumsy.

Anyway seems weird to me. Why not give it a shortsword or something that it can resort to once the spear(s) are gone. Much more gladiatorial IMHO.

Also the young blue dragon's claw attack only reaches 5 ft? That seems a bit short...

Which stat blocks have caused you to scratch your head and make some changes?

 

[iserith]

In the Monster Manual, page 11, it says: "You can assume that a monster has 2d4 pieces of ammunition for a thrown weapon attack..." A spear is a thrown weapon, so I would assume the gladiator has an average of 5 spears on or near him when a fight breaks out. That's two full volleys plus one for melee. Stick some heads on those spears and plant them into the dirt for a cool terrain feature that is also the gladiator's ammo store.

As for the dragons and other monsters, I try not to have any expectations or assumptions. I take them as they are to keep things simple for myself.

 

[Oofta]

Iserith already pointed out that the gladiator has multiple spears. Even if the book didn't state that, I'd make it happen in my game. For example, most NPCs have at least a dagger or club they can fall back on if they're disarmed. I figure if PCs can be walking armories, so can the NPCs (although the secondary weapons are usually slightly less effective).

For the young blue dragon, I think it makes sense. It has a long neck and 10 ft reach with it's bite, but many large monsters only have 5 ft reach with their melee attacks.

As far as tweaking monsters, I do it too often to give you specific examples. I regularly refluff monsters to fit my vision or to make them more or less difficult so I can't give you any specific examples.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

One other reason why gladiators wouldn't have anything other than spears, even in real life, is that gladiators did not actually fight in life-or-death matches most of the time. They were the Roman equivalent of sports champions. Their equipment loads were designed primarily for show, not effectiveness; compare the typical gladiator load-out from Roman times with that of the typical Roman soldier and you'll notice the typical Roman soldier is much better armed and doesn't use such weapons as nets.

I would actually put a gladiator in a place where the players are not expected to fight to the death, but to please an audience. In which case, knocking down and decapitating their opponent would work to their disadvantage. They would have to beat their opponent without seriously injuring or killing him.

 

[dave2008]

Also the young blue dragon's claw attack only reaches 5 ft? That seems a bit short..

Actually, if you have a large sized dragon mini you will see that 5' for the claw reach is pretty accurate. Actually that is one of the things I like about 5e monsters over 4e monsters. In 4e, if a monster was large, it had a 10' reach - even if that didn't really make sense for the morphology of the beast. In 5e, it seems to me they thought about the actual reach a little more. I do, however, think the ancient dragon's tail reach is too short by 5'-15'

 

[robus]

I would actually put a gladiator in a place where the players are not expected to fight to the death, but to please an audience. In which case, knocking down and decapitating their opponent would work to their disadvantage. They would have to beat their opponent without seriously injuring or killing him.

Yeah so this is probably a bad choice on the part of the adventure writers. They wanted a tough opponent so said use the gladiator stats and add a couple of attacks (but no new weapons)

 

[robus]

In the Monster Manual, page 11, it says: "You can assume that a monster has 2d4 pieces of ammunition for a thrown weapon attack..." A spear is a thrown weapon, so I would assume the gladiator has an average of 5 spears on or near him when a fight breaks out. That's two full volleys plus one for melee. Stick some heads on those spears and plant them into the dirt for a cool terrain feature that is also the gladiator's ammo store.

As for the dragons and other monsters, I try not to have any expectations or assumptions. I take them as they are to keep things simple for myself.

Thanks for reminding me to reread the intro to the MM