Quote from: Doom;1071627This. Most of the monsters are basically 2nd edition monsters, unaware of the power creep. "Mage Slayer" should be a built in feat for half of them, "Always get opportunity attacks" is another, "Magic Resistance" needs to be not-stupid (the most common spells don't have saves anyway, and there's always autofail methods), spellcasting monsters should cast spells as a bonus action (most of them),
ways to counter "I win" buttons would be good, multi-attack should be on just about every monster past CR3 or so, many more should have effective ranged attacks, perhaps a few other things to bring them in line with the "new and improved" PCs.

Maybe it's just my style of play, but I find that Tome of Beasts meets this requirement for me.  Not in the specific things you are discussing, but that when I use monsters from it in my usual way, the players are challenged.  I do tend to ignore CR guidelines, because I expect the players to scout and be clever in their encounters, or get lucky, or die.  So that tends to lead to bigger monster groups than the CR guidelines indicate, but not radically so.

Quote from: Brad;1071686"Marking out" parts of a game book just seems...wrong. It makes me anxious. Not a fan of defacing books, regardless of their content.

It is a war crime in many cultures.

Quote from: Razor 007;1071508Not 5 things, mind you; but what is that 1 thing that would make it even better?

I say, an NPC Codex, like Pathfinder has.  That is a great resource.

Cheaper books. The only reason I haven't gotten the 5th edition stuff is that there's competing gaming products that I prioritize over 5th. If there were cheaper versions of the core books, I would have picked them up by now.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1071712Cheaper books. The only reason I haven't gotten the 5th edition stuff is that there's competing gaming products that I prioritize over 5th. If there were cheaper versions of the core books, I would have picked them up by now.

I recently read something about someone dumping 5E books on Amazon, to the point that retailers were buying them from Amazon rather than traditional distributors.  Seemingly confirmed, as when I looked a week ago, the majority of WotC's 5E stuff on Amazon was priced more than 50% off, so you might check it out, if you haven't lately.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1071688Maybe it's just my style of play, but I find that Tome of Beasts meets this requirement for me.  Not in the specific things you are discussing, but that when I use monsters from it in my usual way, the players are challenged.  I do tend to ignore CR guidelines, because I expect the players to scout and be clever in their encounters, or get lucky, or die.  So that tends to lead to bigger monster groups than the CR guidelines indicate, but not radically so.

Oh yeah, Tome of Beasts definitely helps, lots of monsters that don't fall to easy I Win buttons or otherwise can do something besides 1d8 + 2 damage.

Quote from: Doom;1071725Oh yeah, Tome of Beasts definitely helps, lots of monsters that don't fall to easy I Win buttons or otherwise can do something besides 1d8 + 2 damage.

I like to use ToB for 'boss battles' and 'specials'; they definitely are meaner than the MM monsters.

Quote from: BronzeDragon;1071542Actual Campaign Settings.

A pretty big part of Storm King's Thunder is a description of many, many key locations in the Savage Coast region of the Forgotten Realms. Likewise Out of the Abyss and the Underdark beneath the Savage Coast.

Yeah, they're choosing to wrap their setting information in their mega adventures, which does include a lot of information that might not be of interest if you're just looking for the campaign setting. But the setting information is out there.

Quote from: Doom;1071725Oh yeah, Tome of Beasts definitely helps, lots of monsters that don't fall to easy I Win buttons or otherwise can do something besides 1d8 + 2 damage.

Just make sure to double check some of the entries. Some had errors like referencing a "reflex save." But it's pretty easy to figure out what they meant and the creativity of the monsters more than makes up for some small glitches on only a few beasts.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1071688Maybe it's just my style of play, but I find that Tome of Beasts meets this requirement for me.  Not in the specific things you are discussing, but that when I use monsters from it in my usual way, the players are challenged.  I do tend to ignore CR guidelines, because I expect the players to scout and be clever in their encounters, or get lucky, or die.  So that tends to lead to bigger monster groups than the CR guidelines indicate, but not radically so.

I've heard that Tome of Beast is basically a better monster manual.

Would saying Arms Law be cheating?

Anyhow, on a less extensive level more monsters need resistance and immunity at least on par with what the Barbarian can get.

Quote from: David Johansen;1071746Would saying Arms Law be cheating?

Anyhow, on a less extensive level more monsters need resistance and immunity at least on par with what the Barbarian can get.

You could always give them a level of Barbarian.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1071742I've heard that Tome of Beast is basically a better monster manual.

Yes and no.  I'm not sure I'd want to run a game with nothing but ToB.  But in practice, I'd say ToB is to the MM what the MM is to the short list of monsters in the back of the PHB, plus the ones in the rules of the starter set.  There was nothing really wrong with using the PHB/starter set creatures before the MM arrived, but the GM was going to need to do some creative monsters of his own pretty darn quick in the campaign, maybe ad hoc adjustments based on those few examples provided.  The MM added to that gives you a bigger range of choices (CR's covered, types of creatures, etc.) but it doesn't take chances.  I expect WotC thought that they needed to hit as many of the traditional creatures as they could, of they'd get flack.  (And that was probably correct.)  

Probably a quarter to a third of ToB creatures are so off-beat that I'll never use them.  Or out of 4 different ways to do some wacky thing, I'll maybe use one, eventually.  They took chances.  Where they hit what I need, though, it's been near perfect.

Quote from: NeonAce;1071539This is a pretty fundamental change, so not realistic, but I'd say "De-magic-ify everything massively!" There are 12 classes in the PHB. 9 of them do magic. If you include options/paths chosen at 3rd level or whatever, like every class. Personal opinion and everything, but it is part of the puzzle that contributes to the "Fantasy Super Hero" thing that harshes my fantasy vibes. Kewl super powers and spells everywhere.

This would be nice. I'd also scrap pseudo-Vancian magic: either go full Vancian or come up with something else, and don't use the same spellcasting mechanics for every class.

Quote from: kythri;1071720I recently read something about someone dumping 5E books on Amazon, to the point that retailers were buying them from Amazon rather than traditional distributors.  Seemingly confirmed, as when I looked a week ago, the majority of WotC's 5E stuff on Amazon was priced more than 50% off, so you might check it out, if you haven't lately.

So it is. A search pulled up books for 20something bucks a pop. (PHB, DMG, MM) But then, I don't have a group interested in 5th, so I'm not going to order them. Like I've said, it would be an impulse buy at the local RPG shop if I did, and there the prices are still 50-60 bucks each.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1071759You could always give them a level of Barbarian.

Yeah, the problem, of course, is that many monsters that should be scary tough are only resistant to non-magic weapons while the barbarian is resistant to slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning at first level while raging.