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Here's another late night #dnd tip for #dnd5e designers, DMs, and dungeoneers: Think about the battlefield when designing encounters. Work in means to take advantage of monster strengths while complicating matters for players. Add auras, retributive damage, and condition creating
effects to your creatures. Keep them small, but impactful. Make the adventurers think twice about getting up close and personal with the creatures by adding small effects that ping them for a few hit points or impose an inconvenient condition while within a certain range of the
enemy. Then manufacture situations where the enemy might box the adventurers in or corral them into a position where those little inconveniences add up. Also do not be afraid of effects that heal the enemy while harming the adventurers. Fighting monsters should be scary, and a
creature that heals a little every time a player starts its turn within 30 feet of it, or that imposes disadvantage due to a stench effect or the like can really ramp up the sense of peril in an encounter. See the Pain Doll in Scarred Lands Creature Collection for a perfect
example of what I am talking about.
