The Monsters Know What Theyre Doing

From the creator of the popular blog The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes a compilation of villainous battle plans for Dungeon Masters. In the course of a Dungeons & Dragons game, a Dungeon Master has to make one decision after another in response to player behavior—and the better the players, the more unpredictable their behavior! It’s easy for even an experienced DM to get bogged down in on-the-spot decision-making or to let combat devolve into a boring slugfest, with enemies running directly at the player characters and biting, bashing, and slashing away. In The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, Keith Ammann lightens the DM’s burden by helping you understand your monsters’ abilities and develop battle plans before your fifth edition D&D game session begins. Just as soldiers don’t whip out their field manuals for the first time when they’re already under fire, a DM shouldn’t wait until the PCs have just encountered a dozen bullywugs to figure out how they advance, fight, and retreat. Easy to read and apply, The Monsters Know What They're Doing is essential reading for every DM.

From the author of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes a follow-up strategy guide with MOAR! monster tactics for Dungeon Masters playing fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Keith Ammann’s first book based on his popular blog, The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, unpacks strategies, tactics, and motivations for creatures found in the Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual. Now, in MOAR! Monsters Know What They’re Doing, he analyzes the likely combat behaviors of more than 100 new enemies found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. Your campaign will never be the same!

From the author of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing comes an introduction to combat tactics for Dungeons & Dragons players. In his first book, The Monsters Know What They’re Doing (based on his popular blog), Keith Ammann unleashed upon the D&D world a wave of clever, highly evolved monster tactics. Now it’s only fair that he gives players the tools they need to fight back…and prevail! An introduction to combat tactics for fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons players, Live to Tell the Tale evens the score. It examines the fundamentals of D&D battles: combat roles, party composition, attacking combos, advantage and disadvantage, Stealth and Perception, and more…including the ever-important consideration of how to run away! Don’t worry about creating a mathematically perfect character from square one. Survival isn’t about stats—it’s about behavior! With four turn-by-turn, roll-by-roll, blow-by-blow sample battles, Live to Tell the Tale breaks down how to make the best choices for your cherished characters so that they can survive their adventures, retire upon their accumulated riches, and tell stories about the old days that nobody will ever believe.

Defend yourself and protect your assets in a lair that feels as real and alive as your monsters with advice from Keith Ammann, author of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters. The world is a dangerous place—especially when you’re up to no good. Whether you’re a rampaging monster, a calculating mastermind, or the current possessor of the Golden MacGuffin, someone’s going to come at you. Probably more than one someone. You can’t know when, but you can choose where. You need to be ready. You need a lair. In How to Defend Your Lair, gamemaster Keith Ammann pulls back the curtain on an underrated but crucial part of any tabletop roleplaying game: the theater of battle. Say goodbye to encounters in randomly generated dungeons and hello to a game in which where the fight takes place is just as important as who is doing the fighting. This book teaches you how to use real-world principles of building security and area defense to create strongholds infused with flavor, informed by narrative, and complex enough to force your players to think strategically. You’ll look at the strengths and weaknesses of both defenders and potential attackers, creating spaces that are strong enough to keep out ordinary intruders...and to provide thrilling challenges to extraordinary ones. Including more than a dozen fleshed-out sample strongholds, How to Defend Your Lair is a crucial resource for any RPG gamemaster who wants to push players to think about how to solve problems before running at them head-on.

Tackle life with advantage with this officially licensed guide to life inspired by the world of Dungeons & Dragons! This playful, inspirational book invites fantasy lovers and fans of Dungeons & Dragons to celebrate and incorporate different elements of this iconic tabletop game in their lives and help them live their best, geekiest life. Written by Kat Kruger, the Dungeon Master of the popular Dungeons & Dragons actual play podcast d20 Dames, you'll learn how to take the skills, knowledge, and sense of adventure from your D&D campaign to help you better understand everything from how you interact with the world around you to facing the random events that life sometimes throws at you. With advice from classic player classes—like the Fighter, Warlock, Bard, Monk, or Ranger—and ways to take your experiences as a player (or a Dungeon Master) and use them in your day-to-day life, How to Be More D&D also features interactive elements like "Building Your Character" and "Dungeon Master State of Mind," quizzes like "What is Your D&D Class," and paired with rich, full-color art from the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Whether it is building your real world "character," discovering your ideal class and strengths, harnessing the three pillars of play for everyday use, or using roleplaying techniques to your advantage, How to Be More D&D explores how to enjoy the campaign known as life and is a perfect gift for any tabletop gamer or D&D fan. Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, their respective logos, and the dragon ampersand, are registered trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC. ©2022 Wizards of the Coast. All rights reserved.

Carefully edited for modern readers to allow for easier reading Obsessed with the secret of creation, Swiss scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein cobbles together a body he's determined to bring to life. And one fateful night, he does. When the creature opens his eyes, the doctor is repulsed: his vision of perfection is, in fact, a hideous monster. Dr. Frankenstein abandons his creation, but the monster won't be ignored, setting in motion a chain of violence and terror that shadows Victor to his death. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a gripping story about the ethics of creation and the consequences of trauma, is one of the most influential Gothic novels in British literature. It is as relevant today as it is haunting.

'Do monsters always stay in the book where they were born? Are they content to live out their lives on paper, and never step foot into the real world?' The Villa Diodati, on the shore of Lake Geneva, 1816: the Year without Summer. As Byron, Polidori, and Mr and Mrs Shelley shelter from the unexpected weather, old ghost stories are read and new ghost stories imagined. Born by the twin brains of the Shelleys is Frankenstein, one of the most influential tales of horror of all time. In a remote mountain house, high in the French Alps, an author broods on Shelley's creation. Reality and perception merge, fuelled by poisoned thoughts. Humankind makes monsters; but who really creates who? This is a book about reason, the imagination, and the creative act of reading and writing. Marcus Sedgwick's ghostly, menacing novel celebrates the legacy of Mary Shelley's literary debut in its bicentenary year.

When her entire existence is shattered in the blink of an eye, Ali is forced to partner with secretive bad boy Cole Holland to avenge the deaths of her loved ones by returning an undead army to their graves.