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Monuments of Power

by Mike on 9 September 2024

Like the best lazy GM tricks, monuments serve multiple purposes in our fantasy RPGs.

A monument is a physical object sitting in the middle of a room, location, or scene. They draw our players' attention – making a location feel real. Monuments can act as vehicles for secrets and clues, markers to remember past locations, and artifacts of power to change up combat encounters.

Today we're going to look at the steps for building out encounter-changing monuments of power.

Step 1: Build a Monument

The best monuments are built from the context of the scene. See Chernbog's Well for an example of an in-world monument with some great environmental effects.

Here's a list of baseline monuments from the Lazy DM's Companion:

Sarcophagus
Obelisk
Orb
Bone pile
Skull
Megalith
Pillars
Throne
Statues
Well
Orrery
Effigy
Arcane circle
Spire
Altar
Pit
Fountain
Archway
Cage
Brazier

Random tables help us shake up ideas for monuments. Often, a monument itself isn't enough so we can tie it to conditions, effects, origins, species, gods, moments of history, and other potential variables. You can find useful tables like these in the Lazy DM's Companion as well. It often helps to build your own custom god, faction, or history tables for your own campaign setting and tie those aspects to a monument.

Step 2: Choose CR and Stats

How powerful is the monument? Use your same encounter benchmarks to determine how difficult a monument might be. You probably don't want a monument of a higher CR than the average level of the characters. It likely shouldn't be the most dangerous thing in the room all on its own. Smaller monuments have lower CRs.

Monuments of power may have different effects on the battle. If monument powers are mostly defensive, they might just make the battle longer. If they're offensive, the difficulty might be much higher and have a greater impact on combat. If they can be turned in favor of the characters, manipulating the monument might shift the battle halfway through.

When you select a CR for the monument, you can choose its AC, DC, and hit points from the Forge of Foes quick monster builder, available in the sample chapter. You also give the monument an attack bonus and damage per round if you need it for the effects it produces.

Monuments are immune to psychic and poison damage and probably all status effects. You might give them resistances, vulnerabilities, or immunities depending on the type of monument as well.

Some characters want to bash monuments in which case they attack its AC and do damage like normal. Others may want to perform ability checks to disrupt or turn a monument. In those cases, its AC can act as a DC.

For example, a CR 5 monument has a AC / DC of 15 and 95 hit points. A successful intelligence (arcana) check might inflict 35 damage. You may want to base the amount of damage the character does with an ability check on the damage it otherwise would do in a round. A 9th level character, for example, can likely inflict 35 damage in a single turn so that makes sense.

You might include multiple smaller monuments instead of one single big one. Reduce their CR appropriately for their number and effects.

Step 3: Choose Effects

Monuments of power radiate powerful encounter-changing effects. Here's a list of twenty potential powers a monument might have.

Offers advantage to particular creatures on attacks and saving throws.
Increases damage to particular creature types.
Reduces damage taken by particular creature types.
Unlocks particular abilities of creatures.
Gives access to particular spells they wouldn’t otherwise have.
Obscures vision.
Prevents or reduces healing.
Prevents teleportation.
Acts as a vessel for extra spell concentration.
Has an ongoing protective spell effect.
Offers regeneration.
Animates dead minions.
Grants temporary hit points to nearby creatures.
Grants resistance or immunity to a specific damage type.
Gives a +2 bonus to attack rolls to certain creatures.
Adds damage to the attacks of certain enemies.
Grants the ability to fly.
Summons and controls a powerful creature.
Offers legendary resistance and shrugging off other debilitating effects.
Radiates damage.

Some of these monument effects can protect bosses. Others can throw out damage. You choose what power you want to add to a monument based on the in-world situation and what would be fun for the battle.

You can also tie spell effects to monuments. Here are a few spell effects that work well when tied to a monument:

Globe of invulnerability
Fire shield
Spirit guardians
Spiritual weapon
Darkness
Stone skin
Protection from good
Greater invisibility
Silence
Antimagic field

Step 4: Ensure They're Fun

The line between a fun monument and a tedious monument is thin. The wrong monument with the wrong power can feel like a slog instead of an interesting tactical decision in a big battle. Ensure the monuments you create add to the fun instead of just slowing everything down. In particular, avoid monuments that take away agency. Monuments should add interesting choices to a battle, not take choices away. If a monument is too powerful, the characters have no choice but to go dork with it. But a monument that gives villains an edge creates a choice for the players – do they just bash the boss or go disable the monument?

One great trick is to let players reverse a monument instead of destroy it. Looking down the list of potential effects, ask if there's a way the characters can channel it in their favor instead of just destroying it.

Shaking Up Big Battles

Our 5e games remain interesting session after session because every battle is different. The environment changes. The mix of monsters changes. The situation changes. And with monuments in our bag of tricks, we can change them even further. Our bosses become harder. The characters have to move around. Extra variables create battles completely unique from one game to the next.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Last week I posted a couple of YouTube videos on City of Arches – Running Summervine Villa and Haldrin's Tower – Shadowdark Gloaming Session 41 Lazy GM Prep.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs. Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video:

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers:

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Build layers of gods the characters can discover as they explore the world around them.
Improvise gods by shifting the names, appearances, genders, and domains of existing gods from fiction or history.
Study types of historical artwork and decorations to improvise such features in your game.
Lean in on the characters’ cool abilities.
Change up encounters so the characters discover two groups already engaged in battle.
Mix roleplay, exploration, and combat even in the deepest dungeon.
Warn players that they might not have everything they need, should they have to backtrack in a dungeon.