There’s no place like home. It’s comfortable, it’s where you get to rest, and we can be so used to it that we can traverse the place without any lights, just out of sheer memory. It’s also a nice place to get powerful bonuses and kill those pesky adventurers who keep foiling your plans.
One of the staples in monster design fromDungeons & Dragonsis lair actions. Whether they’re a separate thing that happens during certain moments of the fight, like in the 2014 rules, or they’re passives or part of the stat block, like in the 2025 Monster Manual, powerful monsters often have them. What if you want to create some of your own actions, though?
10Use References
If You Have The Book, Use It
When we have our concepts, sometimes we wonder if we’re going too far - unless you already have a lot of experience as a DM. Either that or we want to use these actions, but a creativity block is getting in the way. Why not check monsters with lair actions in the book and see what’s up?
Between liches,sphinxes, dragons, and more, you’re able to see a monster who resembles your homebrew creature and see if they have lair actions to offer you. Alternatively, you can also check homebrew ideas from the community online.
9Increase Your Monster’s Stats Or Other Values
It Ain’t Much, But It’s Honest Work
While not the flashiest idea, giving your monster simple buffs works surprisingly well. For instance, many monsters in the 2025 Monster Manual get an extra Legendary Resistance when they’re in their lair.
You could also increase their AC, base health, attack or damage bonuses, etc. We recommend doing more than that or something else entirely for high-level monsters, but buffing them is a good idea for making a mid-level boss more intimidating without going overboard.
8Give Your Monster Access To Unique Traits, Attacks, Or Spells
Unlimited Power
You can give your monster new abilities instead of upgrading one of the base numbers. You can give them passive traits, such as resistance or immunity, different types of movement, or things like Evasion, etc.
you’re able to also give them unique attacks empowered by their lair or evenaccess to spellsthey normally can’t use. Alternatively, you can choose a spell from their list and let them cast it without requiring spell slots - just don’t do that with something too strong, like Power Word Kill.
7Give Your Monsters Abilities That Complement Their Other Abilities
Don’t Give Them Random Stuff
Along with our previous entry, you must consider what fits your monster. Let’s suppose that your BBEG is a master assassin - in fact, the best in your world. When they’re in their lair, you could give them something powerful like Meteor Swarm, but aside from the fact that this spell will destroy your lair, why would you give that to a master assassin?
Instead, think of the traits your monster already has and imagine how you can make them better while in the lair. A master assassin could have the power to go invisible, create illusions of themselves, or cast magical darkness (that they can see through) while in their lair, for example.
6Make The Lair ‘Attack’ The Party
Add Some Environmental Hazards
Your villain doesn’t have to be the only source of damage. When a fight happens in the lair, parts of the place can be damage sources. They can come from traps, power surges, or the whole place (or sections of the lair) can cause periodic damage to enemies of the villain.
With such concepts, you may make clever positioning a key factor in the fight instead of having your players focused only on hitting the enemy repeatedly. You can give hints in the description to let them know where the damage is coming from and let them do their best to avoid it.
You can also make them run to places that, while they avoid damage, will put them at some disadvantage, such as losing line of sight with the boss.
5Make The Lair Weaken The Party
A Different Kind Of Environmental Hazards
Instead of causing damage to your players, your lair can do other things. We already suggested using magical darkness, a powerful way to weaken your players. Still, you can do other similar things that make their abilities less effective.
Your lair can give them penalties on attack or damage rolls, vulnerability toa specific damage type,slow their movement, or give them a negative condition, among other things. Depending on how strong the effect is, we recommend forcing them into saving throws instead of making it a guaranteed thing.
4Create Minions
Don’t Fight By Yourself
Your lair can also create or summon creatures into the fray. You can summon the ghosts of your previous kills to aid you in the fight, have automatons on standby awaiting orders, monstrous pets, or whatever fits your villain’s style waiting to join the fight.
A single monster can often struggle due to a poor action economy compared to a whole party. While legendary actions will help that to an extent, having more creatures is an easy fix to that problem. Plus, for every hit they take, that’s a hit your boss is not taking, and that’s good.
3Let The Players Disrupt Your Lair Actions
So You Can Do Overpowered Lair Actions
We’ve given you too many tips to make things worse for the party, so let’s consider their well-being momentarily. If you want to reward creativity, you can describe what is triggering the lair action, let your players do something about it, or maybe even annul it.
If the action can be canceled, you may also take the opportunity to make it even more terrifying. Perhaps the villain is constantly being healed or is even immune to damage until the party destroys whatever is protecting them.
2Give Hints About The Actions
Especially If They’re Too Powerful
Not every party tries to strategize against their villains, but that can help. If your players gather information about the boss or infiltrate the lair without starting the fight against the BBEG immediately, let them investigate the place and get some clues.
Arcana checks can identify the spells your lair gives the villain. The party can find and disable some of the hazards if they have time to do so, and so on. They’ll love the villain’s expression when they try to trigger a lair action, only for nothing to happen.
1Consider The Narrative
What Lair Fits The Villain?
We’ve mentioned how your lair actions should fit your villain in a mechanical sense - aka give them abilities that match their fighting style - but the plot behind the place is also just as important. What’s the kind of place your villain calls home?
Whether it’s a gigantic cave for a gargantuan monster or a more civilized location for a humanoid type of villain, the place needs to fit into their story, and the same applies to the aesthetics behind the powers, minions, hazards, or other things you add there. A dragon won’t have robot minions fighting beside it - unless that makes sense in your plot.
