ChucksChucks

Introduction

Chucks helps your AI chatbot build balanced 5e-compatible combat encounters. Tell it your party (size and levels) and how hard you want the fight to be — it returns a roster of 2024 SRD monsters, with checked XP math.

How to use it

There are two ways to run Chucks. Pick whichever fits how you already work.

  • Chucks Chat — the hosted chat, built right into this site. Sign up, add your own AI provider key, and start building encounters. Best if you already have your provider account, billing, and limits set up, and are comfortable with tools like OpenClaw.
  • Use with your own AI — add Chucks to a chatbot you already use. It's delivered as a custom Connector (an MCP server) plus a Skill (a prompt); any tool that supports both can run it.
    • Claude.ai — works on the free tier, no subscription required.
    • Mistral Vibe — works on the free tier, no subscription required.
    • Claude Cowork — installed as a Plugin from the Chucks Marketplace, with auto-updates.
    • Claude Code — installed as a Plugin from the command line, with auto-updates.
    • Codex — installed as a Plugin from the command line, with auto-updates.
    • Other setup options — for custom agents or any other tool that supports MCP connectors and slash commands or skills.

Output shape

Every encounter comes back as two sections: an Encounter Hook that frames the scene and a Roster listing the monsters, their counts, and the total XP. See your first encounter for a worked example end-to-end.

What it won't do

There are a few things Chucks can't do. It's better to know them upfront so you don't fight the tool:

  • Invent a twist for you. Ask the AI for something original and you'll mostly get vanilla — LLMs are bad at inventing genuinely surprising fights. If you want an unusual composition, say what unusual looks like yourself: drow riding giant spiders, goblins on worgs, a single boss with a swarm of minions. If you just want variety without deciding, ask Chucks to roll a random encounter — a real draw from the curated monster pool that comes back different every time. See prompting tips for examples.
  • Guarantee coherent rosters. When the XP budget is tight or the monster pool is thin, the AI will pad the roster with whatever fits the math rather than admit the encounter can't be built — which is how you end up with merfolk fighting alongside sahuagin.
  • Include error-prone fluff. Read-aloud text, tactical advice, and stat block summaries are hard to get reliably right. Most of the time they're fine; the misses are bad enough — sentences nobody can parse at the table, advice like you're stuck between the monsters and a forest, or stat blocks with invented abilities or wrong-edition numbers — that none of it ships by default. You can opt back in via Customize.
  • Replace the Game Master. Your AI chat builds the roster and an encounter hook; you run the fight.

More tools coming

A monster builder for homebrew stat blocks, an NPC generator. No dates yet.