Unconverted D&D creatures

Big Mac · Apr 28, 2008

Echohawk said:
Well, a quick count indicates 404 playable D&D humanoid races in my index. That is actually even more than the number statted up as creatures, thanks to the seemingly endless number of dwarven, elven, gnomish, etc. subraces that have appeared throughout D&D history.

And then there are a whole bunch more non-Humanoid creatures playable as characters (17 Aberrations, 4 Constructs, 16 Dragons, 6 Elementals, 21 Fey, 27 Giants, 8 Magical Beasts, 118 Monstrous Humanoids, 64 Outsiders, 5 Plants and 3 Undead).

So I estimate that there are just short of 700 creatures that are (theoretically at least) playable as characters.

Thanks for the info.

I'm sure that some of them have an Level Adjustment that pushes their ECL too high. I'm sure that some of them have too many HD to make it easy to play them. But the thought of being able to look through 700 critters to find playable races is very appealing.

I made something on Google Docs called Monsters As Characers. It is a cross-referenced list of all the playable monsters in the SRD with ECLs (and LAs and HD). It isn't complete yet. I've got some more monsters to add to the table. At some point I'd actually love to expand it and fill in the missing ".... As Characters" sections for all the monsters in the SRD that don't have them.

I hesitate to take on 700 critters, but when you have finished converting everything to 3e, I'd love to have a punt at some of them.

Eventually I'd love to see a collection PDFs of converted monsters (by campaign setting). Something like "Monsters of Maztica" would really help a Forgotten Realms DM to add the Maztica continent to their FR game. And if the playable monsters could be given those "... As Characters" sections it would really help people play monster NPCs.

Beyond the Moons is already onbaord with this concept, although they are still in the very very early stages of developing their Monsters of Wildspace PDF. I'll probably start off with a "Spelljammer Monsters As Characters" list and see how I go from there.

Shade · May 2, 2008

Seeing how we use this thread constantly, I gave it a much-deserved sticky.

Echohawk · May 4, 2008

Updated to take the last few conversions into account. Also: Yay! Thanks for the sticky!

Big Mac · Jun 1, 2008

I'm confused by your current Greyhawk totals

Echohawk said:
By setting/source
Greyhawk: 24

Unique creatures not counted above
Greyhawk: 2

I count 27 creatures in the Unconverted Greyhawk Creatures thread (not 26).

Have you found another missing monster and added it to the Unconverted Greyhawk Creatures thread but forgotten to add it here? Or have you converted a Greyhawk monster and forgotten to subtract it from that thread?

Echohawk · Jun 1, 2008

Both threads were slightly out of date, but the Unconverted Greyhawk Creature one more so

I make the number of unconverted Greyhawk creatures 25 (24 + 1 unique), and I've update both threads accordingly.

Thanks for spotting that!

Big Mac · Jun 17, 2008

The Imagine creatures are down from 5 to 4.

I'm looking forward to seeing it join Maztica at the top of the page.

I realise that you still have a lot of work to do, but, as someone who loved 2nd edition's mass of campaign settings, it is great to see Creature Catalog slowly finishing off the monsters that 3rd edition forgot.

Have you got any plans to collect these monsters into matched sets? For example, now Maztica is done, I would love to see a Monsters of Maztica PDF that took your conversions and presented them in a style that had elements of Monsters of Faerun and the original Maztica house style.

Big Mac · Jun 17, 2008

Echohawk said:
By type

...

Elementals: 28

...

Outsiders: 99

Have you got a breakdown of the number of creatures per elemental plane? (Or in third edition terms elemental subtype.)

Ditto to the outsiders. Are they associated with specific trasitive or outer planes?

I'm sure the Planescape fans would love to see these 127 monsters get finished (along with the Planescape monsters, of course).

Echohawk · Jun 18, 2008

No, unfortunately I don't have those details for the unconverted critters. The type of each unconverted creature is largely a guess, and those entries don't have subtypes or climate/terrain/planes associated with them at the moment in my index.

Echohawk · Jun 19, 2008

Updated, and the total drops to below 1200 for the first time

Big Mac · Jun 19, 2008

Echohawk said:
No, unfortunately I don't have those details for the unconverted critters. The type of each unconverted creature is largely a guess, and those entries don't have subtypes or climate/terrain/planes associated with them at the moment in my index.

Thanks for letting me know. I suppose we will have to work that sort of thing out as we go along (assuming it is possible). I know the Planescape fans would love to know as they could then create an index of elementals and outsiders for each plane and turn it into an encounter table.