Understanding the design quirks behind Monster Creation in 4e

[Urizen]

I'd also love to check out your design guide as well:

mdavidjarvis AT yahoo.com

thanks so much!

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

Count me in for the design guide as well!

daxdoomslayer
AT
yahoo DOT com

Thanks!

 

[Dragonbait]

I'm another one interested in the formula

Dragnbait

at

verizon.net

Notice the "o" from Dragon is missing. Many people miss that.

Thanks in advance

 

[Scribble]

Yeah the guidelines in the DMG don't seem to be for making perfect by the numbers monsters. They're general guidelines that if you use the numbers will be "close enough for government work."

Not perfect, but you probably won't notice a + or - 1-3 damage here and there in game.

 

[catsclaw227]

OK -- add in another for your 4e monster design doc.

matto323
[at]
yahoo
dotcom

 

[El Mahdi]

Tequila Sunrise, I don't want to swamp you with a request either but I would definitely be interested in it. Maybe you could put it in the 4E downloads section?

 

[Arg-ha Lardgoa]

yeah one more
arg_ha
@
yahoo.com

 

[occam]

The designers didn't use their own guidelines. This is most obvious with damage values, but if you take a close look at attacks and defenses you'll realize that they also ignored their own formula.

Yeah, I noticed this when I started going through the MM comparing every monster to the design guidelines. Hit points, initiative, and (barring racial bonuses) skills are strictly according to formula, but defenses, attacks, and damage are all over the place.

Given the errata so far (especially the Big Erratum for DMG p. 42), and the history of errors in 3.x Monster Manuals where the numbers weren't even supposed to be arbitrary, these observations don't inspire me with confidence about how trustworthy the new math of 4e really is. How would we even know if numbers in the MM are off balance? If I use the DMG guidelines to create monsters, will I unintentionally create unbeatable opponents, or paper tigers?

I'm OK with moving away from 3e's slavish devotion to monster construction rules, but when the majority of monsters don't work according the creation guidelines provided, I think it's time for different guidelines, perhaps something forthcoming in the virtual pages of Dragon.

If you're interested, I wrote a detailed guide to 4e monster creation. Unfortunately my site is temporarily MIA, but I can email it.

I'd be interested, too, but I don't want to help bombard you with another email request. Could you post it in a blog here or something?

 

[Rechan]

I think you should just post your guidelines on EnWorld, maybe in the Houserules forum, instead of emailing half of EnWorld.

 

[Grazzt]

Yeah, I noticed this when I started going through the MM comparing every monster to the design guidelines. Hit points, initiative, and (barring racial bonuses) skills are strictly according to formula, but defenses, attacks, and damage are all over the place.

Hit points don't always follow the guidelines either. Check any insubstantial monster for example. The hp formula seems to omit their Con score (which is fine I guess considering they only take 1/2 damage anyway).