In substantial monsters hit point totals.

[Mouseferatu]

Not really - if you double their hit points, they still come out ahead monsters without Insubstantial. Just not as much (i.e. by 100%, which would be the jump from normal to elite, hit point-wise).

This. You're not reducing the HP to the point where it's a zero-sum situation; just to the point where the creature's still within the realm of what's vaguely reasonable for its level, as opposed to doubling the HP.

 

[Ulthwithian]

I'll also note that some insubstantial monsters have Regeneration, and thus get 'double' the hit points back from that compared to other monsters.

 

[keterys]

I'm guessing to at least a certain extent the formula is 'What felt right'. We've got some creatures with insubstantial that are unchange, some that are changed to be -Con, some that are treated as 2 less hp per level, some that are off but don't fit any pattern at all, etc.

Given that there was a mass hp rewrite where they added more hp to stuff, I'd not be surprised if some unintentional error creeped in from that, too.

 

[Jhaelen]

It's not only insubstantial monsters that don't follow the guidelines exactly. Unfortunately there's absolutely no way to tell if that is by design or if it's a mistake.

I guess that's good for the designers, because in 3E everyone was constantly complaining about errors in stat-blocks because everyone could do the math. In 4E, if something doersn't follow the guidelines it's a feature (of exception-based design), not a bug.

Also, the guidelines for giving armor to monsters don't work as written except in some rare cases.

Anyway, some things I noticed:
- Orcus doesn't have enough hitpoints.
- Many minions seem to have the wrong level OR their attribute modifiers are wrong.

 

[Mengu]

They don't seem to all fit a formula. If you wanted to use a formula to add Insubstantial to a monster, I'd say subtract (level+1)x2 HP (or if you are creating a monster from scratch, reduce role HP's by 2, so for instance a soldier becomes a 6 instead of an 8). This seems to fit at least 7 of the monsters with Insubstantial. At least 3 such monsters seem to be off by 2-3 HP's up or down, so the formula should give you a close enough number. And at least 2 such monsters seem to have no adjustment at all, 1 of which is an elite. These 2 are either oversights, or were left alone to be more powerful by design.

 

[ki11erDM]

After creating a few dozen home brewed monsters and trying to use the MM and the DMG rules as a guild I can say that almost every monster in the MM has something ‘wrong’ with it. Almost nothing follows the ‘rules’ completely.

Ether they wanted it that way or they totally botched the MM. I honestly don’t know which. I have just come to accept it and treat it like 1e monster design… just hand weave some random numbers and see if it works. : (

 

[Big J Money]

Have you guys thought about creating different HP formulae based on combat role? Or, taking into account the number of powers granted?

 

[shadowguidex]

Well I guess I'm just going to remove 2xlevel hit points from all insubstantials that I make in the future, that should be a reasonable approximation of the unknown mechanic behind their hit point totals. I tend to adjust monsters to fit my needs most of the time, so I am constantly making level and power alterations to monsters, and all worked perfectly well until I started trying to modify the insubstantials.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Ether they wanted it that way or they totally botched the MM. I honestly don’t know which. I have just come to accept it and treat it like 1e monster design… just hand weave some random numbers and see if it works. : (

The rules in the DMG are just rough guidelines to produce approximately correct monsters, not hard in-depth rules, i.e. they wanted it that way.

That's actually a nice thing for some - it's more freeform, with the maths as starting point only.

Cheers, LT.