D&D (2024) Why No Monster Creation Rules in D&D 2024?

[the Jester]

Having over 500 statblocks to re-skin seems more like art to me. With the benefit that you nail WotC's intended CR every single time.

Reskinning is a far cry from making your own monsters.

 

[Remathilis]

I find it interesting that nobody has started threads on how the DMG removed the race/species design information from the DMG. Or how there is no guidance in either 2014 or 2024 on how to create a feat. The spells and magic items sections are verbatim (and barely much use). Yet its the monster rules (and their sprawling mass of tables) that get missed.

Here's quick hint: the DMG in 2014 wasn't very good for giving ANY creation guidelines. You cannot view the advice it gave for creating a class or subclass as anything less than "FAFO". Only the monster rules, with its 20-step process and multiple charts, looks anywhere close to actual rules, and that is incredibly deceiving since much of the monster rules come down to "write down some numbers, see if they match the expected CR, and if they don't write down different numbers and repeat".

Honestly, I think the biggest tell is that WotC is admitting the rules weren't really doing what they were supposed to and opted quietly remove them (along with the useless rules for creating races or classes). That kind of creation is advanced and requires some knowledge of game design.

 

[the Jester]

There were rules in 3.x that you could use to build NPCs, nothing for monsters that I know of.

There were. They were in the 3.5 Monster Manual. The original monster creation rules for 3.0 were first released in an issue of Dragon Magazine.

 

[Azzy]

I am curious if the designers have said, in blog posts or videos or whatever, why precisely they decided to not include full monster design rules in the 2024 DMG or MM? (And no, the DMG "rules" presented are not what I am talking about.)

Is it because they are going to appear somewhere else later? Or is there no actual system behind it all? Or is there a system but the team doesn't think DMs can handle it?

If there is no word from the designers or WotC as a whole, what do you think the reason is?

Earlier last year, the had said that they were going to provide a tool to calculate CR for monsters (I don't feel like trying to look for the post, though). If they still plan to do so or what form that's supposed to take, I don't know. But it's something that we need to hold them to.

 

[Morrus]

Horse s.h.it.

'Bypassing' the profanity filter doesn't make you clever. Don't do that, please.

 

[Reynard]

I find it interesting that nobody has started threads on how the DMG removed the race/species design information from the DMG. Or how there is no guidance in either 2014 or 2024 on how to create a feat. The spells and magic items sections are verbatim (and barely much use). Yet its the monster rules (and their sprawling mass of tables) that get missed.

Here's quick hint: the DMG in 2014 wasn't very good for giving ANY creation guidelines. You cannot view the advice it gave for creating a class or subclass as anything less than "FAFO". Only the monster rules, with its 20-step process and multiple charts, looks anywhere close to actual rules, and that is incredibly deceiving since much of the monster rules come down to "write down some numbers, see if they match the expected CR, and if they don't write down different numbers and repeat".

Honestly, I think the biggest tell is that WotC is admitting the rules weren't really doing what they were supposed to and opted quietly remove them (along with the useless rules for creating races or classes). That kind of creation is advanced and requires some knowledge of game design.

The argument that it's not a problem because there are other rules that weren't included isn't compelling in the slightest.

 

[Charlaquin]

You make the formula, playtest it, then make adjustments to the formula based on the playtesting, then you publish the adjusted formula. All of these steps take as long as is needed to produce a happy result.

And Bob's your uncle.

Except no formula is going to work for every single monster. There will always be cases where deviation from the formula is necessary. Even if you could come up with some magical one-size-fits-all formula, applying it universally would make all monsters, well, formulaic, which is boring.

 

[Scribe]

I find it interesting that nobody has started threads on how the DMG removed the race/species design information from the DMG. Or how there is no guidance in either 2014 or 2024 on how to create a feat. The spells and magic items sections are verbatim (and barely much use). Yet its the monster rules (and their sprawling mass of tables) that get missed.

Here's quick hint: the DMG in 2014 wasn't very good for giving ANY creation guidelines. You cannot view the advice it gave for creating a class or subclass as anything less than "FAFO". Only the monster rules, with its 20-step process and multiple charts, looks anywhere close to actual rules, and that is incredibly deceiving since much of the monster rules come down to "write down some numbers, see if they match the expected CR, and if they don't write down different numbers and repeat".

Honestly, I think the biggest tell is that WotC is admitting the rules weren't really doing what they were supposed to and opted quietly remove them (along with the useless rules for creating races or classes). That kind of creation is advanced and requires some knowledge of game design.

I'd hope after a decade for improvement across the board. All of what you are describing should have been included, because frankly its not as if everything else they did provide was a step forward either.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Except no formula is going to work for every single monster. There will always be cases where deviation from the formula is necessary. Even if you could come up with some magical one-size-fits-all formula, applying it universally would make all monsters, well, formulaic, which is boring.

that it's going to be necessary to deviate from the formula at times isn't a good enough reason to not include the formula at all IMO, yes it's not going to be perfect in every situation but it at least gives people a baseline to work off of rather than guessing blindly from zero.

 

[Reynard]

Except no formula is going to work for every single monster. There will always be cases where deviation from the formula is necessary. Even if you could come up with some magical one-size-fits-all formula, applying it universally would make all monsters, well, formulaic, which is boring.

The fact that no system will be perfect does not obviate the need for the system.