D&D General 2024 Monster Creation

[the Jester]

Again

Increased page count.
Increased cost.
Increased complaining.

If you go to a restaurant and they stop serving any kind of beverage, it doesn't matter if they added 30 food items. They've still made a horrendously bad choice.

 

[Zaukrie]

I don't think you people are giving yourselves enough credit. I'm pretty sure if any of you wanted to make a new monster, you'd be able to create one just by looking at what other monster statblocks have in them and then porting the ideas over. You don't actually need "rules" on how to do it.

Same way that you probably will end up making and balancing your own encounters using your own knowledge and intuition, rather than relying on a set of rules WotC would have given you that you would have soon discovered didn't actually work effectively for how you run your game anyway.

Trust in your abilities as a Dungeon Master. You are better at it than you think.

This. Most monsters are the same, other than fluff. Even in good books.

 

[Minigiant]

The chart was only one part of a far more robust process that can put out very interesting and cool monsters.

Just reading the numbers off the chart was a bad approach, but is sufficiently accurate to allow off-the-cuff improvisation in the moment when the DM throws out an impromptu encounter with creatures not fully ready for

But the "How to make a bigger Ogre" chart is all you will get for free.

 

[Minigiant]

If you go to a restaurant and they stop serving any kind of beverage, it doesn't matter if they added 30 food items. They've still made a horrendously bad choice.

If the product is not well liked and takes up space, The restaurant will take it off the menu.

 

[the Jester]

But the "How to make a bigger Ogre" chart is all you will get for free.

It certainly shouldn't be. If the DMG doesn't tell DMs how to do it themselves- "doing it" including crafting their own monsters- it's not much of a guide for DMs at all. (With the caveat that if those specific rules are in the MM, that's probably okay.)

 

[the Jester]

If the product is not well liked and takes up space, The restaurant will take it off the menu.

Or tune it up to make it more enjoyable. Again, taking away all the beverages you serve because some people complain that a few of them are bad is poorly considered, to put it mildly.

 

[dave2008]

Got it. I was thinking about B,P,S, but I had forgotten about the customizing to your party. I probably forgot it since I never do that (not at all how I run game). It would be useful for me if they had more objective rules for that, but I might end up needing to finish my replacements for that one.

You can just use the 3 or more guideline and run with that (that is generally what I do, except I add one / 5 CR after CR 15 and I assume magic weapons above CR 15 as well). The point is, if your group can bypass all of those then the CR will not really reflect what your group can handle. I don't see anyway around that really.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You aren't getting a better version for the same money.

Business 101.

So by that definition, the 5.5 DMG is no better than the 5.0 one, because it doesn't cost more? Interesting.

 

[Minigiant]

It certainly shouldn't be. If the DMG doesn't tell DMs how to do it themselves- "doing it" including crafting their own monsters- it's not much of a guide for DMs at all. (With the caveat that if those specific rules are in the MM, that's probably okay.)

Sure

But the rules being asked for that would have no complaints would be 20 pages.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure

But the rules being asked for that would have no complaints would be 20 pages.

I don't see this as a problem.