D&D General 2024 Monster Creation

[dave2008]

I have less of an issue with some features being maybe slightly over or undervalued and more of an issue with a lack of guidance concerning things like paralysis, petrification, and other effects that essentially bypass hit points. Include those, and I think the 2014 monster creation guidelines work pretty well.

Actually they did give guidance on this once, but it is not in the DMG, and is also one of those things I hope they include in the new monster building guidelines. Here is how they explained it:

For any condition, find the spell that does just that condition (So for paralysis it is Hold Person). Then find the damage for a spell of that level (2nd level in this case) and use that when calculating DPR.

 

[dave2008]

Sure

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

I have no issue with that, I also don't mind if they are in the MM or another book. They don't have to be in the DMG IMO.

I mean I don't remember them being in the 1e, 2e, or BECMI DMG / DM Guides!

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I have less of an issue with some features being maybe slightly over or undervalued and more of an issue with a lack of guidance concerning things like paralysis, petrification, and other effects that essentially bypass hit points. Include those, and I think the 2014 monster creation guidelines work pretty well.

Those are definitely something I'd like to know about also.

Actually they did give guidance on this once, but it is not in the DMG, and is also one of those things I hope they include in the new monster building guidelines. Here is how they explained it:

For any condition, find the spell that does just that condition (So for paralysis it is Hold Person). Then find the damage for a spell of that level (2nd level in this case) and use that when calculating DPR.

Ah...good to know! That's also exactly the sort of thing I'd like to see in the new guidelines.

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.

I'm totally fine if my players find a particular monster easier or harder due to their particular party make-up or skills or gear. That's a feature! I just like to have a guideline that is "generally applicable" for a solid baseline of D&D parties, and I think the guidelines they gave, that seem like they are supposed to be doing that aren't doing a very good job at it, but maybe my assumptions about parties are off.

 

[Yaarel]

@the Jester

Maybe create a thread here in Enworld for how to create new monsters, reverse engineer the monster math, establish the values of various features and level appropriateness, and tweak it according to experiences and critiques.

 

[Zaukrie]

@the Jester

Maybe create a thread here in Enworld for how to create new monsters, reverse engineer the monster math, establish the values of various features and level appropriateness, and tweak it according to experiences and critiques.

Sounds overly complex to me. Find a similar monster and change a few things. That's the easiest way.

IMO, this idea that abilities and traits have some pure math value of likely not true. Not to mention that you can't build for pure balance because every play group is different. We can get close, but that's easiest by just using an existing stat block.

 

[dave2008]

Those are definitely something I'd like to know about also.



Ah...good to know! That's also exactly the sort of thing I'd like to see in the new guidelines.



I'm totally fine if my players find a particular monster easier or harder due to their particular party make-up or skills or gear. That's a feature! I just like to have a guideline that is "generally applicable" for a solid baseline of D&D parties, and I think the guidelines they gave, that seem like they are supposed to be doing that aren't doing a very good job at it, but maybe my assumptions about parties are off.

I think the assumptions in the DMG do not match typical groups from what I hear. However, they match my group well.

I am working on revision to 5e monster design* that gives monsters levels instead of CR. I base the monster level on an average of 4 PC builds (fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard) using the assumed magic items in the DMG. So this definitely changes the calculations a bit.

*FYI, on his patreon Mike Mearls is doing the same thing, but he hasn't shared his numbers yet

 

[Yaarel]

Jeremy Crawford once said (~6 years ago on DM's Deep Dive #18, clip at 3:45 in the video above) that when evaluating a monster's CR they would take the "harder to define" powers and translate them to the lowest level spell of a similar effect, and then translate that to a list of "representative damage spells by level" (e.g. at 2nd level his marker for a paralyzation/turn-denial power was Scorching Ray). IOW they translated everything that was "harder to define" into "virtual damage." That seems like a weird approach to me, but that's from the horse's mouth. This sort of explanation/chart would take very little space, belongs in this Creature Creation section, and is missing.

Yes, exactly. Everything is ultimately spells. Spells are HOW the game gets balanced, especially at higher levels.

This is why it is so important not to muck about the spell lists, and to make sure every spell is about as powerful as the other spells in the same slot, and generally precision consistency.

 

[Yaarel]

Find a similar monster and change a few things. That's the easiest way.

The 2024 DMs Guide does this exactly: Creating a Creature.

 

[Yaarel]

I think the assumptions in the DMG do not match typical groups from what I hear. However, they match my group well.

I am working on revision to 5e monster design* that gives monsters levels instead of CR. I base the monster level on an average of 4 PC builds (fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard) using the assumed magic items in the DMG. So this definitely changes the calculations a bit.

*FYI, on his patreon Mike Mearls is doing the same thing, but he hasn't shared his numbers yet

Keep me informed. I definitely want a monster building system that uses character levels and eliminates CR.

The trick is, they need an extraordinarily high amount of hit points to survive a round of attacks from player characters, but cant deal too much damage or they will one-shot a player character.

But it is still possible to think in terms of character levels.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I like those guidelines better than the 2014 guidelines which produced very very bad results.