D&D (2024) 2025 Monster Manual All You Need to Know video link is up.

[Sulicius]

That's not my experience. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Same here. I think the new DMG guidelines might be better for monster creation, at least for new DM's...

I spent SO MUCH TIME making awful monsters that genuinely made my sessions worse. I don't want anyone to experience that.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That's not my experience. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Happy for you.

While I tried it and got just bags of hitpoints. Especially at low level, not looking anything like a fun creature.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Same here. I think the new DMG guidelines might be better for monster creation, at least for new DM's...

I spent SO MUCH TIME making awful monsters that genuinely made my sessions worse. I don't want anyone to experience that.

Then just use the guidelines in the new book. Take a creature at preferred challenge rating and change details.

 

[Sulicius]

Then just use the guidelines in the new book. Take a creature at preferred challenge rating and change details.

Yeah it was years ago I still did that.

 

[dave2008]

Happy for you.

While I tried it and got just bags of hitpoints. Especially at low level, not looking anything like a fun creature.

If you just use the table that will be the result. The table results need to be modified by a number of factors (saving throw, resistances, immunities, traits, etc.) to get an interesting and balanced monster.

I am in the process of making my own 2024 monster creation rules (to be tweaked when the new MM comes out) which will included an updated Monster Stats by CR table that will be more useful as a quick monster creator. The 2014 table is really only useful if you go through all the modifications, which many fail to do properly.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Then just use the guidelines in the new book. Take a creature at preferred challenge rating and change details.

That is not sufficient for most monsters I make. I do often base monster stat blocks off of an official one, but not always. And even when I do, it usually involves changing the CR, in which case it is necessary to consult the homebrewing monsters table.

I recently made a monster that was a Giant Spider that had fed on a Vampire and turned into a vampiric giant spider. Giant Spiders are CR 1, and I wanted the monster to be a decent challenge for 3 level 3 players, so I made it CR 4 and gave it a couple Spidersilk Mummy servants (simply reflavored Zombies with Fire vulnerability). While I could base most of the Spider’s ability’s on the Giant Spider (Web, bite), I changed a lot of the stat block to increase the challenge and fit the flavor (vampiric health drain on the bite, a fly speed, more hit points, damage resistances).

I would not have been able to calculate the appropriate amount of hit points and damage without the 2014 5e DMG guidelines. If I had looked at other CR 4 monsters, I would have had to consult several different stat blocks to see the range of health and DPR they had and then try to reverse engineer the guidelines from that.

The fight went well because I used the guidelines. It was exactly as difficult as I had wanted it to be. That likely wouldn’t have been true if I had just winged it by using the Couatl stats or something and drastically changing it on the fly to make it work.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If you just use the table that will be the result. The table results need to be modified by a number of factors (saving throw, resistances, immunities, traits, etc.) to get an interesting and balanced monster.

Yes. This table was seriously lacking.

I am in the process of making my own 2024 monster creation rules (to be tweaked when the new MM comes out) which will included an updated Monster Stats by CR table that will be more useful as a quick monster creator.

I hope you make it public once done.
Maybe we get some DM's expanded toolbox book soon. Would make a great extra book. Dungeon building, monster bulding, a lot of optional rules. All those of xanathar and tasha and the old DMG that were left out in the core books. I had prefered them to be in the new 2024 DMG instead of greyhawk.

The coolest way would be another DMG variant with the Greyhawk stuff ripped out and replaced by an expanded toolbox.

The 2014 table is really only useful if you go through all the modifications, which many fail to do properly.

I did a bit for fun. And at medium CR I was halfway satisfied. But for my taste the table used a totally wrong approach. It should have started with a sane amount of HP and AC and damage for CR 1 and below critters.

Actually I really hate all the CR1 and below creatures in the old MM that are close to that guideline, like the thug. I only use that as a low level Elite with minions, because otherwise they are annoying. And even then my players are raising their eyebrows when all their damage does not even bloody them.

What I really liked to see in the bestiary section of the PHB was CR <= 1 beast HP actually going down.
That really makes them work better for how I build my encounters.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That is not sufficient for most monsters I make. I do often base monster stat blocks off of an official one, but not always. And even when I do, it usually involves changing the CR, in which case it is necessary to consult the homebrewing monsters table.

There are enough appropriate CR critters to look at. Find one with a a similar role and just go from there.

I would no be against a monster building guide. But IMO the 5.14 DMG table was just useless.

What I like though was the advice how to assess limited resources and area damage and saving throws.

I recently made a monster that was a Giant Spider that had fed on a Vampire and turned into a vampiric giant spider. Giant Spiders are CR 1, and I wanted the monster to be a decent challenge for 3 level 3 players, so I made it CR 4 and gave it a couple Spidersilk Mummy servants (simply reflavored Zombies with Fire vulnerability). While I could base most of the Spider’s ability’s on the Giant Spider (Web, bite), I changed a lot of the stat block to increase the challenge and fit the flavor (vampiric health drain on the bite, a fly speed, more hit points, damage resistances).

I think it not too difficult to do that using existing stat blocks.

I would not have been able to calculate the appropriate amount of hit points and damage without the 2014 5e DMG guidelines.

Actually looking at the DMG guidelines was detrimental for me... Way too high hp. Way to low damage.

 

[Sulicius]

There are enough appropriate CR critters to look at. Find one with a a similar role and just go from there.

I would no be against a monster building guide. But IMO the 5.14 DMG table was just useless.

What I like though was the advice how to assess limited resources and area damage and saving throws.

I think it not too difficult to do that using existing stat blocks.

Actually looking at the DMG guidelines was detrimental for me... Way too high hp. Way to low damage.

I kept using some resistances, so the HP was pitiful, and the party took them down too easy. Never had a monster with too many hit points. But whatever the case, they all hit like a pool noodle...

 

[I'm A Banana]

That is not sufficient for most monsters I make. I do often base monster stat blocks off of an official one, but not always. And even when I do, it usually involves changing the CR, in which case it is necessary to consult the homebrewing monsters table.

I recently made a monster that was a Giant Spider that had fed on a Vampire and turned into a vampiric giant spider. Giant Spiders are CR 1, and I wanted the monster to be a decent challenge for 3 level 3 players, so I made it CR 4 and gave it a couple Spidersilk Mummy servants (simply reflavored Zombies with Fire vulnerability). While I could base most of the Spider’s ability’s on the Giant Spider (Web, bite), I changed a lot of the stat block to increase the challenge and fit the flavor (vampiric health drain on the bite, a fly speed, more hit points, damage resistances).

I would not have been able to calculate the appropriate amount of hit points and damage without the 2014 5e DMG guidelines. If I had looked at other CR 4 monsters, I would have had to consult several different stat blocks to see the range of health and DPR they had and then try to reverse engineer the guidelines from that.

The fight went well because I used the guidelines. It was exactly as difficult as I had wanted it to be. That likely wouldn’t have been true if I had just winged it by using the Couatl stats or something and drastically changing it on the fly to make it work.

Something like this has been my experience for almost every session I run.

There are enough appropriate CR critters to look at. Find one with a a similar role and just go from there.

I think it not too difficult to do that using existing stat blocks.

So listen when I tell you: this is too difficult (too time-consuming) for me.

The 2024 designers have ballpack damage / attack / hp / ac numbers for a given CR. Why don't we?

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that this is a more "advanced" need, and that the goals of the CR calculator were easily misunderstood, and fed the fire of arguments around CR being trash. Those all make sense to me, and are pretty good reasons at the end of the day.

But when I say this is close to a dealbreaker, I mean that it stops me from running my sessions in D&D24, because creating custom monsters is something that I do extensively. Looting from existing monsters liberally, sure, but I am not going to go through 500 different monsters and calculate a Z-score for standard deviations of HP totals at 20-30 different CR points only to arrive at wrong assumptions after doing all the manual work to reverse-engineer something that the designers already have.

I mean, I'm actually going to rely on the community to patch this, practically. Someone somewhere is going to figure out what "bump" monsters in 2024 are getting over their 2014 versions. Lots of folks out there doing good analysis on the monsters, after all, and I'm sure the 2014 process isn't entirely worthless. And then I'll use that.

But this should not be necessary. D&D has had fairly decent monster creation rules since 4e, and if 2024 breaks that trend, I'm going to whine about it a lot on the internet until it does again. And budget a lot more time for monster building than I used to, probably.