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Message: <blockquote data-quote="slobster" data-source="post: 6002762" data-attributes="member: 6693711">This is a more balanced criticism. I don't necessarily agree, but we can discuss it.The tools themselves unquestionably make my job as a GM easier. I'll give a (hopefully) quick example to illustrate by comparing monster creation from 3.5 and 4th.I'm going to make a dolgrue, an aberration monstrosity to terrorize my PCs. Picking randomly, let's make it around 6th level.<img src="http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111113123652/eberron/images/thumb/a/a2/Dolgrue.jpg/544px-Dolgrue.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />4th: To start with, I need level, role, and tag. My party is level 6 so the level is easy. I see dolgrues as shambling and terrifying, but not particularly sneaky or disciplined. I'm making it a brute. Finally, I'm making him an elite because he should be able to physically dominate more than one PC at a time.3.5: Well we know he's going to be an aberration, so I choose that as his creature type. I know that I want him to be challenging for my level 6 characters, so I decide he'll be CR 7.That was easy so far, now let's start assigning stats!4th: Flipping to the stat guidelines that   [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] helpfully provided, I generate the dolgrue's basic combat abilities quickly. His AC is 18 (12+6<level>-2<brute>), his defenses are 18 (12+6<level>), his to hit bonus is +11 (5+6<level>), and his hp is 172 (26+60<level>*2<elite>). That's a pretty good start.3.5: I go to the back of the MM, where the monster creation guidelines are. First I need to choose a size. Large seems to be about right. Then it gives me a range of appropriate ability scores for that size. I'll go Str 22, Dex 10, Con 22, since I think those stats are about right. The suggested damage values for attack types I'll come back to later. I need to choose HD now. The MM helpfully suggests that the HD should be at least equal to the target CR, but no more than 3 times the target CR. That means my dolgrue will have between 7 and 21 HD! Choosing a value in the middle, my dolgrue will apparently have 14 HD. Flipping back to the aberration type, these HD are d8s, so my dolgrue will have 147 hp (14d8+84). Now he needs an AC, which according to the MM should be equal to its CR +13. My dolgrue's AC is 20 (13+7<CR>) or (10-1<size>+11<natural armor>). Aberrations get good will saves and bad everything else, so his fort save is +10 (4<base>+6<con>), his reflex save is +4 (base), and his will save is +9 (base). At this point I've chosen to have his wisdom be 10.Aberrations have the cleric attack bonus progression, so his str based attacks will be at +15 (10<BAB>+6<str>-1<large>). As a sidenote, the monster building guidelines tell me I should be aiming for an attack bonus of about the monster's CR times 1.5. In this case, that means a +11 attack bonus. As they say:Indeed. Since getting to a +11 attack bonus would mean assigning the dolgrue a strength of 14, which doesn't match my goal of an unstoppable, tank-like monstrosity, I guess I'll just deal with him having an unusually high attack bonus.These are the basic stats needed as the foundation for the monster, but he still doesn't have any attacks!4th: Our dolgrue should have a basic attack. The average damage should be 17.5 (8+6<level>*1.25<brute>). Let's give him a claw attack +11 (1d10+12). Ouch.He is an elite of course, so we want him to be scary to multiple PCs. We also want him to be unique and interesting. Let's add a minor action that lets him toss a foe through the air like a projectile. Minor action: +11 vs. AC; 1d6+6 damage and push 4 squares. If the target would move through a square containing another creature, end the forced movement and knock both creatures prone, and the second creature takes 1d6+6 damage as well.Not every enemy needs an encounter ability, but in this case I think we can justify one. Dolgrue's live in constant agony, so stabbing it repeatedly doesn't scare it, it more just pisses it off. Once per encounter, as a reaction after being damaged by an attack: close burst 1, +11 vs. AC. On a hit it deals 1d10+12 damage and knocks the target prone, and interrupts any marking effects a target had active on the dolgrue.3.5: Again, we'll give him a claw attack. According to the size chart, large creatures' claw attacks deal 1d6 damage. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to increase the damage on that by one step. Dolgrue's have some pretty big claws. That gives us 1d8, plus 6 for strength. Claw +15 (1d8+6).I'm giving him the multiattack feat so that he's more of a threat, so when he's full attacking he'll get 2 of these claw attacks, as well as a bite. The size chart tells me that the bite attack will do 1d8 damage. Since it's a secondary attack, I only apply one half strength bonus to damage, and even with multiattack it's at a -2 penalty. So our dolgrue's full attack is: 2 claws +15 (1d8+6) and bite +13 (1d8+3).I still want to make him seem a little different from other big, physical baddies. I think the rend mechanic is overused (in all editions), so I'll leave that alone. Improved grab and grappling is just a pain to use at the table. I'll try to match the flavor of the 4th edition version of the monster I just made with the following ability: When the dolgrue is struck by a critical hit, it may immediately take an attack action as a free action, even if it is not his turn. I don't know how powerful that ability will be in practice, but it at least rounds out the monster and makes it more than just a reskinned ogre-type.Finally, to reflect that the dolgrue is insane and utterly alien in mindset, I'm giving him a unique special quality. Whenever a humanoid attempts to use a mind-influencing effect on the dolgrue and fails, it becomes enraged. It immediately heals 25 hp and gets a +2 bonus to all damage rolls for 1 hour (these bonuses stack). Any humanoid which attempts to read the dolgrue's thoughts must make a will save DC 18 (10+7<half HD>+1<cha>) or go temporarily insane, as the spell confusion, for 1d4 rounds.________________________________________________So now I'm pretty much done. If this monster were seeing actual play, I'd modify the 4E version slightly, adding a few points to its will defense to represent its alien mindset, deducting a few points from its reflex defense and hp to represent its reckless nature. The 3.5 version sill needs feats, skills, and a couple of other details. But the two are essentially usable in a fight.The 4th edition version was much easier to do. I admit that I'm out of practice in both. Some of my judgement calls may be questionable, and that comes down to personal skill. But the 3.5 version had me hunting through appendices in the book looking for HD and save progression and multiattack rules, while the 4E version boils down to a table a dozen lines long and some common sense. The 3.x rules actually apologized in the actual text for how difficult it made some of the arithmetic contortions to get a reasonable challenge out of their monster creation guidelines, so at least they were aware of the problem. But I'd still take the 4E guidelines any day. In fact, when I GM 3.x/Pathfinder these days, I ignore their creature guidelines and basically used the 4E ones, hacked for the altered math of a different system. The monster is attacking at +15 when it should be +11? Fine, it's +11 now. No need to change the str score or modify the HD, with the cascading series of serial changes that implies. Just change the number. Voila, problem solved, and my players will never know the difference. It's certainly never led to verisimilitude problems at the table. It's freeing and empowering, whereas I consider the morass at the back of the 3.5 MM to be restricting and creativity-killing. As well as a whole lot of work.I apologize for the long, boring post. Hopefully it gets my point across, though. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" /></blockquote>

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