Current Monster Design Rules

[Charwoman Gene]

Is there a better writeup for current philosophy monster building other than using the DMG and applying the errata?

 

[Mentat55]

If you follow two pages out of the July 2010 update, which contains the damage expressions by level and the attacks/AC/HP for different roles, that is all you need. That, and the revised suggestions for solos, elites, and minions from the DMG2, which are pretty brief -- solos have x4 HP, elites have x2 HP, and minions do more damage (I usually use the MM3 minions for guidance).

Unfortunately, I am not sure there is a more concise or informative writeup about the revised monster design philosophy. And if you look in the Monster Vault, you'll see that monsters are being further refined, particularly solos. Actually, that would have been a great place to put a revised set of monster-building guidelines.

 

[fanboy2000]

MV would have been perfect for updated monster building philosophy, but alas, it was not so!

It seems that the 4e designers are making a deliberate attempt to show that monster building is an art, not a science. A noble stance, but it'd be nice to have all the info in one place.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

No.

 

[Superking]

Let us not forget this excellent post from EnWorld;

http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-discussion/285294-doing-monster-math-original-monster-manual.html

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Monster building was ALWAYS an art. Really the DMG1 guidelines with the latest errata for damage and other stats is what their is. There never were much in the way of guidelines for powers and such beyond their basic math. There isn't even really any advice on what sorts of conditions monsters should dish out, etc. There was a bit of a 'solos and elites should probably have some things that improve their action economy' stuck in there, but that is hardly sage advice, though OK as far as it goes.

I don't think Essentials is intended to delve into this territory at all really. It doesn't contain any specific rules on building monsters, period. Of course there was no such advice in any edition before 3.0 either. It is an advanced concept/skill and Essentials is aimed at providing the basics, not the kitchen sink. Maybe they'll have something more to say in the new 'options' book that is coming out but who can say really. If you have the 2 DMGs and have taken a look at MM3 or MV or even Demonomicon you should have some pretty good examples to go by as well.

Seems to me the best idea if you want really excellent monsters is either reskin something and/or run it by us here. There are plenty of people here with a lot of experience building monsters. You'd be well advised to do a bit of playtesting with them as well. Even some pretty nice paper designs don't always work out like you'd think they would in all cases.

 

[Korgoth]

MV would have been perfect for updated monster building philosophy, but alas, it was not so!

It seems that the 4e designers are making a deliberate attempt to show that monster building is an art, not a science. A noble stance, but it'd be nice to have all the info in one place.

I agree. I like Essentials but I'd like for them to give the updated monster (and trap!) building info for those of us who are primarily adopting 4E through the Essentials line.

 

[Psikus]

This doesn't cover the whole monster building process, but for monster damage, I find it useful to work with average damage values rather than tables with damage expressions. The latest progression can be reduced to very simple formulas (i.e. 8+level damage, for normal monsters), so it's easy to implement a monster atack on the fly.

Damage formulas for normal, elite, solo monsters
Damage formulas for minions (slightly different from DMG2 guidelines)