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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Primitive Screwhead" data-source="post: 6885245" data-attributes="member: 20805">Actually I think we are talking past each other, with text based communication and terms getting in the way of meaning.Yes, granularly design your monsters and build your brute using attributes and skills.. just like you would design a brutish PC using attributes and skill.But then there is an artificial cap placed on offensive capability via the MDP, the purpose of which is to reduce swingyness caused by variations and increase the 'fun' factor of the game.My recommendation isn't slapping a template on  a monster, but adding an artificial defensive cap whose purpose is to reduce variation and increase the 'fun' factor of the game. Giving the PCs the choice of attacking against  and estimated 30% to hit, 50% to hit, or 70% to hit depending on the enemy target and type of attack selected. The 'special' category includes those creatures {including brutes} that you don't want to be too hard to hit because they are harder to hurt... and these would be ... umm.. special.This also gives the GM a better idea of whether a given monster would be appropriate to include in an encounter. With the artificial cap on defenses you can still plug in an 8th or even 9th grade critter against a group of 5th grade PCs. Even if their High defense score is out of reach of the MDP capped offensive rolls of the PCs, they have a chance at the Med or Low defense scores.-- which often time would be Medium or Low anyway based on stat/skill and not capped by the artificial defense capping anyway.Finally it gives someone who is designing a monster the freedom to design pretty much however they want while limiting the chances of creating a creature that is too much for the players.Granular design requires much more system mastery from the designer, which is good.. but I don't have that system mastery and I don't want my game on Friday to turn into a TPK because I messed up in building/converting the monsters. I tend to use published modules, which means I am converting a lot of 4e monsters right now... see my efforts so far at <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?481215-WOIN-d20-Conversion-Guide-(Monsters)&p=6873058&viewfull=1#post6873058" target="_blank">this post</a> ** not adjusted defense scores</blockquote>

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