Fifth Edition Foes Monster Book

The PDF's out? How cool!

 

[miniaturehoarder]

So excited for this, but the challenge ratings seem a bit skewed for some creatures. Dark Creepers are the same challenge rating/experience point value as a goblin? One has 3 hit dice, can see in perfect darkness, use poison, make sneak attacks, and explodes when you kill it, the other... Well the other is just a goblin. Noticed odd experience point values for quite a few other monsters as well. Still great to see 5E work ups for some many of my favorite monsters. Just gonna have to adjust exp values for some.

Yeah, this was exactly what i was worried about, having to Re-CR a lot of foes.

I kinda like how MM spiders' venom worked, it had to go through your HP to paralyze you, the Areana's venom is wonky in 5E.

 

[Steven Winter]

Our experience playing 5E indicates that many CR ratings in the MM are skewed toward the high side. That's not to say that they're wrong, but when a critter was on the line between two CRs, they went with the higher number. We did the opposite -- if a rating was at all close, we went with the lower number. As players get better at optimizing characters (whether they mean to or not), parties will become more and more capable of handling threats, and even slightly inflated CRs will become more and more apparent.

Steve

 

[Nebulous]

I'm using the flail snail next session.

 

[Sobran]

Yeah, this was exactly what i was worried about, having to Re-CR a lot of foes.

I kinda like how MM spiders' venom worked, it had to go through your HP to paralyze you, the Areana's venom is wonky in 5E.

I'm working on an article examining this actually. I'll make a post when I have it done, likely late tonight or early tomorrow.

 

[Nebulous]

I kinda like how MM spiders' venom worked, it had to go through your HP to paralyze you, the Areana's venom is wonky in 5E.

Huh. It is kinda wonky. I totally don't mind, i just see it as a different (stronger) kind of poison with different effects.

TRAITS
Paralytic Poison: The poisoned creature has tactical
disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks. At the end
of each of its turns, the poisoned creature must attempt a
Con saving throw. On a result of 16 or higher, the poisoned
condition ends and the character becomes immune to this
aranea’s poison. On a result of 11–15, the poisoned condition
continues. On a result of 10 or lower, the creature becomes
paralyzed and no more saving throws are needed. Paralysis
lasts for 1 hour or until the poison is neutralized.

 

[Sobran]

Due to the number of words required to evaluate a creature, I have decided to split this article into three parts, especially as I don't expect it to get shorter as I get to the more complex creatures. You can find part one here: http://fantasticfrontier.com/2015/01/24/fifth-edition-foes-evaluating-challenge-ratings-part-1/

I have creatures picked out for parts 2 and 3, but they aren't written yet, so let me know here or in the comments over there if you have a particular creature you'd like to see analyzed.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yeah, this was exactly what i was worried about, having to Re-CR a lot of foes.

This is one reason I like Fifth Edition Foes: I don't want to have to re-CR all the AD&D monsters. FrogGod games apparently did use the CR evaluation rules from the DMG on all of these monsters. However, the CR evaluation rules have a lot of swing in them: you can build creatures much deadlier than goblins on a CR 1/4 budget, according to the DMG rules, and many of the FEF monsters like Huggermuggers come out deadlier than MM monsters of the same CR level for that reason. (This could happen in AD&D as well: trolls were tougher and deadlier than mekillots, but mekillots gave you way more XP per kill because they had more HD.)

TLDR; if Frog God is using the monster building guidelines more efficiently, that's a good thing. MM monsters are weak.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm working on an article examining this actually. I'll make a post when I have it done, likely late tonight or early tomorrow.

I can hardly wait

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Due to the number of words required to evaluate a creature, I have decided to split this article into three parts, especially as I don't expect it to get shorter as I get to the more complex creatures. You can find part one here: http://fantasticfrontier.com/2015/01/24/fifth-edition-foes-evaluating-challenge-ratings-part-1/

I have creatures picked out for parts 2 and 3, but they aren't written yet, so let me know here or in the comments over there if you have a particular creature you'd like to see analyzed.

Sobran, your analysis of the Gallows tree looks correct, but you've got an important fact wrong: my copy of FEF says the Gallows Tree is XP 10,000 (CR 13), but your article says it has a suggested difficulty of CR 10. Either you misread the entry or we have different versions of FEF.

 

[Sobran]

Sobran, your analysis of the Gallows tree looks correct, but you've got an important fact wrong: my copy of FEF says the Gallows Tree is XP 10,000 (CR 13), but your article says it has a suggested difficulty of CR 10. Either you misread the entry or we have different versions of FEF.

I just got off work. I'll give it a look after dinner. Thanks for the heads up!

EDIT: Nope, it looks like you were right. I must have looked at that 10k and thought CR 10 for some silly reason. I'll get that corrected in the article. Thanks again!