D&D 5E Next Playtest Bestiaries

[SpiderMonkey]

Hi, all.

How do you think the Bestiaries for some of the Next Playtest conversions would still hold up? I'm looking particularly at Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth and the Against the Slavers series.

Thanks in advance!

SM

 

[MortalPlague]

They should hold up just fine.

There are some tweaks you'll need to make. In general, older bestiaries had lower HP values, and gave monsters higher to hit. Take the Elite Ogre from "Against the Slave Lords Bestiary"; he has 32 hp and +6 to hit. In the regular game, normal ogres have 59 hp and +4 to hit (I believe?). A little bit of switching up might be necessary there, but nothing too huge.

You won't, however, have any way to gauge CR or XP value.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

Are those to hit vs HP numbers still equitable in the CR tables by any chance? There is a definite sliding scale to CR based on defenses and offences, and so I'm wondering if they stack up as functional equivalents after calculating CRs.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Checking the their offensive and defensive CR can help.

 

[Hriston]

I'm still using some of the monsters from the final playtest and I just calculate the CR as per the DMG.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

Wonderful! Thanks for the responses, all.

 

[the Jester]

They should hold up just fine.

There are some tweaks you'll need to make. In general, older bestiaries had lower HP values, and gave monsters higher to hit. Take the Elite Ogre from "Against the Slave Lords Bestiary"; he has 32 hp and +6 to hit. In the regular game, normal ogres have 59 hp and +4 to hit (I believe?). A little bit of switching up might be necessary there, but nothing too huge.

You won't, however, have any way to gauge CR or XP value.

I disagree that playtest monsters hold up just fine- they pretty much fail to hold up much better than the 1e version of a monster would. The last thing that the design team did was work out the monster math, and it wasn't done during the public playtest at all. IMHO you need to make major adjustments and/or re-evaluate playtest monsters' CR; as is, they are useless pieces of tissue paper compared to the monsters in the final game.

I'd either heavily revise them or, better yet, stat them up from scratch, personally.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You could always set the CR based on their stats -- look up their offenses and defenses on the table, average the two, and call it good!

 

[painted_klown]

Perhaps I am speaking from pure ignorance, but my initial thought was just to take the monsters stats in the Next adventures and swap them for the stats listed in the 5E monster manual.

Am I missing something major, or are these monsters not in the MM?

 

[MortalPlague]

Am I missing something major, or are these monsters not in the MM?

They are not.

Plenty of the Against the Slave Lords monsters are specific humanoids, similar to the ones at the back of the MM but with class features blended in. There's about 30 of them. So while you could homebrew them, it's a lot easier if the monsters hold up with a couple of minor tweaks.