D&D 5E Only one monster generation method?

[Xeviat]

It's been said, there's really two ways to make your monsters. You can either do whatever you want and then run them through the CR calculator, or you can use the CR table to choose the attributes of your monster.

I use a lot of humanoids, so I build them like PCs and then calculate their CR. It works for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[I'm A Banana]

That works for NPCs, but it doesn't tell you what abilities a (for example) succubus cleric should have. How do the hit points from its class interact with the hit points from its race? And so on.

Why wouldn't a succubus cleric just add the cleric stuff on top of the succubus stuff? When it's all done, get AC/HP/Attacks/Damage and make a new CR.

Or, for that matter, we don't even know what a really big Bulette would look like, in terms of Strength or AC or anything. We have guidelines for how to alter its level and corresponding XP value, based on whatever changes we make, but there's nothing telling us what those changes should actually be. What is the underlying principle for how things work in this world?

There is no universal underlying principle. If you want to make a big Bulette, take the Bulette, make it a size larger. It doesn't need higher STR or AC, but you can add those if you want, and then figure out what it's new CR should be.

There's not really a deeper meaning or significance to size changes or class levels than that.

 

[surfarcher]

Why wouldn't a succubus cleric just add the cleric stuff on top of the succubus stuff? When it's all done, get AC/HP/Attacks/Damage and make a new CR.


There is no universal underlying principle. If you want to make a big Bulette, take the Bulette, make it a size larger. It doesn't need higher STR or AC, but you can add those if you want, and then figure out what it's new CR should be.

There's not really a deeper meaning or significance to size changes or class levels than that.

Exactly what I was saying.

For me, there isn't enough information for that part of the game to be useful. I don't care how well it lets me stick to whatever vision I might imagine; I bought the game because I want it to tell me how it wants the world to work.

It's the same problem you get with GURPS, strangely enough. You have the freedom to do absolutely anything you want, but it's lacking in content where it tells you exactly how to express a thing within the language of the rules.

I guess the majority of us feel there's plenty of support within the flexibility of the current system. Most of us simply don't want the micro-management of some of the systems. Where every little thing we do there's someone coming out of the woodwork telling us that para 12, page 276 of splatbook 89 says we are doing it wrong. And that is seriously how those systems make us feel. It just makes our job so hard and bogged down that we go back to systems/editions that free us from it.

If we want to build something we just build it. Want to upsize a Bullette, hey cool we do it (change HD size up one). Want to add cleric attributes? Groovy, add them. Want to make something a different race? Awesome, yank off the current racial attributes and tack on the new ones.

Then just go reassess CR.

If there's sufficient demand Wizards will probably release a book or three with all those attributes and outlining some alternate build methods. But you can really build using just about any method you want. The only real difficulty I see, which is mostly for newer DMs, is the lack of a central index of racial attributes/monster abilities. BUt those of us very familiar with the system see these as quite obvious and communities like this are here to help those newer DMs skill up.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I guess the majority of us feel there's plenty of support within the flexibility of the current system. Most of us simply don't want the micro-management of some of the systems. Where every little thing we do there's someone coming out of the woodwork telling us that para 12, page 276 of splatbook 89 says we are doing it wrong. And that is seriously how those systems make us feel. It just makes our job so hard and bogged down that we go back to systems/editions that free us from it.

So you didn't like the 3.X style of monster generation and find that 5th Edition suits you better? That you weren't happy with one way and maybe would have liked to have another way to do it?

 

[surfarcher]

So you didn't like the 3.X style of monster generation and find that 5th Edition suits you better? That you weren't happy with one way and maybe would have liked to have another way to do it?

Yeah I definitely hated the 3.x way. That said I believe you could do it that way in 5e and maybe they should for those who want to do it that way.

I personally liked the methods in all the editions before and after 3.x. I just could never handle the "three eccs" approach. I'm not say ing it's wrong. But I'm saying it didn't suit me. And I guess since they aren't making it the main method I'm not alone.