Unconverted D&D creatures

[freyar]

We're closing in!

 

[BOZ]

LOL

so will you start the count over in 4E, including every 3E critter that doesn't make the cut? how big do you think that will be?

 

[Echohawk]

The total number of unconverted 4E creatures is currently 8780.

 

[Echohawk]

As an aside, it's interesting to note that the bulk of the unconverted creatures in most categories seem to be either animals, vermin, or variant humanoid races. The more "realistic", the less interesting, eh?

It is definitely true that the majority of the most interesting creatures have already been tackled, but I'm not so sure about the breakdown in categories. I'll start going through the unconverted lists and assigning my 'best guest' type to each one to check.

Check the first post for progress indicators

 

[freyar]

It is definitely true that the majority of the most interesting creatures have already been tackled, but I'm not so sure about the breakdown in categories. I'll start going through the unconverted lists and assigning my 'best guest' type to each one to check.

Check the first post for progress indicators

Echohawk, you do us a great service, but has anyone ever told you that you might have too much time on your hands? Seriously, though, this is very interesting work.

 

[Shade]

It is definitely true that the majority of the most interesting creatures have already been tackled, but I'm not so sure about the breakdown in categories. I'll start going through the unconverted lists and assigning my 'best guest' type to each one to check.

Check the first post for progress indicators

Interesting...

I fear for your health when you get to Dragon Magazine, though!

 

[BOZ]

The total number of unconverted 4E creatures is currently 8780.

LOL! i don't think i'll ever be ready for that challenge.

 

[Echohawk]

I moved the Cthulhu, Melnibonéan, Conan and Red Sonja 1st Edition creatures into the bottom section, so the upper total has dropped slightly (to 1480) for the WotC IP creatures.

Echohawk, you do us a great service, but has anyone ever told you that you might have too much time on your hands? Seriously, though, this is very interesting work.

Heh heh. I work from home (no commuting!), and only work a four-day week, so I guess I do have more free time than many, for which I am appreciative. D&D research gives me pleasure, and scouring out-of-print tomes to find nuggets of information often triggers ideas for games I am running, so it can be a creative process too.

I fear for your health when you get to Dragon Magazine, though!

I'm on leave for the rest of the year

LOL! i don't think i'll ever be ready for that challenge.

Yes. It is an intimidating number and about eight times the number of 3.X creatures presently in the Creature Catalog. But if the 4E monster stat blocks are much simpler, 4E conversions might be much easier to do.

I expect that with shorter stat blocks and an annual Monster Manual, WotC will have updated a few thousand creatures themselves before very long. Also a good number of the unconverted 4E creatures are found in sources for which WotC does not own the IP. That'll eliminate at least another thousand creatures. So we're only looking at maybe 5 or 6 thousand creatures to be updated to 4E...

Which reminds me to ask something: I don't know much about the early history of the Creature Catalog site, but how does the agreement to use WotC IP work? Would that agreement extend to publishing 4E conversions too, assuming that they are published under a future 4E OGL?

 

[freyar]

Heh heh. I work from home (no commuting!), and only work a four-day week, so I guess I do have more free time than many, for which I am appreciative. D&D research gives me pleasure, and scouring out-of-print tomes to find nuggets of information often triggers ideas for games I am running, so it can be a creative process too.

Absolutely! And this is a nice community for sharing and indulging our obsessive tendencies and hobbies, too.

Yes. It is an intimidating number and about eight times the number of 3.X creatures presently in the Creature Catalog. But if the 4E monster stat blocks are much simpler, 4E conversions might be much easier to do.

I expect that with shorter stat blocks and an annual Monster Manual, WotC will have updated a few thousand creatures themselves before very long. Also a good number of the unconverted 4E creatures are found in sources for which WotC does not own the IP. That'll eliminate at least another thousand creatures. So we're only looking at maybe 5 or 6 thousand creatures to be updated to 4E...

Well, if 4e works as advertised, anyway. It may be quite easy to update a 3.x monster to 4e, but we'll see. The way the fluff is going, I think I'm going to need to see quite a speed-up in the monster creation process (which I'm only likely to see through conversion) to buy into 4e. Of course, who knows when there'll be a public SRD?

Which reminds me to ask something: I don't know much about the early history of the Creature Catalog site, but how does the agreement to use WotC IP work? Would that agreement extend to publishing 4E conversions too, assuming that they are published under a future 4E OGL?

Good question. I always thought that monster conversions were under the same sort of terms as adventure conversions (guidelines here), which means you can update the stats without reproducing the copyrighted fluff text. But was there a special agreement? I was a little thrown for a loop when I saw the extra sections in the ToH.

 

[Shade]

I moved the Cthulhu, Melnibonéan, Conan and Red Sonja 1st Edition creatures into the bottom section, so the upper total has dropped slightly (to 1480) for the WotC IP creatures.

Excellent.

Heh heh. I work from home (no commuting!), and only work a four-day week, so I guess I do have more free time than many, for which I am appreciative. D&D research gives me pleasure, and scouring out-of-print tomes to find nuggets of information often triggers ideas for games I am running, so it can be a creative process too.

Ditto here. Even if I don't use a fraction of the creatures we convert, they provide so much inspiration to my games.

Yes. It is an intimidating number and about eight times the number of 3.X creatures presently in the Creature Catalog. But if the 4E monster stat blocks are much simpler, 4E conversions might be much easier to do.

I expect that with shorter stat blocks and an annual Monster Manual, WotC will have updated a few thousand creatures themselves before very long. Also a good number of the unconverted 4E creatures are found in sources for which WotC does not own the IP. That'll eliminate at least another thousand creatures. So we're only looking at maybe 5 or 6 thousand creatures to be updated to 4E...

On the other hand, WotC appears to want to distance themselves from their past as much as possible. Since most of the classic monsters revealed so far appear to be "reimaginings", essentially the total number would be ripe for conversions to maintain their classic feel.

Which reminds me to ask something: I don't know much about the early history of the Creature Catalog site, but how does the agreement to use WotC IP work? Would that agreement extend to publishing 4E conversions too, assuming that they are published under a future 4E OGL?

I honestly don't know. That predates my tenure on the CC. I'm assuming it would not carry over, but I could be wrong.

 

[Echohawk]

The total number of unconverted 4E creatures is currently 8780.

Eliminating the non-WotC IP creatures more precisely, I now get a total of 6399 D&D creatures that will need updating to 4E.

 

[Echohawk]

It is definitely true that the majority of the most interesting creatures have already been tackled, but I'm not so sure about the breakdown in categories. I'll start going through the unconverted lists and assigning my 'best guest' type to each one to check.

Okay, so I'm done with this exercise, and the unconverted critters break down like this, based on my best guesses of their types:

Animal: 249
Magical Beast: 190
Undead: 162
Outsider: 107
Vermin: 99
Aberration: 94
Humanoid: 83
Construct: 82
Monstrous Humanoid: 70
Plant: 57
Dragon: 48
Fey: 38
Elemental: 35
Giant: 21
Hazard: 16
Ooze: 16
Template: 11
Other: 5

 

[Shade]

I'm actually surprised that more of them aren't animals and vermin!

 

[Echohawk]

It is quite possible that some of the things I classified as Magical Beasts would fit better as Animals or Vermin. (I'm not that good at telling those apart!)

But having categorised all the unconverted creatures, I can now also do some analysis of the overall breakdown of D&D creatures by type. These figures exclude unique creatures, templates and anything that isn't WotC's IP.

Magical Beast: 826 (13%)
Outsider: 816 (13%)
Animal: 710 (11%)
Construct: 579 (9%)
Aberration: 542 (9%)
Undead: 541 (9%)
Elemental: 351 (6%)
Vermin: 350 (6%)
Monstrous Humanoid: 334 (5%)
Humanoid: 298 (5%)
Dragon: 287 (5%)
Plant: 240 (4%)
Fey: 215 (3%)
Ooze: 119 (2%)
Giant: 111 (2%)
Deathless: 13 (0%)
Unknown: 3 (0%)

Total: 6335 (100%)

 

[Shade]

Very interesting. I figured that more undead existed than constructs and aberrations.

And this just goes to support my long-held belief that there are far too many humanoids! Where would nearly 300 different races live?

 

[freyar]

Very interesting. I figured that more undead existed than constructs and aberrations.

And this just goes to support my long-held belief that there are far too many humanoids! Where would nearly 300 different races live?

I would have thought that about undead, too. Seems like everywhere you turn, there they are!

But only about 10% of monsters are humanoid + monstrous humanoid! That's surely not so many!

What this really goes to show is that we need more deathless!

 

[Echohawk]

I would have thought that about undead, too. Seems like everywhere you turn, there they are!

Surely you mean "everywhere you turn, there they aren't"?

 

[Echohawk]

And the count drops to 1371!

 

[Echohawk]

And we're down to 1354.

(I've also removed the non-WotC IP entries from the first post to keep it simpler.)

 

[Echohawk]

Updated to remove the latest CC entries. Down to 1342.