D&D (2024) Why No Monster Creation Rules in D&D 2024?

[Sword of Spirit]

People ought to try just creating new monsters on their own without bending the knee to any set "process" someone else made for them. They'll get a better understanding of how monsters are built and will be better at judging things like "game balance" for their particular table rather than having to rely on other people telling them what's what.

Experience is the best teacher.

How would you determine the CR of a creature you made?

 

[Stormonu]

Yeah, the DMG shouldn't JUST be a beginner's tool. It needs also to be a toolbox to reference past the noob stage. And that should have meant that monster creation information should have either been in the DMG or MM (I would have preferred the latter, personally - that just seems a logical place to put that AND perhaps discuss reskinning).

 

[DEFCON 1]

How would you determine the CR of a creature you made?

You don't. You learn how the games works such that you don't need some artificial rating to point to.

You know what your players and their characters can do. You in theory have been making encounters for them for weeks / months / years over all manner of campaigns. Just make a monster that falls into the same ranges and power as other monsters you throw at them at the level you wish the monster to be.

I can go into the Monster Manual right now... see the stats of a Hill Giant... and make a completely new monster whose stats are like the Hill Giant. Just change some numbers around, add in a couple "special powers", and then have my players fight it. Maybe it turns out to be an easy fight, maybe it turns out to be a difficult fight. But so what? Isn't that the point? Not all encounters are the same. So who cares what kind of "rating" it may or may not have? The PCs are fighting a monster, not a Challenge Rating.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, the DMG shouldn't JUST be a beginner's tool. It needs also to be a toolbox to reference past the noob stage. And that should have meant that monster creation information should have either been in the DMG or MM (I would have preferred the latter, personally - that just seems a logical place to put that AND perhaps discuss reskinning).

I think the "newb" stuff should be all collected in the first 30 pages or so, and then the rest of the DMG should just be a DMG.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You don't. You learn how the games works such that you don't need some artificial rating to point to.

You know what your players and their characters can do. You in theory have been making encounters for them for weeks / months / years over all manner of campaigns. Just make a monster that falls into the same ranges and power as other monsters you throw at them at the level you wish the monster to be.

I can go into the Monster Manual right now... see the stats of a Hill Giant... and make a completely new monster whose stats are like the Hill Giant. Just change some numbers around, add in a couple "special powers", and then have my players fight it. Maybe it turns out to be an easy fight, maybe it turns out to be a difficult fight. But so what? Isn't that the point? Not all encounters are the same. So who cares what kind of "rating" it may or may not have? The PCs are fighting a monster, not a Challenge Rating.

This is a truly terrible and frankly anti-DM answer, even borderline anti-rules/balance. It reads to me as a cheap apologia with no substance whatsoever, rather than a genuine argument. It's the sort of thing people used to say in the 1990s to excuse obvious failings of various RPGs.

4E had great rules for building monsters, and an incredible tool for doing so in the DDI, and it managed to nail CRs far, far better than 5E ever has. 5E could have the same, though, if it wanted to. So I think this whole attitude is really bad, and it's worse, it's genuinely unhelpful. It's absolutely possible for the DMG or MM to give decent advice on designing monsters. They just chose not to, presumably to save page count (which is sad, because both books have some slightly wasted page count).

I will be shocked if it doesn't end up in a DMG2 or Xanathars equivalent down the road.

 

[Stormonu]

I think the "newb" stuff should be all collected in the first 30 pages or so, and then the rest of the DMG should just be a DMG.

Or, put the "newb" stuff in the Starter box for new DMs and make the DMG a complete toolbox.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is a truly terrible and frankly anti-DM answer, even borderline anti-rules/balance.

Learning how to DM without just lazily following charts and expecting everything to work out is anti-DM?

Interesting take.

 

[Reynard]

Or, put the "newb" stuff in the Starter box for new DMs and make the DMG a complete toolbox.

You can only do that if you actually launch the game with a starter box...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Learning how to DM without just lazily following charts and expecting everything to work out is anti-DM?

Interesting take.

Yeah god forbid we use any aids or guides when teaching people skills! That's so weird! Why would I suggest such a thing? It's not like our entire civilization is founded on that or anything! It's not like that's 90% of why the DMG exists! Silly me!

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah god forbid we use any aids or guides when teaching people skills! That's so weird! Why would I suggest such a thing? It's not like our entire civilization is founded on that or anything! It's not like that's 90% of why the DMG exists! Silly me!

Hey... you start it by calling my take cheap apologia... I'll call your take lazy.