5e monster sources?


4th Edition

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While the content of the 5e Monster Manual is as good as ever, I've perhaps come to be a little spoiled by Pathfinders abundance of monsters (with now 5 core books full of them and pretty much anything that isn't in those but exists in print somewhere else, collected on d20pfsrd)

So one monster manual seems very slim in comparison. So I've been trying to look for sources of monster stats in 5e.

Google in general wasn't very cooperative, it mostly gave me the Monster Manual or articles/posts about it as results.

I know Kobold Press is working on the Tome of Beasts, which looks awesome from what I've seen in previews but I couldn't even find any info on when it is going to be released.

Also I've been browsing the relatively fresh Dungeon Master's Guild, but most content there is very small and fragmented and/or just contains variations on existing monsters (like monster races with different "classes" than the ones in the MM)

And finally I found 5th Edition Foes by Necromancer Games, which looks pretty big but what I've seen of its contents is bothering me, and perhaps irrationally so, but the stat blocks are written more in a 3rd edition layout and some of the terminology seems like 3rd edition too, and doesn't actually mean anything in 5th edition (for example some creatures have spell-like abilities listed, rather than innate spellcasting), which in turn makes me doubt that the designers fully grasped how this edition works. If someone has perhaps used this supplement before, could you give some insight on it?

.

Other than these, does anyone know any good monster sources for 5th edition? Preferably big collections, like some sort of 3pp Monster Manual (like what 5e Foes and Tome of Beasts intend to be)

(also I was planning on using Qlippoth in my upcoming campaign, if anyone has seen any converted that would help too)


Threeshades wrote:
the stat blocks are written more in a 3rd edition layout and some of the terminology seems like 3rd edition too, and doesn't actually mean anything in 5th edition (for example some creatures have spell-like abilities listed, rather than innate spellcasting), which in turn makes me doubt that the designers fully grasped how this edition works

I can't speak for the mechanics, but I know before the SRD 5.0 came out a few weeks ago, the only way third-party publishers could get away with publishing for 5E was through OGL loopholes where everything looked like 3.5E content, used 3.5E terminology and spell/ability names, and cited 3.5E sources, but was 5E "compatible" mechanically--all of the 3.5E sources are Open Game Content, and the 5E-compatible mechanics were new content as long as they didn't copy from 5E rules verbatim. So in those cases the designers very likely did understand the rules but were legally unable to (or understandably unwilling to take on the legal risk to) cite them or use official rules text, terms, or even stat block formats verbatim.

The SRD 5.0 eliminates the need for most of those loopholes, though not all; you can expect some weird inconsistencies to persist in third-party OGL 5E products because the SRD 5.0 is incomplete in some fundamental ways.

That's part of why Wizards is pushing the DMGuild so hard: publishing to the DMG, where Wizards takes a split of profits, isn't beholden to the limits of the OGL and encourages users in somewhat vague ways to ape official trade dress.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

It's actually pretty easy to design 5th Ed. monsters. Since they don't follow all the rules that PCs do (no feats, skill points, etc.), you can pretty much just choose AC, HP, ability scores, attacks, damage, and what spells or special abilities you want them to have.

For example, I ran a pastiche of the dungeon crawl from Fellowship this weekend, and I made up the tentacle monster on the fly.

5th Edition really encourages DMs and players to create their own material or customize what they want.

Is there something in particular you're looking for? Or are you just fixin' to browse?

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32

I'm currently converting a bunch of OGL monsters into 5e. As of this post, I've finished 97 stat blocks for new-to-5e monsters, and I plan on converting about two-dozen more. My goal is to post all of these 100+ stat blocks online for people to view for free, along with a bunch of converted classes, items, and spells. If this thread is still going when I've got all that ready to go, I'll drop by and provide a link.


Threeshades wrote:
And finally I found 5th Edition Foes by Necromancer Games, which looks pretty big but what I've seen of its contents is bothering me, and perhaps irrationally so, but the stat blocks are written more in a 3rd edition layout and some of the terminology seems like 3rd edition too, and doesn't actually mean anything in 5th edition (for example some creatures have spell-like abilities listed, rather than innate spellcasting), which in turn makes me doubt that the designers fully grasped how this edition works. If someone has perhaps used this supplement before, could you give some insight on it?

I'm an enormous FGG fan and bought this book as soon as I could, but I think this is a fair criticism.

It came out super-early and, in my opinion, it suffers in some cases from being a direct port of monsters from earlier editions to 5E without perhaps addressing some of the more subtle differences in system.

Having said that, I've used several of the monsters as-is and they've been a hit with the players. There are just some I wouldn't use and there is a little bit of translating involved (but nothing difficult).


SmiloDan wrote:

It's actually pretty easy to design 5th Ed. monsters. Since they don't follow all the rules that PCs do (no feats, skill points, etc.), you can pretty much just choose AC, HP, ability scores, attacks, damage, and what spells or special abilities you want them to have.

I generally find it both easier in 5th edition and yet also harder.

Pathfinder has a nice chart to follow of target numbers, and punching around those is usually a good way to be on target. Less freedom, but very easy to get the numbers and CR lined up.

5E has an "Eyeball It" chart used to generate a combination of numbers that correspond to a suggested CR. Sort of. The AC range it lists is rather limited (caps out at 19, despite even low CR monsters hitting 20 at times), and more frustratingly... a lot of monsters in the Monster Manual don't actually follow these guidelines. So on one hand it's easy to create something, but on the other it generally will be comparatively weak when compared to published monsters.

Personally, while I love the elegance of 5E's character mechanics, I am less of a fan of the published monsters (and encounter building tools which is a different topic), so typically wind up pretty much building everything from scratch based on my PCs rather than the DMG guidelines. This usually winds up with low CR monsters getting nerfed damage output compared to the published versions.

I'm keenly interested in the Tome of Beasts, and how the nasties within it perform on the table, as (to be frank) building all of your own monsters is a fair amount of work.


I'm not having a terrible time converting monsters for my 5E RotRL game, but I also ditched XP, so I can just ignore the CR chart and just eyeball what I think will make for a fun fight. If I was trying to peg them to specific CRs, I'd probably find the process far more frustrating.

I am looking forward to the Tome of Beasts, though.

In the meantime what I've seen of 5th Edition Foes so far hasn't inspired me to buy it.

Liberty's Edge

Check out this compilation of "Monsters a Day" originally on Reddit:

MaD Compendium

And for a while, before there was DM's Guild (where you can find a lot of very good but smaller monster collections) I scoured the web and compiled a bunch of pages for my gaming group:

Manual of Monsters

Enjoy...

Liberty's Edge

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Hey everyone - awesome to hear folks are so stoked for the Tome of Beasts!!! (we are too! :)

In case anyone is not sure what that is, you can check it out here:
Tome of Beasts

Oh, and Threeshades - the book is projected to release in late May :)

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

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SmiloDan wrote:
It's actually pretty easy to design 5th Ed. monsters. Since they don't follow all the rules that PCs do (no feats, skill points, etc.), you can pretty much just choose AC, HP, ability scores, attacks, damage, and what spells or special abilities you want them to have.

I've made up the stats for literally every single enemy my players have ever encountered in any 5E game I've run.


Thanks for the info, Marc, looking forward to it, though my campaign will have to start without it for now.

------------------------

Jeff, that pdf is awesome, thanks! The MaD Compendium link appears to be broken though.

------------------------

I've actually already built a few monsters myself, which do not exist anywhere else and are important to my campaign, i've also started converting a few qlippoth to 5e, and yes making these is a lot easier and faster than in Pathfinder where I have to tie everything back to creature type and number of hit dice and need to do a lot of math as a result. But that Iavathos still took me at least 2 hours even with the 5e monster converter at marklenser.com.

I generally like to cut down on the time I spend designing mechanics for my games and focus more on the story and environments so every monster I don't have to make myself is a good thing.

And yes sometimes I like to browse through my available monster options and just put something together from a creature that inspires me for a thematically appropriate or just really cool encounter.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

For an icy adventure, I made a half-white dragon medusa that turned creatures into ice instead of stone, replaced the archery with ray of frost, and stuff like that. It was pretty quick to do, but still took some time. Then the players talked their way out of the fight! :-O

Anyways, I actually miss the PF structure of monster creation. I think 5E monster creation is a little bit TOO loosey-goosey for my tastes. It just seems wrong to make a CR monster with 22 HD, but it turns out to be pretty balanced.

I DO like the design philosophy of lower AC but more hp. Players like hitting! DMs like their monsters to not die in 1 round! (unless there are dozens of them....)

Liberty's Edge

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Threeshades wrote:
Jeff, that pdf is awesome, thanks! The MaD Compendium link appears to be broken though.

Let's try this:

MaD Compendium

:-)


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DM Jeff wrote:
Threeshades wrote:
Jeff, that pdf is awesome, thanks! The MaD Compendium link appears to be broken though.

Let's try this:

MaD Compendium

:-)

Goodness that's pretty! Thanks again.

I just scanned over it and it's full of lovely things giving me all kinds of ideas. The slivers although not applicable to my upcoming campaign make me really happy (I collect them in MTG), but the Eldrazi, with a bit of renaming will make an excellent addition to the campaign.

Also I love squirrels, so ginormous squirrel and squirrel swarm are great too.

You just gave me christmas in february!

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I'm only 75% done reading the MaD Compendium, and I'm loving it! A lot look very very fun! Can't wait to try them out!


How on Earth is that free? :o

Is there a patreon page or way to donate or something?


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I just got done converting void and time dragons to 5e. Learned a lot about how 5e dragons are built:

For example Physical stats (except for Dexterity which always stays the same) increase by 4 per age category and mental stats by 2. All stats cap out at 30. If the dragon has no special second function to its breath attack, it instead gets extra damage to its bite using the breath's energy type, and dice (though only a fraction of the number, around 1/6 to 1/8 the number of dice)
Bite always deals 2d10 damage (except for wyrmlings which only have 1d10), claws always deal 2d6 (I believe the 4d6 on the green dragon is a typo) damage and tail slaps always deal 2d8 damage.
Ranges on the breath attacks decrease by 30 feet per age category going down to a minimum of 15.
Young dragons and wyrmlings don't get tail attacks, frightful presence legendary resistance and legendary actions. Wyrmlings also don't get claw attacks or multiattack.
AC increases by 1 per age category, except for ancient where it increases by 2.

Metallic dragons have an alternate breath attack. Chromatic dragons don't (though this was the case in 3rd already).

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I'm glad they reduced the number of age categories from 12 to 4. Much more manageable.

I just wish they had been able to make different color wyrmlings be CR 1-5, different color young be CR 6-10, old 11-15, and ancient 16-20. That would have been neat. I was honestly surprised they didn't do that.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Metallic dragons always had 2 breath weapons (I know they did in 2nd, and I am guessing they did in 1st, if they existed then). It was to show that they were good, and preferred their "non-lethal" breath weapons to killing with their energy breath. Well, the big 5, anyway. Not sure about all the misc dragons like brown, steel, etc.

It is interesting to see how dragons are put together stat-wise. Definitely helpful.


Threeshades wrote:

I just got done converting void and time dragons to 5e. Learned a lot about how 5e dragons are built:

For example .....
Bite always deals 2d10 damage (except for wyrmlings which only have 1d10), claws always deal 2d6 (I believe the 4d6 on the green dragon is a typo) damage and tail slaps always deal 2d8 damage. .......

Yeah, I don't really understand why it's not 1 dice for medium, 2 dice for large, 3 dice for huge and 4 dice for gargantuan. The humanoids/giants seem to follow this pattern and its seems like an easy thing to follow. I suspect I will be changing it (when my players meet a huge dragon)

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32

Threeshades wrote:
[useful stuff about dragon stats]

Ooo, good to know!

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Yeah, giants and titans follow that pattern, and I think it's a good pattern, but they drop it pretty often. For example, enlarge/reduce adds +1d4 to damage, which makes sense for daggers and whips, but not greataxes and glaives.


I spent the better part of the day converting the rest of the outer dragons. Took a few creative liberties, partially because the many conditions their breath weapons and alien presence's inflict don't exist in 5e, partly because I thought some things fit better.

The strongest departures are changing the void dragon's energy type from cold to necrotic and adding radiant as a second energy type to the solar dragon, its main breath weapon becoming radiant and his secondary breath inflicting continuous fire damage. If people are interested I can post a pdf link. Though I have to warn you, it might contain a few mistakes in its math, or copypaste artifacts

Sovereign Court

koboldpress.com/howling-tower-monster-stats-part-5/

This series is pretty good at picking apart the monster creation ideology, but I believe that this one especially deals with dragons.

Liberty's Edge

Great point Lorathorn!

The Howling Tower: Monster Stats articles are written by Steve Winter, veteran of TSR and Wizards of the Coast.

Steve is, in fact, one of the main developers behind the Tome of Beasts, so his insights are particularly worthwhile and insightful!


I'm a bit confused, has anyone noticed that the DMG and the Monster Manual (or at least some entries in the MM) give contradictory information on how much XP monsters of some CRs are worth?

I just finished tallying up the CR for my Iathavos Qlippoth conversion and arrived at 24. So I copy over the XP value of 36,500 XP I put into the CR 24 ancient time dragon, copied from ancient red and gold dragons, but now i'm checking the XP by CR table in the DMG where it says a CR 24 monster is worth 62,000 XP.


In fact all ancient dragons, as well as the in-lair demilich CR and the empyrean have too few XP listed with them. In case of most of the dragons the XP value is almost two whole CRs less and generally is an amount that doesn't exactly match any CR.


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Threeshades wrote:

I'm a bit confused, has anyone noticed that the DMG and the Monster Manual (or at least some entries in the MM) give contradictory information on how much XP monsters of some CRs are worth?

I just finished tallying up the CR for my Iathavos Qlippoth conversion and arrived at 24. So I copy over the XP value of 36,500 XP I put into the CR 24 ancient time dragon, copied from ancient red and gold dragons, but now i'm checking the XP by CR table in the DMG where it says a CR 24 monster is worth 62,000 XP.

Have you checked the errata for the monster manual? They corrected the XP for a number of creatures in it.

---

On a related topic, I was curious about what CR means in 5th edition in terms of monster power, relative to what it means in Pathfinder... So I crunched some numbers and the difference was quite profound. I'll list the assumptions at the end.

In Pathfinder the "average" monster of CR equal to the party level will:

  • Take about 1 round for a party to kill if all four are attacking it
  • Take about 4-6 rounds to drop a decently-geared (but not optimized) fighter, or as little as half that to drop a squishier class like rogue or sorcerer.
  • Average damage = 40-50% fighter HP. Average attack = 25-40% chance to hit the 2H fighter.

In 5th Edition the "average" monster of CR equal to the party level will:

  • Take about 3 rounds for the party to kill if all four are attacking it.
  • Take about 2 rounds to drop an optimized and reasonably equipped (in magic items) character.
  • Average damage = 80-100% Fighter HP. Average attack = 30%-50% chance to hit.

Summary: Although the term of "CR" is used in both systems, they are not talking about the same thing. At all.

Generally speaking a 5th Ed. Challenge Rating offers a similar experience to a PC as one 2-3 CRs higher in Pathfinder. Something to keep in mind if converting Pathfinder adventures (e.g. the APs) into 5th edition.

Notes and Assumptions:

    All: Damage has been modified by chance to hit, in order to produce an "average damage".
    All: No healing or buffs are taken into account.

    Pathfinder: The fighter was assumed to be using a 2-handed weapon, power attack and heavy armor, unbuffed, and gaining magic items as they leveled such that weapon, armor, stat boosts and AC boosts accounted for around 50% of their gear.
    Pathfinder: The average party damage was estimated as three times the fighter's damage, accounting for one character dealing about as much, and two dealing half as much. This is a baseline as it will vary massively from group to group.
    Pathfinder: The monster numbers are taken from the appendix of Bestiary 1.
    Pathfinder: I didn't also do estimates of cleric/rogue/bard etc builds as it was late, so instead assumed "about half as tough as the fighter" as a guestimate.
    Pathfinder: Generally speaking, pathfinder monsters like to do about 50% the fighter's HP in a round if all attacks hit, but only have a 25-40% chance to hit (rises with level as at higher levels there are more buffs and heal).
    Pathfinder: A creature of CR = APL is considered a moderate encounter, and its XP is that of a moderate encounter per the encounter building rules.

    5th Edition: Generally monsters do about 80-100% of a fighter's hitpoints if they hit, but have a 30-50% chance to hit. This makes combat extremely variable as a couple of good rolls by the GM could see several PCs go down in the first couple of rounds
    5th Edition: Monsters are assumed to live 3 rounds, and abilities like breath weapons and pounce are assumed (per the DMG) to only be used in 1 of those three (thus adding only 1/3rd of their damage to the creature's average damage)... Personally I find this questionable as it assumes a usage of the monster that will often not be the case, and these abilities are often brutal, such that if used more than once will see the monster punching way harder than it's XP is worth. Dragons are an example. Mammoths (CR6) are another.
    5th Edition: PC stats are taken as being an average between a rogue and great weapon fighter (whose DPR is similar) to give a baseline "beating on a PC" as the difference in damage and survivability isn't as great in 5th Edition.
    5th Edition: Average party damage is treat as being 4 x (Average of sneak-attacking rogue and fighter), which would require casters expending spell slots to keep up.
    5th Edition: Monster stat "average" is drawn from the DMG chart - I know this isn't intended to be used like the Pathfinder target number chart, but it does provide a baseline for an "average" monster without absurd amounts of reverse engineering of the MM....
    5th Edition: A lot of monsters favor lower hitpoints for higher attack rolls, which theoretically means they'll take only 2 rounds to kill, but given the base damage is already enormous and only held in check by low attack rolls (per the chart), this actually is a massive boost to damage output. Other monsters (e.g. the Purple Worm) track the average numbers very closely.
    5th Edition: Monster hitpoints do not take into effect the loss of PC DPR from PCs going down (I don't think the DMG charts do either), despite many monsters having front-loaded damage abilities more than capable of flattening 1-2 PCs before they get to act.
    5th Edition: In 5th edition, a CR = APL indicates the lowest level the PCs should be to tackle that creature (except by Wizard's published material it isn't, as you fight CR18-20 things at 12th level), but the XP of a CR = APL creature is only that of a medium encounter per the encounter building rules.


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Ah yes there it is. For some reason I thought i hadn't found a monster manual errata before but I actually have the pdf saved.

Yes CR n in Pathfinder means "roughly equivalent to a level n PC." While in 5e it means "roughly equivalent (though slightly weaker) to a level n party." (I would say its damage output and HP is around where 3 PCs are minus the action economy advantage and flexibilty 3 pcs of different classes bring)


I put together my converted qlippoth (and some obyrith) and outer dragons as well as a monster type I came up with in this document.

I added fluff tying them to my own setting, so ignore most of that.


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Threeshades wrote:

Ah yes there it is. For some reason I thought i hadn't found a monster manual errata before but I actually have the pdf saved.

Yes CR n in Pathfinder means "roughly equivalent to a level n PC." While in 5e it means "roughly equivalent (though slightly weaker) to a level n party." (I would say its damage output and HP is around where 3 PCs are minus the action economy advantage and flexibilty 3 pcs of different classes bring)

Some extra rambling on this topic:

Converting PF to 5E and vice versa: Crunching the numbers to generate a "how does it feel in the fight" (and ignoring the encounter design and Adventuring Day rules), the conversion factor looks something like this:

    Up to 5E CR12: The Pathfinder CR is roughly equal to the 5E CR +3. E.g. a CR2 5th edition Ogre is "as hard" as a CR5 thing in Pathfinder.
    5E CR13+: As above, but the modifier is +4 CR instead of +3.

Interestingly, if you do scale encounters back to this degree, it takes quite a bit longer to level up compared to Pathfinder, where the moderate XP track means a PC group (of 4) levels up every 10 Hard (APL+2) encounters. Converting that to 5th Edition you get APL-1 for a "Hard" encounter and 12 of these per level to reach 3rd level, then 16 to 4th, 22 to 5th, 27 to 6th, and then around 20 per level until 11th... and then 10 per level from then on.

Quantity vs Quality: The bounded accuracy of 5E does interesting things with encounter designs.

The assumption of PF is that when using large numbers of low CR creatures, the increased economy of action is countered by the increasingly ineffectual stat-lines when facing higher level PCs... and mostly it works, with a slight leaning towards large numbers of lowbie creatures being typically easier than a small number of high CR creatures. This doesn't work in 5E, however, as the monsters don't "fall behind" anywhere near as quickly, making the increased action economy of the horde dramatically outweigh the higher stat-line of the solo.

The 5E encounter builder takes that into account (which is good), but is somewhat horrible to use. This guy put together a much easier system which hits comparable numbers to what's in the DMG.

5E Encounters:
Seem designed to kill you, when you look at the XP values and what you can field for that. The published material I've played through (which have no problem pitching creatures of CR above the PC level) generally corroborates that perspective.

The oddity is that is not how the encounter bands are described (emphasis mine), noting that the XP pool listed is the minimum value to count as that category:

Easy: An easy encounter doesn't tax the characters' resources or put them in serious peril. They might lose a few hit points, but victory is pretty much guaranteed.

    1st Level: A thug (CR1/2) 2 goblins (CR1/4); 3 bandits (CR1/8)
    5th Level: A bulette (CR5); 2 ogres (CR2), 7 thugs (CR1/2); 12 goblins (CR1/4)
    10th Level: Tyrannosaurus Rex (CR8); 5 ogres (CR2); 14 thugs (CR1/2)

And yes, as a quirk, at 5th level a CR5 thing is only an easy encounter... go figure.

Medium: A medium encounter usually has one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more might need to use healing resources.

    1st Level: A half-ogre (CR1); 5 bandits (CR1/8)
    5th Level: A stone giant (CR7); 3 ogres (CR2), 10 thugs (CR1/2); 14 goblins (CR1/4)
    10th Level: Roc (CR11); 5 hill giants (CR5); 6 ogres (CR2)

No. Really. At 5th level each PC has a "hard" threshold of 750xp, and medium of 500xp, making the "medium" band anywhere from 2000xp to 3000xp. A CR6 thing is 2,300xp, a CR7 thing is 2,900xp. And you're expected to go through 14,000xp in a single day.

Hard: A hard encounter could go badly for the adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out of the fight, and there's a slim chance that one or more characters might die.

    1st Level: 2 thugs (CR1/2); 3 goblins (CR1/4); 6 bandits (CR1/8)
    5th Level: A frost giant (CR8); 4 ogres (CR2), 14 thugs (CR1/2); 21 goblins (CR1/4)
    10th Level: Roc (CR11); 5 hill giants (CR5); 6 ogres (CR2)

Yeah. At 5th level you're expected to go through 3.5 Frost Giants a day, with a couple of short rests. or about 31 ogres.

Deadly: A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.

At this point things get silly... these are the "barely over the minimum limit" creatures.

    1st Level: An ogre (CR2)
    5th Level: A fire giant (CR9)
    10th Level: Ice Devil (CR14)

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

5th level is a big boost in PC power. Extra Attack, 3rd level spells (or 2nd level spells for paladins and rangers), and increased cantrip potency all come on line at 5th level. Rogue sneak attack damage is roughly equivalent to a couple heavy weapon damage hits.

Proficiency bonus goes up by 1 too.

I don't know how to put this, but it's kind of a big deal.

So at 5th level, the types of challenges PCs can take on also increase, in both variety and power.


SmiloDan wrote:

5th level is a big boost in PC power. Extra Attack, 3rd level spells (or 2nd level spells for paladins and rangers), and increased cantrip potency all come on line at 5th level. Rogue sneak attack damage is roughly equivalent to a couple heavy weapon damage hits.

Proficiency bonus goes up by 1 too.

I don't know how to put this, but it's kind of a big deal.

So at 5th level, the types of challenges PCs can take on also increase, in both variety and power.

I'm aware :)

It's why the encounter design charts jumps from Deadly = APL+1 to Deadly = APL+4 at 5th (if you were putting a single creature on the board).

That said, I tried rolling out a frost giant vs a party of 5th level characters. When there was a life domain cleric and raging+frenzied barbarian (FB, obviously), the PCs came out down a bunch of hitpoints and spell slots (particularly due to casting healing word), but victorious 3 out of 3 runs. Swapping out the barbarian for a champion fighter, the PCs TPK'd two out of three attempts, and the third (and finally victorious) saw the wizard and rogue dead.

YMMV (a lot - the effectiveness of awesome healer + barbarian vs physical damage is amazing), but on the whole the 5E encounter table and monster stats are designed around the premise that people are gonna get knocked down a lot, but hopefully not killed that often.

In essence; 5E wants combat to be adrenaline pumping "Epic" mayhem most of the time - like running Pathfinder with only APL+2 to APL+8 encounters. Which is fine (particularly if that's what you want) for 5E content, but when converting Pathfinder adventures across it's worth (in my opinion anyway) understanding what the two systems mean by "CR" and how that plays out on the table.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Yeah, I run a hill dwarf Cleric of Life, and we have a half-orc Frenzied Barbarian in the party, and we're a pretty good team. The rest of the party are two archers (a rogue and a ranger), a blaster Divination wizard, and an Eldritch Knight two-weapon fighter, who also does melee, but more hit-and-run melee with spell support.

Before the barbarian joined us, when we were 5th or 6th level, we took on 60 ogres, plus some boss-types, through judicious use of cover, spiritual guardians, and the Dodge action.


Updated

I added a blurb that works in outer dragon based dragonborn and half-dragons.

Would love to hear some reactions.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

I tried looking at it, but it stopped loading correctly after a few monsters.

But what I saw, I liked. :-)


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Too bad. Perhaps you need to download it. Either way, I just found a mistake, radiant damage should call for dex saves so I changed that.

Here's the updated version.

Maybe this file works better too.

But I'm glad you liked it as far as you got.

Sovereign Court

Threeshades wrote:

I put together my converted qlippoth (and some obyrith) and outer dragons as well as a monster type I came up with in this document.

I added fluff tying them to my own setting, so ignore most of that.

I like it a lot! I am very impressed with the presentation. By the way, the Iathavos is missing a wing attack entry under actions.


Lorathorn wrote:
Threeshades wrote:

I put together my converted qlippoth (and some obyrith) and outer dragons as well as a monster type I came up with in this document.

I added fluff tying them to my own setting, so ignore most of that.

I like it a lot! I am very impressed with the presentation. By the way, the Iathavos is missing a wing attack entry under actions.

Thanks.

I decided since dragons have their wing attack relegated entirely to legendary actions, the same would make sense for the iathavos. Its CR is calculated with that in mind.

Sovereign Court

The wing attack is part of the Iathavos' multiattack, as opposed to dragons who do not have that. I think that it might be good to list a separate wing attack (and not the legendary action version), or just let it attack four times with its claws. Just my humble suggestion.


Oh, I see now! I forgot to remove the reference to the wings in the multiattack action. It should only be two claw attacks.

Liberty's Edge

Marc Radle wrote:

Hey everyone - awesome to hear folks are so stoked for the Tome of Beasts!!! (we are too! :)

In case anyone is not sure what that is, you can check it out here:
Tome of Beasts

Oh, and Threeshades - the book is projected to release in late May :)

Looks like the kick starter for this is over. Any chance I can still get in on the action? Really want this (hardbound plus PDF).

The Exchange Contributor; Publisher, Kobold Press; RPG Superstar Judge

Yep, the hardcover plus PDF is available as a pre-order.

Better yet, according to Backerkit you will not be charged until it ships!

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

We've got a mighty fine collection of monsters perfectly suited for adventures in the hoary and wild woodlands in the Coldwood Codex, available now in PDF and in print. These are detailed creatures, all brand-new and with extensive lore along with a wide variety of abilities.

We also have two follow-up Beasts of Legend products coming probably next month, in the Boreal Bestiary (even more creatures of the frozen northlands) and Beasts of the East, featuring monsters from a variety of Asian cultures from Japan to Cambodia and all points in between.

Liberty's Edge

There's a copy of Pathfinder creatures converted to 5e for sale on rpgnow.com in short pdfs by creature type too.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I feel like a shill doing this, but if you are looking to add some elementals to your game, I have made some lesser versions and added them to the dmsguild.com. Set up as "pay what you want". CR 2 medium-sized elementals (air, earth, fire, water; ice, magma, mud/ooze, smoke; lightning, mineral, radiance, steam, ash, dust, salt, void; metal, negative, positive, wood). I also have "regular" versions of the ones not in the Monster Manual, and plan to make greater, elder, and monolithic versions of each of them. As well as myrmidon versions similar to those in the Princes of the Apocalypse adventure.

Slow going, but that's the plan. (Hope this isn't against the rules)


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Hey everyone, I thought I'd let you all know I just started working on a fairly big project with which to debut on the DM's guild. I decided to stat out all the official monster illustrations available from the DMs guild creator resources.

That's over 160 monsters, and I will aim to make the document available in print on demand, so you will be able to get a physical book!

Not sure what to call it yet.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32

Threeshades wrote:

Hey everyone, I thought I'd let you all know I just started working on a fairly big project with which to debut on the DM's guild. I decided to stat out all the official monster illustrations available from the DMs guild creator resources.

That's over 160 monsters, and I will aim to make the document available in print on demand, so you will be able to get a physical book!

Not sure what to call it yet.

Hm. That's the exact same project I've been working on for the past two months.

I've finished 198 stat blocks to go with the 160 illustrations (though I haven't finished all of the lair actions for the legendary monsters yet) and I'm about half way through the page layout required by the DMs Guild print on demand service. I'm procrastinating a lot, though, because I'm finding the page layout work on this project unusually tedious. You'll probably publish your version of this book long before mine is ready.


The two of you should collaborate on it so you're not repeating work already completed.

Scarab Sages RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games

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We've got a brand-new book of monsters out for 5E, bringing the proteans to 5th Edition and including a brand-new protean type, the mymm swarm, available right now: Beasts of Legend: Serpents of Chaos!

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