Building Monsters for Fun and Profit

Jib916 wrote:

Woot! Thanks Logan, Jason and Mark! Keep up the great work <3

Mentioned this on the product thread, but we on the design team love you all and really appreciate your passion for building fun stories with Pathfinder, and we wanted to make sure to get this to you as early as possible and for free! Please also thank the amazing editors and the magically-fast-at-layout Sonja for how quickly they were able to help us get this to you!

ADDENDUM: Thank you Editorial Team and Sonja! You are fantastic!

Did Stephen Radney-Macfarland not work on this? I don't see anyone thanking him.

Did Stephen Radney-Macfarland not work on this? I don't see anyone thanking him.

Technically, only Logan and I wrote this file, as Stephen had left before that point and Lyz hadn't joined up. That being said, the whole edition's design philosophy which leads up to this file owe a lot to Jason and Stephen as well. Plus there's the editors, art team, and we had some of our adventure developers like Linda and James read over portions of it and give us feedback to help refine it too, plus Aaron helped usher the blog, tech got it up, Katina got the file ready. When we put out something at Paizo, it's a team effort!

Can I just say I love the "improvising a creature" sidebar? I've run encounters like that before (don't tell my players :P ) and it's great to see the technique get official recognition.

Deadmanwalking wrote:

This looks very solid, as guidelines go. In almost all regards it keeps monsters within the 'PC range' on things they should be within that range on, which works out rather nicely (it matches well with my analysis here, for example with only Extreme Skills exceeding PC Skill modifiers by more than a point or so).

My only real complaint is that, absent some sort of magic, special thing, or 'template' in PF1 terms NPCs of PC Ancestries should never have High or Extreme Ability Scores. PCs max out at 'Moderate' by that table, which is fine taken in isolation, but makes for issues if random Human enemy #6 is somehow vastly better than that.

That's something I really wish Paizo had put in the guidelines, and even more hope they apply to such enemies going forward. It's mechanically almost irrelevant (raw stat numbers almost never actually come up), but vitally important flavor-wise to not make the PCs feel incompetent in terms of raw stats.

It would be really good if they added some guidelines like this to the NPC section and adjusted the Class Roadmaps as appropriate. Otherwise, going by the guidelines, all NPC Bards built as monsters have Cha +7 at 10th level when PCs can't achieve that until 20th, which feels really bad and unfair in a way that the rest of these rules don't.

We tend to do so for published NPCs, like for instance the GMG NPCs work that way, but it's a level of techiness we felt isn't necessary for a home GM to have to worry about for an NPC they are building.

Mark, sorry to bother you, but I still don't get it. Why did you guys set the stat bonuses so high? If I understand correctly, they don't need it. They would give a clearer picture if actually comparable to the PCs', and they don't influence practically anything, anyways (barring a couple fringe cases like holding your breath and using untrained skills, and in those cases you would want to have similar values to the PCs' to avoid people being able to stay underwater more than what's reasonable and having untrained proficiencies higher than most heroic protagonists...).

So, I don't get it. If others did could someone please explain? I can't seem to wrap my head around the concept =/

Mark Seifter wrote:

Deadmanwalking wrote:

This looks very solid, as guidelines go. In almost all regards it keeps monsters within the 'PC range' on things they should be within that range on, which works out rather nicely (it matches well with my analysis here, for example with only Extreme Skills exceeding PC Skill modifiers by more than a point or so).

My only real complaint is that, absent some sort of magic, special thing, or 'template' in PF1 terms NPCs of PC Ancestries should never have High or Extreme Ability Scores. PCs max out at 'Moderate' by that table, which is fine taken in isolation, but makes for issues if random Human enemy #6 is somehow vastly better than that.

That's something I really wish Paizo had put in the guidelines, and even more hope they apply to such enemies going forward. It's mechanically almost irrelevant (raw stat numbers almost never actually come up), but vitally important flavor-wise to not make the PCs feel incompetent in terms of raw stats.

It would be really good if they added some guidelines like this to the NPC section and adjusted the Class Roadmaps as appropriate. Otherwise, going by the guidelines, all NPC Bards built as monsters have Cha +7 at 10th level when PCs can't achieve that until 20th, which feels really bad and unfair in a way that the rest of these rules don't.

We tend to do so for published NPCs, like for instance the GMG NPCs work that way, but it's a level of techiness we felt isn't necessary for a home GM to have to worry about for an NPC they are building.

Mark, sorry to bother you, but I still don't get it. Why did you guys set the stat bonuses so high? If I understand correctly, they don't need it. They would give a clearer picture if actually comparable to the PCs', and they don't influence practically anything, anyways (barring a couple fringe cases like holding your breath and using untrained...

The stat bonuses are where they are to help you build monsters from kaiju to giant brains and beyond. If you want to build NPCs that follow more PC style stat bonuses, you can certainly do that too, but we felt that was a step farther than most GMs building for their game would need to dig into the process. We did mention the possibility to imagine proficiency modifiers behind the scenes, and if you do both that and use PC-like ability modifiers, you'll also start having trouble hitting the numbers you planned for NPCs because they tend to have much less treasure than a PC does.

The stat bonuses are where they are to help you build monsters from kaiju to giant brains and beyond. If you want to build NPCs that follow more PC style stat bonuses, you can certainly do that too, but we felt that was a step farther than most GMs building for their game would need to dig into the process. We did mention the possibility to imagine proficiency modifiers behind the scenes, and if you do both that and use PC-like ability modifiers, you'll also start having trouble hitting the numbers you planned for NPCs because they tend to have much less treasure than a PC does.

Okay, first off thank you for answering, Mark (and so fast! Wow!).

So, trying to understand... the ability bonuses need to be that high because they're intended for anything from skeletons to kaijus... we could give the npcs lower ability bonuses, more in line with PCs, while keeping the rest of the stats as they are, but if we were to give them lower ability bonuses and use PC-like proficiency numbers their skills would start to lag behind because 1) they don't have all the magic trinkets PCs have, and 2) they don't have all the feats and features PCs have...

... is that correct?...

... so... if I'm building an npc using the normal monster tables, in theory I could give them lower abilities, as long as skills, saves, attacks, damage, hp and the like cleave more closely to what the tables and the roadmaps prescribe...

... or I could just give them abilities as per the tables and roadmaps and call it a day because as long as the rest of the statblock adheres to the guidelines we don't really have a problem.

Did I understand correctly?...

... Thank you and sorry for being a freakin' knucklehead...

As I understand it, that all sounds right, though obviously Mark would know better.

Unfortunately, after looking through age of Ashes 4, I'm no longer as sanguine about this not needing to be in writing as I was. If the NPCs done by Paizo really all went by this guideline, it likely wouldn't need to be written...but that's clearly not true in practice at the moment.

You see, in addition to the example from Age of Ashes 2, almost all the NPCs in Age of Ashes 4 follow the official guidelines in the linked document...including numerous Human or Dwarven NPCs with stats so far beyond what the PCs could ever achieve, even at 20th level, that it's jarring and unpleasant in exactly the way I worried about in my first post. Almost all have +7 stat mods in their highest stat at 12th to 14th level, with some having as high as +8. Which...yeah, feels really bad as I discussed in my first post here. It also really messes up calibration between NPCs (there's a level 16 Dragon in the same book with the same Str score as random level 12 Dwarven thugs...that seems very wrong).

I assume this is because authors inevitably use the written guidelines pretty often, rather than only GMs who are homebrewing things using them. Changing those guidelines somewhat seems the best way to solve this very real issue.

So...I'm renewing my serious concern for the guidelines suggesting much higher than PC stats for humanoid NPCs.

It's not that authors or developers are violating intentions in any way and more so that the timeline on determining and distributing minor best practices internally necessarily lagged behind the earliest of products because we needed to complete the game before we could finalize and promulgate design practices that are more about the appearance and feel of the numbers in the statblocks than their playability. If they didn't have those guidelines yet, they couldn't follow them.

Thank you DMW.

As for dragons having the same Strength of a random thug, yes, it seems very, very wrong... so you can either lower those stats in your campaign to make them more NPC-like, or consider them a mix of stats and feats/features/magic.

You can also stop thinking about it. One of the NPCs I mentioned above from Cult of Cinders has terrific stats, but it's clearly just a serviceable approximation, not a simulation of reality.

If for instance you need to calculate jump distance, or Bulk, you definitely lower the numbers on the spot, to whatever you want.

Just to be clear, I completely agree that it's jarring and if it's possible it should be avoided... but I think, if I got it right, it's trivially easy to adjust in order to get the desired results, even during gameplay if needed.

Maybe I'm not giving the problem the appropriate weight, though, I don't know, I'm just starting to understand how it all works together...

It's not that authors or developers are violating intentions in any way and more so that the timeline on determining and distributing minor best practices internally necessarily lagged behind the earliest of products because we needed to complete the game before we could finalize and promulgate design practices that are more about the appearance and feel of the numbers in the statblocks than their playability. If they didn't have those guidelines yet, they couldn't follow them.

Fair enough. You're right, I'm sure, and that means I'm probably worrying in advance of the need to do so.

I guess what really worried me was that the NPCs in Age of Ashes 3 did mostly follow the guidelines you outlined, which made me worried that this was after the guidelines had been made official. Since that seems not to be the case, I'll cease worrying unless the pattern continues longer than it seems likely to.

Thank you DMW.

No problem. :)

And yes, I'm well aware that changing or ignoring overly high stats is very doable. Indeed, in most cases in terms of player facing stuff, the ignoring will happen almost automatically since the actual mechanical impact of stats on NPCs is pretty negligible.

The issue is purely one of theme and feel. A lot of players read NPC stat blocks too (at least those not specific to adventures they're playing), either because they also GM or simply because they enjoy getting a feel for what people in the world can accomplish. The latter motivation, in particular, makes it feel really bad if said NPCs have much better stats than PCs, as it makes the PCs feel inferior to others in the world even though that inferiority is not really borne out by the math in play.

For me, both as a player and a GM, having the NPC work in the role it's supposed to be in trumps the warm cozy fuzzy feeling that their stats are in line with PC stats.

I'd rather have level 12 NPCs that can challenge a level 12 party, not one-round-speed-bumps, even if it means that the level 12 NPC has +6 Strength or whatever.

For me, both as a player and a GM, having the NPC work in the role it's supposed to be in trumps the warm cozy fuzzy feeling that their stats are in line with PC stats.

I'd rather have level 12 NPCs that can challenge a level 12 party, not one-round-speed-bumps, even if it means that the level 12 NPC has +6 Strength or whatever.

I agree entirely. My whole argument is that, since Ability numbers mean almost nothing to NPCs, you really can have your cake and eat it too in this regard.

Changing the 12th level NPC to have a Str of only +4 or +5 (instead of +7) would make no difference whatsoever to their combat stats or Athletics (Athletics isn't based on Str Mod, and damage often adds various static mods as well)...so why not do it and have the best of both worlds?

Which, according to Mark Seifter is the route they're going with moving forward. Which is very good, I'm just being a tad paranoid about it.

Gorbacz wrote:

For me, both as a player and a GM, having the NPC work in the role it's supposed to be in trumps the warm cozy fuzzy feeling that their stats are in line with PC stats.

I'd rather have level 12 NPCs that can challenge a level 12 party, not one-round-speed-bumps, even if it means that the level 12 NPC has +6 Strength or whatever.

I agree entirely. My whole argument is that, since Ability numbers mean almost nothing to NPCs, you really can have your cake and eat it too in this regard.

Changing the 12th level NPC to have a Str of only +4 or +5 (instead of +7) would make no difference whatsoever to their combat stats or Athletics (Athletics isn't based on Str Mod, and damage often adds various static mods as well)...so why not do it and have the best of both worlds?

Which, according to Mark Seifter is the route they're going with moving forward. Which is very good, I'm just being a tad paranoid about it.

I agree, we can have our cake and eat it too. It's aesthetically more pleasing to see balanced stats for NPCs (and players can make sense of them more readily, without needing an explanation about how things work differently for PCs, NPCs, monsters...).

It's okay, sometimes the writers won't be able to refine a stat block (most of all with the current schedule), but normally you'll get the polished product.

I guess AoA suffers a bit from the same thing as Council of Thieves - lots of things designed with partial rules in hand or with some overflowing assumptions from previous games (such as, for example, if a NPC does 1d8+4 damage with a longsword it means their STR must be +4).

I can't stress how much I like the new NPC/monster rules and how easier do they make my life as a GM. Three 2e games in I can honestly say that this + new action economy was worth the asking price alone.

I can't stress how much I like the new NPC/monster rules and how easier do they make my life as a GM. Three 2e games in I can honestly say that this + new action economy was worth the asking price alone.

So much this. Yep.

I'm slowly introducing myself to 2e, and I would really like to convert my homebrew, and possibly the AP we are currently playing (Shattered Star).

If I'm following this discourse correctly, the new system isn't like 1e where if I wanted to add class levels to a monster, I followed a certain set of rules. Rather now with 2e, I take whatever creature I had thought up, and compare it to the appropriate challenge on the grid, and adjust the stats accordingly.

I read through the free excerpt, and I'll admit I'm still a little confused. I feel like I'm either missing something or I'm complicating the new process way more than necessary.

For example, in my last home brew, I had a lot of monsters with class levels, and I felt like I eventually had a system down for the process. You can find some of those here. I'm not sure if I'm going to update those stats soon, but I would like to eventually. Gray's Homebrew Stats

You start with the target numbers and work from here. Unlike PF1 where you would start with hit dice/levels/templates and only later validate whether whatever you put together is actually within target numbers.

In PF1, if you wanted a Centaur Ranger/Sorcerer with a template you'd stack all those things together aaaand then look at to what degree is that even appropriate for the CR you wanted it at. Frequently, it wouldn't be (for example, that centaur would be a really crappy sorcerer because not caster levels + muticlassing + racial HD + template = really low caster level and DCs at the CR).

In PF2, you take the target numbers (hp, attacks, saves etc) for the level you want the creature at and you then set it all to match, add some special abilities that are active and cool, slap some limited spellcasting (which yet runs off the level, so your centaur isn't a complete gimp at magic) and voila.

The new way is far smoother, elegant and liberating than PF1. It's one of the biggest strengths of the new system, IMHO.

The new way is far smoother, elegant and liberating than PF1. It's one of the biggest strengths of the new system, IMHO.

Thank you. I think at first glance, I was thinking "just show me how to add a class level to a centaur!" I was clearly looking at it the wrong way, so I'll read through it again.

I appreciate the feedback.

Does it feel like the damage output for higher level monsters is too low? For example, a 20th level moderate encounter does 37pts of damage. Against PC's who have upwards of 200+ HP, that doesn't seem significant. But maybe that is the intent?

Is the design constructed to have creatures with higher HP and AC? Thus, the monsters last longer, and lower damage output doesn't really matter?

Run a couple of test encounters and see what happens.

Does it feel like the damage output for higher level monsters is too low? For example, a 20th level moderate encounter does 37pts of damage. Against PC's who have upwards of 200+ HP, that doesn't seem significant. But maybe that is the intent?

That's 37 points of damage per attack. In practice, given the generally high to-hit for monsters, that's often a DPR somewhat in excess of the listed damage, and in PF2 monsters last long enough to get to do that for several rounds.

Now, a moderate encounter probably still won't take out even a single PC but that's not their intended result, really.

Is the design constructed to have creatures with higher HP and AC? Thus, the monsters last longer, and lower damage output doesn't really matter?

The monsters lasting longer if certainly one factor, but far from the only one.

First off, that's moderate damage, so it's meant for a ranged monster or one that has agile attacks.

Second, it's per one strike, not per entire round of damage. Providing it will attack three times, it can dish out up to 111 damage, not accounting for crits ... which happen more often in PF2 than they do in PF1.

In hazards what doe ECD and HDC mean? are they the save DC? I think that the first usage should be expanded and a small explanation.

In hazards what doe ECD and HDC mean? are they the save DC? I think that the first usage should be expanded and a small explanation.

There is an explanation, in the section just above that table:

Simple hazard DCs aren’t as accelerated as attack roll modifiers,

since effects with DCs usually have some effect even on a successful saving throw; use the EDC and HDC columns for extreme and hard DCs on Table 2-16: Offense below.