After reading the DMG and the MM there are very few specific rules for monster creation. Most of it seems fairly adhoc and "use your own judgement" or "change something that's already there".
For example, how are you assigning ability scores to monsters now? 4e uses different abilities for different things now and if you try to reverse engineer at lot of what was in the old 3.5 MM and what's in the new 4e MM, it doesnt' really match up that often. The best example is the Hyena. From what I can gather, I've made the following assumptions:
HD is now monster level.
Size modifiers are gone now.
Ability scores are fairly close as seen here.
Hyena 3.5
Str 14, Dex 15, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 6
Hyena 4.0
Str 16, Dex 15, Con 13, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 5
For powers I guess you'll need to look in the 4e MM and convert them over as needed, but this more of an art than a science.
Everything else about the monster is derived from its level, role, and ability scores it seems.
But then you look at the Gelatinous Cube, and almost none of its ability scores match up anymore. Any ideas?
I suggest that you read the fluff and from that, build the monster to actually match it. Level-wise, you put it at the level you need it. If you don't need it for something specific, don't worry too much about level.
Maybe it would help if you came up with an example of a monster that you have trouble converting.
Check page 184 of 4E DMG. There is a full entry on how to create monsters from scratch, with base statistics by role and level. It may be helpful to convert old monsters.
I think I'm going to invent some process of "fast converting", but when I have time for that.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Check page 184 of 4E DMG. There is a full entry on how to create monsters from scratch, with base statistics by role and level. It may be helpful to convert old monsters.
I think I'm going to invent some process of "fast converting", but when I have time for that.
Unfortunately, the rules for creating minions appear to be nonexistant.
I think I have managed to piece together most of the stats, except for the AC, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses calculations.
The DMG for instance says that Brutes have all their defenses set at Level + 12.
But then you look in the MM on page 170 at the Kruthik Young stats.
For a level 2 Brute you'd expect an AC an defenses of 14 across the board, but its AC is 15, Fort is 13, Reflex is 14, and Will is 11.
For AC, ok, we can rule they have +1 natural armor.
But the other defenses don't add up. The DMG says when you create a new monster, the average ability score for the higher score of each "pair" of abilities is 13 plus half the level. So for the Young it would be 14. It then says to calculate its defenses, you take the base of 12 + level (14) and modify it up or down according to the higher stat of each "pair" of abilities, and add or subtract 1 to the score for every 2 points the ability deviates from the average. So a Str of 15 is average, which means its Fort defense should be 14. Its Reflex should be 15 since its Dexterity is 16, and its Will should be 12 since its Wisdom is 10.
Any ideas here?
If I was going to convert an existing monster, I'd do it like this.
First, find a monster that I want to convert. Cracking open, say, Monster Manual 3 and flipping to a random monster that wasnt already built into 4E (took me a few tries, actually) I stumble upon the RUNEHOUND! Yay. I like aberrations anyway.
Its CR 3, so its probably good for a 3rd-level party back in the days of 3rd Edition. So, lets peg it as a level 3...what? Well, its highly mobile (10 square movement), has a flexible neck that lets it attack you 2 squares away, and can spit acid to boot! I think it'd work great as a skirmisher: level 3 skirmisher.
What about the rest of its abilities? Vile spew, psychic scent, and uncanny blindsight. Vile spew could be an encounter power that deals either acid damage or can lock down a creature. Hmm...if I make that at-will, ths guy suddenly makes an interesting controller or artillery. Well, crap!
In this instance, why not have the best of both worlds? Make a runehound that is good at moving and biting creatures with a per encounter acid shot, and another that can shoot out sticky globs that lock opponents down, but can alternate between acidic blasts?
Now I have a level 3 skirmisher and a level 3 controller, making this a pretty good monster to use just by itself. If I wanted to get really extreme, I could even make an artillery variant that only fires acidic shots. I think we're fine with just the above two, however.
Now its just a matter of compiling two stat blocks: one for a 3rd level skirmisher, and the other for a 3rd-level controller. I ignore the monster's old AC, saves, skills, stuff like that, instead just figuring out what the monster was good for (or was supposed to be good for) and just railroad it that way.
I make the acid shot a range 10 attack, give it a recharge of...5 I guess (the controller can do it every round), and make sure it deals the damage its supposed to.
Oh, dont forget tremorsense. I think a distance of 10 squares is fine, 20 at the max.
One I plan on converting is the Ragewalker (Really annoying fey creature, our usual DM wants the thing converted).
After doing some reading in the MM PDF, I think the rules in the DMG may be incorrect on the defense calculations for the various monster roles. The DMG didn't really mention that the monster ability scores modify their Fort, Ref, and Will scores but it appears they do when looking at other monsters in the MM. So I think the DMG may have some errors here (which was mentioned in many other threads) and we'll need to wait for the actual books to accurately convert those stats over.
After doing some reading in the MM PDF, I think the rules in the DMG may be incorrect on the defense calculations for the various monster roles. The DMG didn't really mention that the monster ability scores modify their Fort, Ref, and Will scores but it appears they do when looking at other monsters in the MM. So I think the DMG may have some errors here (which was mentioned in many other threads) and we'll need to wait for the actual books to accurately convert those stats over.
I think we must have done the same exercise (using the MM to figure out the DMG section on creating monsters). The two paragraphs about assigning ability scores in the DMG is pretty obtuse. Looking at it again after converting the sinspawn (see below), I think what those paragraphs tell you are the average ability scores for creatures of that level. The MM shows realistic monsters (ogres have low Wis and Cha, so their Will defense is lower than average for their level).
I spent about ninety minutes creating and tweaking my first conversion. I posted it over in the Runelords forum (spoiler warning for players):
I expect that it will go much quicker with future monsters. The DMG makes getting the numbers (defenses, ability scores, attack and damage bonuses) close enough much easier. Picking or creating powers is definitely the most interesting part.
Unfortunately, the rules for creating minions appear to be nonexistant.
I haven't seen it either. Based on looking at the monsters in the DMG, the principle changes seem to be:
Change the hp line
Change the damage so it is flat rather than random (offhand it looks like the minimum result from the Low column of the Normal Damage Expressions table)
Don't add encounter or recharge powers
I think we must have done the same exercise (using the MM to figure out the DMG section on creating monsters). The two paragraphs about assigning ability scores in the DMG is pretty obtuse. Looking at it again after converting the sinspawn (see below), I think what those paragraphs tell you are the average ability scores for creatures of that level. The MM shows realistic monsters (ogres have low Wis and Cha, so their Will defense is lower than average for their level).I expect that it will go much quicker with future monsters. The DMG makes getting the numbers (defenses, ability scores, attack and damage bonuses) close enough much easier. Picking or creating powers is definitely the most interesting part.
I have come to the same conclusions as you about the DMG steps to creating a monster. Creating new powers is actually not very hard as most of the different types of powers can be found in the MM already, you just change a couple keywords and labels and you're done.
The problems I was speaking of specifically are related to the table on page 184 of the DMG titled "Monster Statistics by Role"
Specifically the fact that the row "Other defenses" is completely wrong. After some careful comparisons, it looks like this row should be a different base number, and then modified by the monster's ability scores.
Try it out with the "Zombie" excerpt monsters and you'll see what I mean. You can see all the medium brutes have their defenses at 10 + ability mods. The skirmisher is 12 + ability mods. The artillery is 11 + ability mods. The soldier is 13 + ability mods. The Zombie Hulk is a Large brute though and its defenses work out to 15 + ability mods (Fort is 1 below this for some reason). This got me thinking that maybe its size added to its defenses?
I'm just trying to figure out how the WotC guys created these monster mechanically so I can do the same I guess.