Monster Conversions: 1E to 2E

[GhstDncr]

I know a lot of people have already said basically the CR rating in 1E is roughly the Creature Rating in 2E but wondering if any others have thoughts about how to deal with or modify a monster's AC, saving throws, and hit bonuses since 2E scales as level increase (at least for PCs). So would a Monster's scale also up per CR? Or did I miss some conversion rules / guidelines for this already somewhere?

For example for a Creature 4 do you think it would be fine to take a 1E monster and just increase AC, saving throw, and to hit bonuses by 4? Basically bump the states from 1E by the CR rating?

Also any thoughts on when looking at special abilities of how to decide something should 2 or 3 actions?

Right now we are doing Plaguestone to get everyone use to 2E but the players really want to the AP Tyrant's Grasp next.

FOR EXAMPLE:
============

A Nightgaunt CR4 - 1E (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/monstrous-humanoids/nig htgaunt) has:

AC 18
FOR +3 | REF +8 | WILL +6
Melee Claws +9

Tickle attack as swift action

So for 2E would this seem right?

AC 22
FOR +7 | REF +12 | WILL +10
Melee Claws +13

Tickle attack 1 action

Any thoughts on how others approaching this would be appreciate it.

[Lord_B]

I'm not converting monsters in that way, but those numbers you came up with for the nightgaunt seem acceptable on their own. Exceptions to these rules can and should exist, and it's important to design new actions for the creatures to perform so we aren't left with a sea of monsters that only ever spend their actions to Stride and Strike.

I don't think it scales quite as well for high levels though. High level 1e creatures seem to be up by closer to 8 points, and often have saves way below the comparatively uniform scaling in 2e. In the following example, literally the second creature I checked, one save went up 21 points.

MU SPORE (1e)

AC 37
FOR +26 | REF +11 | WILL +19
Melee bite +32
Melee tentacles +27

MU SPORE (1e)

AC 45
FOR +38 | REF +32 | WILL +38
Melee bite +32
Melee tentacles +27

Other thing you might have noticed, secondary natural attacks no longer benefit from a -5 penalty to attacks, particularly as the best way to give them tactical use is to make them agile for the slight bonus to hit.

Your method might work okay for quickly remaking low level monsters, but if combat is the main focus of the game, you should expect serious problems. These systems are not designed to work the same way.

[Talsharien]

I built a monster conversion spreadsheet during the playtest but have not had time to check the numbers using the Bestiary as yet.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1C6POBHukEezHfLKiENWpHUZLW6aobrIu

Feel free to have a play with this.

[GhstDncr]

Thanks for the input all.

I will definitely take a look Talsharien.

Lord_B I ran into the same problem with high level creatures and then realized that I basically forgot about that they should also have training with things:

Untrained = CR
Trained = CR + 2
Expert = CR + 4
Master = CR + 6
Legendary = CR + 8

When I compared the Hellhound and Harpy from 1E to 2E the FOR, REF, WILL all worked matched up. The AC was either on or off by 1 or 2 and same with melee.

I feel like I just need to roughly get in the ballpark with the conversions and the players know it will be a bit fuzzy since as you say have to make decisions how to handle special attacks and other stuff like you mention.

Hopefully more things or guidance will be out by the time we get to Eulogy for Roslar's Coffer (Book 2).

Would have been a lot easier if we just did Age of Ashes instead but they all really want to Tyrant's Grasp.