Monster Creation Guidelines?

[Harles]

Have monster creation guidelines/tips been released for PF2? So far, Google has let me down in my research.

[Lanathar]

No they haven’t not formally

The high level advise is find a similar monster of a similar level and use their defensive and offensive bonuses and the reskin - adding unique abilities as required - perhaps by using other stat blocks as ideas

For example a yeth hound would be a hell hound with the fire breath weapon replaced by bay (using the owlear ability as a base point). You can remove some HP and add some resistances and also give it fly in exchange for probably reducing something else

It is also worth checking what sort of abilities playtest versions that didn’t make it had and then bumping them up to align with similar level monsters

The same idea applies to NPCs it seems. If you look at say a third level “unique” humanoid enemy they will have very similar attack, HP, ac and saves to the average of the level (I am going off the first named unique villain of Fall of Plaguestone)

[Gorbacz]

The upcoming Gamemastery Guide will have them. At this point, taking a monster with the intended level and modifying it to fit what you want it to do is your best bet. For me, it works rather well and gives more flexibility than PF1 had.

[Blave]

Gorbacz wrote:

The upcoming Gamemastery Guide will have them.

It should be noted that the monster creation rules will be released as a free pdf long before the GM Guide is released.