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What's "too lax" about the guidelines telling you what defenses and damage output should an NPC have?They basically boil down to "a monster of this level should have from this to that in any given stat or score" with no interesting restrictions preventing you from just creating what you want (or what you don't want).
IIRC there was no connection to actually building a stat block, i.e. having to make interesting choices - getting a high score here necessitates sacrifices there.
Just being told you can have anything from +12 to +18 for some creature tells me nothing. I want to see the specific choices the devs made when they created the GMG NPCs.
Zapp
PS. I know I've discussed it with Dave2008 over at ENWOrld but try as I might I can't find the thread right now
In PF2 you start with target numbers and go from there, instead of PF1 where you would start with the building blocks and the see if they added up to target numbers. It's faster, more intiutive and ensures that your monster/NPC has actually correct numbers for the target level, unlike PF1 where you could have wildly different creatures of given CR because that's how the system worked and because optimization applied to monsters just like it did to PCs.
They basically boil down to "a monster of this level should have from this to that in any given stat or score" with no interesting restrictions preventing you from just creating what you want (or what you don't want).
IIRC there was no connection to actually building a stat block, i.e. having to make interesting choices - getting a high score here necessitates sacrifices there.
What? You build monsters like PCs?
There is no choice when building a monster. If my monster has high Strength, it has high Strength, period. It shouldn't have any impact on another of its attributes.
I think that Zapp's point is this: you can make a level X monsters with all 'extremes' scores, for example.
I would say that yes, you could 'cheat'. But what would be the point of doing that? When most of your monsters' stats, damage, saves and HP are above the average, you should just pick an higher level for it instead. Or maybe compensate its very solid stats with weaker special abilities.
I want to know if a Cultist or Cutthroat or frikkin' Beggar has below or above average stats in Athletics or Dexterity or Will Save.
Is it because you can't say or because you want the monster creation to be even faster?
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I found the "Build your own Monster" rules extremely open-ended to the point they're really not useful.
Useful NPC building rules to me set sufficiently restrictive limitations that it becomes a challenge to create an overpowered monster/encounter.
With the aim that this makes it less likely a new GM just stumbles into such a build. Of course the intention can never be to stop killer GMs - they will always find ways to create deadly encounters: the real value of making NPC building into a minigame is that new GMs that "just make something up" will likely end up with something average or easier.
After all, an encounter that's "too easy" is much less disruptive to a campaign than an encouner that's too hard.
The "Build your own Monster" rules are all over the place. They're way too lax to be properly prescriptive or normative.
If I want to know what the developers intend for, say, a Barbarian level 6 NPC, I will have to wait until the actual set of ready-made NPC stat blocks are released, and work from there.
Not really?
"You can use these suggestions when creating your roadmap to emulate a PC class, customizing as you see fit. You’ll still need to look at the class to pick feats, weapons, and the like. Any statistic that isn’t specifically listed can use moderate numbers."
"Barbarian high Athletics; high Str, high to moderate Con; high AC; high Fortitude; high HP; moderate attack and extreme damage (when raging); Rage and a few barbarian abilities"
"Barbarian instinct ability and related feats, raging resistance; Feats 1st: Raging Intimidation; 2nd: No Escape, Shake it Off; 4th: Fast Movement, Swipe; 6th: Attack of Opportunity, Cleave;"
I can slap together a barbarian that follows those guidelines in a couple minutes, and you should be able to as well.
Raging resistance is lvl 9 for a character. Wouldn't be strange to find an npc of the same class with dr 3 levels earlier than the player?
No, why would it?
Soulbound Doll is a level 2 Creature that can cast Chilling Darkness which is a level 3 spell players can't get until level 5.
Creatures having stronger abilities than players at level is a feature.