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I was designing an adventure just now and I needed a monster. And as often happens I was flipping through the Bestiary getting annoyed because nothing was exactly what I wanted.
And then I thought, "I'll just build it."
And then I did.
It took me about twenty minutes.
When I was finished, I sat there for an extra five thinking "surely there is some step I have missed... what am I forgetting?"
But there was nothing. I was done.
Paizo, what is this madness you have created?
PS I love the monster building rules.
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I built a potential final boss for my campaign in 45 minutes. I was absolutely astonished, particularly after it took me working on and off over the course of two weeks to build a suitable end-of-arc boss for a 5e game.
It's amazing how simple the monster creation rules are. The most difficult part is coming up with abilities, but that's, to me, the most fun part as well. And I love that I feel like I can actually trust the math in this system, instead of it just being a rough approximation of how strong a monster or encounter should probably maybe be. I've only seen one or two monsters that might be too strong for their level.
Yeah, that! I just did a conversion of the cave fisher to 2e (because I hate my players :P ) - doing the actual stats took me about five minutes, and then doing the whole fillament-and-drag ability took me about fifteen to work out.
In other words, the most interesting part of the monster took the majority of the time.
This is exactly opposite from my 1e monster building experience.
Did you just use the Core Rules for it?
My longest and most difficult conversion yet was the Colour Out of Space because I waffled for a really long time how I wanted to render some of its abilities, namely how it's variable ability drain from Feed can result in one of two dates for the victim.
Ultimately didn't matter because PCs won't be subjected to more than one feeding, but wanted to explain the states of the NPCs in the area. Also wasn't sure if incorporeality plus crit immunity would end up with a terrible slog of a fight, but I'm convinced the damage numbers are high enough
As much as I like to complain about the eventual pitfalls of the system I found out after a while playing, gotta give credit where it's due: the monster creation rules really are amazing. As someone that came from 5e, you can very quickly create monsters that are an adequate challenge and still much more interesting than the bags of hitpoints of that system. With the help of some online tools, I even made different "classes" (brute, long ranged striker, etc.) of bandits for a random encounter on the fly in one of the last sessions I ran.
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Wait until you get comfortable enough to start making up stuff without precedents or examples.
I made a cutie that has fearsense as a precise sense. I'm in love. They're not just terrifying in game, they're built for concern.
Paizo pls give official Sahkils fearsense kthxbye.
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This is also the final resolution to the problem of, 'Help. I have a player that has memorized the monster manual and metagame picks the most optimal weapons/abilities/tactics to use against it. Won't even spend the in-game time to make a recall knowledge check just for the RP value'.
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My longest and most difficult conversion yet was the Colour Out of Space because I waffled for a really long time how I wanted to render some of its abilities, namely how it's variable ability drain from Feed can result in one of two dates for the victim.
Ultimately didn't matter because PCs won't be subjected to more than one feeding, but wanted to explain the states of the NPCs in the area. Also wasn't sure if incorporeality plus crit immunity would end up with a terrible slog of a fight, but I'm convinced the damage numbers are high enough
I struggled with the Colour in PF1. As presented in the AP where I ran it, it would have basically just been a big bag of HP, really hard to target, lurks in the walls kinda super drawn out fight.
In PF2 I might present it as a two-phase thing, where most of the time it's a complex hazard and only occasionally does it coalesce into a localized creature.
Wow I see some of you are clearly really creative with the unique abilities . That is the part where I tend to struggle
This is also the final resolution to the problem of, 'Help. I have a player that has memorized the monster manual and metagame picks the most optimal weapons/abilities/tactics to use against it. Won't even spend the in-game time to make a recall knowledge check just for the RP value'.
Can’t they still do this for monsters in the bestiary? Just not for created ones
And has anyone yet stumbled upon someone saying something like - “this is clearly a boss so probably 2 levels higher than us which means it has an AC range of x-y”.
Because that seems like that could happen? Someone learning the monster creation tables (or having them open on a phone or tab). I am sure I heard someone make this comment (I think on Know Direction) about Starfinder monsters
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This is also the final resolution to the problem of, 'Help. I have a player that has memorized the monster manual and metagame picks the most optimal weapons/abilities/tactics to use against it. Won't even spend the in-game time to make a recall knowledge check just for the RP value'.
And has anyone yet stumbled upon someone saying something like - “this is clearly a boss so probably 2 levels higher than us which means it has an AC range of x-y”.
Because that seems like that could happen? Someone learning the monster creation tables (or having them open on a phone or tab). I am sure I heard someone make this comment (I think on Know Direction) about Starfinder monsters
This sort of metagaming bothers me less, at least personally, because I feel like at a certain point it isn't really metagaming. Adventurers adventure, it's what they do, and it only makes sense that some of them would start to learn what to expect.
Also, an AC range of "x-y" makes a big difference in 2e. A monster with an AC of 19 and a monster with an AC of 22 are very, very different from each other in terms of how that AC affects things like optimal combat strategies and also the feel of the monster. Even just one point of AC on a boss can be the difference between "do 19s crit or not?", and I can say from experience that players definitely notice when a 19 doesn't crit.
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Also, players are going to figure out the AC anyway if they pay enough attention and keep attacking the thing.
figuring out what the AC is b/c we are fighting it for a long time isn't really metagaming. It's literally a combatant learning of his enemies weaknesses (or lack there of) during combat.
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I love, love, LOVE the new monster build rules! Being able to scale threats up and down with ease has literally opened up the ENTIRE Bestiary for play at any level.
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I was designing an adventure just now and I needed a monster. And as often happens I was flipping through the Bestiary getting annoyed because nothing was exactly what I wanted.
And then I thought, "I'll just build it."
And then I did.
It took me about twenty minutes.
When I was finished, I sat there for an extra five thinking "surely there is some step I have missed... what am I forgetting?"
But there was nothing. I was done.
Paizo, what is this madness you have created?
PS I love the monster building rules.
This has been my experience as well :) I have also found myself more inspired to be creative by the whole approach.
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I haven't been doing much PF2E stuff myself, but seeing the monster building rules and the examples of interesting monsters in the bestiary really helped up my game in designing PF1E creatures. The Simple Monster Creation rules from Pathfinder Unchained are similar in concept, but the PF2E version presents it in a neater fashion.
The focus on making neat and/or iconic abilities is a big star of the show.
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I do miss the example abilities from the simple rules. Wouldn’t mind it for Hazards either; even just saying “a hazard of this level has the effect of a spell of this level” like the haunt rules had in PF1.
Perhaps we’ll still get that at some point, when the system is a little more mature.
I love, love, LOVE the new monster build rules! Being able to scale threats up and down with ease has literally opened up the ENTIRE Bestiary for play at any level.
And adventures / modules - be they 2E ones or converted 1E ones
Once you have the base chassis there you can just scale up or down accordingly and play any module whenever
Incidentally is there an issue with using the elite or weak template more than once? Are they only intended to be used once or can I apply elite twice to say, an Ogre Boss to get a level 9 enemy ? Or at that point do you start needing to cross reference with the table?
I can see that multiple applications of the template would be a problem for monsters with spells as although the numbers will go up the levels of spells would not ...
Incidentally is there an issue with using the elite or weak template more than once? Are they only intended to be used once or can I apply elite twice to say, an Ogre Boss to get a level 9 enemy ? Or at that point do you start needing to cross reference with the table?
The templates overcompensate on basic modifiers to account for the fact that they don't give a creature any new abilities, so stacking them would get further and further away from the target numbers.
As an extreme example say would wanted a level 20 drow fighter, so you apply the elite template 19 times to a level 1 drow fighter. Well, now it has 56 AC, so good luck hitting it, as well as +47 attack and similar saving throws - it's way stronger than level 20 while also not doing anything interesting.
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And has anyone yet stumbled upon someone saying something like - “this is clearly a boss so probably 2 levels higher than us which means it has an AC range of x-y”.
I wondered about this in Starfinder, because Starfinder has a similar style of monster building. And SFS scenarios are kinda predictable in that you can usually guess the CR of the monsters based on how many there are.
But as it turns out, no, it's not really a problem. It just doesn't become problematic. Somewhat surprisingly.
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And has anyone yet stumbled upon someone saying something like - “this is clearly a boss so probably 2 levels higher than us which means it has an AC range of x-y”.I wondered about this in Starfinder, because Starfinder has a similar style of monster building. And SFS scenarios are kinda predictable in that you can usually guess the CR of the monsters based on how many there are.
But as it turns out, no, it's not really a problem. It just doesn't become problematic. Somewhat surprisingly.
I feel like most players want to have fun, so brush away these kind of things because otherwise, it would break their immersion and fun.
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Incidentally is there an issue with using the elite or weak template more than once? Are they only intended to be used once or can I apply elite twice to say, an Ogre Boss to get a level 9 enemy ? Or at that point do you start needing to cross reference with the table?
I wouldn't use the elite or weak templates more than once or twice.
For more than a few levels of difference, I would instead do a reverse lookup on the tables for the level of creature and determine which category the stat falls into. Then pull a number from that same category at the desired level.
For example, a Hobgoblin Archer is a level 4 creature in the bestiary that I want to change to a level 13 creature. For HP, it has 50 HP at level 4. That falls between Moderate and Low for a level 4 on the HP table. So to give it a level 13 amount of HP I would give it about 200 HP - somewhere between Moderate and Low for level 13.
A notable factor when scaling up or down is the extra abilities.
You don't want to scale a Medusa down to 3rd level yet keep that gaze, nor that Orc upward w/o adding some abilities, likely some savage ones from a Fighter, Barbarian, or even a Boar creature of comparable level.
So yeah, the Elite & Weak templates bypass that via pure numbers, though those'll skew way off the curve if taken too far.
That is also a very good point.
That level 13 Hobgoblin Archer could use some level 13 abilities to go with it.
And the level 3 Medusa should only be causing woes that low level players can handle.
So it isn’t purely about the numbers - which is where things become a little more abstract
Because it is tougher to pinpoint what sort of power level a 13th level creature ability should be compared to a 4th level one
For those that mimic feats it is a little easier
But are we saying the 13th level hobgoblin should have the same benchmarks within the numbers but more powerful feats? Or would they have to move down in some of the numbers to offset more powerful abilities
Seems like a mix of a large part “science” with a bit of “art” in there as well
So it isn’t purely about the numbers - which is where things become a little more abstract
Because it is tougher to pinpoint what sort of power level a 13th level creature ability should be compared to a 4th level one
For those that mimic feats it is a little easier
But are we saying the 13th level hobgoblin should have the same benchmarks within the numbers but more powerful feats? Or would they have to move down in some of the numbers to offset more powerful abilities
Seems like a mix of a large part “science” with a bit of “art” in there as well
In the GMG, it has some guidelines. For instance, avoid giving a monster a spell that is too high a level for a PC of the same level to have. e.g. A 6th level monster with a 4th level spell is a bit low but probably ok, a 4th level creature with a 4th level spell is going to be deadly to PCs.
Look at where PC's start to hit some great action savers. level 1 or 2 feats allow for the situational "2 strikes in one action feats", but it's not till level 8 or 10 that they start to get extra reactions for instance.Also, look at other monsters. A great example of stretching action economy is the Gogiteth. Level 12 monster, with Skittering Attack, 2 actions strides 3 times and takes a strike at different creature with ever stride with no MAP. A really great ability, BUT there are some clear design choices to make it less deadly.
First, it can't focus the strikes on one target it has to be spread out, that way it doesn't down a PC with a two action-three attack move. Second, Skittering Assault is restricted to leg strikes, which has low damage. Also it has low Perception, low AC, HP at the low end of high. It's a great ability, but it is weak at other areas to make it a bit less dangerous.
The gogiteth is just overall a really fun monster and some of the best monster design I've seen out of Paizo yet. Just by reading its abilities you can visualize exactly how this monster is intended to fight: Bite one creature, improved grab it, and then skitter around the battlefield stabbing everyone else, dragging the grabbed creature along the whole way.
The best designed monsters are like that - every ability they have feels like a coherent whole and you can tell on a quick read-through exactly how best to run the monster.
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The gogiteth is just overall a really fun monster and some of the best monster design I've seen out of Paizo yet. Just by reading its abilities you can visualize exactly how this monster is intended to fight: Bite one creature, improved grab it, and then skitter around the battlefield stabbing everyone else, dragging the grabbed creature along the whole way.
The best designed monsters are like that - every ability they have feels like a coherent whole and you can tell on a quick read-through exactly how best to run the monster.
100% agree. Between improved grab and skittering attack, they can take 8!! actions in one turn.
Don't forget about their reaction! you move in to strike and it just skitters out of reach. This means you have to use two Strides to close instead of one, meaning that you can't retreat after your attack. Meaning you are a sitting duck for it's Bite/Grab combo.
Monster creation is hands down the best part of PF2. I got pro and cons all over the place, but the creation is just plains perfect. I created 6 monsters from level 3 to 6 including one boss (spellcaster!) in one hour yesterday. They were all balanced and fun to play and play against.
I think since we started my campaign PF2 I used four monsters from the Bestiary and created all the other.
I made a Aspis Consortium Thug, Inexperienced Nimarthas Ranger, a Cheliaxian Infernal Magistrate/Boutny Hunter and finally Borzlo the Ebonnight, à kind of Sylvan Graveknight who looks so metal he could be an album cover from the 90’s.
So far perfect.