What you are looking for is the Building Creatures rules from the Gamemastery Guide.
How that works in practice is that you use your existing creature or template idea as the answer to the first two sections "Develop the Concept" and "Understanding and Choosing Statistics". Then you fill in the names of attacks and special abilities also from the existing creature and then fill in all the numbers from the tables that create pretty much the entire rest of the Building Creatures pages.
As a specific example, let's take the idea of creating a level 16 Fighter Ogre.
Looking at Ogres in the bestiaries, I see the level 3 Ogre Warrior. Which is pretty close to the concept of the enemy that is wanted, but is drastically the wrong level and doesn't really have any Fighter class features.
So:
Step 1 - Concept. level 16 Ogre Fighter. Check.
Step 2 - Picking statistics for the theme. At first glance it looks like the Ogre Warrior has high Strength and Constitution and low to very low of everything else. Checking the expected stats for a level 3 creature, I notice that the Strength at +5 actually falls into the Extremely high category for a level 3. Noticing that, I am also going to spot check its melee attack bonus. I see that its Ogre Hook bonus of +12 only falls into the High category for a level 3 creature. So that will be the first Fighter class feature added - bumping the creature up to Extreme level for its melee attack bonus. I'll also add Attack of Opportunity (a.k.a Reactive Strike) since that is a hallmark guaranteed feature of the Fighter class. If this Ogre also uses a shield I would add Shield Block as well.
Step 3 - Fill in the numbers.
At this point, we are just pulling numbers off of the tables for the level 16 creature. I would go with:
STR +10, DEX +4, CON +9, INT -1, WIS +4, CHA -2
Skills: Athletics +35, Intimidation +28
HP 370
AC 36
Fortitude +30, Reflex +25, Will +22
◆ Ogre Hook +34 (deadly 3d10, reach 10 feet, trip), Damage 3d12+18 piercing
◆ Javelin +27 (thrown 30 feet), Damage 3d6+15 piercing
↺ Reactive Strike
And now we have a stat block for a level 16 Ogre Fighter.
When downleveling a higher level creature, such as if you want to use a Hag for a level 1 encounter and want it to be specifically a Blood Hag (level 8) instead of a Sea Hag (level 3) or Green Hag (level 4 - probably with Weak Template), then you are going to want to check the special abilities to make sure that they are in line with things that other creatures have at that level.
For the Blood Hag, make sure to remove any spells that are too high of level for a level 2 or 3 creature. And maybe reduce the fly speed of Fiery Form and/or limit it to no more than a few feet above the ground so that the Blood Hag can't kite the party or easily escape when things go badly since the low level characters won't have flight access of their own like they would when closer to level 8.
Also, you shouldn't need to reverse engineer rats as they already exist: https://2e.aonprd.com/MonsterFamilies.aspx?ID=86
Also, you're picking an interesting moment to make your own Pathfinder setting, because Pathfinder is going through a remaster process to move it further away from D&D intellectual property. You should probably decide now whether you want to use the more familiar trappings or the shiny new stuff. Said shiny stuff will be found in books called Player Core and GM Core, and the soon to be published Monster Core and eventually published Player Core 2.
Many of the changes are simply renames, like magic missile becoming force barrage. Many spells also got punch ups, like black tentacles' replacement slither.
The biggest setting change, though, is the removal of alignment. I cover the exact mechanics in this thread: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43y1z?Sanctificaton-and-You-A-Guide-by-Captain -Morgan
Creatures that were intrinsically affiliated with good alignment before (celestials) will now have the "holy" trait. Creatures that were intrinsically affiliated with evil alignment (fiends and undead) will now have the "unholy" trait. Lawful and chaotic alignment no longer exist in the mechanical sense because Paizo wasn't really telling stories about that anyway.
As a setting creator, you should consider what framework will better support the stories you want to tell. While Golarion tends to assume holy and unholy map with good and evil morality, you could take it in a different direction where angels aren't necessarily nice and good and demons aren't necessarily evil. That works a lot better once you divorce those mechanics from PCs and most NPCs.
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A big difference between PF1 and PF2 monster design is that PF2 design is really focused on the end result, while PF1 design is more concerned with the process of how you get there.
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In PF1, you'd take a base creature, add templates, add levels, and calculate where you end up.
Then you could compare that to a table of "what numbers should a creature of this level actually have?" and you were probably off from that by a lot. So then you could invent some "special abilities" to give you a bonus or penalty of some kind to get closer to the table.
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PF2 monster design is much more to the point. "My party is level 14, I want a Moderate difficulty challenge here, so the XP table says I can do that with a level 16 solo creature. Okay so now I want a level 16 ogre/warrior flavored monster". You look in the creature design tables and they give you the numbers you need. You add a couple more abilities. And done.
The numbers are pretty much automatic. They're just the numbers that are appropriate for a monster of that level, with the kind of style you asked for (bruiser, soldier, ambusher etc.) The abilities is where you do most of the creative work.
That also means that a lot of the boring work of looking up numbers can be automated, and it has been. I like to use this website to do that for me: monster tools. You start out by telling it:
- the level of the monster
- creature type
- roadmap (soldier, spellcaster etc.)
From that, it can fill in a lot of numbers for you with "typical" values. Saves a lot of work, and the result is pretty good. You get a monster that is exactly as powerful as you asked for.
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And, I will be creating a schema for monster design that is more flexible. The current monster design isn't bad, per se, depending on what you're doing, but for my purposes, I'm going to need something more narratively consistent.
So, neither of those things sounds true from what you've said so far. What you are looking for isn't a flexible system focused on the narrative. You're looking for rigid but thorough rules to satisfy your instincts as a gamer. The PF2 monster creation rules are extremely flexible because they only really care about the end result that winds up in the narrative-- ie, what your players interact with. Bottom up monster building doesn't actually tend to be very consistent, either, at least as far as creating level appropriate challenges are concerned. Now, maybe you are good enough at game design* to generate a set of rules so robust it can create a consistent play experience across loads of different monster types at all levels of play. But the thing is your players would never know the difference, because they don't see all the extra work you did on the back end. They just see however much punishment the monster dishes out and how much it withstands, plus whatever cool flavorful stuff you add. The work you're doing is solely for yourself. I dabbled with building NPCs as PCs when I first started PF2, but once the building creatures rules were published I realized how much easier those were, not just to build but to actually run.
*To be brutally honest, what you've shared so far has not inspired much faith you're up to this task. Your first post on the forum (where you somehow bought a bunch of books that didn't even seem to be Pathfinder 2e) and things like apparently missing the existence of rats in the bestiary both make it seem like you're someone rushing to execute big ideas while not paying too much attention to detail. Because of its crit system, the PF2 math engine is very fine tuned, and shifting a creature's to hit or AC by a point or two drastically change how it runs in play. It doesn't sound like you've actually played the game yet, which is concerning if you're planning to rewrite said game.
Now I have a very limited window into your experience right now, and might be completely off base. But if you haven't just played the game as written yet, I'd strongly urge you to do so.
If you want your ogre to be more fighter-like, follow the advice of the posters above me (it really is great advice), but add two or three fighter class feats as your monster's abilities.
Not only will it immediately make the monster more recognizable as a fighter, those abilities have already been balanced by level.
I would not recommend giving as many feats and abilities as a PC of that level. Just enough to make your concept work.
A 16th-level ogre fighter, for example, would most certainly have Attack of Opportunity (Reactive Strike in the Remaster), but could also be given Whirlwind Strike and Swipe.
The PF2 system has its math backbones done well, so...
While the current creature design rules sadly gutted "bottom up"/"simulationist" design to make space for an understandably sane "top down"/"gamist" balance that just WORKS, it should work well with the former provided someone actually spends the time and effort.
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Sometimes as a player I grumble a bit about "so they have that rogue thing and that fighter thing as well, isn't that convenient for them..."
And yeah, that's partly because NPCs don't truly get built like PCs. They're just a sort of hollow outer shell that looks like a PC class, with just enough class ability sauce to be convincing stand-ins.
But on the other hand, that's also part of the brilliance. It saves heaps of time, and guarantees that you get to a much more on-target balance result.
One of the tips in the monster design guidelines I particularly like is this one:
Avoid abilities that do nothing but change the creature’s math, also known as “invisible abilities.” These alter a creature’s statistics in a way that’s invisible to the players, which makes the creature less engaging because the players don’t see it using its abilities in a tangible or evocative way. For example, an ability that allows a creature to use an action to increase its accuracy for the round with no outward sign (or worse, just grants a passive bonus to its accuracy) isn’t that compelling, whereas one that increases its damage by lighting its arrows on fire is noticeable. These both work toward the same goal—dealing more damage this round—but one is far more memorable.
This sounds really reasonable and obvious when you read it like that. But when you start putting it into practice, you notice it's really powerful advice. Compare this to a lot of PF1 monster design that actually had a lot of "internal" creature design just to satisfy getting to required numbers, but that was pretty invisible to players.
This also pairs well with another part of PF2 monster design philosophy: think about how much the monster has to show off. Most monsters aren't going to last more than 5 rounds in combat. Giving a monster more abilities than it can possibly have time to use, is a waste of design time. And it makes the statblock overly complicated for the GM to use. Harder to see what's important.
Some abilities don't need to be in the statblock at all. Basically anything the monster does that won't happen during combat, doesn't need to be in the statblock. It can (should) go in the description as flavor. But it doesn't need to be mechanical.
To contrast that to older design: in PF1, some of the bad guys in Iron Gods had a quarter page devoted to item creation feats that they had, and tech items that needed multiple rounds to draw and use. But they lasted for two combat rounds because they just didn't have level-appropriate stats.
The "hollow" design of PF2 monsters means you don't have this problem anymore. If the description says they can craft tech items, I'll believe it. I don't need to see them spend feats on item crafting. And I don't want their combat stats to not actually match the threat level they're supposed to be because it was all spent on item crafting feats.
Once you decide that the statblock is just for combat, not for what they can do off-screen in their own villain downtime, it's massively simplifying and liberating as GM.
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The background from PF1 was also helpful in this regard. The idea that PCs and NPCs aren't really the same thing is true in terms of what we all see on-screen. Perhaps there is a half-measure that will satisfy both desires at once! And, thankfully, as I have no intention of creating anything new in my initial campaign and am not merely re-writing racial stats, I have some time to consider it. The idea that "yes, I am merely constructing an illusion, and you know very well that's what I'm doing" doesn't sit well with me at the table. Of course that's always what we are doing, but we don't say it, and we do pretend otherwise for the sake of immersion. I shall ponder this deep and hard and to much excess and eventually come up with a solution that I will probably hate but which I'll go along with anyways!
Yeah, I've found this is pretty important.
As a player, I know that low-level NPC "rogue" that we're fighting isn't built with the actual rogue class. But if he turns out to have both sneak attack and attack of opportunity, I'm still going to feel like he's breaking character.
In RPGs, immersion is being willing to be fooled, for your own entertainment. The whole game is make-believe. But willingness only goes so far.
If an NPC wizard starts casting a whole lot of divine spells, there had better be some story behind it, such as that she's actually a priest pretending to be a wizard. Of course, under the hood, the NPC is actually neither a PC wizard or a PC cleric. But that doesn't matter as much as the consistency.
The main benefit i can see beginning monster creation using templates is conceptualizing the thing you are making becomes part of the formula and that formula providing consistency in the stats and abilities of the kinds of things by their traits
With the p2e approach the concept of what your making has only the structure you bring to the process.
You can always give yourself that structure with a list of monster races and traits that modify the concept like undead but I believe the op wanted to understand what abilities and stats are common to things of a kind, not by bruiser or ambusher, but by monster race and modifying traits.
For the OP question check GM core 126. Creature traits with common features. The next pages have a class roadmap. Apply this road map in a similar way to a template to give a creature the feel of having levels in a particular class.
I should mention that templates exist in pf2e in the sense of giving traits, resistances and abilities.
https://2e.aonprd.com/MonsterTemplates.aspx
It also customisable lists of slot in abilities
https://2e.aonprd.com/MonsterFamilies.aspx?ID=92
(Other examples I can think of are cryptid mutations from the dark archives book and zombies). You can make your own similar lists for class abilities imo.
I agree with others that you should (and I do mean should) attempt to get used to the new system. Because bottom up design has always been awful, slow and imbalanced.
The pf2e way is faster, more balanced, way less rigid and encourages creativity. But it is different, just gotta get used to it first.
So if I wanted to make a skeleton fighter ogre I would:
- choose a level I wanted it to be.
- adjust figure out its rough stats according to the creature design scales and choose those values at a higher level (lots of free digital tools to do this online)
- apply the skeleton template
- give it a thematic skeleton ability, in this case nimble to go along with the fighter theme.
- give it attack of opportunity, and sudden charge and or brutish shove.