Just discovered something fascinating, which is that dragon ACs appear to have gone down post-remaster.
Pre-remaster, dragon ACs could be sorted into a few different buckets, based on how closely they met the monster building guidelines for AC. For instance, all brass dragons (young, adult, and ancient alike) had the "High" value for their level, while all gold dragons were at the "High" value + 1. But not anymore!
Premaster AC buckets:
High + 0 for all age categories: magma, brine, sky, underworld, brass, blue, black
High + 0 except a random uptick to High + 1 at ancient: copper, bronze, sovereign, sea, forest
High + 1 for all age categories: gold only, and also all linnorms
Silver and red both were High or High + 1 across the board but spiked to Extreme - 1 at ancient.
Remaster Buckets:
Moderate + 0 for all age categories: mirage, omen, diabolic, adamantine
High + 0 for all age categories: empyreal, conspiracy, fortune
High + 1 for all age categories: horned and all linnorms
What do people think about this? Good change? Bad change? Barely noticeable change? It's only around -2 to AC, but it's pretty consistent across the board.
The balancing metric is hit points, and whether those changed to compensate. Resistance & Weaknesses also effect hit points so changes to those might factor it. One might add in Saves too, but those tend to resemble AC anyway (higher w/ lower hit points & vice-versa).
Since dragons are often boss monster, having higher than normal AC for their level makes it harder for PCs to consistently contribute. So it's probably better for a lower AC w/ higher h.p.; more consistency, though to less effect. Stable numbers aid players, something more important when dealing with boss creatures.
Moderate + 0 for all age categories: mirage, omen, diabolic, adamantine
High + 0 for all age categories: empyreal, conspiracy, fortune
High + 1 for all age categories: horned and all linnorms
I think that it makes sense for the Dragons in each category.
Mirage, Omen, Diabolic and Adamantine dragons all have very strong defensive abilities. Mirage has reaction to gain concealment, Omen has reaction to force misfortune on an attack. These both make the dragons harder to hit, so you off set that with a slightly lower AC. Diabolic dragons are immune to fire, have reactive strike and frightful presence. All abilities that make it harder to hurt. Adamantine has straight resist all physical.
Horned and Linnorms are more in your face, hard hitting bag of HP monsters, so they have AC like a frontline melee monster.
TLDR; there are other things to look at than just AC when designing a monster.
I'd be really interested to see a statistical analysis of how creature numbers shifted in Monster Core, especially AC. The monster building rules have always been inconsistent around whether high or moderate AC should be treated as the default for a combat focused creature, but AC always seemed to skew higher than the guidelines would suggest to me. I think that might have been an overall trend. People built monsters with higher numbers than the benchmarks would suggest, either by accident or because they wanted this particular monster to be memorable or special.
It feels like monster to hit and AC bonuses have gotten a bit lower, and most fiends lost their bonus evil damage entirely rather than having it converted to spirit damage. It wouldn't shock me if they are reining in monsters, either because they've got a more consistent feel for the math than they did when bestiary 1 was published or because of how hard many people perceive PF2 to be.
Conversely, I'm seeing a much wider spread in spellcasting stats which trend higher, at least for dragons. Premaster the general trend appeared to be that spell attack was the spell DC-8, but now there are spell attacks that are ten lower, or sometimes much closer to the spell DC and are only six or seven lower.
The balancing metric is hit points, and whether those changed to compensate. Resistance & Weaknesses also effect hit points so changes to those might factor it. One might add in Saves too, but those tend to resemble AC anyway (higher w/ lower hit points & vice-versa).
Since dragons are often boss monster, having higher than normal AC for their level makes it harder for PCs to consistently contribute. So it's probably better for a lower AC w/ higher h.p.; more consistency, though to less effect. Stable numbers aid players, something more important when dealing with boss creatures.
Without further ado...hp classifications for dragons pre and post remaster (yes, I built an actual computer tool for this, and yes, it includes things like weaknesses, resistances, and regeneration).
Premaster, they're literally all closest to "moderate" hp values (the buckets are really narrow, but they're closer to moderate than anything else). Every metallic, every chromatic, every sovereign, and every primal dragon of all age categories has hp about 10-30 points above moderate.
Except adult and ancient white dragons. Young are Moderate hp, but adult and ancient whites are High hp for whatever reason (likely because they only had moderate AC and every other type of dragon had more than that pre remaster). In addition, Tor Linnorms are closer to High than Moderate hit points.
Meanwhile in the remaster...
Linnorms of course didn't change AC or HP at all. Everything new has Moderate hp. In general they're within the actual Moderate range given in GM core, rather than being 10-30 hp over. Some of them are actually below the Moderate range but still closer to Moderate than Low.
The exception is ancient fortune dragons, which are closer to Low. So in general dragon hp went down from pre-remaster to post-remaster by about 10-30 hp.
Tl;dr dragon numerical defenses went down across the board, and the AC reduction is not compensated by higher hp. In fact, hp generally was cut by around 10-30 points.
I'd be really interested to see a statistical analysis of how creature numbers shifted in Monster Core, especially AC. The monster building rules have always been inconsistent around whether high or moderate AC should be treated as the default for a combat focused creature, but AC always seemed to skew higher than the guidelines would suggest to me. I think that might have been an overall trend. People built monsters with higher numbers than the benchmarks would suggest, either by accident or because they wanted this particular monster to be memorable or special.
It feels like monster to hit and AC bonuses have gotten a bit lower, and most fiends lost their bonus evil damage entirely rather than having it converted to spirit damage. It wouldn't shock me if they are reining in monsters, either because they've got a more consistent feel for the math than they did when bestiary 1 was published or because of how hard many people perceive PF2 to be.
That'll be easiest to do once AoN updates with monster core - currently I don't have the ability to automate Monster Core statistics.
What I can tell you is that according to the GM core monster building guidelines, the average ACs for pre-remaster monsters are High, as a general rule. The average pre-remaster monster of every single level follows the guidelines for "High"-class AC.
If you're curious, average saving throws tilt towards the following:
Fortitude: Moderate for levels 1-5, transitioning to High or occasionally High - 1 at levels 6-24.
Reflex: High for levels -1, 0, and 1, transitioning to Moderate by level 2, and Moderate or Moderate - 1 thereafter.
Will: Low for levels 1-7, transitioning to Moderate by level 8 and staying there after that.
Premaster
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Linnorms: all their attacks are at the Extreme value for attack bonus. Their Jaws attacks deal above Extreme-rated damage including linnorm venom, and High damage without the venom.
Normal dragon Jaws attacks are almost universally at High attack bonus, with exceptions noted below.
Young brass, young black, adult black, adult bronze, ancient red, ancient black, ancient brine, ancient sea, ancient magma, ancient sky, and ancient silver are instead at High + 1.
Normal dragon Jaws generally deal a little bit above High damage, sometimes edging up to Extreme territory.
Remaster
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Linnorms are totally unchanged in any way, shape, or form (except tangentially via the remaster grab rules, which makes their opportunity attack absolutely devastating if it restrains).
Diabolic, adamantine, and horned dragons have a Jaw attack at High attack bonus, and High damage. The exception is ancient adamantine which attacks at High + 1.
Conspirator and empyreal dragons attack at High - 1 across all age categories.
Fortune, mirage, and omen dragons attack at Moderate rather than High attack bonus.
Damage on remastered dragon bite attacks is somewhere between High and Moderate. Conspirator dragons are actually a little below Moderate.
So generally apart from linnorms (which didn't change) remastered dragon offense received a major debuff, with around more than half the remastered dragons dropping by 1 or 2 points to hit. Damage generally dropped from Extreme/High to High/Moderate.
GM Core says a lot of things about AC, and not all of it consistent.
GM Core pg. 113
High: Extremely capable but not world-class, the creature presents a challenge for most characters. Just about all creatures have at least one high value. Most combat-focused creatures have high AC and either a high attack bonus and high damage, or a merely moderate attack bonus but extreme damage.
GM Core pg. 113: Base Road Maps
You can use the following suggestions to set the baseline when creating your road map. For example, use the brute for a big, tough creature like an ogre, and the skirmisher for a darting enemy. Each entry is a starting point you can customize as you see fit. Any core statistic that isn't listed should typically use moderate numbers. You can set attribute modifiers and add additional abilities as needed. To make a creature that resembles a character of a certain class, see Class Road Maps on page 129.
Armor Class
Source GM Core pg. 117
Because AC is one of the most important combat stats, you need to be more careful when setting this number for any creature you expect to end up in a fight. Low AC typically fits spellcasters, who compensate with their selection of powerful spells. Most creatures use high or moderate AC—high is comparable to what a PC fighter would have. Reserve extreme AC for a creature that is even better defended; these values are for creatures that have defenses similar in power to those of a champion or monk.
Class Road Maps
GM Core pg. 129
You can use these suggestions when creating your road map to emulate a PC class, customizing as you see fit. You'll still need to look through the class to pick feats, weapons, and the like. Any statistic that isn't specifically listed can use moderate numbers.
The road map sections both say to use moderate as a default number, and specify high AC for a couple builds which suggests they don't really mean "use moderate numbers as default except for AC." And then the actual AC section says to use high OR moderate. I only spotted one place where it suggests high is always the default.
The statistical average certainly trended towards high as a default pre-remaster, but bestiary 1 and the first couple APs were also written when the rules were still in development so the math being out of whack is kinda expected. (Creatures published in early APs seemed especially guilty of this in my experience.)
Your average save calculations also seem to trend towards over tuning. High/Moderate/Moderate should not be the average across all three saves. One of them should be low, especially if high AC is the default. Monsters should have SOME weak defense to target according to the rules. (This could just be a quirk of looking at the average of specific saves instead of looking at the "complete package" average, I guess.) And lots of creatures got status bonuses to saves against magic, too.
Definitely seeing a narrative where Monster Core course corrects here. But we will see if the numbers bare that out eventually.
There are only 4 remaster dragons that deal nothing but damage with their breath weapons, and I'm not going to get into the weeds by trying to compare pure damage breath weapons against breath weapons that also have a status effect (unless the effect is comparatively small and doesn't happen all the time). These are adamantine, diabolic, empyreal, and horned dragons. Below are comparisons for each age category, with any differences noted in parentheticals.
Adamantine:
Dragons with same level progression (young at 9, adult at 13, ancient at 18): blue, bronze, magma, sky
Young adamantine: DC 28, 8d8 ~ 36
Young blue: DC 28, 5d12 ~ 32.5 (but line rather than cone)
Young bronze: DC 28, 6d12 ~ 39 (but line rather than cone)
Young magma: DC 28, 5d6 + 3d12 ~ 37
Young sky: DC 28, 5d12 ~ 32.5 (but burst rather than cone)
Adult adamantine: DC 33, 11d8 ~ 49.5
Adult blue: DC 33, 9d12 ~ 58.5 (but line rather than cone)
Adult bronze: DC 33, 8d12 ~ 52 (but line rather than cone)
Adult magma: DC 33, 9d6 + 4d12 ~ 57.5
Adult sky: DC 33, 7d12 ~ 45.5 (but burst rather than cone)
Ancient adamantine: DC 40, 15d8 ~ 67.5
Ancient blue: DC 40, 12d12 ~ 78 (but line rather than cone)
Ancient bronze: DC 40, 12d12 ~ 78 (but line rather than cone)
Ancient magma: DC 40, 10d6 + 5d12 ~ 67.5 (plus potential ongoing damage)
Ancient sky: DC 40, 9d12 + 2d12 ~ 71.5 (but burst rather than cone)
Same DCs across the board, some other breath weapons have much higher damage but also trade it in for a different shape. I'd say adamantine's breath weapon is a tad weaker than some of these but not by much.
Diabolic:
Dragons with same level progression (young at 11, adult at 15, ancient at 20): gold and sovereign only.
Young Sovereign: DC 30, 12d6 ~ 42
Young Diabolic: DC 30, 12d6 ~ 42
Young Gold: DC 31, 11d6 ~ 38.5
Adult Sovereign: DC 36, 16d6 ~ 56
Adult Diabolic: DC 36, 16d6 ~ 56
Adult Gold: DC 37, 15d6 ~ 52.5
Ancient Sovereign: DC 43, 21d6 ~ 73.5
Ancient Diabolic: DC 42, 21d6 ~ 73.5
Ancient Gold: DC 44, 20d6 ~ 70
Pretty much identical, gold trades a slightly higher save DC for slightly lower damage, sovereign is a point higher DC at ancient.
Empyreal:
Dragons with same level progression (young at 10, adult at 14, ancient at 19): red, silver, cloud, forest
Young empyreal: DC 29, 9d8 ~ 40.5
Young red: DC 30, 11d6 ~ 38.5
Young silver: DC 29, 10d6 ~ 35
Young cloud: DC 29, 11d6 ~ 38.5
Young forest: DC 29, 10d6 ~ 35 (plus crit fail effect)
Adult empyreal: DC 34, 12d8 ~ 54
Adult red: DC 36, 15d6 ~ 52.5
Adult silver: DC 36, 15d6 ~ 52.5
Adult cloud: DC 36, 15d6 ~ 52.5
Adult forest: DC 34, 14d6 ~ 49 (plus crit fail effect)
Ancient empyreal: DC 41, 16d8 ~ 72
Ancient red: DC 42, 20d6 ~ 70
Ancient silver: DC 42, 20d6 ~ 70
Ancient cloud: DC 41, 20d6 ~ 70 (plus damaging cloud)
Ancient forest: DC 41, 20d6 ~ 70 (plus crit fail effect)
Fairly similar as well, there are a few breath weapons with higher save DCs but most of them have slightly lower damage. Might be a very slight nerf at the highest levels, but it's pretty much identical.
Horned:
Dragons with same level progression (young at 8, adult at 12, ancient at 17): green, copper, brine, sea
Young horned: DC 25, 9d6 ~ 31.5
Young green: DC 25, 9d6 ~ 31.5
Young copper: DC 26, 8d6 ~ 28 (but line rather than cone)
Young brine: DC 26, 9d6 ~ 31.5 (but line rather than cone)
Young sea: DC 26, 9d6 ~ 31.5 (but burst rather than cone)
Adult horned: DC 31, 13d6 ~ 45.5
Adult green: DC 31, 13d6 ~ 45.5
Adult copper: DC 32, 13d6 ~ 45.5 (but line rather than cone)
Adult brine: DC 32, 13d6 ~ 45.5 (but line rather than cone)
Adult sea: DC 32, 13d6 ~ 45.5 (but burst rather than cone)
Ancient horned: DC 37, 18d6 ~ 63
Ancient green: DC 37, 18d6 ~ 63
Ancient copper: DC 38, 18d6 ~ 63 (but line rather than cone)
Ancient brine: DC 38, 18d6 ~ 63 (but line rather than cone)
Ancient sea: DC 38, 18d6 ~ 63 (but burst rather than cone)
Green is literally the exact same, the others trade in a slightly higher DC but are also bursts and lines. You can argue bursts are better, but it's a minor nerf if it's a nerf at all.
All in all, breath weapon DC and damage is essentially the same as pre-remaster, maybe a little bit worse (but only a little, maybe by a point of DC and a few points of damage). So while strike attack bonus, strike damage, AC, and hit points have all declined a bit, breath weapons are similar.
Decided to do this for several other creature families, namely demons, devils, and daemons. None of them were heavily changed numerically like dragons, and the statblocks are almost universally a 1:1 straight lift. Among the new creatures (venedaemons, seraptis demons, upgraded vrolikai demons, vordine devils, and coarti devils) most were weaker than before, the sole exception being seraptis. Tl;dr new things designed from the ground up are weaker than old creatures that were remastered.
I went through all the premaster creatures in the bestiaries and got their ACs and attack bonuses. Note that AC and attack didn't change for any of these post-remaster, at least among those that still exist.
Daemons
Daemon Armor Class Rating:
Astradaemon: High
Cacodaemon: High
Ceustodaemon: Moderate
Derghodaemon: High
Leukodaemon: High
Meladaemon: High
Olethrodaemon: Moderate
Piscodaemon: Moderate - 1
Purrodaemon: High + 1
Thanadaemon: High
Daemon Strike Attack Bonus:
Astradaemon: High
Cacodaemon: Moderate + 1
Ceustodaemon: Moderate + 1
Derghodaemon: Moderate + 1
Leukodaemon: High
Meladaemon: High
Olethrodaemon: High
Piscodaemon: High
Purrodaemon: Extreme
Thanadaemon: High + 1
Astradaemon: High (or extreme if they get drained)
Cacodaemon: Extreme
Ceustodaemon: High, Extreme with vicious wounds
Derghodaemon: Moderate
Leukodaemon: High, Extreme with daemonic pestilence
Meladaemon: High, Extreme with withering touch
Olethrodaemon: High
Piscodaemon: High
Purrodaemon: Extreme
Thanadaemon: High, Extreme with draining strike
Not a lot of clear patterns in premaster daemons. In general daemon armor class is High, strikes are Moderate + 1 to High but it's not consistent. Hit points tend towards moderate, and damage tends towards Extreme. The new venedaemon has Moderate AC, Low hit points, Low attack bonus, and Low strike damage (High including residual force, however), which means it's much weaker than most of the other daemons in straight combat. However, it's also a caster-type daemon with High save DC, so we should expect that.
I can see why evil damage was stripped. These things already hit pretty hard - harder than dragon bites a lot of the time.
Demons
Demon Armor Class Rating:
Babau: High
Balor: High
Brimorak: High
Dretch: Moderate
Glabrezu: High
Hezrou: High
Invidiak: Low
Marilith: High (though they have tricks to massively boost it)
Nabassu: High
Nalfeshnee: Moderate - 1
Omox: ooze
Quasit: High + 1
Shemhazian: High
Succubus: Moderate - 1
Vrock: High
Vrolikai: High + 1
Demon Strike Attack Bonus:
Babau: High
Balor: Extreme
Brimorak: High
Dretch: Moderate
Glabrezu: High
Hezrou: High
Invidiak: Low
Marilith: Extreme
Nabassu: High
Nalfeshnee: High
Omox: Moderate + 1
Quasit: High
Shemhazian: High + 1
Succubus: Moderate
Vrock: High
Vrolikai: Extreme
Demon Hit Points:
Accounts for weaknesses and resistances
Babau: High
Balor: High - 25
Brimorak: Moderate
Dretch: High
Glabrezu: Moderate + 20
Hezrou: High - 15
Invidiak: Low
Marilith: Moderate + 30
Nabassu: High - 10
Nalfeshnee: High
Omox: High
Quasit: Moderate
Shemhazian: Moderate + 20
Succubus: Low
Vrock: Moderate
Vrolikai: Moderate
Demon Strike Damage:
Includes evil damage
Babau: High, Extreme with sneak attack
Balor: Moderate but also vorpal
Brimorak: Extreme
Dretch: Extreme/High
Glabrezu: High
Hezrou: High
Invidiak: Moderate
Marilith: Moderate
Nabassu: Extreme/High
Nalfeshnee: High
Omox: High
Quasit: High, Extreme if they fail even one save against quasit venom
Shemhazian: High
Succubus: High
Vrock: High
Vrolikai: Moderate
So demon AC, hp, strike damage, and attacks bonus are all generally High-rated, with dretches, succubi, and invidiaks (which thematically are bad at direct combat) being lower and balors, mariliths, and vrolikai (thematically very strong) having higher attack bonuses and higher AC. The new vrolikai is level 20, and has Low strike damage, Extreme attack bonus, lower hp than a balor (so Moderate), and High AC. It's very similar to the old balor in many ways, though weaker damage.
The one new demon in the remaster is the seraptis, which has High AC for its level and Extreme-rated attack bonus. It also has High - 30 hit points and High strike damage (even without any evil damage). It's pretty conclusively a marilith replacement in terms of level and role.
Again, it does somewhat make sense why evil damage was stripped. Demon strikes are already high or extreme damage.
Barbazu: High
Cornugon: Moderate
Deimavigga: High
Erinys: High
Gelugon: High
Gylou: High
Hamatula: High
Hellbound Attorney: Moderate
Imp: High + 1
Lemure: Low
Levaloch: High
Munagola: High
Osyluth: High + 1
Phistophilus: High
Pit fiend: High + 1
Sarglagon: High
Zebub: High + 1
Devil Attack Bonus Rating:
Barbazu: High
Cornugon: Extreme
Deimavigga: High
Erinys: High
Gelugon: High + 1
Gylou: High + 1
Hamatula: High
Hellbound Attorney: Moderate
Imp: High
Lemure: Moderate + 1
Levaloch: Moderate + 1
Munagola: High
Osyluth: High
Phistophilus: High
Pit fiend: Extreme
Sarglagon: High
Zebub: High
Barbazu: way, way, way beyond Extreme even before you account for infernal wound being almost impossible to get rid of
Cornugon: High
Deimavigga: Moderate
Erinys: High
Gelugon: Moderate
Gylou: Moderate
Hamatula: High
Hellbound Attorney: Low, moderate with opening statement
Imp: Moderate, High with imp venom
Lemure: High
Levaloch: High/Extreme, Extreme with merciless thrust
Munagola: Extreme
Osyluth: High
Phistophilus: High
Pit fiend: High, Extreme with venom
Sarglagon: High/Extreme, or Extreme with tentacle arm
Zebub: High
In general devils have Moderate hit points (though mileage may vary by weapon composition and access to good damage), High attack bonus, High armor class, and High damage. A few exceptional ones have Extreme damage, but it's nowhere near as bad as daemons and demons. Barbazu are stupidly high damage and there's no excuse.
There are two new devils, vordines and coarti. Vordines have the exact same numbers (apart from Strike damage, which is Moderate rather than absurd) as barbazu, while coarti have Moderate strike damage, Moderate hit points, Moderate armor class, and High attack bonus. This is lower than most comparable devils.
Demons, devils, and daemons are essentially unchanged numbers-wise in the remaster (with the exception of omox demons and astradaemons which all received base damage nerfs). However, they were all stripped of their bonus evil damage. That means they all probably drop a category in strike damage, but are otherwise unchanged.
It might be appropriate to say that daemons are glass cannons, demons are tanks, and devils are somewhere in the middle. The new demon (seraptis) tends to fit solidly into the old ranks, and the new daemon and devil (venedaemon and coarti) are weaker than their compatriots in terms of numbers. My guess is that the remaster didn't fiddle with numbers because it didn't have time, but going forward creatures will be designed with Moderate rather than High guidelines in mind for attack bonus, damage, AC, and hp.
