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Some creature families have a set of rules that can be used to turn other creatures into members of that family. This usually entails increasing level by 1 and increasing most of the check and DC modifiers by 1.
What's confusing me is the increases and decreases to Hit Points. The werecreature is straightforward enough. The creature gets a massive amount of HP, and the explicit reason for this is to offset the silver weakness. Likewise, the vampire has its HP lowered by a massive amount, and this is explicitly to offset its new fast healing and nonsilver physical resistance.
Then I look at the ghoul adjustments and I see that HP does not increase at all. And the divine warden gets the same HP as an elite adjustment. And I don't understand the reasoning behind either decision. The divine warden's abilities don't look much weaker than the ghoul's. Is the ghoul's stench (or paralysis for legacy ghoul) really so powerful that the HP couldn't be increased? Does it have something to do with the immunities and becoming undead?
And the ghost creation rules say "Do not modify the ghost's Hit Points due to its new level." Huh? Was I supposed to be doing that for the ghoul?
Also, I remember that the elite adjustment increases the creature's level by 2 when used on a level -1 creature. Do similar precautions need to be taken when using a -1 monster to create a ghoul? Would such a ghoul be level 1 instead of 0?
Ghouls typically are in the low range of hit points for their level, so my assumption would be that the lack of HP increase is to simulate that.
Ghost explicitly saying not to increase HP seems more like a case of different writers for the ghoul and ghost sections, plus the level increase is more extreme.
It's probably an oversight in remastering. The original bestiary 1 ghoul had the same numerical adjustment but had the much more dangerous paralysis ability, which likely warranted less hit points because every round of survival could mean another PC is taken out. The new ghoul uses the Skill Paragon roadmap and lost paralysis, so likely could afford some more hit points. That said, because they aren't as strictly combat focused it doesn't feel essential that they get extra HP. The two from monster only have moderate HP.
It's probably best to just eyeball the final numbers and see if they look right.
And as a general rule of thumb, I probably wouldn't try to make a version of a creature any weaker than the lower level version the level 1 ghoul is essentially the bog standard version, after all. I'd assume that even a level -1 commoner would rise as level 1 ghoul, but maybe with some different skill bonuses to reflect their background.
I'm homebrewing a curse of undeath that turns into a pandemic, so a lot of commoners are getting turned.
I'm homebrewing a curse of undeath that turns into a pandemic, so a lot of commoners are getting turned.
Then just use the basic level 1 ghoul, except where you deam a more powerful version to be appropriate.