Proficiency BonusĮvery monster has a Proficiency Bonus based on it’s challenge, as you can see in the first column of the table on DMG 274. What follows is a whirlwind tour of the bits of pieces that make the monsters work mathematically. You have to learn to walk before you can flee from a rampaging gorilla-demon while lemur people are flinging rocks at you. Some of this information might be remedial if you’ve made a good study of the process already, but that’s just tough s$&%. Because, next week, I’m going to show you how powerful the whole damned system is if you ignore the way WotC tells you to use it. You’ve got to have a grasp on how all the little pieces affect each other. And I mean you have to really understand it. That means, you’ve got to understand the system. They could sit in a published product and be as accurate as any other goddamned thing in the D&D rules. The monsters I am going to teach you to build are mechanically rigorous. If you want to fudge s$&% or reskin s$&%, go do that and get the hell off my site. I explained why already, so I’m not going to do it again.
DND 5E HOMEBREW MONSTER HOW TO
Let’s Get Dissecting!įirst and foremost, I’m here to teach you how to build complete and legal monsters. And then we’re going to do the same damned thing in Pathfinder. And I’m doing that so that, NEXT article, we can actually find a process for building awesome D&D monsters. I’m going to try to explain how it all works and how things all fit together better than the DMG did. In THIS article, we’re going to analyze the rules that make 5E monsters work. In fact, we are going to spend more than a month because, surprise surprise, I’m going to give you a bonus article.
Which shouldn’t surprise you, because I promised you that last week as part of my unofficial “Monster Month.” We’re going to be spending the whole month on building D&D monsters.
So, I’m going to teach you a better way to build a D&D 5E monster. Because then they can deviate from the process and still understand what the hell they are doing! Delineating a process does not empower people. And delineating a process is NOT the same as explaining a system. But that would require having the system explained. Because if you understand how all the pieces fit together, you can figure out how to do some pretty cool stuff.
DND 5E HOMEBREW MONSTER TRIAL
We can always fix it later.” And there’s no f$&%ing reason for that trial and error bulls$&%. Worse still, the system basically says “just make a monster all willy nilly and then, hey, see what Challenge it comes out with. Like, hey, how powerful do you actually want this thing to be? And then, THEN, think about what you’re going to do with the monster in the game. For example, the DMG advises that the first thing you do when creating a monster is come up with a Name, Size, Type, and Alignment. Not only are the steps in the wrong order, but the important bits are buried under mounds and mounds of garbage. The problem is, on top of the beautiful mathematical system, there’s a well-documented and exhaustively explained process that is utter crap. In fact, if this was a different time in history, there’s a very good chance I would have let war crimes happen.” “It’s just a heap of rules and I’m good with rules. I feel the way about RPG systems that Kate McCartney feels about baking. Because I’m a gamer and I’m an accountant and I love rules and I love systems. End of the day, there is some really solid logic behind monster building. Or as good as it can be given how to came to pass, but I won’t get into that. Here’s the deal: D&D actually has a really good mathematical system behind its monsters. And even worse, customizing monsters is atrociously explained. The problem is that it is poorly explained. The encounter building math is complicated and confusing, sure. The problem is they are really bad at explaining the game. Except for some bizarre-a$% oddities like the fact that magic missile is not intended to be an attack and dispel magic only actually works on spells and not on any magical class ability. The designers of D&D are very good at creating a game.
It just had to cram as many references to bygone eras and bygone campaigns as possible. Instead, it just had to tug at your nostalgia heartstrings. So the PHB didn’t really have to teach much. And people don’t see it because most people reading the books are already gamers. Every game has crap, but for the most part, I really do love the game. On the one hand, I like the actual the game. I have a love-hate relationship with Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition.