Where Can I Find Monster Stats?

[Dralnu]

Howdy, folks! I'm going to be running 5e for the first time with a bunch of D&D veteran friends tomorrow. 1st level, nothing fancy. The one minor problem is I'm woefully underprepared this time. I wrote a homebrew module for 4e and I'm porting it over to 5e -- easy peasy, all I need to switch is monster stats for the most part. But alas! I don't know how to navigate Wizards' website and finding the resources that I need. I've got the Basic Rules and.. that's it.

I'd greatly appreciate some help here in tracking more information. Monster stats that I can reskin, any other 5e things they've published, like demo modules and stuff. Anything and everything would help me immensely at this point.

Thanks for reading!

[Jeraa]

As far as I know, the only monster stats we currently have are those in the Starter Set. 3 of those were previewed (ogre, nothic, and ochre jelly I believe) but I can't find the article now. I don't think any other monsters have been released for free.

Edit: Though I did find the hobgoblin (https://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/482264241836003330/photo/1).

[akaddk]

The rumour is that there will be a large update to the free Basic rules on August 8th with monsters and magical items being key additional elements.

Alternatively you could, oh, I don't know... and this is a radical suggestion I realise... but you could... maybe... try... and make up some of your own?

No, no, forget about that suggestion. It was silly to expect anyone these days to use their imagination or be creative in this hobby any more.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

There are a few threads about this already.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?360666-Legacy-of-the-Crystal-Shard-Monsters

[Tholomyes]

The rumour is that there will be a large update to the free Basic rules on August 8th with monsters and magical items being key additional elements.

Alternatively you could, oh, I don't know... and this is a radical suggestion I realise... but you could... maybe... try... and make up some of your own?

No, no, forget about that suggestion. It was silly to expect anyone these days to use their imagination or be creative in this hobby any more.

You know, maybe you're right. Why is it so much to ask that people, without any sort of example monsters to get a feel for the stats, abilities or general power level, of threats to create their own monsters. I mean, why does WotC even release a monster manual at all? Good DMs should be able to create monsters on their own, anyway.

[Jeraa]

There are a few threads about this already.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?360666-Legacy-of-the-Crystal-Shard-Monsters

Just remember that Legacy of the Crystal Shard is playtest material, and that the final stats of monsters don't necessarily match. For example, goblins have a higher AC, higher Dexterity, more hit points, a special ability, a larger chance to hit, deal more damage, and are worth more XP in the Starter Set than they do in that PDF. Same with the giant spider, and every other monster in common between that PDF and the Starter Set.

[obryn]

Alternatively you could, oh, I don't know... and this is a radical suggestion I realise... but you could... maybe... try... and make up some of your own?

No, no, forget about that suggestion. It was silly to expect anyone these days to use their imagination or be creative in this hobby any more.
Not completely fair, given there's a dearth of examples to work from.

For the OP - you can try to use monsters from the playtest, but it looks like monsters have gotten beefed up significantly since then. Honestly, I'd just get a hold of the Starter Set and go from there.

[akaddk]

Not completely fair, given there's a dearth of examples to work from.

We live in the TRPG age of hand-holding and "Waa, waa, me, gimme!" players. If it isn't in the rules or on a piece of paper, it doesn't exist. This all seems to stem from younger players. All the old farts seem to have an innate sense of, "I'd rather do it myself anyway,".

I genuinely lament seeing discussions like this. Do I want the MM? Sure, I've pre-ordered it already. But do I need it? Hell no. The Basic PDF has all the math in it we need to create monsters for the system. With that math alone, a good GM should be able to make monsters up on the fly during a game, not be flipping pages looking for the exact right monster for the situation. I see this trend of being so reliant on outside sources amongst gamers and honestly wonder where the spirit of the game has gone. Creativity, imagination, improvisation, those to me are what make the game come alive and are three of the five biggest reasons to play the game.

I never saw such discussions as these during the 1e/2e years (and yes, I was online back then and also conversed with a lot of other players via the old fashioned, face-to-face way) or even in the early 3e years. It's really only been in the last five odd years that I've noticed this stark difference in player attitudes where they seem not to be willing to create but rather simply consume.

[AuraTwilight]

We live in the TRPG age of hand-holding and "Waa, waa, me, gimme!" players. If it isn't in the rules or on a piece of paper, it doesn't exist. This all seems to stem from younger players. All the old farts seem to have an innate sense of, "I'd rather do it myself anyway,".

I genuinely lament seeing discussions like this. Do I want the MM? Sure, I've pre-ordered it already. But do I need it? Hell no. The Basic PDF has all the math in it we need to create monsters for the system. With that math alone, a good GM should be able to make monsters up on the fly during a game, not be flipping pages looking for the exact right monster for the situation. I see this trend of being so reliant on outside sources amongst gamers and honestly wonder where the spirit of the game has gone. Creativity, imagination, improvisation, those to me are what make the game come alive and are three of the five biggest reasons to play the game.

I never saw such discussions as these during the 1e/2e years (and yes, I was online back then and also conversed with a lot of other players via the old fashioned, face-to-face way) or even in the early 3e years. It's really only been in the last five odd years that I've noticed this stark difference in player attitudes where they seem not to be willing to create but rather simply consume.

You're being really condescending and aggressive. Tone it down.

It's one thing to say "Make your own monsters." It's another to go "Make your own monsters with absolutely no examples to go on for this rule-set so far." Even in the earliest days of D&D, you could always compare and contrast DM's homebrew with existing published content for the sake of eyeballing things.

And just because someone wants more books or more official content to work with doesn't mean they're not creative or inventive. That's like saying "People are too reliant on software developers programming apps and programs beyond the basic operating system. Where's the creativity? The imagination?"

It's almost like, I don't know, people have ideas but want to be able to make them non-arbitrary or mechanically sound enough so that they don't accidentally TPK their players or get accused of being an incompetent GM or something.

[akaddk]

You're being really condescending and aggressive.
So are you:


Tone it down.

[AuraTwilight]

Not equivalent to cartblanche insulting an entire community of people as being a lesser breed of gamer for not being like yourself. How about we talk about monster stats instead of judging the people having the discussion? If you truly lament having these discussions, you can exit it at any time.

[obryn]

We live in the TRPG age of hand-holding and "Waa, waa, me, gimme!" players. If it isn't in the rules or on a piece of paper, it doesn't exist. This all seems to stem from younger players. All the old farts seem to have an innate sense of, "I'd rather do it myself anyway,".

I genuinely lament seeing discussions like this. Do I want the MM? Sure, I've pre-ordered it already. But do I need it? Hell no. The Basic PDF has all the math in it we need to create monsters for the system. With that math alone, a good GM should be able to make monsters up on the fly during a game, not be flipping pages looking for the exact right monster for the situation. I see this trend of being so reliant on outside sources amongst gamers and honestly wonder where the spirit of the game has gone. Creativity, imagination, improvisation, those to me are what make the game come alive and are three of the five biggest reasons to play the game.

I never saw such discussions as these during the 1e/2e years (and yes, I was online back then and also conversed with a lot of other players via the old fashioned, face-to-face way) or even in the early 3e years. It's really only been in the last five odd years that I've noticed this stark difference in player attitudes where they seem not to be willing to create but rather simply consume.
I'd say I made 90% of the monsters for a Dark Sun game recently, and have made literally hundreds - probably thousands - since I started playing in 1982ish, so it's not like I'm a newb at this.

A lot of DM's, me included, like having some degree of familiarity with the system before home brewing. Nothing wrong with that. And it's pretty hard to have any level of mastery in 5e so far, especially since we have all of 26 monsters to go by.

Not everything fits neatly into your "entitled gamers" philosophy.

[akaddk]

Not equivalent to cartblanche insulting an entire community of people as being a lesser breed of gamer for not being like yourself.
Hyperbole and you know it. I was merely talking about a trend I've seen in the last few years amongst gamers in general. Turning that into, "I HATE EVERYONE ON THIS FORUM!" is simply petty argumentativeness.


How about we talk about monster stats instead of judging the people having the discussion?
All the information that is needed is already out there in the wilds. The Basic PDF shows the base DC's you need to know to set the difficulty of monster stats. And if you're that starved of information, the Starter Set is available for purchase and has more than enough examples to give you a guideline for creating your own.

That is what I've said earlier which is talking about monster stats like you want, but you've chosen to ignore that part and focus on positioning yourself as a victim of my meanieheadedness.

EDIT: For the complainyheads: http://surfarcher.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/d-5e-monsters-part-4-construction.html

[AuraTwilight]

Hyperbole and you know it. I was merely talking about a trend I've seen in the last few years amongst gamers in general. Turning that into, "I HATE EVERYONE ON THIS FORUM!" is simply petty argumentativeness.

I didn't accuse you of that. Let me amend to say that when I say "community", I mean "the section of the tabletop RPG culture that you are accusing of having these personality traits."

Or, to put it another way, "Younger players", as you yourself put it. You literally engaged in ageist slandering.


All the information that is needed is already out there in the wilds. The Basic PDF shows the base DC's you need to know to set the difficulty of monster stats. And if you're that starved of information, the Starter Set is available for purchase and has more than enough examples to give you a guideline for creating your own.

That is what I've said earlier which is talking about monster stats like you want, but you've chosen to ignore that part and focus on positioning yourself as a victim of my meanieheadedness.

Not true, actually. Surfer's analysis of the monsters in the Starter Set is certainly showing the math behind the few monsters we have so far, but he's also specifically pointing out how the processes become difficult to elucidate based on how few we have, and how it's very difficult to predict what monsters would be like at the higher levels the Starter Set doesn't even begin to cover.

And, you know, monsters are more than a set of Base DCs and HP.

I'm also not positioning myself as a victim. Like, at all? I'm just pointing out that you were being kind of unnecessarily rude and hostile. The post I responded to had literally nothing to do with the topic of monster stats, but about "player attitudes", and how you "lament this kind of discussion", and how "This is the RPG age of entitlement and gimme gimme gimme."

None of this is particularly productive to the discussion at hand and is very liable to a flame war. The comment I responded to is also very borderline for the forum rules, since it can be interpreted as flamebaiting.

I'm going to end this with this post for the sake of the thread, Suffice to say your entire thesis is entirely wrong because creating monsters or wanting examples has nothing to do with 'creativity' so much as 'math'.

Mathematics is a skill that not everyone possesses in equal aptitude, and not everyone learns how to apply it to an abstract concept (such as a fantasy game) in the same way. Some people learn by example, some learn by doing, some learn by reading folders and tables and essays and lectures. You put yourself in the second camp (It seems), others put themselves in the first and third, and the DMG and the MM seem like they're going to address those camps.

And that's okay, and to say otherwise is quite literally to be putting people you've never even met down simply for not being like you. Which is my original point.



EDIT: For the complainyheads: http://surfarcher.blogspot.com.au/20...struction.html

Ah yes. The guy I was just talking about who opens his entire project with pointing out that the Starter Set is insufficient for elucidating the mechanics of monsters in full.


The Bad

The biggest issue facing analysis is the tiny sample size. Although a lot is obvious about 5e monsters from the Starter Set there are a number of areas we simply cannot break down until we have a larger sample size. Challenge Rating (aka CR) and Damage are the two key areas that present this difficulty.

Another problem resulting from the small sample of low level monsters is, of course, scaling to higher levels. The Starter Set does include creatures from CR0 through to CR8, but there is only one CR8 creature (the Young Green Dragon) and one CR4 creature (the Flameskull). The rest of the monsters range fairly evenly from CR0 through CR3. Until we can analyse a volume of higher level monsters we won't be certain of how our results scale or of any stepping or bumps needed along the way.

Finally, there is a downside to using a process-oriented build methodology. While these approaches generally have some resiliancy built into them the final result may still be significantly weaker or stronger than anticipated. There are ways to compensate for this or check against it, but these are difficult to discover with small sample sizes.


The Ugly

An analysis hoping to prove useful in the short term will need to deal with the issues described above. And this is where it gets a bit dirty. The only real option is to plainly flag where there's a shortfall, use a placeholder that seems appropriate and revisit the area once more data is available.

The Starter Set is fine for getting a taste of the game. It's a marketing ploy. But it is not a complete game in any respect. Not on monsters, not on anything else. Everyone knows this. It's rude to imply people are entitled for wanting more.

[obryn]

petty argumentativeness.
...says the guy who got immediately snarky with a poster who was looking to introduce new people to 5e and was politely asking for help...

I mean seriously, if you're looking to encourage people to try out 5e - and you seem to think it looks pretty good - you could probably try being gracious when people ask for help instead of jumping right into a "kids these days/entitled gamers" rant or two.

Really, go back and read the OP, and then read your post, and then see if you want to lecture people about being needlessly argumentative or snarky.

[akaddk]

Really, go back and read the OP, and then read your post, and then see if you want to lecture people about being needlessly argumentative or snarky.

I wasn't argumentative in my first post, I was snarky. You're the one conflating the two.

Fact remains that in six days time the OP will have more than enough monsters for free from the Basic PDF.

/thread

[Secret Bard]

As of right now, the only monster stats you can find (that I know of) is in the starter set, or you can wait a week for the free pdf to be updated to include a variety of monsters.

By the way do we have an idea as to how many monsters will be in the pdf?

[da_chicken]

By the way do we have an idea as to how many monsters will be in the pdf?

No, we don't.

Ultimately, there will have to be enough monsters to challenge PCs from level 1 to 20 by the time D&D Basic gets to 1.0 after the DMG is released in November. There's no way to know if all the monsters will be added now or if they'll wait until later.

[Jeraa]

As of right now, the only monster stats you can find (that I know of) is in the starter set, or you can wait a week for the free pdf to be updated to include a variety of monsters.

By the way do we have an idea as to how many monsters will be in the pdf?

Based on the Table of Contents preview (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.856286-Exclusive-The-Table-of-Contents-and-Sorcerer-From-the-D-D-Players-Handbook), 8 pages worth. Which is the same length as the monster section of the Starter Set. Its entirely possible that the two will be the same, and WotC will just print the Starter Set monsters in the PHB.

Well, that is the actual PHB. The Basic PDF might be different.

[akaddk]

No, we don't.

Ultimately, there will have to be enough monsters to challenge PCs from level 1 to 20 by the time D&D Basic gets to 1.0 after the DMG is released in November. There's no way to know if all the monsters will be added now or if they'll wait until later.

I can't find the link or reference or even remember where I read it but I recall reading that there would be "iconic" D&D monsters put into it on the 8th.

[Jeraa]

I can't find the link or reference or even remember where I read it but I recall reading that there would be "iconic" D&D monsters put into it on the 8th.

The announcement was here (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basic-dungeons-dragons).


At the launch of the D&D Starter Set, Basic D&D will include the material needed to create characters and advance to 20th level. In August, with the release of the Player’s Handbook, Basic D&D will expand to include the essential monsters, magic items, and DM rules needed to run the game, along with the rules for wilderness, dungeon, and urban adventuring. (The Starter Set already covers the aspects of these rules that you need to run the included campaign.)

[akaddk]

The announcement was here (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basic-dungeons-dragons).

Yeah, there was another one that listed beholders in it and a few others.

[Secret Bard]

I hope they add more than just the ones in the starter set, even if it's not a lot more.

[Dralnu]

There are a few threads about this already.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?360666-Legacy-of-the-Crystal-Shard-Monsters

Thank you for this, and the hobgoblin stats. They helped immensely.

Ended up having a day-long session yesterday, a party of 3x lvl 1's. Two Fighters, one Rogue. By the end of the session they were handling lvl 3 Orcs very well and they even beat a level 4 Brown Bear. It was tons of fun!