Creating bad guys faster

[Goblite]

So i've been creating villains and bosses and monsters for a campaign but it can get SO tedious when I want every bad guy to be cool or interesting... So many books and so many races and so many classes and oh the spells!!! If I have a game every week and it takes me 2 weeks (of limited free time) to draw the baddies up then that leaves me at a deficit. Lately, however, i've been trying some new techniques inspired by that Gygax quote: "the secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." I've been partly ignoring race and class and isntead of spell lists I just give the creatures spell like abilities that fit the concept.

I drew up a greater demon and a pair of terrible undead bosses in this manner; i basically just looked at other creatures that were cool or similar to what I wanted and used "Kentucky windage" to get them where I needed them. Have a look-see in the spoilers and then tell me what kind of stuff you do when creating bad guys to save time and effort on the hard stuff.

This is for a campaign that i'm pretty much homebrewing to be like spelljammer. It's not really the topic here but I wanted to at least explain away the "wtf" faces that would come from it.

Itculixti (galactic demon): Colossal Outsider (Native, Evil)
36HD, 522HP
32STR, 19DEX, 31CON, 20INT, 23WIS, 31CHA
AC 25 (-8 size, +19nat, +4 Dex) DR20/adamantine
2xClaws @ +47 for 2d8+11+40d6(disintegration) +Improved Grab (if both hit) (Crit 20 x4)
1 Bite @ +42 for 1d10+5 (only if grappled)
Power attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Natural Spelljamming, Greater Spelljamming.
Body Cavity(Ex): Itculixti’s body can open at the thorax revealing room to house up to 10 medium creatures comfortably. His body can produce any substance or atmosphere necessary to sustain creatures.
Consume(Ex): Itculixti must consume a living creature’s soul in order to fuel its spelljamming ability. Each living soul consumed provides enough energy for one spelljam. Itculixti may maintain a reserve of energy up to 36 souls.
Disintegration(Sp): At Will Itculixti can enhance his primary claw attacks to glow red with an effect similar to a disintegrate spell at caster level 20. A successful fortitude save DC38 reduces the damage to 5d6. Creatures or objects reduced to 0 or fewer hit points are entirely disintegrated. This damage is applied before the physical claw damage.
Create Space Retreiver(Su): can craft a Retreiver (MM p47) with the space beast template from dark matter.


This one was based on the Boneclaw from the MMIII
BoneLord(claw): Large Undead
17HD, 168 HP (100+68)
21STR, 18DEX, -CON, 14INT, 14 WIS, 19CHA
AC +6 (-1sz, +4 Dex, +3 natural) DR5/blunt Turn Resistance +2
2x Piercing Claw: 2d6+7 @ +13
Reaching Claws(Ex): Can extend claws as a swift action. Reach doubles for claw attacks.
Unholy Toughness(Ex): Gain additional hitpoints equal to CHAxHD.
Paralyzing Gaze(Su): Any creature that looks into the eyes of the Bonelord must make a will save DC14 or be paralyzed for 1d4 rounds.
Rip Bones(Sp): As a full round action the Bonelord may draw a creature’s bones directly towards him with tremendous force. Subjects who make a DC30 will save may negate this effect. Affected creatures may attempt to resist the pull by bracing themselves against objects but this requires a DC20 Strength check. Pinned or otherwise forcibly immobilized creatures must make a DC20 Constitution check or the affected bone is ripped from their body dealing ¼ of their maximum hit points in damage and sundering that part of the body. (select the bone randomly with a d6: 2-5 = L/R Arm/Leg, 6= rib, 1= skull)
Craft Bone Minion(Sp): The bonelord may animate dead, as the spell, creating a skeleton out of any slain creature within the spell’s normal limitations. Additionally the bonelord may use collected bones to create other constructs and undead that consist entirely of bone. These undead may possess HD up to half the bonelord’s and the bonelord may have up to twice it’s own HD in bone minions directly under its control at any given time. Undead created beyond this limit wander locally.

This guys is a real sicko. He doesn't care about anything or anyone- he just wants his bones right now and he's gonna take it!


This one was based on the Skull Lord form MMV
BoneLord(skull): Medium Undead
15HD, 164HP (89+75)
11STR, 19DEX,--CON, 14INT, 15WIS, 21CHA(17+4)
AC+11 (2nat, 5armor, 4dex) DR5/blunt Turn Resistance +2
2x Bonestaff @ +12/+7 for 1d6+1d6cold
Unholy Toughness(Ex): Gain additional hitpoints equal to CHAxHD.
Cloak of Resistance +2
Ring of minor Fire Resistance (10)
Ring of X-ray Vision
Brooch of Shielding
Bone Shield(Sp): Rapidly draws bones between the bonelord and an attacker. This ability grants a +4 shield bonus to AC. Swift Action. Requires bones in an adjacent square, if the bones were an undead creature they reform at the beginning of that creature’s turn.
Bone Javelin(Sp): Sharpens a large bone to a point and hurls it towards a target. This bone deals 3d8 siege damage and is identical to a ballista. This attack originates from the location of the bone used and sunders 1 limb from a creature that supplies the bone.
Grasping Bones(Sp): Bones form into hands and claws which grapple a target. This ability functions exactly like the Bigby’s Grasping Hand spell. This draws many small bones and does not significantly affect the creatures the are drawn from.
Graft Bones(Sp): As a swift action the skull lord may graft bone into its body from nearby bone creatures allowing it to gain additional limbs, increase it’s size, or alter its form. Any parts are removed from the source creature until returned and increasing size requires an appropriate quantity of bones (M=1, L=2, H=4, etc…). Additional limbs allow the skull lord to make more attacks following the multiple-weapon fighting rules and grant grapple bonuses. Increasing size grants bonuses to ability scores as per the enlarge person spell. Altering form may grant the bonelord forms of movement or specific attacks such as a Bite, tauric quadrupedal locomotion, Serpentine grapples, Finned swim speeds, or feline rakes. Wings do not allow a bonelord to fly but they have been known to achieve flight through rotating blades of bone.
Craft Bone Minion(Sp): The bonelord may animate dead, as the spell, creating a skeleton out of any slain creature within the spell’s normal limitations. Additionally the bonelord may use a standard action to create any construct or undead composed entirely of bone from bones present within 100’. These undead may possess HD up to half the bonelord’s and the bonelord may have up to twice it’s own HD in bone minions directly under its control at any given time. Undead created beyond this limit wander locally.

This guy likes his bones clean and often adorns them with shinies. Definitely a Classy undead.


I now notice that I didn't calculate saves, didn't give feats to some, and the descriptions would probably need to be more thorough for readers... but that's ok, i'll get the saves later and it's all in my head anyway.

[Flickerdart]

It helps that I play just as much as I DM, so custom boss-monster types are an excellent place to try out a build I've been meaning to play.

If you want your creatures to cast spells, it's usually much more effective to slap on SLA templates (Phrenic, Half-Fey, Half-Celestial, Half-Fiend, and others of the type) and then coming up with some equal level spells to swap them out. For instance, switching the half-fey's enchantment theme for a fire theme, you could give the monster at-will kelgore's firebolt or lesser orb of fire instead of charm person. For undead specifically, Spell-Stitched gives you a good way of adding on a manageable handful of spells as SLAs.

The important thing about using these templates instead of just giving away random spells is that it's a lot harder to get carried away when there's some kind of benchmark to compare against.

[Demidos]

Well, first I`ll note that greater demon needs 1) A fly speed and 2) A ranged attack (perhaps his claws are so vicious they actually rip spacetime in a line emanating out from his claws?

Next -- Reskinning
I`m most comfortable with 3.5, so i`ll use that as an example. Lets say you want a big, high level baddie.

Lets take the Pit Fiend as a base example (since everyone always prefers the balor, he needs some love)

Okay, lets say you want to build that galactic demon.
Advance that Pit Fiend by 18HD (and handwave him to huge, you`re only 1 HD off anyway). That increases his CL to 36, his HP to roughly 500, his ability scores by 5, his saves by about 10, and his WBL by something ridiculous.
Now give him some better feats. He gets 6 new ones, so maybe mageslayer (caster level is high enough that its ridiculous anyway) and increase his reach to 30 feet. Maybe reserves of strength or something like that too, to boost the damage of fireball/meteor swarm. Except he doesnt use mere fireballs and meteor storms, but instead his claws rend the very fabric of reality -- you take 30d6 damage (ish) of untyped damage. And lets quicken his greater teleport and greater dispel magic, so he can pop up anywhere almost instantly and dispel those pesky .
Lastly, lets handwave double his DR, his regeneration, and add 18 to his SR, which is likely what an abomination of this power would do. You can also boost his AC via handwave, assuming he has access to just about any item in the players or Epic level handbooks. Give him a 50% miss chance from that cloak/greater blink, and fluff it as him being between dimensions.

Add and subtract abilities that you think would fit a galactic demon.
+Devouring ability -Maybe some spell-likes, its not an incredibly powerful ability.
The create retriever ability is already basically the same as the summon devil ability.
+Disintegration, -Poison AND Disease AND the once per year wish. Sounds about fair.

Boom. You have a galactic demon, which took about 30 minutes to stat out. By reskinning and advancing HD, you have a reasonable chassis to build up your demon from. And an incredibly resistant, only partially real magic eating demon with horridly long gangly arms who appears behind people and devours them from the shadows, with claws that can rupture even the basic form of reality, is rather different from a pit fiend. Obviously the CR is off (that thing is scary, but not CR 29 by a long shot. Maybe CR 22 or 23 or so), but thats the DM`s job to adjudicate.

As a less filled out response, take an ice devil. Boost his summoning by taking away from his SLAs (fluff it as animating), and toss on a quicken ice wall feat, fluff it as bones. Boom, your bonelords.


In summary, what you're doing is good, but dont be afraid to borrow the stat-blocks wholesale and then tweak some cosmetics. Hand-waving will save you hours of calculating if that will save should technically be 2 higher or lower, and using the statblocks already presented ensures fair(ish) challenges.

[GilesTheCleric]

In summary, what you're doing is good, but dont be afraid to borrow the stat-blocks wholesale and then tweak some cosmetics. Hand-waving will save you hours of calculating if that will save should technically be 2 higher or lower, and using the statblocks already presented ensures fair(ish) challenges.

This method has been very effective for me. Use the WotC creature list (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/lists/monsters) to find a creature of the type and near to the HD I want, then tweak the stats slightly or just call it a different name and give it a different physical description.

In terms of humanoids (I use those more frequently than creatures somehow), WotC has a whole collection (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/fc) of pre-fab NPCs if I want some non-optimized unique foes. Otherwise, I have a few spell lists for each class, and ballpark things for mundanes with the BAB/save table in the PHB. Even just using Orc or Troll stats for fighter-types works fine, really. Natural AC to armour, and done.

[Goblite]

Great tips and links fellas, thank you.

When I first started being a DM I actually rolled stats for all monsters and even some dialogue npc's to get their bluff/sense motive scores. Now I use standard/elite array or the MM entries but for significant humanoid NPC's i still always roll stats. I usually only bother with magical items when I want the players to have a chance at grabbing those items as loot, otherwise I just kind meld that expected power into the stats. Sadly my players always seem to lose the magical items I give them... I hate to see it happen but if you roll snake eyes on your attacks then, yes, your stylish keen +1 rapier has to go flying past the entropic chwidencha into the negative energy plane portal. It might turn up again... but that's off topic.

Sometimes the monsters written up in the manual overwhelm me with all of their abilities- i don't always know how to use those abilities to live up to the listed CR. The combat entries help but sometimes knocking a few of those SLA's off and giving them back as a constant effect makes life so much easier. Does anyone have any specific instances where they've done this too?

[Story]

I hate to see it happen but if you roll snake eyes on your attacks then, yes, your stylish keen +1 rapier has to go flying past the entropic chwidencha into the negative energy plane portal. It might turn up again... but that's off topic.

It doesn't have to. That's a houserule.