Heros of Olympus campaign

[ADC]

Hi, all.

My name is ADC. I'm an intermediate player making his first journey into home brewing. It's going well in some aspects, and not so well in others.

I'm fascinated by Greek Mythology, and want to create a world centered around it. Essentially, what kind of story would you tell if you were a demigod of ancient days? Imagine Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson" series, but without a modern setting behind it.

I want to make a centaur NPC for the mythological creature Chiron. I'm unsure how to adjust the stats from the Monster Manual entry for centaur so I can determine his level, modifiers, etc. Do I pretty much rip as much as I can straight out of the Monster Manual? I have not done this before, so am just a little lost.

I realize this is more likely trying to treat centaur as a race instead of as a monster type. I have found good resources for centaur races, but they are for 3.5, 4, or Pathfinder. Any tips on converting these systems to 5e?

Thanks,

ADC

[Flashy]

The DMG has guidelines for creating monsters that start on page 273 and which will help you determine what HP, AC, damage, and things like that do to CR.

Adding specific powers (particularly homebrewed ones) gets a little rougher because the guidelines aren't going to help you as much. What are you looking to change about the centaur for Chiron?

[ADC]

Basically, I'm wondering how you determine levels and class. Do I assume that the centaur entry would have level 2 stats because of his CR2 rating? I guess, this being the first time I've dm'd, I'm wondering how you prepare a monster as a character instead of an encounter. Do I build him as a player would build a character?

I realize I probably could have sounded a little more knowledgeable for my first post here. I guess a lot of it is just going to be resolved from studying the books as much as possible.

[Flashy]

Basically, I'm wondering how you determine levels and class. Do I assume that the centaur entry would have level 2 stats because of his CR2 rating? I guess, this being the first time I've dm'd, I'm wondering how you prepare a monster as a character instead of an encounter. Do I build him as a player would build a character?

I realize I probably could have sounded a little more knowledgeable for my first post here. I guess a lot of it is just going to be resolved from studying the books as much as possible.

No, monster and player stats are based on entirely different systems, and CR cannot be meaningfully converted to character level. If you want to build a particular centaur the way you would build a PC then you would need to have a centaur race as a basis and a class you would want to apply. There is advice on building an NPC in the DMG starting on page 89, but at the end of the day NPC building is really more art than science.

How you build Chiron has a lot to do both with his role in the campaign and the way your group likes to interact with things. It sounds like you're willing to disregard the possibility that your players are going to try to fight him? In that case I'd just take the centaur statblock, set int to 20 (or, depending on how mythic a figure you want him to be, 22), wisdom to 18, and grant expertise in arcana, history, religion, nature, and medicine. That seems to cover Chiron's role in Greek mythos pretty effectively. Since he's technically still a CR 2 creature his proficiency bonus is +2 which would give him knowledge skills at either +9 or +10 and medicine at +8. If you want to adjust the proficiency bonus arbitrarily to suit the needs of your campaign you absolutely should.