Dr_S
2015-11-21, 03:26 PM
So I have a setting I'm building in which I'm going to need to cobble together a few monsters, but I've never done it before. Was hoping I could get some help going through the process with a couple of the creatures from my new campaign before I give it a go without the training wheels.
I've never done it period, so I don't really know if the "simple" monster creation rules from unchained are actually simpler. I think they structured it in a way that doesn't make it entirely simple.
So let's get started I guess:
First creature:
I am trying to add some "dragons" to the world, but I mean dragon in the colloquial sense, not the dnd sense. It wasn't deliberate but as I was imagining this first one, it more and more started shaping out to be very much "Toothless" from "How to train your dragon" and eventually I decided to just embrace that. I am not however trying to recreate him beat for beat, but it's a good way to kind of picture it.
I feel like I've almost got this one to a use-able point. In my mind these are a collection of dragons that have been tamed by a fairly primitive group of hunting tribes to be used as mounts. A black salamander looking beast (with wings of course) they're incredibly fast strikers. People fear them in the same way we would fear hawks if the average height of a human was 6 inches instead of 6 feet. Much like hawks, and unknown to those who've never trained with them, they trade away a lot of durability to get that speed. Since it started to look like toothless and I wanted to give the various dragons more interesting breath attacks anyways, instead of a cone style breath weapon, they do what toothless does, which is a lot like the spell fireball (but dialed down significantly) as in it shoots a small bead that detonates after some time or after hitting it's target. This would not be their primary attack method though. They are precious to the hunters who've trained them (in part because of how uncommon they are, so losing one would be detrimental to the long term survival of the tribe) so they use their tactics and reputation to discourage conflict.
So here's what I was thinking specifics:
Use the "Magical beast" type for making the creature (The colloquial vs. DnD dragons bit, the dragon type has a bunch of features I don't want/need) but for the purpose of "favored enemy" etc. they are dragons.
Based on predators of similar size. (Bears, Lions, Dire wolves) I was thinking 5hd. So that's 27+(5*con modifier) Hit points.
Size Large (for mountability!)
Abilities? I don't know. Int 2 probably, but for the rest I am not sure. Con and strength probably a little less than a typical predator of this size.
Skills definitely climb (Since they're less durable they live in the mountains near their hunting territory) Fly (duh) Perception (for hunting) and maybe intimidate. I was thinking maybe giving them a racial bonus to stealth at night, and climb. (Haven't worked out the exact distribution of skill points though)
Feats, at 5hd they get 3, so I was thinking Flyby attack, and then perhaps bleeding attack (was going to wave the pre-requisite because they use natural attacks and not unarmed) because I was thinking of ancient human hunters strategy of hitting their prey and letting it bleed out while they chased it. Open to suggestions for the third. Multi-attack is a good back up, but it's not their go-to style, so I'd be happy with something else.
Special Abilities and qualities, this is where the ability to fly, racial bonus to the skills, and the "breath" attack would fall I guess, not sure what others might need to be in there. I don't know exactly how to do the breath attack, I was thinking con-based fireball, but with only 10' radius and 3d6 damage dice.
Also calculating the final CR (for my own purposes as much as anything) I mean, flight makes them pretty tough, but they're also designed to hit way above their weight class.
Having this all typed out now, I'm seeing that I have got them a lot closer to done than I thought, so I'll probably wait until I have a crack at the others before trying to get help with them.
I've never done it period, so I don't really know if the "simple" monster creation rules from unchained are actually simpler. I think they structured it in a way that doesn't make it entirely simple.
So let's get started I guess:
First creature:
I am trying to add some "dragons" to the world, but I mean dragon in the colloquial sense, not the dnd sense. It wasn't deliberate but as I was imagining this first one, it more and more started shaping out to be very much "Toothless" from "How to train your dragon" and eventually I decided to just embrace that. I am not however trying to recreate him beat for beat, but it's a good way to kind of picture it.
I feel like I've almost got this one to a use-able point. In my mind these are a collection of dragons that have been tamed by a fairly primitive group of hunting tribes to be used as mounts. A black salamander looking beast (with wings of course) they're incredibly fast strikers. People fear them in the same way we would fear hawks if the average height of a human was 6 inches instead of 6 feet. Much like hawks, and unknown to those who've never trained with them, they trade away a lot of durability to get that speed. Since it started to look like toothless and I wanted to give the various dragons more interesting breath attacks anyways, instead of a cone style breath weapon, they do what toothless does, which is a lot like the spell fireball (but dialed down significantly) as in it shoots a small bead that detonates after some time or after hitting it's target. This would not be their primary attack method though. They are precious to the hunters who've trained them (in part because of how uncommon they are, so losing one would be detrimental to the long term survival of the tribe) so they use their tactics and reputation to discourage conflict.
So here's what I was thinking specifics:
Use the "Magical beast" type for making the creature (The colloquial vs. DnD dragons bit, the dragon type has a bunch of features I don't want/need) but for the purpose of "favored enemy" etc. they are dragons.
Based on predators of similar size. (Bears, Lions, Dire wolves) I was thinking 5hd. So that's 27+(5*con modifier) Hit points.
Size Large (for mountability!)
Abilities? I don't know. Int 2 probably, but for the rest I am not sure. Con and strength probably a little less than a typical predator of this size.
Skills definitely climb (Since they're less durable they live in the mountains near their hunting territory) Fly (duh) Perception (for hunting) and maybe intimidate. I was thinking maybe giving them a racial bonus to stealth at night, and climb. (Haven't worked out the exact distribution of skill points though)
Feats, at 5hd they get 3, so I was thinking Flyby attack, and then perhaps bleeding attack (was going to wave the pre-requisite because they use natural attacks and not unarmed) because I was thinking of ancient human hunters strategy of hitting their prey and letting it bleed out while they chased it. Open to suggestions for the third. Multi-attack is a good back up, but it's not their go-to style, so I'd be happy with something else.
Special Abilities and qualities, this is where the ability to fly, racial bonus to the skills, and the "breath" attack would fall I guess, not sure what others might need to be in there. I don't know exactly how to do the breath attack, I was thinking con-based fireball, but with only 10' radius and 3d6 damage dice.
Also calculating the final CR (for my own purposes as much as anything) I mean, flight makes them pretty tough, but they're also designed to hit way above their weight class.
Having this all typed out now, I'm seeing that I have got them a lot closer to done than I thought, so I'll probably wait until I have a crack at the others before trying to get help with them.