A homebrewed lovecraftian monster twice a week (currently PEACHing, shoggoth)

[Requilac]

Hello everybody, here I am again making some more Lovecraftian content for D&D 5e. In this thread I shall be creating the final, and longest, chapter in the mini-supplement I plan on creating. Here I shall be working on designing a bestiary of creatures from Lovecraft's writings. Of course, there is much too many creatures in his works to effectively stat out all of them, so I will just be focusing on making a small collection of the more well know ones. You can find the statistics of all the monsters I have created in the homebrewery link below. Every Monday and Friday I will be homebrewing a new creature and adding it to the list. I plan on making between 13 monsters in total, but more might be added on. Most of them have already been statted up, but to make sure that each creature receives the proper attention, I will instead be gradually revealing them over time. All of the planned monsters have been made. Any requests for monster that I could create are welcomed. Any suggestions on how to improve any of these monsters are very appreciated. Whenever I homebrew a new monster I will be creating a post to detail my rationale for designing that monster the way I did. Thank you in advance to anyone who decides to help me in this project.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/ByoeSkGtz

Note that none of the images found throughout this document are of my creation. All of them were made by a DeviantArt user by the name of Kingovrats.

monster commentary list
-deep one: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...86&postcount=2
-deep one hivelord: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...30&postcount=5
-elder thing: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...37&postcount=8
-ghast: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...6&postcount=21
-gug: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...9&postcount=29
-mi-go: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...4&postcount=30
-moon-beast: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...8&postcount=35
-night-gaunt: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...6&postcount=36
-Shantak: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...8&postcount=37
-Yithian: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...7&postcount=38
-cultist: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...5&postcount=39
-Shoggoth: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/shows...0&postcount=40

[Requilac]

The Deep One

"I think their predominant color was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked ... They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design - living and horrible." - Robert Olmstead, the narrator of Shadows Over Innsmouth

This particular monster was probably one of the easier ones to create, especially because they were one of the few lovecraft monsters who was very well defined. I tried to create them as similar to the ones from The Shadow Over Innsmouth as possible. Their role in combat is quite simple really, they are mooks, meat shields that would be the servants to some sort of a stronger force. I made their CR 1/4, as according to XGtE that is the approximate power of a 1st level adventurer, which I believe is an accurate depiction of how powerful the deep ones were. I gave them a couple of features based around their amphibious nature, such as a swimming speed, resistance to cold damage, resistance to being grappled and restrained (a trait stolen from the kuo-toa), and aquatic camouflage. I was kind of torn over whether they should attack with their claws or with weapons, and I was not certain what they used in the books, so I decided to make a compromise and grant them multi-attack so they could attack with both. They also received an attack in which they throw their spear which deals less damage than their melee attacks, as to prevent them from being useless at a range but in a manner which still incentivizes them to attack in melee. You are probably wandering where pack tactics came from. The reason I included that in is because in The Shadows Over Innsmouth the way that they where all swarming over the town in unison looking for the main character seemed to indicate some sort of pack mentality, and in D&D terms that seems to imply that they would have pack tactics.

What do you all think of my translation of the deep one?

[Urist Mcmage]

Dont forget that Deep Ones never stop growing with age, and can live for insanely long time periods; you may want to include some larger variants to represent the older ones. Additionally, remember that they heal from wounds extremely quickly (not fast enough to count as regeneration, but they can eventually grow back missing limbs if I recall correctly. Finally, you may want to create stats for one with cleric spells, since they worship Father Dagon and Mother Hydra (or Cthulhu, the books are not very clear). Finally, are you going to create stats for deep one hybrids, seeing as their ability to interbreed with humans is one of their defining traits? All in all, what you have seems pretty balanced, although I can't help but feel that they have to many special abilities to keep track of easily. They should also be given an immunity to pressure so they can live in the deep ocean, which could probably be merged with the Cold Resistance (give them a trait called "Dwellers in the Lightless Depths" or something like that that does both.

[Requilac]

Thank you for the response, I really do need all the help that I can get. Your cases are really relevant and it is helpful to receive some criticism for the content I have created. Thank you for wanting to assist me with this project.

Dont forget that Deep Ones never stop growing with age, and can live for insanely long time periods; you may want to include some larger variants to represent the older ones.

I know that the deep ones had quite expansive lifespans. That is just not something you include in a stat-block though really. Near Immortality isn’t really a mechanical trait persay, that is something that would more likely be RPed in by the DM. None of the other immortal monsters in the MM, such as vampires and wraiths, do mention that aspect of them but they mention it in the fluff description not the star block. As for the concept of making larger variants, I am not quite sure how accurate that is. Just because they are older does not necessarily mean that they would get any stronger and larger. More intelligence and wise maybe, but not bigger. The only times that the age of a monster is ever relevant to its strength is in the case of dragons. In the shadow over Innsmouth they never mentioned any of them gettin larger with age. I suppose I could add it in, but it seems kind of a strange move to go with and not one that is wholly relevant.

Additionally, remember that they heal from wounds extremely quickly (not fast enough to count as regeneration, but they can eventually grow back missing limbs if I recall correctly.

They could heal like that? I don’t remember hearing about that. What particular quote made you believe that? Your mention of them being able to regenerate is not ringing any bells.

Finally, you may want to create stats for one with cleric spells, since they worship Father Dagon and Mother Hydra (or Cthulhu, the books are not very clear).

Just because they worship gods does not necessarily mean they gain clerical powers. A ton of monsters in the MM worships gods, such as orcs, kobolds and lizardfolk, and none of them really get powers to manifest from their gods. Regardless I am going to take your suggestion and create a variant version of them which basically get the powers of a level 1 great old one warlock. Mainly because I do not see good enough reason not to.

Finally, are you going to create stats for deep one hybrids, seeing as their ability to interbreed with humans is one of their defining traits?

How would the statistic of a hybrid be any different than the statistics of a normal human or a full blooded deep one really? In real life terms they would be very different, but by D&D mechanics the difference is minimal. I guess they could only have some of the traits but to me it seems like the hybrids would just be like normal humans that looked weird or normal deep ones which looked less weird.

All in all, what you have seems pretty balanced, although I can't help but feel that they have to many special abilities to keep track of easily.

What do you mean by too many special abilities? It seems to have the less than the average amount of features that most other monsters in the MM have. Come to think of it, is simpler than a good 90% of them. Maybe they are a tiny bit complex for a CR 1/4 creature, but basically anything with a CR 1 or above is going to be twice as complex as the monster I have created.

They should also be given an immunity to pressure so they can live in the deep ocean, which could probably be merged with the Cold Resistance (give them a trait called "Dwellers in the Lightless Depths" or something like that that does both.

While certainly useful in concept, that seems kind of irrelevant. When is immunity to damage form underwater pressure ever going to come up? I will add it in anyway, because I don’t see a good enough reason not to, but it still seems rather unnecessary.

[Requilac]

The Deep One Hivelord

Urist McMage's mention of larger variants of deep ones got me thinking about some interesting ideas regarding them. That, and I couldn't help but notice that in The Shadow over Innsmouth how the when the deep ones were swarming around the town it almost seemed like they had a hive mentality, like that of bees. And what good bee hive does not have some sort of queen? This prompted me to think of a sort of bee queen equivalent for the deep ones, aptly named the hivelord. These are bigger, stronger and smarter than the other deep ones, but are over-all not that much different, which makes sense considering that it is just a variant of them after all. They really do not have a basis in the cthulhu mythos, but I am willing to take some artistic liberties to up the interest of these monsters. A lot of their new features I themed after the use of their telepathic abilities. Proficiency in perception and investigation is meant to reflect that they are receiving messages from the lower deep ones and picking up details they would otherwise fail to recognize. The resistance to being charmed and frightened is supposed to reflect that it is basically sharing a mind with the others and gaining a sort of mental fortitude from the strength in numbers. Leadership is just there to make them better at their role at leading, and is really the only good feature to represent that when it comes to currently existing monster features. Instead of attacking with weapons I just made them appear even more monstrous by just biting and clawing at their opponents.

How do you all feel about this new monster?

[Fire Tarrasque]

Capitalize it better.
That's my one real issue.

Besides the fact that the Deep Ones don't actually have a Queen in Lovecraft.
Switch it in for Dagon/Mother Hydra?

[Requilac]

Capitalize it better.
That's my one real issue.

Besides the fact that the Deep Ones don't actually have a Queen in Lovecraft.
Switch it in for Dagon/Mother Hydra?

Capitalization was never my strong suit, I will look into fixing all of that. I think I openly said this, but I was well aware that deep ones do not have a queen, I was taking some artistic liberties here. Its whole telepathic capabilities fit in well with the rest of the spectrum of other D&D aberrations, that and I got some inspiration from McMage's mention of larger variants. These were more or less just a spark of creativity that I think is interesting from a mechanical and thematic perspective. Seeing the deep ones behave like bees is fairly accurate to how they were in the story, and I just thought it made sense to add in a sort of queen bee like creature. They do not exist in the cthulhu mythos at all, and I am well aware of that.

Dagon and Hydra would be of a much higher CR though, and I decided against giving great old ones and other gods stats. All of those would be well above CR 20, and the odds of them seeing use are so abysmally low that I honestly do not feel up to making a whole gallery of them.

[Requilac]

The Elder thing

"Six feet end to end, three and five-tenths feet central diameter, tapering to one foot at each end. Like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves. Lateral breakages, as of thinnish stalks, are at equator in middle of these ridges. In furrows between ridges are curious growths – combs or wings that fold up and spread out like fans. . . which gives almost seven-foot wing spread. Arrangement reminds one of certain monsters of primal myth, especially fabled Elder Things in the Necronomicon. — At the Mountains of Madness"

Spoiler: artistic representation

Show

Lovecraft was both an author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, sometimes all three at once. This is an example of one of his things which are more undoubtedly rooted in science fiction, and they would be better suited in an episode of Ancient Aliens than they would be a member of Sauron's army. That being said, there is a lot we do not know about the elder things, so there is a decent amount of wiggle room for me to properly adapt it to seem more fantastic than it was probably supposed to be. The bad part about the vagueness of the elder things is that it is quite difficult to stat them. The biggest issue I ran into is I am not even quite sure how they attacked things. It took me quite some time of pondering to go about this, but ultimately my contemplations led me to think more about The Shadow Out of Time and less about the story they are most known for, At the Mountains of Madness. Why would the yithians, those intellectual geniuses capable of time travel, be so scared of the elder things. And then it kind of clicked in me. What is a master tactician's worst nighmare? Something that they cannot take information from but could steal information from them. That is where true sight, inscrutable and gaze into the mind come into play. Some of the other features, such as blindsight and immunity to being blinded and deafened, originated from the strange what that their senses would most likely work. I decided to throw in resistance to cold damage as a reflection of their ability to travel through space, which is pretty damn cold. The most difficult feature to develop though was how exactly they are attacking, as it was never fully fleshed out in either of the books. But several quotes from The Shadow Out of Time where they talk of how the elder things make a myraid of strange piping and whistling noises made me to base their attack off of the noise themselves. It seemed to have quite an impact on whoever the main character was from the book, so I decided to reveal that level of mental twisting by having the target of the psychotic whistle be under the effects of the confusion spell. I wish I could have made them more like the elder things from the actual mythos, but in truth they were not detailed enough to give me a good hint as to how they behave. That and I needed to reduce some of the more sc-fi elements of them.

What is your opinion on my version of the elder thing?

[Urist Mcmage]

What is your opinion on my version of the elder thing?

First off, I seem to recall that in At the Mountains of Madness, the corpses at the campsite were mentioned to have been "disassembled" or "dissected" or something along those lines. If that is the case, perhaps giving their tentacles some sort of status effect might be in order. Aside from that, it is mentioned in At the Mountains of Madness that the Elder Things had underwater cities at one point, so a swim speed might be a good idea as well.

[Requilac]

First off, I seem to recall that in At the Mountains of Madness, the corpses at the campsite were mentioned to have been "disassembled" or "dissected" or something along those lines. If that is the case, perhaps giving their tentacles some sort of status effect might be in order. Aside from that, it is mentioned in At the Mountains of Madness that the Elder Things had underwater cities at one point, so a swim speed might be a good idea as well.

I meant to give them a swim speed, but somewhere along the line I forgot, so I will add that in. And I do indeed recall that the corpses at the campsite were dissected, but IIRC that was because one of the explorers went insane and he was the one that did it, the elder things themselves were not responsible for it. And even then, what status effect would that apply were it to be the case? A DoT maybe, but aside from that very other conditions makes sense for dissecting tentacles.

[Urist Mcmage]

I meant to give them a swim speed, but somewhere along the line I forgot, so I will add that in. And I do indeed recall that the corpses at the campsite were dissected, but IIRC that was because one of the explorers went insane and he was the one that did it, the elder things themselves were not responsible for it. And even then, what status effect would that apply were it to be the case? A DoT maybe, but aside from that very other conditions makes sense for dissecting tentacles.

I don't recall anything about the explorers going insane and dissecting people. IIRC, the only one who went insane was one of the two survivors (I think his name was Danforth). As for how to represent that, perhaps increasing their critical threat range (or did they remove that in 5ed?) so that they crit more often.

[Requilac]

I don't recall anything about the explorers going insane and dissecting people. IIRC, the only one who went insane was one of the two survivors (I think his name was Danforth). As for how to represent that, perhaps increasing their critical threat range (or did they remove that in 5ed?) so that they crit more often.

Now that I am actually looking back at the story, I believe this is the quote that led me to believe some of the explorers went insane. As soon as the main character and Danforth arrived at the massacred camp, this is what they said on the matter.

"we agreed that the suggestion must have worked potently upon the sensitised minds of Lake’s overwrought party. Our own first sight of the actual buried entities formed a horrible moment, and sent the imaginations of Pabodie and myself back to some of the shocking primal myths we had read and heard. We all agreed that the mere sight and continued presence of the things must have coöperated with the oppressive polar solitude and daemon mountain wind in driving Lake’s party mad.

For madness—centring in Gedney as the only possible surviving agent—was the explanation spontaneously adopted by everybody so far as spoken utterance was concerned; though I will not be so naive as to deny that each of us may have harboured wild guesses which sanity forbade him to formulate completely."

This seems to imply though that the elder things were actually the ones that did it, but the main characters were just trying to rationalize the event as Gedney going insane, which judging by the state of the corpses, does not appear to be true.

Critical threat range was removed, but i can just give them the champion fighter's superior critical and change the damage type of the tentacles to magical slashing. I had better make some changes to it though to ensure that the tentacles get some action. I am thinking of removing the damage part from psychotic whistle, giving them multi-attack, granting superior critical to the tentacle attack, and decreasing its overall HP by 10%. I will go edit that in now.

[demonslayerelf]

I'm not gonna lie, I find these all to be very boring. Fluff-wise, they're all wonderful, because Lovecraft was a god of building eldritch and insane entities.

Crunch-wise, the Deep Ones are just lizardfolk, only they're amphibious, and don't die from pressure. The Hivelord is a little better, but not really. Neither of them have anything that would suggest that they're eldritch abominations or anything like that, outside of the "Leadership" ability.

The Elder Thing is just an octopus with a Sphinx ability. It's psychotic whistle is the only thing neat or eldritch about it. The detect thoughts is a meh thing in that regard, because it's not even psionic.

They're just bland. The baseline of what you could think of, and nothing beyond.

[Requilac]

I'm not gonna lie, I find these all to be very boring. Fluff-wise, they're all wonderful, because Lovecraft was a god of building eldritch and insane entities.

Crunch-wise, the Deep Ones are just lizardfolk, only they're amphibious, and don't die from pressure. The Hivelord is a little better, but not really. Neither of them have anything that would suggest that they're eldritch abominations or anything like that, outside of the "Leadership" ability.

The Elder Thing is just an octopus with a Sphinx ability. It's psychotic whistle is the only thing neat or eldritch about it. The detect thoughts is a meh thing in that regard, because it's not even psionic.

They're just bland. The baseline of what you could think of, and nothing beyond.

Note that the following tone of this message is not meant to be angry at all, I am quite grateful for your input.

What else did you want? This is just as complex, if not even more so than almost all the other monsters in the MM. What more is there to them? Almost all of the monsters in 5e could be summarised in such a manner. The balor is just a tank with a damaging aura that explodes upon death and can teleport. A red dragon is just a flying solo monster that can breathe fire. These monsters are just as detailed as essentially all the other monsters of their comparative CR. 5e monsters are baseline, I am not the one that created that system, WotC did.

[demonslayerelf]

Note that the following tone of this message is not meant to be angry at all, I am quite grateful for your input.

What else did you want? This is just as complex, if not even more so than almost all the other monsters in the MM. What more is there to them? Almost all of the monsters in 5e could be summarised in such a manner. The balor is just a tank with a damaging aura that explodes upon death and can teleport. A red dragon is just a flying solo monster that can breathe fire. These monsters are just as detailed as essentially all the other monsters of their comparative CR. 5e monsters are baseline, I am not the one that created that system, WotC did.

That doesn't make it a good, useful, interesting, or even adequate system. You don't have to work under the expectation that the monster will be the bare minimum, just because the MM is the bare minimum. Work above that standard, it's really not that hard, and everything within this standard is equally as unnotable and underwhelming as everything that came before and will come after.

Will you only drink pure water for the rest of your life, and eat the blandest of cuisine forever? No, you won't, because you hold something as basic as food and water to higher standards. Hold your hobbies at least that high. I'll be back later or tomorrow with an elder thing worth the name, which brings utter terror when thought of, just to show you exactly what I mean.

[Requilac]

That doesn't make it a good, useful, interesting, or even adequate system. You don't have to work under the expectation that the monster will be the bare minimum, just because the MM is the bare minimum. Work above that standard, it's really not that hard, and everything within this standard is equally as unnotable and underwhelming as everything that came before and will come after.

Will you only drink pure water for the rest of your life, and eat the blandest of cuisine forever? No, you won't, because you hold something as basic as food and water to higher standards. Hold your hobbies at least that high. I'll be back later or tomorrow with an elder thing worth the name, which brings utter terror when thought of, just to show you exactly what I mean.

The system has worked fine for me for years, and it is not inadequate at its job. Some creatures are deserving of a stat block which takes up a whole page, but not all of them should be like that. Most importantly, a monster should be easy to run and control by the DM. Filling every single monster with a ton of features which make it hard to even remember is just as bad. Simplicity does not mean inadequacy. A lot of the horror element of a monster come from environment, description and how you roleplay it too, not just there stats. I am doing what I believe is the best way to make them, and that is what most of the people I know have agreed with.

You want to take a stab at generating some of the monsters too. That is great! I was originally planning on working on this alone, but help is always good. I frequently find that homebrew built by a community is one of the most balanced you can find. Perhaps we can combine the ideas of our visions for monsters even and see what we can make. If you think that you have the time, Perhaps we could even work on this together. I would absolutely love to see what you can create, I need all the help I can get. Thank you so much, the amount of assistance you are giving me here is more than I could ever ask for, even if you will not help me in the future.

[demonslayerelf]

The system has worked fine for me for years, and it is not inadequate at its job. Some creatures are deserving of a stat block which takes up a whole page, but not all of them should be like that. Most importantly, a monster should be easy to run and control by the DM. Filling every single monster with a ton of features which make it hard to even remember is just as bad. Simplicity does not mean inadequacy. A lot of the horror element of a monster come from environment, description and how you roleplay it too, not just there stats. I am doing what I believe is the best way to make them, and that is what most of the people I know have agreed with.

I'm not going to say there's no merit to simplicity, but as-is right now, the monsters are WAY TOO simplified. The biggest statblocks belong to things like vampires, but one important thing to remember; Characters, regardless of level, require at least a page to describe the powers they have, even disregarding fluff(Bonus points for spellcasters who need to constantly check spells.) A vampire should be AT LEAST the point of a low-level character, being that they ARE/WERE characters.

Even disregarding that, I'm 99% sure that your "Solo Boss Monsters" should have at least the number and potency of options that the players have. That in mind, the Tarrasque; Biggest of big bad evil monsters, the epitome of "Too strong for the players to kill." Less than a page. About 2/3rds of the page, specifically. And most of that is describing Swallow and Frightful Presence, which aren't even unique abilities. You're not even meeting that line by going with quarter-page to half-page blocks.

You want to take a stab at generating some of the monsters too. That is great! I was originally planning on working on this alone, but help is always good. I frequently find that homebrew built by a community is one of the most balanced you can find. Perhaps we can combine the ideas of our visions for monsters even and see what we can make. If you think that you have the time, Perhaps we could even work on this together. I would absolutely love to see what you can create, I need all the help I can get. Thank you so much, the amount of assistance you are giving me here is more than I could ever ask for, even if you will not help me in the future.

I've been "Taking a stab at it" for a while. More than part of the reason I'm so opinionated about monster design and how much CR fails in any given edition. I'm shooting at the Elder One, maybe some more in the future. I'm doing Animals, Dragony things, and Vampirey things, all right now. So, not doing this dedicatedly, but... Well, ya know.

[Requilac]

I'm not going to say there's no merit to simplicity, but as-is right now, the monsters are WAY TOO simplified. The biggest statblocks belong to things like vampires, but one important thing to remember; Characters, regardless of level, require at least a page to describe the powers they have, even disregarding fluff(Bonus points for spellcasters who need to constantly check spells.) A vampire should be AT LEAST the point of a low-level character, being that they ARE/WERE characters.

Even disregarding that, I'm 99% sure that your "Solo Boss Monsters" should have at least the number and potency of options that the players have. That in mind, the Tarrasque; Biggest of big bad evil monsters, the epitome of "Too strong for the players to kill." Less than a page. About 2/3rds of the page, specifically. And most of that is describing Swallow and Frightful Presence, which aren't even unique abilities. You're not even meeting that line by going with quarter-page to half-page blocks.

Player characters though gets tons upon tons of out combat abilities too which you do not need to give to monsters and people get a lot of time to adapt to learning their class features, while monsters are only used for one combat or social encounter typically. It is only natural that their stat-blocks are much shorter. And I am not against making monster stat-blocks as long as a vampire's, but those creatures should be reserved for BBEG's and high level boss monsters, not the minions that the deep ones are, the mini-boss for a group that the hivelord is, and the back supporter that is the elder thing. My shoggoth on the other hand, which is still being developed, is of decent length and takes up at least half the page, likely even more once it is published.

I've been "Taking a stab at it" for a while. More than part of the reason I'm so opinionated about monster design and how much CR fails in any given edition. I'm shooting at the Elder One, maybe some more in the future. I'm doing Animals, Dragony things, and Vampirey things, all right now. So, not doing this dedicatedly, but... Well, ya know.

That is understandable if you don't have the time, people get busy after all. I would not say that CR was a complete failure, but it should really be more used as a guideline than a rule which most DMs make the mistake of doing. It is helpful when homebrewing monsters to determine their stat. That and it a good way to organize them easier to determine which monster you want to use, but even then you cannot rely on that entirely. I think that it serves its purpose of being a guideline which allows for easier organization, but at the end of the day it is just a guideline and a convenience, not necessarily a solid rule that can always be trusted.

[demonslayerelf]

Player characters though gets tons upon tons of out combat abilities too which you do not need to give to monsters and people get a lot of time to adapt to learning their class features, while monsters are only used for one combat or social encounter typically. It is only natural that their stat-blocks are much shorter. And I am not against making monster stat-blocks as long as a vampire's, but those creatures should be reserved for BBEG's and high level boss monsters, not the minions that the deep ones are, the mini-boss for a group that the hivelord is, and the back supporter that is the elder thing. My shoggoth on the other hand, which is still being developed, is of decent length and takes up at least half the page, likely even more once it is published.

It you're actually making literal one-time mooks, I'll... Still disagree. If the PC's are meant to feel unstoppable, sure, MAYBE. But even the little mooks should have at least 3 options in combat. It makes monsters look WEAK AF when all they do is the one thing each round. "Each one is going to make a 1d4 claw attack this turn." Regardless of how much fluff you put over it, when players do 2~4 things EACH, or at least cast one badass spell and do another thing, most rounds of combat. Most creatures have ONE action they can do(Rolling "Attack" into one; Hurl Flame, Weapon Attack, Claw Attack, etc. into one. Other things on the table, though.) Even if they make, say, 2 attacks each turn, or each attack carries a "Make a saving throw" effect, or even if the attacks are powerful, that's still only attacking, when players will be Raging, Flurry of Blowsing, spellcasting and picking their nose; ANYTHING else. The Biggest of BBEG's don't even get bonus actions.

THAT. Is a problem. I'm making 4 Strahd statblocks right now; The smallest is still 2 pages.

That is understandable if you don't have the time, people get busy after all. I would not say that CR was a complete failure, but it should really be more used as a guideline than a rule which most DMs make the mistake of doing. It is helpful when homebrewing monsters to determine their stat. That and it a good way to organize them easier to determine which monster you want to use, but even then you cannot rely on that entirely. I think that it serves its purpose of being a guideline which allows for easier organization, but at the end of the day it is just a guideline and a convenience, not necessarily a solid rule that can always be trusted.

Debatable, but I am out of time, so I'll concede.

[Requilac]

It you're actually making literal one-time mooks, I'll... Still disagree. If the PC's are meant to feel unstoppable, sure, MAYBE. But even the little mooks should have at least 3 options in combat. It makes monsters look WEAK AF when all they do is the one thing each round. "Each one is going to make a 1d4 claw attack this turn." Regardless of how much fluff you put over it, when players do 2~4 things EACH, or at least cast one badass spell and do another thing, most rounds of combat. Most creatures have ONE action they can do(Rolling "Attack" into one; Hurl Flame, Weapon Attack, Claw Attack, etc. into one. Other things on the table, though.) Even if they make, say, 2 attacks each turn, or each attack carries a "Make a saving throw" effect, or even if the attacks are powerful, that's still only attacking, when players will be Raging, Flurry of Blowsing, spellcasting and picking their nose; ANYTHING else. The Biggest of BBEG's don't even get bonus actions.

THAT. Is a problem. I'm making 4 Strahd statblocks right now; The smallest is still 2 pages.

They have a little more variability than you are giving them credit for. Remember that their spear attack is still exist and the variant: deep one warlock is still there. They can make at the very least three different attacks between claw+spear, throw spear, or spell-casting. They do have at least three options to go with.

Debatable, but I am out of time, so I'll concede.

I would prefer a metric that only works half the time over the non-existence of a metric. That is my mentality at the very least.

[Requilac]

The Ghast (variant)

"the ghasts, those repulsive beings which die in the light, and which live in the vaults of Zin and leap on long hind legs like kangaroos... After a moment something about the size of a small horse hopped out into the grey twilight, and Carter turned sick at the aspect of that scabrous and unwholesome beast, whose face is so curiously human despite the absence of a nose, a forehead, and other important particulars."- Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath

Today we are working with a more obscure name from the mythos. These dastardly little beasts come from The dreamlands, and have much more elements of fantasy than horror to them. They certainly played a decent part in the ecosystem of the vaults of Zin and were mentioned several times, but were never fully detailed. What we do know is that these creatures gather in a group of 15 and swarmed a much larger predator roughly equivalant to a girallion. This indicates two things, one is that they work best in groups and the other is that are highly agressive and seemingly have no concern for their own wellbeing so long as they can defeat their enemy. There teamwork aspect is reflected in pack tactics while their delirious aggression is reflected by resistance to being frightened, rampage and wounded fury. They are not particularly tough and are going to drop pretty quickly, but they are also going to leave quite the marks on their enemy, which I find to be a rather accurate depiction of how they behaved in the book. They are not particularly accurate with their +3 attack bonus, but mindless rage doesn't encourage precision so it makes sense, that and pack tactics should balance it out. The main reason I gave them resistance to necrotic damage is just to counterbalance the vulnerability to radiant damage.

[demonslayerelf]

They have a little more variability than you are giving them credit for. Remember that their spear attack is still exist and the variant: deep one warlock is still there. They can make at the very least three different attacks between claw+spear, throw spear, or spell-casting. They do have at least three options to go with.

Note that I blatantly said "I'm putting all "Attacks" in one pot, because there's no difference between stabbing with a knife or clawing with a hand... Crunch-wise."
Sure, you can throw a spear, but that's still JUST making an attack. Nothing interesting about it. There's not EVEN a rider to make it a little more interesting.
So in reality, the normal one can attack and... Attack. It takes a variant to get one casting of two iffy spells, another option for attack(Eldritch Blast), and Minor Illusion, which is very situational(Both in, and out, of combat, because of the low quality). And it still just feels like the Fish-variant of Lizardfolk.

I would prefer a metric that only works half the time over the non-existence of a metric. That is my mentality at the very least.

Sure, sure, but i never said they should get rid of it, just that it blows. It's not even a hard problem, either. Use Hit Dice to determine Proficiency Modifier, and place them into 4-6 "Tiers", then there's no problem. You might say "Upper 2nd tier-lower 3rd tier" to communicate that it's probably around 10thish level. It's what I do, and it's really not hard. It's a quick thing, too.
Just consider the smallest level it takes to make it child's play, and the highest levels of player characters it turns into puppy chow. Roughly the middle of those two points, perfect.
It's not all that hard if you get in a little practice with it, and there was a great UA about "Three pillar experience" which did this, more or less, and adapted experiences to match. That one works, to a point, but the core issue isn't it's lack of a numerical metric, it's that monsters simply aren't designed well.

They are never intended to be threats in 5th edition. They're minor obstacles that a party overcomes while being badasses. That's the problem, but CR would still be a problem with how it is. It's not even a 1:1 correlation between party level and monster CR. The CR is supposed to be a "Battle the PC's will win, but will expend resources to do so." Note that it doesn't say how many resources, and that it's not even true at that point.(Though that's more because the monsters are poorly designed.)

[Requilac]

Some of the monsters were updated with a couple of new features, some statistical changes and a lot of grammatical editing. Here is the log of major changes below...

-deep ones given a modified version of the steadfast feature
-hivelord granted an ability similar to that of the paladin's aura of courage
-hivelord's attack damage decreased
-elder thing's truesight has been replaced with otherworldly perception
-elder thing received the ageless, amphibious and parry feature
-ghast's health reduced
-ghast given the aggressive trait

[Requilac]

The Ghoul

“The madness and monstrosity lay in the figures in the foreground- for Pickman's morbid art was pre-eminently one of demoniac portraiture. These figures were seldom completely human, but often approached humanity in varying degree. Most of the bodies, while roughly bipedal, had a forward slumping, and a vaguely canine cast. The texture of the majority was a kind of unpleasant rubberiness."- Pickman's Model

This is not exactly the creature that most people think of when they hear Lovecraft, but here I present to you the ghoul. This is not all that complex of a monster, but to be fair in the books they were not exactly much more than hideously deformed humans. I was kind of scrambling for features to add in but I managed to give the ghoul as much personality as I thought reasonable. The first of all was to accentuate their over-all ambush tactics by giving them expertise in stealth and the ambusher and surprise attack feature. What also was crucial to include was their bad habit of devouring some really rotten corpses, which is reflected by resistance to poison damage and the poisoned and exhausted condition. To properly bring out their more animalistic nature keen sense was included. To be completely honest I just added nimble escape in because I needed to make the stat-block longer and it seemed pretty reasonable to include. Makes it easy for them to hit, recover and run too.

So, any comments on this particular monster?

[The Zoat]

Something I'm kinda confused about is why do some of your monsters not add their strength bonus to their melee attacks' damage?

The hivelord is especially confusing because its bite attack adds +4 from its strength bonus but its claw attack doesn't.

[Requilac]

Something I'm kinda confused about is why do some of your monsters not add their strength bonus to their melee attacks' damage?

The hivelord is especially confusing because its bite attack adds +4 from its strength bonus but its claw attack doesn't.

Because a lot of time if I added their strength modifier to the attack damage than their DPR would be raised to a level which I don’t want it to. I choose how much flat damage the attack should do first before I calculated how much the rolled damage would be would be. The deep ones have a strength modifier of +2 and their strongest attack deals 3 damage. I can’t really add strength modifier to the attack because the smallest die is a d4, whose average roll is a 2.5, and 2.5 plus their strength modifier is 4.5 damage, not the desired 3 damage or at least a number close to it. See what I am talking? If I added strength modifiers to all of their attacks than the damage would be all out of whack and I would have to re-evaluate other stats to balance it out. Same goes for the hivelord. The average damage of its claw attack is 4, and its strength modifier is 4, and the lowest die is once again a d4 (average roll of 2.5), and 4+2.5=6. That means the hivelord’s rolled DPR would be 4 points higher than its flat DPR. As you could imagine, that doesn’t bode very well. I only included an ability modifier to the damage roll if doing so would not cause the rolled damage to be massively higher than the flat damage. Does that make sense.

[The Zoat]

Idk dude if it's like that why not just decrease their strength mod to +1? That way they have 2 attacks, at +3, that deal 3 each, which at low levels is pretty close to 2 attacks at +4 that deal 2. I feel like janking with the rules for attack damage like that isn't really worth it, it'd be better design in my opinion to just change the CR.

[Requilac]

Idk dude if it's like that why not just decrease their strength mod to +1? That way they have 2 attacks, at +3, that deal 3 each, which at low levels is pretty close to 2 attacks at +4 that deal 2. I feel like janking with the rules for attack damage like that isn't really worth it, it'd be better design in my opinion to just change the CR.

Fair enough I suppose. I never expected people to care so much about modifiers to damage rolls, but if it is that significant than I will edit things. I will just get rid of the deep ones multi-attack and instead give them a plain spear attack then. The hivelord’s DPR is going to be increased and its health is going to be decreased then so that it may add its modifier to the claw damage. I really don’t see why it is necessary, but if that is what people actually care about than I might as well.

[Requilac]

The Gug

"It was a paw, fully two feet and a half across, and equipped with formidable talons. After it came another paw, and after that a great black-furred arm to which both of the paws were attached by short forearms. Then two pink eyes shone, and the head of the awakened gug sentry, large as a barrel, wabbled into view. The eyes jutted two inches from each side, shaded by bony protuberances overgrown with coarse hairs. But the head was chiefly terrible because of the mouth. That mouth had great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of the head, opening vertically instead of horizontally."- The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Here is another one of your buddies from the lost vaults of Zin, the mighty cavern dwelling bigfoot on steroids, the one and only Gug. This four armed beastie with a vertical mouth is certainly strange looking, but not quite the eldritch abomination Lovecraft is so well known for making. These ones are much simpler than the other creatures of his too. The actual difference between a Gug and a girralon aside from habitat is minimal. That being said, I tried to give them some character. While looking at the stat-block though your first question is probably going to be why it has such a high perception and investigation bonus. From a doylist perspective, it is meant to be a solo monster so it cannot afford to get snucked up on so easily but from a more Watsonian one I pulled this from the fact that in the book the main role we see them in is as a guard, so it is safe to assume that they are pretty good at noticing things. The Aggressive, reckless and wounded fury traits are supposed to represent their apishness and give them some much need combat features. Parry is meant to reflect how easy it is for a four armed monster to deflect blows and gets the message across that this thing can do many things at once, giving the impression that makes an enemy quite paranoid and on edge.

What is your opinion on this horribly deformed ape that might as well have come from hell?

[Requilac]

The Mi-go

" they were not human, despite some superficial resemblances in size and general outline... They were pinkish things about five feet long; with crustaceous bodies bearing vast pairs of dorsal fins or membraneous wings and several sets of articulated limbs, and with a sort of convoluted ellipsoid, covered with multitudes of very short antennae, where a head would ordinarily be... "- The Whisperer in the Darkness

I had to get a little creative with these critters here. So much of their personality is dependent on all of their alien nature, but brain surgeons from Pluto do not exactly translate themselves well to fantasy D&D. Thusly, I had to build their stat-block based more around the more fantasy elements of them. The thinking I more or less went with is pretend as if the information laid out about the Mi-go in The Whisper in the Darknessbefore the main character got the "yeah future, everythings cool my dudes" letter. So now that we have ruled out the brain surgery parts what do we know about them? Before that point we knew that they were more or less winged fungus crabs that came from outer space and were into worshipping some rather strange gods, most specifically our good old buddy Mrs. (or Mr., or ??? because Outer Gods are weird) Black Goat. I decided to really play up their more fungal nature to an extreme extent, as shown in their immunity to poison damage and being poisoned, blindsight, illumination, spore attack and regeneration. The reason their AC is so dreadfully low is mainly because I had to play quite a balancing act with all of their stats here due to all of their special features which increase effective stats. The easiest way to make it so that they would have a good enough attack bonus and high enough HP while still retaining all of their feature and make it balanced still was to just dump their AC, which makes sense to a certain degree. They probably had to be a little quick with their hands to do brain surgery (which is also the reason for their increased critical chance), but they were directly stated as not being very agile with their body as a whole so low AC makes sense. Even though I am cutting out the brain surgery parts, I still decided to give them proficiency in medicine and an increased critical chance to reflect the closest approximation of the skills necessary to do that would be in D&D terms. As typical they get immunity to being blinded and deafened because the prerequisite organs are not existent. Dive attack is just there to show off their flying ability and otherwordly perception was more or less a last minute change I made to reflect their occult knowledge.

Well, what exactly do you all have to say on this slightly over-complicated winged fungus crab that worships cthulhu?