The Premise:
Making monsters can seem like a daunting task, especially if you’re not sure where to begin. In this six-part series, I’m going to describe some of my techniques and hopefully give you a framework that you can then use to design your own monsters in your own worlds! We’re going to assume you’ve done your reading in your campaign setting’s bestiary or equivalent, so let’s get right into the good stuff.
Part 1, Becoming Dr. Frankenstein:
My first piece of advice? Don’t start with nothing. It takes time to get a good feel for what’s fair to your party, and what will bring them to the brink of death without actually killing them. The ideal fight.
Find monsters that have features you like, but aren’t quite right for the setting. Or look for some that are good, but missing a few things you would like them to have. Then find other creatures with other desirable features and mash the two of them together to create an abomination which your party always will remember — maybe even fondly!
Place them in the Creature Combiner:
This is where most homebrewing monster makers start. These creatures have been play tested and aren’t too powerful, so you can take their pieces and combine them without worrying about adjusting the fight’s difficulty much. My preferred method for this is to find a base monster that is just below the right difficulty for my party and then locate a creature which has most or all the abilities I want… and I steal them.
When I put the new abilities on what is my “base” monster, I give some thought to how this creature might have developed these features. Has it undergone a mutation? Is it a failed and escaped experiment of some wizard gone rogue? How have these changes affected its behavior? Giving thought to creature’s psychology will inform how and why it fights, which is important because your party (if they’re like most of mine) may try to tame it.
Keep in mind that abilities, especially those that decrease incoming damage or increase outgoing damage, absolutely will influence a monster’s combat effectiveness. A creature can quickly go from “a hearty challenge” to “dangerously lethal” just by giving them damage resistances and increasing their damage dice from a d6 to a d10.
Look at the sorts of creatures other people have created and compare your finished creation to others that are somewhat similar. If yours suddenly has a much higher damage output and is a lot beefier in the health department, you may have gone too far. Not to worry! We can fix this!
Next time on Monstercrafting 101 – Pt. 2, What Have I Done!? It’s Grown Beyond my Control!
