Using Alternate Monster Maths

I wrote once that I use alternate monster maths when designing my 4e monsters, which means when designing the vast, overwhelming majority of my encounters. I believe I have used a monster manual monster exactly once and it was zombies. Because I couldn’t be arsed to come up with a bold new take on shambling corpses that punch you to death. Maybe I will someday. But mostly, I make my own monsters in D&D 4e.

One of the things about 4e that grated slightly on my nerves was the fact that a lot of the monster math was tied to these immutable monster roles. Brutes would always have the wimpiest attack bonus. Soldiers would always have overwhelmingly high attack and defense values, good HP and good initiative bonuses. After a while I stopped using 4e’s monster math and decided to make my own, as I say in the article above.

Of course, making your own monster math is dandy, but the problem comes in applying it. If you break open the monster roles, how do you design a monster anymore?

I utilize the 4 core roles 4e players have. Leaders lead, Defenders defend, Controllers control, Strikers strike. I still call them by their monster counterparts because I know I couldn’t get away with writing “Level 5 Defender” on a monster block and not get a few people screaming at me or asking me if I misunderstood how monster making works.

So what’s the process? What do you do?

•First I have to actually have an idea for a monster, and this begins with the story and situation the monster pertains to.

•I think about the role my monster is going to have, akin to player roles. A Leader monster gives bonuses and temporary hit points and (rarely) healing. You don’t want to give out too much of the latter though. A controller monster weakens the opposition. A Defender monster has a marking attack, or is beefy enough to guard other monsters. A striker monster focuses on dealing damage and moving around to deal more damage. This flows from the above most of the time.

•I divided my bonus progressions in my previous article into three. I think about the monster, both its abilities, its role, and its personality, appearance and other story concerns. I assign high, medium or low values this way. Rarely do I assign a low value, however, unless the monster has a “one true weakness”. Rarely do I assign High HP, especially to Solos or Elites. These are just personal concerns – I’ve eschewed them in the past.

•The rest of monster making goes the same way it always has. Using what I’ve laid down, I make up powers, I assign skills, etc, as I always have. Ability scores can cause the math to fluctuate, so the progressions I made up for my own use are not entirely immutable. Someone with a “high” defense progression might have low ability scores in that section, putting its defenses into an average range.

•The last really big change is how I handle extra damages. Rolling extra dice has always slowed me down a little, so I cut them out, and I add static damage in its place. I also believe Solos and Elites should be stronger than other creatures by default, not just by HP, so I give them +1 bonuses to attack rolls and damage rolls. I give every monster the ability to deal +1 damage with combat advantage as well. The focus on higher static damage has made monsters in my games a bit scarier and more deadly, offset by their general loss of HP (they now have HP on par with PCs).

I find also that being able to use whatever progression I want rather than looking at a Role to determine that for me has sped things up. But I don’t (and won’t) use software to write my monsters, so probably none of this really applies or matters to you. You’re already sped up!

Finally, I’m thinking of doing some “wavecasts” where I write a monster or a power or item or something Eden and 4e-related for an audience and they can look and talk and see what I’m doing. If you’d be remotely interested in that, let me know.