How many monsters does a D&D edition need to start with?

[Wiseman]

Some guy already made a mob and unit template.

[Parthenon]

How about giving a swarm more abilities the greater the number in it?

So, a single dog has the basic rules of a monster.

But, a group of 3 dogs moves as one, can make a single slightly more powerful attack, and also can perform an attack that knocks an enemy prone and auto grapples with all three helping each other.

And a group of 5 dogs has an area in which all Medium enemies are knocked prone and entangled.

[K]

If you have a monster generation system that produces reasonable numbers for the level of the monster, then you can just have a lookup table of those numbers as a function of level, and another table that says N creatures can attack as a single creature Y levels higher.

Once you have a monster generation system that produces reasonable numbers and ability metrics, designing other monster mechanics is a lot easier.

There is also limits. You can't have the 1000 of 1st-level orcs army that can take out 20th level PCs because your ability metric dictated a while ago that abilities like DR and flight and creating damaging storms is going to auto-trump any reasonable ability you'd want to give to an army of orc warriors. For example, you aren't going to give common orc warriors the ability to fly and destroy magic storms no matter how many of them are standing next to each other and that puts hard limits on how powerful that "monster" can get.

A thousand orc army with spellcasters, generals, etc would have to get those kinds of abilities.

[Grek]

A thousand orcish warriors is enough to establish a reasonably sized city-state in the name of whatever cause is getting all of these orcs to declare their loyalty to it. And that city state can collect taxes to buy the spellcasting services of low level wizards, sacrifice peasants to summon demons, recruit retired adventurers to work as generals, conscript additional troops and eventually become something that would challenge a 20th level character. But at that point you're not fighting "a thousand orcs" so much as you're fighting, "The Brutal Orcistanian Dictatorship."

[K]

A thousand orcish warriors is enough to establish a reasonably sized city-state in the name of whatever cause is getting all of these orcs to declare their loyalty to it. And that city state can collect taxes to buy the spellcasting services of low level wizards, sacrifice peasants to summon demons, recruit retired adventurers to work as generals, conscript additional troops and eventually become something that would challenge a 20th level character. But at that point you're not fighting "a thousand orcs" so much as you're fighting, "The Brutal Orcistanian Dictatorship."

The idea I was responding to was the idea that enough tiny monsters in a group should become a monster big enough to threaten anyone.

A different monster should totally get different powers, thus a "1,000 orc army" should totally be more powerful and interesting for the reasons you mentioned than a "1,000 orc army of 1st level orcs."

[hyzmarca]

Drown in bodies (EX): Twice per day, an Orcish Hoard can attempt to crush an enemy under the weight of a thousand Orc corpses. Target must make a DC 35 Reflex save or be suffocated by a mound of dead orcs.

[Sashi]

I was really just talking about combining attacks so that PC's can't swim naked through the orcs and ignore them completely. If the orcs have a +5 attack bonus and do 1d12+7 damage, then a guy with AC 26 and DR 20 is pretty much immune to them, especially if less than 50 of the orcs can actually make an attack in a round.

But 36 orcs could literally bury the guy in bodies and make a single attack at +15 dealing 2d12+30 damage, then it's actually worth it to expend abilities and kill the orcs. I.e. the orcs are a threat. Not much of one since a single fireball or acid cloud can destroy them, but it's still more than they were getting before.

[tussock]

On day one, a PC got AC -1, and the simplest monsters could not hurt them any more.
On day two, the monsters got a new rule which said fuck that noise, here's some damage.

Letting large numbers of small monsters do automatic (but small) amounts of damage rather than using their attacks is a very good thing for the game. Also making them into difficult terrain, distracting pushers, bowling you over with weight of numbers, or whatever, it doesn't hurt the verisimilitude (and helps produce actual danger).

[Sashi]

You still need something to handle large numbers of auto damage units. Do 1000 units with a damage 10 aura do 10,000dmg/round?

[Cyberzombie]

You still need something to handle large numbers of auto damage units. Do 1000 units with a damage 10 aura do 10,000dmg/round?

You probably need some good system to handle damage stacking, and that's something every game would benefit from. You don't want people throwing barrels of alchemist fire and dealing the damage of 500 flasks with one hit, so you want some good way to scale the damage of multiple doses of poison, multiple auras, etc.

[tussock]

The AD&D rules are basically that fire is 2d6 and making more fire is 2d6 in a bigger area. Multiple poison doses on a weapon might give a slight save penalty, but it's still just a poison weapon. Ghouls and Carrion Crawlers don't work that way, but they are less stupid if you only need to make 1 save per round regardless of how often you're hit.

Which is to say, 10k units with a damage10 aura can have a very large damage10 aura that is kinda hard to make end, because there's ten thousand of them.

[shadzar]

is this tread really still going because K doesnt want any published monsters, and only wants a mosnter generation system, and cant accept that some people want published monsters to plug and play with?

i offer to K about his no eagles and boars and such.. ever tried a level 0 game like N4 Treasure Hunt? how many "monsters" do you need for level 0 PCs?

of course level 0 was lost since everyone wants to play Superheros the D&Ding, but at least your masturbatory edition 3rd actually had 0-level in it which was a step forward in game design for both new players and a new twist to the game.

has someone yet done a count of the number of monster each edition started with?

OD&D (Monster and treasure)
Holmes
Moldvay
Mentzer
RC
1e (MM )
2e (MC1)
3e (MM I)

[tussock]

It's difficult to count monsters. Humanoids have always had leaders and other variants, some are barely detailed at all, some hide away in different sections in some editions (like 3.0 templates or hazard-monsters). But let's have a bash anyway, separating out the dragons, and anything else I feel like.

• OD&D: 61, plus 6 Men, 8 Hydra, and 36 Dragons (6x6). Total 111, for levels 1-14 or so. Also includes notes to aid imagination in making more. Added a lot more as soon as they had money enough to print them.
• AD&D: ~300, plus 34 fiends, 30 dinosaurs, 80 Dragons (10x8), and a couple dozen variants that might make the cut. Total 450-475, for levels 1-17 or so.
• Holmes: 66, including men, plus 8 Hydra, and 32 Dragons (4*8). Total 106. ~Same as OD&D, only it suggests using AD&D for more.
• Moldvay/Mentzer: Total ~100, including just 6 dragons and various bears and big cats. All level 1-3 suitable, though a few only as very serious boss monsters. ~100 more in the Expert sets, taking you to level 14 (though you kick all their asses by then).
• 2nd edition: MC1&2 came out together for a start, with 288 pages and at least 600 monsters if you include the 120 (10x12) dragons and treat the animal entries separately, maybe 400 "real" monsters. For levels 1-20, though there's almost nothing in there that could challenge you past 14th level.
• 3.0 edition: Hard to say. They claim 500+ monsters, though there's more if you consider that everything comes with a standard "bigger bear" system built in, and far less if you note a lot are already just a "bigger bear". Again, very little in there for levels past 14 though they claim 20th. Maybe only 250 "real" monsters, plus 120 dragons, a huge bunch of hydras and elementals, and 100 assorted sized mammals and arachnids.
• 4th edition: Even harder to say. Around 400 entries, but they're often just a guy with a sling instead of a shield, or with what 3e would call a template applied, or just re-written as a mook because the levels didn't scale right. Counted like 3e counts 500+, there's maybe 100. Only really supports 4e levels 1-20, which is about 2-12 in classic terms.

So ... proper editions carry about 100 low level things, 100 mid-level things, and not many high level things at all, and as a result high level never works right. Half-assed editions carry half of that number. Everyone lies about how many monsters they've made, and it's often super-easy to make variants anyway.

[Foxwarrior]

Is it really D&D if it shows restraint? Now that this list exists, can D&D get away with not having every creature on it?

[K]

Is it really D&D if it shows restraint? Now that this list exists, can D&D get away with not having every creature on it?

No, and that's why you need a monster generation system. Your options really are: never have enough monsters, or have a monster generation system so that you can get away with not having a definitive stat block for every monster ever imagined by anyone in history or fiction or gaming.

You need a monster generation system because there is always going to be another monster that catches your fancy that DnD has not statted up. You are going to see some new monsters in the new Hollywood blockbuster, game, anime, comic, novel, whatever, or you are going to get some idea for an adventure, and then you'll want to include some new monster or some new variant or customization. Hell, a monster generation itself will spawn a whole subforum for the fans of your game to make and compare their own original monsters.

I'd even go so far as to make a whole bunch of iconic DnD monsters into just monster titles and not racial identifiers. There is no reason why "chimera" can't just be a general term for multi-headed beasts or "succubus" can't be a name for all sexy demons regardless of level. I mean, DnD 3e has five sexy demon women and several templates specifically for infinite monster mash-ups, so it's not like this isn't already the state of affairs.

The 3e template system's popularity pretty much proves that people kind of hate being stuck to one definitive entry for a monster and crave an indecent amount of variety. Even most published adventures usually include a few completely new monsters for that adventure.

The demand for a variety of monsters is limitless and need for any particular entry is almost nil, and that's why you need a way to make monsters in a quick, easy, and balanced manner through a monster generation system.

[Voss]

Is it really D&D if it shows restraint? Now that this list exists, can D&D get away with not having every creature on it?

Not only yes, but fuck yes.

Keelut (Inuit) - Hairless dog
Jackalope (English folklore) - Horned rabbit
Hippopodes (Medieval Bestiary) - Horse-hoofed humanoid
Hircocervus (Medieval Bestiary) - Deer-goat hybrid
Abatwa (Zulu) - Little people that ride ants
Leontophone (Medieval Bestiary) - Tiny animal poisonous to lions
Makura-gaeshi (Japanese mythology) - Pillow-moving spirit

+ bonus not caring for the 10 different varieties of Celtic 'black dog'
or 40 odd variations on giant some of which are hairy, others have multiple body parts, and one is specifically red haired as a defining feature

I could go on, but I see no reason to care about 95% of this list. And I say that as someone who actually enjoys mythology. Cramming this shit into D&D for no reason does no one any favors.

[Foxwarrior]

95% is a slightly harsh assessment, but a better RPG would of course not have even a quarter of them. I was asking about an RPG that typically has things like Darkmantles and endless variations of "melee monster with some resistances" in it, though. Surely having all of the demented critters ever imagined is more in theme for D&D than not doing so, Voss.

[Voss]

So, because D&D has piles of shit, it should have more piles of shit? No, that crappy list should still be ignored. D&D needs to cut down on the needless stupid and repetitive shit, not add more.

[tussock]

I think Pathfinder's shown that recycling the stupid crap and trying to do something interesting with it works better than adding more stupid crap. Which makes sense.

1) You might fix it. Make it good, even. One less stupid thing, potentially.
2) Even when you don't, there's no increase in the amount of stupid crap in the game.

[deaddmwalking]

D&D is going to have a shit-ton of monsters in any edition, but part of that is because it is both a kitchen-sink fantasy, and it supports multiple disparate unique settings. There's going to be a lot of overlap between them, but Eberron has a need for different monsters than Forgotten Realms which needs different monsters than Planescape which needs different monsters than Darksun.

Ultimately if you're designing monsters, you want to make sure they're tied to your setting. If your setting is a generic kitchen-sink, maybe you should worry less about how many monsters to include and instead work on an interesting setting that doesn't already exist.

As the setting grows, there are going to be more and more places for 'Steves'. And that's not a bad thing. Greek Myth had nothing but unique monsters - the fact that they've been genericized not withstanding. The thing is, when these unique creatures are tied intrinsically to the setting, they're not quite the same surprise. Everyone knows Minos has a monster in his labyrinth and that he sacrifices youths to it - if you're in the setting the fact that it is completely unique isn't shocking because there's plenty of setting specific information about the monster that makes it not so surprising.

A system for generating or modifying existing monsters, though, is more valuable than any number of unique monsters. Templates, for instance, are really handy. Having Frost Worms and Fire Worms and Shadow Worms can be too repetitive - but having an easy to apply way to alter an existing 'worm' is easy... And then when you need a Shadow Worm for an adventure you apply the template and reveal the finished product - something any other DM could do, but maybe they were too busy using shadow-wolves and fire-drakes to get to that until they find them in an interesting adventure.

[Voss]

I'm going to disagree with you a couple points- Eberron doesn't need different monsters than FR. At this point they are both disposable and generic kitchen-sink settings (to the point of being the primary representatives of that kind of play at this stage). Something that was originally FR in origin, like the chaos beast, fit perfectly well in Eberron (either in the ruins of whichever country it was that got spell-nuked, or as the attack dogs of the daelkyrr). And really there isn't much that doesn't, except possibly warforged.

Templates are part of what make it the whole thing so horrible. It isn't intrinsically better than having Fire Worms and Frost Worms and Shadow Worms beyond space considerations. You're still just fighting shit with an adjective tacked on. It reminds me far too much of the first World of Warcraft expansion. 60 levels after fighting boars in the Forest of Elwynn... I was fighting 'demonic' boars on some blasted plain in space. But they were still fucking boars, and no more interesting for the adjective.

[K]

I'm going to disagree with you a couple points- Eberron doesn't need different monsters than FR. At this point they are both disposable and generic kitchen-sink settings (to the point of being the primary representatives of that kind of play at this stage). Something that was originally FR in origin, like the chaos beast, fit perfectly well in Eberron (either in the ruins of whichever country it was that got spell-nuked, or as the attack dogs of the daelkyrr). And really there isn't much that doesn't, except possibly warforged.

I think the ideal model is probably to have new monsters for every setting, every micro-setting, and many adventures. Jamming iconics into every adventure just isn't the best way to design adventures.

You start with some setting standards. Toss in some orcs and vampires and dragons and you are good to go.

Then you do the micro-settings. You do a few dozen monsters for specific haunted forests and craggy ranges, as well as some setting-specific general area monster like a kind of spider only found in your setting's caves.

Then you do the ones for adventures as needed. The adventure against a legendary pack of wolf creatures from the Plane of Shadow needs to be more than five identical wolves with a shadow template. Each one needs to be different enough to be memorable and you need an easy system for that.

The other ones for adventures are the "unnecessary variety" variety. A spider-themed adventure might be really fun, but there is no way that statting up ten kinds of spiders is going to be useful to 99.99% of players.

The demand for new monsters is without limit.

[sabs]

Wolf + Shadow template + couple of monster feats + tweak stats just a little. Is not really all that hard.

You don't need to stat out 5 different shadow wolves from scratch. You start with a base, then you buff them. There is no reason to have different stats for werewolves in Eberon vs Faerun vs Spelljammer vs Bramblewood.
You can either use a werewolf creature, or a werewolf template and call it a day.

You can get a lot of play on humanoid creatures by giving them thematic class advancements.

Making tons of individual monsters for specific settings is how you end up with that stupid flying vampiric intestines creature from 2nd edition. Or the Beak vs Non-Beak Illithids.

Having base creatures, and templates you can throw on them is useful.
HellHound. You can stat one out specifically, and that's okay cause they are iconic. Or you could just take a hound, add in the devil template, and pick "breaths fire" as a monster feat and voila.. hellhound, or Hell cat, or any number of other options.

[tussock]

Having base creatures, and templates you can throw on them is useful.

That may be true, but the way 3e did it was pretty terrible.

Like with the summoning spells: you get a fiendish critter, so you look up the critter, look up fiendish template, calculate the totals, and then realise the DM didn't wait for you and the fight is finished already, fuck you for taking so long. Sure, maybe you memorise all that or prepare it ahead of time, but whut? No. The summons should reference a page number in a book that has ready-to-play stats.

Maybe if half-dragon said "same as the target creature, but wings and fly 40' Clumsy if not better, breath weapon of CR.d6 1/day, looks scaly and stuff." so they were all something you could slap on without writing up a whole new monster, that might work.

But then, Draconians are much better monsters than any half-dragon template will ever be. You can't have templates doing crazy shit like Draconians do. Sure, Dragonborn are ass, but some good things is still better than none.


Usability, really. If we're supposed to face NPC magic users the DMG should include some tables for random combat spells (and feats and gear). So an Ogre-Shaman is the same as an Ogre but with a couple random NPC-Cleric spells, and make that the rule for PC-advancement again too.

[K]

Wolf + Shadow template + couple of monster feats + tweak stats just a little. Is not really all that hard.

You don't need to stat out 5 different shadow wolves from scratch. You start with a base, then you buff them. There is no reason to have different stats for werewolves in Eberon vs Faerun vs Spelljammer vs Bramblewood.
You can either use a werewolf creature, or a werewolf template and call it a day.

You can get a lot of play on humanoid creatures by giving them thematic class advancements.

Making tons of individual monsters for specific settings is how you end up with that stupid flying vampiric intestines creature from 2nd edition. Or the Beak vs Non-Beak Illith
ids.

Having base creatures, and templates you can throw on them is useful.
HellHound. You can stat one out specifically, and that's okay cause they are iconic. Or you could just take a hound, add in the devil template, and pick "breaths fire" as a monster feat and voila.. hellhound, or Hell cat, or any number of other options.

At this point, you are talking about a monster generation system.

First, "monster feats" as dramatic and interesting as fire breath is a huge departure from the 3e feat system where almost all feats are non-abilities. You are basically saying "I need a monster generation system with selectable monster powers."

Second, wanting to "tweak" stats means that you also don't want to use pre-made monsters. Little changes in stats won't be noticed by anyone but the DM, so you are asking for dramatic control over stats.... like you'd have in a monster generation system. At that point, the value of doing anything to the wolf statblock is negative.

Basically the 3e system is the most complicated and least useful example of a monster generation system. It's the gold standard of mistakes that could be avoided by simply letting people point-buy some stats, select some powers off some lists, and then fill in the flavor as needed.

I understand that the counter-argument is that flavor is stronger with pre-made monsters and pre-made templates, but I also notice that the number of templates and feat chains for "descended from fiends" is greater than five and people obviously are not happy with static flavor.