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

[OgreBattle]

We've talked about starting race and class numbers, but how about monsters? Things like monster archetypes and level range and so on.

[Username17]

The AD&D Monster Manual had over 350 monsters in it. And since we still use pretty much exactly the same format, that's also the standard. You should probably have 400 monsters or so in your monster manual.

It should of course be biased towards the bottom of your level range, while still tapering slowly enough that you still have at least one thing of each "monster role" at each supported level. the tapering also shouldn't be linear, in that you need a lot more level 1 and level 2 support than level 3 monsters, while you only need slightly more level 5 and level 6 monsters than level 7 monsters.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

Of course, the more customizable your monsters, the fewer you absolutely need. Templates, classes, etc. are good ways of increasing or decreasing the difficulty of monsters or making "new" monsters ("Oh noes! Zombie orcs!") without greatly increasing wordcount.

Then you have something like WFRP's Old World Bestiary, which has less than a hundred monsters.

[shadzar]

since all PC races are "monsters", then the game really only needs the PC races to start with and can grow from there.

are you defining "monsters" in the sense like that? do you mean start as in a game for beginners or like start and build onto later; or do you mean start as in expect book bloat later as the 12k monsters that have been created over the course of D&D is brought into a new edition and converted for it?

[Voss]

We've talked about starting race and class numbers, but how about monsters? Things like monster archetypes and level range and so on.

I don't think 'many' is as important as 'which.' You can throw several hundred in a book and whatever. But tossing iconic stuff like frost giants out in favor of bullshit is pretty damn dumb (and the 4e approach). What you don't need at the start (or ever) is 50+ varieties of 'evil, savage humanoid'

[name_here]

I'd say you want enough that people can go through two campaigns with none of the same monsters showing up in both and reasonable variety if they really want to. Call it maybe 120 (6 per CR) as an absolute minimum. More is pretty much uniformly better; some of them will take off and be really popular while others will be around if the MC feels like pulling out something weird to surprise the players.

[Username17]

Here's a breakdown of monster entries per level in the 4e Monster Manual:

Level 1: 15
Level 2: 18
Level 3: 23
Level 4: 24
Level 5: 25
Level 6: 26
Level 7: 21
Level 8: 27
Level 9: 23
Level 10: 21
Level 11: 21
Level 12: 22
Level 13: 26
Level 14: 25
Level 15: 16
Level 16: 19
Level 17: 19
Level 18: 20
Level 19: 11
Level 20: 10
Level 21: 12
Level 22: 11
Level 23: 9
Level 24: 9
Level 25: 8
Level 26: 7
Level 27: 7
Level 28: 5
Level 29: 2
Level 30: 2
Level 33: 1

---

Total: 485 monsters.

Except... of course that isn't a "real" number, because so many of those "monsters" are "Troglodyte carrying spear instead of club" (that is an actual entry that supposedly counts as one of the 485). The "monsters A to Z" at the beginning of the book only has 150 entries. 4e is a really special case.

But it highlights several things: If you aren't going to take a level range seriously and have actual monsters written for it that are actually playtested, it's better to leave it out altogether than go with something bullshit and halfassed. The top levels of 4e D&D had literally 2 monsters in them (not enough to make even a single encounter), and those monsters turned out to have numbers that were so untested that they were worse than just telling the DMs to make it up on their own. It showed that while you could hit an adequate page count by using filler monsters, a Grick and a slightly larger Grick do not really count towards your 350 monster baseline. And finally, you really do need to start out catering to people who are starting out. How often did you here things like "The game isn't really worth playing until 8th level" when 4e came out? Well, look at the monsters per level, and you'll see exactly where that's coming from. Frankly, if you have less than 40 entries for monsters to fight at first level, you're doing something horribly wrong.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

since all PC races are "monsters", then the game really only needs the PC races to start with and can grow from there.

I've read that Gygax made a bunch of monsters simply as "equal to level X Fighter", goblin->orc->gnoll->minotaur kind of progression. So yeah character classes would contribute to monster numbers. Though that also raises the question of "monster with class levels, wat do"

I don't think 'many' is as important as 'which.' You can throw several hundred in a book and whatever. But tossing iconic stuff like frost giants out in favor of bullshit is pretty damn dumb

Frost Giant seems like a template that could be stuck onto a giant base.


40 sounds like a good number. I'm mostly interested in low level D&D anyways. I said before that "Monsters first" seems like a logical way to design an RPG, 'cause if you have the monsters fleshed out, then you have an idea of what the PC classes need to beat them.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I know that this is kind of a dick move, but I also strongly think that you should sprinkle in a few under-CRed monsters in the monster manual. But don't make it systematic (like 3E dragons) or obvious (like 3E dragons) but instead have it come as a minor surprise.

There's a real marketing advantage you can get out of having a notorious killer rabbit monster that causes more than its share of defeats or TPK. Aside from mascot monsters like orcs and goblins, the low-level monsters I most remember are the ones that kicked my asses up and down the street. Ettins, ghouls, lantern and hound archons, needlefang drake swarms, shadows, and giant crabs have a kind of panache that echo throughout the annals of D&D history.

[shadzar]

since all PC races are "monsters", then the game really only needs the PC races to start with and can grow from there.

I've read that Gygax made a bunch of monsters simply as "equal to level X Fighter", goblin->orc->gnoll->minotaur kind of progression. So yeah character classes would contribute to monster numbers. Though that also raises the question of "monster with class levels, wat do"

well with AD&D you built a monster like an NPC if you wanted to so just gave it class levels within its ability score confines and its creature type.

everything was compared to a human fighter, because we are humans, and we dont have magic, so human fighter is the baseline and say a stronger than human monster would be able to hit harder as a fighter.

it is really simple that way so if you have goblin, orc, human, elf as PC races, then you can have a race war among them and play for a long time without needing a single dragon or beholder or anything else really.

it would all depend on the setting. Oerth was as close to Earth as could be for a D&D world where anything D&D could be plugged in to play. assuming that is all you need form the game, you could just have as few or as many as you want. if you need Kender for Krynn, then you have to have that "monster".

so the limit of monsters needed would be based on the default game setting/world as a maximum, and the PC races as a minimum.

[Ikeren]

Wheel of Time seemed like a fantasy setting and it didn't have that many monsters, did it?

Trollocs, Myraddral, those flying things, ogres, wolves, and various human types?

[hogarth]

Wheel of Time seemed like a fantasy setting and it didn't have that many monsters, did it?

Trollocs, Myraddral, those flying things, ogres, wolves, and various human types?

I was thinking along the same lines, but then I noticed the question was specifically about "a D&D edition", not just fantasy settings in general.

Assuming you're talking about an edition of D&D that goes from level 1 to 16+ (e.g., not just Basic D&D), that means you should have lots of monsters.

[Schleiermacher]

Wheel of Time seemed like a fantasy setting and it didn't have that many monsters, did it?

Trollocs, Myraddral, those flying things, ogres, wolves, and various human types?

Well, there were a few more obscure types of Shadowspawn (Grey Men, Gholam, Jumara), and the Seanchan exotics, but good point.

Honestly, I think you can do fine with about 100, if you have a decent system for advancing and customizing monsters. But then, I'm mostly interested in monsters that actually have a bit of mythic history to them, like giants and dragons, plus a few D&D stalwarts like Phase Spiders and Beholders. Bluespawn Godslayers and their ilk might as well be a blank page for me.

[Dean]

I think Lago's idea is a good one. If you do it to the monsters that already have panache then that sticks with people forever. The fact that 3E Balors and Nightshades are fucking awesome and superbly powerful has been brought up to me many times in my D&D career.

[K]

Wheel of Time seemed like a fantasy setting and it didn't have that many monsters, did it?

Trollocs, Myraddral, those flying things, ogres, wolves, and various human types?

Well, there were a few more obscure types of Shadowspawn (Grey Men, Gholam, Jumara), and the Seanchan exotics, but good point.

Honestly, I think you can do fine with about 100, if you have a decent system for advancing and customizing monsters. But then, I'm mostly interested in monsters that actually have a bit of mythic history to them, like giants and dragons, plus a few D&D stalwarts like Phase Spiders and Beholders. Bluespawn Godslayers and their ilk might as well be a blank page for me.

The problem is that monster books have a space for iconic monsters that competes for space for one-shot monsters that will never show up again.

We all know how to produce iconic monsters, and we know how well that works. Gith have a rich history and cool art and become iconic monsters and the other 99% of monsters never show up in anyone's campaigns ever.

Ideally, you print up the major monsters that form the backbone of your setting like dragons and drow, and then you have some kind of monster-generation system for your blood amionites and stained-glass golems. In this way you can offer descriptions of non-setting monsters that show up as one-shots in adventures and don't need to print stats, but can maintain a feel for your setting.

On the issue of making monsters more powerful than your guidelines, this doesn't need to be a design goal. It's going to happen accidentally anyway.

[AndreiChekov]

One shot monsters are a big waste of time. No one remembers them.
You are probably better of just telling the GM how to make a one shot, but I wouldn't even bother with that.

Adventures are much more interesting if the monsters in it are all things that you don't have to go
Its a wolf with rainbow wings.
Because that wolf just leaves people thinking. "........." and then someone giggles and makes a gay joke.

[K]

One shot monsters are a big waste of time. No one remembers them.
You are probably better of just telling the GM how to make a one shot, but I wouldn't even bother with that.

Adventures are much more interesting if the monsters in it are all things that you don't have to go
Its a wolf with rainbow wings.
Because that wolf just leaves people thinking. "........." and then someone giggles and makes a gay joke.

The point of a monster generation system is that you can abbreviate the one-shots to a paragraph and some art assets.

I mean, these guys don't not need a full page each:

Then you can put out a book with 100 actual statted monsters with complex backgrounds and 600 monster ideas for DMs to generate when needed.

[Username17]

The thing about the Senmurv (the rainbow winged wolf), is that unlike many of the bullshit monsters made for D&D, it's not actually a bullshit monster made for D&D. It's the mythological creature used as the seal of the Sassanid Empire:



Millions of people have lived their lives, have fought and died, under the banner of the Senmurv. It has mythological resonance. It's a big deal.

And... none of that comes through in the Fiend Folio writeup. At all. It's used as a joke because it has some kind of shitty art and an unengaging description. But obviously it doesn't have to.

This is why it's so important to have a metric fuck tonne of monsters. Because sometimes you're going to fail your Craft Interesting Monster roll, and you're going to make a writeup that no one gives a second fuck about. And this could happen to you even when you're writing something that has deep mythological resonance and a rich history. You can just end up with shitty art - you submit a request for the Iranian chimera of Peacock, Dog, and Lion, and he comes back with Courage Wolf. Such is life.

The only thing you can really do about that is try and try again. In a Monster Manual you are almost certain to have a large number of duds. But if you aim for 350-400 monsters, you'll have enough big hits that the book will be a winner.

-Username17

[Voss]

I don't think 'many' is as important as 'which.' You can throw several hundred in a book and whatever. But tossing iconic stuff like frost giants out in favor of bullshit is pretty damn dumb

Frost Giant seems like a template that could be stuck onto a giant base.

Yeah, you could do it that way, but base + template was diametrically opposed to the route they went with 4e, which had 'new monsters' for every trivial iteration they could possibly think of.

I think Lago's idea is a good one. If you do it to the monsters that already have panache then that sticks with people forever. The fact that 3E Balors and Nightshades are fucking awesome and superbly powerful has been brought up to me many times in my D&D career.

Really? I only remember the Balor as one dropped and one shifted letter from an IP infringement and I have absolutely no idea which giant pile of hit dice the nightshade was, just that it was one of a pile of stupidly big undead creatures that served as filler for high CR undead encounters.

[shadzar]

The only thing you can really do about that is try and try again. In a Monster Manual you are almost certain to have a large number of duds. But if you aim for 350-400 monsters, you'll have enough big hits that the book will be a winner.

-Username17

i doubt it, half of any monster manual is bullshit and that isnt just putting the head of one creature on the ass of another, or giving it wings, or both. most of that has already been done, how many mosnters are really left to inspire with to try to create new? this is why there are so many half-assed monsters as it is.

how many monsters does vampire have really? vampires, werewolves and humans...and it still seems to be popular. same shit Twilight had.

quality over quantity is always better. and if you keep the price appropriate for the quantity then you have a winner. 4th editions pokemon evolution monsters from minion to solo to brute is pretty much the worst way to make any kind of monster, except for pokemon.

[Dean]

Obviously YMMV Voss but I gotta tell you man if you can look at the Nightwalker and Balor art and not think "That looks fuckin cool" then our inner 12 year olds are very different.

[K]

Obviously YMMV Voss but I gotta tell you man if you can look at the Nightwalker and Balor art and not think "That looks fuckin cool" then our inner 12 year olds are very different.

Both are pretty much "generic shadow monster" and "generic demon."

Of course, I've been with DnD for a while and have seen various interpretations. For example, The Balor is still tainted by this in my mind:

...and so I have more trouble adjusting to something like this:

[...You Lost Me]

I'm with deanruel. Balor, Nightwalker, and a handful of other guys (digester, destrachan... that one cold insect thing. A rayquaza?) but I'm young and easily excited by art so perhaps that plays into it.

[Username17]

For me, the Balor will always look like this:



And I have no love for them. The Demon that has always caught my fancy is this one:



-Username17

[TheFlatline]

I know that this is kind of a dick move, but I also strongly think that you should sprinkle in a few under-CRed monsters in the monster manual. But don't make it systematic (like 3E dragons) or obvious (like 3E dragons) but instead have it come as a minor surprise.

There's a real marketing advantage you can get out of having a notorious killer rabbit monster that causes more than its share of defeats or TPK. Aside from mascot monsters like orcs and goblins, the low-level monsters I most remember are the ones that kicked my asses up and down the street. Ettins, ghouls, lantern and hound archons, needlefang drake swarms, shadows, and giant crabs have a kind of panache that echo throughout the annals of D&D history.

Weren't you also the one who argued that most adventures should end in TPK and player-fucking and frustration so that on the rare occasion that PCs survived the success would be all the sweeter to the gaming community?

Because that was a stupid fucking idea. Hiding trap TPK options throughout the game is a stupid fucking idea and sounds like the same type of thing. Why not just say that any time you roll a natural 1 on a D20 you roll it again, and on another natural 1 a random character dies.

Besides, 9 times out of 10, how deadly an NPC is will depend on the MC running him. I can take out four 5th level characters with 2 orcs and a bucket of javelins. I don't need "surprise" TPK mobs that are significantly under-rated for threat to kill of PCs. That's a cheap fucking gimmick.