I love collecting rules and supplements as much as anyone but it typically contributes to my preparation paralysis where I over-prepare and never run. So to get away from that I am going to attempt to only use my chosen ruleset as much as possible and make the monsters from scratch. From those of you who have been playing since the pre-D20 system era have you ever ran into issues in creating your own monsters or re-imagining ones in your rule’s bestiary?
Writer of the 4th edition Hero System Bestiary here. Absolutely write/customize your own monsters! Take the stuff you like from existing monsters in your chosen system and excise everything else. Add stats and abilities you want. Give it your own name and illustration.
I actually find it easier to write monsters I’m imagining from scratch than what most people recommend in “find an existing monster in your game that’s close first, then change it.” I think it’s faster to just do the whole thing from scratch than to spend time finding something “close.”
I believe the most important necessity in doing this casually is to know your rule system well. Then you’ll know “this ability works using this rule,” jot it down and move on. A lack of rules knowledge won’t stop you, but it will slow you down as you look up rules as you work. Rules knowledge will also go a long way towards avoiding over/under-powering a monster without playtesting it first (which, if you can, do).
I write probably 80% of the monsters in the game I run from scratch.
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That’s what I was thinking! Like I love bestiaries but (at least in TSR style games) sometimes its too much or the name changed or its not exact. Grabbing a bear or human, slapping some abilities on it, and giving it a name tends to work out well. I always noticed that having to search for “the perfect monster“ always ends up breaking my flow.
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I love writing up my own monsters or having my own spin on existing monsters. Especially with OD&D and B/X in mind the process is incredibly simple. Hell even with T&T it was fairly easy, and monsters there only have one stat to work with - Monster Rating.
I have thought seriously about the idea of having a very tight and limited monsters in a campaign - maybe 20 at the absolute most, and that is it. Those are all the enemies you will face. Hell you could probably go even lower and simply just let them scale in power, rather than doing the classic D&D thing of simply presenting the enemy with slightly more HD or to hit as an entirely different species.
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Only 20 is a bit tight but impressive! I still have a bit of new school brain in fretting about balance and the necessity of magic weapons but forcing that number down really makes you think how you can make every monster unique especially if you only count one monster in a subgroup as completely separate. A powerful monster is going to force players to adventure to eventually come back better armed.
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The way monsters are listed in B/X is cool if you know what you are looking for. But if you’re at the developing the concept for the dungeon step, it may be not-so-helpful. So, when I’m at the early sketches stage, I use this categorisation.
1 FACTIONS & SOCITIES
1.1 The Civilized: acolyte, dwarf, elf, gnome, halfling, medium, merchant, noble, normal human, NPC party, trader, veteran
1.2 Outlaws & Tribes: bandit, berserker, brigand, buccaneer, dervish, neanderthal, nomad, pirate
1.3 The Humanoid Threat: Bugbear, giant, gnoll, goblin, hobgoblin, kobold, lizard man, ogre, orc, troglodyte
1.4 Neutral folk: centaur, merman, treant
2 THE WILDERNESS & BEASTS
2.1 Normal Animals: bat, bear, boar, camel, cat (great), hawk, herd animal, horse, mule, rat, rhino, snake, wolf
2.2 Giant Fauna: bettle, caecilia, centipede, drivar ent, ferret, leech, lizard, rhagodessa, robber fly, scorpion, shrew, spider, toad, weasal
2.3 Swarmers & Pests: cave locust, insect swarm, killer bee
2.4 Primal & Great Beasts: ape (white), elephant, mastodon, rock babbon, titanothere
2.5 Prehistoric: Pterosaur, Stegosaurus, Triceraptors, T-rex
2.6. The Aquatic: crab, crocodile, fish (giant), octopus (giant), sea serpent (lesser), shark, squid (giant), water termite, whale
3 DUNGEON TERRORS & MAGICAL WEIRDNESS
3.1 Oozes & Hazards: black pudding, gelatinous cube, grey ooze, green slime, ochre jelly, shrieker, yellow mold
3.2 The Mythic & Magical: basilisk, blink dog, chimera, cockatrice, cyclops, doppelganger, dragon, dragon turtle, gargoyle, golem, gorgon, griffon, harpy, hellhound, hippogriff, hydra, living statue, lycanthrope, manticore, medusa, minotaur, owl bear, pegasus, purple worm, roc, rust monster, thoul, troll, unicorn, warp beast, wyvern
3.3 Outsiders & Elementals: djinni, efreeti, elemental, salamander
3.4 The Fae: dryad, nixie, pixie, spirte
3.5 Parasites & Drainers: stirge, shadow
4 THE UNDEAD
Ghoul, mummy, skeleton, spectre, vampire, wight, wraith, zombie.
I got the idea (more or less) from that additional bestiary for Basic called Creature Catalogue.
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I can’t believe that I never thought about categorizing them based on theming! I completely agree though the preliminary step for a dungeon is absolutely brutal. My major issue is in using mythic monsters like gorgons and medusa in a dungeon is the filler monsters that would be skulking around or mainly inhabiting it with the larger monster being an active threat while the players explore. That is typically the issue I run into when making dungeons is that the lower levels can be sort of plain in my mind. Though with how you laid everything out, its obvious that the included monsters would have no problem supporting a campaign.
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