Chapter 7: Creating Monsters

Monsters are the lifeblood of the challenge players face! It’s literally in the name of the game! While there are a large number of monsters to choose from, they may not suite the needs of your campaign exactly. These rules explain how the existing monsters were created so you can confidently change them to fit your story or create new ones.

Types

A monster’s type is flavor to help you get a sense for the typical shape of similar monsters. Think of them as a categorization tool. They don’t include any mechanical benefits, but there are recommendations to the kinds of tags and signature moves that it may have.

Beast: Animals native to the material plane. Includes hybrid animals, like owlbears and griffons. They may have special vision or movement, but typically don’t have the spicy or radiates tag and typically don’t have feats or techniques, or have the ability to cast spells.
Humanoid: Creatures native to the material plane that form societies. They can have lineages and tags from those lineages, and may carry weapons or wear armor. They typically don’t have the spicy or radiates tag.
Celestial: Creatures native to the upper planes. They are usually benevolent, may carry weapons or armor, often deal radiant damage, and are often vulnerable to necrotic damage. They typically have the extraplanar tag.
Fiends: Creatures native to the lower planes. They are usually selfish, may carry weapons or armor, often deal necrotic or fire damage, and are often vulnerable to radiant damage. They typically have the extraplanar tag.
Undead: Creatures that have been brought back from the dead but not fully to life, like skeletons and zombies. They may carry weapons or armor, often have the undying or unrelenting tag, and are usually vulnerable to radiant damage.
Elemental: Creatures from elemental planes or are manifestations of an element. They are always aligned to a specific element. They typically either have the spicy or radiates trait for their element, always deal damage of their specific element, are typically either resistant to, immune to, or absorb their element and often vulnerable to another appropriate element (fire vulnerable to cold, for instance). They typically have the extraplanar tag.
Ooze: Homogenous creatures made of jelly-like substances. They typically can’t talk, are are almost always have the spicy, amorphous, and occupier tags.
Aberration: Creatures alien to the material plane, like an eldritch horror. Usually psychic and typically can cast spells and deal fatigue.
Fey: Creatures native to the feyrealm and deeply connected to nature. May carry weapons or armor and can typically cast spells.
Dragon: Big lizards, breath weapons, like gold, you know, a dragon. Typically flies and has a breath weapon of a given damage type based on their color (red for fire, white for cold, blue for lightning, etc…) with resistance to that damage type (and often vulnerability to another appropriate element). Older, more ancient ones, often lives in a lair they have control over.
Construct: Mechanical creatures. Typically can regenerate or have the undying or unrelenting tags.
Monstrosity: Any creature that doesn’t fit into another type.

Tiers

Every monster is built from one of five tiers: Easy, Moderate, Hard, Very Hard, and Apex. A monster’s tier sets its baseline survivability, damage output, and action economy, and more.

Tier	HP	DT	Abilities	Damage	Rank	Budget
Easy	5	2/5/9	0	1d4	2	6
Moderate	8	3/6/10	3	1d6	3	10
Hard	16	4/7/11	6	2d6	4	13
Very Hard	30	4/8/12	9	2d8	5	18
Apex	52	5/9/13	14	2d10	7	24

HP: Base hit points, before +POWER is added.
DT: DT tiers (low/medium/high), before abilities are added
Abilities: Ability points to spend. No ability can be higher than a monster’s Rank, and none can be lower than -5. A monster is considered intelligent if its Focus is -2 or higher.
Rank: Monster equivalent to Prowess for PCs
AP: How many Action Points the monster can spend on a turn
Budget: Number of points to buy monster customization, for instance, size, speed, senses, tags, and signature moves. Some tags are rare; they can only be taken by monsters that are at least Hard tier.
Damage: The base damage the monster deals

Each monster tier also grants the monster a certain amount of AP,fatigue, and exhaustion

Tier	AP	Fatigue	Exhaustion
Easy	3	3	2
Moderate	3	3	2
Hard	4	4	3
Very Hard	5	5	3
Apex	6	5	4

Roles

Two monsters of the same tier shouldn’t be the same monster. Roles let you specialize monsters within a tier. When you build a monster, pick a role for it:

Role	Specialization
Standard	-
Sentinel	+1 to DT; lowered HP
Brute	−1 to DT; increased HP
Striker	Lowered HP; +1 damage die size
Berserker	−1 to DT; +1 damage die size
Controller	+1 condition round duration; -1 damage die size
Weaver	Lowered HP; +1 condition round duration
Hexer	−1 to DT; +1 condition round duration
Stalwart	+1 to DT; -1 damage die size
Behemoth	Increased HP; -1 damage die size

The HP Sentinels, Brutes, Strikers, Weavers, and Behemoths shift is based on the tier of the monster. The “Increased HP” and “Lowered HP” modifiers scale as follows:

Tier	Lowered HP	Increased HP
Easy	−1	0
Moderate	−1	+1
Hard	−3	+2
Very Hard	−6	+5
Apex	−9	+9

Size

A monster’s size sets how far it reaches and how much room it fills. Small and medium creatures are free, creating a tiny creature will refund points you can spend on other customization options, large or greater costs points.

Size	Reach	Space	Points
Tiny	5 ft	2½’x2½	−1
Small	5 ft	5’x5	0
Medium	5 ft	5’x5	0
Large	10 ft	10’x10	+1
Huge	15 ft	15’x15	+2
Gargantuan	20 ft	20’x20	+3

Speed

Speed is how fast your monster moves and what kind of movement it can take. Start by deciding if your monster’s primary movement is walking or swimming, they gain 30 ft of movement in that. Then, spend points from your monster’s budget to make the faster, add additional movement types, or get a refund by making them slower!

Movement	Points
30 ft climb, swim, or burrow speed	1
Flight, per 30 ft	+2
+20 ft primary speed	+1
-20 ft primary speed	-1

For any speed that is not your primary speed, you can reduce your primary speed by 5 ft to increase that speed by 5 ft. Your primary speed cannot be less than 5 ft.

Senses

Creatures by default do not have any special senses—to gain them, you buy them from your monster’s point budget.

Sense	Points
Low-light vision	1
Darkvision	1
Blindsight or tremorsense ≤ 30 ft	2
Blindsight or tremorsense ≤ 60 ft	3
Truesight (rare) ≤ 30 ft	3
Truesight (rare) ≤ 60 ft	4

Natural weapons, armor, and equipment

Most monsters have some form of natural weapons—claws, maws, maybe even psuedopods. These weapons can be used with any Strike or any appropriate weapon technique. Choose one of the weapons as their primary weapon: that gets the the full damage of their tier and role’s damage die. Every other natural weapon they have is a secondary weapon, and its damage die is 1 size smaller than the primary. Natural weapons can have properties and masteries just like equipped weapons. And just like equipped weapons, properties like agile and precise can be used to attack with Cunning or Focus. If you want to give a creature a specific weapon, like a bandit captain wielding a longsword, that’s fine, as long as the equipped weapons’ damage die does not exceed the tier and role’s damage die.

Monster DT is solely determined by tier, role, and tags. You can flavor it however you’d like, but monsters can’t mechanically benefit from wearing armor or wielding a shield.

Swarms

Sometimes one creature doesn’t pose quite the challenge you’d like, like a single insect, but many of them do! That’s where a swarm comes in! To build a swarm, you start out as normal: pick a monster tier, role, and size. Then, make the swarm at least one size category larger! A swarm of creatures has the following properties:

They have 50% more HP than their base tier, but their DT is reduced by 1
They resist physical damage
They are immune to grappled, restrained, prone, and stunned
They be healed or gain temporary hit points
When it’s bloodied, it deals half damage

Other than those items, a swarm plays just like a single creature!

Tags

Tags turn a basic monster into something memorable. Each monster tier gets a budget to spend on customizing the monster: changing their size or giving them special movement or senses are common customizations, but more interesting are tags. There are two kinds of tags: common tags, which any monster can take, and rare tags, which can only be added to Hard or tougher monsters. Most tags give the monster some kind of advantage, however, some are weaknesses, which refund points to spend elsewhere: consider giving your monster a combination of each to make them interesting. Some tags can be taken multiple times, gaining the tag again each time it’s taken: these cannot be taken more times than a creature’s rank. They’re indicated by + or -- preceding their cost. It’s recommended that you use at least half of a monster’s total budget when building them, or they’ll feel under-powered for their tier.

Cost	Tag	Effect
Common
−2	Frail	-1 DT
−2	Meek	-1 damage die size
−2	Photophobic	Disadvantage on all rolls while in sunlight
−1	Vulnerable	Vulnerability to one damage type
0	Mindless	Immune to charmed and frightened, but drops Focus by -5.
0	Swarm	Resists physical damage from weapons that aren’t silvered or mithril. Rolls saves with disadvantage against an area effect that catches more than one of its squares. Immune to grappled, restrained, prone, and stunned. Can’t gain temporary HP or be healed. Deals half damage while below half its HP. Its attack hits every creature sharing its space.
1	Draining	Heals half the HP it deals with melee attacks, rounded up
+1	Minor Condition Immunity	Immune to one minor condition
2	Aggressive	+2 to attack rolls
+2	Armored	+1 to DT
2	Escape Artist	Disengage and Hide cost it 1 less AP
2	Flyby	Leaving a creature’s reach doesn’t trigger reactions
2	Grappler	Half fatigue to keep a creature restrained
2	Major Condition Immunity	Immune to one major condition
2	Reinforcements	Spend 2 Doom to summon a number of Easy tier allies equal to its Rank
+2	Resistant	Resistance to one damage type
2	Undying	Spend 2 Doom to drop to 1 HP instead of dying
2	Unrelenting	Spend 2 Doom to clear its exhaustion and reset its fatigue
+2	Vicious	+1 damage die size
3	Bursting	When it dies, it makes a Power attack versus the Cunning of each creature within twice its reach. On a strong hit, they take double its base damage, and on a weak hit, they take half damage
3	Pack	Gain benefits of flanking as long as ally is adjacent to enemy
3	Resolute	Immune to charmed and frightened
3	Spicy	A creature that hits it with a melee attack or starts its turn touching it takes 1d6 elemental damage.
4	Bloodthirsty	+2 to damage
Rare
+1	Regeneration	Heals 1 HP at the start of its turn.
3	Fadeward	Spell attacks against it land at -1 step
3	Incorporeal	Moves through creatures and objects as difficult terrain
+3	Lair	Has a lair and two lair actions. While in its lair, it can spend a lair action’s Doom between turns to activate it, no more than one at a time
4	Ancient	+1 AP every turn
4	Devastating Condition Immunity	Immune to one devastating condition
+4	Immune	Takes no damage of one type
4	Legendary	Gets a number of non-consecutive turns each round equal to half its Rank. Additionally, it can spend 2 Doom to ignore all effects of an attack. This does not shift the spotlight.
4	Radiates	A creature that starts its turn within its reach takes 1d6 elemental damage.
4	Reactive	One reaction per player per turn
+5	Absorbent	Damage or fatigue dealt by the chosen damage type heals the creature instead of harming it.

There’s another kind of tag, narrative tags, that don’t have any direct effect on a monster’s stats or combat prowess but give flavor to the monster. You can add as may of these as you’d like, or create your own: they do not cost any points from your budget.

Trait	Effect
Abductor	Moves at full speed while dragging a grappled creature.
Amorphous	Can move through spaces as narrow as 1 inch without squeezing. Immune to prone.
Amphibious	Can breathe both air and water.
Aquatic	Can only breathe underwater. Suffocates if removed.
Besieger	Deals double damage to objects and structures.
Climber	Can climb difficult surfaces, including ceilings, without a check.
Extraplanar	Reforms on home plane in 1d4 days when killed outside it.
Freediver	Can hold its breath for up to 1 hour.
Icewalker	Ignores icy/snowy difficult terrain.
Illuminated	Emits bright light to twice its reach, dim light beyond.
Immutable	Cannot be polymorphed or shape-shifted.
Jumper	Jump distances are doubled.
Occupier	Can enter and share another creature’s space.
Shapeshifter	Can assume the appearance of any creature or object it has seen of similar size. Mechanical stats are unchanged.
Tunneler	Leaves a tunnel when burrowing.
Webwalker	Ignores web movement restrictions. Senses web contacts.
Workhorse	Carrying capacity is doubled.

Signature Moves

A signature move is a monster’s superpower—think a dragon’s breath or a Balor dragging you to it with its flaming whip. Signature moves are bought using a monster’s budget. A signature move that can inflict up to a major condition costs 2 points, one that can inflict a devastating condition costs 4 points and can only be added to Hard tier monsters or harder.

To design a signature move, consider the following:

Is it something they do on their turn, or as a reaction to something happening? If it’s something they do on their turn, is it something easy for them to do (1 AP), something that requires a little effort (2 AP), or a lot of effort (3 AP). Typically anything more than just a Strike should require at least 2 AP
How much fatigue does it cost? If it requires more effort than a basic Strike, it should cost fatigue to accomplish.
Does it apply a condition? If so, make sure it pays the fatigue cost of the condition it applies based on conditions table (see below): the stated fatigue for a single creature, plus stated fatigue cost again for each 2 additional creatures it’s likely to affect.
Is it done in melee or at range?
What damage type does it do?
What ability does it use?
What ability does it target?

Then give it a name and a description! A basic Signature move starts by targeting a single creature. If it deals damage, it either deals your primary damage or your secondary damage (your choice). You can add a single amplifier to change aspects of signature move:

Spike: +1 damage die size
Spread: Attack multiple creatures. -1 damage die size. Look at targeting charms to get a sense of AP and fatigue cost for different attack shapes and sizes
Shove: Push the target up to 30 ft away or pull them up to 30 ft towards the attacker

You can also gate signature moves or make them more powerful. You can add an additional amplifier, or reduce the point cost of the move by 1 (minimum 1, does not change Hard gating), by adding 2 recharge or 1 doom to the move per additional amplifier or point reduction. Moves with recharge countdown after their use: at the start of each round after their use, the countdown is reduced by 1, when it hits 0, it can be reused. If a signature move would cost more than 5 fatigue, add 1 doom for each five additional fatigue that’s needed (rounded up).

Tier	Conditions	Description	Fatigue
Minor	hastened, prepared, prone, protected, restrained, slowed, sundered	Single-stat shift, self-clearable, or micro-buff	1
Major	blinded, charmed, doomed, empowered, frightened, impaired, inspired, invigorated, invisible, quickened, weakened	Persistent mechanical shift with no self-clear, but still allows actions	2
Devastating	petrified, stunned, unconscious	Full action denial	4

Spellcasting & Technique

You can also use a monster’s points to buy spellcasting and techniques.

For spellcasting, choose a +SPELL for the monster, then for 2 points a monster gains two cantrips and a number of charms equal to its Rank. For each additional 2 points spent, you can add one cantrip and that many charms again. Only Hard monsters or harder are allowed to take rare charms.

Techniques work in a similar way. For every two points, a monster gains a number of techniques equal to its Rank, and cannot take rare techniques unless it’s Hard tier or harder.

Building Encounters

Building encounters is straight forward: add up the number of players that will be in the encounter, that’s your challenge rating (CR) budget. Each monster tier has a different CR: buy monsters from different tiers until you fill your CR. This should result in a combat that feels challenging and rewarding but should not be deadly. If you want something to feel easier, decrease your CR budget, harder, increase your CR budget. You should aim to have around 4-5 of these on-budget encounters per long rest.

Tier	Challenge Rating	Gold	Finds	Max Roll
Easy	½	7g	1	13
Moderate	1	15g	1	16
Hard	2	30g	2	18
Very Hard	4	60g	3	20
Apex	—	150g	5	20

For each monster included in the fight, add up the their treasure count: this is the total value the party should receive for defeating the encounter, usually dolled out as 40% gold and gems, 40% crafting material, and 20% consumables.

Apex monsters work a little bit differently, think of them as narrative centerpieces, things that will have you and your players recounting the story of their success, or defeat, later. They’re designed as very challenging single-monster encounters for an entire party of four. Apex creatures typically have the Legendary tag and a good number of Doom powered signature moves to chew through their high AP, fatigue, and exhaustion levels with.