Race, Monster, Treasure, Spell, etc. Creation Guidelines?

[jakdethe]

Does anyone know of creation guidelines/rules for OD&D? The general mantra seems to be "eyeball it", but I'm certain there must be a way of determining some general guidelines. For example "no 5th level spell should do more than 5d6", or "Hide is roughly AC 7, Scales are AC 5", etc.

Is there a book or magazine article with such information? Some 3rd party supplement from back in the day? Is it in TUWA, and I just missed it?

If it's not anywhere to be found, would anyone be interested on working on such a project? I think I might endeavor to, as I would find such information very useful; whether it's for conversion or internal consistency. I don't think it could be too hard, at least not for monsters. Just compile a list of various key monsters, and they're relevant statistics (AC, Hit Dice, Damage, etc.), and work out some form of correlation.

[Red Baron]

This is dangerous territory. Standardization should be treated with caution.

Even if you try, its going to be more difficult than you think to standardize monsters and spells that were basically eyeballed to begin with in the 3lbbs. Monsters ACs often seem to reflect how may HD they have or how magical they are rather than how hard they are to hit. So I'm not sure even an in depth analysis of every monster and treasure there is will give you very good guidelines.

That said, I think most people have a system for how they eyeball monsters and spells and things specific to the type of game they run. I generally stat monsters something like this:

Type	HD	Damage
Man Sized	1	1d6
Large Animal	4	2DTH
Horrible Monster	7	2d6
Giant	10+	3d6

Skin	AC
Squishy flesh	9
Tough hide	7
Armored	5
Magical	3

Move	Speed
Ooze	3"
Zombie	6"
Man	12"
Horse	18"
Unicorn	24"
Flying Dragon	24"

Treasure Type and % in Lair seem to be pretty arbitrarily assigned.

If I wanted to stat a true troll, I'd say to myself: "A troll is a Horrible Monster with a Tough Hide that moves as fast as a Man". This would give me, troll: HD 7, D 2d6, AC 7, MV 12".

I also made myself a little attack matrix to simplify monsters down for myself.

[Zenopus]

Nice tables, redbaron. Would work well with "D&D from Memory".

[oakesspalding]

Swords & Wizardry-Core, Complete and 2nd edition Complete-has a few pages at the end of its monster list with suggestions and charts on how to construct monsters appropriate to to your desired "challenge level". So, for example, if it flies or breathes water, that's equivalent to an extra hit die. If it has a petrification attack, that's equivalent to two extra hit dice, and so on. As you may already know, a free downloadable version is available here. I'm not sure if that's exactly what you want but it is useful.

[jakdethe]

redbaron, that is pretty much exactly what I was thinking. I'm thinking of starting D&D from scratch soon, maybe making a "Generic Fantasy RPG", and then converting the D&D monsters to that kind of system.

oakesspalding, I'm aware of the S&W stuff, as well as the same tables found in AD&D. I've never thought about using them in reverse to make monsters, only to assign XP values to monsters I've already made. Interesting thought.

[coffee]

There was a set of Random Monster tables in an old Dragon Mag, not sure which issue. It was reprinted in Best of the Dragon, Volume 1. That might get you on the right track for monsters.

[Deleted]

Jul 7, 2014 8:30:59 GMT -6 coffee said:

There was a set of Random Monster tables in an old Dragon Mag, not sure which issue. It was reprinted in Best of the Dragon, Volume 1. That might get you on the right track for monsters.

Issue #10 (October '77) on pp. 9-10.

[geoffrey]

Jul 7, 2014 8:30:59 GMT -6 coffee said:

There was a set of Random Monster tables in an old Dragon Mag, not sure which issue. It was reprinted in Best of the Dragon, Volume 1. That might get you on the right track for monsters.

That's a great article which had an even greater child: The Random Esoteric Creature Generator.

[oakesspalding]

I was just rereading Lamentations of the Flame Princess and realized that there's a whole section in the Referee book on creating monsters (partly because the author doesn't include a monster list and really thinks you should try your hand at coming up with your own).

[jakdethe]

Awesome, thanks guys! I love Dragon Magazine. I'm amazed lately, how much more informative it often is.

oakesspalding: I'll definitely check out LOTFP, that sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. Interestingly enough, it's actually at my LGS with a couple other off-beat games like Torchbearer.

[jdjarvis]

Jul 6, 2014 14:06:16 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Cool table. How do you handle shields?

[Red Baron]

Jul 8, 2014 14:00:52 GMT -6 jdjarvis said:

Cool table. How do you handle shields?

Missile fire volume is cumulatively halved for indirect fire, concealment, and long range (ala chainmail). Troops with Shields are treated as always having concealment.

[tetramorph]

Redbaron -- a really useful quick monster creation chart. Thanks so much!

[aldarron]

Jul 6, 2014 14:06:16 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

This is dangerous territory. Standardization should be treated with caution.....

Treasure Type and % in Lair seem to be pretty arbitrarily assigned.

Great Post! Treasure types and % in Lair may indeed be arbitrary but it's worthwhile to point out they are not random. There are intended to reflect the natural characteristics of the creature. The content of a treasure, for example, is about the things that creature likes and is likely to acquire. It has no necessary relation to the "challenge level" of the monster.

Jul 6, 2014 14:06:16 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

If I wanted to stat a true troll, I'd say to myself: "A troll is a Horrible Monster with a Tough Hide that moves as fast as a Man". This would give me, troll: HD 7, D 2d6, AC 7, MV 12".

As an aside, the True Troll is statted out (kind of) in supplement II Totf p44 as identical to Hill giants.

[Zenopus]

I don't see the term "True Troll" in Blackmoor anywhere. Chainmail is where the term "True Troll" is defined; there it is clear that "Trolls" in Chainmail are Ogres, and "True Trolls" are from 3 Hearts & 3 Lions, which has the regenerating troll. Thus a "True Troll" is just a standard D&D troll.

The trolls in Blackmoor "fight as Hill Giants with their normal regenerative capabilities" (Room 4). To me these just seem like the standard leader-types for D&D, where a monster fights as a larger humanoid, like goblin leaders who fight as hobgoblins. There are also some in Room 8 that "fight as Ogres" - which make them weaker than normal trolls.

I may be missing something - what makes you think the Blackmoor trolls are "True Trolls" while regular D&D trolls are not?

[Red Baron]

I was indeed referring to D&D Trolls as True Trolls.

I think of D&D Ogres and D&D Trolls as Trolls and True Trolls respectively.

[aldarron]

Aug 4, 2014 18:50:42 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

I don't see the term "True Troll" in Blackmoor anywhere. Chainmail is where the term "True Troll" is defined; there it is clear that "Trolls" in Chainmail are Ogres, and "True Trolls" are from 3 Hearts & 3 Lions, which has the regenerating troll. Thus a "True Troll" is just a standard D&D troll.

The trolls in Blackmoor "fight as Hill Giants with their normal regenerative capabilities" (Room 4). To me these just seem like the standard leader-types for D&D, where a monster fights as a larger humanoid, like goblin leaders who fight as hobgoblins. There are also some in Room 8 that "fight as Ogres" - which make them weaker than normal trolls.

I may be missing something - what makes you think the Blackmoor trolls are "True Trolls" while regular D&D trolls are not?

In CHAINMAIL there are two types of trolls: True Trolls who "fight as Giants" and trolls who "are more properly ogres - intermediate creatures between men and giants" (page 34)

The idea was perpetuated in Dave's campaign. In the First Fantasy Campaign details are given for two types of trolls: There are "Trolls and Ogres" with 18 HP and no mention of regeneration and True Trolls with 36-72 HP and 3 HP per turn regeneration. (FFC 1977:91) Note the HP are 2 to 4 times that of a regular troll.

In supplement II Blackmoor TotF dungeon level II page 44 there are two types of trolls:

In room 8 there are trolls "who fight as ogres and take 18-20 HP each." (again no mention of regeneration)

In Room 4 there are trolls who "fight as Hill Giants with their normal regenerative capabilities"

The Temple of the frog trolls are exactly the "traditional" Chainmail+Blackmoor trolls; that is, an ogre troll with 18+ hp (high for an ogre), and a "giant" (True) troll with regenerative ability and 8 hit dice.

Neither of these trolls match the 6+3 HD Troll (Avg 24 hp) of the 3lbb's, which, as far as HD is concerned is intermediate between the 4+1 HD Ogre and the 8 HD Hill Giant.

[Zenopus]

Okay, that makes sense in terms of what Arneson used, particularly in First Fantasy Campaign. And I agree he was probably using his two versions in the Temple of the Frog module. But there's nothing to suggest that the standard D&D troll is not Gygax's version of the "True Troll" from Chainmail. Arneson went with Hill Giant capabilities for his "True Troll" while Gygax used the 6+3 HD for his "True Troll".

[aldarron]

Aug 5, 2014 21:28:09 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

Okay, that makes sense in terms of what Arneson used, particularly in First Fantasy Campaign. And I agree he was probably using his two versions in the Temple of the Frog module. But there's nothing to suggest that the standard D&D troll is not Gygax's version of the "True Troll" from Chainmail. Arneson went with Hill Giant capabilities for his "True Troll" while Gygax used the 6+3 HD for his "True Troll".

Yeah, I dunno, maybe. There's been some discussion of the D&D troll before in relation to the CHAINMAIL true troll, but I can't remember quite where. It is often said that the D&D troll is the straight up true troll, but I'm not the first to note that it seems to be somewhat of a compromise or blend between the "ogre" troll and the "giant" troll in size and strength. There's also a mention of a true troll in the 3lbb's, (sample dungeon room I) which might, perhaps, suggest a distinct true troll still existed in Gary's mind.

So I suppose I'm saying there is "something" to suggest that the D&D troll wasn't necessarily Gary's direct conversion of a Chainmail true troll. At least I wouldn't just assume so.