Creating custom monsters

[highpriestrsw2]

Land of the damned 1 I believe has a really good table for creating random monsters that works well.
You can use the stuff provided to hash out your own monsters or try looking in other books. Monsters and animals, after the bomb and the core rifts book (it has an area for dogboy breeds and what extra stuff each breed gets) are pretty good places to start. The other after the bomb books have some pretty cool stuff too. I bought them as a bundle from the palladium online store and it was fairly inexpensive.

[count zero]

If I'm statting out a monster or other type of adversary, I tend to just give give arbitrary bonuses depending on how tough of an encounter I want. Monsters and other types of adversaries tend not to last the encounter in which they threaten the PCs, so I don't spend alot of time on stats or detail. I know how tough the PCs are, and what are appropriate strike/parry/dodge bonuses to make the adversary enough of a challenge.

If the creature or NPC is meant to be a recurring one, I might take the time to have detailed stats, but not for one-off encounters.

So short answer: I fake it based on how tough the monster needs to be. If one has the time & inclination to do it all by the book, go for it. I rarely have the time or patience.

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