Creature Creation

This article complies with version 0.96 of Runarcana RPG

Dangerous and challenging encounters require treacherous and daring creatures, but how do you create a creature in the first place? And how to balance it based on the level of the players? In this Guide, you will see a step-by-step guide on how to create a creature from scratch, with the main focus on its Challenge Rate, following the following steps:

1. Define the Danger Level. The basis for defining the creature's power level.
2. Define a Role. The role this creature plays in combat, from a fleeting and “insignificant” enemy or a “boss” that presents a great risk.
3. Define Size Category. The physical representation of the space the creature occupies.
4. Define your Attributes. The mechanical basis for representing the creature's mental and physical abilities.
5. Define Hit Points. The creature's resilience and vitality.
6. Choose your Rune. The way Runeterra's energy affects the creature.
7. Organize your Sheet.

Once you have an inspiration or a clear idea in your mind, you can now make some creatures, but to do so, you need to define some things, following the steps described in this guide.

Defining the Danger Level

To defeat the enemy, you must first understand the enemy! What are your strengths and weaknesses? And how much danger are you in? Knowledge is power, but how do you describe danger in simple terms? And how can you set the strength of your creatures?

In this section we will look at and demonstrate Challenge Rate, presenting their purpose within the game, how to define them and how you can use them.

Setting the Challenge Rate

Challenge Rate (CR) define your main attributes (skill modifiers, hit points, average damage, etc.),  the higher the level, the higher these main attributes will be.

Your first step in creating a creature is (usually) choosing its CR, and there are three common approaches to this:

• Adjusting Based on the Group. Create a creature made exclusively to fight a group of players, based on their average levels.
• Adjusting Based on a Territory. Create multiple creatures to populate a specific land based on that land's average rating.
• Adjusting Based on the Role. Create creatures for a specific campaign objective or adventures, suiting different play styles, such as Epic, Heroic campaigns, etc.

Simplicity vs Complexity When creating your creatures, try to focus on the simple things first, that is, hit points, AC, DR (if necessary), Saving Throws, etc. When you have already assembled what you need, you can turn your attention to immunities, characteristics, actions, among others.

Group-Based CR

If you want to fight a specific group of adventurers, calculate the average of their levels. You can create a weak creature, going below the group's level average, or a stronger creature, going above that average. Use this approach when you want to build some narrative content to track progress with your players.

Combat by Group Average

Challenge	Challenge Rate
Very Easy	Group average - 4
Easy	Group average - 2
Normal	Group average
Hard	Group average + 2
Deadly	Group average + 4

Territory-Based CR

If you want to populate a specific land (like an ancient dungeon, an abandoned fortress, a dark forest, or even another plane) and you don't think one type of bestiary can meet your needs, you don't agree with the creature choices in a book, or you want to use your own creatures, base it on the average level of a land. You can make a creature weak by putting it below the level of that region or make a creature strong simply by being above it.

Use this feature if you want to create a Sandbox-like experience, with fixed combat levels for your world.

Combat by Territory Average

Challenge	Challenge Rate
Very Easy	Territory average - 6 or more
Easy	Territory average - (2 to 5)
Normal	Territory average (+ or - 1)
Hard	Territory average + (2 to 5)
Deadly	Territory average + 6 or more

Progression-Based CR

If you want to build experience by progress, balance based on the average progression of the Group.

Use this approach when you want to create a shareable type of content that others can easily leverage in their own games and campaign settings.

Progression Combat

Progression	Challenge Rate
Adventurer	1 to 4
Heroic	5 to 10
Epic	11 to 16
Legendary	17 to 24
Mythic	25 to 30

The Danger is Relative Each combat is unique, each encounter you have is a mixture that takes into account many factors (such as the group's level, the players' knowledge, what items they are using, runes, etc.) while some characteristics will be very strong, others will be very weak. Now tell me, what is the need for a creature to have immunity to Fire damage for your encounter if none of the players deal Fire damage? It is because of this factor that skills and characteristics are not factors that determine the Challenge Rate.

Defining the Role

All creatures have a role, that is, a purpose for being used on the battlefield. Roles are pre-made templates to help you field an army of Minions, Grunts, Soldiers, Elite, and Paragon.

Choosing the Role

A Role defines how threatening a creature is on the battlefield, adjusting attributes and granting access to resources. There are four classifications that you as a DM can choose from:

• Minions The most basic position of any encounter, they are designed to be an easy challenge, being a threat at most for players from level 1 to 5.
• Grunt. Although, unlike Minions, they can be used significantly in any ND, they are still considered fragile troops, made to absorb resources from players at higher levels, the famous “Cannon Fodder”, but they compensate for their lack of individual strength by fighting in large numbers.
• Soldiers. They are the driving force of any army, generating enough threat to keep busy or even rival a single PJ.
• Elites. They are powerful champions and experienced captains, with twice the resistance and vigor of a soldier, being able to deal with more than one PC alone.
• Paragon. A true force to be reckoned with and not underestimated, a Paragon is capable of taking on a group of adventurers alone and still emerging from the conflict almost unscathed.

Choose the classification that best describes how your creature acts in combat and apply the modifiers described below, based on the Role Breakdown table:

Role Breakdown

Role	TL	Initiative	XP	Traits
Minion	0.25	—	/16	Ignoble Servants
Grunt	0,5	—	/8	Replaceable
Soldier	1	—	/4	—
Elite	2	+½ proficiency bonus	/2	Epic Actions
Paragon	Variable	+proficiency bonus	xNA	Epic Actions and Resistance

Threat Level

Each Role has a Threat Level (TL), which describes how many players of a level equivalent to your CR should feel threatened by that creature, for example: four CR 2 henchmen should be a match for two level 2 players; in the same way that two CR 5 soldiers should be a match for two level 5 players.

This value is only used when creating the creature, and there is no need to include this information on the form.

Initiative Bonus

Every creature has a bonus Initiative value, representing how quickly the creature will enter the battlefield. The Initiative value is equal to the creature's Dexterity modifier, but some Roles receive a bonus to their initiative, representing the creatures' proactiveness in combat:

• Elites adds half of its proficiency bonus to its initiative.
• Paragons add its proficiency bonus to its initiative.

Defining the Size Category

Every creature, whether sentient or not, has a size category, which defines not only the space it occupies, but also the range of its melee attacks, its Hit Dice, its Armor Class and its ability to stealth.

If you are raising a species of creature, consider setting a gradual size progression for different stages of its life, such as “cub”, “young” ,and “adult.” When doing this, keep in mind that not all creatures grow as they age, some become stagnant in size at certain points in their lives, while others are the same size category from beginning to end. If a creature becomes more powerful as it ages without a change in its size, consider reflecting that improvement purely in its attributes.

When creating a set of creatures in a group or within an organization, consider different sizes for different story levels or for different types of creatures.

Unlike players, creatures don't define their Hit Dice based on a “class.” Instead, the die used to calculate a creature's hit points depends on its size, as shown in the table below:

Size Category Table

Size Category	Hit Dice	Average HP per Die
Diminutive	d2	1
Tiny	d4	2
Small	d6	3
Medium	d8	4
Large	d10	5
Huge	d12	6
Gargantuan or Colossal	d20	10

Define the Hit Points

To establish how many hit points your creature has, we must take its ND and multiply it by the Lethality value, thus finding the fixed value, when taking this fixed value, multiply it by the average hit die referring to the creature's hit die, finally take the proficiency value again and multiply it by the constitution value.

(CR + Proficiency Bonus) x Threat Level in Hit Dice + (Proficiency Bonus x Constitution modifier)

Ex.: The GM wanted to create a huge primeval mammoth to challenge his players. He wanted a difficult but not deadly challenge, opting for the mammoth to have the Elite function with CR 7. By establishing the role and CR he could use the formula (CR + Proficiency Bonus) x TL in Hit Dice + (Proficiency Bonus x Con modifier), resulting in 30d12 + 3 times the Mammoth's Constitution modifier .

Hit Point Calculation by Role

Role	Hit Point Calculation
Minion	1 or 2 Hit Dice + (Proficiency x Con mod)
Grunt	(CR+Proficiency) in Hit Dice + (Proficiency x Con mod)
Soldier	2 × (CR+Proficiency) Hit Dice + (Proficiency x Con mod)
Elite	3 × (CR+Proficiency) Hit Dice + (Proficiency x Con mod)
Paragon	TL × (CR+Proficiency) Hit Dice + (Proficiency x Con mod)

Choose your Creature’s Fantasy

Once your creature has its threat level and hit points defined, define its fantasy, that is, define what it will be, what type, subtype and/or mutation it will have. Each aspect of a creature's costume establishes additional characteristics and statistics at the time of its creation. Fantasy is divided into 3 archetypes: Types, Sub-types and Mutations, as seen below:

• Types. It represents the main essence of the creature, as it is primarily seen.
• Sub-types. It presents a secondary aspect to the nature of the creature.
• Mutation. Unlike a subtype, the mutation demonstrates visible characteristics of a forced or natural adaptation, something that clearly should not occur, whether from a source of magic, experimentation or another specific phenomenon.

Types and their Fantasies

Type	Fantasy
Construct	Large and imposing beings of non-biological materials, manufactured by mortal and immortal hands for some purpose.
Dragon	A majestic winged beast capable of setting the ground in fire and tearing apart its enemies with claws and fangs.
Elemental	Born from the energy of the world, these Beings present different aspects of the elements that form them, both physically and mentally and can be patient and thunderous like stone or explosive and aggressive like fire.
Spirit	Ancient mysterious and even confusing beings of supernatural origin acting and linked side by side to the mortal plane and the infinite cycles of death and rebirth.
Fae	Beings of chaotic origin and incredibly comical and funny, at first they can be cute and even childish.
Beast	Mundane animals affected by magic or not, incapable of rational thought most of the time or acting on instinct.
Humanoid	Bipedal creatures capable of rational thought, most of the time organizing themselves into cities, capable of communicating and using tools.
Fiend	Spiritual parasites linked and fed to some spectrum of emotions and sensations with the sole purpose of propagating and generating more of these feelings.
Undead	Beings that had their death cycle interrupted by some external factor, whether by curse, intention of other beings or their own will.
Plant	Plant-based creatures originating in natural places can move and have sentient thought, often disguising themselves as normal plants.
Voidborn	Monstrosities coming from the void, a rift in reality where laws are unknown, act purely on instinct, eliminating and undoing everything in their path, whether alive or not.

Sub-types and their Fantasies

Sub-type	Fantasy
Intangible	A creature without a physical body.
Minotaur	A strong and robust creature capable of stunning enemies with its roars and strong horns.
Troll	A huge creature with a high regeneration factor  and menacing strength.

Define your Attributes

After choosing your creature's costume, you must choose its initial attribute values, some types of creatures can modify these values.

You must purchase your attributes in a similar way to player choices, this purchase is limited by your Challenge Level, Size and Type, with each Type having values ​​based on the scenario's power scales. The calculation to find how many points your creature will have is:

(CR + Threat Level) x (Size + Type)

Once you find this value, use the points purchase table for creatures and individually purchase their Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma values.

Size Values

Size	Value
Diminutive	4
Tiny	5
Small	6
Medium	7
Large	8
Huge	9
Gargantuan	10
Colossal	11

Type Values

Value	Types
1	Beast, Humanoid
2	Construct, Dragon, Elemental, Fae, Undead
3	Spirit, Fiend, Voidborn

Attribute Values

Value	Cost		Value	Cost		Value	Cost		Value	Cost
1	+6		11	-4		21	-36		31	-102
2	+5		12	-6		22	-41		32	-112
3	+4		13	-8		23	-46		33	-123
4	+3		14	-10		24	-52		34	-135
5	+2		15	-13		25	-58		35	-146
6	+1		16	-16		26	-64		36	-160
7	0		17	-19		27	-71		37	-175
8	-1		18	-23		28	-78		38	-191
9	-2		19	-27		29	-85		39	-208
10	-3		20	-31		30	-93		40	-226

Adding points. At lower challenge levels, it is recommended that Minions, Henchmen and even soldiers have apparent weaknesses, especially if you want to make the encounter easier against beginners. If you choose to take values ​​from 1 to 6 when creating your creature, you will gain the amount of points indicated in its cost to use at other points, just don't go overboard.

Number of Maximum Negative Costs

CR	Minion	Grunt	Soldier
1	3	2	1
2	—	1	—
3 or higher	—	—	—

Immeasurable Power. Some creatures can exceed attribute value 30, this value is only indicated for Elites or Paragons above CR 25 and 23, respectively.

Quick Point Distribution When defining your creature's attributes, the quickest way to allocate points is to divide the maximum points you have by 6 (round down) and allocate that amount equally to each of the creature's attributes. From that point on, simply increase and decrease the values ​​of each attribute until you reach a satisfactory value.

Calculating Damage

Every creature needs fierce and overwhelming attacks to threaten players, these attacks must have the correct strength to adjust to the size of the encounter.

To create a creature's attacks, it is first necessary to find the average damage per turn that your creature must have, to divide this damage between the attacks it can perform and choose the damage dice used. For more details, see the steps below:

Finding the Damage Threshold

Firstly, to calculate a creature's damage, you must know how much damage the creature should do to the players per turn. To do this, multiply your creature's Challenge Rate with its Proficiency Bonus and its Lethality, thus finding the average damage. This value can vary by plus or minus the creature's proficiency bonus.

It is worth remembering that this calculation is not an exact science and will depend on your vision of the game as a master when it increases or decreases with the needs of your table. To help with this task, see the formula below:

CR × Proficiency Bonus × Letality

To effectively calculate the creature's damage, it is necessary to know how to calculate the average damage of each die. This calculation is made by adding the minimum and maximum damage of the die and dividing the result by two, rounding down if a decimal value is obtained. To help with this task, see the table below:

Average Damage per Die

Dice	Average Dice Damage
d2	1,5
d3	2
d4	2,5
d6	3,5
d8	4,5
d10	5,5
d12	6,5

Number of Attacks

In this step you will see how many attacks a creature should have, but first you must ask yourself the question: Will your creature have Multiple Attacks?

Unlike players, a creature cannot attack multiple times with its actions, however when it has the Multiple Attacks characteristic, it can spend its action to make several attacks, with the number of attacks and which ones indicated in the characteristic.

You see, a creature that has Multiple Attacks is different from one that doesn't, the creature that has this trait must divide the entire value of the damage threshold found between its attacks evenly or by dividing it as a percentage between them, while a creature that doesn't have it will have its damage or a good part of it in a single attack. See the table below for the indicated value of attacks for each function and the indicated value for it to have Multiple Attacks.

Mulriple Attacks

Role	Max number of Attacks	CR
Minion	1 per action	—
Grunt	1 per action	1 to 10
	2 per action	11 to 20
	3 per action	21 or gigher
Soldier	1 per action	1 to 7
	2 per action	8 to 14
	3 per action	15 to 21
	4 per action	22 to 28
	5 per action	29 or higher
Elite	1 per action	1 to 6
	2 per action	7 to 12
	3 per action	13 to 19
	4 per action	20 to 26
	5 per action	27 or higher
Paragon	2 per action	1 to 5
	3 per action	6 to 10
	4 per action	11 to 15
	5 per action	16 to 20
	6 per action	21 to 25
	7 per action	26 or higher

Damage Dice

Finally, you must choose your creature's damage data, the data varies according to the creature's Size, according to the table below. Each creature has two options, normally using the smaller die categories for less impactful attacks and damage from Minions, while stronger attacks and/or attacks made by Paragons usually use the larger die categories.

Damage Die Category

Size	Dice
Diminutive	1 or d2
Tiny	d2 or d3
Small	d3 or d4
Medium	d4 or d6
Large	d6 or d8
Huge	d8 or d10
Gargantuan	d10 or d12
Colossal	d12
* Creatures that use weapons or magical items have their damage die based on their equipment and do not necessarily follow this rule.

Choose your Runes

Lastly, to finish your creature, choose a rune, that is, a power inherent to it, capable of producing great, overwhelming effects or the possibility of playing with your own rules.

A creature's runic powers are defined based on its CR, having a Runic Pulse at CR 1 and receiving Runes and/or enhancements at CR 2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, and 30.

Adjust your choices

Congratulations, your creature is complete! Now compare it with your players' attributes and manually adjust the values ​​you see necessary (such as increasing or reducing life points, increasing AC and so on.

Start playing!

From now on, your creature is ready to discover the world alongside your companions or antagonizing the actions of adventurers interfering in your plans, try to improvise, creating monsters is not an exact science and requires a lot of experience, if the creature is too strong or too weak you can always modify it as the game progresses. Always try to avoid telling players what exactly is changing.

During an encounter, the group was faced with an unexpected and quite frustrating situation against a large Troll Grunt with a lot of damage, the master then decided to reduce its damage die by 1 on its next attack. Master: "During the impact of the attacker's great sword you hear his sword crunch, you look at it and it is clearly more fragile and with less sharpness on its edge".