Two months ago I wrote that the statblock generator no longer worked from templates. It does again. This post is the correction, and a short list of what changed for you.
Abilities belong to the same creature now. A charge that knocks the target prone and a trample that only works on prone targets. A grapple that leads into a smother. A funeral bell that weakens the dying and then finishes them. The parts of a generated monster set each other up, which is the thing the last version could not do.
Fewer combat roles. Brute, defender, skirmisher, artillery, controller, lurker, or Auto. Balanced and Support are gone. Swarm is no longer something you pick: say “a swarm of” in your concept and the generator builds a swarm. The same goes for oozes and dragons.
The name field takes a description. Type “a cliff troll that hurls slabs at climbers” and the generator names it. Type “Brazen Bull” and it keeps the name.
2014 monsters flip to 2024 instantly. A monster generated under 2014 rules is saved with both printings, so the edition tabs switch with no conversion step. Monsters you made before this still convert the old way.
What I said, and what happened
In July I said the generator computed its templates instead of drawing them from a shelf. The math was computed from the rulebook’s targets, and the AI invented abilities into empty slots. I also wrote, in a section called “The cost,” that a computed template has the numbers but none of a designer’s judgment about which abilities belong on the same creature, and that correct parts can still combine into something odd.
That is exactly what went wrong. The numbers were always right. The creatures were often not the ones you asked for. A brass bull came out as a thing that swallowed people whole and never charged. A mountain of troll-flesh came out with no regeneration. A stone shrine guardian came out with a genie’s wish-granting clause in its traits. Every ability on those monsters was fine on its own. They just did not belong to that monster.
What the new templates are
Not the old ones. The library I built in 2024 had three labels, and a template came with whatever abilities its source monster happened to have.
The new library has a hand-written template for each combat role and each way of playing it: a lurker that ambushes, a lurker that is a ghost, a lurker that is a trap; a brute that charges, one that grapples, one that regenerates; and so on. Each is written against the official monsters of that shape, and the same math as before scales it to any challenge rating.
The AI’s job got smaller. It names the creature, renames the abilities to fit your concept, and writes one signature ability of its own. When that one ability fails the checks, the generator substitutes a proven shape from the rulebook rather than retrying until something slips through. That happens about half the time, and I decided it was a feature. A dull ability is a better failure than the wrong monster.
What I gave up
Variety is bounded by the library again. Generate twenty lurkers and you will see the ambush template more than once, dressed differently each time. What you will not see is a lurker with a breath weapon, because no lurker in the book has one.
The AI has less room to surprise me, and it still does. The monster that harvests a skull from a fallen victim and throws it. The duelist whose riposte fires the instant a blade misses her guard. Those came out of the one ability the AI still owns, and they are the best things the generator has made. Less room turned out to be the point.
The test from July still holds: would this break a table, or would a Dungeon Master fix it in half a second without noticing? What remains is in the second category. What I got in exchange is a generator that gives you the creature you described. I did not have that in July, and I said I did. Hopefully this has been fixed. Please let me know if you notice anything.
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