Home For Builders Creating Your Own Creatures

Creating Your Own Creatures

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By Rob Bartel and Robin Mayne

One of the great aspects of building your own adventures for a role-playing game is creating custom creatures for Players to encounter.

This tutorial will describe how you can take an idea for a creature (perhaps inspired by a creature in a book or a movie) and use the Toolset to create that creature with its proper stats and abilities so that you can add it to your own module.

Malar Panther

We drew our inspiration from the Beast of Malar - which is a Forgotten Realms-specific creature detailed on p.20-21 of the Monsters of Faerun sourcebook, published by Wizards of the Coast.

While we won't create the actual Beast of Malar itself (which is a creature that actually shapechanges between 3 forms - panther, claw slayer, and bat), we wanted to create a new feline monster based on the panther form of the Beast of Malar - we will call our creature a Malar Panther. Advanced Users: Note that Texture Bundle 1 in the Textures Downloads area includes the bat and badger textures in case anyone wants to create the two remaining Beasts of Malar!

Following the steps in the Texture Tutorial: Re-Skinning Creatures article, we created the Malar Panther texture, drawing from the description of having red markings like a pattern of sprayed blood.

	-> Painted on Red Face ->
Original Texture		Modified Texture

You can create your own Malar Panther texture by following the Texture Tutorial: Re-Skinning Creatures, or you can download the one we created:

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Making a Malar Panther Blueprint

Note: You can download our completed Malar Panther below.

1. Click the Paint Creatures button on your right menu bar and select the Standard tab. 2. In the tree view, right-click on Monsters\Animals\Feline\Panther and select Edit Copy. 3. When the Creature Editor opens, you’ll see that the panther is displaying the new Malar Panther texture. Enter its new name, "Malar Panther", in the First Name field. You can change the tag if you want, as well. Press the Ellipses […] button to the right of the Description field and enter the some descriptive text. 4. Press the OK button when your description is complete.

5. Go to the Classes tab and set his Alignment to "Chaotic Evil." Change his "Animal" Class to "Shapechanger" and give him 9 levels in it .

6. Go to the Statistics tab and give it the following Ability Scores: Str 15, Dex 22, Con 20, Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 17. Give him a Natural AC of +5 which will result in a Total Armor Class of 21. Give him a Base Hit Points of 40, resulting in a Total Hit Points of 85. Set his Movement Rate to "Very Fast."

7. Go to the Skills tab and give him the following skill levels: Hide +17, Listen +11, Move Silently +17, Spot +11.

8. Go to the Feats tab and check off the following feats: Alertness, Knockdown, Nature Sense, Opportunist, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Proficiency (Creature).

9. Press the Inventory button beneath the 3D Model Window. Select the Natural Equipment tab.

10. Delete the items in the Claw 1, Claw 2, and Special Attack slots by dragging them to the Trash Can in the bottom left.

11. Under the Inventory’s Standard Items tab, right-select the Creature Items\Claw\Claw1d4 item and select Edit Copy.

12. In the Item Editor, edit the Item Name field to read "Claw1d4+2." You can change the tag and blueprint name if you wish, as well.

13. Go to the Item Editor’s Properties tab and, in the tree-view to the left, select Damage Bonus\Slashing. Press the "->" to assign it.

14. In the window on the right hand side, select the "Damage Bonus: Slashing [1 Damage]" property that you just added and press the Edit Property button at the bottom of the window. Select "2 Damage" and press the Select button, then OK to return to the Item Editor.

15. Click OK to add these Item Properties

16. You can find your new Claw1d4+2 item under the Custom Items tab. Drag it into the Beast’s Claw 1 and Claw 2 inventory slots.

17. Under the Inventory’s Standard Items tab, right-select the Creature Items\Bite\Bite1d6 item and select Edit Copy.

18. In the Item Editor, edit the Item Name field to read "Bite1d6+1." You can change the tag and blueprint name if you wish, as well.

19. Go to the Item Editor’s Properties tab and, in the tree-view to the left, select Damage Bonus\Piercing. Press the "->" to assign it. It defaults to "+1" so you don’t need to edit it.

20. Click OK to add these Item Properties

21. You can find your new Bite1d6+1 item under the Custom Items tab. Drag it into the Beast’s Special Attacks slot.

22. Press the New button beneath the tree-view on the right and select "Creature Item."

23. In the Item Wizard, assign your new item the name "Malar Panther Hide." Press the Next button.

24. Select Creature Items\Skin/Hide from the Palette Category list and press the Next button.

25. Check the "Launch Item Properties" flag and press the Finish button.

26. Go to the Item Editor’s Properties tab and assign the Damage Reduction\+1 property. It defaults to "Soak 5 Damage" so you don’t need to change it.

27. Assign the True Seeing and Immunity: Miscellaneous\Fear properties.

28. Assign the Regeneration property twice so that two versions of it appear in the right hand window. Select one of them and press the Edit Properties button.

29. Assign an Item Cost Parameter of +5 and press OK. This will cause the Beast to regenerate a total of 6 points of damage each round.

30. Press OK to complete the Creature Item. You can find the new item under the Custom Items tab. Drag it into the Beast’s Skin/Hide slot. 31. Press OK to close the Beast’s Inventory and OK again to complete your creature. You can find your custom Malar Panther in the Monsters\Animals\Feline category, under the Custom tab. You can now place it just as you would any other creature.

Exporting Your Creature

Now that you have created your custom creature blueprint, you can export it to use in your other modules, or to share with others.

• Go to File\Export and under Resource Type select 'Blueprint for Creatures'.
• Select your creature, and click Open. Save your erf file, and add comments if you wish.

Others can now import your .erf to add your creature to their module. Remember that this erf contains the creature blueprint, but not the custom texture. Textures need to be shared using hak paks.

Downloading Our Completed Malar Panther

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• Unzip it to a temporary location (using a tool like WinZip).
• Under your module's File menu, select "Import" and browse to the location of your unzipped *.erf. Select the erf to import, click 'Open'. You can read the comments if you wish, and then click 'OK'.
• You can find the custom Malar Panther in the Monsters\Animals\Feline category, under the Custom tab. You can now place it just as you would any other creature.