17.1 Monster Statistics

Like player characters, monsters have levels, attributes, and abilities. However, they do not have classes, insight points, or many other elements of characters. This section defines how monsters function.

17.1.1 Monster Roles

Each monster has a role. A monster’s role influences its statistics, and generally indicates the way it fights. There are six roles: brute, skirmisher, warrior, sniper, mystic, and leader. The effects of each role are described below.

Brute

A typical brute rushes into melee and smashes its enemies with highly damaging attacks. Brutes have high hit points and reasonable defenses, but also become injured easily. Most brutes charge directly at the enemy and fight in melee, though some prefer to use a few ranged attacks before entering the fray.

Defenses: +4 Armor, +5 Brawn, +4 Fortitude, +4 Reflex, +3 Mental

Durability: +6.

Injury Point: Three-quarters of total hit points.

Leader

A typical leader commands their allies from behind the front lines, but is willing to enter the fray to protect more vulnerable allies. Leaders have well-rounded statistics, but they do not generally fight well alone. Instead, they tend to be more effective when aiding or commanding their allies.

Defenses: +4 Armor, +4 Brawn, +4 Fortitude, +4 Reflex, +4 Mental

Durability: +4.

Injury Point: Half of total hit points.

Skirmisher

A typical skirmisher uses its high mobility to fight only when it is advantageous to do so. Skirmishers can be hard to hit, though they are vulnerable to attacks that can’t be dodged. They are likely to avoid intimidating front-line fighters. Instead, they ambush the vulnerable back lines if possible.

Defenses: +5 Armor, +4 Brawn, +4 Fortitude, +5 Reflex, +4 Mental

Durability: +2.

Injury Point: Half of total hit points.

Sniper

A typical sniper uses ranged attacks while staying as far away from combat as possible. Snipers tend to be fragile, so they can be quickly dispatched by creatures that are able to close the distance.

Defenses: +3 Armor, +3 Brawn, +3 Fortitude, +4 Reflex, +4 Mental

Durability: +2.

Injury Point: Three-quarters of total hit points.

Warrior

A typical warrior forms a defensive front line to protect any vulnerable allies. Warriors have high defenses, and can be very difficult to kill. However, they tend to lack offensive power and mobility, so they risk being outflanked and irrelevant.

Defenses: +5 Armor, +4 Brawn, +5 Fortitude, +3 Reflex, +4 Mental

Durability: +4.

Injury Point: One third of total hit points.

17.1.2 Level Scaling

Each monster has a level that indicates its approximate strength. Monsters have some specific level scaling rules that differ from the rules for player characters. This scaling is summarized in Table 17.1: Monster Advancement. In general, their automatic level scaling is designed to keep them on par with the power that player characters gain at higher levels, but without all of the complexity of high-level PCs. High level monsters should have slightly higher base values for their attributes, though this is not quantified, since monster attributes can be highly varied. They have the following specific changes.

• Monsters do not gain insight points, attunement points, or legacy items.
• Monsters calculate their injury point based on their role rather than their level and Constitution. Their role defines their injury point as some multiplier of the monster’s total hit points.
• Monsters only add half their attributes to their defenses instead of their full attribute.
• Monsters gain a +1 bonus to two attributes at 3rd level and every 3 levels thereafter. This replaces the attribute bonus players get.
• Monsters gain a +1 bonus to all defenses at 7th level and 19th level.
• Monsters gain a +1 accuracy bonus at 13th level and 21st level.
• Monsters gain a +1 power bonus at 5th level, 11th level, and 17th level.

17.1.3 Elite Monsters

Elite monsters are approximately four times as strong as an ordinary monster. They have a number of benefits and modifiers to make them more appropriate as a solo encounter than simply using a very high level ordinary monster:

• Elite monsters gain a +2 bonus to their power and all defenses.
• Elite monsters have three times the hit points of standard monsters.
• Elite monsters can have a maximum starting attribute of 6 (see Monster Attributes).
• Elite monsters can take an additional elite action each round (see Elite Actions).
• Elite monsters automatically remove conditions (see Monster Conditions).

17.1.4 Monster Vital Wounds

Monsters do not normally make vital rolls like player characters do. Unless otherwise specified on the monster’s description, vital wounds have no negative effects on monsters. Instead, once a monster gains a vital wound, it is defeated. Defeated monsters may be unconscious, dead, or merely flee the fight at the discretion of the Game Master.

17.1.5 Monster Conditions

Monsters normally can’t use the recover ability. Standard monsters can only remove conditions by taking a short rest. However, elite monsters can remove conditions more easily with the elite cleanse ability. Intelligence monsters can generally choose which condition they remove, while unintelligent monsters may choose instinctually or randomly.

Whenever an elite monster gains a unique condition, it is added to a “condition track”. The first condition is to the first slot in the track, the second condition is added to the second slot, and so on. If a monster gains two instances of the same condition, they are put in the same location on the track.

At the end of each round, each elite monster rolls 1d6. If the result matches an existing condition on its condition track, that condition is removed unless all instances of that condition were gained during the current round. When a monster has multiple copies of the same condition, only one instance of that condition is removed, so it may have to roll the same number multiple times to fully remove the condition. If a location on the condition track becomes empty, all of the conditions to the right of that location shift down by 1. This means the highest occupied number on the condition track should always match the number of unique conditions the monster has. The oldest condition should always be number 1, and the most recent condition should have the highest occupied number on the track.

17.1.6 Monster Resources

Monsters have no resources, and their fatigue tolerance is 0. They are normally unable to use universal abilities that would cause them to increase their fatigue level, such as the desperate exertion ability. They can use the sprint ability, but only during the action phase, since that does not increase their fatigue.

If a monster has an explicitly listed special ability that increases its fatigue level, it can use that ability. Similarly, monsters that are allied with player characters may choose to increase their fatigue level to receive healing from the players, such as from the restoration spell. This would immediately cause them to suffer fatigue penalties, since their fatigue tolerance is 0.

At the GM’s discretion, individual monsters may technically be attuned to their abilities or be attuned to magic items they find, but this is not an explicit part of monster definitions. This is typically only relevant if one of the players has the Null feat (see Feats).

17.1.7 Monster Ability Access

Although monsters do not gain archetypes, their special abilities should still be balanced appropriately for their maximum accessible rank. Like a player character, a monster’s maximum accessible rank is based on its level, as shown in Table 17.1: Monster Advancement.

It’s not always meaningful to give every monster multiple active abilities. However, maneuvers provide significant power at high levels, so high level monsters should generally use special abilities like maneuvers instead of simple strikes. This also ensures that high level monsters feel meaningfully different from low-level monsters, rather than simply having higher statistics.

17.1.8 Monster Attributes

Each of a standard monster’s attributes can range from -9 to 4. Elite monsters can have attributes up to 6 at level 1, and they generally have higher attributes overall. A few specific monsters of legendary power can exceed this limit. In general, a monster with higher attributes will be stronger, but not all monsters need to start with the same attribute total.

17.1.9 Monster Natural Weapons

Most monsters that do not have hands, or equivalently agile limbs capable of holding weapons and shields, have more powerful natural weapons. They treat all non-Light natural weapons as if they had the Heavy weapon tag and were being held in two hands. This gives them a +1 damage bonus per 3 power.

Some specific monsters, like horses, do not gain this benefit because they are unable to effectively use their whole body to support their attacks.

17.1.10 Monster Dual Strikes

Monsters with a sufficiently high Dexterity are able to make dual strikes (see Dual Strikes). However, most monsters can only make dual strikes with two copies of the same Light natural weapon. Monsters that use manufactured weapons can make dual strikes with them in the same way as player characters.