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[andrian]

Have you ever wanted to play a game of DnD set in the Dwarf Fortress setting? Have you ever wondered how you'd replicate those wonderful procedurally-generated monsters that make Dwarf Fortress so fun without tearing your hair out with a million die rolls and long tables? Well wonder no longer, my friends, for I have done (most of) the hard work for you already!

Behold! The creatively-titled:

Forgotten Beast/Titan Generator for DnD 5e v 0.8.2!

This open-source Python script takes Beasts from the Monster Manual and a few other sources, adds some modifiers, and produces a complete, randomly-generated stat block for your new Forgotten Beast or Titan, ready to be thrown at your unsuspecting players at any time!

To run the program, simply click the link above, and then click the Run button. One Forgotten Beast / Titan will be generated in the dark blue pane on the right. If you want another, just click Run again. Warning: clicking Run will clear the output screen, so if you want to save your Forgotten Beast / Titan, be sure to copy it to a text file before running the program again!

Current Features:

• 36 Base Creatures
• 211 unique modifiers
• A nearly-complete name generator that more or less replicates dwarven names. (Special thanks to Dunamisdeos for copying out huge swaths of the dictionary into a useable format!
• A nearly-complete description generator that mirrors the one in Dwarf Fortress

Plans for future releases:

• Add more creatures.
• Add more modifiers.
• Complete the name generator.
• Add appearance modifiers so that the description generator will be complete.
• Fix any bugs or grammatical errors that are discovered.
• Add an option to generate multiple stat blocks at once
• Balance material options - currently the list is dominated by stones and gems just because of how many of those there are and I don't have weighted odds

Missing Features I may never get to:

• Automatically-calculated Challenge Ratings. Those equations are complex, and being able to calculate them from a statblock is probably a large program in and of itself. If you really need to know a generated monster's CR, there are calculators available online that you can plug the stats into.

Spoiler: Changelog (click to show/hide)

v 0.8.0

• First release.

v 0.8.1

• Added spaces to dwarven names to improve readability and properly reflect how they appear in Dwarf Fortress

v 0.8.2

• Adjusted the number of hit dice for generated beasts to make them more powerful.
• Fixed a minor typo.
• Adjusted the probability of certain types of materials showing up. Metals, liquids, gases, and elements should appear more often.

This is one of the largest coding projects I've ever undertaken (nothing compared to Toady, though), and there's still a lot of work to do, but now that the basic functionality is there and I've gotten enough data to at least make some interesting creatures, it's ready for release. I abandoned the project for two years, but always meant to come back to it. In the past few days I finally decided to sit down and finish the thing. It was a great learning experience, as I've never done much in Python before, but once I got the hang of it, it was a pleasure to work with.

I hope you all enjoy it! 

P.S.: Please tell me if you find any bugs or have any requests for future features for this program. Again, huge kudos to Dunamisdeos for doing the most boring part of the job for me!

[Parsely]

This is super cool, thanks for sharing! My friends host DnD 5e games, maybe they'd be interested in this

[Dunamisdeos]

It's great! More nameworkings to come for sure!

I'm going to share it with some friends who DM :3

[andrian]

Again, thanks so much for your help!

[Pirate Santa]

Heck yeah! Glad to see this completed 

[andrian]

Heck yeah! Glad to see this completed 

If you ever use this in a game, you'll have to let me know how it works out. I honestly have no idea of the modifiers I'm putting in are any good. I expect I'll have to do a balance patch at since point.

[Inarius]

Hi !
Does the composition of the FB have any relation to its powers, or AC, or anything ?


I've just had a resin-made ape, with 19 AC. Does the resin part has any impact ?
I also have "Description: A huge Cow made of gold opal", and it has only 15 AC.

Second question, does some of the FB have any spells ? It would be cool. Or some legendary resist, Lair action, etc...etc.., or even some element resistance/immunity/vulnerability.

Also : could you add a challenge level ? The Master Guide gives a good indication to calculate it.


Awesome work !

[andrian]

Hi !
Does the composition of the FB have any relation to its powers, or AC, or anything ?


I've just had a resin-made ape, with 19 AC. Does the resin part has any impact ?
I also have "Description: A huge Cow made of gold opal", and it has only 15 AC.

Second question, does some of the FB have any spells ? It would be cool. Or some legendary resist, Lair action, etc...etc..

Awesome work !

The materials and other modifiers do modify the creature's stats. Materials like gem and stone increase the natural armor rating of the base creature.

There are no spells or lair actions, but some of the special attacks, and even some of the materials (fire) add spell-like effects, including saves and status effects.

One thing I need to do is adjust the modifiers. I think I made some of them a bit under-powered, though of course judging how challenging to make these creatures is difficult, since I don't have a target CR or any easy way to gauge the CR of these generated creatures.

What do you guys think I should aim for?

[Inarius]

If "guys" include me, i think that they are a lot underpowered. A gigantic cow made of gold shouldn't have 40 hp
I think you should add a way to calculate CR based on average dmg/life (as given in the master guide).
It's not that hard to calculate. Just imagine a combat against an average fighter with a given AC. Use all the skill when they are available.
Here : http://online.anyflip.com/swxi/xvkz/mobile/index.html#p=274

About resistances, i didn't pay enough attention, they have it.
Innate magic could be fun.

[andrian]

Ah, yeah, I was noticing the HP was low myself. I definitely need to add hit dice to them. Fortunately, that's aa relatively easy fix.

[Inarius]

Maybe you should add a consistency check. The DM guide gives you a level of hp in relation with a CR level. So if you have a dmg estimation, you have a scale (let's something between 1 level below and 1 level above)
For instance
for a 17 AC (10 to 12 CR) if your beast has a 50 damage per round (7 CR) and a +7 to hit (CR 8 to 10) with a  you can have a HP between CR5 (131-145) to CR12(236-250), or, with an extensive scale CR4 to CR13 HP. I suppose you can add a "frail" or "robust" attribute which will add a +1 or -1 HP-to-power relation scale.

[Inarius]

This one

Dwarven Name: Mingtuth Desisstorluteshon Likot
English Name: Mingtuth Snarlingdimpled The Good Ink
Size: Huge
Description: A huge Ox. It has a two narrow tails and it has two short tails. Beware its webs!

Armor Class: 10
HP: 28 (3d12+9)
Speed: 30 ft.
--------------------------
Str: 20 (5) Dex: 10 (0) Con: 16 (3) Int: 2 (-4) Wis: 10 (0) Cha: 4 (-3)
--------------------------
Senses: Passive Perception 10
--------------------------
Charge: If the cow moves at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hits it with a gore attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 7 (2d6) piercing damage.
Beast of Burden: The ox is considered to be a Huge animal for the purpose of determining itscarrying capacity.
--------------------------
Gore. Melee attack. +7 to hit, 1d8+5 Piercing. Reach: 5 ft. Target: One Creature.
Tail. Melee attack. +7 to hit, 1d8+5 Bludgeoning. Reach: 0 ft. Target: Up to two adjacent creatures.
Web (Recharge 5-6). Ranged attack. +2 to hit, One creature. Hit: The Target is restrained. DC 11 Strength check, Success:  Target escapes from the webbing. The effect ends if the webbing is destroyed. The webbing has AC 10, 5 hit points, is vulnerable to fire damage and immune to bludgeoning, psychic, and poison damage.



AC : 10 --> CR 0
Prof bonus : +2 (it has +5 in Str, and +7 to hit so...) --> CR 0 to CR 4.

Attack Bonus : +7 --> CR 8 to 10
DMG : 9.5 per round (unless it has 2 attacks ?) --> CR 1
(Save DC : You haven't given any DC. Ignored.)

--> Average offensive based on damage = CR1. With a CR1 it should have a +3 attack bonus. It has +7, so 4 bonus ahead, which is a +2 on CR (1 for 2 points difference). So offensive challenge is CR3.

--> Average defensive challenge is compatible with a CR3 a bit low with the AC 10, maybe more a CR2.

Its web should push it to the CR 3 and not CR 2.

With a CR2-3 you should have 86-115 hp. But you can modulate it between CR1 (71 hp) to 4 (130 hp) if you want, maybe with a gaussian.

That's how it works.
Clearly here, these beast has too much Str, or a too low proficiency bonus on the one hand, and on the other hand not enough life and AC.

[andrian]

Believe it or not, a lot of the beasts in the monster manual and elsewhere are pretty unbalanced. That strength score has been increased by 2 because of the size increase, but that's all. That's probably an artifact produced by using super low-CR creatures for the base. Lower-CR monsters tend to punch harder than you'd expect, but don't have a ton of HP, a lot like low-level PC's.

One of the big problems with automating the CR calculation is figuring out the average damage. I don't think I could properly account for multiattack or area effect damage being able to hit more than one creature.

I highly doubt that, even if I could calculate the individual or overall CR, I would be able to balance the monsters, and I'm not entirely sure I want to, as hilariously unbalanced creatures is part of the fun of DF itself.

Anyway, I'll see what I can do about beefing up these beasties.

[andrian]

Forgotten Beast/ Titan Generator 0.8.2 Released!

Changes in this version:

• Adjusted the number of hit dice for generated beasts to make them more powerful.
• Fixed a minor typo.
• Adjusted the probability of certain types of materials showing up. Metals, liquids, gases, and elements should appear more often.

[Inarius]

Actually CR is very useful, and you should add it. Even if it's the sum of very different items, it's still useful. Because it's the best way to have an idea of the real strenght of the beast. A beast with high damage but low hp is quite the same as the opposite. In the end, they will do the same damage on the players, which is what CR indicates.

So maybe you don't want (and i understand you !) to fix hp in relation to the other parameters, but, at least indicate it.
For instance, i could use one of them for my next D&D game (I'm a DM)