So last summer after Kingsport, I made some rudementary system to guage how difficult monsters are. I took different things into account, like awareness, damage, difficulty of checks, movement type, toughness, etc. While certain things may have been weighted more so than others, I feel that this list is pretty close to my experiences.

Keep in mind that this is a list based (almost) purely on how difficult they are to kill in combat. Please, comment, criticize (constructively). If I can find or deduce the system I used I'll post it. Also, if you insist on completely disagreeing, please be polite about it, and make sure you say why.

Dhole (27)
Star Vampire (25)
Flying Polyp (24.66)
Werewolf (22)
Wizard Whateley (21)
Tcho-Tcho Priest (21.5)
Hound of Tindalos (21)
Hunting Horror (20.66)
Star Spawn (20.66)
Shoggoth (20.16)
Wraith (20)
Dark Young (19.16)
Gug (18.17)
Colour Out of Space (18)
Mummy (18)
Spectral Hunter (18)
Crawling One (18)
Gnoph-keh (17.5)
Leng Spider (17.17)
Vampire (17)
Formless Spawn (16.66)
Cthonian (16.33)
Ghost (16)
Moon Beast (15.66)
High Priest (15.66)
Serpent People (15)
Warlock (15)
Goat Spawn (14.66)
Yithian (14.33)
Ghast (14)
Elder Thing (13.66)
Rat Thing (13)
Skeleton (13)
Dimensional Shambler (13)
Shan (12.33)
Fire Vampire (12)
Witch (11)
Tcho-Tcho (11)
Night Gaunt (10.67)
Ghoul (10.66)
Mi-Go (10)
Byakhee (10)
Zombie (6)
Cultist (5)
Maniac (4.25)

Colour... duel imunties, -3 Horror rating, 4 sanity damage and random sanity damage to investigators... so you have to deal with it... gonna want your will up but that means less fight... so gonna loss clues to it ><

Dholes are the top of the danger list??? No wonder my investigator got 0WNZ0R3D when it's the first monster on the board.

List seems pretty accuarate to me...using the noises my group makes when a particular monster appears as a referance point anyway.

The list mostly agrees with my assessment. It looks like what you've done is give pretty much equal weight to most number-based abilities, which in most cases will average out ok because there aren't that many monsters with all-high or all-low stats. Reverse engineering, it looks something like this:

-1 Evade = 1 point

-1 Horror = 1 point

1 Horror damage = 1 point

-1 Combat = 1 point

1 Stamina damage = 1 point

1 Toughness = 3 points (presumably because it takes 3 dice to expect a success)

Nightmarish 1 = 1 point

Overwhelming 1 = 1 point

1 Resistance = 1-2 points (can't quite work out what you've done here)

1 Immunity = 2-3 points (same)

2 Resistances = 2-3 points

2 Immunities = 3-4 points

In other words, you add up all the numbers. But that doesn't quite get you to the results on your list, so you must have been doing something else, and I can't quite work out what weight you were giving to monster movement types. Also, in the case of each monster special ability, a fairly arbitration valuation has to be made.

Acebob said:

Only one that I find a bit odd, seeing him that high that is. Checked against the Warlock (who has a score of 15), Wizzy Whateley is a bit harder, but only if you fail in the combat check (3 vs 1 damage), horror check and damage also is slightly harder. Definately wouldn't mind drawing him over Colour, Tindalos, etc.

Acebob said:

The Hound I don't think's anything like this bad - even if its jumping around does make it more likely that I'd have to fight it in the first place. Only two toughness and reasonable modifiers, so even with physical immunity it's beatable. It's also fairly easy to evade if necessary. I'd maybe rate it around 15, perhaps?

Everything else seems about right, though perhaps Moon-Beasts and the others which can potentially devour should perhaps get a slight bonus for that (or if they already do, maybe a slightly bigger one).

It might be interesting to see where Masks and the Dunwich Horror appear on the scale.

Naturally after posting that I have a game where a Hound of Tindalos on the Terrible Experiment is utterly undefeatable for numerous turns, stopping us from defeating the rumour, but I stand by my assessment: if it were a 3 toughness monster (as it was in this game thanks to Shub) it would be worthy of its rank. With 2 toughness it's just not that bad.

Terrible Experiment with Shub Niggurath is a relentless exercise in wanting to die.

Some more notes on my scoring system:

I think I weighted monsters who gave you a reward (tcho-tcho, migo, whately, etc.) a bonus because you don't retain them as trophies and rewards are much more fickle than trophies.

Movement types: I think I gave benefits to stalkers, fast monsters, stationary monsters (because they are always guarding gates, which sucks), and monsters that have specific movement (like werewolves, cthonians, color out of space).

I also think I gave benefits to monsters whose dimensional symbol showed up less on gates or whose gates with that dimensional symbol were particularly hard to close (I was rating the OWs during this time too).

I also think that I may have given 2 points for a resistence, while 3 for an immunity. I felt that having two resistences was worse than having two immunities.

At some point I would like to rate the Mask monsters and monsters when they count as worshippers of specific GOOs

That list looks pretty tight, except Whateley does seem a bit high on the list. But then again I don't face him that often so...whatcha gonna do.

Add the Servitor of the Gods to the list while you're at it

Oh and compile a different type of list that accommodates the overall "groan factor," that is, factoring movement type and environmental effects (Color, Chthonian, and Hound get a bonus).

flamethrower49 said:

Here here, sir.

Sorry to double post, but I just remembered that I also gave points for monsters whose abilities would devour and investigator should they fail checks against them.

Monsters would get points for being endless, undead wouldn't get any change in score because I feel that the amount of stuff that benefits undead is about equal to the stuff that hurts them.

Note: Due to popular request, I'll get working on compiling a new list tonight. Using stuff from BGotW and stuff we have seen in previews