It's no reskin off my nose

So d4 caltrops had a great post about just using goblins for everything. Go check it out. Originally inspired by the absolute classic just use bears from TOTG&D.

I am a big fan of reusing and reskinning monster stats. I mean in classic editions it doesn't matter much either way - you can create a "brand new" stat block that's only barely mechanically different, or just reuse an existing one. Your players will barely feel the difference, probably.

In Pathfinder which my roommates like to play, it's a necessity. I would rather drive my car into the sun than sit down and tinker with all those fiddly rules when I could be using my imagination, so I need to either a) buy more monster books, b) develop the "pathfinder lite stat block (TM)," or c) adapt the monsters I already have to the creatures I make up!

In that spirit, and because I've been thinking about it for a while anyway, let's draw up a little list. This is, I think, all the OGL monsters that have stats in every numerical edition (0-5th). Surely enough that you'd never have to create new stats whole cloth again, yeah?


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0-5 UNIVERSAL MONSTER RESKIN LIST

I started with the LBBs, then checked against Labyrinth Lord, AD&D, Pathfinder and 5th edition (anything in AD&D should realistically be in every other edition, but a few things didn't make the OGL cut and 5th was oddly missing a few as well).

What's left:


Animals*
Basilisk
Black Pudding
Centaur
Chimera
Cockatrice
Djinn
Dragon
Dryad
Dwarf
Elemental
Elf
Efreet
Gargoyle
Ghoul
Giant
Gnoll
Gnome
Goblin
Gorgon
Gray Ooze
Griffon
Hippogriff
Hobgoblin
Human
Hydra
Invisible Stalker
Kobold
Lycanthrope
Manticore
Medusa
Minotaur
Mummy
Ochre Jelly
Ogre
Orc
Pegasus
Purple Worm
Roc
Skeleton
Spectre
Treant
Troll
Unicorn
Vampire
Wight
Wraith
Wyvern
Zombie


*Only technically. OD&D doesn't give you stats, just a suggestion for the animals' HD range based on size. Those LBBs were damnably vague on a few points, that's for sure. Terribly, there are no actual stats for bears in OD&D.

Still, we end up with a really tight list of monsters of varying sizes, shapes and attack methods. This is almost a Platonic D&D Bestiary. Let's break em down by category:

Humanoids

Goblin, Kobold, Orc, Gnoll, Hobgoblin, Troll, Ogre, Minotaur, Giant, Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Medusa, Centaur, Dryad

Beasts

Basilisk, Chimera, Cockatrice, Gargoyle, Dragon, Gorgon, Griffon, Hippogriff, Hydra, Lycanthrope, Manticore, Pegasus, Purple Worm, Roc, Treant, Unicorn, Wyvern

Undead

Skeleton, Zombie, Ghoul, Wight, Wraith, Spectre, Mummy, Vampire

Slimes

Black Pudding, Gray Ooze, Ochre Jelly

Elemental

Djinn, Elemental, Efreet, Invisible Stalker


Honestly this is still too many monsters to memorize stats for.

You could pick only one humanoid of each size eg: kobolds, humans, trolls, giants. That's a cool set right there. Memorize those stats for the system of your choice, and then spend the rest of your day working on the cultural finer points for the macaque-men in your new module, secure in the knowledge that whoever may play it has the stats in their monster book at home.

All the non-horse monsters with four legs: basilisk, chimera, dragon, gorgon, griffon, hydra, manticore. That's a great selection for any large beast - take the manticore's stats and swap out the tail spikes for a lightning bolt, there's your behir. See how easy it is?

The list of slimes is a bit lacking for my tastes, if only because these three are all highly dangerous. It's still easy enough to say "Stats as a 2HD black pudding."

If we remove OD&D and only focus on 1st edition and up, the list gets much longer (that's a post for another day though!). Next time you're writing a module, you can reference the stats for any of these creatures and rest assured that everybody will have them lying around. It doesn't matter which version of the game you play, you're ready to go.


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Spin this while you're writing up that lost temple of the Ancient Ones that you've been putting off: