creature_template

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The `creature_template` table

This table contains the description of creatures. Each spawned creature is an instance of a template present in this table, this means every creature MUST be defined in this table.

Structure

Description of the fields

Creature's unique id.

Anomalus is a 5 man boss located in The Nexus. You can fight him on two types of difficulties (normal dungeon and heroic dungeon). Depending on the type of difficulty, bosses have different statistics like health and damage. In case of Anomalus information from entry 26763 is used when you fight him at normal difficulty and entry 30529 is used when you fight him at heroic difficulty.

Sindragosa, a raid boss encounter located in the Icecrown Citadel can be fought on 4 different difficulties due to the introduction of heroic raid modes in Patch 3.2 (10man normal/heroic, 25man normal/heroic). Depending on the type of difficulty, she must have different statistics. So if you see her in 10man normal raid she will use information from entry 36853, in a 25man normal raid entry 38265 will be used and so on. This is in stark contrast to raid bosses such as Patchwerk and XT-002 Deconstructor, located in Naxxramas and Ulduar respectively, who only have two different raid modes (10-man 'normal'/25-man 'normal'). Hardmodes within the Ulduar raid do not have their own template, due to game mechanics engaging the harder difficulty during the encounter itself.

Here is a special case with the Alterac Valley battleground. There are 4 level brackets where the NPCs are made easier or harder, depending on your level bracket (Added in WoW patch 3.2.2 when level 80 characters received their own bracket for this battleground and all brackets below level 80 received their own level of difficulty). The same concept applies to the Isle of Conquest battleground, with only two brackets.

If you look at the database you will notice a very characteristic pattern which is summarized in table below:

If this is a kill credit template – one that is a dummy template that is used when more than one creature can count as a kill in a quest, then this is a link to the first entry of the creature that could be killed to give quest credit.

If this is a kill credit template – one that is a dummy template that is used when more than one creature can count as a kill in a quest, then this is a link to the second entry of the creature that could be killed to give quest credit. If more than two creatures can be killed and count toward a single objective, an smart or C++ script will be required.

A random graphical model that the client applies on this creature. Of course if you specify only one modelid and the rest will be equal to 0, model you have set won't be chosen randomly. This is a creature_model_info.modelid

Base name of the creature.

The subname of the creature that appears in <> below the creature's name.

Used to tell the player what kind of NPC this creature is.

Attention! This is not required to make the NPC function unless you are using scripts or gossip options. Names are case sensitive, If in doubt use an example above.

The gossip ID of this creature. This field is obtained from sniff (update fields). If you can not sniff this value, and need to make one up, it must be > 50000. This field is the link to gossip_menu.MenuID.

The minimum level of the creature if the creature has a level range.

The maximum level of the creature if the creature has a level range. When added to world, a level in chosen in the specified level range.

The expansion table the creatures health value is taken from. Values are from 0 to 2. See creature_classlevelstats.

The faction of the creature. See FactionTemplate. Just because more than one faction has the same name, the inter-faction relationships can be different.

Note: This field also controls the creature family assistance mechanic. Only creatures with the same faction will assist each other.

A bitmask that represents what NPC flags the creature has. Each bit controls a different flag and to combine flags, you can add each flag that you want, in effect activating the respective bits.

So if you want a NPC that is a quest giver(2), a vendor(128) and can repair(4096) you just add specific flags together: 2+128+4096=4226

Controls how fast the creature can walk. For vehicles: increases fly speed.

Controls how fast the creature can run. For vehicles: increases ground movement speed.

Controls how fast the creature can swim.

Controls how fast the creature can fly.

Controls the range at which creatures detect and see players.

If non-zero, this field defines the size of how the model of the creature appears ingame. If zero, it will use default model size taken from the DBC.

The rank of the creature:

Note 1: An NPC's rank is mostly visual (which also requires your Cache to be cleared to see changes). Changing this value will not change its health, damage, or loot. However, it will change the respawn time of the creature.

Note 2: Respawn times can be modified in two other places: Creature.spawntimesecs (only for that single GUID of the creature) and in the worldserver.conf file under the “Corpse.Decay” settings (for ALL creatures of the same rank). The default `spawntimesecs` for all spawned creatures is 300 seconds (5 minutes). For example, using the “.npc add” command to spawn a “Normal” NPC will give it a default respawn time of 6 minutes (spawntimesecs + Corpse.Decay time). Also, the creature must decay first before it can respawn. For this reason, the Corpse Decay Time of the creature is also it's minimum respawn time, since setting the creature's Creature.spawntimesecs = 0 will remove the Default Respawn Time. In the example above, setting our Normal NPC's spawntimesecs = 0 will mean the creature's respawn time decreases from 6 minutes to 60 seconds.

Note 3: If you want the creature to show a skull or “??” in the portrait (often with Bosses), set the type_flags to 4.

Creature's melee damage school.

This is the base time that determines how long a creature must wait between melee attacks. This time is in milliseconds.

This is the base time that determines how long a creature must wait between ranged attacks. This time is in milliseconds.

Value to customize the creature's damage output. See DamageModifier.

Non-custom creatures should always leave this at 1.

Value to customize the creature's damage output. See DamageModifier.

Non-custom creatures should always leave this at 1.

This is the creature's class, and it dictates levels of health and mana. Also note that health and mana will change according to exp, HealthModifier, and ManaModifier. Not setting this value will report a minor warning in the “DB_Errors.log”.

Allows the manual application of unit flags to creatures. Again this is a bitmask field and to apply more than one flag, just add the different numbers. Some possible flags are:

Allows additional application of unit flags to creatures. Again, this is a bitmask field and to apply more than one flag, just add the different numbers. Some possible flags are:

Flags that control visual appearance of the creature.

A few known flags and their use are:

The family this creature belongs to.

If the NPC is a trainer (has the trainer flag), then this field controls what kind of trainer it is. Both this field and the related field must be filled in for a trainer to work correctly.

If the NPC is a trainer that teaches professions (trainer_type = 2), then the player must already know the spell ID specified here to be able to talk to this NPC.

If the NPC is a class trainer or a pet trainer (trainer_type = 0 or 3), then the player's class must be the same as the value specified here to talk to this trainer. For pet trainers, this value must be 3 (hunter). See characters.class

If the NPC is a mount trainer (trainer_type = 1), then the player's race must be the same as the value specified here to talk to this trainer. See characters.race

The type of the creature.

This field can control whether a mob is minable or herbable or lootable by engineer. If it is either of those three, then the loot given when it is skinned/mined will be stored in the skinning_loot_template table. It also controls, whether this mob can be tamed by a hunter. Other fields have no special meaning on the serverside. The entire field will be send to the client in SMSG_CREATURE_QUERY_RESPONSE

The ID of the loot template ID that this creature should use to generate loots. See creature_loot_template.entry

The ID of the pickpocketing loot template that this creature should use to generate pickpocketing loots. See pickpocketing_loot_template.entry

The ID of the skinning loot template that this creature should use to generate skinning loots. See skinning_loot_template.entry

ID, found in CreatureSpellData.dbc, that displays what spells the pet has in the client.

Entry of vehicle if creature is/has a vehicle entry. This field determines how the player appears on the vehicle, how the vehicle moves, and whether or not the vehicle action bar is shown. For example, a vehicleID of 292 will make the player invisible, prevent the vehicle from strafing left/right (but will allow forwards/backwards), and will show the vehicle action bar spells (which are defined in spell1-8). An npc_spellclick_spells entry must be made for this creature entry in order for this to work.

Minimum money that the creature drops when killed, in copper.

Maximum money that the creature drops when killed, in copper.

This field is overridden by ScriptName field if both are set.

The creature's default movement type.

Distance above the ground that the creature will hover if it has MOVEMENTFLAG_DISABLE_GRAVITY enabled. Value taken from sniffs.

Used to modify the base Level/Class health of a creature. This field comes from WDB.

Used to modify the base Level/Class mana of a creature. This field comes from WDB.

Used to modify the base Level/Class armor of a creature.

Used to modify the Minimum/Maximum damage of a creature.

The formulas to calculate the damage output are:

MINDAMAGE = ¹⁾ MAXDAMAGE = ²⁾

damage_base comes from the creature_classlevelstats table and takes its value either from damage_base, damage_exp1 or damage_exp2 according to the creature's value in exp (0 = base_damage, 1 = damage_exp1, 2 = damage_exp2).

BaseAttackTime is either BaseAttackTime or RangeAttackTime depending on the type of attack.

attackpower is either attackpower or rangedattackpower depending on the type of attack.

BaseVariance is either BaseVariance or RangeVariance depending on the type of attack.

TODO!

A flag with two possible values: '1' or '0' indicating whether the creature is a racial leader or not. Killing racial leaders grants 100 honor.

We have no idea what this field does. It is passed directly to the client.

Boolean '1' or '0' controlling whether the creature should regenerate it's health or not.

This makes the creature immune to specific spell natures. See Spell.dbc at row effect_X_mechanic_id.

Uses references from SpellMechanic.dbc.

To combine immunities just add values. Immune to everything corresponds to the value 2147483647 (0x3FFF FFFF).

This makes the creature immune to specific spell schools.

To combine immunities just add values. Immune to everything corresponds to the value 127.

These flags control certain creature specific attributes. Flags can be added together to apply more than one.

Example: 32+64=96

The name of the script that this creature uses, if any. This ties a script from a scripting engine to this creature.

This field was used to determine whether a template has been verified from WDB files.

If value is 0 then it has not been parsed yet.

If value is above 0 then it has been parsed with WDB files from that specific client build.

If value is -1 then it is just a place holder until proper data are found on WDBs.

If value is -Client Build then it was parsed with WDB files from that specific client build and manually edited later for some special necessity.