Lots of statistics from the Monster Manual

Infiniti2000 said:

Not "he". Aria is a girl's name.

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Could've sworn Aria was a song's name if anything. Or a Castlevania's name. But eh, whatever.

Anyone else disappointed by the prevalence of extraordinary senses? It's an improvement, but not as much of one as I'd have hoped. Houseruled easily enough though.

Merlin the Tuna said:

Anyone else disappointed by the prevalence of extraordinary senses? It's an improvement, but not as much of one as I'd have hoped. Houseruled easily enough though.

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That's funny, my reaction was quite the opposite...

Only a little more than 10% have blindsight, tremorsense, or truesight. Even in the epic tier it's not much more than 15%. And 4.0 truesight doesn't imply darkvision, can't see into the ethereal plane, and can't see through polymorph effects, and is usually a far shorter range (3.5 was 120 feet or 24 squares, whereas in 4.0 a bit of skimming suggests that 6 squares is most common.) That's not bad; in the vast majority of cases invisibility (or blur) will work as advertised. Sure, low-light vision and darkvision are still very common... but I don't see that as quite as large a problem.

I actually miss a special sense... scent; which was fun ;-).

Thanks to the OP.

As to Aria; now people that grok math can crunch the numbers for me, and I can focus more on my story and campaign. Their number crunching helps me understand the underlying math of the system, its logic, its common sense as it were. That way when I need to make that "common sense" rule on the fly I grok the game well enough to make good rulings. If math isn't your thing, that's ok, plenty of us like math though.

To those who are interested, how does this analysis stack up with the table on page 184?

Any serious discrepancies?

(It looked like a good match to me, but...)

I'm sad to see that (EDIT: some) people don't understand the place of numbers in game design. I'm a game designer by trade, and almost all of my work revolves around numbers. Sure, there's plenty of creative writing to it, and that's one of the most fun and engaging parts - but it's not the most important by any stretch. A game that has a poor underlying math framework will, no matter how engaging its story, only be remembered for how bad a game it was. At best, it will be remembered as a great story that played horribly. Similarly, a game with no underlying math is no game at all. It might be an interactive story, but it's not a game.

Is that "Level +14" for Defenses, or is it 1/2 Level +14?

I'm particularly intrigued by the distribution of resistance, immunity and vulnerability. I'm hoping future monster manuals will restore some balance in this area, to make fire-breathing or poison-spitting reasonable choices for dragonborn. Meanwhile, I may assign some lightning, acid or cold resistances to monsters that didn't have them before. (The only Dragonborn at my table is also the only child player, and of course he chose fire; it's the most impressive looking. I'll need to choose just enough resistant and vulnerable foes for it to matter).


It also confirms my gut reaction that changing evil clerics and paladins from radiant to necrotic damage would be a bad idea.

Aria Silverhands said:

I've seen one group dissolve because players stopped showing up. Their reason was that the game just wasn't fun anymore with a certain player in the group and the dm was too timid to kick them out. That player was a min/maxxing power gamer to the core. That's one group too many, imo.

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Ahhh, now we are getting somewhere.

Tell me about your relationship with your parents...

Aria Silverhands said:

RPG's are role playing games, not roll playing adventure games.

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Oh, I have to jump all over this.


RPGs are first and foremost games. They are meant to have fun with.

The important thing about RPGs is NOT the R and never has been. Who taught you that? It's the PG. Playing Games.


Sure, DND is an RPG game where people roleplay their characters. But, the degree to which they roleplay and how they do that is totally totally totally irrelevant as long as the players are having fun.

The degree to to which players follow the rules is also totally totally totally irrelevant.

Strictly following the rules in a mega-dungeon with no verbal interaction with the NPCs at all is ok in an RPG as long as the players are having fun.

LARP DND with heavy roleplaying and following virtually no rules at all is ok in an RPG as long as the players are having fun.

The degree to to which players min max their PCs is also totally totally totally irrelevant in an RPG as long as the players are having fun.

When it comes to RPGs, it's all good.


Roleplaying vs. Power Gamer arguments, however, are total white noise nonsense.


If people are having fun, the RPG is doing it's job.

If the people are merely roleplaying for the sake of roleplaying, the RPG is probably not doing it's job.


But, fun is the primary goal for most people (many hard core roleplayers included) when playing an RPG. Roleplaying is not the primary goal for most people when playing an RPG. Roleplaying is often a means to an end, it is typically not the end itself. And, there are many many other means to an end in RPGs, including min maxing PCs for some people.

Back on topic. OP, is there anyway to see what type of damage these monsters are doing? Ex. 30% of mobs do fire damage or something like that. That way PC can make sure they go after those kinds of resistances. It would at least be interesting to see. Let me know if it is viable.

Brillant work! Much thanks!

WildWalker