Monster Design in D&D Next

Wizards of the Coast · Jun 11, 2012

This week Mike tackles monster design and walks you through the conversion of a hook horror.

Read Monster Design in D&D Next on D&D Insider here!

Blackwarder · Jun 11, 2012

Seems interesting, I still think that the XP is too high though.

One thing that jumped up was the talk about encounter design, I thought we were moving away from that to advanture design.

Warder

Philousk · Jun 11, 2012

L&L: Monster Design in D&D Next

As your new servant, why not bring you on a platter the new section of L & L this week? It is about Hook Horror, developing the concept of monsters following the ideas from all editions and presentation design example of a stat block in the rough and use NPCs to D & D Next. Bon appetit!

Raith5 · Jun 11, 2012

I quite like the idea of monsters having a "level". This makes it easy to eyeball the power of monsters and makes it easy to advance the level and the difficulty of the monster.

Stormonu · Jun 11, 2012

The design sounds pretty straight-forward; for the purposes of designing a monster for a combat encounter, should work fine.

It's interesting to note monsters, at this time, aren't given skills. As broad as skills are going to be, I think that's a shame. I'd like to see kobolds with skill at trapmaking, bugbears with stealth, gnolls with tracking, sphinxes with skills in riddles, etc., to at least suggest uses beyond straight-up combat.

MortalPlague · Jun 11, 2012

I'm on board with this. The fact that they're keeping the 4th Edition experience budget fills me with joy; it made encounter-building an easy task. And I like the straightforward, yet flavorful approach to combat abilities. The hook horror has enough going for it there that it can do some cool maneuvers, but it's not going to take an hour to learn how to run it at the table.

Morrus · Jun 11, 2012

Merging this with the existing news thread.

Neonchameleon · Jun 11, 2012

It's a curate's egg. I like that they're keeping the 4e approach to the XP budget. But the monster itself? Urgh. No. It's slightly less flavoursome than the 4e version of the same monster, printed effectively as filler in the worst monster manual ever produced for 4e (the MM1). And this is what they use as a Showcase?

What the designers think is important about the Hook Horror in order:

* You can't hide from it (screwing the rogue)
* It gets two attacks that grab
* The grab does damage
* It gets to bite grabbed foes
* It can climb
* Its level
* Its stats

Which are fundamentally the least important parts.

If you want to make a monster interesting you start with its psychology. How it moves - not just its movement modes. How it hunts. Those are what make a monster. Not having mechanics that are identical to an oversized crab that scuttles up to people, grabs them in its claws, and squeezes. Oh wait - it does impaling rather than crushing damage. There's literally your only mechanical difference from a giant crab with a carapace.

If you want to make your hook horror actually interesting, give it a "No one looks up" ability giving it advantage when attempting to hide on the ceiling, and a "Death from Above" attack; the Hook Horror can drop safely from a ceiling that is 30ft or lower and land on its feet as a free acttion. If it does so it retains any advantage it had for being hidden from its foe for the attacks it makes this turn.

Now. Instead of a crab that climbs instead of swims you have something really scary. A monster that hides on the ceiling, drops into the middle of the enemy, and then rends them into pieces.

(Some ideas stolen from Drek on rpg.net; his version of the Hook Horror dragged the enemies off but I'm going for more of a gore-monster here as that feels more like a hook horror to me.)

nogray · Jun 11, 2012

Neonchameleon said:
It's a curate's egg. I like that they're keeping the 4e approach to the XP budget. But the monster itself? Urgh. No. It's slightly less flavoursome than the 4e version of the same monster, printed effectively as filler in the worst monster manual ever produced for 4e (the MM1). And this is what they use as a Showcase?

Well, if Mearls is reporting honestly, it's not as if much thought went into picking the Hook Horror to "show off."

If you want to make a monster interesting you start with its psychology. How it moves - not just its movement modes. How it hunts. Those are what make a monster. Not having mechanics that are identical to an oversized crab that scuttles up to people, grabs them in its claws, and squeezes. Oh wait - it does impaling rather than crushing damage. There's literally your only mechanical difference from a giant crab with a carapace.

If you want to make your hook horror actually interesting, give it a "No one looks up" ability giving it advantage when attempting to hide on the ceiling, and a "Death from Above" attack; the Hook Horror can drop safely from a ceiling that is 30ft or lower and land on its feet as a free acttion. If it does so it retains any advantage it had for being hidden from its foe for the attacks it makes this turn.

Now. Instead of a crab that climbs instead of swims you have something really scary. A monster that hides on the ceiling, drops into the middle of the enemy, and then rends them into pieces.

I like these bits for this monster, but does this sort of change go against the original critter? (Honestly asking; I can't recall ever actually using or encountering a Hook Horror in my games.) A little research found this bit:

www.dotd.com said:
Hook horrors are natural climbers, as their hooks give them excellent purchase on rock surfaces. They can move at normal speed up vertical surfaces that are not sheer. Their great weight means that they cannot hang from the ceiling like other insects.

I think that is culled from the 2e Monstrous Manual. Still, I think I like some of your (or Drek's) ideas better than the original.

jadrax · Jun 11, 2012

Stormonu said:
The design sounds pretty straight-forward; for the purposes of designing a monster for a combat encounter, should work fine.

It's interesting to note monsters, at this time, aren't given skills. As broad as skills are going to be, I think that's a shame. I'd like to see kobolds with skill at trapmaking, bugbears with stealth, gnolls with tracking, sphinxes with skills in riddles, etc., to at least suggest uses beyond straight-up combat.

Yeah, I would have liked to see this, but Skills are currently in the limbo of modularity.