Monster Design in D&D Next

Boarstorm · Jun 11, 2012

Morrus said:
I'm playing in the playtest rather than running it, so I haven't looked at the DM stuff. Does it tell you when to level up?

The Pregens have a note about when to level up on their sheets.

TerraDave · Jun 11, 2012

Philousk said:
... if the hook horror impaled a high level character that would be stark naked?...

Oh, I thought about that. (though maybe I shouldn't have).

Imagine what you will.

I'm A Banana · Jun 11, 2012

I gotta confess, I am smitten by the Hook Horror in general.

I don't even know why. Something about a big beetle with hook-hands who climbs around and jumps down onto people is kind of amazing in my head.

This design hits all the thigh notes from the Hook Horror. Looking at how it was presented before and deriving from that the basic mechanics is the smart way to do it.

If there's something missing, IMO, it's the element of surprise. Hook horrors are hunters (heh), they spring unseen, catch their prey by surprise, and drag them away. An encounter with a hook horror should have the psychological arc of a slasher horror scene: the party slowly becomes aware that they are being followed by something in the darkness, but don't catch a glimpse of it until it springs from the shadows at the smallest and weakest looking party member, grabbing them and dragging them off to the larder in the darkness, leaving only a slick trail of blood and the distant screams of the hapless adventurer.

This might just be advocating for better surprise mechanics in general, but that's part and parcel of the combat-as-war mentality, I guess. Surprise SHOULD play a crucial role in combat, especially in combat against a creature that is hunting you. That's why the HH's echolocation is important: it can detect you, without you detecting it.

But anyway, this Hook Horror hits most of the high notes of my beloved critter nicely enough that I'm confident they're on the right path of the design.

MatthewJHanson · Jun 11, 2012

Gilladian said:
In my reading of this, I am as confused as always with monster multi-attacks. When he hits, he does normal to hit damage, and the foe is impaled. Does the impale damage happen in the same round? the next round? Every round thereafter? The bite is automatic... does it happen the same round as the hit? The next round? Does the poor victim take BOTH impale and bite damage every round? Huh??

My interpretation based on what little we know would be this:

Since "Twist and bite" is listed as a "Special Action" it takes the creatures action for the turn, so it would not happen automatically. Since it seems to be all part of the same action I think the PC takes both kinds of damage each round. The only reasons I can think of to separate the auto damage is that if you have something like resist all or DR, it would apply against both damage sources.

KidSnide · Jun 11, 2012

Gilladian said:
In my reading of this, I am as confused as always with monster multi-attacks. When he hits, he does normal to hit damage, and the foe is impaled. Does the impale damage happen in the same round? the next round? Every round thereafter? The bite is automatic... does it happen the same round as the hit? The next round? Does the poor victim take BOTH impale and bite damage every round? Huh??

My read is that, on a hit from a hook, the target takes 1d10+4 damage and is impaled (i.e. an "impaled" condition is imposed). The "Impaled" rules say how you a character can un-impale himself.

"Twist and Bite" is listed as a "Special Action", so I assume that it takes an action for the hook horror to perform it. Essentially, if it gets around to a hook horror's turn and the horror still has one (or two!) impaled victims, the horror can do standard piercing damage (1d10+4) for free on each impaled victim (that's the "twist" I take it) and also do 2d6+4 bite damage on one impaled victim (that's the "bite").

Overall, this seems like a reasonable rules structure for a monster where the hit escalates the danger. It would also be a good idea if the hook horrors commonly tried dragging their hooked victims away.

-KS

Edit: Leaving this response in edit mode without hitting post for two hours is just asking to be ninja-ed.

Blackwarder · Jun 11, 2012

Morrus said:
Interesting position to take. Which level advancement chart are you basing that on?

Well, for my part, I'm basing it on 2e. A 2e Orc was worth 15 xp, while the play test Orc is worth 125 xp, that smells a lot like the 10 encounters per level way of thinking and I dislike it.

That being said I'm also a proponent of xp for gold so I might be a bit biased when I comes to monsters xp, I just don't want my players to see wandering monsters as a surprise xp present, when they spot a band of trolls crashing through the forest they should hide, not run headlong into a fight expecting to come out of it unharmed because the DMG talks about building "balanced" encounters.

I want to nip those game expectations in the bud, monsters are there to be a challenge, not a reward.

Warder

Morrus · Jun 11, 2012

Blackwarder said:
Well, for my part, I'm basing it on 2e. A 2e Orc was worth 15 xp, while the play test Orc is worth 125 xp,

But you can't possibly compare them without the matching advancement table. What if in 5E level 2 comes at 50,000 XP? In that case, you'd say the XP awards were too low.

the Jester · Jun 11, 2012

EDIT: Nevermind the specifics.

Blackwarder · Jun 11, 2012

Morrus said:
But you can't possibly compare them without the matching advancement table. What if in 5E level 2 comes at 50,000 XP? In that case, you'd say the XP awards were too low.

The pregen characters need 2000 xp to 2nd level, 2e characters needed between 1250 xp (thief) to 2500 xp (wizard) to 2nd level.

Now I admit that the pregens need 6000 xp to get to 3rd level and that's a lot compared to 2e but I still think that without being able to see the rest of the advancement table (assuming that it's part of an advancement table and not just random numbers thrown down just for the playtest) the monsters xp is high.

Warder

Li Shenron · 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.

It's been mentioned already that currently monsters are far from finished, but I agree with your sentiment.

Personally I've always liked richly detailed monsters, with abilities that extend beyond combat. I remember I even defended a long time ago the presence of Read Magic at will in the 3.0 Balor's description

Out-of-combat stats and abilities aren't generally useful to monsters, with the important exception of stealth and perception, and maybe sense motive (which are still used for the non-combat version or phase of an encounter). But they really help defining the nature, role in the world, and "feel" of a monster IMHO! Plus, they are needed by those groups which allow monsters as PC or at least as mercenaries/allies NPC.

It's totally understandable that the average group would find such non-combat abilities a waste of paper... but still I'd really like to have them for the purposes above. The best thing that can happen, is that they design an excellent monster description format where all the non-combat stuff is nicely placed so that it doesn't disturb those who don't want to bother with it.