Monster Design in D&D Next

Balesir · Jun 11, 2012

What I would actually love to see is monsters having separate themes/templates/whatever for non-combat abilities, just as characters do. One aspect I really liked about 4e was that the "monster" entry - the statblock - was the "kit" for handling a combat. If the creature was expected to be relevant in a non-combat context, the statblock was not the tool you needed. Of course, 4e failed to offer any really useful equivalent for ont-of-combat contexts - that was a major hole in the edition that looks like it will now never be fixed - but the basic idea of "a statblock for combat and other tools for other contexts" was, I think, essentially sound.

Of course, some creatures will have racial abilities that are a mix of combat and non-combat schticks - that's OK, but I still would love to see one statblock for combat and one for, say, "exploration" (covering ambushes, surprise, chases and such like), not to mention "social statblocks" for intelligent, social creatures. Not all of these need be divided up in the same way that the "combat" stats are - the drow priestess could be either a "Alluring Vamp" or a "Duplicitous Manipulator" social "statblock", but so could the human rogue, or the Lamia.

Balesir · 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.

Look on the playtest character sheets under "Additional Levels" - it gives 2000 XP to rise to level 2 and 6000 XP to rise to level 3. I guess the comments are based on that progression sample.

Doug McCrae · Jun 12, 2012

The hook horror is a really boring monster.

Hussar · Jun 12, 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, 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

I'd point out that if you do prefer GP=XP, then 125 xp for an orc is probably about right. Bit high, but not hugely. An orc encounter with 10 orcs could easily have some bit of schwag that brings the total xp to around that. It's a bit high, but, not hugely so.

Note that "balanced" does not mean "unharmed" and is a serious misreading of the way encounter design is presented.

And, yes, Doug M, I agree, the hook horror is pretty boring. But, OTOH, it's a low level monster and a very, very easy monster to use. Nothing too complicated, no spells or SLA's. Straightforward ambush monster.

Blackwarder · Jun 12, 2012

Hussar said:
I'd point out that if you do prefer GP=XP, then 125 xp for an orc is probably about right. Bit high, but not hugely. An orc encounter with 10 orcs could easily have some bit of schwag that brings the total xp to around that. It's a bit high, but, not hugely so.

Maybe it's the hour but I fail to understand what you are trying to point here, could you please elaborate?

Warder

GX.Sigma · Jun 12, 2012

Doug McCrae said:
The hook horror is a really boring monster.

Why do you say that? I think it's pretty cool.

Doug McCrae · Jun 12, 2012

GX.Sigma said:
Why do you say that? I think it's pretty cool.

It's got hooks for hands, and that's it.

Hussar · Jun 12, 2012

Blackwarder said:
Maybe it's the hour but I fail to understand what you are trying to point here, could you please elaborate?

Warder

You are concerned that the xp value of the creatures are too high. But, if you use GP=XP, then the total xp for any given encounter is likely pretty close. Sure, you get less xp for a given critter, but the treasure gained from any given encounter will generally balance it out.

So, is there any real difference? If you get 1000 xp does it matter that it's all "defeat" xp or "defeat+GP" xp?

GX.Sigma · Jun 12, 2012

Doug McCrae said:
It's got hooks for hands, and that's it.

Isn't that enough?

JamesonCourage · Jun 12, 2012

Going to echo the concern that the mechanical abilities (impaling characters) may not match the other mechanics well (HP as it is currently described). I hope that when they're designing things, they make all the mechanics mesh well together, and that being skewered by a Large creature's claw (and held in place) meshes well with what HP represents.

To me, this is clearly not meshing well. I want the mechanics to define the fiction for me, and when they contradict each other, it bugs me. As it stands, the Large creature impales a Medium or Small creature, holding it in place unless it makes a Strength check. Hit points represent your ability to not get hit, and you don't necessarily take a physical wound until half hit points. You recover from all your wounds overnight (so the impaling cannot be bad) unless you're below 1 hit point, in which case it takes 2d6 hours (I think) plus overnight rest (so, the impaling still can't be that bad; I could grudgingly justify a flesh wound that's mostly just painful, but on "weak" or small characters, not as easily).

If the PCs aren't supposed to take grievous injuries (aside from death?), make sure that the mechanics reflect that. Don't "impale" a halfling on the claw of a Large creature mechanically if other mechanics contradict that interpretation. In all the HP debates, cries of "it's a corner case" get thrown around a lot; well, here's an instance where the HP/damage mechanics bug me. They're not working in concert, they're fighting each other.

I know it's just an example, and I hope that it's just quick and sloppy design (like armor math in the playtest). We'll see how other monsters work out when they start to focus on them, and show us. As the first real example since the playtest opened, though, I'm not as happy as I could be. As always, play what you like