Mouseferatu said:
Even a 20th-level PC can't fire off 10 different offensive spells in a single round. (Or even three, if you only want to count a singe "arc" of fire.) Without being completely reconceptualized, beholders simply can't have the same CR and HD.
Take a look at what they're doing to Demons and Devils and the poor Erinyes.
Reconceptualizing monsters isn't a problem. That's part of what a new edition is for, after all. A Beholder pretty much needs eye rays, but firing off 10 a round? Even 3? Does it really need that?
And if it does get that, if it really does need all those actions, is it really strange to think of a PC who can do more than one thing at a time like that? We're already hearing about Leaders who heal just because they exist. What's the problem with a 15th level character spurting out a Sleep attack of some sort just because they're around, in that context?
pemerton said:
It is very clear that monster stats in 4E will read the same as PC stats, in that they will consist of numbers allocated to the same categories, and having the same meaning within those categories. The difference will be in the way those numbers are worked out (and I don’t mean "worked out in the gameworld" – which comes from magic, which from natural armour etc; I mean "worked out at the metagame level", by application of the game rules): PCs will be built level-by-level, following rules for feat and talent selection and magic item acquisition, while monsters will be built according to a system of allocating a given set of numbers to fill a particular role at a particular challenge level.
Therefore, there will be no reason at all why the Mind Flayer can’t joint the party. But the way its stats have been built will mean that there will be no completely straightforward way of comparing it to a PC build to work out what level of PC it is.
Sure, but if I get different numbers, or if a creature who was once a monster becomes an ally and suddenly changes stats, that kicks my realism in the groin and takes it's wallet. If I want to play a drow, I want to
play a drow, not some sort of pseudo-drow who almost looks kind of like the other drow in the world if you squint.
There are at least two questions here. First, should the system tell you what effect a given Rope Use bonus has on challenge level? Yes it should, and it is clear that the aim of the 4e designers is to produce a system that gives these answers (admittedly they seem to be focusing most on combat challenges, but they have also talked about social challenges, and I’m sure the rules will say something about the sorts of “survival” challenges that might bring Rope Use into play).
I can tell how well a centaur can tie ropes right now in 3e, and, for some
crazy reason, I don't really think the designers really took that into account when assigning the creature CR. The reason? Becaues it doesn't really affect the CHALLENGE of the creature. It's breadth without deapth -- gives it more stuff to do without making it really any more potent in the combat.
A centaur that can tie a slipknot really doesn't affect your basic centaur combat in the slightest, but it means that if I use the centaur as a setting element rather than as XP gristle, I have a starting point for saying, for instance, if a centaur hangman makes sense, or if the centaurs might have boy scouts with knot-tying merit badges.
Use Rope is kind of an absurd example, and I'm fairly confident we won't even SEE Use Rope in the next edition, but think of the Survival skill. Most of the time, it doesn't matter how a monster gets food, but if the PC's are lost in the forest and befriend an alien creature, it can be useful to know if said creature can feed themselves as well as the PC's.
Second, will the centaur stats in the Monster Manual enable you to derive a rope use bonus? Well, the centaur will have a Dex bonus and skill bonuses, so you’ll be able to look and see. But if the centaur is being presented as filling the role of brute or archer (as seems likely), then the absence of any Rope Use skill can easily be seen as metagame information economy – there is no need to include a Rope Use skill bonus to enable the centaur to play either of those roles – and would not, as far as I can see, preclude the GM from attributing such a bonus to the centaur should the issue come up and need to be resolved.
But that's the thing: "attributing such a bonus" = "Make Stuff Up." Make Stuff Up sucks. There's no solid reason, as far as I can see, why I should have to do that, when the centaur can be easily designed to fill the role of "brute" or "archer" in combat, as well as the role of "protector of untouched wilderness" in the world, and the role of "potential ally for the party druid" for the PC's (for instance).
What considerations would guide the GM in making that decision? The same ones, presumably, as would guide the GM in deciding whether the NPC wizard should have access to 2nd or 3rd level spells – in particular, How competent do I want to make this centaur as an antagonist for my players to have to deal with?
Centaurs are more than just antagonists. They're spirits of hedonism. They're horrible underworld terrors. They're evocative of a Mediterranean atmosphere, and conjure images of Hercules and Poseidon. They're creatures of the sea, they're trainers of heroes. They're sylvan defenders of the forest. They're monstrous savage brutes from distant lands.
And that's just the standard roles that they *should* be designed to fill.
If what you want is a system that models the in-game growth of a creature, so you can look at a centaur’s stats, from them read off its degree of in-game experience, and therefore work out how many skill points it has free to assign to Rope Use, 4e will not give you what you want. It is becoming very clear that the only game element whose stats will be derived in this fashion is the PC. For NPCs and monsters, it is the GM who decides (not the rules) how experienced or capable they are, and then (following the challenge-building guidelines) assigns stats that are appropriate.
I don't like just deciding how something is. I like arriving at my conclusions through a logical process of extrapolation (some of that is my improv-heavy DM style speaking, where logic leaps along a path, rather than springing fully formed to my mind unbidden).
But if I can't take a centaur and not only say how well it peppers PC's with arrows, but also how well it will serve as a tutor for the party's Barbarian, then the 4e team, for all it's efforts, is not designing the monster for it's use. They're designing it for combat and combat alone -- a shallow design goal that does not speak to how monsters are truly used in at least MY campaign.
