July 07: Monster Manual V, Maps of Adventure

[Shade]

90% of the undead.

Well, you could say that about just about any monster book, methinks.

99% of the creatures with CRs > 20.

Other than the fact that most of them are over-CR'ed? (No arguments on that matter)

 

[BryonD]

IMHO...

MM1 > MM2 > MM3 > MM4...

i just hope the trend doesn't continue. :\

hmmm

I'd say

MM1 > MM3 > FF > MM2 >> MM4

 

[Shade]

Fully acknowledging that I am probably biased, as a writer who may have worked on a particular book in a series of manuals about monsters coming out in 2007 (*clears throat*), I think doing new monsters instead of conversions for the Monster Manuals is a good thing.

Uh oh...methinks you just confirmed that MMV is going to be like MMIV....or maybe I'm reading too much into this.

When WotC doles out assignments for these monster books, they encourage people to create monsters that create interesting and exciting encounters. As a result, many, if not most, of the new monsters also include unique special qualities that allow them to do things that players haven't seen before. As an unashamed lover of Monster Manual IV, there are a lot of great encounters in that book. While I might disagree with some of the flavor (I mean, really? 30 pages of Spawn of Tiamat?) in my book there is no denying that the MMIV contains some of the most mechanically interesting monsters to ever exist in D&D. Nearly every monster in that book is an exciting encounter in a box, and I think that's a philosophy that carried over to, er, the theoretical book I might have worked on. WotC encourages its designers not to create monsters in a vacuum, but rather to think of them as the anchor of a cool encounter. During actual play, monsters that do new and unique things > monsters that my players have seen before, or so I've found. Some of the most interesting and exciting mechanics in D&D can be found in the special qualities of a lot of monsters, so why wouldn't you want to do more?

While there are some interesting abilities in the book, many are not. MMIV has just as many poor design choices as previous monster books.

For example, the deathdrinker relies fairly heavily on its Quicken Spell-Like Ability (greater teleport) feat. As a 7th-level spell, greater teleport cannot be quickened with this feat.

Now, compare this to the bar-lgura, a monster that's been around since the days of 1E. In the Fiendish Codex version, it's abduction ability allows it to break the rules of greater teleport in an interesting way.

Contrary to the way the book reads, the book is designed to create mechanically interesting encounters first, with flavor as a parallel consideration. At least, that's been my experience. Ask some of the other designers, their mileage may vary.

Perhaps that's why the book falls so flat for me...my design philosophy is to make the rules fit the flavor.

I think (pure speculation here) that one reason WotC is reluctant to do a lot of conversions is that a conversion brings with it some mechanical baggage that might not translate well into 3.5. That, or the monster may be high on flavor, low on interesting mechanics, and as a result doing a faithful translation of the monster would likely result in ho-hum encounters. Also, creating a new monster allows the designer to flex their mechanics muscles and really think outside the box, which I think produces more exciting encounters. I know that if I were given my choice between, "Convert monster X" and "Create a new monster that does X" I'm going to choose the latter each time, because it lets me hand-craft the monster to meet a specific need.

I guess it all comes down to individual design philosophy then. While I enjoy creating new monsters, I find converting monsters to be a greater challenge and often results in more interesting mechanics in the end.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have old monster conversions; far from it. In fact, I think a Big Book O' Monster Conversions (title pending) would be a great idea. However, I would only really be interested in such a book if they could do the same thing as the Monster Manuals of late and use those monsters to create exciting encounters. I think that's doable though. I can understand, though, that when faced with the decision between creating new monsters tailored to 3.5 mechanics and converting old monsters, most designers want to create something new.

Bummer. You guys are missing some real gems. Paizo seems more than willing to pick up the slack, though.

As a fan and a DM (putting all writing aspects aside), I found MMIV to be far superior to MMII and even MMIII in some ways, just because I immediately wanted to plunder it for encounters (and I have). I've never understood the disdain for that book, but hey, if we didn't have different opinions then it would be a boring, boring game.

Well, the disdain comes from several different camps, but the majority is geared towards the inclusion of the classed humanoids, followed by the reams upon reams of dragonspawn. Many don't think it should be called a "monster manual". But you're right...differing opinions keep the game interesting.

So, I hope that gives you some insight into WotC's logic, at least as I see it.

Thanks for sharing, and good luck with your future projects.

 

[RodneyThompson]

Uh oh...methinks you just confirmed that MMV is going to be like MMIV....or maybe I'm reading too much into this.

You are definitely reading too much into it. :-D I don't even know what all is in this theoretical book.

While there are some interesting abilities in the book, many are not. MMIV has just as many poor design choices as previous monster books.

For example, the deathdrinker relies fairly heavily on its Quicken Spell-Like Ability (greater teleport) feat. As a 7th-level spell, greater teleport cannot be quickened with this feat.

Now, compare this to the bar-lgura, a monster that's been around since the days of 1E. In the Fiendish Codex version, it's abduction ability allows it to break the rules of greater teleport in an interesting way.

Sure, it's not perfect. I'll fully agree with you there. I was speaking more in generalities than anything else.

Perhaps that's why the book falls so flat for me...my design philosophy is to make the rules fit the flavor.

I may not have been clear; my intention was to say that mechanics get as much attention as flavor. So, a monster has to be cool in flavor and provide a unique encounter for it to make the cut, or so I understand.

I guess it all comes down to individual design philosophy then. While I enjoy creating new monsters, I find converting monsters to be a greater challenge and often results in more interesting mechanics in the end.

Hey, to each his own.

Bummer. You guys are missing some real gems. Paizo seems more than willing to pick up the slack, though.

From your statement here, it sounds like you think I was speaking on behalf of WotC or all the freelance designers; I was not. Merely offering my personal perspective. I don't work for WotC, I am just an unfrozen caveman freelancer. That being said, I don't want you to think that conversions are forbidden or anything. I've never seen or heard anything to indicate that.

Well, the disdain comes from several different camps, but the majority is geared towards the inclusion of the classed humanoids, followed by the reams upon reams of dragonspawn. Many don't think it should be called a "monster manual". But you're right...differing opinions keep the game interesting.

I can actually understand and agree with that. I know it may seem strange, but there are some people that requested monsters with class levels; the way I understand it, the decision to include them didn't just come from nowhere. Personally, I've got little use for the monsters with class levels, but there may be someone out there that does. I'm not willing to ignore the good stuff in that book because of that, though.

Like I say, I hope no one takes anything I saw as a statement of WotC philosophy, just my perspective as an outsider looking in.

 

[Shade]

You are definitely reading too much into it. :-D I don't even know what all is in this theoretical book.

Whew! Thanks for allaying my fears a bit.

I may not have been clear; my intention was to say that mechanics get as much attention as flavor. So, a monster has to be cool in flavor and provide a unique encounter for it to make the cut, or so I understand.

I can agree with that. The avatars of elemental evil and balhannoth fit the bill nicely on this account. The varag, on the other hand, suffers from "just another goblinoid" syndrome.

From your statement here, it sounds like you think I was speaking on behalf of WotC or all the freelance designers; I was not. Merely offering my personal perspective. I don't work for WotC, I am just an unfrozen caveman freelancer. That being said, I don't want you to think that conversions are forbidden or anything. I've never seen or heard anything to indicate that.

Good to know. Thanks for clarifying.

I can actually understand and agree with that. I know it may seem strange, but there are some people that requested monsters with class levels; the way I understand it, the decision to include them didn't just come from nowhere. Personally, I've got little use for the monsters with class levels, but there may be someone out there that does. I'm not willing to ignore the good stuff in that book because of that, though.

The problem is the signal-to-noise ratio makes it easy to ignore the good stuff. I do think there are some real gems in there (the vitreous drinker, balhannoth, avatars of elemental evil, and a few others) but even discounting the classed humanoids and dragonspawn, many of the remaining creatures either aren't that interesting (varag, yet more spiders, "treants lite"), have mechanical problems (deathdrinker, nashrou), or don't really fit their niche (corruptors of fate) that the book can be largely ignored, IMO.

Like I say, I hope no one takes anything I saw as a statement of WotC philosophy, just my perspective as an outsider looking in.

Noted. I apologize if I got the wrong impression and gave anyone else similar ideas.

 

[Harlekin]

Hey, I liked MM IV, a lot more than I expected to. It's a Monster Manual that a GM can actually use at the gaming table. That hasta be a Good Thing. I hope MMV is more of the same yumminess.

For my money, it was MM II that was the real stinker. Don't get me started.

I concur. I hope they ignore the screams and continue to focus on products such as MM IV that take strain of GMs.

And I would rate MM>MM4 >>FF (that is one of the least used books in my collection)

 

[BryonD]

I concur. I hope they ignore the screams and continue to focus on products such as MM IV that take strain of GMs.

Ignore their posts, but pay close attention to yours...... right?

Seriously, everything posted on a web site should be taken with a pound of salt. But I certainly hope they will take into consideration the nature of the "screams" as some quite reasonable points have been made. IMO

 

[Pants]

Those are hardly 'examples'. Which undead? Which creatures with CR > 20? What was wrong with them?

Let's see....
Abeil - Ooh, BEE people that are sorta ripoffs of Formians! Sweet!

Blood Ape - An ape with the power to.... get bigger. Sounds like something out of 1st edition to me.

Bone Naga - Definitely should have been a template, and it was revised into one.

Clockwork Horrors - These guys come up all the time when poorly designed monsters are discussed, especially that tricksy adamantine horror with a CR of 9 and implosion, disintegrate, and mordenkainen's disjunction at will. At will!

Deathbringer - 30 HD, CR 17, no SR and no DR, plus some lame, boring abilities. Not really sure what kind of concept this was supposed to be.

Desmodu - Giant bat people. Yay.

Devil, Malebranche - A CR 9 with 168 hp, regeneration 8 and the ability to pump out lots of damage.

Effigy - Seems like it would work better as a template. It also seems to have one of those 'artificially inflated CR's' ie it was given a higher CR because another high CR creature was needed.... or something.

Elemental Weirds - CR 15 Elementals with the ability to cast spells as 18th level Sorcerers. Great concept, kinda bad design.

Famine Spirit - Bad Design - Waaaaay too many HD and still not much of a challenge for high-level adventurers. No SR, no DR, and low damage output.

Greater Fihyr - A CR 15 with 88 hp, pitifully low SR and no abilities really worth noting.

Flesh Jelly - A giant CR 19 ooze with no SR or DR!

Grave Crawler - Why is this undead?

Gravorg - A sloth-like creature that can.... reverse gravity.

Hellfire Wyrm - I like this creature a lot, especially the picture but I think all of it's abilities need to be toned up a bit to make it fit its CR 26 slot a little better.

Jahi - Still not sure about what the point of this is supposed to be.

Loxo - Yay for elephant people!

Megalodon and Leviathan - Two fairly similar giant fish.

Megapede - First off.... a 'vermin' with SR and DR?

Orcwort - An immobile, CR 20 tree with no real defenses (AC of 12 and DR 5/-! Wow)

Pheonix - Seems pretty weak to me for a CR 24.

Raggamoffyn - I just don't care for them. At all.

My problem with MMII (apart from the crappy art) was the Death Knight. I don't see how they could call it that when it lacked the death knight's iconic PWK ability. I had to wait for DLcs for the proper version.


glass.

Yeah, the deathknight was pretty dissapointing. Great art, lackluster template.

Well, you could say that about just about any monster book, methinks.

Not really.
MMII was fairly egregious with its use of 'massive amount of HD but low on any worthwhile abilities' undead. Ever since MMIII, undead have finally been done 'right' (editing snafu's aside and grimweirds aside).

Now if only they'd continue to use Unholy Toughness....

Other than the fact that most of them are over-CR'ed? (No arguments on that matter)

Well that IS bad design. Unfortunately, FF also suffers from it too, but MMII was released as a sort of 'hey, now that people have high-level campaigns, here's a Monster book that will give you something to challenge your players with!' It was designed more as a high-level threat book than any other WotC monster book and I think, in that respect, it fails.

Ignore their posts, but pay close attention to yours...... right?

What they need to do is take the best ideas from MMIV (expansion of flavor text) and merge them with the design philosophy of FF and the MMIII. Half conversions, half new creatures, and no more huge amounts of space taken up by thematically-linked monsters (dragonspawn anyone?).

Some people will still complain about the new format ('All this flavor text sucks! Give me more monsters, rargh!'), but I see the format change as WotC listening to people who have been saying for years that more flavor is good. They're really damned if they do and damned if they don't.

 

[Harlekin]

Ignore their posts, but pay close attention to yours...... right?

Seriously, everything posted on a web site should be taken with a pound of salt. But I certainly hope they will take into consideration the nature of the "screams" as some quite reasonable points have been made. IMO

Absolutely.

Seriously, I feel that recent WOTC publications were designed with the goal to facilitate GMing as much as possible, and the MMIV showed that they are willing to deviate from the standard format in order to do so. I personally think that making DMing as easy as possible is vital for the growth of D&D and therefore I concider the MMIV a step in the right direction.

So as far as i am concerned WOTC should ignore all of the internet and just stick with their game plan. Gamers tend to be a very conservative bunch.

 

[BryonD]

Well, if you want to discuss in detail start another thread and I'll join in.
But to breifly summarize, I don't agree that MMIV really accomplished this goal. If you give me a drow ninja statted at levels 2, 4, 8, 12, and 16 then that would be a useful tool. But saying "drow ninja? Here: level 4, one size fits all" is nearly useless.
It was like they had a good idea and implemented it 15% of the way.

So far I haven't heard anyone who liked MMIV say they would DISLIKE a book with a wider range of class levels. I have heard plenty of people say they didn't buy MMIV because they disliked the "wasted space". To my mind the people who LIKE stated race/class examples should be in favor of doing things that attract as many sales as possible so that WotC would be finanically motivated to provide more. A good Rogues Gallery book could provide a lot MORE GM support AND avoid alienating people who want actual monsters in their monster manual at the same time. I have a hard time seeing why people are opposed to this win-win option.