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Monster Design in D&D Next
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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5942388" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>What I would actually love to see is monsters having <em>separate</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 5942388, member: 27160"] What I would actually love to see is monsters having [I]separate[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
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