Monster Vault impressions

[LostSoul]

I haven't read over the adventure, but from a quick look at the dungeon map it seems pretty good - it's not a straight line, there are many paths to choose from.

What do people think of the fluff? The Yuan-Ti entry was interesting, and the Vampire entry seems to contain some "rules" in the fluff text.

 

[the Jester]

Okay, I bought the Monster Vault today and was looking it over as I was getting ready for bed.... and I found something that flat-out beat my Will defense and charmed me right good.

Pg. 49, flavor text under the Balor entry: "Sages once believed that only six balors exited in the whole of the Abyss. If only that were true." - Rhogar, paladin of Bahamut

1e Monster Manual, pg. 19, under the Demon, Type VI entry: Each type VI demon has its own name. (Balor is a type VI demon of the largest size.)

1e Dungeon Master's Guide, pg. 198, Appendix E: Alphabetical Monster Listing: Demon, Type VI (Alzoll, Balor, Errtu, Ndulu, Ter-soth, Wendonai)

I love it when they give a nod to old lore like that. I know it doesn't really add anything to most peoples' games- it's a total nostalgia appeal- but man, it worked on me.

 

[OchreJelly]

What, WHAT?? WotC replacing your MMI even as they say they aren't! I can't believe it!

I will resist posting pictures of zuchinis, or yet more ranting on wotc denying doing what it has obviously been doing. Obvious for months now.

I am glad you like it. Will probably get it soon, to replace my sad sad MMI.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have updates. I guess I should have called it 'pleasantly surprised' but I was still sorta lead to believe it was something else. When I look at brute damage and attack rolls in MM1 I want to cry, so this is good overall.

I am curious as to how they'll handle this in the compendium. In the past their updates were usually to spin off a new type of a given monster i.e.: "In MM1 you had an orc warrior. Now we have an orc pie-holder who fits better with teh maths. You can use him, but you can also still use the old suckier version too."

I hope they'll just replace same-name creatures from MM1 and move on, although some of these monsters have had pretty hefty face-lifts that go beyond just the numbers.

 

[UnknownAtThisTime]

. It's a small village that has tons of purposes... but who needs two? Not me. .

I didn't have a similar map, so it was clearly more valuable to me. But, as to "who needs two?", well I sometimes like these large scale epic battles with lots of space and movement. Two similar maps make it nice.

The other side looks like a sort of lame dungeon built from dungeon tiles. Is this correct? Meh, I can just use Dungeon Tiles and have the bonus of not letting the players see the full Dungeon.

This is where we will partially disagree. It is a sort of "lame" dungeon based on artwork found entirely (as far as I can tell) from dungeon tiles. But, it is no lamer than your typical dungeon, and I actually prefer a set map to tiles, all else being equal. While it is true that you can not "lay track" as you go, it is quicker and easier to lay down a map, and there are easy methods to hiding the bits that are yet unseen. Furthermore, I like that this map integrates with my new "The Dungeon" tiles set. I can reuse parts of it in other games with my tiles.

XPed you for good stuff ITT.

 

[TerraDave]

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have updates. I guess I should have called it 'pleasantly surprised' but I was still sorta lead to believe it was something else. When I look at brute damage and attack rolls in MM1 I want to cry, so this is good overall.

You were lead to believe...as part of WotCs "you can have this cake, then you can eat this cake, then you can have this cake" approach to marketing essentials.

They have actually already updated some stuff through other products and then the compendium, (I used the corrected enigma of vecna recently) I guess/hope that will continue.

 

[TerraDave]

.

What do people think of the fluff? The Yuan-Ti entry was interesting, and the Vampire entry seems to contain some "rules" in the fluff text.

The preview fluff, and the stuff Jester noted, is definatly better then MM08.

But how could it not be?

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

yeah you can tell there was some overcompensation where the hydra is concerned. He's a very interesting monster now.

Although I'm a little unclear on something: I understand the intent of giving solos like this free actions to get around stuns, but don't stuns themselves still deny all actions? Isn't a free action still an action or has something been erata'ed?

4e is an 'exception based' design.

The ability of the Hydra to get free actions when stunned over-rules the general rule that stunned creatures get no actions.

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Okay, I bought the Monster Vault today and was looking it over as I was getting ready for bed.... and I found something that flat-out beat my Will defense and charmed me right good.

Pg. 49, flavor text under the Balor entry: "Sages once believed that only six balors exited in the whole of the Abyss. If only that were true." - Rhogar, paladin of Bahamut

1e Monster Manual, pg. 19, under the Demon, Type VI entry: Each type VI demon has its own name. (Balor is a type VI demon of the largest size.)

1e Dungeon Master's Guide, pg. 198, Appendix E: Alphabetical Monster Listing: Demon, Type VI (Alzoll, Balor, Errtu, Ndulu, Ter-soth, Wendonai)

I love it when they give a nod to old lore like that. I know it doesn't really add anything to most peoples' games- it's a total nostalgia appeal- but man, it worked on me.

Actually, I love all the quotes in the book. Really adds to the flavour.

I haven't really read the book in detail yet (still working through the Dark Sun CC), but I really like what I've read so far.

 

[OchreJelly]

I've had some time take a deeper dive into the book. I figured it would be fun to compare what I felt were some more problematic monsters in the past. Let's start with wraiths:

Wraiths. I have posted in the past at how much I loath this monster, which is a shame because it's one of my favorite monsters conceptually. The problems lie in the fact that most variants regenerate, are insubstantial, and often have weaken attacks. While evocative on paper, this has lead to some real boring slog-fests in my campaign. I'm looking at a certain encounter that had 4 sword wraiths in a published adventure.

Now lets look at the new wraiths. All of them share this trait:
Insubstantial: The wraith takes half damage from all attacks except force damage. Whenever the wraith takes radiant damage, it loses this trait until the start of its next turn.

At first I did a double-take, and quickly looked up "insubstantial" in the new glossary. Ok, so only wraiths appear to have this "force damage" rider on their insub entry. Interesting. I like seeing alternative ways to bypass their defenses, even if it just means the wizard will plunk away with MM. Also, wow! Turning this horrifying shade into a partially real fleshy husk for a turn with radiant damage is pretty flavorful.

Shadowglide has also been updated. Rather than a basic shift 6, it's now a triggered ability. When it takes damage, it becomes invisible as a free action and teleports 6 squares. Overall this seems a nice update a feels more lurker -- the old ability felt more skirmisher.

Finally a note on radiant vulnerability. It seems that many of the undead have had radiant vulnerability removed. Most of them now have a trait like the one above that does something interesting (or fiddly) when they take radiant damage. This is not an insignificant change. I'm ok with bringing radiant in line with other damage types, while still retaining its undead-blaster status.

Overall, it seems like a good fix to a problematic monster. Unfortunately the variants only go up to level 8. That means if you truly want to tinker with the higher-level versions, you'll probably want to at least retrofit the "racial" trait. This also speaks to a larger problem. Earlier I mentioned how I was pleasantly surprised to have many MM1 updates, but now I sort of wish that if they updated something, that they would update all variants for clarity's sake. It's a case of go big or go home. Now when I'm crafting encounters I need to be cognizant of whether the creature was an essentials update in MM1, or if it was one of the missed variants. At least I have reference material, but I really don't want to spend all my prep time dealing with these issues.

 

[Aegeri]

They have been scaling back on resistances/vulnerabilities/immunities for a while now. Instead trying to make powers interact with monsters in interesting ways. Personally I very much approve of this direction.