Monsters - older edition more challenging?

[jgsugden]

Although I never encountered one, I remember hearing people talk about the "Batman Wizard" of 3.0, with a utility haversack full of countless scrolls for every unusual situation. I think that the ability to carry scrolls was considered a core power of the wizard class, for some reason.

There was a lot of houseruling in 3E era, so I do not recall all the details from the official rules, but I would think this would be cost prohibitive.
It certain is in 5E. Having a huge number of scrolls in reserve for that once in a career need of Fool's Gold... kind of hard to justify under every system I can remember.

 

[Seramus]

I do think 5E suffers from lack of variety in their monsters. Most of them are bags of HP + one feature (usually Grapple, Stealth, or at higher levels Teleport Away With One Character).

So I just steal abilities from prior editions, especially auras from 4E.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I do think 5E suffers from lack of variety in their monsters. Most of them are bags of HP + one feature (usually Grapple, Stealth, or at higher levels Teleport Away With One Character).

So I just steal abilities from prior editions, especially auras from 4E.

5e is pretty heavy stocked in the "brute" type monsters with a few casters/artillery and leader types. It could definitely use more soldiers. Still, if they made King Lurker, the Lurkiest Lurker type Monster of All (with explicit instructions, in bold 50 point font, that King Lurker was supposed to sneak up on the PC's), half (3/4ths really) of the people who complain about monsters on the forums would complain because King Lurker couldn't fight the PC's out in the open, so the issue is really half WotC needing to expand the monsters and half is a lack of DM system mastery in some crusty old gamers.

 

[MechaPilot]

5e is pretty heavy stocked in the "brute" type monsters with a few casters/artillery and leader types. It could definitely use more soldiers. Still, if they made King Lurker, the Lurkiest Lurker type Monster of All (with explicit instructions, in bold 50 point font, that King Lurker was supposed to sneak up on the PC's), half (3/4ths really) of the people who complain about monsters on the forums would complain because King Lurker couldn't fight the PC's out in the open, so the issue is really half WotC needing to expand the monsters and half is a lack of DM system mastery in some crusty old gamers.

If only they had some kind of tag on each monster that helped DMs figure out how to use them to their best advantage. You know, stuff like leader, brute, artillery, skirmisher, etc. Nah. That's just crazy.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah I miss some abiliteies at least in concept maybe not execution. I miss energy drain being nasty for exmaple not the actual level loss. IN 5E terms rather than reducing max hp perhaps that+ a level of exhaustion.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would be glad if offensive cr and defensive cr would be called out explicitely. That would help a bit to gauge if it is a tanky monster or a damaging one.
Tags like lurker etc would help if it does not bear the terrible math implications of 4e. (terrible because it was too rigid).

 

[MechaPilot]

Yeah I miss some abiliteies at least in concept maybe not execution. I miss energy drain being nasty for exmaple not the actual level loss. IN 5E terms rather than reducing max hp perhaps that+ a level of exhaustion.

Exhaustion is a great way to boost energy drain and make it scary. A lot of players don't really fear energy drain because it's gone with the next long rest. And, the nature of 5e's energy drain is such that players are encouraged (if possible) to take a long rest after being energy drained.

What I do to make energy drain scarier is have the effect last longer. I treat it like a lingering injury, according to the optional lingering injury rules in the DMG. It takes 10 days of rest to throw off the energy drain.

 

[fjw70]

I need to use exhaustion more. I rarely use it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Upon further consideration, it's not as much that the monsters are less powerful or more likely to defeat the party, as it is that the damage they are capable of inflicting is much easier to recover from. There's no real penalty to getting hurt.

An old-style iron golem can punch you so hard that you'll need three weeks of bed-rest to recover from it, while a new-style iron golem can't even hit you hard enough that you'll still feel it tomorrow morning.

An old-style vampire can drain you so hard that it takes six months (or longer) of real-world time to recover those levels, and a new-style vampire has nothing which can remotely compare to that.

Even in the (theoretical) worst-case scenario, an old monster could kill you and set you back to level 1 (with a new character), while a new monster can kill you and you're back at full-power next session (with a new character).

 

[5ekyu]

Edition to edition things change but the changes looked at in isolation can sometimes get skewed. A lot of things change and interact.

If i wanted to build in more of the puzzle solving aspects, i would adopt a sort of three-way system where almost any "abnormal" creature had a vulnerability, a resistance and an immunity built in. these may be "packages" for each type and individuals might only have one of the resistances.

That kind of thing combined with the flexibility of "not all have the same" can go a long way to emulate the sort of "monster hunter" feel and elements (Buffy, Angel, Supernatural etc etc etc) where research and investigation and local setting can play a major role through the campaign.

I would not try to emulate the "no spells work on me" kind of thing - not my cup of tea - but it would be good for some settings and genre to have these added to many creatures, IMO.