More from Mike Mearls

[frankthedm]

That thread is actually the thread that birthed my "holy trinity" of monster requirements: Adversary, Ally, and Anybody. A monster has to be an interesting combat, a good person when used by the players (including as a PC), and a cohesive part of the world in which it dwells.

My concerns about the "ogre is an ogre" still meaning "but now handicapped somehow to balance it out" aren't well-addressed yet....

[IMaGel]http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/1433/ogreganualvq1.th.png[/IMaGel] Mr Ogre is a CR3 in 3e terms, meaning he should be a good fight for a party of 3e Heroes. Now he needs 3 of his twins not to be outnumbered for that party, making an encounter level of 7. If that gets a direct translation that means the NPC ogre comes in about a 7th level monster {actual number will vary]. Since the monster will scale viably about 3 levels up and down, and there will be Minion and elite versions of most monsters, there will be about 21 viable flavors of ogre to challenge PCs with. All who are several levels of monster before any levels of class.

Now a PC ogre at low level will get a lot of what made the ogre a 'bruiser' stripped off for playability, making him a 'runt'. Now if the player WANTS all of the ogre package, he has to earn his way up to the normal ogre level of potency by taking bruiser classes, but instead he wants to break the mold, he can instead pursue other character types without having to commit the first 6 character levels just to 'be' the ogre as in 3.5.

It is roughly the 3.5 equivalent of dropping racial HD as the default, but also making SURE the 'LA' still fit balance wise.

 

[JoelF]

IMike Mearls on the "Megadungeon" - This thread - 21st Nov 2007

One of the things I've been happiest about with 4e, and something that I realy hope holds up when you guys get your hands on it, is that DMs can and should let the PCs get in over their heads. With far fewer save or dies, the PCs can afford to spar with a really tough critter for a round or two before figuring out that running away is the best option. One of the things that frustrated me about 3e was that the too tough encounter might kill a PC before the players figured out they were in over their heads. The window of time you have to decide to run is a little wider.

I don't think save or die is the biggest problem with fighting monsters that are too tough for you. Instead I think it's the abundance of improved grab, grappling monsters. Sure a save or die monster type can kill a few party members in the first two rounds, but once the party decides to run, they can. The huge sized +25 grapple bonus monster on the other hand makes the party unable to run away, since 2 of them are in it's tentacles. Most PCs in my experience are a lot more likely to run with a few allies dead than if they're still alive. The party will try to rescue the grappled and living PCs, which can result in a TPK a lot easier than the save or die monster types. I also think that the save or die being too powerful is somewhat of a myth - if you change them to abilities that do lots of damage (like a breath weapon) a monster that's a strong challenge for the party can still result in save or die - if you fail your reflex save (or if it hits your reflex, now), the hp damage can still kill several party members, especailly low Con and/or low hp types like wizards, etc.

 

[EricNoah]

If anything has the potential to sway me 4e-ward, it is this approach -- that PCs have lots of interesting, balanced options, but monsters use simple and (if necessary) different rules to make the DM's life easier.

 

[Brewhammer]

Knowing Mearls has created a guild in World of Warcraft and plays regularly (as evidenced by the updates on his blog about WoW) I find his talk of 'megadungeons' unsettling.

Especially when coupled with Perkins' 4th Ed. podcast interview where he continually brings up MMO's.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Knowing Mearls has created a guild in World of Warcraft and plays regularly (as evidenced by the updates on his blog about WoW) I find his talk of 'megadungeons' unsettling.

Especially when coupled with Perkins' 4th Ed. podcast interview where he continually brings up MMO's.

Oh NOES! THE DESIGNERS HAVE HOBBIES OUTSIDE OF D&D!!!!!111!!!!!!

 

[Brewhammer]

Oh NOES! THE DESIGNERS HAVE HOBBIES OUTSIDE OF D&D!!!!!111!!!!!!

That wasn't my point, but... whatever.

 

[Mort]

Mike Mearls on the "Megadungeon" - This thread
One of the things I've been happiest about with 4e, and something that I realy hope holds up when you guys get your hands on it, is that DMs can and should let the PCs get in over their heads. With far fewer save or dies, the PCs can afford to spar with a really tough critter for a round or two before figuring out that running away is the best option. One of the things that frustrated me about 3e was that the too tough encounter might kill a PC before the players figured out they were in over their heads. The window of time you have to decide to run is a little wider.

Mike Mearls on Monster Design - this thread - 26th August 2007

My question here - How easy is it for PC's to run away in 4e? In every previous eddition of D&D, running was hard unless the DM expressely made avenues for it. I'm discounting the "teleport away" option, of course, but in general (especially low to mid level), getting away from a monster on foot was usually not an option.

 

[Drammattex]

but it really showed me why Armour as DR is an awful idea, and how much better D&D has managed to balance Rogues and Fighters in combat.

I haven't played a lot of it, but in our game, there haven't been balance issues between rogues & fighters. That said, the feel of the game I was running was much more "medieval," which is to say we didn't do a lot of monster bashing; it was very role-play oriented and the Iron Heroes rules sort of enhanced the theme/mood of what we were trying to accomplish.

As for DR, I love it in theory, but I think Mike is probably right.

 

[Hussar]

Knowing Mearls has created a guild in World of Warcraft and plays regularly (as evidenced by the updates on his blog about WoW) I find his talk of 'megadungeons' unsettling.

Especially when coupled with Perkins' 4th Ed. podcast interview where he continually brings up MMO's.

Then, what would your point actually be? Game designers should not look at popular games for ideas? Videogames are invading? What?

Considering that mega dungeons have been a staple of D&D for 30 some years, I'm not sure why talk of megadungeons should be unsettling. From Castle Greyhawk and the Temple of Elemental Evil, all the way to Rappan Athuk and World's Largest Dungeon, mega dungeons have been a pretty core element of the game.

Heck, wasn't 1e adventure design pretty much predicated on the idea of massive dungeon crawls? Wasn't that the whole point of monster levels?

 

[Firevalkyrie]

Knowing Mearls has created a guild in World of Warcraft and plays regularly (as evidenced by the updates on his blog about WoW) I find his talk of 'megadungeons' unsettling.

Especially when coupled with Perkins' 4th Ed. podcast interview where he continually brings up MMO's.

That's Noonan, actually. Mearls said he finds MMOs about as rewarding as smashing his head into a brick wall.