D&D 4E Thing I thought 4e did better: Monsters

[dave2008]

Claw/Claw/Bite/Wing Buffet/Wing Buffet/Tail Slap. It gets tedious and fiddly to resolve (especially as the wings attack different sides). Visualising the whole thing makes me think the dragon is flailing.

I agree with you there, I much prefer how 4e and 5e handle it.

 

[Imaro]

Nope. 4e reduced the statblock to the combat and directly contested abilities. I have had black dragons corrupt water into fetid swamps (and not just the obvious way). I've had them summon darkness.

What I haven't had them do is do so as a rote thing in six seconds in combat. They do it because they are black dragons and not because they can cast spells in a formulaic way because they are wizards. 4e, unlike other editions of D&D, gives me this freedom in worldbuilding. My dragons don't cast spells as if they were wizards with Star Trek style prosthetic foreheads. They change the world through their impact on it and sometimes through their spells because that is how the world works.

But you can use DM fiat to adjust a monsters ability in any edition... this doesn't speak to a strength of 4e...

The 4e ones are gloriously incomplete. They give me mechanics where I need mechanics. And they give me the freedom to build the world the way I picture it.

Uhm... what??

 

[Ilbranteloth]

My problem isn't not seeing what you want here. It's why in the name of the little black pig do you start with D&D as a base when you have your preferences?

Most of the mechanics of D&D in any edition revolve around two things:

1. Combat
2. Tightly defined spells (most of them for combat). To the point that from memory literally 40% of each PHB other than the 4e one is full of spells.

This of course has increased over time - but the simple fact of the matter is that if I don't want there to be a strong focus on combat in the rules there are several dozen rulesets I can think of where distances aren't measured in either squares or feet. Where we don't have mechanics such as Armour Class and Hit Points and where a glaive isn't treated differently from a ranseur or a halberd.

It's not disagreeing with your idea of fun. It's that what you want to do appears to quite literally be the opposite of what D&D was designed around, and to be something that the best edition of D&D for was the 1974 Brown Box because it had the fewest parts to get in the way.

Because that's where I started and that's what works best for me. Back in the late '70s the idea of modifying D&D (there are a lot of parallel threads going on right now...) was seen by many as part of the game. Especially in OD&D, but Dragon magazine routinely had articles with rules modifications and additions. Then 2nd edition continued this trend of new and optional rules elements. At that time I had every single supplement and magazine, TSR release or 3rd party. In addition, we were RPG junkies, playing just about anything that came out at least a few times, and pulled ideas from a lot of those as well (as did TSR).

As we picked through rules we liked, I compiled them all on the computer, with modifications and corrections to make them work together better. Probably 90% of this is still published D&D. When 3e came about, other than the shift to the d20 mechanic, it was a lot like what we had compiled already. Cleaning up the rule system considerably. We continued to tweak, but now it was more about reigning in changes to maintain consistency in our world.

When 4e came out we were excited and started the same process. But the math was all different. Spellcasting as we knew it was gone (and that is a major part of our campaign). Magic item distribution was different. Monsters lost abilities or had new abilities. PCs had a slew of new abilities. And combat became even more complicated and mini dependent when we were already shifting the other way. Pathfinder was an option, but the reality was that we didn't see a point. We had our D&D game, our campaign world. We didn't need a new campaign world, and the rules themselves were virtually identical. We've rarely added new PC races or classes, so that appeal wasn't there either.

DND Next/5e on the other hand, not only fit our modifications very well, but the new mechanics allowed further simplification. Now they are more house-rule than tweaked "official" rule, but it's still unmistakably D&D.

We have no problem with AC and hp, just added an additional way to track long term injuries. But 5e gave us the Exhaustion Track. We steal that, rename it the Condition track, and use it for fatigue, combat fatigue, exhaustion, disease, injuries, poison, aging, etc. You can have a level on the track from multiple sources (which are tracked separately), but only suffer the effect of the worst. Some of these effects last until a short rest, others a long rest, and others for a variable period of time based on the death saving throw mechanic. The severity of the effect is determined in part by how frequently you make these saves. All of these are existing mechanics in 5e, just rearranged a bit.

One of the biggest strengths of D&D is how easy it is to modify. Back in 2e this was made very evident by the slew of campaign settings released. Some modified the rules a small amount, others more significantly, and some not at all. But it provided a template for making modifications that hadn't existed yet. There were many, many supplements and releases I never actually used. But I could find ideas in nearly every one.

Part of it is also it's what I know best. For example, I know Microsoft Word very well. I do things in Word that would theoretically be easier in Excel, Publisher, or other software, but because I know how to use Word better, that's what I use. And I can get things done much quicker that way, just because of what I know. Ironically, everything I know about Word (and to a large degree computers, and I own an IT business), is because I wanted to compile our rules for D&D back in the day, on an i-386 with a dot matrix printer. I still have a copy of my compiled timeline of the Realms, just never posted it on the internet for it to be discovered and published! In fact, we had a running joke in our game that as soon as I would get around to finalizing a given idea or rule we'd come up with, it would show up in that month's Dragon magazine.

Under no circumstance do I want to imply that 4e isn't a good system, or fun to play, etc. It's just not the system that works for us, and that's what I said right from the start. Matt's video highlighted the sort of game design thinking, which is also evident in 4e, that we just didn't like. The idea of borrowing from other editions or others games? 100% behind it. That's all.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

They can if you want them too. You are both making the mistake of assuming a monster is only defined by the stats presented. This was a very common issue in 4e, but I see it in 5e too. We cannot take stat blocks as RAW. That just doesn't make sense. In 5e this gets very funny with Legendary actions. Why can't the dragon make a wing attack on its turn? Why can't it make a claw or bite attacks as a legendary action?

To be clear, I like both 4e and 5e stat blocks and, to me, a near perfect stat block would be a combination of the two.

Well, RAW they are RAW. In every edition. Obviously I have no problem modifying things, but if you play in AL, then the entries in the MM are the entries you use, for example.

I also have some issues with the 5e design because a lot of abilities that disappeared in 4e are still missing, new ones have gone missing, and there are still oddities like the wing attack you point out.

3/3.5e did add some things, but to a large degree remained very faithful to the AD&D monster abilities that preceded it.

The assumption that the stat blocks are RAW is also relevant in a discussion about the merits of the monster design across editions. If the answer is that any monster can have any ability, then the edition, stat blocks, and the monster design is irrelevant altogether. Which I'm cool with as well. Just a different discussion.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I don't - because that's not the way to approach 4e monsters. The way to approach 4e monster design is to start with how you want the monster to behave and write that up as powers, almost entirely ignoring feats or other monster abilities. You don't bother looking for feats or spells so the monster does it exactly the way the wizard does. You just give the monster the abilities it needs. You don't start with a list of powers to pick in monster design. You start with a blank page and the setting.

I don't really have much else to say. I will reiterate that I do not think that 4e is a bad system or a bad design. Only that I don't care for it. It's a different approach that doesn't appeal to me. Nor do I think that might approach must appeal to everybody else, including you.

This quote perhaps highlights a bit of the difference. It's hard to tell because perhaps you approach it similarly and are just phrasing it in a way that makes me think otherwise. But it seems like you are starting with how you want the monster to behave. While that does have some impact in the design, I start with what the monster is.

For example, if I were to design a new dragon I would start with the base dragon abilities - wings, etc., and why and where this dragon exists. Why another dragon? What's the ecological niche, why doesn't an existing dragon fit? I add/remove monsters based on how they fit in the world before I consider their behavior. The behavior is partially based on their nature, dragons are likely to behave in certain ways as a species. It's not a blank page, it's a dragon. It's building off of an existing template. And I absolutely work from a list of powers to pick.

I also don't think of a creature in terms of combat abilities, feats, etc. Abilities are selected based on the concept, and then you can figure out how it might use those abilities. First and foremost, the use of the abilities would be centered around things like how to get food. Not how to defend against adventurers or make the combat interesting for them.

So lets say I think there's a niche for a jungle-based dragon. It lairs in the canopy. It's a dragon so it can fly (and soaring above the jungle canopy is something that seems particularly draconic). So far all dragons are carnivores, so I'll stick with that. And they have breath weapons. Poisonous creatures abound in the jungle, so I like that, but a green dragon already has a poison gas breath weapon. Instead it's a line, really more like a spitting cobra. Many venomous snakes hunt by ambush, using their venom to paralyze their prey. So both their breath weapon and their bite is poisonous.

Because of the dense foliage, it's a very serpentine dragon and has a climb speed. What else would make sense for a magical creature that lives in the jungle? I like entangle. That certainly makes sense. Right now this is a serpentine dragon, with some serpent traits overlaid on the basic dragon template. It needs a decent food source, but in the jungles of Chult that's easy. Dinosaurs.

Other abilities? Pass without trace is a good fit. In fact, this is beginning to feel more like a druidic dragon approach. Something neutral, maybe neutral good. So being able to shape change is a common draconic ability that I think fits well here, but instead of a human form, a lizardfolk form seems much more appropriate. So a more powerful ability that seems particularly appropriate would be awaken.

Its abilities and location also make it a good candidate for a deity-like creature, or at least viewed as avatars of the deities by the more primitive jungle lizardfolk. Which points to another niche that might need to be filled, a jungle-like lizardfolk. Perhaps just a bit of a flavor change from the existing ones, although the lizardfolk in my campaign that live in swamps tend to hunt like crocodiles. In fact, lizardfolk with a poisonous bite would fit the jungle environment very well, and many reptiles have venomous bites, even if very mild. Using their own venom on blowdarts would be interesting as well, and a natural way for them to take an innate ability and build on it.

Another ability that both the dragon and lizardfolk might have is a camouflage ability.

The breath weapon is a combination of the black dragon line and the green dragon poison.
Spells are druidic based, but dragons use sorcery in my campaign (which is implied in the optional rule, but sorcery is different than wizardry in my campaign, not just the ability that uses it).
The camouflage ability is detailed in the bullywug, among others.

As a dragon it has the usual perception abilities (blindsight, darkvision), the usual claw/claw/bite/wing/tail attacks. This is a stealthy dragon, and once I start thinking in terms of behavior, I'm thinking very reptilian. Lie in wait, poison the target and wait for it to be paralyzed (so it's a paralyzing poison, which is different than a green dragon). The handful of innate abilities, plus its spellcasting pretty much finishes it off.

All of this is entirely edition independent. Totally. So maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's not a 4e thing, but maybe just that 4e took so many liberties in changing things from prior editions that I don't like. But your description - start with how you want the creature to behave, seems to me to be the approach that 4e encourages. It encourages cool combat abilities that differentiate the creature from others of its type.

Going back to Matt's video, he is specifically discusses modifying monsters to make combat more fun. "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" And his solution to making this dragon that is somehow boring during this combat is to add abilities to it that make it more interesting in combat. That's what I object to.

If that's not a 4e thing, then fine. But the video was held up as an example of what made 4e monster design great. That video highlights this specific approach to monster design that I don't like. So if this is an example of what made 4e monster design great, then it's an example of exactly what I don't like about 4e monster design.

But a red dragon in my world is a red dragon. If it's a boring combat, that's on me, the DM for not using the dragon to the most of its capabilities, first and foremost being its intelligence and wisdom. That is, the intelligence and wisdom of a centuries-old creature. Not because I didn't think up some cool additional abilities. Really, though, I find it difficult to understand how one can't find a 50 to 100 foot dragon lunging at you to attempt to bite you terrifying.

Monster design to me is part of the world-building process. "How does it fit in the world?" and not "will this make an interesting combat?"

 

[dave2008]

3/3.5e did add some things, but to a large degree remained very faithful to the AD&D monster abilities that preceded it.

I'm not sure why it is relevant to be faithful to an earlier design, but 3e was not faithful to AD&D dragons in my opinion. Well it was fairly faithful to the 2e dragons, but not the 1e MM dragons. To be clear though, I think 2e dragons were a significant improvement to 1e dragons and more similar to D&D (BECMI) dragons.

Personally, I could never understand how a 300' dragon could do so little damage in 2e. I have a similar problem with 3e, 4e, and 5e dragons though., but to a lesser degree since they are smaller after all.

 

[dave2008]

Well, RAW they are RAW. .

My thought is a monster stat block and lore are not RAW because they are not rules. The guidelines, but not rules. RAW is the d20 mechanic to me (how to adjudicate hits, saves, checks, etc.), not the monster stat block.

I could be wrong, but I would imagine a DM is free to mix up abilities on a monster or 2.

 

[pemerton]

My thought is a monster stat block and lore are not RAW because they are not rules.

I remember once posting on a houseruling thread examples of monsters I had come up with. At least one other poster had the same response as you have expressed in this thread - that's not houseruling, it's just GMing!

I personally don't care where that line is drawn, but your thought is certainly clear to me.

 

[pemerton]

4e avoided either by reducing abilities to more restricitive descriptions that could be described in 1 or two sentences, or eliminated the abilities altogether. So now the black dragon can no longer cast darkness, summon insects (insect plague) and summon reptiles and corrupt water. The just lose the abilities.

A 4e black dragon does not summon insects during combat (unless the GM alters the statblockor permits this as a p 42 improvised action).

But the 4e black dragon absolutely can use darkness - either darkness lite, via the Monster Vault shroud of darkness, or darkness in the full-blooded sense, via the Monster Manual version which has a different stat block from MV and is the one I used in my 4e campaign (and I can assure you it was using darkness - and the party wizard was using a magical statue of the elven Summer Queen to dispel that darkness).

As far as corrupting water is concerned, that is not an in-combat ability. As I've already posted, the 4e stat block does not purport to regulate the non-combat portions of the game. The extent to which a black dragon can corrupt water is a matter for GM determination as part of the process of managing the fiction and the backstory of the game (similarly to how there are no rules for harvets and for famine, and deciding whether or not a particular villlage is flush with grain or suffering a famine is something the GM would determin as part of managing the fiction and the backstory of the game). This is the point [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] made in his response to you - when it comes to worldbuilding, 4e puts fiction ahead of mechanics - in other words, if (as GM) I want my black dragon to magically corrupt some water, I just use my authorial power to stipulate that it is so! (And contra [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] in post 202, that is not "DM fiat to adjust a monster's ability" - there is no "monster ability" being adjusted - it is just the way 4e expects the GM to engage in world building.)

The stat blocks and approaches over the years have varied quite a bit, and the 4e versions are very concise, and complete. But that's not my issue. When I look at the 4e black dragon I wonder:

Why is the blood acidic only when at half hit points? I know, some people explain that that is when the dragon has actually started to take damage that causes it to bleed. Except that I don't accept that in order for the dragon to be bleeding, that it must be at 50% or less hit points.

Sure, if you deny a basic premise of 4e's damage mechanics - that bleeding occurs when the "bloodied" state is incurred - then you won't like a mechanic that links having blood drip on you to having bloodied your enemy! But the answer to your question is no mystery - you answered it yourself!

if you're going to say that black dragons have acidic blood (which I could probably go along with), then stabbing it with a sword should potentially put your sword at risk, no matter how many hit points it has left.

This is something that 4e leaves to GM adjudication. And, as [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] pointed out, by default most swords used by PCs to stab this dragon will be magic.

The GM is of course free to narrate that NPCs who tried to stab the dragon with non-magic swords had their swords corrode. That's just colour.

3. Why can it only use its tail sweep as a reaction, and then only when somebody attacks and misses?

4. Why does it have to be bloodied to use bloodied breath? And why only when it is initially made bloodied? I prefer the Legendary Actions approach of 5e that allow extra actions like this for a creature such as a dragon when the rules are based around action economy.

Why does the dragon breathe when it starts bleeding? Because it's now really angry! It's a pacing mechanic - it helps express, at the table and in the course of resolution, the story of the dragon's anger.

Your question about the tail sits oddly with your preference for legendary actions, because they exhibit the same property: the dragon can only make a wing attack off turn; and the more enemies there are, the more attacks the dragon can make (and the more Perception checks it can make!). These are all mechanisms for managing pacing and action economy. They're are not mechanical representations of dragon biology.

2. Why don't all dragons have Instinctive Devouring or Action recovery?

<snip>

1. Why can't all dragons do a fly-by attack or a charge? This seems to be a limitation to differentiate them perhaps?

(I'll bracket the issue of Action Recovery, which is standard in MV dragons.)

It's not a "limitation" - it's about providing a particular experience at the table. The game tends to assume that a fight with a dragon will be a fairly big deal, and that there won't be a lot of repeats. The abilities are intended to help each of those fights to have a distinctive, memorable feel. So it's a mistake to infer from the allocation of abilities to some sort of conjecture about "dragon biology".

Any dragon can fly and attack. But creatures with a fly-by attack ability will be particularly noteworthy for their flying by and attacking. That will be part of the experience of fighting them.

why wouldn't all ogres have d8 hit dice unless they have class levels? All of any creature in the game has the same hit dice (as an adult) unless they have some particular training that changes it (class levels).

Within the context of 4e this questio makes no sense. Hit points aren't a property of ogres (like their height, weight, or hair colour). They're an element of monster stat blocks, and serve as a marker for the degree of staying power this creature has in combat.

So the GM (i) has to decide what degree of staying power a creature should have; and the (ii) has to assign hit points. 4e has fairly intricate advice on how to move from (i) to (ii), based on its hp/level charts and its categories of standard, elite, solo, etc. The decison at (i), though, can be decided either by accepting the default suggestions (by working from the MM) or by making one's own decision about pacing, genre considerations, etc.

I want dragons to largely have the same abilities, because they are all dragons. That there are a few differences (breath weapon type being the obvious one), is all I really need or care for.

<snip>

the 4e dragons and monsters, for example, narrowed the focus more than I like.

<snip>

I don't think that stablocks <snippage> should tell you anything about their personality

As Neonchameleon explained, in 4e if you don't want your black dragon to be an instinctive devourer, then you change the statblock. The game is predicated on the idea that the function of the mechanics is to produce the desired experience in play, including the desired fiction. If you want different fiction, you change the mechanics!

For instance, the only time I used a black dragon in 4e was a young one using the MM (not the MV stats). [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] described it as anaemic, but for me it worked well, and it's darkness ability generated the sort of play experience I wsa hoping for. Likewise I've had good play experiences with wraiths (a monster many people hate because they are insubstantial - half damage - and cause weakness - more half damage).

But if I wanted a different play experience, I would change things. I do this all the time in 4e - change stat blocks to help ensure that the creature, in play, will be as I envisage it and want it to be in the fiction.

That's why it makes no sense, in the 4e context, to ask "Why are black dragons like this?"; or to conjecture about how many hit points an ogre "ought" to have. The stats are intended as a producer of the fiction; not as a product or record or model of it. If you want different fiction, you change the stats! It's fiction first, mechanics second. (Which I think is fairly close to how Chainmail and OD&D were designed, but different from later AD&D and very different from 3E.)

 

[Imaro]

As far as corrupting water is concerned, that is not an in-combat ability. As I've already posted, the 4e stat block does not purport to regulate the non-combat portions of the game. The extent to which a black dragon can corrupt water is a matter for GM determination as part of the process of managing the fiction and the backstory of the game (similarly to how there are no rules for harvets and for famine, and deciding whether or not a particular villlage is flush with grain or suffering a famine is something the GM would determin as part of managing the fiction and the backstory of the game). This is the point @Neonchameleon made in his response to you - when it comes to worldbuilding, 4e puts fiction ahead of mechanics - in other words, if (as GM) I want my black dragon to magically corrupt some water, I just use my authorial power to stipulate that it is so! (And contra @Imaro in post 202, that is not "DM fiat to adjust a monster's ability" - there is no "monster ability" being adjusted - it is just the way 4e expects the GM to engage in world building.)

Irregardless of whether that is the way 4e expects a GM to engage in world building (and again why is this a 4e specific thing when rule zero exists in every edition) it is still the use of DM fiat.

EDIT: I am looking in my 4e DMG right now under "Customizing Monsters" and I see the following methods... change it's level, give it equipment, alter it's appearance or behavior and apply a template. Where exactly is this ethos of just give the monster whatever you deem it needs espoused in the rulebooks? And again how is this different from rule zero in any edition.