Why arbitrary monster abilities are a bad idea.

[Dragonblade]

3.XE was a step in the right direction; the use of monsters with ECLs as well as explicit class abilities to get monsters on your side. My hope was that since the rules encoded that, for example, druids could enlist the services of thoqqua briefly, that core material would being to operate under the assumption that parties that included druids (or prepared casters of any stripe) past a certain level could use thoqqua-abilities for their own ends.

Thoqqua have the magnificent ability to rapidly bore through solid stone and leave tunnels behind. This, needless to say, is an extremely useful ability for a dungeon-delving adventurer.

Now, the 2E/4E mindset, this isn't an issue; thoqqua burrowing ability isn't on the list of PC abilities, so we don't need to worry about it. But what happens when, through cleverness, a PC does manage to gain control over a thoqqua? You have, in essence, replaced whatever higher-level challenge encoded into the solid stone the thoqqua is now melting at speed with however difficult it is to gain control over the thoqqua. Now this sort of thing can be exciting and interesting. But if you want to have dungeons the PCs can't casually burrow through with a decanter of endless water and a cooperative/coerced thoqqua, you either need to take the monster ability into account, or find some way to foil the cooperation/coercion. But even if you do manage to do so in-game, remember that in-game problems have in-game solutions; if you rule that the thoqqua builds up a resistance to charm spells on account of its long domination, not only must you remember this rule for further charm spells, but you're not stopping the PCs from nabbing another thoqqua and starting again.

First of all, there is NOTHING in 3e that differs from any prior or future edition of D&D regarding this so-called "problem".

3e tried to to codify monsters into a HD leveling system that mirrored PC leveling. In 4e, the designers have jettisoned this clunky system for a new one in which the designers just give monsters the cool abilities they should have without worrying about advancing it per some formula (that didn't really work well anyway).

There is NOTHING inherent in either system that prevents or encourages your so-called "problem". A 3e 10 HD monster having ability X, is the same as a level 10 monster having ability X in 4e. PCs manipulating monsters to their advantage can occur in either system equally well or not. The degree to which your "problem" exists is going to be DM and campaign dependent.

 

[rkanodia]

zoroaster100 and rkanodia: How do you enforce this lack of bleed-over in the face of dedicated PCs making the attempt to gain said abilities? If a PC wants to stop and research the Ritual of Endless Night that the evil villain was attempting to perform, what happens then? Well, you can fiat failure; despite the fact that the PC is both smarter and more knowledgeable about magic than the villain, you simply don't let the PC learn the ritual. This tends to produce discontent among the players. You can add requirements that make it unlikely that the PC will continue, but PCs have a bad habit of circumventing requirements, and then you are left with a general lack of excuse not to have the ritual work. Even worse, you need to make sure that the villain wasn't going to run afoul of those very requirements; otherwise the PC will simply make an effort to learn the improved ritual the BBEG was trying to use. Finally, you can simply say to the player out-of-game that you're not going to let him learn the ritual, come up with an appropriate reason in-game that the player is happy with, and move on, but having to do so means you've uncovered a weakness in the system.

Oh, I dunno, I imagine that the Ritual of Endless Night is going to take a lot of studying, and bargaining with devils, and trading with distant sages for translations of ancient languages. It's going to take a long time, and certainly someone is going to hear about it, and once word gets out, it's only a matter of time before someone tracks down the PC and tries to stop him, some kind of traveling... swordy-guy, who goes around defeating villains and protecting the innocent. What are those called again?

Bottom line: if it's a racial ability, the PC's just can't get it, and that's that. If it's a Ritual that does Really Bad Things To People Who Don't Deserve It, well D&D is a game about, what do you call them, oh, I just remembered - heroes. If you try to make it a game about villains, it may very well break (for instance, the ability to annihilate all the pig farmers in a 200 mile radius isn't really a useful option for a hero, but it's great for a villain) and I don't see that as a weakness of the system. If it's a Ritual for some kind of defensive or transport ability, tying it to a location is pretty much all you have to do. The whole 'sitting in your well defended lair waiting for hapless victims to stumble in' thing is also, pretty much, a villain thing.

 

[Mallus]

How do you enforce this lack of bleed-over in the face of dedicated PCs making the attempt to gain said abilities?

I DM for people who work with me, not against me. In our campaigns, it's everybody's responsibility to ensure the game stays playable.

No rule set can safeguard a campaign from players determined to break it.

 

[Aloïsius]

Having a NPC enslaved doing some stuff is not the same as doing the same stuff yourself. Players are looking for fun, even munchkin players.
Unbalance arise when one PC is far above the others, because of special abilities. But an NPC ? It's just an NPC.

So, even if you dominate, let's say, a medusa, petrifying your ennemies with it is not the same as one player being able to use petrifying gaze at will.

 

[Kraydak]

I agree with robertliguori that 4e's monster design paradigm (cool, short combat encounter) prioritizes design concepts that causes problems in any other situation. This isn't unique to 4e, of course, but that doesn't make it good. On the other hand, I feel that there is a related, bigger issue. The space of available PC powers and NPC powers are related: if you want cool, potentially game breaking in PC hands NPC powers, you need to keep them out of PC hands. This means you need to restrict PCs' abilities to get them. In DnD, this means nerfing Charm/Polymorph/Summons (social interactions are also effected, but as they don't really have rules in 3e/prior, this means it will come pre-nerfed in 4e).

This sound familiar? Are you not happy with nuker-only wizard? Blame monster design (at least in part). Monster coolness (in quick skirmishes) comes at the cost of PC coolness (and monster coolness outside of quick skirmishes as that isn't a design focus). I don't feel that 3e monsters were adequately uncool that it was worth trading off PC coolness for monster coolness in 4e's design space (noting all the while that 3e's design space was much more loosely defined than 4e's).

 

[Dausuul]

The frustrating thing to me is that the deliberate segregation of monster and PC abilities speaks to an assumption that monsters do X and PCs do Y, and that certain challenges will be appropriate for PCs because they can't do X. As GM, I can both limit the introduction of monsters into my world; I do this anyway, because if there exists a monster with the means and motivation to drastically affect the world, it will, and not just because it's on a PC's leash.

This segregation has always existed in D&D. Monsters in previous editions, and 3E, were regularly handed abilities that could wreak horrible trouble in player hands.

I think you're misinterpreting the new approach to monster design. They're not giving monsters new game-breaking abilities that they weren't giving them before. They're just abandoning the idea that monsters need to adhere to the same kind of rules that are used to build PCs (for example, "hit points = [hit points per die plus Con bonus] x Hit Dice"). Instead, they pick appropriate stats for the monster and don't worry about "justifying" them.

 

[dungeon blaster]

This segregation has always existed in D&D. Monsters in previous editions, and 3E, were regularly handed abilities that could wreak horrible trouble in player hands.

I think you're misinterpreting the new approach to monster design. They're not giving monsters new game-breaking abilities that they weren't giving them before. They're just abandoning the idea that monsters need to adhere to the same kind of rules that are used to build PCs (for example, "hit points = [hit points per die plus Con bonus] x Hit Dice"). Instead, they pick appropriate stats for the monster and don't worry about "justifying" them.

QFT!

I agree with one point you made, Robert, and that is that a monster shouldn't have game-breaking abilities that PCs can access. An example being the shambling mound or gating in solars and having them use wish spells. But is the monster the problem? Or is it certain spells such as gate that give you full control over a creature? Either way, the fault cannot be laid on 4ed (yet) because all previous editions of D&D had creatures with extremely powerful abilities that characters could access through various spells. Perhaps WoTC should take into account how useful a monster's abilities would be in the hands of PCs, and I assume that they are doing this. But one doesn't require a PC-like leveling system to do this; the monster designer merely needs to look a the monster's abilities and see if the PC's will have remotely similar capabilities by the time they meet this monster. It's still arbitrary in the sense that there is no codified monster-leveling system. So, what's the problem?

 

[Remathilis]

Simple Fix: Only allow humans and make them face humanoid opponents. Done.

 

[Counterspin]

Yes, because in 3e they let you have dominate at will just like a vampire! All you had to do was study hard! NPCs have always had powers that PCs could never get. No change except in who is handing out the powers the PCs will never have.

 

[WayneLigon]

This is the only thing I've seen in 4E that I still have some concerns about. (There are a number of other things to probably have concerns about but we've not had their ideas previewed or discussed at length, yet). I don't mind the idea of 'monsters are not built as PCs are' (though I still think that goal is a laudable one, just that after 3E I'm not sure it's possible under D&D's current rules framework without introducing an undue level of complexity), but I really, really hope that the things they have are things PCs are not particularly expected to be able to carry off.

I have no problem with a giant, for instance, having the abilty to serve as a small seige engine, given it's size and strength. Similarly, I have no problem with creatures that have spell-like powers or even that are naturally adept at certain types of magic.

I do have a problem with, say, a humanoid race that has 'a special maneuver' that lets them break the rules in a way that no feat or other exception to the rules normally allows. I saw a lot of that in 1E and 2E and it always really ticked me off.

Natural abilities I have no problem with. Learned abilities that PC's cannot learn? I have a tremendous problem with them. It would be a return to 'Elves can't be clerics' and I don't think that's a level of backsliding we should not allow to happen.