Am I the only one who doesn't like the arbitrary "boss monster" tag?

[Stalker0]

[MENTION=6693711]slobster[/MENTION]
See, mine will. They know how things work, they own a lot of monster books. If I simply took a monster and gave it the numbers it was "supposed to have" absent the underpinnings of level and ability scores, they'd know, and I don't think they'd be too happy about it. I wouldn't, in their shoes.

When I read this, something clicked with me.

3rd edition started to do the same thing 4e did towards the end, it just did less openly.

Later 3e monster books started tailoring the math too. For example, undead started getting "Unholy Toughness" which gave them more HP than they were entitled to by the rules.

Other monsters got a somewhat forced power attack in their specs to represent more damage and lower attack bonuses.

And natural armor has always been a way to get a monster's AC into the appropriate range.


So if created a monster that had a +11 attack bonus, when it "should" have a +15, then I can just say its got a "clumsy" trait that gives it a -4.


And that's the bottom line. 3e tried to make everything explicit, every tweak had to have a justification. 4e said, here are your numbers that will give you a good encounter. Feel free to adjust the justification for those numbers to your liking.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Oh, I don't consider you an edition warrior. I consider you to simply have a One True Way philosophy..

Not at all. I run many styles, multiple systems, and acknowledge that others run different ones. I just don't like being that mine are wrong.

And what do you think the roots of D&D are? It's the Dungeon. The challenge for the players to pit their skill against. You might not get Gygaxian D&D, but it is fundamental to what separates D&D from other RPGs

I get it. I started with dungeons as a player. Then I moved on. Pretty much everything moves on from its roots, and D&D has really done that.

My point is that I don't want to have to spend 5 minutes juggling figures to get to the exact number I want. If my wraithy enemy only has an AC of 13 according to the system's math, I want to be able to up it to 29 for no reason other than I think it works with the monster and makes a better encounter. Likewise if my math says my zombies should have 200 hp each, I want to be able to drop it to 50 because it suits the enemy.

I believe that's called "DM cheating". This isn't a pejorative term; it simply describes when DMs go outside the rules to make a better game. If you can get away with it, it's fine. I'm not above some of that myself, though I try to stay honest. That kind of thing doesn't need to be written in the rules, though, it's between the lines.

I don't want a combat system that says "when a character's hit points drop to -10, that character is dead, unless the DM thinks he deserves to live" or a skill system that says "the search DC to find a secret door is 20, unless the DM is in a hurry to get home, in which case it is whatever the PC rolls". Likewise, I don't want a monster system that says "this monster has enough extra actions per round to make the battle really tough" or "this monster has few enough hit points that the PCs kill it automatically with one hit".

 

[slobster]

When I read this, something clicked with me.

3rd edition started to do the same thing 4e did towards the end, it just did less openly.

Later 3e monster books started tailoring the math too. For example, undead started getting "Unholy Toughness" which gave them more HP than they were entitled to by the rules.

Other monsters got a somewhat forced power attack in their specs to represent more damage and lower attack bonuses.

And natural armor has always been a way to get a monster's AC into the appropriate range.


So if created a monster that had a +11 attack bonus, when it "should" have a +15, then I can just say its got a "clumsy" trait that gives it a -4.


And that's the bottom line. 3e tried to make everything explicit, every tweak had to have a justification. 4e said, here are your numbers that will give you a good encounter. Feel free to adjust the justification for those numbers to your liking.

Yes, I agree, and also that is true. I think a system that used a 4E like math system to produce enemies, and then had a 3.5-like set of guidelines (for those who were interested) to link the numbers to the in-game fiction, would serve me nicely. In fact, that is essentially what I use.

I believe that's called "DM cheating". This isn't a pejorative term; it simply describes when DMs go outside the rules to make a better game. If you can get away with it, it's fine. I'm not above some of that myself, though I try to stay honest. That kind of thing doesn't need to be written in the rules, though, it's between the lines.

Now we are dangerously close to agreeing. I think that the 4E/3.5 hybrid I just posited gets us as close as possible to the ideal, though. You want your base system to provide useful rules and a solid bedrock for Gms to build up from, and I think the old 3.5 system is too goofy and too much work to serve very well in that regard.

EDIT: I also think that 4E was very liberating in that regard. The advice in the 3.5 monster creation is along the lines of "Here are a bunch of equations, input starting conditions and record the results. If you don't like what comes out, here is how to change the starting conditions to maybe come up with better numbers, after a few attempts." Then of course there is the implicit understanding that GMs can always fudge the numbers to have them make sense, but as you observed players might then get uppity because the GM "cheated" (!?). 4E, on the other hand, says "Here are formula to produce a level appropriate challenge. Whenever the numbers don't make sense, change them."

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Its a bit more complicated then this, which is why the idea of the "solo" monster in 4e was created.

Its not just about multiple attacks, but multiple actions. Its not just about an area effect once in a while, but area effects as routine. Its not just about natural armor, but defensive against the crazy mash of player debuffs that can be thrown down.

A lot of this is the reason why dragons had spells and certain feats like "Fly by Attack", Quicken Spell-like ability etc...

A "solo" doesn't necessarily mean it needs multiple attacks every turn. A dragon from 3rd edition blanket the area in an area of fire, get with in range and do an all out full attack that consisted of a Bite, 2 claws, 2 wings, 1 tail slap, 1 crush, and 1 tail swoop and cast spells.

 

[Ahnehnois]

When I read this, something clicked with me.

3rd edition started to do the same thing 4e did towards the end, it just did less openly.

Later 3e monster books started tailoring the math too. For example, undead started getting "Unholy Toughness" which gave them more HP than they were entitled to by the rules.

This is true, though unholy toughness is a system patch for the system mistake of not giving these creatures enough hit points to begin with. And, for the record, I didn't like it any more in some of those late 3e books than I do anywhere else.

And that's the bottom line. 3e tried to make everything explicit, every tweak had to have a justification. 4e said, here are your numbers that will give you a good encounter. Feel free to adjust the justification for those numbers to your liking.

3e did try to do that. It isn't a bad goal.

The 4e approach is just a bizarre step away from that goal. If the point of that monster's stats is to provide a certain challenge, why give it any stats at all? Why not just say that for all fighters, whenever they attack a "boss" they have to roll a 15 to hit, and have to hit it twenty times to kill it? Why give the monster all these details like ability scores and hit points if its purpose is truly that narrow?

 

[slobster]

The 4e approach is just a bizarre step away from that goal. If the point of that monster's stats is to provide a certain challenge, why give it any stats at all? Why not just say that for all fighters, whenever they attack a "boss" they have to roll a 15 to hit, and have to hit it twenty times to kill it? Why give the monster all these details like ability scores and hit points if its purpose is truly that narrow?

Because the monster generation guidelines are meant to give you a rock-solid, usable baseline stat block which you then adjust according to what you desire from the particular monster. It tells you what, behind the curtain, the math system is expecting from a monster of the role, level, and tag. Your job, and it's a necessary one, is to tailor it to fit the final monster concept, which is going to include deviating from the base stat block that your monster guidelines spat out.

 

[Obryn]

At the table, however, I think players would be very suspicious if every monster they faced had an AC within their "hittable" range. For the game to feel organic and real, some monsters need to be things they can hit on a 2, others need to be things they can miss on a 19 (and every number in between). That is a metagame consideration for the DM to worry about, but in truth his job is to minimize the sense that the monsters in the world are "balanced" in power relative to the PCs, just as his job is to minimize any form of dramatic conceit.

And these things exist in the world just fine. If my players seek them out, they will indeed find them. And on occasion, they will find my players, too.

There's only so much of that I and my players can take, though. Those extremes? They're an interesting diversion, but I find they are best when used in smaller doses. I'm not running a world-simulation that happens to be a game; I'm running a game which has some world-simulation elements to it. So those sorts of encounters aren't going to be the focus of an average session, unless the mission at hand is something like we had a few weeks back (that was, "sneak through Dregoth's palace and foil his plans").

-O

 

[LostSoul]

The 4e approach is just a bizarre step away from that goal. If the point of that monster's stats is to provide a certain challenge, why give it any stats at all? Why not just say that for all fighters, whenever they attack a "boss" they have to roll a 15 to hit, and have to hit it twenty times to kill it? Why give the monster all these details like ability scores and hit points if its purpose is truly that narrow?

In order to provide choices to players, in both creation and execution. 4E characters are complex. The complexity of monsters + the complexity of characters means that there are different choices to be made in order to achieve your goal (killing the monster without getting killed in return, usually), with some ways better than others.

 

[howandwhy99]

To the OP:

I dislike monster roles as videogames do them as well. We don't need to emulate videogames, they are still decades behind design. Our games don't need to be button mashing or power mashing to reach the closed off boss monster room for the tough battle. I don't care for solos, elites, mooks or anything else.

All that said, different creatures (and traps, situations, etc.) are balanced differently. Some are more suited to fighting groups alone (like a dragon). Many band together in large groups against high powered threats small in number (enemies like the PCs).

All this does is make the monsters fight to their best physiological advantage. Dragons can take many, many foes at once. Given this, they can afford to be loners. Kobolds cannot, so they work together or die alone.

If a Kobold were to become Huge, then he could be a high level threat to a group of PCs, but he still wouldn't be suited to fighting many foes as the same time. However, as he does have a tail and jaws, not just hands his weapon no longer fits, he might learn tactics over time to become a multi-foe fighter.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

How many? A half dozen ENWorlders? The current (diminishing) 4e DM base?

Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw around accusations of being 'needlessly insulting.' See, this is the kind of commentary that undermines your whole agenda. You say "I think players like this..." and admit that you have nothing beyond anecdotal experience to back up your opinions, but your response to us assuring you that your experience is not universal is to dismiss contrary opinions with snide remarks and repeat your own opinions as if they're facts. I'm sure you're a nice guy, but your posts reek of one-true-wayism.

I'm also okay with that outcome. As long as enough people like it. You can't please everyone.

Word to the wise: it just may happen, because more gamers might like boss labels than you believe. In fact, they're already in the play test so chances are good that 5e will have 'em.