D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Defining Our Terms

[Blackwarder]

I this weak Wandering Monsters James talks about levels, environments, types and random treasure tables!

when I was neck-deep in writing story briefs for monsters, I adopted some conventions that I realize I never defined when I started transferring those briefs to these columns. So let me explain what I mean by level and environment, then we'll talk about monster type. And I'll wrap up by throwing out my ideas about treasure types.

Check it here: http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4wand/20130409

I'm generally in favor of this definitions, personaly I would also like to have tags like common, uncommon rare etc for the basic implied D&D world and maybe have a borderlands environment (although I still question if that would be a good idea)

What do you think?

Warder

 

[1of3]

Environments is too complicated for my tastes.

Monster types are a mess. 4e made a huge improvement with the split between origin and body form. Unfortunately they didn't ask that.

 

[Blackwarder]

The thing is, I don't want to have the equivalent of D&D zoology or monsterology degree to understand what each monnster is.

To take it one step further, I would rather have the MM arranged by monster types chapters, so we will have an aberration chapter, a dragon chapter and so forth, each chapter could start with a recap of the general type and every thing related to that type, much like the dragons entries in previous MM.

Warder

 

[Kinak]

The treasure table stuff sounds nice and, although I've never paid much attention to terrain entries, they don't hurt me.

I'm not really sure I appreciate what they're trying to do with monster types, though. It feels like a step back from 3rd edition, that's already pretty incoherent there. It'll work fine, I'm sure, but I feel like we could use a more functional design.

Once we find out what tags actually matter in the game, they can be applied to the appropriate monsters. If that means some creatures are celestial outsider dragons and other creatures have no tags, that's going to create a more coherent system than one where each monster gets a single tag.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[jrowland]

... but I feel like we could use a more functional design.

Well, I can certainly appreciate functional monster types, but I think the article goes directly to the narrative of the monster. I think that is the appropriate first step to classification. The narrative (fiction) drives the functional (mechanics), as it should IMO. Later on, as the stats are developed for those entries, those narrative entries could become functional tags (or not).

A D&D troll is a narrative creature we try to emulate using the ruleset (edition), not a ruleset we try to emulate using a narrative. I can say "troll" and regardless of edition, or even game ruleset (wrahammer, Gurps, D&D, etc) and we have a narrative image along with things like environment (where trolls live). Functional keywords can be added later if appropriate to the ruleset.

 

[avin]

Liked in general, but Arctic? You know, there's also a South Pole in worlds... Antarctic.

 

[Dausuul]

I like the general thrust of both terrains and monster types, but both lists need trimming down. I'd go with:

• Merge Woodland into Forest.
• Merge Stronghold into Urban.
• Merge Dungeons into Ruins.
• Merge Lakes and Rivers into a new Lake/River terrain.
• Eliminate Waterborne (divided up among the other aquatic terrains).
• Eliminate Monstrosity (divided up among Beast, Aberration, and Humanoid).
• Celestial, Elemental, and Fiend are now keywords applied to a new Outsider category.
• Dragon is now a keyword applied to Beasts. (Yes, I know, dragons are the game's iconic monsters, but that doesn't mean they deserve a whole creature category.) Beasts are no longer limited to unintelligent creatures.
• Fey and Giant are now keywords applied to Humanoids.
• Undead is now a keyword applied to Humanoids, Outsiders, Beasts, Plants, and maybe Aberrations.

That will get us down to a reasonable set of terrains and creature categories, with keywords for the finer distinctions within groups. Keywords are one of 4E's less-heralded innovations, but they're really a very good idea. For that matter, they could be used with terrains as well--e.g., instead of trying to have Forest and Woodland, we could have Forest (Wilderness) and Forest (Settled).

 

[jadrax]

Liked in general, but Arctic? You know, there's also a South Pole in worlds... Antarctic.

Blame science.

Antarctica
Climate: subarctic to arctic

 

[Blackwarder]

I like the general thrust of both terrains and monster types, but both lists need trimming down. I'd go with:

• Merge Woodland into Forest.
• Merge Stronghold into Urban.
• Merge Dungeons into Ruins.
• Merge Lakes and Rivers into Lakes/Rivers.
• Eliminate Waterborne (divided up among the other aquatic terrains).
• Merge Celestial, Elemental, and Fiend into a new Outsider category.
• Eliminate Monstrosity (divided up among Beast, Aberration, and Humanoid).
• Merge Dragon into Beast. (Yes, I know, dragons are the game's iconic monsters, but that doesn't mean they deserve a whole creature category.)
• Merge Fey and Giant into Humanoid.
• Eliminate Undead (divided up among Beast and Humanoid).

That will get us down to a reasonable set of terrains and creature categories. For sub-groups such as undead, fey, dragons, giants, and celestials, use keywords. Keywords are one of 4E's less-heralded innovations, but they're really a very good idea. For that matter, they could be used with terrains as well--e.g., instead of trying to have Forest and Woodland, we could have Forest (Wilderness) and Forest (Settled).

I strongly disagree with that, there is a big difference between forest and woodland for example, while the later describe an area covered in trees the former describe an area that is covered in trees and undergrowth and is generally harder to move through.

Stronghold and urban are also two very different things, outsider is meh IMO and don't let me start on merging Fey and Giant into Humanoids.

Warder

 

[GX.Sigma]

I like the complicated terrains. Give me as much detail as possible! I'll just ignore it if I don't like it, so why be afraid of being specific?