D&D (2024) Its till just me or is the 2024 MM heavily infused by more 4e influences?

[Charlaquin]

An interesting starting premise. One issue: This makes DMs reskinning monsters either impossible, or extraordinarily unwise, both of which are...not particularly desirable states for most DMs, I would assume.

Because if we do stick to this premise, then you cannot ever reuse a red dragon's stats for a flamethrower tank. You cannot ever make a couple small tweaks to use a Behir as a Storm Giant. Etc. Every monster has to be positively identifiable from its actions, so calling <set of stats that do fiery things and can take a lot of hits> a "Flame Tank" is a dead giveaway and liable to pull perceptive players directly out of the experience, since they know what they're "really" fighting. Conversely, DMs are no longer free to modify monsters either. If they change too much, it's not going to be clearly identifiable as a "Red Dragon" or "Behir" etc. anymore. This 1:1 correspondence between a monster category and a slate of abilities harshly reduces the potential for creativity and intermixing that are pretty important for presenting a rich world, for both gamists and simulationists.

That’s a very good observation! I think that in reality, you’re never going to get monsters 100% identifiable from their stats and abilities alone, but I think it’s a worthwhile ideal to pursue, and the closer a design gets to success at that goal, the harder it would be to reskin that design without it being obvious that the reskin is not what those stats were designed to represent. Personally, I consider that a worthwhile tradeoff, but YMMV.

How would you address these issues? While I'm sure not everyone will care about either one individually, most folks will care about at least one of the two and I'd assume at least a plurality of DMs would prefer to have both options.

I don’t think they really need addressing. If a stat block is so clearly identifiable as the creature it’s supposed to represent that I can’t make any modifications to it without it no longer feeling like the same monster, why would I want to make modifications to it? Usually when I modify a monster, it’s to make it more easily identifiable through its abilities alone. Meanwhile if I want a creature that no existing stat blocks represent, I can homebrew a stat block for it, either from scratch, or starting with a stat block that already does similar things. Going with your “flame tank” example, if a red dragon’s stat block already does lots of flame-y things and can take lots of hits, I can keep those aspects and get rid of the aspects that are clearly un-tank-like, such as flight, and maybe replace them with some recognizably tank-like things, like a slow, heavy-hitting, long ranged attack with a small AoE. As long as the homebrewer keeps this same guiding principle in mind, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to make their own monsters that are also identifiable as themselves.

 

[Corinnguard]

Not anymore than it was in the past.

One word, Eberron.

 

[Charlaquin]

I was thinking more along the lines of signature abilities and a menu of options, such that a given combination of such would denote a specific monster, as displayed by copious example monsters.

I guess I didn't quite fully understand what I was agreeing to. I do, however, still hate reskinning.

Nah, you understood me correctly. I didn’t mean that every creature needed to have completely unique signature abilities, but rather that fighting a zombie should feel like fighting a zombie, fighting a red dragon should feel like fighting a red dragon, fighting a storm giant should feel like fighting a storm giant, etc.

Like, as a thought experiment (or even an actual experiment), imagine running a fight against a monster and not describing it at all, just running the naked mechanics. After the fight ends, ask the players to make their best guess what they thought they were just fighting. In my opinion, the closer the players’ guess is to correct, and more reliably different groups of players can guess in the right ballpark, the more successful the monster design.

Does that help clarify, @EzekielRaiden ?

 

[Micah Sweet]

One word, Eberron.

I like this experiment. Assuming that the setting depicted in the recent D&D movie is representative of WotC's vision for standard modern D&D setting assumptions (and I do), how suffused with magic would that world feel to the average inhabitant of, say, any official setting in the TSR era save obvious exceptions (like Planescape or Spelljammer)?

Pretty darn suffused, I'd say. And this isn't a knock against the film. I liked it quite a bit.

 

[Charlaquin]

That still sounds like it's going to make monster-design creativity pretty sharply limited. Maybe I'm just expecting rather high standards here, given the phrasing. Still, if you have to see and fully understand 3-4 abilities a monster has before you can even begin to identify it, I wouldn't see that as being a particularly good "abilities = identity" thing. I should think it would be much quicker than that. Especially since that means you can only really change one ability, if that, and still preserve the monster's identity. If an Ancient Red Dragon is identified by (say) fire breath, whirlwind (from its wings), a tail swipe, and a pillar of fire type thing, you're really only going to get to play with maybe one of those attacks without compromising its identity--and even that's going to be dicey, since if it doesn't get a wing attack (for example), it could be a salamander, whereas if it doesn't get a breath attack it could be a balrog. Etc.

When you can only count on getting 3-4 rounds to work with, and abilities are supposed to conclusively identify what you're facing, there's a pretty sharp limit to how much you can express creativity or monster uniqueness without breaking the bijective map between abilities and identities. But if you have to have it so that each distinct monster can be identified from just one or two category-specific things, e.g. dragons get breath attacks, now you're limited from the other direction, because you can't ever give anything a breath attack without people thinking it's some kind of dragon.

I expect you’re thinking of much more rigidly defined sets of abilities than I intended. Like, I actually think 4e did a really good job of making monsters feel in play like what they were supposed to represent, and I’m in favor of 5e taking more cues from 4e’s monster design because I think it’s a really good way to achieve this goal of making monster stats feel like what they represent without having to rely on DM description.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

How is it more prevalent?

In 1st/2nd edition, a 1st level wizard was a single Sleep spell on legs, after which you threw darts and hid in the corner, praying a mundane house cat didn't claw/claw/bite you to death.

Cantrips alone offer a large amount of magical utility. If you asked 12 year old me for Minor Illusion at will I'd have looked at you as though you had lobsters crawling out of your ears. Nearly every class has access to at will magic, and more magic, than earlier editions.

 

[Corinnguard]

I like this experiment. Assuming that the setting depicted in the recent D&D movie is representative of WotC's vision for standard modern D&D setting assumptions (and I do), how suffused with magic would that world feel to the average inhabitant of, say, any official setting in the TSR era save obvious exceptions (like Planescape or Spelljammer)?

Pretty darn suffused, I'd say. And this isn't a knock against the film. I liked it quite a bit.

If the average inhabitant of a TSR era setting found themselves on Eberron, they would most certainly be gob smacked by what they would come across while walking the streets of Sharn.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

One word, Eberron.

That was back in 3e.

 

[Corinnguard]

That was back in 3e.

Eberron appeared in both 3e, 4e and 5e.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I like this experiment. Assuming that the setting depicted in the recent D&D movie is representative of WotC's vision for standard modern D&D setting assumptions (and I do), how suffused with magic would that world feel to the average inhabitant of, say, any official setting in the TSR era save obvious exceptions (like Planescape or Spelljammer)?

Pretty darn suffused, I'd say. And this isn't a knock against the film. I liked it quite a bit.

But the only real sources of magic in the movie were the Sorcerer, the Evil Wizard, and the Druid. None of which would have been out of place back in the 80s or 90s.

My questions have not been answered how 2024 is more magic heavy than it's earlier version or even 3e or 4e.