D&D 4E 4e Monster List - Dwarven Nosepicker & Elven Butt Scratcher
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Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Well, they need to find a happy middle, I guess. I don't think we'll see 10 write-ups for each individual humanoid. I think most of the time, we will see all the essential roles covered, and that's it.Pinotage said:
How many pages is the book to have? 288? Let's pretend it where 200 - with the proposed two page spread per monster, this gives us 100 "unique" monsters.
I really wouldn't want to go back to more then one individual monster per page, but maybe that's just because I still remember the Oriental Adventures encounter with a Giant that lead to a Total Party Kill just because the DM wandered off into the wrong row or column. *shudder*
I don't know if I need more monster ecology or more monster stats in my Monster Manual. Though I know I often played "themed" adventures in the sense that their was one common type of foe (Goblin, Giant, Spiders, whatever...) instead of a wild mix of foes...
Not really. It's MM5 all over again! The slight but very important difference is this:Pinotage said:
In MM4 you'd get something like a drow with 4 ninja levels - something you could easily do for yourself.
In MM5 you'd get a 'drow stalker' with a fixed set of special abilities that allowed him to fullfill his role. You wouldn't be able to reproduce this by applying class levels or feats alone.
From the examples we've seen so far, 4E monsters are an example of the latter: You'll get monsters that are designed specifically to fulfill a certain role with a unique set of abilities.
For all intents and purposes these variants truly _are_ different monsters.
And the good thing is:
You don't lose anything you could have done before; you can still apply templates, advance them or give them class levels. You simply get more options than before, which is always a good thing.
The way I see it, one MM has 500 unique races, and the other has 500 unique creatures.Pinotage said:
That can be played right out of the box.
That can be adjusted with little to no prep time.
And yet, with all your babbling about tinkering, you can't be bothered to make one yourself?
Pinotage said:
The way I see it, when the MM contains 500 unique creatures, about 400 of them are a waste of space because they're either bizarre oddities that I will never use (please raise your hand if you have ever in your life used a tojanida), or poorly disguised clones of existing creatures with a new coat of paint (see previous statement about sahuagin/kuo-toa/locathah/et cetera et cetera).
I'd rather have a set of variations on a main theme, sufficiently different to make for interesting combats, yet with enough thematic consistency that I can base an adventure or a campaign arc around that theme and use all the variations without having to come up with elaborate excuses for why the hobgoblins have gnolls working for them.
And it isn't "minimal effort." Working out mechanics for the variant monsters so that they really "feel" different from the originals from a player perspective, while retaining the defining flavor of the originals, and still being balanced for their level... that's not a trivial exercise. Not a huge one, but not trivial.
The thing about the variants in the 4E Monster Manual is that they have been designed and tested to ensure that they really do work the way they're supposed to. That, to me, is much more valuable than yet ANOTHER big ugly worm-like monster that swallows people whole.
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Pinotage said:
Many of the unique creatures weren't that unique to begin with. Really, the difference between kobolds, goblins, orcs hobgoblins and gnolls basically came down to size increase. Really, a bog standard kobold doesn't fight any differently than a bog standard hobgoblin.
Compared to now where gnolls individualy differ? I'll take the former as in practice they ARE different. I mean, did you consider the individual demons and devils NOT to be unique creatures?
As well, I don't think ALL creatures are getting 10 statblocks.
From the MM itself that was on display, we have
4 varieties of gnolls
2 versions of the Bodak
1 Boneclaw statblock
2 Choker statblocks
2 version of the Chuul
2 versions of the Grick
2 statblocks for the Grell
Zinovia
Explorer
I'd rather have some medium number of monsters with stat blocks for several variants than 500 distinct monsters with unpronounceable names, weak or non-existent ties to lore, and overall concepts that amount to "It's another fish-dude". Today's special monster the Xxgr'lkg is brought to you by the letters X and G, and their friend the apostrophe!
It seems that many of the bizarre and seldom-used creatures in previous incarnations of D&D were created out of thin air and bad design as part of a monster arms race for increasingly knowledgeable players. The GM needs to throw stuff at the players that will be challenging, but they've already memorized the stats for the current MM and as soon as you describe the critter they say "Ahah, I know that one, it's weak against fire spells and has a grapple attack with 10' reach". So you have to make up new stuff that they haven't heard of yet.
The CR system also dictated that you needed hosts of different underground-dwelling evil humanoids for them to fight, but that really had the same flavor (plain vanilla). Orcs, kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, troglodytes, gnolls, bugbears. What's the difference in these again? How do they feel different in play? They don't much. /yawn
If 4E has managed to make fighting kobolds different from fighting hobgoblins (aside from how easy they are to kill), then kudos to WotC for pulling it off. If there isn't any flavor text in the MM, I'll be disappointed. I do want some idea of what makes each monster unique, where they live, and some hint of why they are bad and need to be killed by adventurers.
I think having several different ready to use roles in the MM helps make an encounter with 5 orcs much more interesting and believable than if they're all the same. Creative GM's with a lot of time would go through and give class levels and feats to those orcs to make them different in 3.5, but many folks lacked the time or desire to spend that much effort on prep, and so used them out of the book in their boring plain-vanilla version. The new MM will come with strawberry, chocolate, rocky road, and mint chocolate chip flavors of monsters. It sounds like some people are concerned that plain vanilla won't be represented (no base orc for example). That's a valid concern if you want a base on which to add templates, but it's not one that I'm especially worried about. I think we'll be able to customize from whatever variant is closest to your goal. Want a super spell caster? Work up from the base caster type. Rogue? Work from one of the archer types for the similar stats.
I'm happy with the idea of having some different roles for each monster statted out in the books. There's no need to use the names if you don't like them, just describe what the players see. The players will distinguish between them based on what the monsters are doing or how they are equipped (for humanoids). "I'll shoot the one with the crossbow". They don't care if it's called a "sharpshooter". They also can't necessarily tell just by looking at them how powerful they are and what their exact role is. I like it.
It seems that many of the bizarre and seldom-used creatures in previous incarnations of D&D were created out of thin air and bad design as part of a monster arms race for increasingly knowledgeable players. The GM needs to throw stuff at the players that will be challenging, but they've already memorized the stats for the current MM and as soon as you describe the critter they say "Ahah, I know that one, it's weak against fire spells and has a grapple attack with 10' reach". So you have to make up new stuff that they haven't heard of yet.
The CR system also dictated that you needed hosts of different underground-dwelling evil humanoids for them to fight, but that really had the same flavor (plain vanilla). Orcs, kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, troglodytes, gnolls, bugbears. What's the difference in these again? How do they feel different in play? They don't much. /yawn
If 4E has managed to make fighting kobolds different from fighting hobgoblins (aside from how easy they are to kill), then kudos to WotC for pulling it off. If there isn't any flavor text in the MM, I'll be disappointed. I do want some idea of what makes each monster unique, where they live, and some hint of why they are bad and need to be killed by adventurers.
I think having several different ready to use roles in the MM helps make an encounter with 5 orcs much more interesting and believable than if they're all the same. Creative GM's with a lot of time would go through and give class levels and feats to those orcs to make them different in 3.5, but many folks lacked the time or desire to spend that much effort on prep, and so used them out of the book in their boring plain-vanilla version. The new MM will come with strawberry, chocolate, rocky road, and mint chocolate chip flavors of monsters. It sounds like some people are concerned that plain vanilla won't be represented (no base orc for example). That's a valid concern if you want a base on which to add templates, but it's not one that I'm especially worried about. I think we'll be able to customize from whatever variant is closest to your goal. Want a super spell caster? Work up from the base caster type. Rogue? Work from one of the archer types for the similar stats.
I'm happy with the idea of having some different roles for each monster statted out in the books. There's no need to use the names if you don't like them, just describe what the players see. The players will distinguish between them based on what the monsters are doing or how they are equipped (for humanoids). "I'll shoot the one with the crossbow". They don't care if it's called a "sharpshooter". They also can't necessarily tell just by looking at them how powerful they are and what their exact role is. I like it.
DM_Blake said:
The problm with that method is you need to flip back and forth between the chart and the base stats and do a merge in your head at game time, or write them all out as individual stats before the game. I like 4E method much better. Just give me one stat block per monster, so I can photo copy it (or print it hopefully) as a self contained unit. Quick and Easy.
JesterOC
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