D&D 4E 4e Monster List - Dwarven Nosepicker & Elven Butt Scratcher

[JesterOC]

Let me ask you a question. Which would you rather have:

1) A MM with 150 unique creatures and 350 filler creatures?
2) A MM with 500 unique creatures?
Pinotage

The word filler suggests that that are not interesting. I would suggest another term.

1) A MM with 150 unique creatures and 350 specializations of those creatures
2) A MM with 500 unique creatures?

I would definatly take 1.

The days of a different mosnter in every room are long gone, mainly because dungeons crawls like that did not make sense. Most dungeons I see now are actually lairs. A lair that is comprised of one main creature plus "friends" and pets. Within that lair I want specialized creatures to keep the combat different and fun.

 

[FourthBear]

If they can make the 500 monster write-ups all useful to me as a DM, I'll be overjoyed. How many are unique in the sense of being completely separate species is only a secondary concern for me. As to the monsters they've excluded, like the Frost Giant and the metallic dragons, it sounds as though it will be pretty trivial to modify the currently included creatures to match older editions. Just take the Fire Giant, switch Fire to Ice and maybe change a couple of tactical powers and you're ready to go. Want a Gold Dragon? Take Red Dragon stats and describe it as golden. If you've got strong opinions on what the Gold Dragon's powers are like that don't match with the Red Dragon stats, great! Sounds like you'll have some definite direction in what you want to accomplish when you create your Gold Dragon stats.

 

[Campbell]

Ugh. I hate this kind of response.

Let me ask you a question. Which would you rather have:

1) A MM with 150 unique creatures and 350 filler creatures?
2) A MM with 500 unique creatures?

That's an overly simplistic way of looking at. If you look at the monster entries we've seen so far each entry introduces the monster, presents stat blocks with tactics sections for each variation, has a lore section that presents background material for the monster, includes a graphical depiction of the creature in question, and uses whitespace to ensure page flipping is kept to a minimum. Several portions of a monster entry would have to be repeated for more unique monsters.

I will say that I do have one concern about the emphasis on multiple variations of a species of monsters - I'd like more of a monster entry to be dedicated to flavor material and given the layout decisions they've made and the space that extra stat blocks take up I don't think there will be enough space dedicated to that material.

 

[Pinotage]

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.

But are they really that unique, or is it the wording that's making them look all shiny? Let's take a look at the Kobold Dragon Shield, for example. It has 5 abilities listed:

1) Short Sword Attack - pretty standard fare.
2) Dragon Shield Tactics - sounds like a feat to me.
3) Mob Attack - again, a feat akin to Swarm Attack and the like.
4) Shifty - ye old 5 ft. step.
5) Trap Sense - nothing unique there. Kobolds were always good with traps. So are rogues.

So let's repackage that.

Kobold Rogue 1/Fighter 1 - attacks with a short sword, can take a 5 ft. step, has two feats, one of which is Swarm Attack, and the other is a feat called Dragon Shield. Has trapfinding, though not quite trap sense, but it's 'trap' abilities are covered nicely with trapfinding, search, and other skills. Is that unique?

Pinotage

 

[Pinotage]

The way I see it, one MM has 500 unique races, and the other has 500 unique creatures. That can be played right out of the box. That can be adjusted with little to no prep time.

It's obvious I prefer 500 races to 500 creatures, and that you're more than happy the other way around. Fair enough.

And yet, with all your babbling about tinkering, you can't be bothered to make one yourself?

All I'm saying is that, for me, I'd prefer to see a frost giant to yet another kobold or gnoll (And, no, I don't agree with the premise that role makes a creature unique). As a long term D&D player, I expected a frost giant. Instead I'm getting another humanoid critter with a different role. I guess my expectations were wrong.

Pinotage

 

[Pinotage]

The word filler suggests that that are not interesting. I would suggest another term.

1) A MM with 150 unique creatures and 350 specializations of those creatures
2) A MM with 500 unique creatures?

Good point. Let's call them specializations. I didn't mean anything derogatory by filler.

Pinotage

 

[Pinotage]

I will say that I do have one concern about the emphasis on multiple variations of a species of monsters - I'd like more of a monster entry to be dedicated to flavor material and given the layout decisions they've made and the space that extra stat blocks take up I don't think there will be enough space dedicated to that material.

Also a good point. I guess this goes back to Mustrum Ridcully's comments regarding the balance versus the crunch in your MM. Would I prefer 200 creatures and lots of fluff, to 200 creatures 300 specializations, and a little fluff, I'd rather take the former.

Pinotage

 

[fafhrd]

When looking at the longer view I definitely gain an appreciation for the present approach to the monster manual. Once a few monster supplements have been published, we'll have a pretty wide variety of unique types of monsters, but unlike in previous editions, they'll be organized into the same logical groupings in which they'll be used, as encounters. I know it's cold comfort for someone missing out on a fav(condolences Pinotage), but I'm very enthused that I can run an orc horde by grabbing a single book rather than the hunt and peck, or worse yet, the sit and build approach I'm currently forced to use. I hope folks like Pinotage will one day be able to grab their MMX and have a ready to play frost giant warband.

 

[Wormwood]

I hope folks like Pinotage will one day be able to grab their MMX and have a ready to play frost giant warband.

I agree---but I would rather that 4e makes mixing and matching monster attributes so simple that we see a dozen Frost Giants posted within a day of the MM's release.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But are they really that unique, or is it the wording that's making them look all shiny? Let's take a look at the Kobold Dragon Shield, for example. It has 5 abilities listed:

1) Short Sword Attack - pretty standard fare.
2) Dragon Shield Tactics - sounds like a feat to me.
3) Mob Attack - again, a feat akin to Swarm Attack and the like.
4) Shifty - ye old 5 ft. step.
5) Trap Sense - nothing unique there. Kobolds were always good with traps. So are rogues.

So let's repackage that.

Kobold Rogue 1/Fighter 1 - attacks with a short sword, can take a 5 ft. step, has two feats, one of which is Swarm Attack, and the other is a feat called Dragon Shield. Has trapfinding, though not quite trap sense, but it's 'trap' abilities are covered nicely with trapfinding, search, and other skills. Is that unique?

Pinotage

But this also requires me to spend 8+INT x 4 + 2+INT skill points, and pick up one bonus feat. (In this case, the bonus feat might be necessary). And I have to look up the class charts to tel me the new monsters saves and BAB, and recalculate HP. For a 2nd level monster, this is fine. If you'd want to run a combat against a number of kobolds making it reasonable having three distinct types (2 excluding the base monster), it gets a little more.

If I want to do this for a 16th level monster, it gets even more complicated. Can you cover _all_ special tactis and abilities with 2 class levels? What if you want to add spellcasting capacity? Do you add spellcaster levels? Or just arbitrarily give a monster a few spell-like abilities? (if the latter, welcome to 4E )

All the little things add up. I know it, because I have done it. Then, I switched to Iron Heroes and used the villain classes a few times. Then I read about 4E... And suddenly, I am seeing the potential for DMing being a little easier. I still have to cope with players that can disrupt my "plot" anytime, I still have to think about a reasonable story to motivate and entertain my players. But at least I might not need as much time statting the monsters, since they're either ready made or based on simple guidelines that gives me everything "precalculated"...