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

Wormwood · Mar 13, 2008

Bagpuss said:
To me Elf Archer and Elf Wardancer are not two monsters they are one.

If they differ in play without me having to customize them, then I count them as sufficiently different.

Bagpuss · Mar 13, 2008

Oh I'm not questioning the usefulness of having significantly different builds of the same monster, I just don't think it would be fair to advertise them as a different monster.

Pinotage · Mar 13, 2008

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
The end result is similar, but the process that got you there is different. And that is, from a playability point of view, what makes the important difference.

Sure. 3e monster design and 4e monster design are very different. There's no argument there. I don't agree that it makes them play any different. If they're mechanically the same, and the concepts are the same, then the playability is affected by the underlying system, not the creature itself. A gnoll marauder still hits you with its weapon, as does the 3e gnoll with the same weapon. 4e and 3e are different, and their playability is different, but mechanically the monsters are still very similar.

Pinotage

AllisterH · Mar 13, 2008

Pinotage said:
. A gnoll marauder still hits you with its weapon, as does the 3e gnoll with the same weapon. 4e and 3e are different, and their playability is different, but mechanically the monsters are still very similar.

Pinotage

I tend to disagree. From playing around with the monsters in 4E with the playtest characters, they really do play differently. Moreso than simply adding a feat to the 3E version.

Example:
Gnoll Claw Fighter Level 6 Skirmisher * XP 250
Medium Natural Humanoid
Initiative: +7
Senses: Perception +6; low-light vision
HP 70; Bloodied 35
AC 20; Fortitude 18, Reflex 16, Will 15
Speed 8; see also mobile melee attack
M Claw (standard; at-will)
+11 vs. AC; 1d6 + 4 damage, or 1d6 + 6 while bloodied; see also pack attack below
M Clawing Charge (standard, when this creature charges; at-will)
The gnoll claw fighter makes two claw attacks against a single target when it charges.
M Mobile Melee Attack (standard; at-will)
The gnoll claw fighter can move up to 4 squares and make one melee basic attack at any point during that movement. The gnoll doesn't provoke opportunity attacks when moving away from the target of its attack.
Pack Attack
The gnoll claw fighter deals an extra 5 damage on melee attacks against an enemy that has two or more of the gnoll claw fighter's allies adjacent to it.
Alignment: Chaotic evil Languages: Abyssal, Common
Skills: Intimidate +3
Str 19 (+7) Con 14 (+5) Dex 15 (+5) Int 9 (+2) Wis 12 (+4) Cha 7 (-1) Equipment: leather armor

VS

Gnoll Marauder Level 6 Brute
Medium natural humanoid XP 250
Initiative +5
Senses Perception +7, low light vision
HP 84; Bloodied 42
AC 18; Fortitude 18, Reflex 15, Will 15
Speed 7
m Spear (standard; at-will) * Weapon
+10 vs AC; 1d8+6 damage or 1d8+8 while bloodied; see also
quick bite and pack attack
M Quick Bite (free; at-will)
After the gnoll marauder makes a successful melee attack
against a bloodied enemy, it takes a bite attack against the same
target: +7 vs AC; 1d6+2 damage or 1d6+4 damage while bloodied.
Pack Attack
The gnoll marauder deals an extra 5 damage on melee attacks
against an enemy that has two or more of the marauder's allies
adjacent to it.
Alignment Chaotic Evil Languages Abyssal, Common
Skills Intimidate +3, Stealth +10
Str 20 (+8) Dex 14 (+5) Wis 14 (+5)
Con 14 (+5) Int 9 (+2) Cha 7 (+3)

These are both Gnolls yet in play, they act differently moreso than simply giving one gnoll a bow and another gnoll a sword. Its more than just adding a feat which I agree anyone could do, but actually rejigging the monster to best utilize that feat which is what I tended to have a problem with or simply forget in 3.x. The gnoll in 3.x only has a DEX of 10 meaning if I just ignore DEX requirements for feats, the fact that the std creature is designed for one style of combat, it is really hard to change it for a differnt style.

I like this. I like that the common monsters (the ones you meet multiples of) have different members of their society so my players always will have a different feel for combat.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Mar 13, 2008

Pinotage said:
Sure. 3e monster design and 4e monster design are very different. There's no argument there. I don't agree that it makes them play any different. If they're mechanically the same, and the concepts are the same, then the playability is affected by the underlying system, not the creature itself. A gnoll marauder still hits you with its weapon, as does the 3e gnoll with the same weapon. 4e and 3e are different, and their playability is different, but mechanically the monsters are still very similar.

Pinotage

I could have sworn I wanted to add/replace playability with usability.

Since I didn't let me rephrase it here:
The usability of the mechanics is better/easier from the Dungeons Masters point of view.
He gets ready-made statistics for a monster in different roles. He can create new monsters using basic guidelines without getting into the complexity of statting the monster up as if it was a fully-fledged player character.

The usability within combat is very similar - though I note some exceptions: If you statted up a high level spellcasting monster, you would have a lot of "useless" spells - spells that don't matter when actually playing the game, but still cluttering the stat block. (Since the DM has statted up the whole monster in the first place - assuming it's not from a adventure module - this is probably not such a big issue, since he would have picked the casters combat strategy and likely spells beforehand. Non-Spellcasters are not that bad, though if you add to many feats for different combat maneuvers, you might still have a lot of information you need to process but won't use...

Dausuul · Mar 13, 2008

Bagpuss said:
Are we sure it doesn't actually have 50 with 10 varieties of each entry or some similar mix.

To me Elf Archer and Elf Wardancer are not two monsters they are one.

If it's fifty iconic monsters, with ten well-developed and interesting versions of each one, I will be much happier than with five hundred monsters of which 400 will never see use in my games.

I mean, do we really need kuo-toa and locathah and merfolk and tritons and sahuagin? How many variants on "fish-people" (okay, technically the kuo-toa are "frog-people," but it's not like players are gonna notice the difference) do we have to have?

Lizard · Mar 13, 2008

Mourn said:
So, it simply comes down to "I want everything to adhere to the exact capabilities of what players can/can't do." Boooooooooring.

Compared to what 4e gnolls, goblinoids, and kobolds do, their 3e versions bore me to frakkin' tears with their lack of anything mechanically interesting.

They're as mechanically interesting as any 3e PC. This may or may not be a selling point to you.

Please see my post above my answer to the whole "But you CAN add class levels to them in 4e!" thing. You can. It's just a bad idea in most cases. (As opposed to 3e, where it's a good idea unless you want to switch monster palettes every level or two.)

Wormwood · Mar 13, 2008

Bagpuss said:
Oh I'm not questioning the usefulness of having significantly different builds of the same monster, I just don't think it would be fair to advertise them as a different monster.

In that case, I'd say under 200 discrete monsters will end up in the book (extrapolating from page count and the images we saw from DDXP).

edit: I get your point, but given 4e's focus on "more monsters per encounter", I like the option of haivng multiple flavors of each monster type.

Wulf Ratbane · Mar 13, 2008

Celebrim said:
Anyone in 3E could have made a 4E stat block just by not caring quite as much about getting it 'right'. As far as I can tell, 4E simply gives you permission.

That's my impression, too.

Clark (Orcus of Necromancer) has said as much-- that he felt he didn't have permission to go wild with his monsters and otherwise break the rules.

The single biggest flaw with 3e, in my opinion, was that the players held all the power. If a feat existed, they could have it. If a prestige class existed, they could take it. If a spell existed, they could cast it. If a magic item existed, they could buy it.

To hell with that.

I personally don't need 4e to give me permission to seize control of my game again, but-- for the sake of folks who seem to need "permission" and want everything "official"-- I'm glad it's coming back.

That said, I guarantee you that all my 1st level PCs will be scavenging the special ammo from the kobolds and the harpoons from the goblins. If I can't do that within the rules, simulationist or not, the rules are borked.