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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Really? That is really sad to hear. I know that when I want a unique gnoll barbarian, I am able to produce decent variations pretty much 100% of the time, often on the fly if needed.

I definitely can always can create variations, but I suck at making this stuff on the fly (unless you're talking about low level monsters. That might work.) Can you also do it 100 % according to the rules, or do you give yourself some leeway here? I probably would, and I don't feel it as a "strength" of a rules system that I sometimes ignore it rules to get faster results...
And what if we're not talking about Barbarians, but spellcasters? Can this still be done on the fly?

And I'm pretty sure the gnoll clawfighter is going to be the same gnoll clawfighter the next time with zero added depth.

But will our Gnoll Barbarian still feel like a Gnoll? Or will he just be Barbarian with funny hair? Is he just another "bog-standard Barbarian, but this time specialised in mobility and hyena-like?"
Will the players really notice the difference between Gnoll Barbarian 1 and Gnoll Barbarian 2?

A general phenomena (and not one I ever noticed that much before 4E) in 3E is that the monster race (at least for humanoids) becomes meaningless over time. You slap on class level, and the racial identity is quickly gone. A Gnoll Fighter 10 isn't really different from a Hogboblin Fighter 10.

4E monsters seem to have at least one racial signature ability that will always come in play when using them. Even if you now go the 3E route and add class levels, you still have that signature ability, and people will notice the difference between 3 Hobgoblin Fighter 10 and 3 Gnoll Fighter 10 working together.

4E now goes a little further - it gives you "ready to use" variants of the same race, all preserving their racial flavor, but also adding unique abilities fitting their role. This means, if I ever want to use that race, I can immediately use these ones, without ever adding class levels, choosing powers, feats or skills for that monster. I use it, and I can trust (as far as we can trust anything in the MM) it will do its intended job.
And if I need something special, I can still take the creature and add class levels to it.

The 4E MM gives you more "instant usability" per monster then the 3E MM give you.
(This might cost you something, though. If class advancement and PC rules are little more complex in play, if you ever go the 3E route and add levels to your monster, you will probably have some more work then in 3E - at last for non-spellcasters.)

 

[Pinotage]

Ah, so now we're talking about x years. In that case, if there's one thing D&D will not have a shortage of, it's 1e6 monster books covering every reasonable niche and quite a few unreasonable ones.

The issue has always been about utility of the overall product. Why should I settle for 150 base creatures when I could settle for 500 base creatures? What WotC releases in the future doesn't matter. The bottom line is that I would far prefer the 4e MM (and indeed the 1e6 to follow should I ever feel inclined to buy them) to have more versatility than they're currently providing. And besides, why spend $90 to get what you want from 3 MM products, when you could only spend $30 on the first one if it contained the larger amount of base creatures. And sure, you could argue it's business from WotC, but sometimes that results in unsatisfied customers.

Pinotage

 

[keterys]

It's probably worth stating that your 500 creatures (base 240, before variations, say) wouldn't turn into 500 unique creatures, but more like 350.

 

[Dausuul]

The issue has always been about utility of the overall product. Why should I settle for 150 base creatures when I could settle for 500 base creatures? What WotC releases in the future doesn't matter. The bottom line is that I would far prefer the 4e MM (and indeed the 1e6 to follow should I ever feel inclined to buy them) to have more versatility than they're currently providing. And besides, why spend $90 to get what you want from 3 MM products, when you could only spend $30 on the first one if it contained the larger amount of base creatures. And sure, you could argue it's business from WotC, but sometimes that results in unsatisfied customers.

Pinotage

*shrug* We each have our preferences. Me, I feel that half to two-thirds of the monsters in the 3E Monster Manual are a complete waste of space, and I'd rather have seen that space devoted to making the iconic monsters more interesting and varied. I don't need allips; give me a low-end variant wraith instead. Why do we have a dragonne when that space could have gone into fleshing out the red dragon? And what, I ask you, is the achaierai for? Filler, that's what.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The issue has always been about utility of the overall product. Why should I settle for 150 base creatures when I could settle for 500 base creatures?

I said this on the first page, but I think it bears repeating. This is a very important part of why they have multiple types of specialist creatures:

The game is built around PCs' vs. an enemy group.

And we aren't talking about the ability to use groups or an encouragement of using groups. The very nature of the game is built assuming the PCs will almost always be fighting a group of enemies, except in very unique circumstances like dragons or beholders. Groups that can scale quite large, in fact. In my 4e game I ran an encounter with 20 kobolds, a kobold shaman, and an orc leader. I ran a battle with 3 kobold archers, 10 more kobolds of various types, and a kobold dragonshield. I ran a battle with a kobold slinger, some kobold minions, and 2 kobold skirmisher.

My point is that variety pretty much has to be built into the DM's repertoire for encounters from the bottom up. It is not enough to give us a kobold and say "If you want to add variety, you can level them up" or even "If you want to add variety, pick powers from a table!" Why? Because you would have to do this for every single encounter in the entire adventure!

In 3e this kind of thing wasn't as much of an issue. The game was more or less balanced around combats against singular or small groups of enemies. You would rarely see the kind of opposition that you are expected to see on a regular basis in 4e. Especially, since in 4e, enemies are supposed to be more interesting, more fiddly. They also want a fight with kobolds to be different than a fight with goblins or hobgoblins or orcs, mechanically, so that there's a different feeling to those battles.

The base assumptions of combat have changed from 3e to 4e and that change is being reflected in the Monster Manual. Don't think about what you would want from a 3e or previous edition Monster Manual. Take a look at how 4e is working and think about what you're going to need when you run those games, and I think that it casts the 4e MM in a much better light than the way you see it right now.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

The very nature of the game is built assuming the PCs will almost always be fighting a group of enemies, except in very unique circumstances like dragons or beholders.

I'm a little disappointed that I can't throw a single ogre at a 1st level party.

I know, I know. It was never a very interesting fight to begin with. But the concept of the big dangerous creature lumbering out of the cave always appealed to me. Always will.

Heck, I've used a bear as the capstone for 1st level PCs. And a wild boar, too, now that I think about it.

The point is, it shouldn't require "very unique circumstances" to throw a solo monster at the party.

Arrrgh, stupid, stupid Lanchester.

I guess I could give my ogres and bears and wild boars extra immediate actions.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I'm a little disappointed that I can't throw a single ogre at a 1st level party.

I know, I know. It was never a very interesting fight to begin with. But the concept of the big dangerous creature lumbering out of the cave always appealed to me. Always will.

Heck, I've used a bear as the capstone for 1st level PCs. And a wild boar, too, now that I think about it.

The point is, it shouldn't require "very unique circumstances" to throw a solo monster at the party.

Arrrgh, stupid, stupid Lanchester.

I guess I could give my ogres and bears and wild boars extra immediate actions.

Isn't that what the Elite and Solo monsters are all about?

Doing that in 3E is probably possible, too, though there weren't really good mechanics for it (Before immediate actions, we only had AoOs...). And it's hard to press this into the CR system, too, since you have to scale HD, Attacks and Actions per round against the player / group baseline. A 3.X Solo monster to work as intented would need a CR 4 points higher then the party, but if you later use against a party with a level equal to its CR, you'll notice Attacks and Saves are very low - often too low. And suddenly you have a reactive, multiple actions monster that takes time to run but doesn't actually accomplish anything...

 

[Michele Carter]

I'm a little disappointed that I can't throw a single ogre at a 1st level party.

And you still can, with the rules in the DMG for turning any creature into a Solo threat.

 

[Mad Mac]

I'm a little disappointed that I can't throw a single ogre at a 1st level party

I don't see why not. Throwing a higher level brute at a first level party should be functionally about the same as making a 1st level party fight an Ogre in 3rd edition. It won't have the actions or HPs to avoid being ganged up on and pummeled, but it could do enough damage to drop a PC in one hit.

The purpose of the solo monsters, as far as I can tell, is to provide more mechanically interesting boss battles than those availible in 3rd edition. Doesn't mean you have to set up encounters that way.

edit:

And you still can, with the rules in the DMG for turning any creature into a Solo threat.

Sweetness.

 

[FourthBear]

You know, you still *can* throw single foes not generated using the suggestions for solo monsters at a party in 4e. Just eyeball a higher level standard foe and send one of 'em at the PCs. I think it will pretty much go like the party versus ogre fights in previous editions: some carnage possibilities if the single foes lands a hit, but tactics and multiple actions are a huge disadvantage without the options that solo monsters are likely built with. I think the encounter rules are just there to maximize the chances that the encounter lasts a certain number of rounds for everyone to get a few licks in, but not so many rounds that people get bored and that there feels like there's the threat of failure, but not a high chance of a TPK.