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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 6015434" data-attributes="member: 1165">I think they actually gave tactics for a few monster types. (3.0 did the same thing, and even in 3.5 only complicated monster types like mind flayer got a lot of tactical support.) In part this is due to monster roles. You should be able to tell from a monster's role and powers what it's going to be doing. You generally use your encounter/recharge/daily (?) abilities first, and check the move/minor/triggered action powers for anything else you can do.Soldiers "block" or force a squishier target like a wizard or warlock to stick to them. Brutes do high damage. Skirmishers slip past the defender and gank somebody in the rear rank. Lurkers deflect attacks and dish out high damage when "available". Artillery stay behind brutes or soldiers and dish out the hurt. Controllers freeze opponents in place, wall them off, blind them, force them into traps, etc. I find I only need tactics notes if I'm running a solo, and even then only if it's a controller or possibly a leader.That's completely subjective.Mainly because most campaigns don't have evil PCs, so having angels all good-aligned renders them useless as opponents. (They're effectively turned into companions, but the companion rules didn't exist when the MM1 was published.) Same reason why "good" dragons are instead neutral-aligned.Note that alignment is just flavor text. You can always make angels good-only if you feel like it.They pretty much had to. Take a look at this description of <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulEvil" target="_blank">Lawful Evil</a>. This is flat-out superior than any description I've seen previously. I only agree with a few of the interpretations, but they're clearly spelled out, so I could competently debate why I like or dislike an interpretation.TSR and WotC consistently failed to pull this off; turns out only the crowd-sourcing nature of TVTropes can begin to tackle this complex problem. Alignment created a problem when you had DMs and players disagreeing over alignment (which is something that's inevitable[/], as no two people ever agree on an alignment) and can result in what seems to be a DM punishing a PC for an "alignment infraction" (paladin being the worst example, but there's others out there).Some alignments, such as lawful evil and chaotic neutral were so poorly explained that nobody actually knew what they stood for, which is why they're eliminated. There probably never needed to be 9 alignments.I personally feel that in a 3.x campaign I would simply write "neutral" on my character sheet, even if I felt like playing a lawful good character, and have the DM determine what the actual alignment is. Why is that even on my character sheet when it's really a DM thing? Even better, just leave it blank and have the DM fill it in later, if they even notice!Like art, this is kind of subjective. Planar "rules" aren't really game rules. You can use whatever planar system you like. 4e won't interfere with this anymore than 3e interferes with 2e planes or 2e interferes with 3e or 4e planes. You won't suddenly render ritualists overpowered or underpowered if you split the elemental planes apart again, for instance.Because of the roles, especially some of the mechanics (such as "marking"). Personally I'm glad of these mechanics, in part because prior to 4e, not having roles rendered numerous classes "unfocused".Various 4e roles map, to a greater or lesser extent, onto MMO roles.The defender maps onto the tank. In newer MMOs, tanks frequently "draw aggro" from enemies, causing the enemy to target the tank rather than a squishier target. Drawing aggro is necessary in a game with a computer, which would otherwise just target the squishiest opponent (as in Warcraft III) or the closest one. This isn't necessary in an RPG where a DM's brain is vastly superior to any CPU.Defenders instead tend to mark (or do something similar) to their opponents. This gives the opponent an incentive to attack the defender, but it's not mind control. You can ignore the -2 penalty to hit (and any punishment that comes with the mark) if it's a better idea to kill that warlock standing behind the fighter that keeps sapping your hit points. This also gives defenders the ability to, well, defend their charges. In previous editions, only attacks of opportunity and "mook chivalry" let the fighter guard the squishies.The controller resembles the "crowd control" role in MMO. Of course, most crowd control monsters just seem to slow or immobilize large numbers of opponents rather than breaking out the bag of tricks a wizard or invoker has available, but the similarity was enough to provoke outrage among some segments of the game player populace.In addition, most classes have few abilities that go beyond their class role. As one example, wizards could be the best at dishing out damage (or instant death), dishing out status effects, and using a variety of spells (such as Greater Invisibility) to become unkillable - no more. Now wizards focus on control, which they're better at than pretty much anyone else, and aren't competing for the "king of damage" with the rogue.Another instance, fighters (and rogues, and wizards) used to do the most damage, which created uncomfortable competitions between them. Now the fighter's role is clear. He's tougher than everyone else, and he uses those abilities to protect everyone else (instead of just trying to be more powerful by being unkillable). If you're looking for a tough guy who kicks a lot of butt but isn't so great at guarding others, the slayer class (a fighter subclass) probably matches your expectations better. Unfortunately the slayer wasn't in the PH1.The cleric got "fixed" in a similar way - they were no longer weak wizards at low-levels (using spells like Cause Fear, which IIRC is also a wizard spell, or Hold Person), out-fighting the fighter at mid-levels with buffs and back to insta-kill wizards at higher level (but with more hit points, better AC, better saves, somewhat worse invincible spells)... instead the cleric's non-healing role is pretty specific. Nearly every cleric ability comes with a micro-buff, which means you're not wasting rounds buffing the party, but also the cleric isn't going to cast a trio of buff spells and outfight the fighter. (The cleric's healing also got far better, but that's not something you were discussing.)</blockquote>

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