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ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 2947206" data-attributes="member: 12460">Those monster roles are taken right out of the MM, so if you disagree with me, you disagree with the designers. Additionally, I said "typically" which means this does not apply to all cases, but in the case of a hill giant, it is obviously a battler. I challenge you to argue otherwise. Plus, just because categories do not ALWAYS fit EXACTLY in EVERY case does not mean they are useless (which seems to be your position). And finally, you apparently agree with me more than you think by saying it is ok to talk about their "strengths" but not their "function." The two are readibly interchangeable for most intents and purposes. A battler's function is to challenge the PCs in combat. It's strengths may be in melee or ranged combat, or it may have high AC and consistent but low damage. But it usually remains the same kind of challenge for the party and similar tactics are required to fight a battler whether it relies on ranged attacks or melee ones: let the warriors absorb the damage, let the mages confound it, let the rogues trick it, and let the clerics keep the warriors and anyone else unlucky enough to get in its path alive.What you are saying about associative class levels is true, but you seem to fail to understand that what I am trying to do is to classify monster strengths in a general way. I never claimed this works in all cases. To say my idea doesn't work because it is absolute is therefore a misrepresentation of my idea.No matter how good a mind flayer is at sucking brains, they make pretty crappy fighters. So do beholders. So do dopplegangers, so do dryads, so do lillends, and dozens of other monsters.Yes, that can be true. A creature that typically does not wear armor but has 1 level of sorcerer and gains mage armor and shield effectively boosts its AC by 8. That is quite useful. But please go back and read my OP again and notice how many times I use words like "typically" and "usually." These are not catch-alls, but general trends. There will always be exceptions.Once again you seem to be reading right through the word "typically." I know there are exceptions. That's why I used that word "typically."That's an easy one. Tordek loses faster than the hill giant every time. This is a no brainer if you just look at the stats. Tordek doesn't hit as hard, doesn't resist as much damage, and isn't as fast. He will get clobbered much quicker than the giant in virtually every case. There is virtually no category of statistics in which Tordek holds a significant mechanical advantage. The single category where he does hold a powerful advantage: initiative, could easily be mediated by swapping out one of the giant's more conditional feats, and besides that Tordek lacks the resources to make good use of high initiative. If he were capable of downing a foe in one round consistently (i,e. without critting) then the high init might be a valuable advantage, but Tordek can't hit as hard as the giant and thus has a low chance of downing a foe in one hit, even with a crit.</blockquote>

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