A worry about "special case monster abilities"

[FourthBear]

That sound you hear is me banging my head on the table with all the force of my impotent nerd-rage, fuelled by the powerful apparent paradox of Mike's words.

I don't think there's a contradiction there, although the context may not be plain. It's quite easy to give a bugbear a special ability like Meat Shield. The monster will only show up as placed by the DM (or adventure writer) and if it proves to be troublesome, it's easy enough to simply stop placing bugbear stranglers around in a campaign. This is a completely separate issue from making a Meat Shield ability in an unarmed combat system that is accessible to PCs. That's going to require a whole boat-load of thought, playtesting and work to make sure that it is appropriate for a PC who will have the ability in every scene, every combat and every round for the entirety of a campaign. As we see, the Meat Shield ability for the Bugbear Strangler doesn't require very much page space, just a few lines in a monster entry. I strongly suspect that a PC-usable Meat Shield maneuver would require a lot more page space to explain, since it's going to come under a lot more scrutiny and possible abuse. So saying that giving monsters various abilities now doesn't preclude a later unarmed combat system with provisions for a similar ability for PCs doesn't really lead to a contradiction. Now, it *could* lead to system bloat if the unarmed system requires a lot of page space to make usable for PCs. I think Mearls realizes that such a system might indeed take a fair amount of work to even judge the extent of work required.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It'll make for a simpler, faster, game, and probably a better "tactical experience", but for me, D&D is still an RPG first and a tactical thing waaaaaaaaaaaaay distant second, so I like it when my players can do wierd/crazy stuff and I don't have to make up rules on the spot. I'd rather have, simple, quick rules for corner-case stuff, than no rules at all.

I'm thinking that this might not be a worry - one of the playtest reports (don't ask me which one!) mentioned a PC who wanted to slide under a table and kick someones legs out from under them (or something equally crazy) and 4e made it easy for the DM to say 'sure'.

I wish I could remember which of the playtest reports it was, but it seemed to be suggesting that there was good support for whacky manouvres (it could hardly be worse than it was in 3e )

Cheers

 

[The Little Raven]

I find it interesting that 4e's design is so inflexible. In 3e, if you wanted to make the strangler's ability, and realized that PCs would want it, you would just stat it up as a feat and be done.

You can do the same in 4e, unless you think the game police are going to prevent you from doing what you want in your own game. You'll just run into the same problem that happened in 1e/2e/3e when allowing a player to take a monster's ability: it might not be balanced for constant use by a player, as opposed to the one or two uses most monsters would get before getting defeated.

 

[Kraydak]

You can do the same in 4e, unless you think the game police are going to prevent you from doing what you want in your own game. You'll just run into the same problem that happened in 1e/2e/3e when allowing a player to take a monster's ability: it might not be balanced for constant use by a player, as opposed to the one or two uses most monsters would get before getting defeated.

If you can, why has WotC *explicitly* (given Mearls' comments) opted not to? Either it is much harder in 3e (where stating it up as a feat is easy), or it is easy and they are being lazy. Neither option reflects well on WotC.

 

[FourthBear]

I find it interesting that 4e's design is so inflexible. In 3e, if you wanted to make the strangler's ability, and realized that PCs would want it, you would just stat it up as a feat and be done. Sure, the feat would be in the MM rather than the PHB, but there are a bunch of feats in the MM anyways.

I don't think it will be inflexible at all. There will be feats or the equivalent in 4e and if you decide that Meat Shield is appropriate as a feat for PCs, then go ahead and do it. The point under contention is: *is* Meat Shield, as given in the bugbear stranger write-up, appropriate to create as a feat for PCs? I think the answer could very easily be no. I think that if you worked with the flexibility of 3e and just declared abilities like that feats, you're going to find yourself in trouble real quick. Because monster abilities aren't designed as PC abilities. You could also just declare the medusa's gaze a feat. I don't think it would be wise in 3e or 4e, but it would equally simple in each.

 

[JohnSnow]

You can do the same in 4e, unless you think the game police are going to prevent you from doing what you want in your own game. You'll just run into the same problem that happened in 1e/2e/3e when allowing a player to take a monster's ability: it might not be balanced for constant use by a player, as opposed to the one or two uses most monsters would get before getting defeated.

Exactly. By handling every special ability via the feat system, Third Edition gives the impression that you can restat any special ability as a feat and make it available to PCs.

And sure, you CAN do that. But whether doing that is a good idea is another matter entirely. In 3E, undead are invulnerable to critical hits, poison and a whole bunch of other things. Does that mean I can make a feat called "Poison Immunity," give it a couple of prerequisites, and call it "balanced?" I think we all know the answer.

Near as I can tell, Fourth Edition explicitly rejects the absurd symmetry that "an ability that's good (read: desirable) for a monster to have is equally good (still read: desirable) for a PC to have."

Character being used as human shield on occasion: Nifty! Nice change of pace.
Character being used as human shield every round, or every single encounter: A lot less Nifty. Rather boring, quite honestly.

However, by the time you've created 50 other cool wicked unarmed combat maneuvers for your unarmed combat specialist to use, you aren't going to see "human shield" all the time. Because it's going to be vying for "screen time" with all the other nifty powers said character has.

As one ability, it makes for a boring one trick pony. As one of dozens of options, you'll see it just often enough for it to still be "neat" whenever it actually happens. That's the rationale for not releasing it as a PC option until you have a slew of unarmed combat abilities ready to go.

But the same rationale doesn't hold up as a power for one monster. Because it's not going to get boring if you see it whenever you fight "Bugbear Stranglers" because you probably don't fight those all the time. And given the rate at which villains die, this Bugbear unarmed combatant doesn't need 6 unarmed fighting tricks. Because he's only going to be able to manage about 2 or 3 moves before his guts are decorating the carpet.

 

[The Little Raven]

If you can, why has WotC *explicitly* (given Mearls' comments) opted not to?

Because they have a page limitation, and they opted not to put complex grappling/unarmed rules until they have a class that focuses on that kind of thing. When unarmed combat isn't a part of any of your core classes shticks, then it's a waste of space to put complex unarmed rules when you could put something more appropriate.

where stating it up as a feat is easy

Turning anything into a feat was easy in 3e. Turning into a balanced feat, on the other hand, wasn't easy, since the 3e developers themselves didn't do it.

Neither option reflects well on WotC.

You just aren't willing to accept any reason that is outside your preconceived notions.

 

[Kraydak]

Exactly. By handling every special ability via the feat system, Third Edition gives the impression that you can restat any special ability as a feat and make it available to PCs.

And sure, you CAN do that. But whether doing that is a good idea is another matter entirely. In 3E, undead are invulnerable to critical hits, poison and a whole bunch of other things. Does that mean I can make a feat called "Poison Immunity," give it a couple of prerequisites, and call it "balanced?" I think we all know the answer.

Given that poison immunity is *BUILT INTO THE GAME* at 11th level, the obvious answer to your supposedly rhetorical question is, in fact, that the ability can be balanced. Not that poison immunity has anything to do with a variant grappling option. It is a mundane, tactical option for a freaking non-very-advanced bugbear. If it would cause problems in PC's hands, it will cause problems in NPC hands too.

Near as I can tell, Fourth Edition explicitly rejects the absurd symmetry that "an ability that's good (read: desirable) for a monster to have is equally good (still read: desirable) for a PC to have."

Character being used as human shield on occasion: Nifty! Nice change of pace.
Character being used as human shield every round, or every single encounter: A lot less Nifty. Rather boring, quite honestly.

If the power is *SO* strong that you *CAN AND SHOULD* use it every round, then the power's design is the problem. It is being stated up at too low a level, and the users have inadequate other options. If bugbears use it every round because their other options are weak, that is a case of risky monster design (glass-cannon issues being raised). If, as a general ability, it completely outclasses all the other ablities, that means the prereqs are too low.

Maybe, maybe, maybe supernatural abilities should exhibit PC/NPC asymmetry. I have *never* seen a well argued example of such (although I have seen countless poorly thought out arguments for it). Mundane abilities are another matter entirely.

 

[FourthBear]

Maybe, maybe, maybe supernatural abilities should exhibit PC/NPC asymmetry. I have *never* seen a well argued example of such (although I have seen countless poorly thought out arguments for it). Mundane abilities are another matter entirely.

I think that mundane abilities are the ones that need far more thought and oversight. If you try to establish from a special ability like the bugbear stranglers a *general* case of a mundane ability that could be available to all PCs, NPCs and monsters, that's very dangerous, IMO. It's fine and easily controllable as a special monster ability.

Since we have the bugbear strangler ability, do you think it would be appropriate as a feat in 3.5e? It's easy to do so, but that's not really the point.

 

[Kraydak]

I think that mundane abilities are the ones that need far more thought and oversight. If you try to establish from a special ability like the bugbear stranglers a *general* case of a mundane ability that could be available to all PCs, NPCs and monsters, that's very dangerous, IMO. It's fine and easily controllable as a special monster ability.

Since we have the bugbear strangler ability, do you think it would be appropriate as a feat in 3.5e? It's easy to do so, but that's not really the point.

If the bugbear has 3rdish level stats in general, then the ability should be balanced as a 3rd/6th level feat, probably better done as a 2nd/3rd lvl Setting Sun (or Iron Heart, or Stone Dragon) counter or doable as a 2nd-6thish level fighter/barbarian or monk substitution level.

It is a pure, mundane combat ability. If it doesn't take a monster with 3rdish level stats up multiple levels, it is a perfectly fine ability. If it does, it is a probable case of bad monster design.