Am I the only one who doesn't like the arbitrary "boss monster" tag?

[ForeverSlayer]

Right now I am working on a campaign that is influenced by the following:

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Game of Thrones.
• Nightmare Creatures (PC game).
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• Angel.
• The Dark Tower Series.
• The Walking Dead.

Now as of right now I am using the Pathfinder system and I am working on an NPC who is a Gunslinger/Necromancer. Pathfinder/3rd edition is the only edition that find will allow me to create this NPC using the actual mechanics.



Sometimes I like straight up, simple games and then at other times I like a rather strange variety and the 3rd edition style of monster design allows me to freely do this the best, at least in my opinion.

 

[Gryph]

It is entirely calculable just by taking the die roll average. A goblin that uses d10s would have 2 hp more per HD than one using a d6. If you want a monster to have more/less hp, just give him more/less hp. Fiddling around with dice size for tougher/weaker monsters seems like adding variance just for the sake of it.

The new edition should just decouple hp/HD from attack/defense stats.

Fair enough and you are right. If you want no variance then using hp/level values for the same type of monster works and 4e did this a little bit with monster roles and hp/level. I like the variability of using HD to generate hp for monsters.

I guess I'd like to see a couple of things in monster design. One, hit points with a smoother gradation of values between monsters of the same general type. 3 hp for kobold footsoldier and 45 hp for kobold chief is a jump way beyond the two sigma deviation for gaussian distribution. If printed that way in the MM that means every Kobold tribe of 100-150 members will have a chief who is a 1-100,00 type physical specimen. Two, I'd also like to see a little more variation in expected damage between creatures of the same level and general type. 25% damage bonus for 10% penalty in hit chance just adds enough swinginess to brutes in 4e to even out their damage with other monster roles, mostly.

So I guess I agree with you on the decoupling, but I mean it in some very specific ways

 

[Neonchameleon]

This is why I made npc my way instead of the rules...

I haven't got time to take up the current NPC challenge.. but I'd solve it the same way 4E does - use DM fiat.

Fran the elderly seamstress should be like this...

She can sew, she does it very well. Character complete.

I don't need combat stats, unless you plan on fighting her.

Oberoni fallacy. Just because you can go far enough round the houses to house rule 3.X into some sense of coherence here doesn't mean that 3.X isn't broken. It means you can fix it with a house rule.

4e on the other hand explicitely tells you to use DM Fiat - set what the monster can do and then reflect that in the numbers. This isn't houseruling anything.

The NPC/monster rules in 3E were created in order to build combatants with varying abilities to fight. So that's what they tend to do, even if you bend them to other purposes.

Actually this is one of the common dissonances of games with levels. Power is attached to level, so a high level whatever is always better than a low level anything.

Actually, no. This is one of the dissonances with games with levels that try to be simulationist. Level works as a way of keeping track of the power of adventurers - but levels designed for adventurers aren't a good way of measuring the ability of people who aren't.

Why would you say 1e characters were less powerful? IME, it was the opposite.

Off the top of my head:

1e fighter didn't get Weapon Specialisation without Unearthed Arcana. 2e fighter could buy weapon specialisation, meaning he got +1 to hit, +2 to damage, and 50% more attacks at low level. Clearly more powerful than a 1e fighter not using UA.

1e 1st level wizard could cast 1 spell per day - and hoped it was Sleep. 2e first level wizard could specialise for 2 spells per day - and could get Phantasmal Forces and other stuff off the illusionist list.

If you wanted a low level arcane caster in 2e you could pick the bard instead of the wizard. He only gained 1st level spells at 1250 XP - but he had more hit dice, better hit dice, armour, a few thief skills, and could carry weapons worth having. The wizard only started to pull away as a magic user at fifth level.

 

[Gryph]

Because the monster generation guidelines are meant to give you a rock-solid, usable baseline stat block which you then adjust according to what you desire from the particular monster. It tells you what, behind the curtain, the math system is expecting from a monster of the role, level, and tag. Your job, and it's a necessary one, is to tailor it to fit the final monster concept, which is going to include deviating from the base stat block that your monster guidelines spat out.

I would go further and say monster creation guidelines are an explicit invitation to the DM to be a game designer. As such there is a world of difference between adjusting a monster to better fit a game design concept and fudging a die roll or ignoring character death from hit point loss in terms of "DM cheating".

 

[slobster]

Sometimes I like straight up, simple games and then at other times I like a rather strange variety and the 3rd edition style of monster design allows me to freely do this the best, at least in my opinion.

That at least we can agree upon. Now if nobody ever told another person that they were wrong for preferring the former to the latter (or verse vica), then we'd be getting somewhere.

 

[pemerton]

Dragons did have Magic Resistance: Standard in 1st edition.

2nd edition did not introduce Magic Resistance.

2nd ed didn't introduce magic resistance. It introduced magic resistance for dragons.

As you say, dragons in 1st ed AD&D had "Magic Resistance: Standard". So did orcs. Standard magic resistance means none.

If you have access to the 1st Edition Monster Manual you will find on page 33, example Red Dragon, that it has Magic Resistance: Standard.

Yes. So do orcs, goblins, bandits, merchants and owlbears. It means "none" - normal saving throws only.

Also 1st edition dragons had sight, hearing, and smell so keen that they could detect hidden and invisible creatures, they can cause PC's to panic, they can use their breath weapon 3/day.

Yes. I mentioned those things in my post. The fear is HD-limited. The breath weapon is used on a % chance only.

I know what 1st edition and 2nd edition dragons have. They were still a match for a party even back then.

PC's were not as powerful in 1st edition so a single dragon was still a challenge for a group of PC's.

1st ed dragons are a threat to a party only because of their breath weapons. Their physical attacks are rather weak. (There is a good article discussing this in Best of Dragon Magazine 3 - I can't remember the original Dragon number that it was in.)

 

[bbjore]

Now as of right now I am using the Pathfinder system and I am working on an NPC who is a Gunslinger/Necromancer. Pathfinder/3rd edition is the only edition that find will allow me to create this NPC using the actual mechanics.

For the record. This is easily done in 4E, and I would be able to do it in five minutes with the cheat sheet I prepared, using the game's actual mechanics. I get that you may not like the flavor of the results because an NPC build of the concept doesn't look exactly like a PC build of the concept, but please don't say Pathfinder/3rd is the only system, because there are a ton of them out there.

I get that having PCs and NPCs not follow the same rules can be jarring and make the game's world seem less realistic, because not everything builds from the same rules, and not everything works the same way. Extra levels of abstractions on the DM's side, especially those found in 4E, can really ruin immersion for some people. I understand those complaints, and see them in some of my players. But other games do support strange variety. Heck the 4E engine supported Gamma World which is about as weird as you can get.

I think a lot of the debate in this thread is more about how much abstraction people are willing to accept on either side of the table, and perhaps less about specific monster design. There's a pretty heavy divide between people who are more simulationist and value universal mechanics which grow from the proposed rules of the game world versus individuals who will accept a much greater level of abstraction if it serves their purposes. For instance narrativist or tactical gamers readily see the in game monster as a separate entity from the stat block, for them the in-game monster is its fluff. Simulationists want the stat block to reflect the monster as accurately as possible. For them, the in game monster is its crunch.

It'll be interesting to see how 5E bridges that gap.

 

[pemerton]

Why is this a problem? Keep in mind that this is a rougher and more dangerous world that most of us have experience with. These aren't computer programmers or office workers who can live exceptionally sedentary lives.

Unless I miss my guess, we are talking about a fantasy trope world

And yes, a highly skilled blacksmith probably should kick a 3rd level fighters ass up and down the street.

If this is the much-vaunted flexibility and playstyle neutrality of 3E, then count me out! The notion that even a highly skill blacksmith would be a match in swordplay for a skilled noble strike me as unverisimilitudinous in the extreme. And extremely dictating of the possible fantasy worlds the game can support.

Even if what you are saying is true, chopping wood and carrying in water from the well does not equate to having the wherewithal in combat to land telling blows with the speed of a swordsmaster. Else you are faced with the problem that your silk weaver, because he does chores regularly, is more capable in a fight than your third level rogue, who grew up fighting viciously over scraps on the mean streets and spent the last few years delving into ancient crypts filled with unspeakable evil for a living.

Completely agreed.

You're right that there is some dissonance (and dissociation) in level-based systems. But it's really a minor issue under most circumstances. You'd really have to set your expectations on a razor's edge for it to be of any significance.

Whereas anyone of even half-reasonable sensibility would be outraged by martial encounter powers? Seriously, those of use who find 3E's NPC build rules ridiculous don't have our expecations "set on a razor's edge". We just have different expectations from yours.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Right now I am working on a campaign that is influenced by the following:

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Game of Thrones.
• Nightmare Creatures (PC game).
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• Angel.
• The Dark Tower Series.
• The Walking Dead.

Shoot, now you just made me feel bad about my Game of Thrones meets Slumdog Millionaire campaign idea. Have to go think of some more influences.

 

[Obryn]

1e fighter didn't get Weapon Specialisation without Unearthed Arcana. 2e fighter could buy weapon specialisation, meaning he got +1 to hit, +2 to damage, and 50% more attacks at low level. Clearly more powerful than a 1e fighter not using UA.

1e 1st level wizard could cast 1 spell per day - and hoped it was Sleep. 2e first level wizard could specialise for 2 spells per day - and could get Phantasmal Forces and other stuff off the illusionist list.

If you wanted a low level arcane caster in 2e you could pick the bard instead of the wizard. He only gained 1st level spells at 1250 XP - but he had more hit dice, better hit dice, armour, a few thief skills, and could carry weapons worth having. The wizard only started to pull away as a magic user at fifth level.

I concede that Unearthed Arcana makes a big difference; I was considering it a "core book" along with 2e's various "Complete X" books, which is maybe dirty pool since it's kind of notorious (then again, so is 2e's Complete Book of Elf-Munchkinism). I think weapon specialization was one of the few things in that book that isn't nearly broken levels of overpowered.

(1) Yep, weapon specialization absolutely makes a difference. They lose the "sweep" ability against low-level monsters, though. If you are using the UA specialization rules, there's double-specialization, though...

(2) At the same time, Wizard spells had some changes happen to them which reduced them in power. The main example I can think of is Fireball, which was capped at 10d6.

(3) Yeah, the bard was pretty sweet in 2e. The assassin and monk were pretty good in 1e.

-O