An Open Letter: 'Missing the Mark: Mike Mearls’s ‘Revised’ Ogre Mage'

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Besides, 3E inherited all that stuff without modification, and saw fit to put such flavour "gems" like the digester, choker, krenshar, tojanida, phantom fungus, spider eater, destrachan, howler, girallon, ravid, rast, ethereal filcher & marauder, grey render, athach, delver, yrthak and devourer in the core monster book. Wouldn't touch most of those with a 10 foot pole.

Re: the girallon, FWIW, Dark Sun had a 4-armed ape. Multi-limbed animals are a staple of ERB's Barsoom books, i.e. the white ape.

Maybe I'm not remembering it right, but I thought that the Grey Render came from AD&D FR prior to 3e...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Re: the girallon, FWIW, Dark Sun had a 4-armed ape. Multi-limbed animals are a staple of ERB's Barsoom books, i.e. the white ape.

Maybe I'm not remembering it right, but I thought that the Grey Render came from AD&D FR prior to 3e...

I've heard that as well. Presumably it had more to it back in Faerun. I certainly agree it's flavor-light in the 3E incarnation, unless it's just meant to be The Hulk.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Besides, 3E inherited all that stuff without modification, and saw fit to put such flavour "gems" like the digester, choker, krenshar, tojanida, phantom fungus, spider eater, destrachan, howler, girallon, ravid, rast, ethereal filcher & marauder, grey render, athach, delver, yrthak and devourer in the core monster book. Wouldn't touch most of those with a 10 foot pole.

!!!

A lot of those monsters are awesome, especially the howler and choker! How can anyone not like the choker?

 

[rounser]

You specifically decried creating new monsters for purely mechanical reasons. Slapping a coat of paint on a dragon and changing its damage type is creating a new monster for a purely mechanical reason.

Now, it's either not a big issue to you when the resulting monster is cool enough -- say so, if this is it -- or it's not really an issue to you at all.

Meh, they're dragons. I don't really have an opinion about them either way. Obviously, you're seeing some mechanics conspiracy where all that probably happened is that Gygax picked up and ran with a theme (colour = breath weapon type). I doubt that the logic behind the black dragon was "aha, an opportunity to make protection from acid more useful!" which is exactly the kind of thinking that means the 3E is mechanics first and foremost, flavour compromised.

You did specifically exempt other monsters due to the grandfather clause. The athach gets in under it, if one exists.

Okay, you've got me, but it's still lame. There are heaps of far more worthy contenders for that space from a flavour perspective, and there it is, taking up pages. Aesthetically, assymetrical monsters just suck IMO, and they're over-represented in the MM.

I think it actually was a monster created for 3E. I seem to recall Monte or someone discussing it on the WotC site. It's the archetypal monster created for mechanical reasons: They wanted to give players a chance to deal with invisibility at a low level without dealing with the other complications of an invisible caster.

And it has terrible flavour. Way to prove my point.

Me, I think they fit in just fine into a world with beholders and mind flayers. Indeed, they feel like they were designed to fit in that same pseudonatural ecology.

They were mentioned in the "lame monsters" thread recently. An eyeball monster and a squid-headed humanoid are a far better concept than ol' rubberarms. By your logic, any abomination is welcome, which simply doesn't float. I can come up with a rubbernecked abomination too, but it's still a stupid monster.

Except, it's not a terrible example. I can whip up 100 fire-based creatures in 100 minutes now. Gone are the days where things like "fire bats" are new creatures just because someone wanted a flying fire elemental. Templates are insanely useful, for all that the morons that you (and I) hopefully don't play with anyway abuse them.

True, they let you modify monsters, and alter flavour, but they're a two-edged sword. Arguing that they're proof that 3E cares about flavour as a primary concern is backwards when things like the krenshar, destrachan and pokemounts exist.

 

[Cadfan]

Whizbang Dustyboots: What you must understand about the ever plaintive cry of the grognard is that not only do they not want to use material which, for whatever reason, doesn't fit their personal and unique vision of "the way things used to be," they also do not want anyone else doing so either.

See, normally, complaining about the existance of chokers would be crazy, because if you felt that the choker didn't fit the flavor of your campaign, you'd just not use it. It isn't like there aren't tons of monsters that do fit mythological archetypes that you could use instead. But from the perspective of the grognard, YOUR use of the choker in YOUR campaign doesn't fit the flavor of HIS campaign. And that is for some reason bad.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And it has terrible flavour. Way to prove my point.

It's not a contest.

I think everyone agrees the phantom fungus is an all-time suck monster created for a dubious-at-best reason. (Want to teach level 2 characters about invisibility? Sick a rogue on them.)

They were mentioned in the "lame monsters" thread recently. An eyeball monster and a squid-headed humanoid are a far better concept than ol' rubberarms. By your logic, any abomination is welcome, which simply doesn't float.

Of course, I never actually said that.

Arguing that they're proof that 3E cares about flavour as a primary concern is backwards when things like the krenshar, destrachan and pokemounts exist.

Since krenshars, destrachans and pokemounts aren't templates or even templated creatures, it's really a separate point of discussion.

Templates can be used to add flavor. They can also be used to add cheese. That's a wash, really.

Now, if you want to complain about destrachans, that's a different issue. I'd argue they have stupid flavor, but that they do have flavor. Personally, if I wanted to create more sonic monsters, I would have gone with harpy variants and various bat-inspired creatures (not all of them flying) instead of weird ... things with sonic attacks.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Whizbang Dustyboots: What you must understand about the ever plaintive cry of the grognard is that not only do they not want to use material which, for whatever reason, doesn't fit their personal and unique vision of "the way things used to be," they also do not want anyone else doing so either.

See, normally, complaining about the existance of chokers would be crazy, because if you felt that the choker didn't fit the flavor of your campaign, you'd just not use it. It isn't like there aren't tons of monsters that do fit mythological archetypes that you could use instead. But from the perspective of the grognard, YOUR use of the choker in YOUR campaign doesn't fit the flavor of HIS campaign. And that is for some reason bad.

I don't think that's really limited to grognards. All sorts of gamers do that, whether it's the people who prefer variant rulesets and are offended that YOU aren't using C&C, True20, Iron Heroes, Arcana Evolved or whatever, or the people who find the fact that you play in whichever setting they hate impossible to stomach or whatever.

I've been playing since 1979, so I'm probably some sort of catchphrase gamer myself. I just find I don't give a crap about what people do at their tables, so long as they and the chokers are both above the age of consent.

 

[rounser]

Whizbang Dustyboots: What you must understand about the ever plaintive cry of the grognard is that not only do they not want to use material which, for whatever reason, doesn't fit their personal and unique vision of "the way things used to be," they also do not want anyone else doing so either.

See, normally, complaining about the existance of chokers would be crazy, because if you felt that the choker didn't fit the flavor of your campaign, you'd just not use it. It isn't like there aren't tons of monsters that do fit mythological archetypes that you could use instead. But from the perspective of the grognard, YOUR use of the choker in YOUR campaign doesn't fit the flavor of HIS campaign. And that is for some reason bad.

No, I don't care a jot what Whizbang Dustyboots does in his campaign, but rather, I'm arguing that part of the design philosophy of 3E is quite prepared to compromise flavour for mechanical priorities. So your passive aggressive argument based on rhetoric is a non-starter.

I don't think that's really limited to grognards. All sorts of gamers do that, whether it's the people who prefer variant rulesets and are offended that YOU aren't using C&C, True20, Iron Heroes, Arcana Evolved or whatever, or the people who find the fact that you play in whichever setting they hate impossible to stomach or whatever.

Again, this tangent doesn't apply. I've stated my case; that the design philosophy that puts mechanics before flavour to the extent that flavour is unnecessarily compromised is flawed. At the point where mechanics suggest that flavour should be compromised, I think that design shouldn't end there, but attempt to "have one's cake and eat it", and maintain both. The rest is just fiddling details, because it's quite clear that this is the case, least of all from Mearl's examples. I think he's a very minor offender in this respect, and doesn't deserve to cop the brunt of criticism of a design approach which seems to underly 3E.

 

[Land Outcast]

If you (or anyone reading this) is going to be at GenCon, there will be a seminar on Saturday about the monster makeover series. I lucked out and was able to get an event set up at the last minute. It's a two hour talk that will go over the creatures the series has covered, what people liked and dislike, and (if I have time) a live, audience participation re-design of an iconic D&D critter.

HUm... this could be mighty interesting... I wonder if a transcript'll be available...

 

[Harlekin]

I disagree with the letter and the associated statements.

What I find particularily striking about this discussion is the vocal minority that considers everything that has been before as automatically better than a new intelligent design of a monster, even though most monsters in AD&D where slapdashed together withour rhyme or reason. The only thing that gives them flavor in our mind is the memories that we have of using them in a certain manner.

A Monster designed by looking at a plastic toy has no more flair than a monster designed to fill a nieche. But the monster filling the nieche at least has other useful properties.

While the sentiment that the Oger Mage could also have been reconstructed as a more powerful CR 8 creature, i think he makes more sense at CR 5. At 8th level i want my PC to fight something a little more interesting than a wannabe vampire ogre that does not enter civilization anyway.