Any word yet on what's happening to monsters?

[Pants]

Prepare to see your iconic creatures screwed over like the beholder, rust monster, and ogre mage.

Prepare to see more "video gamey" feel to these monsters.

Prepare to see some sacred cows sacrificed sky high.

The game is turning into less realism. Creatures aren't just born into a category for PCs to slay. "Oh, it's a ranged monster! Watch out!" or "These things can tear you apart in melee!" Whatever happened to role play in 4E?

So how are those advance copies of the 4E Core Books anyways?

I'm no fan of the Mearls' Monster Makeover critters. Those of us who want our classic creatures relatively consistent throughout the editions can be satisfied while those wanting the stripped-down, easier-to-use-in-a-single-encounter versions can also have satisfaction?

I'm no fan of his beholder or his rust monster either, but his ogre mage is a solid creature. It sticks fairly close to what it always has been, but spruces it up enough so that it sucks a little less. After I saw Mearl's version, I made my own version, one sticking a little closer to the original, but a little tougher and one-trick-pony-ish than the 3.0/3.5 version.

If the design team can stick close enough to the essences of the creatures while making them better monsters overall. I'm sure you won't argue with me when I say that being classic monsters means they shouldn't have full immunity to criticism (maybe resistance 10).

Why can't we follow the lead of the mind flayers of Thoon and have the best of both worlds?

The Mindflayers of Thoon did absolutely nothing for me. Kinda schlumpy flavor and they didn't change the mind flayer enough to really make me want to use them. I was really hoping that the Thoonians would be completely redesigned illithids, with less of a one-trick routine (mind blast, mind blast, mind blast, eat brain, rise, repeat ad nauseum), instead we get a classed illithid and a really weak looking shadow flayer. The other monsters were kinda cool, but meh, color me unimpressed.

Mind flayers are on the top of my list for 'please look at me and make me suck less,' which I really hope they do, because I like the flavor behind them.

 

[Nifft]

Mind flayers are on the top of my list for 'please look at me and make me suck less,' which I really hope they do, because I like the flavor behind them.

I really wish they'd hire Pants to write FC 3: The Yugoloth Supremacy.

Cheers, -- N

 

[WhatGravitas]

I'm no fan of his beholder or his rust monster either, but his ogre mage is a solid creature. It sticks fairly close to what it always has been, but spruces it up enough so that it sucks a little less. After I saw Mearl's version, I made my own version, one sticking a little closer to the original, but a little tougher and one-trick-pony-ish than the 3.0/3.5 version.

Same here. The rust monster was... not so good. The beholder went into the right direction, had the correct design principles, but was a bit botched. The ogre mage, though, was spot on.

Mearls has learned and got better and better, additionally, he approached it purely from a game play point of view, as theoretical experiment.

I'm sure, that his method, a bit tempered, would produce much more awesome and useable monsters. And I definitively think that exactly that happened for 4E.

I only hope, that they do two things concerning monsters:

1) Keep the basic essence of the monster's flavour and niche.
2) Keep the exhaustive write-up. I loathe monsters, which are using other rules than the PCs, abbreviated critters... 3E was a step into the right direction, because monsters based on exactly the same rules, as PCs (only the HD =/= CR was a problem). Other game systems only list some attacks, hp, and simple stuff for critters - that's something I dislike very much.

Cheers, LT.

 

[howandwhy99]

Personally, Im hoping Giant becomes a subtype applied to the other types. (I mean a Giant really is just a Large or larger humanoid....more or less. I think GR did this in their True20 stuff actually.)

I agree. "Giant" should be a type or a template like Legendary or Mammoth. I don't believe we'll be seeing Creature Types though. It sounds like monsters will be built based on role rather than a cut and dried skeletal framework. This is a good thing. Creature templates have always seemed too straitjacketed to me. Type shouldn't determine an absolute set of traits, but I do see the efficiency in the design.

Rebuilding creatures so they don't break the game, like the beholder, rust monster, and others with strange powers, is a sign of 3E's weaknesses IMO. Namely, the over complication of magic layered into stats and the scaling value of equipment vs. static CRs.

What I would like to see is the removal of Size limits to diminutive- and colossal+ as well as the ability to mix "roles" in 4E when creating or constructing monsters. I'm worried some elements may be removed that were more setting specific like environment, organization, (ecology, culture) and the like. If they are added somewhere else, say in campaign setting books, I wouldn't have a problem.

 

[Grimstaff]

From the WotC website:
"Here are some functional roles that monsters fall into:

Mastermind: These are monsters that are capable of being the “big bad” in an adventure—the guys behind the scenes pulling the strings of all the other monsters. They often have mental powers, spellcasting, and more complexity, but there’s no reason they can’t be absolute terrors in melee. They’re usually smart and social. This is a rewarding category of monster to spend some complexity on, but beware! DMs will often use masterminds in conjunction with brutes and mooks, so there might be a lot on the DM’s plate already.

Brute: These are the classic D&D monsters: scary, straightforward melee combatant. Despite our nickname for them, “brute,” they aren’t necessarily dumb or unsophisticated. They can be intelligent and cultured; if they rely on wading into melee and carving up PCs, then they’re brutes. The design challenge here is to create a monster that’s interesting (not just “another ogre”) but is respectful of the DM’s limited processing power.

Mook: These are low-level monsters that function well in groups—and their “groupability” is what separates them from the brutes. We want every mook to have a game-mechanic benefit for grouping up (see the minion section below). This can either be an existing mechanic (sneak attack is a good example of something that works better when you’re grouped) or something new you make up.

Lurker: A pretty obvious category. These guys use camouflage, stealth, guile, or magical means to ambush the PCs. Making that “Aha! Gotcha!” moment as compelling as possible at the table is the key to making a good lurker.

Decathlete: These are the monsters that can do it all—strong melee attack, strong ranged attack, and often battlefield maneuverability that the PCs of that level can’t easily match. Dragons are the classic example.

Artillery: These monsters have better ranged attacks than melee attacks—think beholder. At higher levels, they often exert some sort of terrain control or use other means to keep PCs at a distance. At low levels, they’re just archers or what have you.

Special: What’s a category system without a catch-all? For our purposes, specials are monsters that have a primary purpose other than “the next room in the dungeon.” New familiars, steeds, helpful monsters, and monsters playable as PC races all fall into this category."

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20070727a

Personally, I don't care what they call 'em, as long as we're done with 3 page statblocks.

 

[XCorvis]

From the WotC website:
"Here are some functional roles that monsters fall into:

Just to clarify that's from July 27th and referring to MMV, not 4e specifically.

 

[Shawn_Kehoe]

Snipped from Mearl's blog

Design game elements for their intended use. Secondary uses are nice, but not a goal. Basically, when we build a monster we intend you to use it as a monster. If we build a feat, it's meant as a feat, not a monster special attack. If we also want to make it a playable character race, we'll design a separate racial write up for it. We won't try to shoehorn a monster stat block into becoming a PC stat block. The designs must inform each other, but we're better off building two separate game elements rather than one that tries to multiclass.

It sounds like monsters are being made to challenge PCs, not be suitable PC races. As such, they could simplify the monster entries by losing unnecessary skills, feats, ECL modifiers, etc. Trading simplicity for flexibility ... ironically, the exact opposite of the trade made between 2md and 3rd edition

 

[Pants]

I really wish they'd hire Pants to write FC 3: The Yugoloth Supremacy.

Cheers, -- N

I'd do it, but only if someone else writes the flavor.

I'd just stick to what I'm (mostly) good at.

 

[pawsplay]

Same here. Agree. I'm not a fan of the makeover stuff either.

Some if it wasn't bad, but the ogre mage was an exercise in how to turn an interesting, unique monster into an ogre that shoots lasers.

 

[Pants]

Some if it wasn't bad, but the ogre mage was an exercise in how to turn an interesting, unique, but poorly-built monster into an ogre that shoots lasers.

Fixed it for yah

Ogre Mages are a great concept, it's too bad they suck in 3e. They really don't cover any of the bases really well. They're not very good at being 'masterminds' (charm person 1/day?), they're not very good at being tactical spellcasters (what with the no spellcasting levels and the fairly weak SLA's), they're kinda sneaky, but they don't benefit from it, they're not combat brutes, in fact they pretty much suck at combat all-together.

What the ogre mage IS is a horrible conglomerate of different ideas stacked together in a way that makes it a potentially interesting monster, but not exceptionally usable. Mearls' ogre mage may not have been perfect, but it did high-light what was wrong with the original; too many disparate abilities to make it really good at anything.

They just have to figure out what the ogre mage should be good at and highlight those aspects.

IMO of course.