Any word yet on what's happening to monsters?

[HeyJoe]

In my opinion, D&D is about taking what you like from the rules, particularly as a DM... and then adapting it to your campaign as you see fit. For example, I absolutely hated what was done to gnomes and halflings in 3E, so I simply chose to overlook it in my campaign.

As a DM, you are free to customize anything in your campaign world as you see fit. Just because they have some crappy picture in the Monster Manual that is not necessarily your vision of an orc, minotaur (another piece of 3e art that I hated), or whatever... doesn't mean you are bound by it. The same goes for monster spells, abilities, attacks, etc.

 

[Gentlegamer]

The concept of HD should be taken out back and shot.
It's unnecessary complication. A monster with a d12 HD should never get a 1 or a 12, it just throws the balance of the encounter off.

Example a 5 HD undead creature with no Con bonus can either have 5 hp, or 60 hp due to totally arbitrary rolls of the dice. A 5th level barbarian can be the same way. The rules shouldn't FORCE me to fudge barbarian HD rolls so my players can have a good time.

Have three hp types: Tall (1d6/CR), Grande (1d6+3/CR), and Venti (1d6+6/CR).
Use these for players and monsters.

Oh yeah, and monster subtypes should go too.

Gary intended to use a system for his planned revision of AD&D that would give adult and robust monsters minimum 50% or more hp per die: d8 hit die would be 5-8 hps per die (rolled on d4). This would probably be a better way to use hit dice and not have to stack tons of Con hp bonus on top.

 

[WhatGravitas]

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

Hmmm... while I usually respect Mearls opinions, I dislike that direction intensely. Using the same rules for PCs as for monsters made 3.5 a very good and consistent game. That consistency made it easier for DMs to grasp the rules and simplified rules adjudcations a lot (same rules for ALL). Otherwise, it'll be an exception-fest.

This system also allowed the concept of Level Adjustment, which was generally a good idea, but badly implemented (because it was tacked on as an afterthought, by an equalization of CR, HD and levels, this would be remedied).

I hope they keep the "same rules for everybody"-concept, because it was an advance over the monsters of many other RPGs (including 2E), which made monsters feel less complete.

Cheers, LT.

 

[marune]

Snipped from Mearl's blog


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

And it's probably one of the greatest ideas of 4E.

NPCs always built as PCs was a false idol of 3.x for two reasons:

- More than often we don't need all the details (and they are taking the place of much more interesting stuff)
- "Exception" NPCs are powerful storybuilding tools and can provide very specific interesting challenges (that innkeeper with a tremendous strength).

 

[Shemeska]

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

I'll write flavor if someone else does the numbers

 

[Samnell]

Hmmm... while I usually respect Mearls opinions, I dislike that direction intensely. Using the same rules for PCs as for monsters made 3.5 a very good and consistent game. That consistency made it easier for DMs to grasp the rules and simplified rules adjudcations a lot (same rules for ALL). Otherwise, it'll be an exception-fest.

I think they've decided that consistency is too much of a design burden. It's one thing to clean up how grappling or disarming a foe works. It's quite another to abandon one of the most fundamental design principles of 3e (That the rules are the same for everybody, or at the very least that special exceptions should happen at the individual DM level.) and still call 4e an evolutionary and not revolutionary change.

 

[Yair]

Using the same rules for PCs as for monsters made 3.5 a very good and consistent game.

It made for a more consistent game, sure, but also a far slower and more difficult one for the DM. I much prefer to have PCs and Monsters follow seperate rules. Monsters should be designed to challenge the PCs and be easy to run and advance or modify on the fly. PCs should be designed to be worth the player's full attention, with a horde of options and a fair degree of book-keeping. Totally different purposes, totally different requirements. Trying to shoehorn monsters into the PC's rules make the monsters less usable which is a far too high a cost.

I've tried that before with different groups from back in the day when I ran a game where initaitive was rolled every round, and I had 11 people playing.

Oh? How did that work out for you? I have been wanting to try roll-every-round and declare-in-opposite-order for a time now. I hope it would make combat flow more reasonably, but it seems so cumbersome and slow.

My experience with Initiative is that it's a bit time-consuming and annoying jotting down the initiative order, but it only amounts to less than a minute. I have no problem with calling out each player's turn when it comes.

 

[pawsplay]

Fixed it for yah

Ogre Mages are a great concept, it's too bad they suck in 3e.

You know, it's ironic, but the same week his ogre mage makeover came out, I had just used an ogre mage, straight out of the MM, as a villain encounter, and it rocked. Right off the bat, it would have been a less impressive and dramatic encounter if he hadn't opened up with a cone of cold, making the players unsure whether they could stand their ground.

Maybe I'm just incompetent or insane, but somehow I goofed so much that I liked nearly everything about the ogre mage encounter and my players seemed to as well.

I definitely prefer the lame, not very good version of the ogre mage to the reworked, good version.

EDIT: Let me highlight what the ogre mage is good at. The combination of fast healing and invisibility means you have to take it out, you can't play with it. Cone of cold is a hard-hitting attack that stacks the deck in favor of a greatsword-wielding brute. High offense, low offense with invisibility and healing means the ogre mage is a challenging, versatile encounter... but he loses once the PCs figure out a good combination of attacks to bring him down all at once or negate his advantages. He's a great monster for a cunning challenge. The only thing I agree with the rewrite is that Combat Reflexes is better than Combat Expertise.

 

[Mouseferatu]

What I'd like to see is that every monster in the book is created with the assumption that someone, somewhere, will want to play one as a PC. Make each monster type like a class that gains a special ability every level, and then just build the monsters from a giant menu of special abilities that are balanced against PCs of the same level. A minotaur is actually a character with a minotaur base race and 8 levels of "Monstrous Humanoid". You would be able to play any monster in the game right out of the box.

Never going to happen.

Trying to treat monsters exactly the same as player characters was an interesting idea in 3E, but it created far many more problems than it solved. (It also never really worked. LA and ECL were a kludge jury-rigged onto the system, and much of the time they were of questionable accuracy at best).

I can promise you that 4E is not going to follow the same rules for PCs and monsters (mostly because Andy Collins said as much in one of the seminars). I don't believe they'll be vastly different, but there will be differences. And most of the monsters are not going to be playable as PCs out of the box.

And I'm all for it. Why?

1) Trying to make all monsters viable as PCs, or follow the same rules 100%, is part of what led to the lengthy, complicated stat block we have now.

2) A separate set of rules allows designers to create more interesting opponents, without having to worry about what happens to game balance if a PC decides to play one.

Andy said that some of the player-popular races--goblins, kobolds, etc.--will be playable. But beyond that, if the designers want to introduce a PC-version of, say, a minotaur, they will create a version designed for PC use, not try to tack new rules onto the one in the Monster Manual.

Sure, this will disappoint some people. But it'll make the game a lot easier, and potentially more interesting, for the vast majority of gamers who use monsters primarily as monsters/antagonists/villains/NPCs.

And frankly, anything that cuts down the complexity of stat blocks is a good thing.

 

[Shade]

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.

My greatest wish for the 4e ogre mage is that they'd just roll it in with the other oni when they get around to introducing them.

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).

No argument there. But if "better" simply means "simpler" or "single-encounter based", then no, I won't agree.

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.

I'll definitely agree that the disciple of Thoon and shadow flayers weren't variant enough or very interesting, but the madcrafters and Thoon elder brain really push the illithid concept in new directions.

Oddly, the new design paradigm seems to favor the one-trick routine monsters, so the mind flayer would seem to fit right in.

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've never really understood why folks dislike the mind flayer. They have a very clear role, are good at what they do, and are loaded with intersting flavor and backstory. They render prey helpless and eat their brains, and are well-equipped to do so. What's the problem? I"m genuinely curious. Every encounter I've run with mind flayers in each edition of the game has been a successful, memorable experience.