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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8836432" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>All of which are in my view fair play. The trick is not to over-use any one of them.</p><p></p><p>Time dragon? I'm curious about this - what's a time dragon?</p><p></p><p>And that lays out my problem with that type of design very neatly: the same monster in the fiction doesn't have consistent mechanics; instead those mechanics are expected to vary vary depending solely on what it is fighting. Internal setting consistency? What's that?</p><p></p><p>A creature's mechanics - its hit points, hit dice, fighting capabilities, etc. - should and must go with and remain tied to that creature throughout, changing only if something material about the creature itself changes in the fiction, if the setting is to be consistent with itself. For example, if a party of 2nd-levels flees screaming from a 74-hit-point 10 HD Giant, then a few years later when now at 14th level they meet that same Giant again, said Giant should still have 74 hit points and still be a 10 HD monster unless something has changed about the Giant itself in the meantime e.g. in its own life it somehow became tougher, or aged and became weaker, or whatever.</p><p></p><p>From here it seems the GM has to worry even more about mechanical structures: instead of setting a monster's mechanics once and then leaving them alone, the GM now has to constantly adjust that monster's mechanics based on the level and-or capabilities of the party it is fighting. That looks like more work, not less.</p><p></p><p>This doesn't square with anything. Ecology and monster mechanics go hand in hand, for the most part, and both are pretty much baked in. Narrative has nothing to do with it, and can arise by whatever means it takes using those baked-in elements as a foundation.</p><p></p><p>It's the setting where a monster's stats change based on its at-the-moment opponents where one could say the mechanics are wibbly-wobbly.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 8836432, member: 29398"] All of which are in my view fair play. The trick is not to over-use any one of them. Time dragon? I'm curious about this - what's a time dragon? And that lays out my problem with that type of design very neatly: the same monster in the fiction doesn't have consistent mechanics; instead those mechanics are expected to vary vary depending solely on what it is fighting. Internal setting consistency? What's that? A creature's mechanics - its hit points, hit dice, fighting capabilities, etc. - should and must go with and remain tied to that creature throughout, changing only if something material about the creature itself changes in the fiction, if the setting is to be consistent with itself. For example, if a party of 2nd-levels flees screaming from a 74-hit-point 10 HD Giant, then a few years later when now at 14th level they meet that same Giant again, said Giant should still have 74 hit points and still be a 10 HD monster unless something has changed about the Giant itself in the meantime e.g. in its own life it somehow became tougher, or aged and became weaker, or whatever. From here it seems the GM has to worry even more about mechanical structures: instead of setting a monster's mechanics once and then leaving them alone, the GM now has to constantly adjust that monster's mechanics based on the level and-or capabilities of the party it is fighting. That looks like more work, not less. This doesn't square with anything. Ecology and monster mechanics go hand in hand, for the most part, and both are pretty much baked in. Narrative has nothing to do with it, and can arise by whatever means it takes using those baked-in elements as a foundation. It's the setting where a monster's stats change based on its at-the-moment opponents where one could say the mechanics are wibbly-wobbly. [/QUOTE]
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