Coming to a MM near you- FLAVOR!

[Dannager]

Yeah I feel the same way about The Hypertext d20 SRD (v3.5 d20 System Reference Document) :: d20srd.org , and redblade.org . Fantasy Grounds :: The Virtual Tabletop for Pen & Paper Roleplaying Games and other internet tabletops also make great additional tools for a GM.
Referencing monsters, applying templates and advanced enemies becomes a breeze when the information is just a click away.
Digital support FTW.

Agreed. I think that any company that puts a little effort into some kind of online support for their tabletop RPG product is going to have a really significant leg up on competing products that have no such support.

 

[I'm A Banana]

As to the intelligence of the background DC entries, and the ease these can be mocked with, I'm surprised no one resurrected the old meme.

Hahaha, I had forgotten about Bear Lore. Bears, again, probably one of those critters that serves other critters (bears and dryads or something), rather one of those critters that deserves their own entry.

I'd rather 200 skimmed ones than 100 fleshed-out monsters, and I know a lot of other people who would agree with me.

It's wonderful how easy it is to double the amount of stat blocks you have. Here's one old DM's trick. If you have 100 fleshed-out monsters, go through the MM,find their statblocks, and change their damage to Fire (or to Cold, if it is already Fire)

Oh, here's another one: add templates (yeah, 4e still has those, and I think they're pretty solid!).

Here's a third: change the appearance, but leave the stats the same.

And a fourth: Adjust the level or the group role (minion/normal/elite/solo).

Viola. I've just turned 100 monsters into 500 monsters.

And that's just the easy stuff. That doesn't include making your own monsters (something 4e makes easier than ever before), or using creatures from stories and legends, or updating creatures from earlier editions, or any other of the more involved processes.

4e has over 1,000 individual monsters, currently. That's before any ofthe tricks above (which then creates at least 4,000 more). Quantity, especially by this point in the game, is pointless. There are more monsters than the entire life of 4e will ever need.

I find the appeal to quantity to be kind of a weak one.

Good flavor, on the other hand, is ALWAYS difficult to create, and is essential for many DMs, especially the newbies, especially the improvers, especially the story-focused ones.

The way they give me everything I need to run the monster is just great. I'm glad they avoid travesties like 3e's detailing all humanoids as 1st level warriors, so you ended up with published adventures full of War-1 Drow long range patrols who wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes in the Underdark (in 1e all Drow encountered outside the cities were at least Fighter-2).

I do heart this, and I don't think more fluff will interfere with that at all.

Though I think the "everything I need to run the monster" isn't far enough. They should give me "everything I need to run an encounter with the monster." Which includes about four other monsters, on average.

Furthermore the mechanics only vision of monsters is present on the entire layout and organization of the MM, they could organize them by theme, creature type, terrain / environment, and so many other ways, but of them all, the chosen one was the bland alphabetical order.

Somehow having forest living critters all in the same area of a book helps me visuzlie who are those monsters and how a forest would be inhabited. Having monsters be a group of stats separated by their first letter and organized with the mechanical side of the game is something I find stupid and lacking, at best.

I'm on board with all of this. I don't think it's gonna happen in the MM3, but the alphabetical organization of critters needs to be questioned, because it's not the most useful way to present them, and leads to things like Bears having their own Lore entry just for the sake of symmetry, when there's NOTHING interesting about the bears to say. It's the old joke in 2e where some critters who didn't need a full page of fluff got one just because it was the format.

 

[Pour]

I'd rather 200 skimmed ones than 100 fleshed-out monsters, and I know a lot of other people who would agree with me.

The other sources for stat blocks are less than ideal. The magazines put out far more player options than they do monster stat blocks, and stat blocks from Dungeon are often slightly modified versions of already-printed monsters. Supplements contain some stat blocks, but unless they're monster-oriented supplements (Open Grave, Draconomicon) they won't have many. The Monster Builder doesn't add any stat blocks. It just makes it easier to create your own and modify existing ones.

Admittedly, a lot of this fluff vs. little to no fluff applies to individual tastes. Keeping with the 100 vs. 200 monsters per book, I would imagine having less monsters to deal with, and spending more time on their details, would create higher quality stat blocks. Maybe that's not a very good assumption, but producing good fluff and then reflecting those good ideas in mechanics in my mind would create better monsters.

And I've used the Monster Builder plenty of times to create entirely new monsters. Mix and match enough and its no longer the monster it started out as, alter certain auras, powers, energy types, change the role, I think it all equates to unique monsters.

Eh, just my two cents.

 

[Calzone]

For me, fluff is more difficult to come up with than an appropriate stat block for a monster. Taking new fluff and adapting an existing stat block gives you a new monster; taking a brand new stat block and adapting existing fluff gives you an existing monster that acts funny.

4e has given us really excellent tools for tweaking that power level and abilities of monsters in a controlled fashion. I can take a monster concept, pull out a likely-looking stat block from a MM, and have a new monster ready to perform, without worrying too much about it's difficulty, etc. This ease of stat modification lowers the benefits I get from additional stat blocks, compared to something that doesn't have easy rules for developing, such as monster background.

I'd like to see more depth to monster fluff. How does the monster fit into its ecological niche? Does it have natural enemies or allies? What it is about this monsters behavior or physiology that makes it stand out from other creatures? Notes about this kind of stuff help me present monsters to my players in a more visceral fashion. I much prefer "The acrid, matted fur of the creature erupts into gouts of flame as your fireball erupts overhead. Oily clumps of hair stick to the creature's side as fire consumes them, leaving great sections of hide red and charred." instead of "Your fireball hits the creature and does 10 additional fire damage because of his vulnerability."

I want stuff in MM's that make the monsters memorable to my players. I know they'll talk about that time they roasted that hairy beast in his own skin more than how they did additional damage due to vulnerability.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Maybe its more like 85%, but lets not quibble over stats .

The EN WOrld pie chart Morrus just released is interesting in this regard. 4e has a marginal lead over 3e.


RC

 

[Scribble]

The EN WOrld pie chart Morrus just released is interesting in this regard. 4e has a marginal lead over 3e.

Shows the 3e rules are just as confusing as they ever were! HAH!

ULTIMATE ZING!