Complete Disagreement With Mike on Monsters (see post #205)

[Pale]

We know that monsters and NPCs will be using two different systems. I hope that they won't be incompatable as they were in 1E and 2E.

Also, I could care less about playing a monster as a PC. In the right campaign it's a great idea, (celestials reduced to 1HD for a transgression and working their way back up to full status on the Material Plane... good schtuff, dagnabbit).

It's just that I liked the symmetry, I liked only memorizing one set of rules for character advancement. I personally only tweaked the Big Bads that were going to be around for a while(1), were numerous(2) or directly affected the party make-up(3). For everything else I pretty much just ran the monsters "out of the box" with, perhaps, an uppage in HD.

I suppose I could always wing it, but I liked having the rules there for these kinds of things... and only 1 rules set needed.

1. Four Gnolls who advanced with the party (a fighter, a ranger, a rogue and a sorceror who all later took the assassin PrC).

2. An entire tribe of "Fire-touched" trolls.

3. Advancing, adding character levels or a template to a summoned creature, rather than replacing the summoned creature totally. House rules and such that made the summoning spells more personal to the caster.

 

[Odhanan]

I'm the exact opposite. I thought the notion of designing monsters and PC races the same way was a good idea when 3E first came out, but the last eight years convinced me I was wrong. It straightjackets the designers, in terms of monster design, and is also partly responsible for the constant growth of the monster stat block.

I'd much rather see "purpose-built" monsters. It might make things harder for the tiny fraction of the player base that wants to use beholders, or displacer beast paladins, in a PC party. But it makes things a lot easier for the vast majority of gamers, to say nothing of allowing more interesting and "out there" monsters, and honestly, I think that's a more important consideration.

Utter agreement. I think that the real question, at the end of the day, is what makes sense for the practice of the game, what makes it work, what makes it easier to use. Sure, it's nice to be able to play the beholder paladin, but in the end, the few guys (and I'm among them) who want to do that were already doing it with 1E, and these are certainly not the majority of players.

Recognize that there is an actual, practical difference of purpose between a monster surviving 4 rounds at the game table and a PC going through an entire campaign? That it's better to design elements with what the game actually does in mind? I'm all for it.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I messed up and forgot the -4 nonproficiency penalty for the hammer, my bad!

You lost the whole argument about 3e statblocks/NPC/Monster abilities by messing it up.

 

[JustinA]

To me, this is backwards thinking.

I was just having the exact same reaction as I was reading the front page.

The idea that I'll get one stat block if I make up a minotaur NPC using the hypothetical PHB write-up and a different minotaur stat block if I make up a minotaur using the material in the Monster Manual just sounds ridiculous to me. It's not particularly useful.

I'm the exact opposite. I thought the notion of designing monsters and PC races the same way was a good idea when 3E first came out, but the last eight years convinced me I was wrong. It straightjackets the designers, in terms of monster design, and is also partly responsible for the constant growth of the monster stat block.

I think this has been true in 3rd Edition, but only because of the way the designers have approached the method of handling non-standard PC races. The scorched earth approach of "if they have ability X which the PCs aren't supposed to have until level Y, so we'll give them a level adjustment = (Y - HD)" is sloppy and leads to the problems you're describing.

But you don't have to do it that way.

There are more elegant ways of handling that scenario. And alot of them would contribute to solving the "christmas tree of magic items" phenomenon the designers want to get rid of.

So I agree with Joe. Fix the problem, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water.

And this is also a critique I voiced in my blog (see .sig) regarding the current design ethos at WotC: They spot a legitimate problem and then solve it in a way that doesn't make any kind of sense to me. (See, also, Mearls' write-up of the rust monster and Noonan's comments regarding non-combat abilities for monsters.)

1. Make all HD equal. The easiest way to achieve this is to have monster HD equate to a level in their type (animal, aberration, etc.).

2. Give me a unified system for figuring out what effect abilities have on the power balance of an encounter. In the current edition, this is best handled by the wealth-by-level guidelines. In 4th Edition, it could be something else. But whatever the case may be, this way when I give a monster more abilities than their "level" supports, I know what effect it has on their power level. And if I ever need/want to play that monster as a member of the party (either as a PC or a cohort or a minion or a special mount or a familiar), the information is truly interchangeable.

In this system you can design any monster -- purpose-designed monsters -- by giving them the appropriate number of base "levels" (i.e. Hit Dice) and then selecting or creating the appropriate abilities for them to flesh out the design.

To sum up: The problem with the current system is that it pretends to treat monsters the same way as PCs -- to make them interchangeable. But, in reality, they frequently AREN'T. And even when they are, they still suffer the balancing issues inherent in the 3rd Edition multiclassing rules. (So when you add a single level of sorcerer to an ogre or a 5th level fighter, you don't end up with a character who's as challenging as an ogre with a level of fighter or a 6th level fighter.)

You fix this problem by actually making them interchangeable components. You don't solve it by concluding that, since it didn't work perfectly in 3rd Edition, it shouldn't be done at all.

I've often said it before and still maintain it -- DMs and players need two separate sets of rules, because they have two different goals. The player's goal is to manage one character to the pursuit of fun. The DM's goal is to manage dozens of characters as well as plot elements to the pursuit of fun. As long as the mechanics meet the two sides in the middle, then I have no problem with DMs not having to manage NPCs the way PCs are managed. If 4E can successfully pull it off, then I'm interested.

The way to handle this is to give DMs and players different tools for manipulating the same bits of information.

For a 3rd Edition example: Players like to be able to spend every skill point because it gives them a lot of control over the exact make-up and design of their characters. This is time-consuming, but -- as you note -- a player only needs to worry about the design of a single character and the control is worth the time.

DMs, on the other hand, need to stat up dozens of characters. The time required to spend every skill point becomes a huge hassle.

The solution here isn't to say, "Well, let's ditch the skill system." It isn't even, "Let's ditch the skill system for NPCs." Or, "Let's have NPC skills work fundamentally differently from PC skills."

The solution is to say to the player, "Spend your skill points and achieve detailed results." And to say to the DM, "Pick a number of class skills equal to X + the character's intelligence bonus. Their skill bonus is equal to the max ranks in a class skill."

And you can do even better than that while (a) giving the players even more control and (b) giving the DM even simpler tools for achieving the same results.

Here's an example of something I think made monster design in 3e more complicated: Feats.

Why do monsters have feats? Because they have to work the same way as PCs. What do feats provide? A bunch of abilities that...
(a) someone will forget to calculate into a statblock (so many examples of this in later MMs with Weapon Focus).
(b) the DM has to suddenly look up at the table, because they allow the monster to do something not spelt out in its statblock.

It's ok for feats like Power Attack or Cleave, which are so common that everyone has. But, do you remember what Awesome Blow does? I don't, and I've run a lot of D&D. It's a lot easier just to give the monster the Awesome Blow ability because it makes sense, and write it up in the statblock as such.

I don't understand this argument in the least. I discuss this in some detail on my blog (again, see the link in my .sig), but here's the highlight:

"The problem is that Noonan is fallaciously conflating two types of utility:

(1) Spell-like abilities make it easier to use the rules because, as your familiarity with the rules for various spells grow, you will gain greater and greater mastery over a larger and larger swath of the ruleset.

(2) Putting all the information you need to run a creature in the creature's stat block makes it easier to use the creature because all the information you need is immediately accessible (without needing to look in multiple places, which also ties up books you may need to be using to reference other information).

There's no need to jettison utility #1 in order to achieve utility #2. The correct solution is to use spell-like abilities and list the information you need regarding the spell-like ability in the creature's stat block."

Replace the words "spell-like abilities" with "feat" in that passage and you get the same result.

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net

 

[Li Shenron]

Race matter more in 4e.

Obviously, they're not going to do this for every monster. Lots of them will be simpler.

However, I expect monsters and PCs will still be built on the same base. Why do monsters need feats? They don't. However, if you had a Ogre Fighter 6, you could give it feats purely from the fighter levels & HD.

Someone mentioned somewhere that UA Bloodlines could be taken as a starting point for designing races in 4e.
I think it's a good idea, but let me clarify however that once every class works like UA bloodlines, there is no more need for those bloodlines to have "blank levels" (just in case someone hated that idea).

If they go this route, it should be easy to then publish a monster in its basic form (without class levels) and then publish its "bloodline-like racial progression" either in the same MM entry (if the monster is supposed to be playable since the start, like an Orc) or otherwise publish it separately in a 4e Savage Species. Actually such a book could look quite similar to the 3e book, except that the "racial class" is applied on top of the base creature and together with class levels, instead of "breaking down" the base creature.

Skills, Ability scores? Yeah, the monster will still have that. And I'd guess that they'd work like Saga edition skills. Easy skill bonus to work out, and possible racial adjustments.

Certainly with Saga edition, you can get a +10 to a 1st level skill very easily indeed (just be trained, for +5, and then skill focus, for another +5). Reducing the variance in skill gain between levels (so 1st to 20th is +0 to +10), and you have something that allows 1st level commoners to be good at their core tasks.

I'm so much ambivalent on what I'm hearing about 4e skills... I think that 3e skills were a fantastic system to represent everything that isn't either combat not spellcasting. For a Player Character, they were a perfect system for me (although some of the specific skills could use a better mechanic). The only thing which 3e skills do not accomplish well at all is supporting NPCs.

What I hear about Saga skills, makes me think that they are very good at supporting the NPCs, but I'm not so positive about PCs anymore...

 

[Baby Samurai]

It might also finally be true that you can build an expert npc with +15 to a skill or whatever, without them being 75 HP tough guys that can take out a whole party of low level characters.

Totally, I mean, think about Mozart, or Jimi Hendrix, they would probably have mad ranks in Perform (instrument), but wouldn't really have more than a few hp.

 

[Klaus]

You lost the whole argument about 3e statblocks/NPC/Monster abilities by messing it up.

That has nothing to do with stat/blah. I just can't wrap my head around the concept of a warhammer being Martial instead of Simple weapon.

 

[AllisterH]

The way to handle this is to give DMs and players different tools for manipulating the same bits of information.

For a 3rd Edition example: Players like to be able to spend every skill point because it gives them a lot of control over the exact make-up and design of their characters. This is time-consuming, but -- as you note -- a player only needs to worry about the design of a single character and the control is worth the time.

DMs, on the other hand, need to stat up dozens of characters. The time required to spend every skill point becomes a huge hassle.

The solution here isn't to say, "Well, let's ditch the skill system." It isn't even, "Let's ditch the skill system for NPCs." Or, "Let's have NPC skills work fundamentally differently from PC skills."

The solution is to say to the player, "Spend your skill points and achieve detailed results." And to say to the DM, "Pick a number of class skills equal to X + the character's intelligence bonus. Their skill bonus is equal to the max ranks in a class skill."

And you can do even better than that while (a) giving the players even more control and (b) giving the DM even simpler tools for achieving the same results.


http://www.thealexandrian.net

While I'm nodding my head in agreement with the first part of the post concerning LA, this, I unfortunately have to disagree with.

Simply put, the current skill system isn't friendly for DMs. At first, it seems like all the DM has to do is follow the formula, but that formula is highly inaccurate. Not only doesn't it not factor in things like synergy bonuses and circumstance bonuses but it also ignores how the skill system works. For many skills, you just need a certain value to hit a DC so you don't even want the skill maxed out.

For a player, they can focus on their single character and figure out waht's the best choices whereas the DM when trying to stat out the BBEG and his two lieutenants and other NPCs has to do much more characters.

 

[Pale]

The Devil is in the Details

Another thing that concerns me is that some monsters, in my opinion, deserve an in-depth stat block. (I realize as I write this that we've all been presuming that 'different than PC = less complexity. That a big presumption, but I'll go with it.)

How awesome is it to see the write-ups for named Demon/Devil Lords? Take Graz'zt, The Dark Prince from The Book of Vile Darkness for instance: Seeing just his attacks and damage alone (+48/+43/+38/+33; 2d6+13/17-20 plus 2d6 acid plus 1 vile) illustrates just what B.A.M.F. he is before you even look at his multitude of other abilities. Maybe I just like those kind of write-ups because of the geek-love of how "uber" they illustrate these Unholiest of Unholies are, but there ya go.

You may not need an in-depth write-up for monsters that are only going to be around for a maximum of 10 rounds, but what about those that will? What about those that the DM does use as villainous PCs? Just because they won't be used by the players as characters doesn't mean that there is no benefit from writing them up as one.

All of this assumes that the stats from one to the other aren't portable in an easy to moderate fashion. If the stat blocks aren't completely alien to one another, then I think that I'll be fine with it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Another thing that concerns me is that some monsters, in my opinion, deserve an in-depth stat block. (I realize as I write this that we've all been presuming that 'different than PC = less complexity. That a big presumption, but I'll go with it.)

Actually, it's not an assumption. One of the first points they hit at the seminar at GenCon was that monster stat blocks are a lot shorter/simpler.

All of this assumes that the stats from one to the other aren't portable in an easy to moderate fashion. If the stat blocks aren't completely alien to one another, then I think that I'll be fine with it.

I don't imagine they'll be too foreign. To quote Mike Mearls:

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.

Note the part that I bolded. I expect that, while the designs will differ, there'll be enough common ground for someone familiar with the game system to tweak them one way or the other.