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

[JoeGKushner]

Anyone seen Sean K Reynolds take on it over at Monte's Boards?

Caught this, and I'm already frowning.

forums.gleemax.com/showth...p?t=906391

From #3:
{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 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.}

Which is the exact opposite of what we did for the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. We talked about making drow a core PC race in the FRCS but ran into the problem of spell resistance and unbalanced stat bonuses. We talked about making a "surface drow" PC race (no SR, balanced stat bonuses) for players who wanted to play drow ... and realized that by playing that race they weren't getting to play the drow they wanted. We'd still have people wanting to play drow with SR and SLA's and stuff, so the "surface drow" option was pointless.

If a player likes minotaurs and wants to play a minotaur PC, in most cases he's not going to want a watered-down minotaur that's only sorta like a real minotaur ... he wants to play a minotaur. Yes, the monster classes in Savage Species let you start out as "teenage minotaur," but in the end you're a real minotaur. Yes, Bruce Cordell's minotaur Canabulum is a nonstandard kind of minotaur, but that's because he didn't want to play a MM-minotaur, he wanted a variant that could still be an effective spellcaster so Monte made him a variant that suited that purpose. But if Bruce wanted to play a minotaur fighter or barbarian, he should (unless the DM disagrees) get to play a real minotaur just like the MM version, not one squished for PC use.

I think this is a fundamental flaw of the 4E design idea. One of the elements of 3E design (or perhaps just FR design) was "NPCs shouldn't be able to do things that the PCs cannot learn to do." So no writeups of Drizzt having the unique power to instantly kill someone on a really good attack roll (like he did in 2E), or a wizard having an unexplained immunity to a particular group of spells just for the purpose of making that NPC unkillable or an encounter especially challenging. Keeping things in the hands of NPCs (and monsters) like that is basically the DM/designer saying, "Sorry, players, your characters just aren't cool enough, my toys are cooler than your toys." Which sucks.

Rather than making a monster-minotaur and then a PC-friendly version of a minotaur race, why not design monsters to work like PCs in the first place? If a minotaur has 6 HD, build it like a 6th-level barbarian -- the classes are more playtested than the monsters anyway, you're less likely to break something if you base it on a class.

Minotaur vs. typical barbarian: Strong? Check. Dumb? Check. Thick skin equivalent of light or medium armor? Check. Good at Search and Spot? Check. Drop the 2nd use of rage per day in exchange for scent? Check. Drop uncanny dodge for natural cunning? Check. Three feats? Check. Look, it's a barbarian. Wait, it's a minotaur. Wait, it's pretty much the same! And then if a PC wants to play one, you know he's a 6th level character because the monster is built like a 6th level barbarian. Heck, he's a 6th level monster.

Argh, I really need to finish that writeup of a PC beholder class (level 1-20) that's designed with HD at every level and intended from the start to be usable as a PC or a monster, I just need to format the HTML for the class table, the article itself has been done for like 6 months....

 

[rowport]

A breath weapon.

Wow, you must really hate 3.5 supplements, then-- because even without "monster" race PCs, there are lots of ways for PCs to get breath weapons, including the obvious Draconic Adept class.

Because if your PC is a type of creature that *has* a breath weapon how the bleeeep did it become a PC and what was your DM smoking at the time s/he allowed it?

Um, maybe he bought the WOTC book and thought it was cool? No "smoking" drugs are required, folks.

In the core game, monsters should really not be PCs.

How about, in *YOUR* "core game", monsters will not be PCs. Not everybody agrees with you.

I find it interesting that over 6+ pages of this thread, the entirety of the discussion is how hard/easy to use monsters are for the DM (in combat only, which is a different problem). Personally, I found the mechanics allowing "monsters" to be played as PCs to be one of the best enhancements of the system from lame kludges in 2E. Losing that-- or being forced into a different kludge of PC and non-PC versions of the *same creatures*-- is a backward step.

Despite some posts to the contrary, using a "monster" race is not solely the realm of powergamers. Some of us just like playing the oddball. And, while not every game setting suits that playstyle, lots do (like Planescape).

Heck, I am waiting for Dannyalcatraz to weigh in on this, because I know that his games have even more weirdo oddball characters than mine do. LOL

 

[rowport]

Anyone seen Sean K Reynolds take on it over at Monte's Boards?

Thanks, Joe. SKR is my hero. Seriously, that nails my point entirely. It is not ALWAYS about the GM's point of view. Ultimately, the game is played by players-- so their views should matter!

 

[Klaus]

Thanks, Joe. SKR is my hero. Seriously, that nails my point entirely. It is not ALWAYS about the GM's point of view. Ultimately, the game is played by players-- so their views should matter!

I find myself agreeing with Sean. I'd prefer to see a "CR = ECL = HD" solution.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I have immense respect for Sean and see his point, but someone that wants to play a minotaur is not the norm. Yeah, in some ways it makes more sense to make it all the same, but in other ways it doesn't. I prefer quicker set up time as a DM and faster monster creation as opposed to letting every monster be a PC. I do agree on the whole drow point that he made though as no one wants to play a drow like he described. We'll have to see how they handle it. I really hope we don't get into situations where some stuff is watered down.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm sorry, but that really doesn't appeal to me. I'm not a tight-sphinctered DM who doesn't want the PCs to have any cool toys. But as a designer, as a writer, as a DM, and as a storyteller, the notion that anything a monster can do must be available to the PCs is a non-starter. The monsters and NPCs are, or at least can be, plot points. And most iconic fantasy involves at least some element of heroes finding the way to overcome or get around an ability they don't understand.

Monsters and PCs serve two very different purposes in the adventure and the campaign. The notion that something one can do must be available to the other is, IMO, detrimental to gameplay and unnecessarily restrictive to creativity.

It's less of a "must" and more of a "could concievably be."

When you create an Evil Wizard, he has the same abilities as a Good Wizard, and just uses them in a different way. When you create an Evil Creature, the same principle should be followed, IMO.

And though monsters and NPC's can be plot points, they serve at LEAST three roles that, IMO, should be kept in mind: they're setting elements, they're adversaries, and they're allies. Any monster that can't be all three is giving me a third (or more) less bang for my stat block buck.

We agree on this point, at least. I hate the "NPC X has it, so why can't I?" philosophy. Some things should be restricted to NPCs or monsters only, for whatever reason - usually because in the hands of a player, usable all the time instead of in limited (and controlled) circrumstances, it's overpowered (like the Frenzied Berserker - that thing should NEVER be used as a PC PrC for many reasons, chief among them that it's not a party-friendly class).

But nowhere in the Frenzied Berserker description does it say 'FOR NPC USE ONLY, GUYS!" If a PC wants to get it, and a DM approves that selection, you get it, and, speaking from experience, it works just like it's advertised.

If something exists as a setting element, as an independent object in the game world, the only thing that should define my choice of which side of the screen it gets to be on should be my choice as a DM. Any other choice, and you're hurting my utility at least, and my verisimilitude at worst.

What a creature is capable of is determined by its attributes, skill bonuses, special abilities etc - just the same as for a PC. As I think was fairly obvious, and as Mearls has made clear, the changes in monster design aren't to the way in which monster capabilities are described, but the way in which monsters are built.

If what you want is a system to tell you how good a 4HD monstrous humanoid should be at tying rope, the answer is "As good as they should be, given their talents as a race of rope-tiers". That is, pick the gameworld-appropriate number and give it to them. If you don't know what the gameworld-appropriate number is, then make it up! Or forget about it and move on.

Did you read what you were quoting?

I want a system. Making up stuff sucks as a system. A system, a set of guidelines, keeps me honest as a DM with the way the game world works, keeping my verisimilitude intact.

Except that the game is a set of rules on how to deploy game elements, so it can't help but tell the players and GM what to use those elements for.

But monsters are for more than just squishing.

Thus, for example, D&D (in its current edition) has no rules for gods as PCs.

Ah, but it does. Not very good rules, but they're there.

The real question, therefore, is this: are monsters, NPCs and PCs identical game elements (as some posters on this thread regard them) or not? That is, are they the sorts of things that players can use as their vehicle for gameworld exploration and activity? I can see why the designers have answered "no" to this question. D&D, in its current incarnation, thrives on permitting PCs to be extremely responsive, in details of mechanical build, to player desires. For monsters to meet this goal is for them to become, in practice, unusable for GMs.

Then you make monsters able to be that responsive. They don't have to have it built in, but they should be able to be re-built with that in.

In other games it might be possible to treat NPCs and PCs alike. But these games probably do not demonstrate the degree of player-responiveness that D&D does. That is, those games have a different metagame priority.

Yes, PC's are complex while monsters are generally simple. But I should be able to shake hands with the mindflayer and invite him to adventure with us without his psionic powers being crippled as if I had the Black Death.

 

[Mouseferatu]

When you create an Evil Wizard, he has the same abilities as a Good Wizard, and just uses them in a different way. When you create an Evil Creature, the same principle should be followed, IMO.

And right there, we have such a profound disagreement that I don't think we're ever going to be able to see eye-to-eye on this issue.

I absolutely, wholeheartedly, and even fanatically do not think that evil creatures should be held to the same standard. That's why they're creatures, not people.

Should an NPC wizard be limited to stuff that a PC wizard can do? For the most part, yes. (The evil wizard may have access to an unknown spell or great artifact to perform feats the PC cannot, but these are things the PC could do if he had the spell or artifact.)

But should a demon, or an ancient dragon, or a demigod, or a fey of the Unseelie Court, or a genie, or an insanity-wombat from the Plane of Weirdness be limited in the same way? Absolutely and unequivocally not.

 

[Odhanan]

But should a demon, or an ancient dragon, or a demigod, or a fey of the Unseelie Court, or a genie, or an insanity-wombat from the Plane of Weirdness be limited in the same way? Absolutely and unequivocally not.

An example of this is the "destroyer of the world" monster trapped in Rappan Athuk. The thing's unfathomably tough, and has particular abilities designed specifically around the prison holding it. It's pointless to give it stats. It's a plot device. It works great in its particular context.

 

[pawsplay]

about, how they live, what they do, etc.

I could be wrong, but I know however I tried to condense Denizens of Avadnu I doubt I could ever get all of the fluff, stats, and art in and still manage to fit one monster per page. That's just insanity.

I don't need that much fluff for more monsters than I will ever fit into one campaign. Short writeups are the way to go. Longer, flurry treatments belong in campaign settings, fluffbooks, splatbooks, etc.


As to the rest, I endorse the Sean k Reynolds position.

 

[pawsplay]

Yuck.

I'm sorry, but that really doesn't appeal to me. I'm not a tight-sphinctered DM who doesn't want the PCs to have any cool toys. But as a designer, as a writer, as a DM, and as a storyteller, the notion that anything a monster can do must be available to the PCs is a non-starter. The monsters and NPCs are, or at least can be, plot points. And most iconic fantasy involves at least some element of heroes finding the way to overcome or get around an ability they don't understand.

Monsters and PCs serve two very different purposes in the adventure and the campaign. The notion that something one can do must be available to the other is, IMO, detrimental to gameplay and unnecessarily restrictive to creativity.

But what about this premise?

Anything available to a non-elite hobgoblin should be available to a PC hobgoblin.