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

[JoeGKushner]

The way monsters are being handled is, at first glance, one of the bright spots for me in the analysis of what we know about 4e. It says to me that the designers have wisely recognized that all this interchangability between monsters and PCs was a part of what made the 3.x game boring and uninspiring. I'm not going to go into too much detail here as I'm about to write a blog entry with my thoughts on 4e, but I'll just chime in with a general agreement with Ari and Mike on this particular issue. Monsters should not be built like PCs with horns (oh wait, in 4e the PCs can have horns. )

Boring and uninspiring... too much freedom is bad? It's better to want rules for monsters than to actually have them? Am I reading that right?

 

[d20Dwarf]

Boring and uninspiring... too much freedom is bad? It's better to want rules for monsters than to actually have them? Am I reading that right?

Interestingly, I disagree with the fundamental assertion of your post: I believe that full interchangability with PCs constrains monsters rather than sets them free.


FREE THE MONSTERS, MIKE, FREE THEM FOR GREAT JUSTICE!!!

 

[Korgoth]

If 4E is moving away from the "assembly line" and "standardized parts" methodology of 3E, that makes me happy.

 

[The Grackle]

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 build a feat, it's meant as a feat, not a monster special attack. 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. The designs must inform each other, but we're better off building two separate game elements rather than one that tries to multiclass.

Uhhh.... yeah, put me down for disagree. (And yes, I understand PCs and their opponents have different purposes and in-game functions. I get it, i get it, already...)

If there's a strong/simple/unified system underneath, it should be able to generate monsters, PCs, and NPCs w/o much trouble. Other games do it, why not D&D? In fact, I think --historically-- a lot of D&D's problems come from making a bunch of independent rules sets and glomming them together later on. This new philosophy might sound cool now, but when stuff meshes awkwardly later on, it could cause a lot of unexpected headaches and pun-puns.

***
I'm hearing a lot of, "it's so much easier for the game designers this way," but why should I care about that? So what if it is? How is that a selling point for me? I'm a player. All I've got is a bunch of monsters I can't polymorph into.

I'm sure it would be harder for designers to make monsters that were balanced for play, and fun to fight, and simple to read; but that's still what i want.

***
There have always been some people, like me, who want to play monsters and weirdo characters, and it's always been a pain. The official line has always kinda been, "just don't do that." I felt like 3E was getting closer, and all that LA/ECL/HD business would get ironed out for 4E into nice flat Levels. I was hoping for a way to roll up monsters (individuals from MM races and new ones) as easy as making a dwarven fighter. Maybe not in the PHB, but in the DMG or a new Savage Species. Instead of nice slick way to do that, it sounds like we're getting more patches.

***
Still, none of this is a deal-breaker for me; I just would've liked to see it develop the other way. If nothing else, it looks like the humanoid races will get some attention, and be more useful/usable as playable races, and that's cool.

I won't really be upset unless the monstrous races/classes/talent-trees suck as bad as or worse than LA does now.

 

[Hussar]

At the end of the day, one of the largest complaints about 3e is how much work it is to DM. The game everyone wants to play but no one wants to run, goes the tired refrain.

Anything they can do that takes the burden off the DM and still lets him run the game he wants to run is a good thing.

 

[DarkKestral]

Uhhh.... yeah, put me down for disagree. (And yes, I understand PCs and their opponents have different purposes and in-game functions. I get it, i get it, already...)

If there's a strong/simple/unified system underneath, it should be able to generate monsters, PCs, and NPCs w/o much trouble. Other games do it, why not D&D? In fact, I think --historically-- a lot of D&D's problems come from making a bunch of independent rules sets and glomming them together later on. This new philosophy might sound cool now, but when stuff meshes awkwardly later on, it could cause a lot of unexpected headaches and pun-puns.

***
I'm hearing a lot of, "it's so much easier for the game designers this way," but why should I care about that? So what if it is? How is that a selling point for me? I'm a player. All I've got is a bunch of monsters I can't polymorph into.

I'm sure it would be harder for designers to make monsters that were balanced for play, and fun to fight, and simple to read; but that's still what i want.

I am of this opinion as well; often times, I've seen that the most imbalanced creations tend to come from designers who aren't planning to look at something like a player will. The signature trick that allowed Pun-Pun's original incarnation obviously came from a designer who thought that if the ability is "monster-only" then they don't have worry about it's balance in the hands of PCs. I'm of the stance that "monster-only" abilities should always be tested as if a PC could get a hold of them, because if they're allowed to be stronger than what a PC can do of that level past a certain point, then PCs will always find a way to use them and abuse them. Either that, or DMs will.

There have always been some people, like me, who want to play monsters and weirdo characters, and it's always been a pain. The official line has always kinda been, "just don't do that." I felt like 3E was getting closer, and all that LA/ECL/HD business would get ironed out for 4E into nice flat Levels. I was hoping for a way to roll up monsters (individuals from MM races and new ones) as easy as making a dwarven fighter. Maybe not in the PHB, but in the DMG or a new Savage Species. Instead of nice slick way to do that, it sounds like we're getting more patches.

I dunno about others, but personally, I think the idea of having the ability to deal with non-humanoid PCs is a good thing, so I'm in agreement with Grackle once more. Not everyone should play a beholder fighter, but it's OK if someone's played almost every previous concept and simply wants to do something objectively DIFFERENT. However, I'd say that most of the classic uses are games which include "mascot characters" (Pseudodragons? Awakened Animal Companions?) which are played by PCs, either as cohorts or as actual PCs. They might not be humanoid, but there is a certain percentage of the playerbase that really like being able to play the "awakened animal companions of a druid going out to rescue their former master" type of games.

 

[hong]

Uhhh.... yeah, put me down for disagree. (And yes, I understand PCs and their opponents have different purposes and in-game functions. I get it, i get it, already...)

If there's a strong/simple/unified system underneath, it should be able to generate monsters, PCs, and NPCs w/o much trouble. Other games do it, why not D&D? In fact, I think --historically-- a lot of D&D's problems come from making a bunch of independent rules sets and glomming them together later on. This new philosophy might sound cool now, but when stuff meshes awkwardly later on, it could cause a lot of unexpected headaches and pun-puns.

Of course it will cause a lot of unexpected headaches and pun-puns. But if the new philosophy also changes people's expectations so that they'll realise the game no longer sets out to provide a perfectly balanced ruleset in this context, then it will all be good.

Basically, if you want to make a pun-pun, you'll be able to. It will be nobody's fault but your own, because you'll be going outside the game's explicitly stated design parameters.

In fact, the gearhead rulesets (I'm thinking of HERO and GURPS) both put front and center the GM's role as final authority on what's allowed in a game. There is little of the purely mechanistic view that characterises the 3E zeitgeist, even if gearheads are a large part of the audience.

 

[hong]

... Heck, the very existence of Pun-Pun indicates that 3E's strongly mechanistic philosophy isn't enough to stop loopholes popping up. So you might as well make explicit the DM's role as final arbiter, rather than assuming a super-intricate ruleset will make such problems disappear.

 

[Samnell]

I'm of the stance that "monster-only" abilities should always be tested as if a PC could get a hold of them, because if they're allowed to be stronger than what a PC can do of that level past a certain point, then PCs will always find a way to use them and abuse them. Either that, or DMs will.

I am of the opinion that "monster-only" or "NPC-only" abilities are pretty much inherently abusive anyway. They break the social compact of the game. It's fudging the dice in the monsters' favor by another name.

 

[DarkKestral]

... Heck, the very existence of Pun-Pun indicates that 3E's strongly mechanistic philosophy isn't enough to stop loopholes popping up. So you might as well make explicit the DM's role as final arbiter, rather than assuming a super-intricate ruleset will make such problems disappear.

I would argue that Pun-Pun is basically the result of not systematizing monster design and making it more PC-ish. No sane designer should give players the chance to give other players any ability ever, and to do this insane feat so over and over again. Yet somehow, one designer DID. It was obvious he was thinking "Oh, this is just a monster. It won't hurt anything..." which is where I think the problem lies. You let monsters follow different rules, and suddenly PCs start trying to abuse the corner cases for their own benefit. Monster abilities that are broken in the hands of PCs are often broken in the hands of monsters, too. In 3.5, many a monster gets umpteen special attacks, which are mystically at the highest attack bonus the monster gets. Yet players must suffer a -5 and a movement penalty to make multiple attacks. So the monster gets something which is apparently a BADWRONGABILITY in the hands of PCs, but is given right to them if they pay a 4th level wizard/sorc spell slot, which indicates that it's powerful, but not BADWRONGABLITY powerful either.

That's why I would much rather see ECL or a modified HD that allows for 1 HD = 1 ECL regardless of type. since we already have HD that can vary, it's not that much of a stretch to say 1 animal HD = 3d6 for the purposes of ECL/CR calculation. Give me rules that work the same for everybody, and a set of rules that don't and I'm sure I can show you that it's a lot harder to accidentally create Pun-Puns in the first system, assuming reasonably intelligent design.

I know there's Rule 0, but I'd much rather not need to invoke it daily or see it invoked to maintain sanity.