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

[Dragonblade]

I don't think thats how they are doing it, but it would be cool if they were doing it that way.

Having say a "brute" role and then giving it stats (BAB, saves, Defense) from levels 1 to 30 would potentially make the game very flexible. You could just slap on a statless monster template and bam you have a monster suitable to challenge a party at any level.

This would also have the added benefit of making polymorph more viable. Monsters should be nothing more than statless templates, and stats should come entirely from a role coupled with a challenge level.

That way, if a player casts polymorph they just temporarily take on that creatures template while retaining their own stats. Could still be some issues with some creatures, but it makes the spell much easier to balance.

There are a huge number of benefits to doing a system like this which I posted in another thread. For one thing it would render the need to advance monsters, or give them class levels, or equip them with magic, as totally unnecessary. I just look up the stats for level 20 brute, slap on the ogre template and I'm good to go.

It looks like WotC is doing something similar but not quite as scalable out of the box. For example, it seems like they will have different versions of the ogre, prebuilt with the most applicable roles. They will have an ogre "brute" and may have an "ogre" shaman (or magi ), for example. Likely at a preset challenge level.

WotC posters also keep referring to having the monster fit the target numbers desired for a given challenge level, which implies to me that they will at least provide us with the modifiers a monster of a given challenge level should have. I hope they aren't using some secret formula that DMs like me will have to reverse engineer to design our own critters and encounters.

For example, I'm hoping that in the 4e MM or DMG, WotC just comes right out and says that a "brute" (or whatever role) monster of challenge level X should have this BAB, these saves, and this AC in order to be an appropriate and "fun" challenge for a PC of level X.

This way we know exactly what kind of range the monster's numbers need to be in for the role that monster will play. Then we can pick from the prebuilt monsters in the MM, or better yet, be able to build or advance our own by taking a base monster template and then simply upping their modifiers to be appropriate for the desired challenge level.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I don't think thats how they are doing it, but it would be cool if they were doing it that way.

Having say a "brute" role and then giving it stats (BAB, saves, Defense) from levels 1 to 30 would potentially make the game very flexible. You could just slap on a statless monster template and bam you have a monster suitable to challenge a party at any level.

To expand on this a bit, I imagine that the monster template would be given as a progression from the monster's starting level up to level 30 and have a list of powers, and that you'd select the top 3 or 5 powers on the list when you apply the template. So a low-level bear would be a brute with the bear template, and would get "bear hug", while a high-level bear would be a brute as well, but would get "greater bear hug", which would overwrite the instance of "bear hug" lower down.

The entire process of readying a monster for play (assuming it's not one of the ready made monsters) would involve choosing a role, finding the stats for its level in a standard table, and applying the "finishing touches" of a template. Level 9 ettin? Choose brute, find level 9 stats, apply "two heads, two rounds of actions" to the brute. Done.

I like the sound of it--at least the way I've framed it.

 

[Kraydak]

To expand on this a bit, I imagine that the monster template would be given as a progression from the monster's starting level up to level 30 and have a list of powers, and that you'd select the top 3 or 5 powers on the list when you apply the template. So a low-level bear would be a brute with the bear template, and would get "bear hug", while a high-level bear would be a brute as well, but would get "greater bear hug", which would overwrite the instance of "bear hug" lower down.

The entire process of readying a monster for play (assuming it's not one of the ready made monsters) would involve choosing a role, finding the stats for its level in a standard table, and applying the "finishing touches" of a template. Level 9 ettin? Choose brute, find level 9 stats, apply "two heads, two rounds of actions" to the brute. Done.

I like the sound of it--at least the way I've framed it.

Except that the way you described it doesn't really work. "2 heads, 2 rounds" is vastly more powerful than "bear hug". In 3e terms, its about a 1 CR difference. As noted before, raw stats is easy (although losing the provenance of the stats is extremely problematic, which might be gotten around by having "weapon skill" brute, and "strength brute" and a few different "magic buffed brute" listings). Its the special abilities that differentiate the monsters, and its the special abilities that are really hard to get right. To be at the same level as an ettin, a bear would need much better stats.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Except that the way you described it doesn't really work. "2 heads, 2 rounds" is vastly more powerful than "bear hug". In 3e terms, its about a 1 CR difference. As noted before, raw stats is easy (although losing the provenance of the stats is extremely problematic, which might be gotten around by having "weapon skill" brute, and "strength brute" and a few different "magic buffed brute" listings). Its the special abilities that differentiate the monsters, and its the special abilities that are really hard to get right. To be at the same level as an ettin, a bear would need much better stats.

So throw an adjustment on the template. It reads "an ettin is a +1 CR monster." So if you want a 9th level ettin, you apply the template to an 8th level brute.

 

[Kraydak]

So throw an adjustment on the template. It reads "an ettin is a +1 CR monster." So if you want a 9th level ettin, you apply the template to an 8th level brute.

And sometimes that will work. Othertimes, with other abilites, like 3ed's LA, it will result in Ogre Magi. If you have enough prerequisites in to avoid Ogre Magidom, you might as well do a full-blown level-by-level advancement anyways (because you *are*, in all but name).

 

[pemerton]

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.
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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.
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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.

It is very clear that monster stats in 4E will read the same as PC stats, in that they will consist of numbers allocated to the same categories, and having the same meaning within those categories. The difference will be in the way those numbers are worked out (and I don’t mean "worked out in the gameworld" – which comes from magic, which from natural armour etc; I mean "worked out at the metagame level", by application of the game rules): PCs will be built level-by-level, following rules for feat and talent selection and magic item acquisition, while monsters will be built according to a system of allocating a given set of numbers to fill a particular role at a particular challenge level.

Therefore, there will be no reason at all why the Mind Flayer can’t joint the party. But the way its stats have been built will mean that there will be no completely straightforward way of comparing it to a PC build to work out what level of PC it is.

Y'see, I see this less as a "Monsters and PCs must have the same abilities available to them", as I see it as a "Monsters and PCs are built in the same way, but with different blocks".

In fact it will be the opposite: monsters and PCs will be built with the same blocks (6 attributes, BAB, hit points, skill bonuses etc), but the build process will be very different.

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.

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.

There are at least two questions here. First, should the system tell you what effect a given Rope Use bonus has on challenge level? Yes it should, and it is clear that the aim of the 4e designers is to produce a system that gives these answers (admittedly they seem to be focusing most on combat challenges, but they have also talked about social challenges, and I’m sure the rules will say something about the sorts of “survival” challenges that might bring Rope Use into play).

Second, will the centaur stats in the Monster Manual enable you to derive a rope use bonus? Well, the centaur will have a Dex bonus and skill bonuses, so you’ll be able to look and see. But if the centaur is being presented as filling the role of brute or archer (as seems likely), then the absence of any Rope Use skill can easily be seen as metagame information economy – there is no need to include a Rope Use skill bonus to enable the centaur to play either of those roles – and would not, as far as I can see, preclude the GM from attributing such a bonus to the centaur should the issue come up and need to be resolved.

What considerations would guide the GM in making that decision? The same ones, presumably, as would guide the GM in deciding whether the NPC wizard should have access to 2nd or 3rd level spells – in particular, How competent do I want to make this centaur as an antagonist for my players to have to deal with?

If what you want is a system that models the in-game growth of a creature, so you can look at a centaur’s stats, from them read off its degree of in-game experience, and therefore work out how many skill points it has free to assign to Rope Use, 4e will not give you what you want. It is becoming very clear that the only game element whose stats will be derived in this fashion is the PC. For NPCs and monsters, it is the GM who decides (not the rules) how experienced or capable they are, and then (following the challenge-building guidelines) assigns stats that are appropriate.

In my vision of the rules, a beholder would have to be rebuilt from the gorund up. In a point based system, that thing, in a fantasy campaign, would probably costs hundreds of points to create. A very powerful entity not appropriate for most campaigns (pretty much as it stands now... something like ELC 10+ no?)
Having rules that work would eliminate the need to make things work differently.

I wonder if those who feel that monsters =! PCs would ever play a game where that's just inherently true like Hero, BESM, Mutants & Masterminds, GURPS, etc... and if their stance is just, "For D&D...".

I don’t know BESM or M&M, but the difference between D&D on the one hand, and Hero and GURPS on the other, is that D&D is not a points-buy system. It is a highly focused class-level system, where every level gives increases in combat ability, hit points, skill bonuses etc. Therefore, if monsters are to be built the same as PCs they must be stuck with the same correlations. This makes it hard to build (for example) large but unskilled monsters (which 3e allows, by giving the creature a high Constitution rather than many hit dice), because their many hit points mean that their hit points and skill bonuses are out of whack compared to the appropriate ratio for PC classes.

Points buy systems introduce more flexibility in this respect, but at the price of losing the focus that is part and parcel of D&D.

Beholders/Ogre Magi etc... are examples of poorly designed monsters (glass cannons). If you want to use such a system, you would have to design your monsters for it (no 1hp, disintegrate CL 30 at will monsters), which means that the offense and defense of a given creature would have to correlate reasonably well

They are poorly designed only if you think that keeping attack and defence closely correlated is a design goal. It is for PCs. I don’t see why it is for monsters. NPC wizards in 1st ed essentially fit this description, and they don’t make for poor opponents.

This is actually something we talked about at the office on Friday. In some games, it makes tons of sense for monsters/opponents to use the same exact rules as PCs.
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In D&D, the two sides aren't equivalent. Monsters are supposed to be scary, weird, and unknown. It's more like Call of Cthulhu than Champions, and I doubt anyone would claim that CoC monsters should be built in the exact same way as characters.

To say that D&D is closer to Lovecraftian horror than it is to four-color supers runs completely counter to my experience of the game in novels, in electronic games, in artwork, and in actual play.

I agree with Moogle on this point. I think there are good arguments for going the 4e route on monster design, but Cthulhu-esque flavour is not really one of them.

What I would like to know is this: From a DM's perspective, will a DM be able to take a given monster and add PC class levels to it fairly easily in 4th Edition? If I have a dragon, a beholder, an ettin, or an umber hulk... Will it be easy enough for the DM to add levels of fighter or wizard or cleric to it?

The main difference seems to me:
In 3e, stat out a monster then figure out its CR.
In 4e, decide what CR* you want then stat the monster out.

Exactly right. And this goes to the issue of balance. Balance for monsters is different from balance for PCs.

In D&D PCs are balanced by being built according to the same logic of purchasing stats, then earning class levels which confer talents, feats, hp, BAB and skills. The balance in PC design, therefore, is in making sure all these options produce (approximately) equally playable characters in a D&D game (where combat capability is a big part of playability).

The balance for monsters is in having proper rules for measuring challenge, so that the allocation of XPs for overcoming challenges is fair.

It is possible, therefore, to have a balanced monster (in the sense of a monster whose challenge level, and thus XPs granted, is fair given its abilities) which would not be a balanced PC (because it can’t be generated out of a balanced system of purchasing stats, then gaining levels and thereby acquiring feats etc).

Part of the unfairness [in old editions] was a monster could be worth 1000s of XP more for a few trivial spell like abilites than some thuggish monster with lots of damage and AC. Giants vs. minor demons for example

Exactly right. Balanced monster building rules will correct this. This is what 4e seems to be aiming at.

Actually, I totally agree with Mike Mearls. The whole notion that monster should follow the same rules as players sounds great on paper. And from a player's perspective it is pretty cool.
But from a DM's perspective its a nightmare.
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I have always felt that having monsters operate the same way as characters was a result of a miniatures or wargame mentality that pits the players in opposition to the DM.

Agreed. If the goal of the game is PC vs PC, then monsters need to be build as PCs. But if the goal of the game is PC vs challenges, then the monster rules need to very accurately assign challenge levels to a given set of monster stats, but do not need to enable those stats to be generated by way of a PC build process.

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.

It only breaks the “social compact” if the social compact is that the game is to play as PC vs PC (where the GM controls one party of PCs). But the goal of 4e will be PC vs challenges. So monster-only or NPC-only abilities will not be abusive, provided that the XP rewards for overcoming them are commensurate to the challenge they pose.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

And sometimes that will work. Othertimes, with other abilites, like 3ed's LA, it will result in Ogre Magi. If you have enough prerequisites in to avoid Ogre Magidom, you might as well do a full-blown level-by-level advancement anyways (because you *are*, in all but name).

But we're not talking about level adjustment. We're talking about CR. The problem with level adjustment was that it was a system that was tacked on to the CR system after the fact. Even if a monster was a well-balanced challenge for a party of a given level, there's no reason to think that the monster would be well-balanced at any level as a PC.

The system I've been talking about is taking a creature--in the example it is a generic Brute--and adding a template onto it to make it into a specific monster. Sometimes the template doesn't increase the CR (say, for an ogre), and other times it will (the ettin). But since the template itself scales (for example, a low-level bear would get "hug" and a high level bear would get "greater hug"), it is designed from the beginning to be an even +X CR at every level. If a medusa's petrifying gaze is a greater threat at lower levels than at higher ones, the template will need to have something else added at higher levels to maintain the same CR modifier.

Again, we're not talking about PCs at this point, and we're assuming that they design the system to scale properly. An ogre mage won't have one really good ability and a few crappy ones, so putting that template on will be balanced at all levels, probably with a minimum level below which the template doesn't make sense--e.g. a medusa without petrification because the power is too powerful for low-level characters to face.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

If what you want is a system that models the in-game growth of a creature, so you can look at a centaur’s stats, from them read off its degree of in-game experience, and therefore work out how many skill points it has free to assign to Rope Use, 4e will not give you what you want.

I don't know about that. What if skills have been simplified to the point where you get two or three good ones, and then level-based defaults in all the other ones. If the centaur has his two or three good skills defined, and Rope Use isn't one of them, then you know exactly what its Rope Use skill is because the system defines it in terms of the centaur's level or hit dice, and there's a table that lists Rope Use for all Xth level characters of the centaur's type.

I think that the process of simplification is going to turn out to be less "throwing out" stuff and more "working it into the system in a less clunky way".

 

[BryonD]

I like the sound of it--at least the way I've framed it.

LOL

They should let us all just define the game for ourself and print a copy of the book we wrote.

just kidding, of course and absolutely no offense. But that phrase just made me chuckle. I've had some damn good ideas myself and they just won't listen.

 

[Kraydak]

But we're not talking about level adjustment. We're talking about CR. The problem with level adjustment was that it was a system that was tacked on to the CR system after the fact. Even if a monster was a well-balanced challenge for a party of a given level, there's no reason to think that the monster would be well-balanced at any level as a PC.

The system I've been talking about is taking a creature--in the example it is a generic Brute--and adding a template onto it to make it into a specific monster. Sometimes the template doesn't increase the CR (say, for an ogre), and other times it will (the ettin). But since the template itself scales (for example, a low-level bear would get "hug" and a high level bear would get "greater hug"), it is designed from the beginning to be an even +X CR at every level. If a medusa's petrifying gaze is a greater threat at lower levels than at higher ones, the template will need to have something else added at higher levels to maintain the same CR modifier.

Again, we're not talking about PCs at this point, and we're assuming that they design the system to scale properly. An ogre mage won't have one really good ability and a few crappy ones, so putting that template on will be balanced at all levels, probably with a minimum level below which the template doesn't make sense--e.g. a medusa without petrification because the power is too powerful for low-level characters to face.

If you are running full templates with powers appropriate to the monsters underlying stats (to avoid glass cannondom), you *might as well* stat out by HD and interface fully with the leveling/multiclassing rules, because you are doing the SAME work. (the only "difficulty" lies in tracking the prereqs)

If you aren't, you basically can't have a set system adding special abilities onto the base stats. Having prerequisites is needed to avoid the Ogre Mage problem.

The more I think about it, the more I want some indication of whether the "look up" tables they seem to be suggesting divide the stats up into bonus categories or not. If they do, it'll require many more tables to cover different takes on the same role. If they don't, it'll cause massive problems when PCs succeed at diplomacy rolls or try cool maneuvers.