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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 3721041" data-attributes="member: 5100">My concern isn't so much that monsters use different rules than PCs.  Heck, I've become a huge fan of the idea of "roughed out" NPCs over the last year or so.  So long as the two stat blocks are relatable, I'm fine.  By relatable, I mean that I want to be able to find the strength of an ancient red dragon if I want to.  The "two different languages" scenario in 1/2E bugged the snot out of me and I don't want to see it return.I'm definitely in favor of simplification for the GM.  When I started thinking I might have lower prep time with Hero System, I knew there was a problem with 3E.  All the same, it isn't the monster stats I've ever had a problem with in 3E.  It's the NPCs.  I tend to run a rather humanocentric campaign, with warring kingdoms and one faction against the other.  As such, my preferrence would be to use lots of NPCs, including quite a number of unique characters, as opponents.  Unfortunately, by the time the PCs get to be 10th level or so, it's prohibitive to try and stat up the opposition.  It took me 3 hours to create the four commanders of a flanking force.  That's pretty much my entire prep for the week.  Sorry guys, no adventure prepared because all my time was spent working on one fight.  Oh, and you don't get to have the flavorful NPC encounters with the leaders of each orcish tribe they united because that's another hour per tribe.Bah!  Who needs that.  By contrast, monsters as villains are pretty simple.  Write a name down on the room key and go.  I seriously do not understand how anyone could say 3E monsters slowed play.  They were the fastest part of the system, in terms of prep time.  Even if you advanced a monster, it was easy.  The only thing time consuming was if you added class levels, and even then, it wasn't any worse than building a human of the same CR.If I had to choose one area that doesn't need an overhaul to improve play, monster stats would definitely make the short list.  Sure, there's always room for tweaking and tuning, but grabbing pretty much any non-classed critter, besides dragons, out of the monster manual and using it is a piece of cake.  It's about the only part of the game that's as easy to do on-the-fly as 1E was.If you want to improve something in 4E monster encounters, make it so the PCs aren't as dependant on their wealth to balance them.  That makes it easier to do treasure for the monsters.  The biggest pain in the butt in creating a 3E dungeon crawl was ensuring that there was just the right amount of treasure to keep the PCs roughly on target with their expected haul.  It would also help with creating classed NPCs.I do like the idea of designating the various critters as being a "basher" or "mastermind", etc.  That would really help prep time in terms of not having to sort through the full MM to find appropriate CRed mooks, etc.That same idea worries me, though.  The redesigned monsters seemed to lean toward very focused suites of abilities.  Sometimes, this was at the cost of flavor.  I don't really care that sleep is an utterly pointless ability for a deva to have for any actual featured fight -- it may make for a very cool flavor.  (And, yes, my example was totally bogus.)I hope that wasn't too rambling.  I have very mixed feelings about this particular change.</blockquote>

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