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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mouseferatu" data-source="post: 3730131" data-attributes="member: 1288">Well, first off... Thank you. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />So, with the caveat that I know nothing more about 4E monsters than you do, so I can't speak from a position of actual awareness as to what they're doing, I'll try to clarify my own position here.First off, I believe that "consistency" is a laudable design goal, but a very low priority one. If you can make something play better, play faster, play more easily, or just play cooler by being inconsistent, then consistency should be sacrificed.So, is it possible to make monsters either better, faster, more easy to run, or cooler by sacrificing consistency?I'd argue that the answer is yes.If I may...I think this statement assumes a few facts not yet in evidence.1) Abilities judged on a relative value for utility.The problem is, as the 3E LA/ECL tried (and often failed) to address, an ability's usefulness in a single combat is often widely different than its utility to a PC who appears in almost every scene and almost every combat of a campaign. Sometimes, it's simply not possible to accurately adjust a PC race to accept a monster's at-will abilities. The LA/ECL system had a tendency to compensate for such abilities by adding a high Level Adjustment--which created PCs with abilities both over and under the average of the party. This does not average out to equal a PC of the same level (particularly when one gets into such things as saves and hit points.) As someone else said, high-LA PCs were glass tigers.2) There's no reason for monster abilities and PC abilities to be judged on the same scale, assuming those abilities are different. Yes, if a monster has an ability that perfectly resembles the feat Cleave, that's obviously equivalent to--well, a feat. But if a monster has the ability to phase in and out of stone at will, and can use a grapple attempt to drag unwilling passengers with it, thus trapping them in the stone, that's not entirely like any ability, feat, or spell available to PCs, and it doesn't perfectly measure up with them. So to be consistent, I either have to drop the ability or somehow grant it to PCs.So let's say I decide it's a cool ability, and I'm going to keep it and accept the inconsistency. Now I have a monster with both monster abilities--the "rock grapple," as it were--and feats. But if we've already agreed to be inconsistent, why include both categories? Why not just add "Cleave" to the list of monster abilities? Sure, it's similar to the feat, but by adding it to the monster's racial abilities, rather than calling it a feat, we accomplish two design goals:A) We shorten the stat block by only having one category to track, rather than two.B) We no longer have to lock monsters into the same "1 feat/3 HD" progression that PCs follow.But wait. Is that a good thing? Again, I'd argue yes. Lots of monsters have feats they don't really need, because the rules say they have to. Lots of monsters either don't have feats they should, have bonus feats, or are higher HD than they need to be, because the rules say that's how feats work. Again, I think that, in the end, a purpose-designed monster should have the abilities it needs to have, without being encumbered by a set of rules that are designed to showcase PCs at every level of play.Now, I'll admit there's a danger in this approach. If monsters and PCs are too divergent--as, say, they were in 1E--it becomes nigh impossible to tweak them, or to add class levels to monsters. What I'm hoping to see, and what I think has been hinted at by the designers, is a monster creation system that diverges where it needs to, but isn't widely different.Is it going to please everyone? No, of course not. Nothing will. That's just the nature of the beast. But honestly, I think anything that makes monsters shorter and easier to run (and create) can only be a good thing, if it's not taken to unnecessary extremes.(This topic has been on my mind a lot lately, since I'm currently working on what's supposed to be a 15,000-word adventure, and I've come to realize it's going to have to include over 5,000 words of stat blocks alone.  :\)Edit: And even as I type, Mike steps in and confirms my theory that the differences aren't going to be as huge as some people fear. Thanks, Mike. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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