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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dragonblade" data-source="post: 3737599" data-attributes="member: 2804">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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ), 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.</blockquote>

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