Design & Dev: Monsters (DRAGONS!)

[Fredrik Svanberg]

Wow. Can I have your decoder ring? Obviously you must have got something out of that article that I didn't. Were they actually discussing how the new edition will require the sacrifice of virgins and babies to dark gods before every session or what?

 

[Plane Sailing]

One of the biggest problems that 3.x dragons faced was a lack of actions when facing a party (and the fact that their breath weapon was largely ineffectual compared to a power attacking full attack in terms of causing damage. It tended to be nuisance only and didn't often get used except in strafing).

I really like the idea of powerful dragons being able to do multiple things - including lots of flaming!

I'd be equally happy to see chromatic dragons disappear, but I can live with their continued existence

(I hope that we will still see dragons available as foes at all levels of the game - that was an innovation I really enjoyed with 3e)

 

[WhatGravitas]

* vulnerability are lost ? Yeah. Great. A monster without weakness is a fun thing. Seriously, this is bad design. I know not all dragons had this elemental weakness, but I do think the most powerfull monsters (dragons, demons etc...) should have one weakness the PC can exploit if they find it. Unless the fight is only about pure force and cleverness is to be banned.

Perhaps that slowing mentioned is the vulnerability. The problem of the fire/cold-weakness duality is, that it is faar to obvious, and that's basically the only weakness, that MMI monster have at all (besides the golems).

Bigger monsters should have weaknesses (it's fun), but it should be more clever, than "extra-damage". Or be based on using the environment, not about choosing the right damage type, because that'll easily become a metagame-problem.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Ashardalon]

All this article did is convince me that I am not buying 4e and that I am completely done with WOTC with the exception of Dragon Magazine up until the 4e switch occurs.

If you are worried about the fighter seemingly dealing 500 points of damage in one blow, Mike Mearls has stated that this is not the case in the other thread.

 

[Aloïsius]

Perhaps that slowing mentioned is the vulnerability. The problem of the fire/cold-weakness duality is, that it is faar to obvious, and that's basically the only weakness, that MMI monster have at all (besides the golems).

Bigger monsters should have weaknesses (it's fun), but it should be more clever, than "extra-damage". Or be based on using the environment, not about choosing the right damage type, because that'll easily become a metagame-problem.

Cheers, LT.

Preach on brother ! I hope you are right.

 

[jasin]

* AC skyrocket. Unless the high AC was due to the dragon using AC boost (spells or magic item) I don't see the point. Unless this dragon is CR 30

Even if you might have a point about the hp, AC isn't really all that.

A 3E red great wyrm has AC 45. A gold great wyrm has AC 47. And 3E dragons are expected to use spells. Mage armour lasts the whole day, so that's actually 49 and 51. If they have a bit of warning, you can count on shield of faith and shield too, for 58 and 60.

Considering that 4E seems to go to 30th on the same scale on which 3E goes to 20th, I don't think 49 is at all unreasonable for a powerful dragon.

 

[LostSoul]

I wonder how the Wizzy heals from the Clerics crit...

I am guessing that the crit triggers an Immediate action for the Cleric, which he uses to heal the Wizard. Just a wild guess.

 

[Ashardalon]

I really like the idea of powerful dragons being able to do multiple things - including lots of flaming!

Oh! May I?

Aww, you mean in game? OK.

An interesting combat example. So an ancient reds almost doubles its hit points compared to 3E, and gets +10 to its AC, though we're not quite sure yet how combat math actually works. They get lots of actions, including

• An inferno aura, useable as a free action.
• A tail slap attack with an added pushback effect, useable as a free action.
• Two claw attacks, useable as a standard action.
• A fireball spit that sticks to the target dealing extra damage, useable as a standard action.*
• A breath weapon, but we don't get to see what kind of action it normally takes - a free one like the inferno aura, as different uses of the same ability?
• A special action granting an extra standard action.*
• They may take an immediate action to use their breath weapon when reduced blow half damage.
• They may take an immediate action to use their tail slap when about to be flanked.

Did I miss anything? The ones marked with a * are those that might be some kind of inherent spellcasting on behalf of the dragon.
Red ancients don't take extra damage from cold effects, but apparently might get slowed, as well.

Clerics healing as they do other stuff is something I expected to see. I mostly expected it as healing tacked on to spells, though. Allows them to do their thing, and to heal as well.

 

[Li Shenron]

The main advantage is that you no longer have to stand around to be fully effective. So Moving to the enemy is no longer a disadvantage (which restricts you to one attack and let the enemy full attack you on his next round).

That's true. I also often wish for the players to do something else than full-attack just because it's usually the most effective tactical choice... Basically granting ALWAYS a move action could help. At least until some players start whining that they are not getting anything if they choose not to move...

That it's going to be simpler, we have to see. All advertising are strongly pointing that 4e is simpler to prepare and simpler to run, but in that article we still have to deal with free actions, standard actions, immediate actions, move actions... They're increasing the number of DIFFERENT actions per round (see the dragon at least) and removing multiple attacks. That doesn't seem much simpler to me. Maybe slightly simpler than 3.5, but for example 3.0 without swifts and immediates was simpler too.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Red ancients don't take extra damage from fire effects, but apparently might get slowed, as well.

a) I think you mean cold effects
b) they are just using 'slowed down' as figurative language... i.e. it was't a serious hp hit.

Cheers