Design & Dev: Monsters (DRAGONS!)

[S'mon]

I'm looking forward to 4e but that whole encounter just makes me go, "Hmmm... the continual disatisfaction that the design staff has with dragons, ranging form adding age categories in earlier editions via Forgotten Realms to making them powerful spellcasters with unique abilities in higher editions, has just taken a huge shot of crack cocaine to the new levels of silly."

That's my feeling too. The only D&D iteration of dragons I like is Classic BECMI; where you get 3 simple to use stat blocks per dragon (small, large & huge) and can run them out-of-the-box.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I totally know what you mean – the players in my Planescape campaign have looked at me after a massive throw down with an expression of "Wow, I can't believe we made it, that battle was epic!" , only for me to tell them that the actual battle was 24 seconds…

…Odd.

No, you see, epic battles like this always take place in slow motion, so those 24 seconds feel like five minutes.

 

[jasin]

I have a feeling their going to drop Touch AC; does anyone else feel this way?

I hope not; it's just too useful. But then, they might come up with a way to provide the most of functionality without an additional value to keep track of...

Are there touch attacks in Saga?

 

[Tharen the Damned]

I think that it is a good idea that Badass Monster receive a lot of actions. What bothered me in 3x a little was that even the mightiest Demonlord only had his ONE full round action while Players had one Full round action each (disregarding spells that give you extra actions).

Maybe in 4ed the Balor (if he is still in the MM) will be able to use a spell like ability (or however that will be labeled) and his whip and his sword in one round.

 

[Greg K]

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.

Its wasn't just that. I don't like that a monster gets to make a special attack just because it reaches half hit points. I don't like that the wizard heals, because the cleric hit the dragon. Both to me are hokey. I didn't like these things with MMV and with Bo9S respectively and don't want a 4e that uses them. In short, the designers are not makes the game more fun to me with these design decisions. They are actually making it less fun.

And, I am still wondering how the dragon "burst out in an inferno of flame".

 

[Intrope]

I'm actually more interested in the Cleric in this battle:

1. She's using a halbred (apparently to good effect)--sounds like they've greatly widened the 'useful' weapon list!

2. She's using a halbred--apparently, Clerics aren't as limited in weapon choices as before.

3. She's using a halbred--Battles between Clerics will no longer be pointless! [1]

The Wizard also appears to have cast a relatively weak attack spell; could he already be out of high-power spells by round 5?

Also, the 'scoured away his fire resistance' line is interesting: are we going to a system where more defenses can be overcome by burn-through? That could be a good thing...

On the AC 49: I can see how a high level fighter could hit this (BAB up to +30 + many bonuses?); I'm more interested in the rogue, who missed--but apparently had a chance to hit. Maybe rogues are better fighters than they used to be?

[1] Yah, Old Joke is Ooooooooolllld. Older than most of the enworlders, likely!

 

[Baby Samurai]

Wait, I don't understand. If combats take too long now, and this will speed them up, why does it make you leery? Isn't it exactly addressing the problem you've had with 3.x?

What we're saying is that we want the actual real time it takes to run a battle be shorter, but the actual in game time to be longer.

Maybe they should go back to longer rounds?

 

[Greg K]

[1] Yah, Old Joke is Ooooooooolllld. Older than most of the enworlders, likely!

Loved that little cartoon gag from Dragon

 

[Baby Samurai]

Are there touch attacks in Saga?

No.

 

[Baby Samurai]

No, you see, epic battles like this always take place in slow motion, so those 24 seconds feel like five minutes.

Totally, almost as long as those weeping, eye contact scenes between Frodo and Sam.

"You know; if it wasn't for Gandalf…"