DMG Excerpt: Customizing Monsters

[Charwoman Gene]

Requiring a certain magical power when creating a magical weapon is a bit different from a magic weapon loosing all its magic when wielded by a powerful individual.

Okay, so I have this golf club. And it has these arrows on it that make it easier to hit the ball. I give it to tiger woods. Doesn't help hime any.

"+X" weapons are a simulation weak point anyway. I explain it with it magically corrects the aim. People with good aim or really strong don't feel the correction.

Further discussion on this topic of what a +X weapon is in terms of simulation should be discussed outside this thread as it is a side issue

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

How long it takes a vampire to make spawn can impact combat. If it's a minor action and he has minions to spare...or, as others have noted, if the vampire is alert to invaders. If it takes a minute, he can turn his domestic staff into spawn while the heroes are distracted with a single fight. If it takes an hour, he might have time to get one new ally before they get to his sanctum. If it takes a week...he's SOL.

I don't want to turn this entire thread into a debate on vampires. It's just another example of the consequences of assuming the combat round is the building block of the world and scaling everything accordingly.

Any example that makes the ability usable within a combat encounter obviously can't be true, since then it had to be part of the combat statistics.
So, creating Vampires within 1h might be possible, if that's what you want as DM. Any resulting monsters are just extra XP for the PCs. (And possibly a reason the world is doomed)

So, in the end, D&D 4E does not assume a standard baseline for this. Each DM and each world can have different "rules" for non-combat stuff. If you want Vampires to create hordes of them in mere days, you can do that. if you want to make it an elaborate ritual that requires conscious effort, you can do that, too.

I suppose they could have added a sample ritual for creating vampires to the vampire description. But it appears to me as if a general guideline would be not to do that. Maybe to avoid the "Shadow overrunning small towns"-Scenario.

We're having an earthquake. Again. In Southern Indiana.

I hope this won't enter history books as "Famous Last Words" with your avatar as a picture beside it! *shudder*

 

[hong]

"If the monster has Strength 18, ,20, 22, any answer would appease you? Seems you just want an answer for the heck of it."

Yeah. I want statistics in my monster book. Silly me. I consider things like spawn creation for undead as important as their armor class. Then again, I see the game as more than a sequence of combat set pieces.

You do not need combat stats for noncombat fluff. Contrary to popular belief, fluff is just as significant as crunch.

Sure. And I can make ogres stronger, or orcs weaker, or say that all hobgoblins can cast Magic Missile once per day. It's my world. The point is, there needs to be a baseline to vary from, or what are we buying again, exactly? A book of pretty monster pictures?

You are buying a book that contains fluff and crunch. If you choose to ignore the fluff, that's your lookout.

I want to build a world that makes sense. Knowing things like vampire spawn rates gives me a way of determining 'reasonable' vampire populations. Now, if I'm doing a vampire-centric world, then I'd just make up whatever I wanted to fit the overarching game theme. But if I'm doing a broader game, I just want to have a general idea of how common vampires are, and for that,

... you can just as easily make up whatever you want to fit the overarching game theme, which coincidentally happens not to have vampires in a significant role. Or your personal preferences as DM.

I also consider a 'shared consensus world' to be valuable, especially in a semi-open gaming environment. The more baseline material is left out in favor just presenting stripped down combat stats, the more different assumptions third party publishers will make, and the less useful any product will be without extensive work.

Shared consensus is so WoWish.

 

[malraux]

Okay, so I have this golf club. And it has these arrows on it that make it easier to hit the ball. I give it to tiger woods. Doesn't help hime any.

"+X" weapons are a simulation weak point anyway. I explain it with it magically corrects the aim. People with good aim or really strong don't feel the correction.

Further discussion on this topic of what a +X weapon is in terms of simulation should be discussed outside this thread as it is a side issue

Put another way, weapon enhancement and higher level monster innate ability do not stack. Other than the precedent in 3e, there's no particular reason to think that the magical pluses of weapons enhances a monster's ability to hit differently from its own skill. If the aphorism "a poor carpenter blames his tools" is correct, that means that the skill of a good carpenter overcomes deficiencies in his equipment. Why wouldn't the same apply to monsters?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

How long it takes a vampire to make spawn can impact combat. If it's a minor action and he has minions to spare...or, as others have noted, if the vampire is alert to invaders. If it takes a minute, he can turn his domestic staff into spawn while the heroes are distracted with a single fight. If it takes an hour, he might have time to get one new ally before they get to his sanctum. If it takes a week...he's SOL..

Well, he doesn't have the ability to do it it combat, for one reason or another. Otherwise it would be listed in his stat block.

The rest of those things are meta-game concerns. And very simulationist ones at that.

From a gamist/narrativist point of view(which is pretty much the default assumed by 4e, as far as I can tell) the answer to those questions are simple:

Does an extra vampire make the encounter that the PCs are going to fight too high a level to be balanced?

Do I want the NPC to live for my plot later one?

If the answer to either of those questions is yes, then the vampire can't create a new ally(or doesn't think of it or fails or is distracted or...whatever).

When I DM I normally have all of those things planned out way in advance. My DM notes for a situation like that would likely read:

"The PCs will likely have found enough clues by this point to realize that the hostages were taken to the old warehouse on the west side of town. If they haven't, an old man comes up to them and tells them he saw one of the hostages through a window in the warehouse. The Vampire Lord has one of his minions following the PCs and when the minion sees that they are heading in the direction of the warehouse he heads back and warns the Vampire Lord. He knows the village much better than the PCs, so he'll get there a while before they do.

The Lord will then kill all of his hostages in preparation for the combat against the PCs. He'll turn them all into spawn. This means the combat will be against the Lord and 3 Spawn. The Lord is Elite so that will make it a perfect 5 monster encounter."

 

[Cadfan]

I don't think its meant to show magic weapons losing power when held by powerful individuals.

I think it is a math fix.

Lets say the appropriate attack bonus for a level 15 brute is X.

Lets say I'm statting up a level 15 brute. This one is a sentient humanoid with no magical weapons. It should have an attack bonus of X. Presumably this is due to its strength score and its base attack bonus, and other intrinsic values.

Now assume I want to create a special level 15 brute of this type, except that this one has a +3 magical weapon for the players to loot after battle. I now have to make a choice.

Do I add the +3 magical weapon on without adjusting any stats? If I do, its attack bonus will be X+3. I might want this. But then again, I might not. If I do not, I need to do something to bring the attack bonus back down. Reducing X a bit will do the trick.

This may not seem like a huge deal. After all, +3 attack doesn't seem too big. But if the monster is a Solo Brute, that +3 might be pretty painful. Or if you're at higher levels and you're dealing with +5s, the increase over the baseline can be awfully significant.

 

[el-remmen]

For me this is not a "simulation issue" (though that bugs me a bit as well), but rather it is something that goes from as simple as "equiping" a monster by giving it something and just running with it to "customizing it", requiring to figure out a different bonus based on the creature, and what it is "really" like, etc. . .

For me it is a matter of "this thing always gives +X" as compared to, "oh wait, what is this thing in the hands of this monster?"

What if a intelligent monster/foe picks up an item dropped by a careless of disarmed PC, for example? It is something to figure out mid-combat rather than just simple as add X.

 

[hong]

For me this is not a "simulation issue" (though that bugs me a bit as well), but rather it is something that goes from as simple as "equiping" a monster by giving it something and just running with it to "customizing it", requiring to figure out a different bonus based on the creature, and what it is "really" like, etc. . .

For me it is a matter of "this thing always gives +X" as compared to, "oh wait, what is this thing in the hands of this monster?"

What if a intelligent monster/foe picks up an item dropped by a careless of disarmed PC, for example? It is something to figure out mid-combat rather than just simple as add X.

Then the monster gets the regular +X from the item.

The idea is not that a given monster gets weaker by having a +X item. The idea is that you _change_ the monster that you select for an encounter, if it has a +X item. Let's say Fred the orc NPC normally has a +6 atk. If you give him a +2 sword, this would make it +8, which might be too good. Therefore, you give it to Joe the orc instead, who is not as mighty as Fred with only +5 atk. Thus when the PCs get to the encounter where they have to fight an orc, they only have to face a +7.

If you wanted, you could still use Fred, and he would have a +8. But this would be a tougher fight than the rules assume, and therefore you should plan accordingly.

 

[Stormtalon]

I also consider a 'shared consensus world' to be valuable, especially in a semi-open gaming environment. The more baseline material is left out in favor just presenting stripped down combat stats, the more different assumptions third party publishers will make, and the less useful any product will be without extensive work.

I'll believe this when I see you apply the same exact reasoning to the naming conventions WotC is using for abilities, as they're also valuable in helping set a 'shared consensus world' just like what you want for vampire lords.

 

[DandD]

Just swing it/handwave it. The monster is meant to be killed. The Players won't really care what exact stats it had. Being approximately near is all that matters for the encounter.