DMG Excerpt: Customizing Monsters

[Derren]

And again we have

a. Gamist rules which are completely unlogical
b. Fluff text and game rules mismatch

And the templates are also rather bland.

 

[Lurker59]

I'm curious at the confusion over the meaning of threshold. Straight from the dictionary, Threshold: The point that must be exceeded to begin producing a given effect or result or to elicit a response. Therefore a +2 weapon is needed to overcome a +1 threshold, which is subtracting from the weapons effectiveness.

Personally I think the method of changing armor is harder to explain, though not necessarily flawed. While it's simplicity holds true to 4th edition's guidelines, if seems strange that switching from heavy to light armor allows a monster to suddenly use its DEX/INT, but switching from light to heavy doesn't seem have the opposite effect. The ogre from the example switches from hide (light) to chainmail (heavy) without losing its DEX bonus to AC.

 

[cferejohn]

Magic threshold is a monster only solution for a monster only problem.

The good: Giving a war devil a +5 trident that the PCs can win from him.
The bad: The war devil gets +5 to damage and attack rolls, messing up his balanced math.
Solution: Lower the bonus he gets so he can have an appropriate level item without messing up the math.

Fair enough. But the War Devil entry says nothing about the + of the Trident, so if the PCs take it from him, how do we know that its +5 or +3 or whatever?

 

[Derren]

Fair enough. But the War Devil entry says nothing about the + of the Trident, so if the PCs take it from him, how do we know that its +5 or +3 or whatever?

Do it like in Diablo. The normal equipment of monster can't be picked up. Only the special stuff drops.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Fair enough. But the War Devil entry says nothing about the + of the Trident, so if the PCs take it from him, how do we know that its +5 or +3 or whatever?

Give it in its inventory what you believe be a equivalent Trident, hell you can spruce it up a little. While the attack says it is with a Trident, perhaps another uses a spear so put in his inventory a spear.

 

[Sojorn]

Fair enough. But the War Devil entry says nothing about the + of the Trident, so if the PCs take it from him, how do we know that its +5 or +3 or whatever?

It's assumed zero. It's an abstract rule.

You can say all your devils are running around with +4 tridents if you really want, nothing is stopping you. But, that perhaps puts too much emphasis on ultimately irrelevant items.

 

[FireLance]

Interesting. Changing a monster's level changes its atk/def/AC by 1 per level. However, for PCs this is only 1 per 2 levels. Wonder how that works.

Magic items (weapons, implements, armor, cloaks) probably accounts for one of the (approximately) +1/4 levels.

Ability score increases should account for the second +1/4 levels, allowing PCs to more or less keep pace with the monsters.

 

[Lurker59]

Unless the DM specifically decides a war devil has a magic trident then it's just a trident. It's a more elegant, though decidely non-simulationist, way of avoiding the glut of minor to average magic items that any 3.5 NPC needed to be effective. Now instead of picking up a myriad of minor stat boosting item and generic weapon every time they kill a group of NPCs, the PCs can actually look forward to getting something that won't be pawned off as soon as they get a chance. Personally I'd rather avoid having to pawn off a weak magic trident every time I drop a war devil. The value of the trident will be part of the treasure not being used by the devil, maybe a new sword, wand or such.

 

[Vaeron]

I'm curious at the confusion over the meaning of threshold. Straight from the dictionary, Threshold: The point that must be exceeded to begin producing a given effect or result or to elicit a response. Therefore a +2 weapon is needed to overcome a +1 threshold, which is subtracting from the weapons effectiveness.

The confusion is from the paragraph that states 8 level ogre savages, with a +1 threshold, receive a +3 to hit and +3 to damage from a +3 greatsword. It seems to defy the rules. Is it a typo, or is there a +1 hit/damage bonus to using 2-handed weapons, or something else?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The threshold does two things
1) It says what enhancement bonus a weapon must have to make a difference at all.
2) It is also the reduction that applies to the bonus.

The remaining question is: Are the final numbers for the Greatsword "upgrade" to the Ogres correct or not?
They might be "self-correcting", if we assume that a Greatclub grants a +1 proficiency bonus, and a Greatsword grants a +2 profiency bonus, compensating the +1 magical threshold.
Considering that the equipment changes also change the armor from whatever they usually use to (nonmagical) Full Plate, and the article lists the total benefits as +3 to attack, damage and defense, I think it's reasonable to assume that the total benefits are the sum of magical and "mundane" modifiers from the new equipment. The AC improvement hails from the full plate, the attack bonus from a higher proficiency rating and a higher enhancement bonus. (and the damage bonus comes from the different weapon used, too. I presume Greatclubs deal less damage then Greatswords)

Fair enough. But the War Devil entry says nothing about the + of the Trident, so if the PCs take it from him, how do we know that its +5 or +3 or whatever?

You don't know it from the stat block, but you know it from the treasure you wanted to assign to that encounter, according to the presumable existing guidelines for treasure per encounter.