DMG2 Monster Theme

[Shin Okada]

Please correct me if I am not reading it right. Application of a Monster Theme simply give monster some additional power and ..... remove nothing?

Does that mean it simply makes a monster tougher and yet gives the same amount of XPs to players?

It sounds like good old Bruce Cordell's "This monster is slightly stronger than usual ones .... period." kind of sinister DM trick.

Am I missing something? Or is it actually like that?

 

[luide]

Basically yes.
Not that it really matters, considering the wide disparity in monster effectiveness at same level anyway.

Be really careful about adding any stun/daze powers.

 

[fba827]

well also bear in mind that themes give a huge hint to PCs as to what to expect.

If they go after a cult of pyromancers, they're expecting to need some protection against fire-based attacks at least from "the leader" but you give fire-based attack powers to the cultists as well and suddenly any resistance to fire potions they brought along become that much more effective.

Plus conditions don't stack so if a group of 10 fire cultists (using the above example) all add 5 ongoing fire damage to their basic attack, once a PC is on fire, he can't really be 'more' on fire so the additional cultists even though they have that power effect aren't really getting anything out of it. This is a made up example but the basic idea is that they can all have the same thing but the same thing can't stack with their allies 'same thing' that they get from the theme.

Also, in practice, the total alotment of actions keep what the monsters can do down to the standard/move/minor/immediate interupt type things. Just because they have more variety then can still only do a limited number. I think you'll find yourself (as DM) reverting back to the same one/two action choices most of the time.

But that aspect aside, yes, you have the right of it.

It does add a little power but in practice I haven't found it to be so much power that it merits an increase in XP.

 

[DracoSuave]

Please correct me if I am not reading it right. Application of a Monster Theme simply give monster some additional power and ..... remove nothing?

Does that mean it simply makes a monster tougher and yet gives the same amount of XPs to players?

It sounds like good old Bruce Cordell's "This monster is slightly stronger than usual ones .... period." kind of sinister DM trick.

Am I missing something? Or is it actually like that?

Yup.

And most of the time, those powers aren't so overwhelmingly powerful that they change the amount of challenge the monster presents. Monster levels aren't dictated by their number of powers, after all.

Throwing on an extra little bit of oomph won't make the monster level up, which would end up with a bizarre situation:

The monster gets this power, so the monster's leveled up. The monster levels up so all its attacks/defenses/stuff goes up. Now it is a monster one level higher, but it's got that extra power so it's more powerful than other monsters of that level. So it levels up.... repeat ad infinitum.

 

[Nightson]

Powers that let a monster utilize an action it wasn't before (minor generally) can be a more noticeable difference in power, but in general more options leads to small amount of power increase.

 

[Somebloke]

Existing monsters aside, they are extremely useful when creating new monster "lists" for your campaign.