Do You Like Advanced Monsters and Prestige Class Examples in your Books?

[the Jester]

Okay, so I'm sure many of us have noticed that the books WotC are putting out now seem to have a sample npc of every new prc. Do you guys like this? I was just mulling over adding a sample npc to a prc I posted over in house rules, but I kept wondering if this practice is lame?

Also, the 3.5 MM and the MM3 both have lots of examples of advanced versions of monsters. Do you guys like this, is it cool? Or is it lame?

 

[Jdvn1]

I like the advanced versions of the monsters, personally. Like from the MM and MM3. They come in handy when you want to throw twists at the party or if I want more variety in my higher level encounters. I don't use the sample NPC's for PrC's, so I don't think they're useful. I can see how they could be handy for coming up with ideas, though.

 

[Geoff Watson]

I dislike sample PrC NPCs, as they take up a lot of space (particularly since they reprint every special ability they wrote on the previous page), but I don't mind advanced monsters.

Geoff.

 

[Li Shenron]

I too think advanced monsters can be more useful than sample characters with PrCl. At least because IMXP most of the time the PrCls are used by PC rather than by NPC, and when I used them for NPC I usually need/prefer to make the characters myself to tailor them to my ideas. Two characters with the same PrCl can be quite different, and one example may hardly be what you're looking for. OTOH monsters advance in a more straightforward way (if advanced by HD) so it's good for me to have some of them ready to use, as it is to have several examples of templated creatures (but not very much monsters with class levels which IMO are easier to make yourself).

 

[Zoatebix]

I agree with Li Shenron - advanced monsters are very cool, and NPCs with every new prestige class is very nearly lame.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I like having sample NPCs for prestige classes... But, I'd rather not have space wasted on reprinting special abilities from the previous page in the actual PrC entry. I'd rather it just list the abilities, and provide any info that varies by individual. I understand that in most cases, full stat blocks need to include all the details; but in most cases, those stat blocks aren't a page and a half after the relevant info is first presented.

 

[shilsen]

What Geoff Watson and Li Shenron said. The most use I've ever got out of a sample NPC is using a couple of their names.

 

[MerricB]

I love the advanced monsters - very useful indeed.

The sample NPCs I'm not so sure of... though I can possibly see myself using one at some point in the future.

Cheers!

 

[Acid_crash]

I like the Advanced Monsters, great way to show what an advanced monster is like.

I do and not like the npcs. I like them because it shows how to use the PrC in a character concept, but I don't like them because it does take up space that could be used in much better ways.

 

[Li Shenron]

I do and not like the npcs. I like them because it shows how to use the PrC in a character concept, but I don't like them because it does take up space that could be used in much better ways.

That was my first reaction while writing my previous post, but I quickly realized... do I really need the book to show me how to use a prestige class? Definitely not.