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

[Shemeska]

I find them to be filler in most cases to up the page count of a book. At least it's better than habitually reused clipart.

The PrC examples definately fall into that, and around half the time I find the advanced monster examples doing the same thing.

 

[Mystery Man]

File me in the "like" category. A premade PRC is nice to have if I want an NPC and need the stats quickly. It's also easy to advance them, rearrange feats etc.

Keep it up WoTC.

 

[Klaus]

I'd rather have a web-enhacement of the sample NPCs.

Advanced monsters are very cool, though. (Me likes Nessian Warhound!)

 

[Andre]

I'd rather have a web-enhacement of the sample NPCs.

The distinction about taking up space is less applicable to digital texts, so for a pdf or web enhancement, I'm all in favor of lots of examples. For printed books, however, I agree that I'd much prefer the space be used for advanced monsters than for prestige class samples.

One disadvantage of base creatures is that the examples need to be fairly vanilla - usually a 1st-level warrior with average stats for the race. Template examples also need to be basic, using just a base creature and the template. The advantage of advanced creatures is that the writer can be creative - don't just make it a bit bigger, but give it some rogue levels and a few items. Or apply more than one template. Or a template and class levels. That's when things get interesting...

 

[KB9JMQ]

I like the advanced monsters because I use them as guides to see if I am advancing creatures correctly

 

[GlassJaw]

I'd rather have a web-enhacement of the sample NPCs.

Well then what would WotC do with shorter books? Charge less for them? Bwah ha ha ha!!!!

Sample PrC NPC's = useless filler

It's page bloat, nothing more. The Complete books would be the same size as the original softcover splatbooks if they took them out and then they wouldn't be big enough to make into hardcover.

I do like sample monsters though. EVen if you don't use them, they can be great for ideas.

 

[Psion]

I do appreciate advanced monsters and sample characters and think they are anything BUT useless filler. They make prestige classes more immediately useful and extend the "level lifetime" of lower level monsters.

That said, I do agree that it is utterly pointless to repeat abilities that were amplified on the previous page. Happily, at least one publisher has taken to using the words "see the creature description": Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary.

 

[JoeGKushner]

To be honest, I'm a little mixed about it.

The advanced monsters I have no problem with to be honest.

The PrC NPCs on the other hand... NPCs to me are a touch more personal than monsters and so most of these NPCs aren't going to be what "I'd do" but on the other hand, I wouldn't use most of them, so having an off the cuff version is 'okay.'

 

[ruleslawyer]

Psion: How, exactly, do the PrC NPCs make the PrCs "more useful"? They really do seem kinda worthless to me. Do you mean that they provide easily-incorporated NPCs that "showcase" the PrC in a campaign (something I don't find too useful personally, but others might; I see PrCs more as build tools than interesting flavor elements) or that they're examples that make it easier for players and DMs to understand how the PrC ability rules work?

 

[Ferret]

I likethe advanced monsters mainly because they give them some colour and shape, rather then just a monster. They can help when makingb ideas and plots and how to advance stuff too. I don't see the point of reading PC PrC examples, as I'm not going to do whats done in the book, If I like the character of them I might play them (as a GM) in the game, but usually, unless well done, the amount of flavour isn't enough to catch my eye. I don't think I'd ever want to show an NPC with a PrC for the sake of the PrC.

The idea of the web enhancments is nice, maybe a lot of flavour could be added to them, with the main purpose of them being run in the game.