D&D 5E Do you like the simplicity of 5E monsters?

[Sacrosanct]

I think they have the opportunity to be swing and hit, swing and hit, swing and hit. Boring. I liked 4e monsters that could choose 2 or 4 things in a round. YMMV, but I think creatures that fight a lot should be able to do more different things.

Serious question. What's stopping you from having humanoids that throw flasks of oil at party members, or form a shield wall, or try to trip them, or try to blind them with a fistful of thrown dirt? Or monsters from bullrushing? I'm trying to figure out why you only have one option.

 

[Derren]

Serious question. What's stopping you from having humanoids that throw flasks of oil at party members, or form a shield wall, or try to trip them, or try to blind them with a fistful of thrown dirt? Or monsters from bullrushing? I'm trying to figure out why you only have one option.

Why buy the MM when you have to rewrite most monsters anyway to make them interesting?

 

[Zaukrie]

What Derren said.....I liked how 4e gave me lots of options, and variations. It gave me tactics for different monsters. As a very busy peraon, I would prefer the devs did the work, not me. It is easy not to use an option, it is much harder to create options.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Why buy the MM when you have to rewrite most monsters anyway to make them interesting?

Who said anything about rewriting? What's stopping you from having a monster do something that is entirely reasonable and plausible? Why can't an orc try to overbear or trip someone? Why can't a goblin throw flasks of oil? What is preventing those creatures from doing those things. It was a serious question. Providing a flippant strawman in response was not an answer.

Also, it's the DM that makes monsters interesting. If a DM can't be bothered to do that and only treats monsters as stat blocks devoid of any personality/behavior that isn't explicitly listed in the stat block, they are a poor DM.

 

[Ranes]

Also, it's the DM that makes monsters interesting. If a DM can't be bothered to do that and only treats monsters as stat blocks devoid of any personality/behavior that isn't explicitly listed in the stat block, they are a poor DM.

Also, if a DM can't handle a monster that has been created with specific options for complex, multiple possible tactical deployments baked into it (in order to save the DM the time it would take to create such a creature), they are a poor DM.

Really, let's not blame DMs for their taste in creature design.

 

[drjones]

I agree that the simplification is good. I DMd 4e for years with a very tactical group but I still only ended up using a few powers to any particular effect from a particular monster. A lot of them were just filler, a different name for the same 3d8 burst weapon or multiattack. And numerous reactions and special moves meant that they were forgotten in play more often than not. And they were STILL mostly big bags of hitpoints, especially boss monsters were mostly neutered by player debuffs so fights just became a slog to whittle down their huge HP while they do easily healed damage to the players.

The odds that there will be no optional rules for adding spells, class levels, powers to monsters are diminishingly small. And everything on the list of actions a player can take also applies to monsters in 5e, if you think they only have one move available then you have not actually considered the situation closely. "but why should I have to do anything! It should all be in the book!" Well, I spent a lot of time in 4e modifying each and every monster even though many had powers out the wazoo to make them more interesting and easier to run. I would rather add for the occasional special enemy than subtract from every enemy.

Oh and it sounds like we will be able to modify and save monsters in the digital tools, I think the odds that there will be templates to apply in that tool automatically are good.

 

[RangerWickett]

This is why my suggestion is that the Monster Manual should have a section on "Common Monster Tactics." Then each monster entry gets one or two suggested tactics.

How does a shield wall work, mechanically? Put it in the Tactics section, and mention it with Hobgoblins.

Include a sample trap-riddled lair for the kobolds.

Have little templates for 'shamans,' that just add some spells, but not otherwise require a dozen small edits to the creature's stats.

 

[Imaro]

Put me down as another who is ok with the simplicity. Like [MENTION=62944]drjones[/MENTION] commented above, most of the time when running 4e monsters (especially a variety of them) numerous abilities were forgotten during actual play. I also think adding too much complexity to the monsters is one of the things that added significant time to 4e combats, which is something I do not ever want to repeat. Finally, I also agree with some of the earlier posters, if I want a fight to be special or out of the ordinary then I'll add the special abilities, terrain, circumstances, etc. myself since more than likely I'd want to customize them for the particular combat I was planning.

 

[Imaro]

Deleted double post

 

[Sacrosanct]

Also, if a DM can't handle a monster that has been created with specific options for complex, multiple possible tactical deployments baked into it (in order to save the DM the time it would take to create such a creature), they are a poor DM.

Really, let's not blame DMs for their taste in creature design.

False equivalency. Firstly, have there been DMs who have said they can't handle monsters with a bunch of complex moves baked in? There have been several people who said that without those, the monsters are uninteresting. DMing requires at least some sort of work, and ideally, and imagination. If you (general you) think that giving a humanoid the option of actually acting like it would and do other things besides swing a sword is too much work because it's not a hard coded and defined ability, then I don't know what to tell you.

Because to me, that's zero extra work. That's just thinking outside of the box beyond what is written in a stat block.