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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoutonRustique" data-source="post: 7215277" data-attributes="member: 22362">Touching on a couple of things that have been said in this thread : this discussion is very interesting!As someone alluded to earlier, 4e is the edition where all published monsters are fine as random encounters as they don't impose very serious conditions, are predictable in their outcome, and just work right off the page. On the flip side, we have older editions where this is not the case (by a long shot) - and yet, there are no habitual ethos of "random encouter" in 4e while there are plenty of those in those same older editions!And the talk about the feeling of a form of ~loss~ is quite important - since it's "truïckly" true. Add to that the concept that D&D is now it's own type of RPG for some, while a sort of general catch-phrase for "fantasy RPG" for others, and you really get a sense of how complex creating an RPG is.This may sound bad (but I assure you it's not!), but I've kind of gotten on board with the idea that 4e isn't D&D. [please hear me out]For me, 4e is D&D in a way that all other editions are not. When I read novels, saw movies, and even read the rule books, I wanted to play awesome heroes and characters, play out intricate campaigns and face clever dragons and fiendish... well fiends!But the rules were always in the way - I had to houserule so much stuff to get a semblance of the play-style I wanted, I had to start characters at levels 5+, I had to go through all the spells and curate it all to allow for a world with any kind of sense (to me.) 4e came along and ... BAM! Everything just worked! Pretty much all my issues were fixed! The world made sense, the kind of powers that were available made the world make sense. The separation of PC and NPC structure made sense. The DC setting made sense. Everything made sense! I had tools that worked the way they said they did. If I wanted a specific outcome, I could get it. On the DM-side, if I wanted something completely different for X or Y - bam! done! Everything was easy.My reaction to 5e was honestly along these lines (and this is a translated quote - my friends and I speak French) : "There's too much D&D in my D&D". What I meant was : there is too much "having this rules-set espouse a certain ethos" where I wanted a rules-set to play a fantasy RPG without that ethos being so strongly imposed (and thus hard to remove).Now, you can flip all of that around - and it's just as valid! So in that sense, I guess, 4e isn't D&D as understood by a vast amount of people who considers it it's own thing. For my part, when I ask my friends to "play D&D", we mean "play and RPG". I never thought of the rules-set has having it's own "ethos" - I always thought the settings were where that mattered. Obviously, I was wrong! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Slightly Back On TopicI guess I see 4e as such a easy thing to manipulate that "making it deadlier" or making it "more unpredictable" seem like non-problems for me. I'm always interested in the how people are going about what they're going about - but I don't see where the "blockage" is.The beholder feels to easy as presented? The disintegrate ray is changed to [Hit: You are dazed, weakened, phasing and insubstantial (save ends all). First failed save: you die. You, and your possessions turn to fine dust.] Do the equivalent with a couple of other rays, and you've got a killer creature! If you use the regular foes and do this to those creatures you feel your players should fear!, I'm pretty sure your players will fear those creatures. Kind of like my players always fear "Ets-made" creatures (that's me, btw, Ets is short for Etienne) - since I kind of over did it a few times... ok, it was a lot of times... ok, pretty much everything I created in 2e and up was pretty strong... ok, a lot strong... But, I mean, come on! The glory is only as high as the DANGER! Plus they always (well, almost) prevailed! They're just pansies. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Again, Back On Topic ~ sortaThe 4.5 mods suggested by [MENTION=6694190]Myrhdraak[/MENTION] seem like they allow for a more "classic" D&D experience without sacrificing a lot of what was gained in terms of game design with 4e - and I'd wager that this is something a good many people would find of great value.In many ways, it really is 4.5 - it's an evolution of 4e towards facilitating another approach.As to the topic directly at hand - in 4e (or 4.5 for that matter), it would be easy to add the (deadly) or (plot) or ([something evocative]) tag to a creature with an especially nasty power or effect. Everything else could easily stay the same:- we get a sense of when this creature is appropriate for use (by level)- we get useful stats for when the players circumvent it's power (regular stats, based on what it's supposed to do)- we get a useful warning that this isn't something that can be thrown-in with serious consideration- those that want/need it get the design space to create "I hate this creature!" creaturesIt works, it doesn't brake anything (yea exception based design!), and it opens up space to do funky stuff!</blockquote>

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