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"Fear of Monsters" back into 4th Edition
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7217480" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>'Supposed,' maybe not. Yet each new edition has done just exactly that. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p><p></p><p> Stun, for instance, is pretty nasty. Combats aren't that short, though, and I've certainly seen 'save ends' effect disappoint (or relieve) with an early save. They really do last longer than you might expect at times, though. My first 4e character very nearly died of ongoing 2 poison damage, because he kept failing the save, even after the fight was over, and the whole party was making heal checks to give him extra saves... it was just one of those perversity of the dice things. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> </p><p></p><p> Again with 'should' - should defeating a werewolf be a rock-paper-scissors proposition, where if you have silver, it's nothing, and if you don't, it's invincible? If so, yeah, give it a different trait: 'immune to all damage except silver.' </p><p></p><p> IDK if the actual rationale for ghosts & the living interacting in physical combat was in there, per se, but Open Grave did lift/munge the concepts of the animus, mind, & soul from Cartesian Dualism and Theosophy and the like. Logically, if an incorporeal spirit capable of animating a living (or unliving) body is floating about in defiance of nature, the quality that let it make its original corpus move above might let it affect other living bodies, and vice-versa. Or, y'know, it might not, in which case it could be scary, perhaps, but not hurt anyone, while being immune to harm, itself. </p><p></p><p></p><p>I think part of the issue is that 4e Monsters were pretty consistently presented as combat challenges, with stat blocks and levels and secondary roles all to that end. In the classic game, you could have a monster that was really more like a trap or a puzzle. In 4e, such non-monster-monsters would be created as traps, or hazards or skill challenges. Green Slime, for instance, was in the classic 1e MM1, but for 4e, was in the DMG, not the MM, because it wasn't a combat challenge. </p><p></p><p>A 'monster' like a ghost that you can't fight, but instead must lay to rest, could be a skill challenge. </p><p>A pack of werewolves, utterly invulnerable, only active at night on the full moon, but killed neatly by silver could be a hazard that you avoid or, with preparation, bypass.</p><p></p><p></p><p>But a monster presented as an <em>n</em>-level monster, with a stat block, is supposed to be a modest combat challenge (by itself, if a solo, or among other similar-level monsters if any other secondary role) to an <em>n</em>-level party of 5. Being unbeatable without the right brand of cryptonite or able to remove PCs from the entire fight with one roll does not support that particular 'supposed.'</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7217480, member: 996"] 'Supposed,' maybe not. Yet each new edition has done just exactly that. ;) Stun, for instance, is pretty nasty. Combats aren't that short, though, and I've certainly seen 'save ends' effect disappoint (or relieve) with an early save. They really do last longer than you might expect at times, though. My first 4e character very nearly died of ongoing 2 poison damage, because he kept failing the save, even after the fight was over, and the whole party was making heal checks to give him extra saves... it was just one of those perversity of the dice things. ;) Again with 'should' - should defeating a werewolf be a rock-paper-scissors proposition, where if you have silver, it's nothing, and if you don't, it's invincible? If so, yeah, give it a different trait: 'immune to all damage except silver.' IDK if the actual rationale for ghosts & the living interacting in physical combat was in there, per se, but Open Grave did lift/munge the concepts of the animus, mind, & soul from Cartesian Dualism and Theosophy and the like. Logically, if an incorporeal spirit capable of animating a living (or unliving) body is floating about in defiance of nature, the quality that let it make its original corpus move above might let it affect other living bodies, and vice-versa. Or, y'know, it might not, in which case it could be scary, perhaps, but not hurt anyone, while being immune to harm, itself. I think part of the issue is that 4e Monsters were pretty consistently presented as combat challenges, with stat blocks and levels and secondary roles all to that end. In the classic game, you could have a monster that was really more like a trap or a puzzle. In 4e, such non-monster-monsters would be created as traps, or hazards or skill challenges. Green Slime, for instance, was in the classic 1e MM1, but for 4e, was in the DMG, not the MM, because it wasn't a combat challenge. A 'monster' like a ghost that you can't fight, but instead must lay to rest, could be a skill challenge. A pack of werewolves, utterly invulnerable, only active at night on the full moon, but killed neatly by silver could be a hazard that you avoid or, with preparation, bypass. But a monster presented as an [i]n[/i]-level monster, with a stat block, is supposed to be a modest combat challenge (by itself, if a solo, or among other similar-level monsters if any other secondary role) to an [i]n[/i]-level party of 5. Being unbeatable without the right brand of cryptonite or able to remove PCs from the entire fight with one roll does not support that particular 'supposed.' [/QUOTE]
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