Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kaodi" data-source="post: 5710310" data-attributes="member: 1231">Forked from the Preserving the Past thread: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/312865-10-18-2011-legends-lore-preserving-past.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/312865-10-18-2011-legends-lore-preserving-past.html</a>Take this quote from Hussar: In light of this whole question of old monsters, I think we should perhaps just go through all of the old monster books and figure out what has changed, and what has stayed the same. And down the line, we can perhaps start revising and rebuilding the old monsters no one likes into ones that may be liked more.This should be immensely useful for this task: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_monsters#Dungeons_.26_Dragons_4th_edition_.282008.E2.80.93.29" target="_blank">Lists of Dungeons & Dragons monsters - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a>Broadly speaking, there are a couple of categories of changes that we can talk about: name changes, where a monster has been rebranded in later editions; flavour changes, where a monster has changed in appearance, style, and story; and mechanical changes where a monster just does some things radically different than to, like how dragons gained and then lost spellcasting, for instance. Mechanical changes are probably going to be somewhat less important for this purpose, except where they relate to flavour changes. Also, I think it is important to keep in mind which monsters are mostly unique to D&D and which ones are in the popular consciousness. Because for all of the talk about " weird " and " nonsensical " monsters with crazy names, the fact is that no sane non-D&D vet is going to think an aboleth is anything other than weird and nonsensical, despite the fact that it is a classic D&D monster at this point. You need to go deeper to figure out why many such monsters do not gain traction.Now, unfortunately my own AD&D Monster Manual (1st Ed.) is sort of buried right now, so I am going to have to just go with monsters that I can remember the differences of off the top of my head, but hopefully it will be enough to get things started.So...Baluchtitherium: more or less renamed the dire rhinocerousGiant Beaver: dropped, I think, though it would be called dire beaverDisplacer Beast: got a lot skinnier and somewhat less panther-likeDragons: gained extra abilities beyond breath weapon and frightening presenceDryad: partially altered into a sort of female treant that can disguise itselfEar Seeker: dropped?Gnome: more fey-like and less dwarf-likeGreen Slime: as was mentioned, now more of a trap than a monsterGroaning Spirit: just called Banshees nowIrish Deer: I do not even remember these..., probably JADA (Just Another Dire Animal)Hippocampus: does not seem very popular of lateKobold: everyone remembers how these guys used to be more dog-like, and that they were basically turned into dragon-obsessed reptiles later onLamia: changed from being a cross between a sphinx and a centaur into a fey beetle ladyLizard Man: renamed LizardfolkLurker Above: not sure how this was changedGiant Lynx: JADAMasher: what?Merman: renamed MerfolkNeo-otyugh: The name was dropped, I believe.Ogre Mage: renamed, not inappropriately, Oni MageGiant Otter: JADAPiercer: trap now?Giant Sea Horse: dropped a long time agoShedu: apparently this appeared in the newer Fiend FolioSlither Tracker: gone?Strangle Weed: gone?Su-Monster: apparently this finally got updated last year; any changes?Titanothere: JADAWater Weird: changed into a one of a group of female elemental oraclesOkay, so that list is not really as complete as it could have been. I left out most of the monsters I thought were more or less the same (I suppose you could say skeletons and zombies now come in a zillion different varieties). I hope it is enough to give an idea of what I am shooting for though. Lists and more in depth discussion of individual monsters are welcome!</blockquote>

Verification