General Monster Manual 3 Thread

[Wik]

Hm. It's hard to recall exactly (this is just one small thing in a big book, a book I was done with last August!), but from my recollection it was something that came out of collaboration between design and development both. We've actually been talking about the role of resistances and vulnerabilities for a while now, so it was really just an evolution of design. It probably started with Mike, but I know we spent a lot of time talking about the catastrophic dragons' deterrence mechanics, even involving people all the way up the chain as high as Bill Slavicsek at one point.

I remember mearls' quote. At the time, I liked the general gist of what he was saying, but the implementation was not something I was fond of. If memory serves, it was sort of like "Why should cold-based monsters be resistant towards cold? After all, they have a bunch of cold attacks, so does that mean they can't hunt other arctic monsters resistant to cold?"

It was a decent enough argument, but I remember his original implementation was a bit spotty (and had a series of arguments on these boards). However, this whole "we both get hurt" thing is kind of cool.

I do wonder what happens when parties with a lot of resistances fight these monsters, though. I can see that dragonborn build that regains his breath weapon when hit by a certain energy type LOVING these sort of encounters.

As you can see, it's no small amount of thought that goes into even a single monster ability.

So, who thought about the original Needlefang Drake Swarm? Or the nigh impossible to hit Soldier Monsters? or the....

Ha ha. Just teasing you. But I have a feeling you've opened a can of worms, there.

Well, the truth (for me, anyways) is that while I've got time to read the forums everyday, sometimes I just don't have time to post something. Sure, the internets gets a little hostile from time to time, but luckily the Mod Squad here does a pretty good job of keeping threadcrapping to a minimum, which (for me) is pretty much the single biggest killer of my interest in a thread.

Us fans have to defend the Onetrueversion of the game from you designing interloper folk!

Seriously, though, the wotc guys that come here do unfortunately get hit by a lot of flak from time to time (and, I must admit, I've been guilty of it myself, once or twice) - simply because of who they work for. The funny thing is, it's only the wotc guys... I've never seen a bunch of fans team up against Paizo, for example. I'm sure there's a reason for it.

I think a lot of people have, at this point, forgotten just awful TSR was on the internet.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think a lot of people have, at this point, forgotten just awful TSR was on the internet.

Lol, I think a lot of people have forgotten how awful TSR's game design skills could be at times. Even if you were to dislike many of the things WotC has done with 4e (which I don't) you'd have to admit the approach to game design is vastly more systematic and seems to only improve with time.

MM3 is a pretty nice book. I think it will go down as a classic.

 

[Gort]

Lol, I think a lot of people have forgotten how awful TSR's game design skills could be at times.

Well, it's because a lot of the rubbish stuff TSR put out was ignored by everyone. I've yet to meet someone who actually used that table in second ed that modified your AC based on what kind of weapon was being used on you, but we don't hold it against them because... nobody used it. While 4e is still new enough for the designers to take flak for a single type of monster (needlefang drake swarm) or a single modifier (orb wizard wisdom penalty to saves).

People remember 2e for their special houseruled version of it, while 4e hasn't really got far enough for it yet.

 

[fanboy2000]

I've yet to meet someone who actually used that table in second ed that modified your AC based on what kind of weapon was being used on you,

Say that louder, I'm sure you'll find someone who has.

 

[Gradine]

I've yet to meet someone who actually used that table in second ed that modified your AC based on what kind of weapon was being used on you, but we don't hold it against them because... nobody used it..

I never used it while playing AD&D; but I did utilize the table while running a WP/VP system in 3.5 to determine DR values based on weapon type. After their first fight against an exceptionally surly dwarf in full plate mail nearly ended in disaster, they made sure never to get caught without strong piercing weapons again.

 

[Celisasu]

I've yet to meet someone who actually used that table in second ed that modified your AC based on what kind of weapon was being used on you, but we don't hold it against them because... nobody used it.

I know we sure as hell didn't use it in our games. Honestly 3E improved in 2E a great deal. 4E has some very noticable changes although you can see some of the original elements(we're still rolling that Thac0 although we call it something different now and the numbers are put together more intuitively) but there are massive differences which is part of that whole 3E/4E war that flares up periodically at various forums.

And as time goes on 4E seems to get more and more refined. The designers have obviously realized that Skill Challenges are a work in progress(I think they're still in serious need of repair but you can see they're attempting to do so). And we're seeing the continuing refinement as well on the monster end.

As for resistances versus deterents for monsters I think it depends on the monster. For the volcanic dragon it makes sense(or maybe hand it a crappy fire resistance 5 to explain how it lives in volcanos without keeling over and dying). On the other hand I think the fire elemental really needed fire immunity. The deterants I think are more fun, but resistance has it's uses plus it rewards players who have powers that intentionally work around resistance such as taking energy admixture or resistance lowering powers.

 

[Evilhalfling]

The Ghast has a story about some rogue sealing up from ghouls and then coming back years later.

*reads his MM3*
so its not a AD&D DMG sample dungeon refrence then?
Cause that would have been awesome.

 

[mearls]

*reads his MM3*
so its not a AD&D DMG sample dungeon refrence then?
Cause that would have been awesome.

That reference isn't in MM 3, IIRC, but you can find it in Hammerfast.

(The first 4e adventure I ran was set in that dungeon, BTW. It's also where the first 4e PC death occurred.)

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

I've yet to meet someone who actually used that table in second ed that modified your AC based on what kind of weapon was being used on you, but we don't hold it against them because... nobody used it.

*raises hand* We did. Not for long, and we were young back then, but hey.

 

[Roger]

I like that numerous monsters now have powers that recharge on a miss, but I'll admit I'm kinda surprised they're not just simply called "Reliable".



Cheers,
Roger