Generalizations the GM can get away with

[Ry]

I'm home sick, and I might be delirious, but I've been doing some thinking.

In any given monster, any given stat, the GM has about 2 points of leeway within believability. For example, if your Manticore that you're not looking at the book for is doing 1d8+4 damage instead of 1d8+2 damage, players who cry foul can be answered with "Hey, it's a strong manticore" I'm not saying that 10% (in the case of a d20 roll) or 2 damage isn't important, but what I am saying is that those values are well within the bounds of GM's discretion.

But then I was thinking... if we tore off class features, spells, special abilities, and feats, what could we get away with? Could we generalize monsters into 4 or 5 categories in terms of everything else, and then tack those things back on after?

I'm imagining a universe where I look down at a chart that has monster types and CRs, pick up a "hobgoblin" and "fire-themed sorcerer level 5" card, and be able to GM it fairly. Not EXACTLY the monster as designed, but within an acceptable variance.

So am I delirious? Can I even spell delirious anymore?

 

[charlesatan]

Two words: Iron Heroes.

 

[Ry]

You mean those villain classes? That's cool and all, but I've promised D&D qua D&D for my players.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

For the most part CRs are (or should be) a rough calculation of an opponent's hit points, AC, chance to hit, amount of damage, special abilities etc. One creature that has a great AC, but poor offensive capabilities could be equal to another with lousy AC and low hit points, but strong offensively.

I think it wouldn't be too hard to set guidelines for building up a creature by assigning points to different capabilities and the total score correlates to the creature's CR, but deconstructing it seems to me would be harder to do on the fly.

 

[Pbartender]

You mean those villain classes? That's cool and all, but I've promised D&D qua D&D for my players.

Perhaps, but what what you're suggesting is pretty damn close to what IH Villain classes do.

And you're considering doing this sort of off-the-cuffing, then you're already not really running D&D qua D&D and might as well take advantage of the resources already available to you...

 

[Korgoth]

One of the nice things about Classic or 1E (or even 2E) is that it's pretty easy to just say something like "These creatures are an offshoot tribe called 'Pyrogoblins'. They're normal goblins except that each can breath fire at one target 1/day for 1d6, save for half." You just give them 1 bump on the xp table and you're done.

I'm not saying that can't be done with 3E. But the monsters in 3E seem "built" according to the rules, and it's ambiguous as to what constitutes an increase in CR, etc. When players are struggling to squeeze every bonus and synergy out of the system, to give a monster an arbitrary bonus may seem to some to be outside of the DM's power!

I'd much rather just write "Boss Hobgoblin: AC 4, HD 4, HP 28, D 1d8+3."

 

[hong]

Perhaps, but what what you're suggesting is pretty damn close to what IH Villain classes do.

And you're considering doing this sort of off-the-cuffing, then you're already not really running D&D qua D&D and might as well take advantage of the resources already available to you...

Speaking of villain classes, I've been tinkering a bit in the last 3 days with making some of these for D&D. There's a hell of a lot more crunch to play with and hey, I had to find SOMETHING to do after Hyp cramped my style....

 

[Ry]

And you're considering doing this sort of off-the-cuffing, then you're already not really running D&D qua D&D and might as well take advantage of the resources already available to you...

That's a good point. Time to dust off Mastering Iron Heroes.

 

[Voadam]

For example, if your Manticore that you're not looking at the book for is doing 1d8+4 damage instead of 1d8+2 damage, players who cry foul

I can't imagine my players doing more than saying "He did how much damage? Oh crap. I think we are in trouble."

Templates, advancing by HD, different stats, different feats, class levels can all make things vastly more powerful than +2 damage.

My 16th level eldritch knight is very wary of everyone, including random orcs because he knows anybody can be super tough.

 

[hong]

My 16th level characters are not wary of random orcs, but ONLY because of metagame knowledge. If it wasn't a random orc, it would have a name on its mouseover tooltip.