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<blockquote data-quote="dammitbiscuit" data-source="post: 4626626" data-attributes="member: 60419">Actually, in the &quot;creating monsters&quot; or &quot;making monsters&quot; section of the DMG, it mentions that custom monsters' stats have a certain baseline, and above or below average ability scores change the monsters' stats by plus or minus one. (I'm Away From Book, but I know it's in the DM's Toolbox section.)&nbsp;In the same way that 3.5 NPC creation encouraged racial stereotypes, it was very limiting. A kobold in 3.5 would never make for a terribly great Dragon Shaman - they have no bonus to Charisma, and a penalty to Constitution. When their breath weapon is on cooldown, they'll be resorting to crossbows, due to their extremely low strength. In 4e, I just build an NPC by either the monster creation methods, or by the NPC creation methods, and the creature will be able to perform its job. If I want to create a big, buff kobold, I will either provide story justification for it and an interesting place in the ecology, or my players will laugh at it and ask if I'm joking... and hell, if we're playing a joke game, why not?&nbsp;This isn't quite the same thing as where you can have, say, a very low-hitpoints fey creature with spell resistance and lots of attacks that has the same CR as a tons-of-hp animal with mediocre attacks. Nothing you create, if you follow the rules strictly, will differ greatly in stats from the baseline. However, you achieve a similar effect by having a fey lurker or artillery monster and an animal Brute. These closer-to-baseline monsters, however, will present a similar challenge to any party, whereas fragile, magical, spell resistant monsters in 3.5 were awesome against some parties, and tissue paper against others.&nbsp;As far as the spells go, I agree with Majoru. If I use Gate, my players will yawn, Spellcraft it, and buy a scroll to solve the problem. When I was a rules-following DM, I was constantly poring over splatbooks to find monsters, classes, templates and spell effects that would keep things interesting. I quickly burned out that way, actually.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="dammitbiscuit, post: 4626626, member: 60419"] Actually, in the "creating monsters" or "making monsters" section of the DMG, it mentions that custom monsters' stats have a certain baseline, and above or below average ability scores change the monsters' stats by plus or minus one. (I'm Away From Book, but I know it's in the DM's Toolbox section.) In the same way that 3.5 NPC creation encouraged racial stereotypes, it was very limiting. A kobold in 3.5 would never make for a terribly great Dragon Shaman - they have no bonus to Charisma, and a penalty to Constitution. When their breath weapon is on cooldown, they'll be resorting to crossbows, due to their extremely low strength. In 4e, I just build an NPC by either the monster creation methods, or by the NPC creation methods, and the creature will be able to perform its job. If I want to create a big, buff kobold, I will either provide story justification for it and an interesting place in the ecology, or my players will laugh at it and ask if I'm joking... and hell, if we're playing a joke game, why not? This isn't quite the same thing as where you can have, say, a very low-hitpoints fey creature with spell resistance and lots of attacks that has the same CR as a tons-of-hp animal with mediocre attacks. Nothing you create, if you follow the rules strictly, will differ greatly in stats from the baseline. However, you achieve a similar effect by having a fey lurker or artillery monster and an animal Brute. These closer-to-baseline monsters, however, will present a similar challenge to any party, whereas fragile, magical, spell resistant monsters in 3.5 were awesome against some parties, and tissue paper against others. As far as the spells go, I agree with Majoru. If I use Gate, my players will yawn, Spellcraft it, and buy a scroll to solve the problem. When I was a rules-following DM, I was constantly poring over splatbooks to find monsters, classes, templates and spell effects that would keep things interesting. I quickly burned out that way, actually. [/QUOTE]

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