Honey, I Shrunk the Monster Manual!

[Kunimatyu]

Does anyone think that a lot of formerly-Huge 3.5-era monsters will be shrunk to Large size so that they're easier to make as minis?

The Glabrezu/Nalfeshnee seem like particularly likely culprits, especially as their original AD&D 1e descriptions have them as shorter than the Balor.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Oh, and in Dave Noonan's blog, the purple worm was unable to swallow giants, despite the fact that a 3.5 purple worm easily could.

 

[DandD]

Well, there might be younger purple worms who are unable to swallow giants because they are yet to small to eat them.

After all, one of the game designers did mention that they were going for making rules how to make smaller and weaker versions of the monsters, without having the need to make excessive use of arithmetics and algebra, so that you could indeed meet something like a youngling version of it too.

 

[Felon]

Oh, and in Dave Noonan's blog, the purple worm was unable to swallow giants, despite the fact that a 3.5 purple worm easily could.

Well, the purple worm mini we have is huge-sized, and thus couldn't swallow another huge-sized mini (like a fomorian). Then again, that would be a good example of a shrunken monster, as suggested by the OP.

Maybe WotC will get their act together on releasing more huge minis. One can hope.

 

[Pale]

Meh, I'm not too keen on shrinking a monster so it's easier to make the mini.

So, we aren't going to have anything larger than the analog to 3Es "Huge" because it inconveniences the miniatures department?

 

[Kintara]

Yeah, it seems unlikely to me. I think the size will be determined by mechanical convenience, not because the mini would be easier to make. A purple worm will be in its own spot in the array of challenges, and I'm sure the designers will tweak the characteristics of them to fit whatever spot they ended up in. It's important to have a diverse selection of monsters at each level, so I expect that many monsters will be changed a bit because of that. If they have a similar monster at a similar point in the progression of difficulty, then one of them might be changed so that it's significantly more or less powerful than its counterpart.

Edit: And considering that the new edition has 30 levels instead of 20, I would imagine that they are doing a lot of tuning to give each level monsters of their own.

 

[Nifft]

No, what we're going to get are monsters that link up to form larger monsters. So you'll need to collect five Uncommons to get one Huge.

Cheers, -- N

PS: You know there area already Huge minis, right? Giants of Legend, War of the Dragon Queen, uh... one other maybe?

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

No, what we're going to get are monsters that link up to form larger monsters. So you'll need to collect five Uncommons to get one Huge.

It's just a matter of time before WotC implements the build-a-figure gimmick into the miniatures line. Then you'll not only have randomized minis, but randomized parts of minis, in a pack. :\

 

[Nifft]

It's just a matter of time before WotC implements the build-a-figure gimmick into the miniatures line. Then you'll not only have randomized minis, but randomized parts of minis, in a pack. :\

The genius will be that the minis are the parts!

"Hey, I got a crawling claw!"

"Woah, I'll trade you for one of my vargouilles -- I just need one more crawling claw and I can build a glabrezu!"

Parts is parts, -- N

 

[Pale]

PS: You know there area already Huge minis, right? Giants of Legend, War of the Dragon Queen, uh... one other maybe?

Nope. Mainly because I don't buy their minis, don't play the game with minis and I'm not interested in their minis game.

Basically, I don't want chocolate in my peanut butter.

Hell, I played the Warhammer 40k RPG without the use of minis. They understand that it is 'Not Good' (TM) to try and hammer those two markets together. You just wind up alienating those who aren't interested in both.