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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3682368" data-attributes="member: 2067">My design notes for monsters with SLA's:#1: If you want them to have a lot of spells, give them a level of Wiz or Sorc. This works well with a system where caster level and spell access increases with character level, rather than with class level, so that a 20HD monster doesn't just pick up Magic Missile, but rather picks up Meteor Swarm (for instance). Diverse and potent magics come from spellcasters.#2: Theme!. Make the SLA's adhere to some sort of logical pattern of powers. For all the monsters that can teleport and read minds and summon, there's only a fraction that probably *should* be able to. Not every monster needs to be able to teleport, plane shift, and take your thoughts, just to make it powerful. #3: Different Uses. If a monster has both Fireball and Lightning Bolt, the DM has too many similar choices. Each spell should fill it's own niche. A creature can have one blasting spell, one defensive spell, one tool spell, etc. Don't give it abilities that mimic what it can already do. If your critter can already lob exploding balls of fire, it doesn't need Fireball, too. Oddly enough, I feel 3e suffers too much from some hold-over abilities for monsters. Back in 1e, if things could teleport and the like, that meant that the PC's couldn't escape them "for cheap." Creatures no longer need these abilities, by and large, because if PC's cheaply escape them, that's okay. I think 4e might fix this by possibly making resource management by the encounter, rather than by the day. This balances perfectly for monsters, who are usually only in one encounter anyway. I foresee many "use this once every X rounds" abilities. Good idea for an enforced theme, though I think that each individual monster should probably have it's own uniquely chosen SLA's, myself, rather than using some metasystem to govern them. It'd work. I'd still prefer more customized behavior, but it'd work. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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