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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8950085" data-attributes="member: 82106">This is another of those WTF? things for me, because a party that is unaware of the large tactical difference between Orcs and Hobgoblins, should be getting their clocks cleaned! Hobgoblins get bonuses to their defenses for massing up, and thus require specific tactics to defeat (if you let them all line up in a formation, you are screwed, or you better have some serious AoE damage potential). Orcs OTOH are very nasty when given a chance to charge into battle, and when killed up close get a final 'dying strike', which means you do NOT want to let them charge into melee with you! (there are a couple types of each monster with slightly different roles, I'm generalizing a bit, but these are the SIGNATURE abilities of each race).I mean, OK, a GM doesn't give you the names of the monsters, that's fair, but you have knowledge skills and monster knowledge checks that are meant to insure that the GM DOES have to give you this, VITAL, info! You better be using those! I gotta say, this is not feeling like quality play. Honestly, I'm not sure this is on point here, as I cannot think of a SINGLE thing that I would want to change LESS about 4e than the monsters! They are, mostly (Purple Worm, get back in your hole!) works of genius (OK, Dracolich, you're a genius alright, but you still suck as a foe). So, yeah, there are actually a few specific monsters I'd happily redesign, but if you compare 4e humanoids with any edition prior to 4e, the difference is stark! Heck, in AD&D the only differences between hobs and orcs is that hobs get 1 extra hit point, and a +1 to damage. Lets not talk about boring... 5e is a bit in the middle, the 5e standard Orc has only one special ability, it can charge with a bonus action. There are 3 other stat blocks, the Orog is just a CR2 orc, the Orc War Chief has a 1/day leader power and CR4, and then we have the spell casting Shaman, which is basically a level 3 cleric/orc. This is OK, but now lets look at hobgoblins; the basic one is not super different from the orc, it has a damage bonus when attacking targets near an ally, and a bow as a secondary weapon instead of the orc's javelins. They are not the same as orcs, and the tactical differences could be relatively similar to 4e (lets assume you play on a grid, but this is not a comparison of 4e to 5e thread). The other 2 hobgoblin stat blocks are a captain and a warlord, the captain has a leader ability similar to the orc war chief in overall effect, and the warlord is CR6 and adds in a couple added tricks (a parry reaction, and a shield bash) to the captain's leadership. These are OK monsters, and given the slight differences in AC and a few select 'powers' they should work and feel a bit different. So in 5e you want to avoid getting ganged by hobs, and basically orcs just move into combat really quickly. Both teams leaders can throw out a bonus to a follower, and orcs get clerics. Honestly Hobs seem a bit boned in all this, they're rather vanilla! Verdict, 4e monsters are quite diverse and their abilities are heavily themed and tactically significant. ABOVE ALL ELSE any tinkering with 4e that breaks this, is bad! So I vote "WTF do you mean?" on this proposal. I guess though, I'd have to hear a more concrete version to really say it was bad or good. Certainly some monsters can be improved, and MV actually reworked the hobgoblins and made them better!</blockquote>

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