I am beginning to appreciate some of the design decisions of 4E.

[NewJeffCT]

Rat Bastard Dungeon Master. In other words, I like to crush my PCs, see them driven before me and hear the lamentations of their players.

When I was DMing 3.5E, I had nearly perfected the art of challenging my big group (7 players, 7 PCs and one major NPC who was run by one of the 7 players) - I threw huge, epic encounters at the group where they went into the battle thinking they were all going to die (and, many of them did, only to get Revivified mid combat...one dwarf fighter died three times in the penultimate encounter)... only to have them barely pull things out in the end thanks to a combination of good rolling on their part, bad rolling on my part, and/or some clever tactics (at the end of the penultimate encounter, they managed to trap the frail high priestess within an antimagic field, where she was basically helpless (STR of 6, CON of 8 without magic) despite her high level because her minions were all gone (not 1 hit point 4E minions). If she had been able to go one more round, she could have Mass Heal'd her fallen allies and likely have won the fight.

However, the challenges I gave them were all above party level in terms of CR.

Many years back, though, I did pull a RBDM move with a beholder in the Underdark that used a cavern that was perfectly suited for its antimagic ray... (why wouldn't a beholder set up shop there if it was a well traveled route?) The beholder then had kobold slaves rain arrows down on the party from elevated & protected positions, and I nearly annhilated the highly magic reliant party with just mundane arrows until one fighter charged the beholder and fought off his troll bodyguards & scored a massive crit on the beholder.

 

[Stormonu]

A "Rogues Gallery" of semi-generic leveled characters is something any edition could use. Monster manuals generally focus on, well, monsters but I'd like to get my hands on a good book that has nothing but (fairly generic) leveled NPCs you could slap a race template on and be good to go. Not something you have to hunt through half a dozen adventures or rulebooks for, but something in one big book, fully statted out.

3e DMG had something like this, 2e had it as well (but too much background info) as did 1e with the original Rogues Gallery. PF's Game Mastery guide has something akin to this, and I don't know if something equivilant exists for 4e.

 

[Reynard]

A "Rogues Gallery" of semi-generic leveled characters is something any edition could use. Monster manuals generally focus on, well, monsters but I'd like to get my hands on a good book that has nothing but (fairly generic) leveled NPCs you could slap a race template on and be good to go. Not something you have to hunt through half a dozen adventures or rulebooks for, but something in one big book, fully statted out.

3e DMG had something like this, 2e had it as well (but too much background info) as did 1e with the original Rogues Gallery. PF's Game Mastery guide has something akin to this, and I don't know if something equivilant exists for 4e.

While i think this is a fine idea, let me be clear: the issue that inspired my original post was not that it took too long to create the NPC cleric. The cleric was already made, in fact (I had done that work a couple weeks ago). What took so long was the process of going through each spell and noting on cards (to be used during play) things like ranged, durations, saves and so on (and page references where the description ws too long to briefly note).

The 4E design decision I was suggesting i would like is the replacement of vast options of spells for villains and instead a smaller pool of potential "powers", perhaps with a little more versatility. Something like Magic Blast (assign level) (assign element) or Freeze ray (assign Save type) (assign level) (assign flavor)

 

[Janx]

While i think this is a fine idea, let me be clear: the issue that inspired my original post was not that it took too long to create the NPC cleric. The cleric was already made, in fact (I had done that work a couple weeks ago). What took so long was the process of going through each spell and noting on cards (to be used during play) things like ranged, durations, saves and so on (and page references where the description ws too long to briefly note).

The 4E design decision I was suggesting i would like is the replacement of vast options of spells for villains and instead a smaller pool of potential "powers", perhaps with a little more versatility. Something like Magic Blast (assign level) (assign element) or Freeze ray (assign Save type) (assign level) (assign flavor)

well, to equivalent that in pre-4e, since spellbooks have almost always been locked in on # of known spells being calculated, somebody could have provided "spell packs", load-outs for various styles of NPCs of spells known.

Then the GM just picks the level and "style" of wizard, and gets a list of spells known in their book. This would be better than randomly rolling spells, as a human would have picked stuff that would "get the job done"

I would ignore spell memorization, as nobody's going to check your work, and it will make your NPC more powerful. Heck, if you did use random spell selection which would probably weaken your NPC, this would counter-balance the probability of the NPC being stuck with useless spells.

What I liked about 1e/2e was the simplicity of monster stats. We started 2e with the 1e Monster manual. From there, I wrote a program for the Apple IIe to roll out monster stat blocks and print them out.

Back then it dumped:
monster name (#HD)
AC: 7
THAC0: 19
Damage: 1d6 shortsword
Note: none
HP: 7 ooooo oo

with HP showing the number, and circles in groups of 5 for crossing out

If you wanted multiple monsters, it repeated the HP line (differently rolled hit points)

This was a very short, minimal text stat block. It was also all the GM needed.
I suppose it also could have included the source and page# in case the DM needed to look it up better.

If the monster doesn't have buttloads of abilities, skills and feats, the Notes section is all you need to describe a breath weapon, or special ability

How often do you REALLY need to know all the skills or ability scores of a monster or NPC? Not bad enough to include it in the game notes. If you GM on a PC, that could be linked, so you don't waste screen space on it.

 

[Dedekind]

Ouch, this brings back some bad memories. I've also earned the "Time Well Wasted" achievement with a BBEG. That is why I went to almost entirely published material for 3e. It was worth it for the time saved.

 

[Hussar]

Ouch, this brings back some bad memories. I've also earned the "Time Well Wasted" achievement with a BBEG. That is why I went to almost entirely published material for 3e. It was worth it for the time saved.

I'm in this boat as well. I love 3e, I really do, but there is no way I'll run anything other than modules for it. I'll switch the modules around, tweak, fold, spindle and maul, but, there's no way I'll create from scratch anymore.

Fortunately, I have about a 3 year or so collection of Dungeon magazines, so, finding a BBEG caster already statted out is pretty quick.

 

[Reynard]

Fortunately, I have about a 3 year or so collection of Dungeon magazines, so, finding a BBEG caster already statted out is pretty quick.

but what do you do about having all the spells prepped?

 

[Stormonu]

While i think this is a fine idea, let me be clear: the issue that inspired my original post was not that it took too long to create the NPC cleric. The cleric was already made, in fact (I had done that work a couple weeks ago). What took so long was the process of going through each spell and noting on cards (to be used during play) things like ranged, durations, saves and so on (and page references where the description ws too long to briefly note).

The 4E design decision I was suggesting i would like is the replacement of vast options of spells for villains and instead a smaller pool of potential "powers", perhaps with a little more versatility. Something like Magic Blast (assign level) (assign element) or Freeze ray (assign Save type) (assign level) (assign flavor)

Yeah, 4E having the description of the ability in-line with the name of the power is a great idea, and you're right - looking up the details of a spell in pre-4E is where the time gets eaten up making/prepping spellcasters.

Unfortunately, the 4E solution (put a 1-2 sentence long description of the power) bloats the stat block and for a "standard" high-level spellcaster, it could get ridiculously long. I guess the best solution in that case would be to take the highest 2-3 tiers of spells and long-hand them, but then you lose some of the versatility. Sigh, no *real good* solution that I see, more of a trade-off (do you want the versatility of a long list of spells, or a short concise list that narrows your options to a specific strategy or two OR do you want really big stat blocks [to include every detail] or short stat blocks [covering the "essentials", and you look up/know the rest]).

 

[Celebrim]

I run Pathfinder and really enjoy it. I don't like 4E much.

However there's something to be said for not having to spend 2.5 hours putting together spell info for an enemy who might last 4 rounds.

Indeed. I feel for you, and I have an annoying desire for completeness for its own sake.

But really, if you figure that the enemy might only last 4 rounds, figure out what he'll cast in the first 5 and then don't bother prepping the rest.

 

[Reynard]

But really, if you figure that the enemy might only last 4 rounds, figure out what he'll cast in the first 5 and then don't bother prepping the rest.

The problem with that is that PCs tend to be quite resourceful and it is hard to know just what the NPC spellcaster might do when you don't know what the PCs might do.

Ultimately, it's an issue of wanting my cake and wanting to eat it too. I want the versatility afforded in PF/3.x spellcasting (or feats or rogue abilities or anything else that is a selection from a wise variety of choices) without the cost of the prep time. It's probably unrealistic.

I do want to simplify spells and spell-like abilities for monsters/NPCs though. I feel like I have allowed extraneous information to overwhelm play, which benefits no one.