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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4235643" data-attributes="member: 710">I think your "basically" is a bit to basic. You also used tools from a box to create 3E monsters. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> The tools where just very different, and the way you build it.In 4E, the thought process seems like this: "I need a level 5 monster. Since my adventure theme is about decay and corruption, I think I want some zombie like creature. The monster needs to be good at ranged attacks, I've already got enough melee guys. So, Level 5 Artillery, Undead Humanoid type monster. So, what's its shtick? Throwing rotten flesh at his enemies? I guess that would fit the theme, and that sounds pretty horrible, so maybe I should add some fear effects... Okay, let's take the level 5 artillery monsters, and look at what undeads typically get for special abilities. What's a good fear effect?"I think the 3E thought process might be very similar, but instead of looking at the CR 5 artillery monster table, you would think more like this: "how many HD does it need? What's its attack bonus? What strength do I pick? Should it have an INT score? Interesting, if I give it an INT of 14, It has 52 skill points... What skills would he need? Maybe some Intimidate? Oh, it definitely needs Spot, it's fighting at range... It's not so good in melee, I should probably give it Tumble... Though, nah, tumbling Zombies? Sounds too stupid. Let's add Listen and Climb instead... Okay now what's his attack bonus? Is that enough for CR 5? Hmm, maybe I should add some more HD to get a better attack bonus? Or should I just up the Dex? But a dexterous Zombie... How about a "Brutal Throw" as feat, so it can use its Strength, and I can keep the dex low..."The 3E system is very explorative. That can be fun, in a while, but it's not so well suited for fast creation of monsters or NPCs.(It actually looks to me as 3E and 4E are reversed in their treatment of monsters and classes. Creating a new class in 3E can be very fast - you don't need more then 20 class abilities, and you can easily reuse existing spells and even entire spell lists, if you want. PrCs are even easier. But monsters and NPCs require a lot of work and fine-tuning. 4E classes require ~60 powers (assuming 2 per level as a minimum), but monsters just need level, type (artillery/soldier etc.), weight (minion, normal, elite, solo) and a single shtick (fires radiant energy, explodes in a burst of flames when bloodied, knocks down foes), maybe a bit more. And you can re-use a lot of the "shticks" by creating different monster types and weights to cover more levels and have some variety. I think we'll see a lot more new fan-created monsters in 4E then in 3E, but a decline in new classes (though Paragon Path, Epic Destinies and new powers might cover that sufficiently well...)</blockquote>

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