Mearls Monster Makeover: Beholder

[Jedi_Solo]

By "B-O-R-I-N-G", I think he means "unsuitable for miniatures combat". Indeed, I get the feeling that the entire purpose of this redesign (much like the others) was to create creatures and abilities that fit nicely onto a DDM card with easy to resolve effects in a minatures game rather than an RPG.

Being taken out at the start of what turns out to be a long combat can quite easily be called "boring". If you get taken out a few rounds before the fight stops then there isn't a problem. If the fight goes on for another 1/2 hour (or more) you then have a player just sitting there... because of a single die roll.

And I think that is the problem Mearls has been trying to remove. Having a player sit there for an incradbaly long time because of a single 1 rolled too early in the fight. I don't see thier removal from this critter as having ANYTHING to do with DDMing the game.

Sure: crits happen; but if I get taken out from three crits in a row I at least get a heck of a story as a consolation prize for sitting there until the fight is over.

 

[diaglo]

Sure: crits happen; but if I get taken out from three crits in a row I at least get a heck of a story as a consolation prize for sitting there until the fight is over.

and getting taken out by a monster in 1 blow doesn't give you value?

d00d, you got taken out by something that can kill PCs with one blow. that thing is a bad mother....

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Besides, if they wanted to DDM the beholder some more I think they would in MORE save-or-die stuff.

If you fail the save you are removed from the board. Simplfy it by making everything all nothing. Why would making everything keep track of hitpoints make it more mini based?

 

[hexgrid]

If the result of making the game more like DDM is "easy to resolve effects," I'm all for it.

 

[Felix]

[tangent]

After reading through the Ogre Mage revision Mearls did, I completely agree with:

I get the feeling that the entire purpose of this redesign (much like the others) was to create creatures and abilities that fit nicely onto a DDM card with easy to resolve effects in a minatures game rather than an RPG.

It had overtones of this syndrome in the Beholder revision, but it was the only flavor present in his Ogre Mage. I feel like he does have design objectives in mind when he redesigns these monsters, and I suspect that harmonizing the RPG and the Minis game is one of them. All of the monsters he's redesigned make for better Minis, if not for better RPG encounters. He even said himself:

I ran an encounter with an ogre mage, a rust monster, and an ogre against a party of three 6th-level adventurers ably played by D&D designer James Wyatt, web guru Bart Carroll, and master of accounting Steven Montano.

This combat encounter of the Ogre Mage does not playtest the viability of an Ogre Mage in Role-playing, or long-term antagonism; which is part of the RPG, though not the Minis game.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

and getting taken out by a monster in 1 blow doesn't give you value?

d00d, you got taken out by something that can kill PCs with one blow. that thing is a bad mother....

It's better than being taken out by a 1 on a DIE NOW spell save I'll admit. Being taken out from a single die roll is never fun (from my experience at least) and the fewer chances of that the better.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Move away from plot and towards hack is bad.

This movement is a figment of your imagination.

My plots have plenty of hack.

 

[Felix]

Being taken out from a single die roll is never fun (from my experience at least) and the fewer chances of that the better.

[Jedi_Ben Kenobi]There are alternatives to fighting...[/Jedi_Ben Kenobi]

Save-or-Die's make those alternatives much more attractive, eh?

 

[Lanefan]

After 20+ years of DM-ing, I finally got a chance to chuck some Beholders at a party this past summer...fun all round, and a true edge-of-the-seat battle that left a party of 9 with one functioning character and one slowed one by the time it was done. Afterwards, the survivors go to count (and loot) the dead, and realize several "fallen" PC's are merely asleep - sighs of relief all round. (they did lose one petrified and one disintegrated, but some losses *are* acceptable, after all)

By sounds of it, the "new" Beholders would not have presented quite the same challenge, and that's a shame.

Lanefan

 

[diaglo]

This movement is a figment of your imagination.

My plots have plenty of hack.

he said hack not hackneyed