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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4177434" data-attributes="member: 2067">Sure, but that's not what MO implied with his statement. What MO implied is that 4e can't or won't do "evil twins" because 4e design mandates that all monsters be simple enough to run upon opening the MM.I pointed out that the existence of templates means that 4e obviously recognizes the viability of monsters that are a bit more work than that. Templates make a monster more complicated, and make it so that you won't be running a vampire just by flipping to a random page in the MM. Regardless of WHY they do that, they provide evidence for the point that 4e isn't exactly terrified of the idea of monsters that are more complex than others.What does that have to do with 4e's ability to run evil twin plots?Upthread I made the point that assuming the DM is dumb is not a good way to discredit the "evil twin" idea because such a mythically dumb DM would have problems without the evil twins, with just the way that any other monster worked.Try to keep up, man. <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=";)" />Thousands of years of human history and storytelling would disagree with you.If it's bad for 4e, then, in that respect, 4e sucks, because it ain't bad for the game that 4e is trying to be.Is there an echo in here? <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=";)" />Both of these are rather false.#1: Because the monster's stats are the player's stats with minor adjustments, it can be played at least as out-of-the-box as a lich or vampire.#2: All encounters' power levels are dependent on their oppoents' power levels. This is the very principle of encounters that challenge you based on your level that has been in every iteration of D&D: the more powerful you are, the bigger challenges you face. The weaker you are, the weaker your enemies. If this stops accurate XP values, then every edition of D&D ever has had wildly inaccurate XP values because that is, essentially, the basis of XP values.Why the heck not? What is there to be afraid of? What kind of unholy 4e kryptonite is an "evil twin" that it cannot be supported in the core rules, but only in that wild west frontier land?What's 4e so afraid of, if it won't do it?You sell yourself short, methinks. As said, you can even TELL THE PLAYERS THEMSELVES to decide what the monster does. If you think they're being too easy on themselves, either remember an effective tactic they used earlier (even earlier that same night!), or look at their character sheet, even before the game begins. It's really not. 4e monsters and NPC's have their own ways of accounting for the magic items. So whatever way the phane itself uses, or the NPC rival adventurer uses, or the BBEG uses, these time doubles use.Any game that can't handle "evil twin" without freaking out and crying about it really isn't giving me what I need out of a game. It's a failure.I have more faith in the 4e team than that.</blockquote>

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