Monster Design--from a designer's standpoint

[Orcus]

OK maybe I got a little carried away in my enthusiasm, but in my view there is no doubt that monster design for -a designer- (as opposed to home DM) is easier and much, much more fun. I liked a lot about 3E monster design. But I felt that it had some unnecessary restraints. The gloves are off in 4E. I like that.

I am still so geeked about this.

I love the discussion! Keep it up! I'm sure not expecting everyone to agree with me, just cause I am all hyper about it.

 

[malraux]

And guess what? That big penalty is a hidden hand to protect the DM! Low level (3e) characters are very fragile, and hence extremely vulnerable to focused fire. Melee types have a hard time focussing fire, but ranged combatants do it casually. Therefore it helps if (at low levels) ranged combatants have to choose between heftily penalized focused fire and accurate, distributed opportunity fire.

Wow, the prerequisite system works to avoid giving monsters abilities too early. Shocker. And there are even ways around that if you really want the ability too (bonus feats, fighter levels). It's a miracle!

Ok, that last is going a bit far, and the prerequisite system doesn't always work as well as it does in this case. Oh weapon finesse, how I hate your +1 BaB requirement. Still, complaining about abilities having prerequisites in a system that lets you bypass those prereqs if you really really want to and are willing to risk the abilities being overpowered for their new level is... foolish.

Oh, I'm not saying that a gang of these Darkblast Skeletons would be an equal match for a 1st level party. My objection is that so much of these safeguards are unobvious and tedious to work through. That is, the only way to safely add this to a monster to keep within the balance rules is to go the monster advancement route. A better system would instead give the DM direct guidance as to what is reasonable for melee and ranged attack values at each level.

 

[Andur]

I'd rather have a designer over excited rather than underwhelmed...

Always have enjoyed the products from Necromance Games.

Now about those signed copies of your upcoming 4e bestiary...

 

[Nellisir]

Remember, Orcus is not a DM designing for his home game. ... This is meaningless if you use your monsters only in your home game. Usually, no one besides gets to see your monster stats in the detail to complain about them.

Big difference between making monsters for your home game and making monsters for published adventures.

OK (deep breath). I'm going to tackle this again, briefly. As far as I can tell (since you're not very specific), you're assuming homebrew creatures are held to a lower standard than published creatures. That may be true for you, but it's not for me. I add in synergy bonuses. I put little superscript "B"s by bonus feats. I try to make interesting, viable, and worthwhile monsters that will be interesting to fight or otherwise interact with. And honestly, 95% of them don't get used in my campaign. I -would- like to publish them, someday.

When I'm writing statblocks for an adventure I'm running, I do use shortcuts. But that's not how I create monsters.

And for the record again, I'd love to see types reworked (the 4e system looks pretty good) and skills simplified. But neither of those has anything to do with Orcus's example of a "weird" power (I'm pretty sure there are skeletons with blast powers, actually).

 

[Grazzt]

As you command...

Flumph
Level 3 Lurker
...
I used the Hobgoblin Warcaster as a base. Not sure about the damage.

Nice. Now, just need a Flumph Commander, Flumph Hellspawn, and Flumph Overmind

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Having a lot of hit points but no serious ability to attack. At least, that's what it SHOULD be doing, except that you have to monkey with everything to accommodate for its automatic base attack bonus. Logically, it should be strong, and it should be tough (its a big dinosaur), but its also slow and doesn't possess any meaningful weapons. Unfortunately you're stuck with a huge BAB and a high strength score. Even if you give it unarmed damage adjusted by size, you're still looking at a powerful creature. We could rework the entire monster to have 4 hit dice and a gigantic constitution, but that creates problems for our ADULT diplodicus, who we want to have a good trample attack.

Or, we could just, you know, assign it some stats based on a chart of standards and our personal feelings on how to adjust stuff. Yay!

3.5 tried to accommodate the special situation of "high HD, low attack" monster with giving some monsters no "primary attack", so they get a default -5 penalty to attacks. It will address some of your problems, but it's obviously an awkward fix - and again a rule that emphasizes that monsters and PCs are still not created equal...

 

[Knight Otu]

...Flumph Hellspawn...

But... but... they're supposed to lawful good! Have the flumphs deceived us all?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

OK (deep breath). I'm going to tackle this again, briefly. As far as I can tell (since you're not very specific), you're assuming homebrew creatures are held to a lower standard than published creatures.

That's my general assumption and I am sticking to it.

On a side note: I used to make my own monsters, with fine detail. To some degree, I still do it.
But once I picked up Mastering Iron Heroes, and got the first glimpse of the villain classes, DMing has becoming a lot easier for me. No more fiddly skill points. Just give them the skills listed in the class, done. And then I went further. "damn these skill selection - this guy needes Diplomacy, so he'll get it!". Then I went even further, upon reading the articles on Minion/Elite/Solo monsters in 4E. "Screw HD advancement. This is an elite monster. Double hit points, add these feats, and add +1 CR. This is a minion monster - half hit points, reduce damage/attacks/spells, and CR -2. Done."

I suddenly felt freed. I could do monsters faster. I still put a lot of effort in the "special effects" of the monster, but creating the "base characteristics" got easier. Monster building is no loner the chore it seemed to be. "Skills: This is what it needs to fulfill its role in the adventure. Skill points per HD? Who cares?"

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But... but... they're supposed to lawful good! Have the flumphs deceived us all?

What do you expect from hellspawn!

 

[helium3]

Gone are those cheesy voices in my head from 3E that limit everything to replicating spell effects. In 3E the concept was there couldnt be a power that PCs couldnt have access to--its not fair! they cried. That is a bunch of BS in my view. I am so glad to see a rule set go away from that.

*nod*

I noticed this as well. It was tough at first and I still tend to reference spells in an attempt to gauge the level of power of particular effect. I suppose it will be much easier when there are actual tables to reference.

Here's what I don't understand though. 3E in its attempt to turn monster generation into an algorithm was obviously reacting to some sort of a flaw in the ad-hoc monster design process that had come before it. What was the flaw that 3E was a reaction to and has that flaw been fixed as well?