Monster Manual: How Much Cut?

[I'm A Banana]

I could easily see most animals represented pretty abstractly.

For instance, a stat block for a "draft" animal that represents oxen, bison, bulls, aurochs, large horses, etc.

A stat block for a "herd" animal that represents smaller horses, sheep, goats, smaller cows, etc.

A stat block for "large cat" that represents lions, tigers, cougars, etc.

A stat block for "lupines" that represents wolves, foxes, dingos, coyotes, golden retreivers, etc.

All told, this wouldn't take up a whole lot of page space, and would be broadly useful, because these are the creatures you're most likely to apply templates (like celestial or fiendish or dire or skeleton or zombie or vampire) to. I'd assume most of them would fit the mold of "minion" monsters pretty well. We probably won't see more specialized, minor, or "environmental" critters like the Ape or Polar Bears or Monkeys or bats (though maybe a swarm) or toads (though, again, maybe a swarm), but I wouldn't be surprised if those are in future MMs.

I'm pretty sure we'll be getting some iconic monstrous vermin (spiders, beetles, ants, bees?) , and a bunch o' swarms (pixies! nanobots! scorpions!), but I think we'll be getting a lot less than 3e gave us (sorry, those of you who loved monstrous centipedes!).

I imagine we're getting a veritable menagerie of humanoid opponents. They've said they've made an effort to make them truly different, so I bet we're getting a bunch of orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, gnolls, troglodytes, lizardfolk, etc. My belief is that we'll also see the triumphant return of the Myconids!

I've got the feeling that elemental critters will figure into the first MM in a big way: giants, the new archons.

And that demons and devils will too.

Then we'll see a few fantasy iconics: treants, dryads, nightmares, unicorns, griffons, hydra, hags, etc.

And we'll have a few powerhouse threats: Orcus, Demogorgon, Asmodeus, the Terrasque, and their direct servants.

Which leaves beholders and mind flayersand gibbering mouthers and oozes to round out the "classics" section.

And that doesn't leave much room for winter wolves or ythraks or violet fungus or howlers or krenshar. I bet a lot of the more "environmental" and "cultural" monsters will also go by the wayside: perhaps we won't see rakshasas or couatl or kraken or sea elves or nerieds or tritons or oni. But given how fast MM's come out, and that the 4e Tome of Horrors will be right around the corner, that might not be a grand tragedy.

We also might see couatl and rakshasas because of their centrality to Eberron, but maybe they'll wait until they publish Eberron to publish those critters, since outside of that setting, they rarely make a splash.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My point was the list ditches the fantastic to keep the bland. I view most of the humanoids as needless. Gnolls for instance, may as well be called "+1 orcs" and bugbears "+2 orcs". Create an entry for medium humanoids thats easily scalable and call it a day.

I can only assume from this that you've not been following 4E very closely. Did you not notice when WotC said that they felt humanoid monsters were bland and that they would be spicing them up and giving them unique abilities? For example, the acid-spitting Orc Shamans who were one of the first 4E things we heard about.

So, no, I'm just taking account of what WotC has already said, not chucking out the "fantastic" for the "bland".

As for the animals, why did you feel the need to explain to me the exact same thing I'd said? To whit:

I'm all for putting the animals in a big block, or using semi-generic stats, like Lizard suggests.

Mystifying! As for the Krenshar, it's just goofy and dumb. It doesn't make sense that it would scare people without are supernatural element to it's ability (adventurers see much scarier things and don't flee for multiple rounds), and otherwise, it's just a big cat (just like a tiger or lion). Wouldn't you be better off using the stats from a lion or tiger, and simply making up the ability "Scares people for no particular reason" and sticking on top of it's normal stats?

Why cut anything at all? 4e is embracing the digital age. Why not have a Monster Manual that does the same?

Subscribers to the DDI should have access to "My Monster Manual", a database of 5,000 monsters from which one may pick and choose. Each monster selection has check lists to allow for inclusion of artwork, world-specific setting information, ecologies, Player Character information, and so on.

Sounds like a nice idea for the future, but for now, I'd rather WotC concentrated on making a fewer number of monsters and making them distinct in play, well-designed, and so on, rather than just slamming out hundreds or thousands of them

 

[frankthedm]

How well does a cat serve as a pack animal?

Very poorly. No stat block needed.

 

[kennew142]

When you talk of "moving non-combat skills into narrative", what do you mean?

To be fair, I said non-combat information - not non-combat skills. We've been told that monsters will have about a one page write up. The stat blocks we've seen are too small to take up an entire page, unless the game will use extremely large font. We've been given a stat block, not a complete monster manual entry, for the pit fiend. There has been no evidence to date that the designers have done away with non-combat related information. It can reasonably be assumed, given all of this, that the non-combat information for running the monster has been moved from the stat block to the narrative portions of the entry, which we haven't seen.

There is no disputing that the designers are winnowing down the combat related powers of the monsters. It is also true that monsters seldom last for more than a few rounds in combat. It is still a pretty broad jump to go all the way to the conclusion: they don't have any abilities/powers which are useful outside of their brief appearance on the battlemat.

All in all, I agree with you on the uses of monsters outside of combat. I also have used the specific monosters you mentioned as major non-combat elements of various campaigns. But, I doubt your assertion: it is less likely someone will decide to make the Aranea the core of a global assassin/spy network, or have PCs try to adopt/raise winter wolf cubs to turn them from evil. IMO, these are exactly the types of plot points that the narrative/flavor portions of the monster entry are supposed to inspire.

I also agree with some of your later posts about monsters. It is necessary to have the information of each creature that you will need in order to properly utilize it. Overall, I've been agreeing with your posts. I just believe that you are making unwarranted assumptions about the new edition, and then presenting them as if they were fact.

 

[Stoat]

De gustibus non est dispudandum . . .

I like the Krenshar because it's a low-level threat that hasn't been done to death in every adventure published since 197X. I started a campaign one time with a fight against a mated pair.

A creature I hate, and I mean hate? The Bugbear. Why on earth must there be a bugbear, and why should it get to go around strangling people?

For animals, I'd like to see some effort made to make different animal opponents interesting in combat. I think the trip attack added a lot to 3.0 wolves, and I think it would be cool spiffing if bears, big cats, crocodiles and octopi could be similarly improved. If Mearls & Co. can differentiate kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, etc. etc., they can differentiate the animals too.

 

[I'm A Banana]

3e had a lot of differentiation of animal types, though.

Big cats had the "pounce" ability (move and make a full attack)
Big dogs had the "trip" ability (attack + trip attempt)
Crocodiles, I believe, had the "Improved Grab" thing, as did Octopi (but, then again, almost everything in 3e had that ability. )
Apes had the "rend" ability.
Bears could do a whole "bear hug" constriction thing (though that might've been Improved Grab, again).

So, y'know, they'd just have to keep up what the game already had.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

MY CONCERN
A few comments I've read imply that monsters are having tactics or even feats "built into their stats". I'm okay with this for monsters. It makes a fair amount of sense to me actually, but absolutely not for humanoids. I'm going to be horribly upset if unique creatures are cut to allow for gang entries of humanoids that are mechanically different even though the only thing that should be different is their gear, class, or a feat to allow for some non-standard tactic (i.e. orc warrior, orc shaman, orc archer, orc poison spitter, etc..)

I think you are officially Out Of Luck here. HOWEVER, this may not be a verisimilitude-breaker, because presumably when/if they translate those humanoid races over to PC races, they can give them all those archery and poison-spitting and other special abilities as racial feats or talents. So you'd never be in the position of saying, "How come the Orc Warrior in the MM has 'body slam' but my orc fighter PC can never learn it?" The answer would be, "Get high enough level and take it as a racial feat."

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

[1]Please refrain from the usual reply of "Well, you don't need to roll for that! Just make it up!", which is the default reaction to any comment about missing or truncated rules in 4e. Heard it, don't accept it, don't waste our time rehashing it. KTHXBAI.

I wish I could find that 8-bit Theater comic where Red Mage says that "Kthxbai" is an ancient, arcane word meaning "Go to hell."

Anyway, druids, polymorph, and familiars don't seem to be in the first PHB, so your particular reasons don't necessarily work. I'm guessing they WILL have stats for common animals in the core books, but I'm wondering if they might not shift them to the DMG (along with other stats for mundane stuff).

My guess is that whatever they do with them now, they'll get more detailed combat writeups when the PHB2 or other supplement comes out with the Primal/Nature power source. That way, they could not only add druid shapeshifting, but maybe animal companion or familiar talents for existing classes like rangers and wizards (if they're not already in the first PHB).

 

[Jhaelen]

If the reason for most animals to be in the MM is because they are or could be useful as reference to class abilities, well, THAT'S a reason for them to NOT be in the MM, but in the PHB or DMG.

Okay, agreed.

I also like Kamikaze Midget's idea to have broader groups of animals represented by the same stats. If they add a couple of easily-applied templates you'll get all the variety you're ever going to need.

For example in Ars Magica all animals are basically represented by choosing a size and applying a single big template (or rather selecting abilities and (dis)advantages from a list). Works perfectly well, too.

 

[frankthedm]

Animal groupings with the different animals represented by levels sound good to me.

Big cat: Leopard - Lion - Tiger
Canid: Small dog - wolf - dire wolf
Ursine: Black Bear - Brown Bear - Polar Bear - Dire bear
Primate: Rock baboon - Carnivorous ape - Dire ape