Monster Roles mentioned by Monte Cook?

[nnms]

Monte Cook commented about playtesting (see the D&D 5E Info red link above):

"Playtesting in the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. My dwarf just slew a lurker with a well-timed crit to save the swallowed paladin." - Monte Cook.

Ugh.

I'm not happy to see "lurker" unless it's actually a monster called a lurker he's talking about. I dislike combat roles for monsters as well and if combat still revolves around them, the game may end up being too close to 4E for my liking. I don't want a game where I fight "brutes" or "soldiers" or "elite lurkers" or whatever.

So hopefully Monte was talking about an actual lurker monster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurker_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)

Categories for monsters that are rigid enough that saying which category a given monster belongs to tells you more important information than describing the monster by name are too rigid for me.

Anyone else have thoughts on monster roles?

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I find them very helpful when designing encounters, just as I find roles helpful when building the monsters from scratch.

 

[mlund]

"Lurker" is actually a classic D&D Monster (see: "Lurker Above") that drops from the ceiling to engulf unwary PCs.

But the Lurker role is fine too. It doesn't matter to PCs, but it gives DMs a better idea of what the creature has its stats and abilities best-suited for. Monster Roles are a fine guideline for DMs, not any sort of straight-jacket. It helps people not get nasty surprises when they try and put squishy monsters on the front-lines of an encounter.

- Marty Lund

 

[Hussar]

I really don't get the dislike of terminology that people have. Breaking apart monsters into the 5 roles isn't really changing anything, simply highlighting for ease of use.

An ambush monster is a lurker. It will have certain characteristics - which make it easier to use when designing an adventure or an encounter. If you want something that can jump out of the dark and eat someone's brains, you look for lurkers. If you want a big bag of hit points that can dish it out, you look for a brute. Etc.

What's wrong with categorizing?

 

[Ahnehnois]

As bad as roles are for PCs, they're even more limiting if they're the basis for an entire race. Imagine taking all orcs and defining them as "brutes". Or even worse, "minions". That sends a very bad message on a lot of levels. It's not a remotely accurate description of play either; orcs have a full range of characters represented by every PC class. Anything intelligent is a person, and should be holistically described and treated as such under the rules.

I'm not happy to see "lurker" unless it's actually a monster called a lurker he's talking about. I dislike combat roles for monsters as well and if combat still revolves around them, the game may end up being too close to 4E for my liking. I don't want a game where I fight "brutes" or "soldiers" or "elite lurkers" or whatever.

So hopefully Monte was talking about an actual lurker monster:

Hopefully. They start doing stuff like that and "unity" will be over before it starts.

 

[Jawsh]

lol, once upon a time, lurker was a word in the English language.

 

[nnms]

When I talk about categories being bad I'm talking about when the categories become so definitive of what the monster does that it is more important in game terms than the actual attributes, description, etc., of the monster.

Like in 4E. You can have an orc with a bow that is a skirmisher. You can have one that is a lurker. In 4E, It's more communicative to talk about lurkers and skirmishers than about orcs. If you have an orc and a gnoll working together, the game system is very concerned with what category they belong to. What category they belong to is more relevant and communicative than any actual fictional detail of the monster in the narrative.

That's the type of category I don't want.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Looks like this thread is going the exact same way as the last one on roles.

 

[Rechan]

As bad as roles are for PCs, they're even more limiting if they're the basis for an entire race. Imagine taking all orcs and defining them as "brutes".

What?

4e doesn't define an entire race with a role.

Opening my 4e MM1, the Orc entry has: Minion, Skirmisher, Brute, Controller (Leader), and two Elite Brutes.

Monster roles are the monster equivalent of PC classes. Because they simply represent "How man hit points does this monster have? What's it's attack bonus? How much damage does its attacks do?" An orc with a bow can be a skirmisher, artillery, or controller. An orc with an axe can be a brute (doing lots of damage, having lots of HP and low AC), it could be a skirmisher (fast, high reflex, middling defenses), or a soldier (a hard-hitting, high-defensed monster with middling HP). That's no different than an orc barbarian, an orc rogue, and an orc fighter in 3e.

Besides. How is what you're describing (an entire race defined by a role) different than opening up the 3e MM and seeing one entry for Orc? Or hell, look at 2e[/i] or 1e, where monster's race were defined by a sole expression.

 

[Hussar]

As bad as roles are for PCs, they're even more limiting if they're the basis for an entire race. Imagine taking all orcs and defining them as "brutes". Or even worse, "minions". That sends a very bad message on a lot of levels. It's not a remotely accurate description of play either; orcs have a full range of characters represented by every PC class. Anything intelligent is a person, and should be holistically described and treated as such under the rules.

Hopefully. They start doing stuff like that and "unity" will be over before it starts.

But that was almost never done. The only time that was done was with monsters where you usually don't get larger groups - all chokers (for example) are lurkers. But, that's because you don't get villages full of chokers.

Orcs, like you say, have a full range of abilities and representation. But, an orc with a bow that moves around a lot is categorized as artillery, but, an orc with a big honking axe, is a brute.

The categories have absolutely nothing to do with in game fiction. They are simply shorthand descriptions of what a given creature's strengths and weaknesses are in a given encounter.

What really needs to die is the idea that all mechanics must have direct in-game reality counterparts. Monster roles have no long term in-game meaning. An orc could be a minion at one time, and in another encounter, that same orc could be a brute. It all depends on what's appropriate for the encounter.