Monster Subtypes

[ideasmith]

My guess would be Medium Living Humanoid (Fey).

My guess would be Medium Immortal Humanoid (Fey).

Dryads, Nymphs, Satyrs, and Sprites are immortal in the myths/legends D&D got them from.

Edit: Oops, didn't notice that you were talking about elves. My guess on those would be Medium Mortal Humanoid (Elf) or Medium Immortal Humanoid (Fey). (Immortal monsters are alive, and implying otherwise would be silly)

 

[TheSeer]

The old 3.5 format was fine. I serioulsy dont know why they had to change things that where working.

The Model-T worked just fine too. Would you rather be driving that now or the cars they have now? Change isn't necessarily bad, and can be good if you give it a chance.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I hope they decouple all intrinsic rules from types, the way Magic the Gathering eventually did. Having a type actually mean something, whether it's 'Walls can't attack' in MtG or 'Outsiders have d8 hit dice' in D&D, just complicates what should be a simple descriptor that other rules can call at need.

This would dodge kludges like the war troll, for example.

 

[Nifft]

Yep yep yep, descriptors = good, platonic object class hierarchies ideals = bad.

Cheers, -- N

 

[ruleslawyer]

So maybe:

-Size: Fine to Colossal as in 3e
-Metabolism: Mortal, Immortal, Undead, Unliving (for constructs/animated objects)
-Shape: Humanoid, Quadruped, Legless, Amorphous?

The latter category seems tricky for me. How many shape categories would one need? Humanoid and amorphous are, IMO, easy (the former covers everything from devils to iron golems to goblins to zombies, the latter everything from lantern archons to gelatinous cubes), but other shapes (spider, scorpion, snake, behir, dragon, etc.) seem difficult.

 

[Nifft]

I'd like to see the shape they come up with for Grell.

Cheers, -- N

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

So maybe:

-Size: Fine to Colossal as in 3e
-Metabolism: Mortal, Immortal, Undead, Unliving (for constructs/animated objects)
-Shape: Humanoid, Quadruped, Legless, Amorphous?

The latter category seems tricky for me. How many shape categories would one need? Humanoid and amorphous are, IMO, easy (the former covers everything from devils to iron golems to goblins to zombies, the latter everything from lantern archons to gelatinous cubes), but other shapes (spider, scorpion, snake, behir, dragon, etc.) seem difficult.

I'm not sure what name they'll use for creatures with three or more legs, but mechanically, it's not all that important - all of those creatures, for purposes of a roleplaying game, share very similar traits. Look at how they're handled in 3.5: they're harder to knock down and resistant to movement abilities like bull rush, and they carry more stuff. What more do you really need?

I'd say Humanoid, Quadruped, Serpentine and Amorphous would cover the necessary categories, with Quadruped being applied inaccurately. It would hardly be a first for D&D terminology.

 

[Nellisir]

So maybe:

-Size: Fine to Colossal as in 3e
-Metabolism: Mortal, Immortal, Undead, Unliving (for constructs/animated objects)
-Shape: Humanoid, Quadruped, Legless, Amorphous?

The latter category seems tricky for me. How many shape categories would one need? Humanoid and amorphous are, IMO, easy (the former covers everything from devils to iron golems to goblins to zombies, the latter everything from lantern archons to gelatinous cubes), but other shapes (spider, scorpion, snake, behir, dragon, etc.) seem difficult.

I'm not sure about Quadruped because of its specificity (you could class a spider as a quadruped, but it clearly isn't...), but I'm not sure what could replace it. I'd also add an Aberration category for things like grell. And what about birds?

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Dryads, Nymphs, Satyrs, and Sprites are immortal in the myths/legends D&D got them from.

Edit: Oops, didn't notice that you were talking about elves. My guess on those would be Medium Mortal Humanoid (Elf) or Medium Immortal Humanoid (Fey). (Immortal monsters are alive, and implying otherwise would be silly)

I think it depends on exactly what they mean by Immortal. Do they mean:

a) A living creature with an unlimited lifespan?

or

b) A spiritual creature with a physical body that will eventually reform itself if it ever gets destroyed?

 

[Pinotage]

Exactly, should a warlike race of Fey automatically have 1/2 BAB and a crap Fort save just by virtue of being "Fey"?

I don't know. There are ways around this. Warlike fey are presumed to be skilled with weapons and armor, so they'll likely be warriors with more hp and better BAB. The base race is still the same.

Take standard humans and compare them to Genghis Khan's warriors or the Huns. Are they a different human race? No, they just have different training. I though the types was just fine, barring some bad calling on which type certain creatures should be, and any change in your concept of a 'race' could be changed easily via the class and ability score systems.

Pinotage