Monster Types

[Jackelope King]

My ideal would keep the current creature types as broadly-defined monster "races". Then each individual monster would be akin to a (usually linear) talent tree that a monster would progress along in one of the roles defined in Dugeonscape (and apparently as part of 4e). Just apply a challenge adjustment for certain powerful abilities.

So your average Beholder would be about an 11th level Aberration Artillery with its eyestalks, antimagic eye, and flight all coming from the beholder talent tree.

An average minotaur could be a 6th level Monstrous Humanoid Brute with its powerful charge and natural cunning in the minotaur talent tree.

A Mindflayer might be an 8th level Aberration Mastermind with its Psionics, Improved Grab, and Extract as parts of the Mindflayer talent tree.

This is admittedly much more difficult than I'm making it out to be (as trying to gauge which abilities warrant the increased challenge adjustment), but I'd be happiest if I could easily get a new monster idea, pull out the Monster Manual, reference a monster type "base" template, and then just stick the monster in at a level in a given Role and be ready to go.

And then on top of these critters, apply appropriate subtype descriptors (Fire, Demon, Reptilian, etc.).

 

[Lackhand]

Aberrations aren't really a type, they're the random-and-wacky of what you get when there's no other type that applies. What exactly is the unifying link between a chaos beast and a beholder, especially when considering Ranger Favored Foe?

Outsiders also aren't really types. Just living from/hailing from an outer plane is enough to grant the Outsider type... except when it isn't. Contrast the achaierai, the fiendish tyrannosaurus, the inevitable, and the aasimar.
The Achaierai is a big, angry bird, representing the platonic ideal of, um, angry four legged birds?
The fiendish T Rex is summonable by Summon Monster (I think?) and thus represents some sort of platonic ideal of angry scaled lizard. It's a magical beast, despite being 1) extraplanar, 2) called, and 3) fiendish (it's in the name! : ) )
Inevitables are robots. Oops, they're outsiders.
Aasimar are the long-descendants of outsiders and humans. They're, um, outsiders native to the prime. Also, half-elves are considered elves, with nary a drop of human blood. That seems wrong; the fun of being a half-breed is being stuck between worlds, surely!

So, that's not really worth keeping. Definitely, things that come from Outside should be marked as such, but when one is on *their* plane, they're not really outsiders any more.

Angels/Devils/Demons/Inevitable/Slaad/whatever are good tags to keep around, but they don't need to imply Outsider, necessarily: They indicate precisely what they indicate (that a given thing is Angelic/Diabolic/Whatever), with no implication as to how that needs to interact with spells that care about where the beastie in question came from. How does one create a saint? Slap the Angelic template/descriptor on the cleric.

I want these tags to be at *exactly* the same level as "incorporeal", "humanoid", "fire", "good" (well, in 3.x), "reptilian", and so on.

Part of my reasoning is transformative templates. If _anything_ about the race determines anything uniquely, then transformative templates lose a lot of their fun.

The two can be combined: Abilities are grouped into talent trees, such as psionic, draconic (it *is* called dungeons and dragons...), angelic, and so on; some descriptors have, as their ability, granting the beastie access to that talent tree.

But honestly, I'm okay with using two separate sets of rules here, and not imposing the talent tree structure on monsters. I'm just exploring how these could tie together

 

[Doug McCrae]

Varying BAB advancement, hit die and skill points by type was pointless. It just forces* you to look up a table when you want to advance a monster.

4e has the right idea. Only two things matter - CR and role ie bruiser, sneak, archer, etc.


*Assuming you go by the rules, which the designers must assume you do.

 

[Doug McCrae]

3e used system of 14 (IIRC) creature types

1. Aberration
2. Animal
3. Construct
4. Dragon
5. Elemental
6. Fey
7. Giant
8. Humanoid
9. Magical beast
10. Monstrous humanoid
11. Ooze
12. Outsider
13. Plant
14. Undead
15. Vermin

 

[freyar]

I don't think those are replacements; I think they're additions.

That is, from what I've seen--and I'm just spitballing here, so I could be way off--I'm thinking that if you compare monsters to PCs, you get the following (rough) analogues:

PC..............Monster
Race...........Creature type
Class/role.....Role/purpose

So, while the monster's purpose may define most of its abilities and stats, its type still has a substantial impact in terms of both mechanics and flavor.

Again, though, just guessing here.

No idea what they're doing, and I didn't read through the whole thread, but I hope this is how they divide it. I've actually been reading through the MM2, FF, and MM3 after the 4e announcement, and this is what I think should happen. There's even a simple way to do it, in terms of a change from 3.X.

In 3.X (well, at least 3.5, don't remember 3.0), a monster type provides both features (HD, BAB, etc) and traits (immunities, etc). Subtypes can add traits but don't change features; if you add a template that changes type to a monster, you add all the traits of the new type but may or may not change features. What makes the most sense to me is basically what Ari is saying: shift the features to the monster role and keep the traits as part of the monster type.

 

[kmdietri]

Creature types was.... is one of my favourite things about 3.* edition. I hope they stay with maybe some small tweaks...

 

[Shroomy]

Given what we know of the 4e monster system, how many types do we actually need? We surely don't need the core 14. I would propose the following system for 4e:

1. Humanoid - I think we can safely combine the humanoid, monstrous humanoid, and giant sub-types since their main differentiation is the BAB.

2. Animal - includes 3.5 animal and vermin types - I really don't see the need for such a separation.

3. Construct (unchanged) - make the living construct type core since it now applies to more than warforged.

4. Magical Beast - I would include dragons, some outsiders, and some abberations in this category. This would no longer be resticted to animals with special powers.

5. Ooze (unchanged)

6. Plant (unchanged)

7. Undead (unchanged)

8. Outsider - this would now encompass today's outsiders and elementals, as well as many abberations. Immunities once reserved for elementals should be expressed as racial abilities.

Don't know what I would do with fey yet.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Don't know what I would do with fey yet.

Outsider~ they're the exemplars of the material plane just as the traditional ones are the exemplars of the outer planes.

 

[Shroomy]

Should Outsiders even be exemplars of anything or should they be any creature from another plane of existence? Should we have creatures of other types but with something akin to an extraplanar sub-type?

 

[Lackhand]

If "Outsider" means "Creature from another plane of existence" then it 1) tells us nothing and 2) is in the way.

If there is a limited list of core monster types, into which all monsters must fall, Outsider shouldn't appear on that list. The Extraplanar sub-type is far, far more helpful for what Outsider seems to mean.

I think you can join "animal" and "magical beast", too. After all, all that a magical beast does is give it more powers; the analogy is sort of like how all the Giant type does is make you bigger

That said, I'd like to have some way of communicating the "undifferentiated mass" of an elemental. You could probably fit elemental into construct, which isn't as crazy as it sounds: what's the difference, in a gross mechanical sense, between an earth elemental and a stone golem?

It sounds like what type is doing here is splitting up kingdoms: Animal (maybe more than one sort), Vegetable, Mineral, Oozes, and Undead.

I could get behind that. I don't really see the point, but I could get behind it