Monsters are more than their stats

[bramadan]

*sigh*

No, it's not.

And the reason is right in the thread title.

Monsters ARE more than their stats.

That's why I need more than stats in my manual for monsters.

And, I'm pretty sure that at least most of the time, the 4e MM is going to give that to us. We've had hints of hobgoblins that engineer beasts, we have copius amounts of information on fire archons and formorians, we have hints that gnomes are getting a lair...

That's WAY more than stats.

Because the 4e designers, unlike, apparently, some of 4e's most rabid supporters, truly and really know that monsters are more than their stats.

Or would you like to pretend like you know what I need at a gaming table some more?

Noone is arguing that the MM should be simple collection of combat stats and nothing else.

Succubus entry should let us know that it is a shape-changer, that it often appears in a form of a beautiful woman and that it uses guile and seduction as its forte in getting people to do what it wants. It can also tell us that it is a Devil and that therefore all sorts of general info listed under "Devil" applies.
Details of how it does it do what it does, various plots and ploys and their mechanical implications they are the part that can be stretched out indefinitely and is thus best relegated to the adventures. Giving us exact mechanics of succubus seduction would be about as useful as giving us exact demographics of an average Gnoll village. Much too detailed for a core book and quite possibly constraining for some DMs.

I am not pretending to know what you need/want at your gaming table. I am trying to say what I believe you can reasonably expect.

 

[Eldorian]

(preferably more diverse that "it kills because it likes to kill!")

That's the motivation of some of the scariest monsters in literature/media. And some fan favorite monsters, like the bullete.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I am not pretending to know what you need/want at your gaming table. I am trying to say what I believe you can reasonably expect.

Well, specifically, I was responding to Mourn, who told me that a statblock was a ready-to-play monster, after I just said that it wasn't.

"This isn't an argument! This is just contradiction!"

I think I can reasonably expect 4e to deliver on the "Easier, Faster, Better" angle it's promised.

Part of that is including information beyond a stat block in the monster entry.

Things like lairs, like other encounter buddies, like motives, like plots, like skill checks I can expect to make, like rituals it might use, like templated creatures I might consider...

Noone is arguing that the MM should be simple collection of combat stats and nothing else.

Actually....

The MM is a collection of ready-to-run-in-an-encounter monsters. A monster with a statblock is ready to run in a monster.

I guess that's not so much arguing as assuming?

Succubus entry should let us know that it is a shape-changer, that it often appears in a form of a beautiful woman and that it uses guile and seduction as its forte in getting people to do what it wants. It can also tell us that it is a Devil and that therefore all sorts of general info listed under "Devil" applies.
Details of how it does it do what it does, various plots and ploys and their mechanical implications they are the part that can be stretched out indefinitely and is thus best relegated to the adventures. Giving us exact mechanics of succubus seduction would be about as useful as giving us exact demographics of an average Gnoll village. Much too detailed for a core book and quite possibly constraining for some DMs.

Actually, the same is true of, say, a combat -- the variables and implications can be stretched out indefinately. But they give us quick, succinct rules for summarizing and emulating fantasy combat.

I don't really think that summarizing and emulating the motives to get to combat (for instance), or the allies it has in combat, or place it conducts combat, is really too much to ask from the game.

I mean, again, take a look at MM5. Or, heck, even the original MM! Compare the salient differences in fluff between the 3e bodak and the 4e bodak as we know it now, and that will pretty much tell you what I need vs. what I'm most afraid we'll get.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That's the motivation of some of the scariest monsters in literature/media. And some fan favorite monsters, like the bullete.

I did say "diverse."

Killing for the sake of killing can be good in moderation, with the right kind of monster. Bestial things that don't have much more complexity, or things that feed off of death, or something like that.

But if that's 95% of the motivations for the monsters (the other 5% being represented by the devils wanting to tempt mortals), I really don't need it 190 times in the same book.

Killing for the sake of killing might be fine for the bullette. But, take the beholder -- it kills out of xenophobic paranoia! Or the mind flayer -- it kills out of a need to feed on your brain. Or the bodak....wait, what's the bodak's reason d'arte in 4e? Oh yeah....

 

[bramadan]

I do believe the new, non-mythological monsters it DOESN'T do this for -- perhaps critters like the phane -- will end up being the "ythraks of 4e," creatures that are out there, but that nobody really uses, because their main reaction is "WTF?"

A statblock is not a complete monster. Allies, motives (preferably more diverse that "it kills because it likes to kill!"), lairs, setting information (even if you ignore it, it's good to steal), unusual ideas the monster holds, this doesn't always take up much space (3-4 sentences can convey it if you're efficient and you don't want to go any farther), but it makes it so that as the players are meeting each other in town, I can flip through the MM to a random creature of an appropriate level and have a night of gaming laid out in front of me.

...

But I don't see why I should have to turn to the DMG and my own devices to run a succubus out of the MM when 4e is supposed to be easier to run with less cross-referencing.

I want the designers to give me a game, not to give me bits and pieces I need to kit-bash together into a game in my spare time.

I don't have spare time.

I agree with you entirely that vacuum monsters with no lore or mythology behind them are idiotic (Attach and Yrthak and Digester and their kin were among the reasons I found 3ed rather unappealing).

My point is, Succubus is not such a monster. Pretty demon-girl seductress is as plastic a concept as I can think of. It is hard to imagine what the MM can say in terms of description that does not come to mind immediately when they say "seductive, shape changing Devil-girl". On top of it, fiction and mythology are choke-full of this archetype.

Phane sucks, I agree with you 100% it would probably still suck even if it had 40 lines instead of 4. Succubus on the other hand is awesome and will not be a Yrthak of any edition.

What I do not find useful is MM to contain *mechanical* rules for handling anything to do with Succubus. Frankly I do not think that DM guide will have any specific Succubus rules. DM may have rules on seduction which succubus may use but so may your local tavern wench (though on a different level of course). Reprinting those (assuming they exist) with every monster which can interact socially with humans would be colossal waste of space. DM may not even have seduction rules, it may just have diplomacy rules from which I am able to extrapolate seduction rules and apply them to succubi. Reprinting those and the extrapolation ideas with every humanoid monster would be even more insane.

Orcs bully villagers into paying tribute - quick what are the Orc Bullying rules
Dragons are greedy - hand me those Bribe Dragon rules
Gnomes like riddles - here is MM Gnome-Riddle supplement...

If you really have no time and want a complete game that covers all its bases straight out of box I do not see how you can expect to get that out of a RPG, particularly out of the base books. Something like FFFs Descent seems much closer to what you seem to be looking for.

PS: Putting a sample Goblin lair is not a horrible idea - but if I wanted to use MM as raw source of adventures in this way then MM would have about a dozen monsters on the outside and would be "spent" within two months of purchasing it.

What you ask for is great in the ideal world but not feasible within the constraints of three publishable books.

 

[bramadan]

Also, without wanting to be snarky...

DMing is a hobby, it requires some spare time. Even with maximum external support.

 

[Voadam]

. . .

What I do not find useful is MM to contain *mechanical* rules for handling anything to do with Succubus. Frankly I do not think that DM guide will have any specific Succubus rules. DM may have rules on seduction which succubus may use but so may your local tavern wench (though on a different level of course). Reprinting those (assuming they exist) with every monster which can interact socially with humans would be colossal waste of space. DM may not even have seduction rules, it may just have diplomacy rules from which I am able to extrapolate seduction rules and apply them to succubi. Reprinting those and the extrapolation ideas with every humanoid monster would be even more insane.

With the Succubus archetype I expect encounters where it has charmed something and the PCs want to oppose that influence.

In 3e I want to know if it can charm with a spell like ability, whether it is a charm or a dominate, what the caster level is if a PC tries to dispel it, does it require break enchantment to dispel, does it require wish or miracle to dispel it, can it do these charms in combat, does it instead rely upon outrageous social skill scores to manipulate people, or does it use some unique other type of mechanic that the PCs will be interacting with?

If these are defined ahead of time I can use the succubus out of the box in my encounters. If I don't like how something works I can house rule it to be different if I want but if it is not predefined then I have to spend the time myself figuring these things out before the PCs do interact with the charm or make rulings on the fly.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Phane sucks, I agree with you 100% it would probably still suck even if it had 40 lines instead of 4. Succubus on the other hand is awesome and will not be a Yrthak of any edition.

The thing is that the time spent giving the phane something to do in the first place could be spent giving the succubus something FRESH to do.

Anyone who's vaguely familiar with fantasy tropes will be able to connect the dots for a succubus-tempting-the-king kind of plot. It's archetypal to the point of cliche. The succubus MM entry can nod at that in one sentence, and spend the rest of the entry describing one possible twist on the scenario (perhaps she's an intellectual succubus who is completely chaste but who warps people's minds by having their darkest desires embodied -- she doesn't promise them pleasures of the flesh, but pleasures of the mind!).

And in the space that they describe that, when it comes to the phane, they describe how it travels back in time to kill the PC's as babies (or whatever).

I do have enough confidence in the designers that they can give some pretty good coolness to any monster that they BOTHER to give coolness to. And in the case of monsters, I'm perfectly happy with ONLY the ones they give coolness to.

And this includes (but isn't limited to) out of combat coolness.

It's kind of a shame that we haven't seen or the phane didn't get any plot-love, because it doesn't HAVE to be the ythrak of 4e, and D&D can absolutely go beyond the mythic creatures with pre-packaged archetypal plots (the githzerai/githyanki/mindflayer triumvirate is pretty good, even the Shadar-kai aren't too bad in that respect).

But if what we saw is what we'll get on the phane, then that page is a bigger waste of space now than it ever could be if it were replaced with a goblin lair.

Reprinting those and the extrapolation ideas with every humanoid monster would be even more insane.

But something like: "The phanes know a ritual that allows them to travel exactly 20 years back in time. (print the four lines of the ritual) They often find themselves searching for treasure through lackeys and minions (such as creature X) to finance these rituals, in order to take out prominent champions of both good and evil gods retroactively, when they were children."

That's a solid adventure in 10 lines -- I have allied creatures, I have a motive, I have a target (some NPC cleric or paladin perhaps), I may even have a twist (the PC's have to save an evil priest from the phane in order to assure that the good he did while younger still remains in effect), or whatever. I even have a reward, of sorts -- if the PC's discover the ritual, they can go back in time and fix something that happened 20 years ago (which may itself lead to more adventures!).

It doesn't need to be exhaustively extensive, any more than every sword wound is exhaustively extensive, but there needs to be something, because, as always, Make Stuff Up sucks as a rule.

DMing is a hobby, it requires some spare time. Even with maximum external support.

This is kind of a bigger question, but I think that 4e wants to make it take as little spare time as possible, and if it can eliminate it all together, it will be a good thing.

As it is I can run 3e without any preparation time. If I just use the core books, it means fighting a lot of monsters and not a lot of NPC's, and ignoring the "filler" like the phantom fungus, but I can absolutely do it. That's the way I prefer to run games, and part of the reason I can do that is because, for instance, blink dogs and displacer beasts have an inherent rivalry written into the fluff in a single sentence, or because bodaks still retain some of their memories of their past lives, or whatever.

But if 4e removes that fluff (as it has apparently done for the bodak), it'll suck just that little bit more for those people who COULD run the critter fresh out of the box, but are left going "Meh. Sounds dumb." Just because it lacked a few key sentences about motives and, perhaps, a few key mechanics for how it does what it does when it's not beating up PC's.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

With the Succubus archetype I expect encounters where it has charmed something and the PCs want to oppose that influence.

In 3e I want to know if it can charm with a spell like ability, whether it is a charm or a dominate, what the caster level is if a PC tries to dispel it, does it require break enchantment to dispel, does it require wish or miracle to dispel it, can it do these charms in combat, does it instead rely upon outrageous social skill scores to manipulate people, or does it use some unique other type of mechanic that the PCs will be interacting with?

If these are defined ahead of time I can use the succubus out of the box in my encounters. If I don't like how something works I can house rule it to be different if I want but if it is not predefined then I have to spend the time myself figuring these things out before the PCs do interact with the charm or make rulings on the fly.

Theoretical solution:
The DMG tells you to run a level 9 (=Succubus level) Skill Challenge (Social).
For in-combat questions, just look the stat-block. Does it have a Charm power? (Yes). How does it work (Read). Use it.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Here is my answer to The Succubus Question (that being, why aren't the details for the Succubus seducing the king in the Succubus entry?):

The Succubus isn't the only creature that can seduce another creature, either on stage or off. As noted by bramadan, if you put the seduction rules (although I'm happy that this falls under a Skill challenge if against a PC, and it doesn't need rules at all if it's between two NPC's) under the Succubus, then you'd logically need to do the same for every other entry in the MM.

Being as Seduction is independent of Succubus, the rules don't need to be there. Same goes for, say, Tunnelling. Not only Dwarves tunnel, therefore tunnelling rules can go elsewhere.

There are three ways a Succubus can seduce a King:

1) Entirely off-screen. The success or failure of the Succubus is down to the DM, based on what sort of plot he is setting up that the PC's may or may not get involved in.

2) Entirely on-screen. This sounds like an excellent opportunity for a skill challenge, as the Succubus uses sweet words and it's charm powers to seduce the king whilst the PC's battle against it using whatever they can.

3) On-screen, but hand-waved so the PC's can't interfere. I would be very annoyed if a DM pulled this on me, but it's possible.

I can appreciate that the MM entry could do with some information on what sort of seduction the Succubus might try, but as for rules, it seems to already be covered.

You can substitute another monster with another ability as needed (eg Dragon / Lair Building instead of Succubus / Seduction).