Monsters are more than their stats

[ShockMeSane]

I am so incredibly tired of absolutist statements like "Flavourful setting material is easy, balanced mechanics are the hard part the game should give you!" and "Rules for combat and whatnot are pretty simple to hammer out, it's the creative worldbuilding and plotting that I need from my books!"

Both sides need to pull their heads out of the sand and realise that neither position is true for all gamers.. Moreover, neither position represents a majority. You simply cannot make an argument about how Wizards of the Coast should be designing the game based on either idea, because it's just reflective of your biases and desires - not the market's.

While I agree that an all or nothing approach is inappropriate, simply based on past editions of D&D, I have to disagree that one faction isn't in the majority.

It is far, far harder to create balanced combat encounters than it is to create your own fluff. Largely because fluff can be in the hands of the DM, who is allegedly a creative person based on job description, whereas combat mechanics pretty much require a statistician, which is not a job description implied in the requirements of playing D&D. Sure, you can fudge the rolls when you don't want a TPK, but with insufficient combat mechanics and a balanced encounter creation-mechanism, you will be doing this far more than is enjoyable, for either the DM or the players. Trust me, I've had to save my PC's from bad CR balancing roughly.... infinitely more times than I've had to save them from not having the Succubus' long-term dominate spelled out in the statblocks. Or whatever. And trust me, the players know when you've fudged the rolls to save them, and it makes everyone feel like a cheap streetwalker.

 

[Ds Da Man]

3E was a rules-lawyer dream. I haven't played 3e for awhile now because it always leads to arguements on AoOs, or reach, or defensive casting, or monsters special abilities. I'm glad it's going away (although the D20 system is awesome). Now I may not like all the changes in 4E, but at least it looks like most the characters will have fun starting at 1st level. The wizard sucked so bad at 1st, noone wanted to play one, so we started them at 3rd.

 

[Zweischneid]

But still, I am a little hard-pressed to believe that if the DM doesn't make up an on-the-fly rule for how a Succubus' long term domination works (when none exist in the stat block), less creative players will collapse in an effort to solve it. I say this with absolutely no offense intended, but if your players MUST look at MM entries before they fight any given monster to make sure they know how to deal with its abilities, haven't you lost about 80% of the magic of D&D already?

Well, I too have been blessed to have players and DM around from time to time with similar descriptive skills and I, in all probablity, will play 4e in either case. But knowing these people, I also know that evocing engaging stories is a tough skill that doesn't come naturally to everyone. For a game explicitly strifing to lower entry barriers to good gameplay I see it as rather inexplicable lacuna that it doesn't provide for these people.

I've similarly played with people who most definitly do not need help on how to play a figher or wizard effectively. And I've played with DMs who most definitly do not need help on how to create a challenging encounter or deciding what magic items are appropriate. Still, 4e provides for these incase you do need some pointers.

However, as creating 'fluff' is, at minimum, a skill that needs to be learned, and (judging from my convention experience) not the easiest for people out there to get right, it should be addressed somewhere.

If you have players/DMs who have difficulties in thinking tactically, 4e will cover you with PC-roles and Monters tactics.

If you have players/DMs who have difficulties gauging challenges and appropriatness of magic items, 4e will cover you with a very throughout system of level-based comparisons, which has been extensively play-tested.

If you have players/DMs who have difficulties creating engaging and evocative fluff, 4e suddenly leaves you out in the cold.

Neither of these above is likely needed for the 'experienced' or 'gifted' out there. They should all be part of 4e's effort of actively trying to be easily playable.






That said, you're succubus example quoted above puzzles me abit. If players struggle with breaking a domination and than, all of a sudden it lapses because the rules (or DM fiat) stipulates it must, won't the players feel even more cheated of their supposed protagonistic role in the adventure - if it expires whether the players act or not, why would the "Heroes" be needed in the first place?

If innovative input comes from the players (or the DM him/herself has a creative moment) putting forward a possiblity that is not covered in the MM (i.e. find the Mirror of Pelor, etc.), than the game (DM) should most certainly play along and make this idea a possible solution to the encounter, even if this wasn't to original intend.

What I expect from an 'easy-to-learn-RPG' however are story-hooks and/or descriptive options to come with each monster (class ability, spell, etc..) as a gaming-help, that allow players/DMs to cover the times when that elusive creative spark just refuses to appear for one reason or another.

 

[joela]

What?

In 4e, if the DM wants to have a succubus have the king under her control and rule the kingdom through proxy, the DM can do so, without needing the monster's statblock in the Monster Manual to back up that decision.

From what I can see of 4e, this is a huge shift from earlier thinking of D&D (especially 3e), where every little ability of a monster would have to be listed or it didn't exist. The primary purpose of the 4e rules and monster descriptions is to resolve challenges (primarily combats) with the PCs. What happens with NPCs offscreen is entirely up to the DM.

Huh? All DMs have had that ability with any rpg, not just DnD. I did it in AD&D 1st edition with dragon-led kingdoms to a 3.5 chain devil animating its chains as though it was golem to vargouilles with breath weapons. And if some damned rules lawyer pointed out it couldn't happen, I just tell them to take a standard action to make a Knowledge to find out why the creature was unique. Course, this was in combat.

Thus I don't see how 4e is a so-called "huge shift" from 3.x or any incarnation of D&D.

 

[jasin]

What do you think?

I think the succubus' kiss is still flawed. Even if it's supposed to model just her combat abilities rather than the whole of her charming potential, it's an awfully strange compulsion that makes you protect her with your life if you're 5 ft. away, but not care about her particularly if you're 10 ft. away.

I also seem to remember that one of the stated goals of 4E was to make the game work better with a merely average DM. Expecting the DM to go that much outside the monster's description doesn't seem compatible. Of course, 3E's approach has it's flaws: if everything of importance is explicitly mentioned, if something isn't explicitly mentioned, it can't be done. But 4E seems to, at best, exchange one set of pitfalls for another.

 

[jasin]

I was personally miserable having to fumble through every rule attached to the mid-level monsters (We just didn't have it in us to get to the higher levels of 3e) trying to come up with unique ways to use the monsters abilities that were hard coded. Now I have flexibility. If I want to slap a certain unique 'power' onto a creature as a plot twist, I'm free to do so within certain boundaries without having to waste copious amounts of time combing through hundreds of monsters to find the 'right one'

If you're comfortable modifying monsters like that, what was stopping you from doing this in 3E?

Expectations/zeitgeist is certainly a valid answer, but I can't see much beyond that.

 

[jasin]

And while all of that is totally valid, it is equally valid to say that beyond the combat stats we have for the Succubus, she has access to a long term form of domination. Whether it requires sexual congress, a 5 minute spell (while your kissed thrall watches on gleefully)

... or runs for the witch hunters, as the case may be, which is why I think the ability is weird.

 

[MerricB]

A note:

Where the succubus's "Seduce Mortal" 'power' may previously have come under basic creature/encounter rule mechanics, my impression is that in 4e that the handling of it is now moved into the field of Adventure Design.

Consider any epic adventure (Age of Worms comes to mind), and you'll find any number of invented elements that aren't strictly by the rulebooks. Why does Kyuss get weaker when you get various items/slay servants/destroy artifacts? Because it's part of the adventure as designed by the DM/author.

This is no different to a succubus seducing a king.

4e merely recognises that certain elements need to be left open for the DM to determine himself within the structure of the adventure; I hope that the DMG will have enough suggested "hoops" for adventure creation.

 

[ShockMeSane]

Well, I too have been blessed to have players and DM around from time to time with similar descriptive skills and I, in all probablity, will play 4e in either case. But knowing these people, I also know that evocing engaging stories is a tough skill that doesn't come naturally to everyone. For a game explicitly strifing to lower entry barriers to good gameplay I see it as rather inexplicable lacuna that it doesn't provide for these people.

If you have players/DMs who have difficulties in thinking tactically, 4e will cover you with PC-roles and Monters tactics.

If you have players/DMs who have difficulties gauging challenges and appropriatness of magic items, 4e will cover you with a very throughout system of level-based comparisons, which has been extensively play-tested.

If you have players/DMs who have difficulties creating engaging and evocative fluff, 4e suddenly leaves you out in the cold.

Neither of these above is likely needed for the 'experienced' or 'gifted' out there, but as 4e is actively trying to be easily playable, and creating 'fluff' is, at minimum, a skill that needs to be learned, and (judging from my convention experience) not the easiest for people out there to get right.




That said, you're succubus example quoted above puzzles me abit. If players struggle with breaking a domination and than, all of a sudden it lapses because the rules (or DM fiat) stipulates it must, won't the players feel even more cheated of their supposed protagonistic role in the adventure - if it expires whether the players act or not, why would the "Heroes" be needed in the first place?

If innovative input comes from the players (or the DM him/herself has a creative moment) putting forward a possiblity that is not covered in the MM (i.e. find the Mirror of Pelor, etc.), than the game (DM) should most certainly play along and make this idea a possible solution to the encounter, even if this wasn't to original intend.

What I expect from an 'easy-to-learn-RPG' however are story-hooks and/or descriptive options to come with each monster (class ability, spell, etc..) as a gaming-help, that allow players/DMs to cover the times when that elusive creative spark just refuses to appear for one reason or another.

Honestly I think we are really close to being on the same page. I love things like story hooks and descriptive options! The more the merrier, because they evoke imagination. What I don't need to know is that a Succubus has a long-term Domination Ritual that requires 3 drops of blood and a piece of the victims hair and a 3 hour ritual which allows a +14 vs Will check every 1d4+2 days (wild example with no basis in fact, but you cannot deny 3.x was riddled with that kind of info) to break free. My complaint was that the DM could easily play it as written, perhaps the Succubus can simply kiss their victim once per day to keep them under a mild charm, and use their seductive properties and ability to become whatever is most attractive to their victim to keep him in their sway. However, if you want YOUR succubus to have a long-term domination effect, whatever it may be with whatever counters you think appropriate as a DM, this is a really easy thing to do, and I feel I've given plenty of examples without putting much thought forward about how to do it.

That being said, I want to clarify that I am the first DM to the front-line when a player comes up with a cool solution to any problem that I hadn't predicted. Some of my best games ever have happened because of stuff like that!

I guess ultimately all I'm saying is that we only saw the stat-block for the Succubus (or whatever monster). If there is no flavor text whatsoever for creatures in 4ED, I will be right up in arms with ya. The main thing I need from the MM is combat stats, but very close behind in importance are the flavor text blocks. Because you are right, if I was a new DM, who had never played D&D and all I had to create encounters with were the tiny statblocks we have seen, I might be a bit overwhelmed at how to develop a demon with a charming kiss and short-term dominate ability into a heroic-tier endvillain.

Even leaving the whole creative-spark out of it, there are plenty of monsters even the most creative DM might want to use in prior editions of D&D just because they are so darn cool!

 

[Zweischneid]

Honestly I think we are really close to being on the same page. I love things like story hooks and descriptive options! The more the merrier, because they evoke imagination. What I don't need to know is that a Succubus has a long-term Domination Ritual that requires 3 drops of blood and a piece of the victims hair and a 3 hour ritual which allows a +14 vs Will check every 1d4+2 days (wild example with no basis in fact, but you cannot deny 3.x was riddled with that kind of info) to break free.

I'll sign that any day.. not saying 3.x did it well. Just that 4e has (from what I've seen) yet to provide a viable alternative other than "alright, we've just dropped it entirely". Providing a "combat-only-board-game" without the hooks would (IMO) be even worse than the over-crunched attempts at storybuilding of 3.x.