Monsters Easier for DM's?

[kmdietri]

I'll admit I haven't listened to the podcast yet.

But, it seems counter intuitive that giving monsters a bunch of conditional abilities (the dragons tailslap thingy, something hinted about a flanked Death Knight) makes them easier for DM's to run.

Seems to me just like more stuff for the DM to remember, especially if it's true that encounters will have more monsters.

Unless they are simply taking some monster abilities and making them 'gag-reflexes' which seems to me to make combat easier but much less creative, from the DM/Monster's perspective.

Just some thoughts....

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'll admit I haven't listened to the podcast yet.

But, it seems counter intuitive that giving monsters a bunch of conditional abilities (the dragons tailslap thingy, something hinted about a flanked Death Knight) makes them easier for DM's to run.

Seems to me just like more stuff for the DM to remember, especially if it's true that encounters will have more monsters.

Unless they are simply taking some monster abilities and making them 'gag-reflexes' which seems to me to make combat easier but much less creative, from the DM/Monster's perspective.

Just some thoughts....

Consider that there will probably be a finite number of conditions that set up these reactions. Then imagine that for each of these (seven, eight, ?) conditions, there is an icon. So something that happens when flanked has a little guy with a sword on either side of him. Or something that happens when at 1/2 HP has a little head with a bandage on it. Once you've learned these icons it'll be easy to tell, at a glance, what a monster's triggers are.

I think that there are probably plenty of other approaches that can make such a system easy to run, so long as the underlying mechanics are consistent, so that the DM has to remember less than 10 things, rather than essentially infinite numbers of things.

 

[howandwhy99]

kmdietri,

From listening to the Monsters podcast it sounds like every monster will be unique.

By unique I mean: unique abilities the PCs (and hopefully players) do not know nor have access to as characters. (not that these couldn't be made so later).

I believe this is another move in the effort to bring "sense of wonder", mystery, and just plain fun back into the D20 D&D game.

Also, expect Monsters to have far fewer powers individually so DMs can run these unique abilities quickly and easily. The stat-blocks shouldn't be ungainly and combat with never-before-seen-by-the-DM monsters should be able to happen with little to no prep.

I see this as mostly a good thing.

My initial critique was about high level monsters typically having vast and multiple special abilities to be better able to customize their strategies to the PCs weaknesses. This makes sense for things like Demon Lords and such. These multiple abilities will likely be lost.

The response back was (paraphrased): You can add all these extra abilities either through monster creation rules or by adding class levels to them (so adding class levels is in there).

This more than satisfies me. I guess the only thing that still kind of gnaws is the same as those wailing over the loss of "Core D&D Fluff":

IOW, "If you don't tell players and DM they can do these things, and the benefits of doing them, they won't."

 

[Wormwood]

I also like that they are minimizing spell-like abilities which require me to shuffle through the Player's Handbook when I'm running a monster.

Steamlining abilities and having every monster 'ready to run' right off the page? Oh yeah baby---this DM approves.

 

[MerricB]

Also, and this is really important, most monsters are unlikely to have lots of abilities. Three or four at most. It's not hard to remember a conditional ability when it's one of only two the monster has.

Have a look at some of the monsters in MMV for a preview.

Cheers!