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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5921199" data-attributes="member: 87792">To echo pmerton, I absolutely and emphatically run monsters straight out of the monster manual in 4e.  I run a sandboxy campaign - who the PCs choose to fight is up to the PCs not the DM.  And I've been known to prepare for where I thought they were going and have them head off twenty five miles in the opposite direction to somewhere I only had a rough outline of.  I don't have the time or inclination to prepare every monster in the campaign world or the wandering monster table on the offchance the PCs could meet them. As for all monsters in the monster manual being average, not in 4e they aren't.  The kobold writeup in Monster Vault has IIRC the Kobold Minions (semi-combatants who can wield slings), kobold quickblades (really nippy skirmishers who shank you harder the further they move in a turn), Kobold Dragonshields (Defenders of the Eggs), and Kobold Slingers (complete with slinging pots full of stuff).  And, I think a chieftain and dragon shaman.  These aren't average kobolds.  This is an organised force of kobolds of varying types - which tells me far more immediately how kobolds organise themselves than a single statblock - it certainly isn't wasted space.  For that matter it shows me about the social organisation what the 2e Monstrous Manual only tells me.  And certainly doesn't lead to average kobolds.  It instead leads to a force of kobolds with some elites wandering around.  And I prepare the NPCs.  I prepare their motivations, and pick their trained skills and rituals.  Their combat statblocks can come straight out of Monster Vault in 4e - this will not make them average. This is common to 4e DMs.  Because the 4e Monster Manual (and in particular the later ones like Monster Vault and Threats to Nentir Vale) are significantly more awesome than those in previous editions.  If the PCs are fighting monsters I didn't expect them to even meet for the next few months then two minutes is a time consuming process.  Social organisation, worldbuilding, plotting the session.  Then I'd agree with you.  I'd not consider the monster manual fit for purpose.  Fortunately I DM 4e - our monster manuals don't pull that rubbish.  What we get instead are the default ogres, cave-ogres (smaller and weaker ambushers who are on the edge of the tribe), ogre juggernauts (bigger and stronger ogres who use their brute force to crash through the enemy), ogre storm shamans, Arena-trained ogres, Ogre Ironclads (a.k.a. "Oh F**k!  That ogre's wearing plate armour!"), etc.  (These are actual examples of MM3 and MV ogres in 4e) This sounds like a hell of a lot of work to simply get to the equivalent of Monster Vault.  Even if I'm familiar with the monster manual, it helps make the game tactically engaging - I know we have to split that hobgoblin shield wall up for instance.  And four kobold quickblades and a clutch of minions darting through the middle of the party are going to be a completely different challenge from two kobold dragonshields trying to keep us off three really obnoxious kobold slingers.  This, of course, has nothing to do with more of the rulebooks coming in to play.  Just different parts. And to me it's like compaining that the restaraunt we are used to using is overrun with cockroaches and we're being redirected to the old grocery store that sold bland food at an extortionate markup to the point that eating at the restaraunt was actually cheaper.  Of course you wouldn't.  But there is a vast difference between the work a player needs to put in to his one and only character and a DM needs to put into every single NPC.  Most NPCs don't need tweaking for combat.  And when you roll up a PC you expect them to last months and be spotlighted.  Not maybe last half a session before going down under the PCs swords - or last a dozen or more sessions but only walk onto the stage to haggle with the PCs. 4e monster design philosophy IME, and in the experience of many other DMs, simply leaves 3.X or pathfinder monster design in the dust.  And what we're getting is a huge step backwards on current showing.</blockquote>

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