New Design & Development: Encounter Design

[Mouseferatu]

Dear lord, I sincerely hope that that manticore sketch is a kitsch throwback to 1st Ed. because it embarrasses me to look at it.

I think it's fine as a conceptual sketch, but I agree I wouldn't want to see it as the final image in the MM.

 

[Rechan]

How plausible will monster combinations be?

Some combinations make sense. Such as Grimlocks with a basilisk pet, or true were(insert) with a rust monster pet.

 

[blargney the second]

That's awesome. When I first started making warbands for DDM, it really made me wish that putting together encounters for D&D was as easy. I love, love, love the idea that you sub out a monster for a trap or hazard.
-blarg

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It makes sense for some intelligent opponents. But there are traditional monsters that pretty much are "loners". Or unintelligent monsters. While Smart Monster X may use carrion crawlers, if you encounter the carrion crawlers by themselves they're not going to have any friends with range wandering around with them.

I don't think they were suggesting that every monster has to be in a group, or has to be in a mixed group.

That said, if they came up with, say, "carrion larvae" that spit paralytic poison at range that served as the ranged attackers to group with carrion crawlers, I wouldn't object to expanding some classic monsters that way.

EDIT: WotC, the carrion larva is all yours in return for the write-up for gnomes-as-PCs available, one way or another, the day the 4E PHB hits shelves.

 

[helium3]

So far it all looks good on paper, but I want to make sure I understand what Mr. Mearls is saying. Correct me if I've got this wrong.

In 3E, designing an encounter was a matter of figuring out what the party's EL was and selecting a monster or collection of monsters that added up to a CR equal to that EL. If you did this correctly the party would find that 20% of their resources (however you define that) would be "used up" after the encounter.

Problems could occur when the party consisted of more the four players because it was difficult to eyeball whether or not an encounter still used 20% of resources. Also, sometimes when you tried to use larger groups of monsters of a lower CR, you inadvertently would create encounters with a higher CR because of unexpected synergies between the monsters.

In 4E, encounter generation is a matter of adding up the levels of all the party members and converting it into an XP value using a formula or chart. Then you select a number of monsters with different roles such that when you add up their XP values you get a number equal to first value determined.

Resource attrition is no longer an issue because a party that has expended all resources with a time constant greater than per encounter will still be able to handle an encounter generated with the above formula, barring extremely poor strategic choices and a series of disastrous rolls.

 

[Shadowslayer]

Check out SHADOWSLAYERS, my new fantasy novel from Port Town Publishing!

Hey...do I get a royalty for that or something?

 

[Zamkaizer]

I wish they'd chosen more evocative names for monster roles. I'm slowly assembling a personal lexicon of terms more appropriate than the one the designers use. I like 'brute,' but I think 'sneak' is better name than 'lurker,' and 'sniper' is much more catchy than 'ranged attacker.'

I know, "what's in a name?" But that doesn't excuse the warlord-caliber inappropriateness of names I've seen recently.

 

[FireLance]

How do you make sure all those monsters make sense together? Why would all these monsters travel or hole up in groups? For instance, wouldn't you more than likely have a camp of giants, rather than a giant (brute), a harpy (ranged attacker), and a choker (lurker)?

I think it will be possible for a single type of creature to have different stats depending on the role it is expected to play. For example, I can see giants having brute as well as ranged attacker stats, and maybe even lurker stats, for exceptional giants, or specific types of giants in appropriate terrain (stone giants in rocky areas, for example).

 

[Celebrim]

I think it will be possible for a single type of creature to have different stats depending on the role it is expected to play. For example, I can see giants having brute as well as ranged attacker stats, and maybe even lurker stats, for exceptional giants, or specific types of giants in appropriate terrain (stone giants in rocky areas, for example).

I think you have the idea. They are moving toward a system where the monster's appearance is mostly flavor.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wish they'd chosen more evocative names for monster roles. I'm slowly assembling a personal lexicon of terms more appropriate than the one the designers use. I like 'brute,' but I think 'sneak' is better name than 'lurker,' and 'sniper' is much more catchy than 'ranged attacker.'

Except "sniper" is a very specific sort of ranged attacker. A pillbox on Normandy Beach is a ranged attacker, but no one would mistake it for a sniper.

Otherwise, I concur.