New Podcast Posted!

[Rechan]

One thing I caught. When discussing trying to make more monsters work together: "Rather than, y'know... Drow don't like working with other fey."

Notice: OTHER FEY.

Does this mean that Drow are fey? Or elves are fey?*

*Yes, I know that elves have a connection to fey, but I've seen many people make the statement that elves are humanoid (fey), not fey.

 

[BASHMAN]

Nope. Wyatt explained that what they're doing is that they want to drive home the point that the MM1 isn't "The Core MM"; if the MM1 doesn't have Frost Giants, that doesn't mean "You don't have frost giants in your game". All MMs are Core.

MY COMMENTS:

So I suspect that various critters are going to be spread out., making each book legitimate, rather than MM1 = Core, MM2-5 = not important to your game, but a nice suggestion. Which probably also means "If you want X in your game, you'll have to Wait for it and then buy MM12 so you can have medusa" (I pulled that out of my butt).

It looks like they are taking a que from Hackmaster, which had the monsters so split up you couldn't even have a complete campaign with only one of the books. They should change the name to 4th Edition: The Quest for More Money.

 

[Rechan]

It looks like they are taking a que from Hackmaster, which had the monsters so split up you couldn't even have a complete campaign with only one of the books. They should change the name to 4th Edition: The Quest for More Money.

Honestly, I'm not very broken up about this.

I think the last time I used an iconic D&D monster was 2001 when I used carrion crawlers. This week I plan to use some modified owlbear stats (which will look like a yaun-ti abomination, because the abomination is too powerful for what I need).

The only thing I'm really hoping to see in the MM1 is the kobold.

 

[Lackhand]

... Because in 3rd edition, they only ever published one monster book.

Look, it seems like they're trying to be more strongly themed with their books for this edition. I kind of like the idea of giving iconic monsters to the interesting rules subsystems: the Blazewyrm in Dragon Magic is a CR 3 elemental [fire] that is strictly superior in every way to the CR 3 fire elemental in the core.

That's just sad.

Fighting a frost giant is like fighting a fire giant, but he's differently colored.

Might I suggest that you run it the same way -- possibly with a 4 point strength, natural armor, and constitution difference, if you feel the need?

 

[MerricB]

It looks like they are taking a que from Hackmaster, which had the monsters so split up you couldn't even have a complete campaign with only one of the books. They should change the name to 4th Edition: The Quest for More Money.

No, Hackmaster was much worse. You'd get a book that had all the monsters from A to B.

 

[Glyfair]

If they spread their classic material throughout all the books, Thats going to really cheese me off. I don't want to feel like every time i'm buying a book, its only for a few things with a ton of extra junk, Like I do when i buy miniatures once an a while.

One thing to remember is that, from various comments in blogs and playtest reports, you'll be able to put together a monster pretty fast with the tables of "expected values." It sounds like the most difficult part will be doing "powers" on the fly.

I imagine if you have the stats for a hill giant it will be very easy to quickly throw together the stats for a frost giant.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Speculation: The Mindflayer won't come out until the Psionic rules are out.

I hope that's the case. "Psionics (Sp): [Some spells]" pretty much amounts to shenanigans made manifest. I'm all in favor of being willing to reduce, reuse, and recycle mechanics, but if you're going to involve both psionic creatures and rules for psionics in a game, the two had better play off of each other. The current system is akin to using a Tumble check to handle your long jump distances -- it'd work just swell in the absence of a system devoted exactly to what you're doing, but that absence does not exist.

 

[Irda Ranger]

One thing I caught. When discussing trying to make more monsters work together: "Rather than, y'know... Drow don't like working with other fey."

Notice: OTHER FEY.

Does this mean that Drow are fey? Or elves are fey?*

*Yes, I know that elves have a connection to fey, but I've seen many people make the statement that elves are humanoid (fey), not fey.

I caught that too. I think they are fey, yes, "as similar to elves as elves are to eladrin."

There's a lot of dark fey in this edition, given the example where the PC's are fighting a Dryad and her treants minions. Feywild indeed.

On the Giants issue, I actually find that problematic, on two levels. One was the reasoning given. It sounded from the podcast like they're deliberately witholding classic monsters from the MM so they can sell more books in the future. I know that sounds cynical, but that's really how it sounded to me. Two, I have long considered the test of "Is it D&D?" to be: can I play the classic adventures? Can I take some 4e PC's and monsters and situate them in a classic adventure and "just run" the module? If I can't, the game has strayed too far from its roots. It may be a good game, but it's not D&D.

So, I ask you, can you play Against the Giants in 4e?

Because if you can't, I kind of curious what game it is you're playing ....


Some other notes:

- "Briar Witches." Are they new? I don't have all the MMs ...

- Monsters have a two-axis grid of 2x3, for a total of six monsters types. One axis is BBEG-Horde. Gnolls fight in packs, so I guess they're horde. I'm guessing Giants are BBEG. The second axis is Brute/Soldier -- Skirmisher -- Artillery. So, each monster is a BBEG/Skirmisher or a Horde/Brute. etc.

That section sounded like it's still in flux though.

- Also, within the above categories you also have "regulars" and "elites." An elite is still a 12th level monster (not the equivalent of a higher CR), but is worth two regulars in a fight. No idea how that's supposed to work. A Death Knight is a 12th level elite Soldier/BBEG.

- Tactical Activation. When the PC's use a tactic, the monsters may get an immediate counter-tactic. Dragons can tail slap as an immediate action if someone flanks like. Like a special-purpose AOO?

- "Exceptions Based Design." That phrase got use a lot. Basically it's just a fancy way of saying monster "just do what they do." There's no over-arching Feat system that works the same way for every monster (so you don't have 1/3rd of all monsters with the Improved Grab feat) or a unified "change size" mechanic. Each monster just works the way it works; period. Much more free-form and with lots of room for creativity in the design process, and makes for less predictable encounters. Higher learning curve for the DM though. Hopefully the simpler stat blocks will more than soften the blow.

- "Attack + Zone." This is the second time I have heard this. A Warlock PC used the Mire of Minoas to do an acid attack and then create a pool of acid that shaped the battlefield. Now we have a monster (which didn't make the MM1 cut) that would throw a cold attack that would leave an ice patch which effected movement. I expect to see more things like this, where there's an immediate effect and an ongoing effect.

 

[Rechan]

Yes, briarwitch new. I'm suspecting it's something like an advanced dryad.

 

[jasin]

Nope. Wyatt explained that what they're doing is that they want to drive home the point that the MM1 isn't "The Core MM"; if the MM1 doesn't have Frost Giants, that doesn't mean "You don't have frost giants in your game". All MMs are Core.

MY COMMENTS:

So I suspect that various critters are going to be spread out., making each book legitimate, rather than MM1 = Core, MM2-5 = not important to your game, but a nice suggestion. Which probably also means "If you want X in your game, you'll have to Wait for it and then buy MM12 so you can have medusa" (I pulled that out of my butt).

That sounds like a reasonable asesessment... and I find it worrying.

I don't mind the basic concept of "all MMs are equally core" or waiting for the frost giant until MMx. But I'd hate to see 4E MM1 padded out with crappy, silly monsters the likes of which can be often found in 3E MM2+, just so they don't have to put the frost giant in, just so they can lend legitimacy to 4E MM2 by putting him there.