Rechan said:
Monsters shot in the head: Elementals only differentiated between Size and Element, Guardinals.
If they mean what this sounds like, then blarg. As I mentioned in the "What monsters deserve the axe" thread, there is really only one monster that needs to be shot in the (nonexisting) head, and that's the shrieker. If they hadn't already mentioned slaads, I'd be pretty concerned about the fate of the remaining partially-neutral outsider families (yugoloth, slaad, and whichever of modron, formian, or inevitable). I mean, I can understand the removal/reimagination of the scalable elementals (though ironically the scalability was one of the teasers for the 3.0 MM in the 3.0 PHB), but getting rid of the guardinals I don't understand especially in light of the reimagination of the devils and demons - the guardinals already have their "thing." Hopefully they reconsider the guardinals for MM 2+. If not.... well, I guess then I'll have to recreate them myself when I want to use them.
DaveMage said:
(And the expectation that you'll get the "standard" critters in the first volume.)
Dao and Marid, anyone? There have been similar instances in the past. That said, Frost Giants not being in yet doesn't faze me as much, perhaps because I'm hoping for at least one of the following things:
1 - there are good monster design guidelines in one of the first three books. This has been strongly hinted at, and frost giants can probably be very easily created from those, unlike more complex outsiders.
2 - The "All MMs are core" bit comes into play here. With the knowledge that psionics will enter the SRD and that psionics will be in a Players Handbook, hopefully all the books that are considered core will enter the SRD with little delay.
If either one happens, I'll be happy enough, though both would of couse be the ideal scenario.
Rechan said:
My suspicion is that they're designing the books so that if you walked into your FLGS for the first time, picked up the PHB2, MM3 and DMG4, you could run the game no different than if you had the PHB1, MM1 and DMG1.
I rather doubt that, honestly. People usually don't pick up a Part 2 of anything before picking up Part 1 (excluding prequels). Wizards may want to change how we look at the game, but I doubt they'll manage to change buying habits to that extreme. Not to mention that many people would be pissed off picking up the exactly same rules year and year again.
Rechan said:
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 thought it was pretty clear from the Elves article that Elves, Eladrin, and Drow are all feykin to a varying degree, the Eladrin and Drow more so than the Elves, and at different ends of the Seelie-Unseelie spectrum.