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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Alphastream" data-source="post: 6119636" data-attributes="member: 11365">But Li, is that just having monstrous races? A dwarf is a monster, but we have the rules to play a dwarf cleric. In 4E we have hobgoblin as a playable race. That is very different than addressing a DM who is dreaming up a wizard who was mummified and is protected by four fallen fighters, who have become shadows. In 4E we can take a mummy and shadows and add themes, or we could take mummy/shadow powers/traits and add them to another spellcaster/fighter monster, reskinning as needed. This is pretty easy and quick, but is certainly not going to create something that feels like a PC class that happens to be a monster. In 3E we would give appropriate class levels to the creatures, which is far more accurate from the perspective of common rules regulating the world, but far more laborious. Each approach will please different fans. Is there a better way?In D&D Next, we seem to be straddling the fence. Some monsters have what are basically spells, but turned into powers. Others have actual spell lists. None of it is a system where we can easily level up or down or move powers across, and there are no rules for that. Bounded accuracy seems to actually say we shouldn't do that, though we can imagine we need some different levels of things like 'enemy caster' to be suitable challenges. It's a bit of a non-system right now. I would guess that the current Next monsters could very easily do away with spell lists and just embrace powers. That would give us some simplicity. With some XP/level guidelines, powers could have a tier. That would allow us to swap powers of a same tier around, letting us resking. The hobgoblin leader can then swap in a power or two from a human wizard to be a hobgoblin wizard. A Module might allow the use of spell lists as an option, plus give us rules for creating NPC monsters with class levels. It might resemble 3E, but it could also be a package of iconic capabilities. Wizard could be captured, for example, with just a few spells as part of a package, worth x XP and bumping up a monster by y levels. The package could be customizable, perhaps explaining how to quickly change a spell into a monster power. Shouldn't be hard for fireball and magic missile (use the actual range and damage for final monster level). For a spell with adjudication, there might be guidance on how to streamline that. Not sure how well a system like that pleases others. The devil is always in the details, so I don't mean to make this sound simple (it isn't).</blockquote>

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