D&D 4E On the set of 4E: the Beholder

[FourthBear]

b) Doesn't this mean more record keeping and stat adjustments during combat? This sounds bad IMO.

Yes, but I believe the assumption is that solo monsters will be used, well, solo. So that while a solo monster like a dragon or beholder might be harder to run than a single standard monster, it will be equivalent to running 4-5 standard monsters. So greater stress on the DM would occur if he ran multiple solo monsters or a group of standard monsters with the solo. Not impossible stress, but more than the DM might wish.

In which case, don't do that. You could also imagine a different monster write-up for standard beholders that are simplified in game write-up to make it easier to use groups of them.

 

[Goken100]

Bad news: monsters' limited usefulness?

Ha! I called it.

Each level of monster (level 1, level 2, etc.) has four "ranks" which basically says how many of them make a challegeo for a group of 4~5 PC's (8,4,2,1).

Minion --> Monster --> Elite --> Solo

I would also like to note that the camera-man was clearly hit by an "instant" Save or Die effect. That's harly 4E. But maybe he was just a Minion, and different rules apply.

While this seems reasonable at first glance, I'm a bit nervous about the implications.

We've been promised that mosters' usefulness does not begin and end with an exact level match with the party, and there there's a quick and easy way to use higher or lower level monsters in a balanced encounter. I take this to mean there's some formula like:
1 20th level moster = 4 17th level monsters

However, if this formula were really effective, there wouldn't be any need for the Minion, Elite, and Solo distinctions (the Beholder would just be X levels higher instead of being a "Solo" monster). That suggests that monsters really WON'T be a great match at unequal levels to the party (even if there is a suggested way to calculate it).

 

[Imaro]

Yes, but I believe the assumption is that solo monsters will be used, well, solo. So that while a solo monster like a dragon or beholder might be harder to run than a single standard monster, it will be equivalent to running 4-5 standard monsters. So greater stress on the DM would occur if he ran multiple solo monsters or a group of standard monsters with the solo. Not impossible stress, but more than the DM might wish.

In which case, don't do that. You could also imagine a different monster write-up for standard beholders that are simplified in game write-up to make it easier to use groups of them.

This post seems to be saying that either run whatever the designers decide are "solo" monsters as "solo" monsters...or houserule them so that they are simpler to run in groups. I thought one of the design golas for 4e was that monsters would be usable over a greater number of levels and in greater quantities than 3e. How is this possible with monster's designated as "solo" and given complicated abilities? It places, as you suggest above, certain inherent limitations on encounter types...just like 3e only in a different way.

My impression was that 4e was trying to streamline or simplify encounters w/ monsters by basically taking away superfluous abilities but if you increase the complexity of how the fewer abilities work, is there really a net gain? This seems to replace the "oh I forgot about the watchamacllit monster's watchamacllit ability" and replaces it with..."Dope, I forgot to track the watchmacllit monster's escalating ability for those last two rounds."

 

[Stormtalon]

I would imagine petrification will go something like this: "When you get hit by the power, you take a -2 to Dex and -1 square of speed. You get a further -2 to Dex and -1 square of movement at the start of every round until somone casts Dispel magic on you/you pass a save/you give the GM five bucks/whatever"

My first 4E houserule, I can see it now. Yes, I'll be rolling in cash.... until I take 30d6+8d4+6d12+10d20 damage as all my players pelt me with dice....

 

[FourthBear]

This post seems to be saying that either run whatever the designers decide are "solo" monsters as "solo" monsters...or houserule them so that they are simpler to run in groups. I thought one of the design golas for 4e was that monsters would be usable over a greater number of levels and in greater quantities than 3e. How is this possible with monster's designated as "solo" and given complicated abilities? It places, as you suggest above, certain inherent limitations on encounter types...just like 3e only in a different way.

I believe the design goal is to incorporate the amount of DM work required to run a monster into monster creation and monster designation. There are certainly inherent limitations on encounter types that make for non-cumbersome DMing. These are present in every edition of D&D. A DM can certainly run an encounter in 1e, 2e or 3e with 5-6 beholders simultaneously. While you may disagree, I believe the DM will find it a chore. I think 4e is trying to make the amount of DM effort required to run a creature a clear design consideration.

I believe that they've made the design decision that some monsters are commonly enough used as solo monsters that they can be designed with more options and abilities in mind that will make them actually suited for taking on a party solo. This may indeed make them difficult to run in groups. They could simplify all monsters so that every monster can be run easily in groups. I think they found that in play DMs preferred to take on more work for the occasional "boss" encounter. A different write-up for a beholder simplified for group use is just a thought of mine, one that would be a convenience, certainly not required. A DM who wished to run 5-6 complicated monsters will be able to run them just as he can in all previous editions.

 

[Imaro]

I believe the design goal is to incorporate the amount of DM work required to run a monster into monster creation and monster designation. There are certainly inherent limitations on encounter types that make for non-cumbersome DMing. These are present in every edition of D&D. A DM can certainly run an encounter in 1e, 2e or 3e with 5-6 beholders simultaneously. While you may disagree, I believe the DM will find it a chore. I think 4e is trying to make the amount of DM effort required to run a creature a clear design consideration.

I believe that they've made the design decision that some monsters are commonly enough used as solo monsters that they can be designed with more options and abilities in mind that will make them actually suited for taking on a party solo. This may indeed make them difficult to run in groups. They could simplify all monsters so that every monster can be run easily in groups. I think they found that in play DMs preferred to take on more work for the occasional "boss" encounter. A different write-up for a beholder simplified for group use is just a thought of mine, one that would be a convenience, certainly not required. A DM who wished to run 5-6 complicated monsters will be able to run them just as he can in all previous editions.

So does this beg the question...what monsters wil be simplified? In another context, let me put it like this. I have no need for 4th ed. to simplify something like a goblin/gnoll/ogre/etc. They are, IMHO, simple enough to run in 3.5, so then this leads to the question of monsters that do warant simplification...wil they really be easier to run?

The above continuous tracking situation doesn't seem to suggest so. In fact it seems that instead of out of game headaches, it will be more of an in-game headache. I personally would, if I have to choose, pick out of game headaches, since I don't want in game play slowing to a crawl or becoming an almost tedious excercise in tracking various conditions. One thing I think might be able to alleviate the tracking of increasing conditions is to have an effect based mechanic. In other words the amount of negatives you take is based upon how high the roll to hit is. Basically like in SW Saga edition where different target numbers for force powers have differing effects.

It could go something like this...

Below Will save= no effect
Will save to 5+= -2 Dex/-1move
6+ to 10+ = -4 Dex/ -2move...

Then make it so that numerous hits stack.

 

[Beckett]

While this seems reasonable at first glance, I'm a bit nervous about the implications.

We've been promised that mosters' usefulness does not begin and end with an exact level match with the party, and there there's a quick and easy way to use higher or lower level monsters in a balanced encounter. I take this to mean there's some formula like:
1 20th level moster = 4 17th level monsters

However, if this formula were really effective, there wouldn't be any need for the Minion, Elite, and Solo distinctions (the Beholder would just be X levels higher instead of being a "Solo" monster). That suggests that monsters really WON'T be a great match at unequal levels to the party (even if there is a suggested way to calculate it).

I would think that Solo doesn't mean "Monster= 4+Level" or whatever. Rather, I'd think solo denotes a monster able to use several actions in a round- like the dragon from the encounter example. As it is now in 3.5, lone monsters are always always always at a disadvantage against a party because it acts once for every four actions of the PCs.

 

[FourthBear]

The above continuous tracking situation doesn't seem to suggest so. In fact it seems that instead of out of game headaches, it will be more of an in-game headache. I personally would, if I have to choose, pick out of game headaches, since I don't want in game play slowing to a crawl or becoming an almost tedious excercise in tracking various conditions.

I can definitely see that monsters with gradual status effects over multiple rounds would be a pain to keep track of for DMs and players. Without the details on how exactly that power works with the beholder, it's hard to make a judgement. That's a specific problem with a class of powers (changing save or die to gradual effects). It would surprise me if the designers hadn't considered or encountered this in play. So either they decided that the trouble was worth the bookkeeping or they designed it in a way to avoid this problem in a way I don't yet forsee. Perhaps they consider gradual status effects like that more of a issue for player tracking rather than DM tracking.

Another way to possibly deal with it would be to have not gradual effects from a single attack, but to make such effects like death and petrification cumulative. So when they refer to a beholder gradually turning you to stone, they mean that you slow down when hit once, even more when hit twice, until you run out of movement and you are petrified. This would only involve doing "movement" damage on each hit of the ray. Not saying that's the way they should do it, but it could make for fewer "Oh, I forgot I was supposed to keep petrifying." moments.

 

[med stud]

I hope the slow petrefication gives a straight penalty to rolls instead of mucking about with abilities. -2 to all rolls per round is no big deal to keep track of but abilities tend to interact with so many things you didn't think about at first.

 

[Goken100]

I would think that Solo doesn't mean "Monster= 4+Level" or whatever. Rather, I'd think solo denotes a monster able to use several actions in a round- like the dragon from the encounter example. As it is now in 3.5, lone monsters are always always always at a disadvantage against a party because it acts once for every four actions of the PCs.

Hmmm, good point. But what about elite monsters? Can they make two actions or somehow be more active than an average monster?