PCs and Monsters being different - Classes?

[Rechan]

All right. Now, I really don't want to start a fight about whether PCs and NPCs/Monsters should be treated differently.

My inquiry is fairly simple: do you think that NPCs/monsters, with their NPC/Monster classes, will have access to abilities similar to players? After reading these tidbits:

The Warlock: Gains a significant damage boost for his eldritch blast and soul blast attacks when he targets a creature he has already cursed. Finally each curse is reduced to 0 hitpoints, the warlock often gains a powerful follow-up attack against other nearby foes. Warlocks excel at weakening, immobilizing and hindering foes with their curses.

The Warlock: .. gave him some unique new tricks so that he isn't playing in the wizard's sandbox so much (duplicating spell effects and the like)

The Warlock: Curses have been cranked up, they do a ton of damage and impose huge penalties on the target's actions.

I read that and I just want my monsters to have curse powers so much. Mmmyes. But I'm not sure if they will.

Can you have a gnoll Warlock fighting the PCs? Or will it have to resort to the Brute/Skirmisher/Mastermind things, which may not have the nice potent powers of the classes.

For that matter, when the Necromancer class comes out, is it just for PCs? How do you have NPC necromancers?

Speculations, go!

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

Can you have a gnoll Warlock fighting the PCs? Or will it have to resort to the Brute/Skirmisher/Mastermind things, which may not have the nice potent powers of the classes.

I don't see how they could possibly design things so that you'd be unable to. Classes are pretty modular in that respect.

 

[Rechan]

I don't see how they could possibly design things so that you'd be unable to. Classes are pretty modular in that respect.

If this were the case, then what does "NPCs/Monsters have different rules than PCs"? Is that just with regards to race, or...?

And, then why Brute/Skirmisher/Et al? Do you think those are ways to just advance the monster (give it more HP/abilities)?

 

[Cadfan]

As far as I understand, NPCs are designed differently from PCs for reasons of simplicity. You know, the whole thing about "why do I have to make serious decisions about this guy's swim modifier when I know he's going to get chopped up in one fight??"

I don't think there's anything that will stop you from handing out full stat blocks if that's what you want to do. And I'm sure nothing will stop you from giving abilities to a monster. If you want a monster to do a curse/blast combo, why give him a full Warlock class? Just give him the two abilities you want, accept that he's not going to last more than 5 rounds, and let him try to do what he can with what he's given.

 

[Nellisir]

My inquiry is fairly simple: do you think that NPCs/monsters, with their NPC/Monster classes, will have access to abilities similar to players? After reading these tidbits:
...
Can you have a gnoll Warlock fighting the PCs? Or will it have to resort to the Brute/Skirmisher/Mastermind things, which may not have the nice potent powers of the classes.

I don't know how monsters will be presented, but you'll almost certainly be able to add class levels onto a monster. It might do weird things to whatever the 4e equivalent of CR is, though. You can probably also tear off the NPC levels and add PC levels, but it'll likely take more work. The monster classes, IMO, are for "disposable", generic monsters -- the generic mastermind; Bob, Bob, and Bob, the sneaky goblins; etc; etc. Really unique NPCs will be PC classed - that's just too cool a feature to lose.

 

[Rechan]

I don't know how monsters will be presented, but you'll almost certainly be able to add class levels onto a monster. It might do weird things to whatever the 4e equivalent of CR is, though. You can probably also tear off the NPC levels and add PC levels, but it'll likely take more work. The monster classes, IMO, are for "disposable", generic monsters -- the generic mastermind; Bob, Bob, and Bob, the sneaky goblins; etc; etc. Really unique NPCs will be PC classed - that's just too cool a feature to lose.

I don't know how 'unique' though.

An example would be gnoll barbarians (one of the barbarian powers mentioned was that they can bite you after they attack - very appropriate for a gnoll). So i can see gnoll barbs lead by a gnoll warlock. Sounds like a fun thing. But I'm also left wondering "How much will that muck things up, and will it be more of a headache than just making them standard gnolls and be done with it?"

Maybe it'd be easier just to drop an ability onto the monster (the bite-after-attack), or the Curses powers, etc, stead of giving them PC levels.

 

[Imban]

If this were the case, then what does "NPCs/Monsters have different rules than PCs"? Is that just with regards to race, or...?

And, then why Brute/Skirmisher/Et al? Do you think those are ways to just advance the monster (give it more HP/abilities)?

It's usually because it goes the other way - if you've got a copy of Monster Manual V, pop it open to pages 85-87 and look at the "classed" Hobgoblin Spellscourge, Hobgoblin Warcaster, and Hobgoblin Warsoul, who are essentially 5th-level Hobgoblin fighters with a unique ability, 4th-level Hobgoblin wizards with two unique abilities, and 9th-level Hobgoblin wizards with multiple unique abilities. However, they're not at all built like PCs - none of them have any class levels, for instance - and their abilities, despite being "class features", aren't available to PC fighters or PC wizards. Likewise the Kuo-Toa Exalted Whip on page 95, an "8th-level Kuo-Toa cleric" with many powers only available to it as a monster.

In some of these cases, it's relatively hilarious - for example, a Warsoul is described as essentially a "higher-level" Warcaster, but you can't advance a Warcaster to get a Warsoul - Warsouls don't carry over the Warcaster unique abilities.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm predicting something like what Nellsir said. Adding classes might give some wierd XP results depending upon the "association" of the class (an ogre who becomes a fighter will probably be worth more XP and be a greater challenge than an ogre who becomes a wizard...though, ideally, I'd like to see that bug gone. ), but you'll likely be able to add class levels to your heart's content.

It might not be as straightforward as it was in 3e, but that's mostly because the "1 PC level = 1 CR" formula was a VAST oversimplification.

I think when they said "NPCs use different rules than PCs" they were more or less referring to it in regard to 3e's complete approach. Things like minions and things like elite and solo monsters might not be things that PC's can really access, and it will allow them to be simpler and quicker to run (something like "mook rules" that abstract the stats). In 3e, there's no difference between a hobgoblin who fights your party at level 1, and the one who serves as the necromancer's army at level 11, so no matter what your intended role is, you need the whole stat affair, even when, at level 11, it doesn't matter so much.

4e is defining how the monsters are used better, so that the stats can directly meet those needs.

[sblock]
I applaud the strategy, I just have concerns that the monsters will be OVER-defined, and unable to act very well outside of their pre-limited context, which was something of a virtue of 3e's completist approach. If you wanted to know how well a hobgoblin sang because it cropped up for some odd reason in the game, you could easily find that out. In 4e, I'm concerned that that improvosation will be lost, and I'll be more forced to "make stuff up," which sucks as a system.
[/sblock]

But in regards to your question about adding class levels? I'm pretty positive they're going to try hard to preserve that.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

All right. Now, I really don't want to start a fight about whether PCs and NPCs/Monsters should be treated differently.

My inquiry is fairly simple: do you think that NPCs/monsters, with their NPC/Monster classes, will have access to abilities similar to players?

I think that....there MAY be a system for taking the base creature, making it elite, giving it more hit points and choosing one or two powers from a class. So you could make a Gnoll Warlock by taking a Gnoll and giving him Eldrich Blast and 2 powers from the Warlock list so that he'll feel like a warlock.

However, if that system doesn't exist, adding classes to an NPC may not be so easy if it works the way I'm thinking. Since you don't know what effect adding BAB, saves, hitpoints and other things from classes will have on an NPC will have. A level 6 skirmisher enemy might have 50 hitpoints and adding 5 levels of fighter might give it 30 hitpoints or something. Meanwhile a level 11 skirmisher has 120 hitpoints, nowhere near the 80 that the classes gave it. And its attack bonus and saves may be way out of whack.

 

[Pinotage]

I don't think there's anything that will stop you from handing out full stat blocks if that's what you want to do.

I sincerely hope you're right about that. I'd hate to have two mechanical systems for PCs and monsters. While clumsy in 3.5e, there was a least some underlying consistency in the system. I hope 4e maintains this without resorting to 2 different mechanical systems for handling PCs, monsters, or even monster PCs.

Pinotage