D&D 5E Q&A 10/24/13 - Monsters description, Subclasses for multiclassing

[Kinak]

Well we have only seen the playtest version of monsters, and I suppose they were mostly concerned with the stats, so we have no idea yet of how an entry in the 5e MM would really look like.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. "Presenting" probably wasn't the best word choice on my part. I'm not worried about the text formatting or complete lack of descriptive text or anything like that.

But a lot of the abilities require more bookkeeping or rolling than I think they merit. Multiple attacks that could be combined, fidgety poisons, counting enemies around a PC for +1s with pack attack, spell lists standing in for abilities, and so forth.

Which isn't to say that monsters need to be boring hunks of stats. But if they're going to be boring anyway or I'm supposed to be running a lot of them, I'd take a boring hunk of stats over a some marginal abilities any day of the week.

A lot of that might be ironed out in the final version, but it's basically why I'm not excited to DM 5e as it stands. If I want to houserule all the monsters, I can just do it in Pathfinder and my players will be much happier.

But I certainly like the sound of your suggestion!

Thanks

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[MoonSong]

Am i the only one who actually got some hope after reading the third answer? Hidden inside it is one the very best news I've gotten. It implies that a) sorcerer is indeed a thing (first isolated mention of them that doesn't involve wizards/mages) and b) that they will indeed be more than just "the guy in the bathrobe", who knows perhaps by taking that subclass alone and not multiclassing I could get the kind of sorcerer I enjoy.

 

[Li Shenron]

It implies that a) sorcerer is indeed a thing (first isolated mention of them that doesn't involve wizards/mages)

It was mentioned in tweets by the same author as the Q&A column. There is already a new version of the Sorcerer class used in internal playtests and IIRC they will maybe preview it in some live streaming game?