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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5722403" data-attributes="member: 2067">Yeah, my point is, of course, bigger than dryads or succubi specifically. Perhaps if you had an interesting way to run a noncombat encounter with a dryad right in the book, you'd be more inclined to use it? Or at least adapt it to some other "nature fey" that the party might encounter?I've got some issues with Skill Challenges specifically, but whatever method they use to present noncombat challenges, things like pixies and dryads and succubi and celestials and rust monsters should be doing that, instead of appearing in combat. Not every creature in the MMs of previous editions was there to be hit with a sword until it stopped moving. It's the only conflict resolution scenario that appears throughout the MM. If Aboleths bend humanoids to their will, where is the conflict where the party must resist their pernicious psychic influence? If Astral Stalkers are bounty hunters, where's the challenge of the party avoiding detection by a living weapon of the gods? If Atropals are sealed away beneath ruins, what kinds of people might seek its resurrection? If Blood Fiends are....wait, Blood Fiends are a pretty bad example, since all they care about is killing, so I guess combat is really the only way to use them? What can I do with the party warlock when they attempt to make a pact with a Phane, since it makes pacts?That's a telling lack of useful encounter information, outside of minis combat.And then there's the simple weight of the word count. If the stat block takes up more space than the description and lore, then it is really a hint. Rules exist for what the party is expected to do. What is the party expected to do with the Terrasque? Well, the rules for fighting it are pretty robust. The rules for putting it back to sleep after it has stirred from its slumber are...nonexistent. Guess what the party's doing with it! There's also the fact that every single monster is angled to be motivated to fight in minis combat. Angels of Battle? They serve gods by fighting. Angels of protection? They protect things by fighting. Angels of Valor? They help out gods by fighting (oh! And sometimes awarding a magic item...yaaay). Angels of Vengeance? They kill things with fighting. And that's just the Angels, who, one would think, might include at least a handful of creatures to...Observe? Ally with? That a cleric could recruit? Announce the birth of Dungeon Jesus (he's a level 99 Prophet!)? I hope you can understand how someone could come away from the 4e MM with the view that providing minis combat opponents is what it wanted to do primarily. Roughly half the book is dedicated to stat blocks that only have relevance in minis combat. The other half describes why these things will fight a PC party in minis combat. Roughly none of the book is dedicated to dealing with the creatures therein in any other way, or in creatures who are not minis combat opponents, or in dealing with creatures who might be fought in minis combat in other ways, too (or instead!). I'm not trying to invalidate your experience, either. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> If you saw the book as a great game supplement, that's a good thing whether or not anyone else did. But the old maxim about any good DM being able to make any rules interesting may apply: it might be more about your skill than it is about the book's quality. Yeah, I don't think [MENTION=56189]Kzach[/MENTION] is wrong there. I think the "mistake" comes in when they determined early on in 4e that minis combat was the game's central pillar. I think that this is less true for people the farther away from the "hardcore" you get (and it's not even true for all the hardcores!). There's a lot of hints that somewhere in there they know that combat isn't all the game is about, but then the mechanics act as if that's the only interesting thing you can do with your character, or with your monsters. This goes back to Monte's <a href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20111025" target="_blank">previous article</a> about how rules shape gameplay, though he didn't talk about it much there. Rules are there for what you want the player to do. If your rules are 90% about minis combat, that is what the player will do roughly 90% of the time. That's why you need rules for other things that you want the game to support. 4e provides little help in this department, and the help it gives (skill challenges and rituals) is flawed in some pretty fundamental ways, though not everyone has a problem with them.</blockquote>

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