Should monster books from now on have level breakdowns?

[Darmyth]

bah, go for the whole enchilada... get a monster book that has 160 monsters with breakdown *grin*

 

[megamania]

More More More More....especially seeing how Savage Species dosen't exist in Southern Vt.

 

[Bagpuss]

bah, go for the whole enchilada... get a monster book that has 160 monsters with breakdown *grin*

Yeah then it will cost you twice as much, I don't fancy spending £60 on a single roleplaybook or needing a crane to shift it.

 

[Ratenef]

Wouldn't doing all the work for 'us' defeat the following:

1) the entire section of the book that details how to do this yourself. They wouldn't include that if they were just going to do that for you

2) individual DM creativity and personal tastes

3) the element of surprise when a 1HD troll isn't quite the same, because this DM handles it different than that (after 22 years of DnD, it is nice to be thrown a curveball by a TYPICAL creature)

Just curious.

 

[Staffan]

I voted that I probably wouldn't buy it. IMO, it's a waste of space that would be better served by including more info on how the critter works and what it does, and/or more monsters.

I do think that "playable" critters should include level adjustment, though.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

An excellent way to waste a huge amount of space for information that is unlikely to ever be used by most people.

 

[Sanackranib]

monster levels

I voted "Good idea, but unnecessary." It would take up a lot of space, and kind of invalidate Savage Species to include that info in all future monster supplements. Just an entry for Level Adjustment (or ECL) would be enough to make creating a class pretty easy.

I would appreciate having some monsters with default "treasure" though. That CR 5 Troll should have somewhere between 800 and 2000 gp (roughly) worth of stuff. That's definitely enough for a masterwork weapon, and maybe magic armor and potions. That way, instead of rolling for treasure every time, a DM can simply use the default. Of course, it wouldn't preclude random treasure generation, but that's rule 0 territory anyways.

I agree. but what I would really like to see is some consistancy so that the EL's actually make sence.

 

[bwgwl]

Who needs monster level information? A player and then only for the one monster he decides to play so 99% of that monster book information is useless to them.

i agree with your argument in general, but there are DM uses for the monster level breakdowns. now i can generate stats for, say, an adolescent hill giant without having to do it ad hoc. i just make him "lower level". same holds true for "younger" versions of any creature. (before this, only dragons had this kind of information available).

but you're right, i think for the most part it would be a waste of print space. better as a web enhancement for the monster book in question. electrons are free, paper is not.

 

[Dinkeldog]

It shouldn't take up that much space, is useful for DMs (that want to, say, give 1st level PCs an ogre or two to fight without it being an all-out slaughter), and would make use of the mechanic provided. Give it to me.

 

[Claude Raines]

As a DM, I think it would be nice if the publisher did this for a few of the more humaniod monsters (or the most interesting ones from a player standpoint), but it would definitely be a waste of space for me if they did it for all monsters.