Some bits about Monsters from the WotC boards

[Glyfair]

Missed in the shuffle is that Mike Mearls has posted here in another thread.

A few points:

1. The divide between monsters and PCs isn't as big as everyone thinks. Monsters have the same ability scores as they do in 3e, skills, any feats that are appropriate, and so on. This won't be 2e or 1e.

2. Though monsters don't necessarily use spell-like abilities, monster abilities remain within the same basic realm of utility. A sixty foot cone of fire works just like any other sixty foot cone. The staggering majority of abilities are pretty much spell-like in mechanics, it's just that those mechanics appear in the stat block rather than refer to a spell.

3. Many monster abilities are re-used and templated. On top of that, monster abilities are kept simple and easy to use, as we know that a DM has to handle several monsters at once. Really complex monsters are a special case.

4. The new system allows for more flavorful monsters and a greater sense of mystery and wonder. Your players will know a lot less about specific monster abilities unless they read the MM and pay a lot of attention. Fighting gnolls is going to feel a lot different compared to fighting hobgoblins. Fighting a new creature is going to be scary. I loved springing new critters on people in my playtests.

5. I really can't wait until we do in-depth previews of the MM. The playtest DMs were pretty happy with how monsters work now. I'm curious to see how gamers in general will react. In my blog, I talked about how playing 4e felt like playing D&D for the first time again. The monsters played a big role in that.

6. There's a forum set up specifically for commenting on the blogs over on the WotC boards:

http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=&f=685

That's a good place to directly address stuff we post. Anywhere else is a bit hit or miss, depending on work schedules and stuff. We're trying to hit the WotC boards, here, and elsewhere, but there's a ton of talk and it's hard to keep up.

 

[freyar]

Here:
What Mike said is still accurate. A gnome "monster" does some stuff like a PC/NPC might, but it's a monster built to be run by the DM, not character meant to be run by a player. On the flip, a gnome race is for PCs, and it would have just enough influence on the "monster" gnome for the players to know they're facing a gnome.

Am i the ONLY person who thinks this is a good thing?

It seems like a fine idea for speeding up prep time, but it just bothers me that there's not more internal consistency. To be honest, this seems like some kind of Savage Species treatment for any monster that can be a PC race. In practice, this just means more limited choices. And, like I said, something that just bugs some people.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Missed in the shuffle is that Mike Mearls has posted here in another thread.

1. The divide between monsters and PCs isn't as big as everyone thinks. Monsters have the same ability scores as they do in 3e, skills, any feats that are appropriate, and so on. This won't be 2e or 1e.

That quote makes me happy. Now, back to your normal FUD!

So... now, I'm satisfied with 4E! (or, at least, I think so).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Glyfair]

That quote makes me happy. Now, back to your normal FUD!

So... now, I'm satisfied with 4E! (or, at least, I think so).

At lot of the 4E reaction reminds me a lot of the 3E hoopla. The only real difference is I believe that more people are playing D&D, or games derived from the d20 SRD, than then. A lot of worry and assumptions that they are messing with the game they love. Some of them are justified, because they will be changing some people like. Most, I expect, will love the changes and switch over.

 

[Nyeshet]

MM1 will have 288 pages and over 300 monsters (well over by my count; it's what I'm working on now). We have page space allocated for racial info for some monsters. You'll have to wait and see how we packed the book full of so much goodness, but I can give you a hint: 4e is easier to run. And that doesn't mean monsters have all their cool stripped away—it just means they're easy to run.

Interesting page count, but I am guessing that - except for animals / insects - it will work out to one page per monster. Recall that in 3e's PHB about 5-6 pages covered 30+ animals / insects. So, unlike later MMs, I think the first 4e MM will return to the 'one page per monster' set up, with animals covered as several per page, and perhaps a few pages detailing templates, etc. So perhaps 250 monsters at one per page, ~50 animals, insects, etc at 6-10 per page (5-10 pages), maybe 2-3 templates per page for 2-3 pages, and the remaining 5-15 or so pages for the introductory explanations of the stat blocks, the index at the end, etc.

Don't forget, also, that they may be including quarter to half page variants of the same monster in this, so it may work out to 3/4 page for a monster, and 1/4 page for a variant (equivalent to the classed monsters, but using different roles instead) - thus having "two" monsters on one page, or something similar to this. It may only be that there is about 150 actual non-animal monsters, with most of them having 1-3 variant roles that are being counted as if they were separate distinct monsters, thus upping the monster count for the book.

What Mike said is still accurate. A gnome "monster" does some stuff like a PC/NPC might, but it's a monster built to be run by the DM, not character meant to be run by a player. On the flip, a gnome race is for PCs, and it would have just enough influence on the "monster" gnome for the players to know they're facing a gnome.

Interesting. Despite what another poster stated, this - to me - does not suggest that the gnome is a playable character in 2008 even if not in the PHB. It states that the gnome in the MM will be made so it can be run by the DM, and it makes the distinction that this does not mean it will have enough info to be run by the players. It further states that enough of a difference exists between a PC playable gnome and a monster gnome that the PCs will have "just enough" ability to figure out that it is supposed to be a gnome.

Why am I reminded of Gollum and Frodo here? Both were (originally, at least) hobbits, but Gollum was a monster - just similar enough in size, form, etc that it wasn't too much of a surpise to learn he was originally Smeagal the hobbit.

So, considering this potential example, it seems to me that a potentially playable race, as given in the MM, will not be playable as a race - just usable as a monster by the DM. Indeed, it sounds as if enough will be different that the monster version may be more accurately considered the feral / aberrant / crazed hermit version of the race, rather than a typical example of the species - let alone playable as such. So, no, I do not expect anything given in the MM to be playable as a race in 4e. It sounds like they are making them simply too different from each other - one specifically built to be run by the DM, the other specifically built (differently) to be run by the PC.

I think HD-based effects will be gone entirely, and HP will be the new "hit dice".

For example, Cause Fear affects creatures of 5HD or lower -- why not just have it affect creatures with under 25 hitpoints? Not only does it make the spell more versatile, it also makes a lot of sense, as creatures brought to a low number of HP from taking damage should be more likely to get scared off by a magical effect than they were at 100 hp.

I really like this idea, but I think it could have metagaming problems as hp is abstract and unknown to the actual characters.

What if, instead, the spell works upon a fatigued, exhausted, etc creature? So we would just need a mechanic that states something along the line of "Once the creature has lost 50% of their hp, the creature is fatigued. Once the creature has lost 75% of their hp they are exhausted. Once they have lost 100% they are unconscious."

So, while a character may not know that their foe has lost 72 hp, they should realize that their foe is fatigued or exhausted. The DM can make some statement that makes such obvious - or require a Spot (or equivalent skill) check to notice that the creature seems to be moving slower, less precisely, etc. Once the PCs know that, then even if they do not know the remaining hp of the creature, they have reason to consider using spells that specifically work upon tired creatures - or are more likely to work upon weary creatures.

How does this idea sound?

 

[Szatany]

To change the subject a little, how do you feel about statting various similar animals separately? Do we really need stats for owl, crow, eagle, falcon. etc? Wouldn't it be better if there was a single entry for "Tiny bird"? And below the entry, a list of most common animals for this entry, perhaps with a one-line extra rule, like Better Eyesight or Fast Flyer.

 

[Jhaelen]

To change the subject a little, how do you feel about statting various similar animals separately? Do we really need stats for owl, crow, eagle, falcon. etc? Wouldn't it be better if there was a single entry for "Tiny bird"? And below the entry, a list of most common animals for this entry, perhaps with a one-line extra rule, like Better Eyesight or Fast Flyer.

Absolutely! I'm all for that approach.
The current Ars Magica edition takes it even one step further: You basically have one big template and two lists of weaknesses/ special abilities to create any kind of animal.

1. The divide between monsters and PCs isn't as big as everyone thinks. Monsters have the same ability scores as they do in 3e, skills, any feats that are appropriate, and so on. This won't be 2e or 1e.

Whew! Now, that's a relief. I've feared they'd go back to the roots all the way.

I'm also extremely glad there'll still be templates. That was the single best thing about third edition (well being able to advance monsters and add class levels was pretty nice, too...). Clever templates (my favorite: lycanthropes!) turns a book with hundreds of creatures into a book with thousands of creatures - what can possibly be better?