Some bits about Monsters from the WotC boards

[Glyfair]

In the WotC 4E Eberron thread Chris Sims answered a few questions about monsters (and a few other things). Nothing specific (it's too early and they aren't ready yet), but some interesting bits.

Here:

First, even if psionic power isn't in PH1, that doesn't mean it won't be core. All the PHs will be "core," and psionics will be in a PH.

Some of the races being lamented here will be in the 4e MM1. As far as I know at this point, that means they'll be playable—they might not get as much fluff and special treatment as a PH race out of the gate, but they'll be playable. Also, DDi is going to be a good place to find sneak peaks and "beta" stuff to add to your game. Oh, and tieflings already exist in Eberron.

Here:

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.

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.

Here:

Can you answer a question then? Over on the Monster thread, people were worried that monsters will be difficult to advance, or that giving them class levels may be more difficult; you may not include things like HD. So, will 4e monsters still be capable of taking class levels or be advanced without too much work on the DM's part?

That depends on what's meant by "more difficult." It will certainly be different, and it will certainly require some learning for those used to 3e. One aspect of the question also assumes monsters need certain aspects they have in 3e to be functional or for someone to advance them. This sort of thinking isn't helpful, because it tries to speculate about a system using something the system is not (4e is not 3e).

If a monster is presented as a monster and a race, like say the goblin is in 3e (and probably will be in 4e), how hard is it to advance it with a character class if you want an NPC? Not very. Is it better if you have to do that sort of preparation work less often? As a busy career guy, a husband, a gamer, and more, I'd have to say that's valuable for me.

 

[Crymson]

So it sounds like monster stat blocks are being cut back. If this is the case, I wonder wht they'll lose? Ability scores?

 

[TarionzCousin]

Given what Mearls has said about monster write ups not being usable for PC races (no link, sorry), I would expect that Skills would be cut.

Now we'll never know how well the Tarrasque can Use Rope.

 

[hong]

I suspect they'll get rid of monster HD entirely, and use CR alone as the measure. Things based off HD will either use CR instead, or just be assigned numbers by eye (ie, with guidelines instead of concrete formulae).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Now we'll never know how well the Tarrasque can Use Rope.

My campaign is ruined!

 

[mhacdebhandia]

The deal with monster design is that they've worked out a concrete set of ranges their statistics should fall into for each level (monster level in Fourth = CR in Third, though perhaps without the "20% of resources" assumption). This is all in the podcast and other comments.

So, I think you're absolutely right, Hong - they're figuring out the statistics a 5th-level monster needs to challenge a 5th-level party, and deriving their mechanical properties from that.

I expect that each "type" of monster - brute, spellcaster, leader, et cetera - will probably have different weighting within the common number ranges. A brute needs more hit points than a spellcaster, that sort of thing.

 

[Kunimatyu]

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.

 

[hong]

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.

Ooh, I like that. Opens the door for lots of "finishing move" possibilities. Yes, yes.

 

[Sammael]

It seems to me that monsters...

...will no longer be built around their HD; they will likely derive their power from whatever the 4E equivalent of CR is (e.g. "a CR 5 brute should have attacks in the range of +8 to +11, dealing from 11 to 25 damage with each")

...won't have feats, just special attacks and such

...will only have those skills which are needed for a meaningful encounter with that type of monster

...won't have nearly as many special abilities

...won't have any spellcasting abilities (they will be replaced by special abilities specialized for that type of monster)

...will be hard as hell to advance as a consequence of all stated above (this would be a great turnoff and reason NOT to buy 4E for me)

 

[Frostmarrow]

I wonder if monsters will be programmed in seven steps? The seven steps vary from monster to monster. Simple monsters would have seven steps of 'move up to and make a melee attack aginst the closest enemy'. But a big bad dragon would have convoluted steps like 'Breath fire, tailslap, spit fireball, and move to advantageous position'.

That way WoTC can keep churning out new monsters and even release new behaviours for old ones. -That would be cool.