Some bits about Monsters from the WotC boards

[Szatany]

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")

If they follow that road (which I hope they will), they could release a separate book devoted to creating monsters from scratch. I'd definitely buy it.

 

[Aloïsius]

If they follow that road (which I hope they will), they could release a separate book devoted to creating monsters from scratch. I'd definitely buy it.

Idealy, a short appendix in the MM should do the trick. If it's that simpler to create a monster, then you don't need a separate book to do it.


BTW, I hope they have the same "world before rules" when they will design poison. It's silly to have all poison follow the same mechanic. Each one should be specific (while staying simple).

 

[The_Gneech]

Y'know, one of the reasons I wouldn't run D&D before 3E was because monsters followed one set of rules, characters followed another, and there was precious little overlap. I don't like the sound of this -- we're sliding backwards, here!

SWSE has the right of it, I think. You start out with a "monster" class for your base critter, and then if it has enough intelligence, it can take "nonheroic" or one of the heroic classes as needed.

-The Gneech

 

[DanChops]

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 think you may be on to something here. Isn't this similar to the way many of the abilities were translated to DDM in recent sets? I don't have them handy at the moment, but it seems like things like disintegrate and banishment and whatnot have keyed off of the number of hit points the target has remaining. Or something like that. Does anyone out there have a better memory than me?

 

[Szatany]

Idealy, a short appendix in the MM should do the trick. If it's that simpler to create a monster, then you don't need a separate book to do it.

I know, but beyond that I'd like a book with hundreds of special abilities that can be added, instructions on how to fit in various environments, ideas how to tweak monsters for smaller parties (with incomplete roles), and so on.

Sort of Savage Species, but for monsters, not playable races.

 

[Intrope]

I'd like to make an observation. The following 3 things are different:

1. Advancing a Monster to make it tougher ( 'by HD')

2. Advancing a Monster by class levels (which might alter it's role, too)

3. Making a Monster into a Playable Character

If we assume that 4e MM has raw stat blocks like so (some things left out
Dire Wolf (CR3)
hp 45
AC 14 (...)
Attack: Bite +11 (1d8+10)
Abilities: Str 25, etc.

For 1, it's trivial. All you need are some guidelines about what a CR4, CR5, CR6, etc. creature should be able to do and upgrade Wolfie to match.

For 2, it's still pretty easy. Simply write up all the class levels, and add it's bonuses to Wolfie. For instance, if you give him 4 level of Fighter, Weapon Focus: Sharp Pointy Teeth, and Weapon Specialization in the same:
Dire Wolf (CR ???)
hp 79 = 45 + 34 (4 FTR w/ 17 CON)
AC 14 (...)
Attack: Bite +16 (1d8+12)
Abilities: Str 25, Dex 15, Con 17, etc.

Easy! Just treat all class features as additive, and it's done. Now, that will make CR more difficult; you'd have to look at the per-level guides to find the new CR (this could be hard, if you changed it's role by adding Warlock levels)

Option 3 is problematic, but it's already problematic for most creatures (How many pages of Savage Species were devoted soley to determing Level Adjustment of Creatures?) For making a monster a Playable Race, either the designers would craft a racial feature level set (like the base races) or the DM would have to do it.

Naturally, a 4e Savage Species could contain piles of Racial Level sets for off the wall creatures. I'd prefer that to trying to cram it into the core books.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'd like to make an observation. The following 3 things are different:

1. Advancing a Monster to make it tougher ( 'by HD')

2. Advancing a Monster by class levels (which might alter it's role, too)

3. Making a Monster into a Playable Character

I hope 1 & 2 continue to remain options for 4E that are supported by the system and addressed in the MM -- mostly because I like to challenge players by changing up monsters so they aren't what they think. With th e"purpose designed" monster, I'm afraid of falling back into the 1E trap of players memorizing the stat for every monster out fo the book.

I could care less about #3.

 

[JVisgaitis]

300 monsters in a 288 page book with artwork and everything else? That's impressive and pretty telling of how much the stats and rules are cut down. From a publisher standpoint, that's insane even thinking about it. We're talking more then a monster per page! Looking at it another way, that means we could do the current Denizens of Avadnu in a 96 page source book!

 

[RigaMortus2]

Monsters will now have an 'agro radius". Once you come within x amount of feet (can be 10 feet, 30 feet, 100 feet, etc.) the monsters will automatically attack the person who is closest in their 'agro radius'. This replaces one of the uses for a Spot check (spot checks will still be used when actively hiding in stealth mode), thus removing extra die rolls. It's basically an automatic spot check, but based on distance.

In addition, some monsters will be 'linked' and some will not. If you encounter a horde or camp of monsters, and you attract their attention, not all of them may bring their friends with them. This will be noted in the monster stats as 'Linked'. If a monster is noted as being 'Linked' then he, and any of his buddies in his horde who are also 'Linked' will run/charge/attack which ever PC(s) entered any of their 'agro radi'

D&D Farce Edition

 

[RangerWickett]

I would imagine it actually is like SWSE a bit. There could be monstrous classes, and then hit point modifiers based on size. So a brontosaurus might just be a 4th level Grazer, with tons of hit points because it's huge, and it doesn't attack well, but when it hits it does tons of damage.

Grazer - defensive abilities, good perception, perhaps fast movement or tough hide, poor combat abilities
Stalker - stealth, moderate combat abilities
Striker - agility, speed, and high combat abilities

Any other classes needed?