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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Benimoto" data-source="post: 4031574" data-attributes="member: 40093">I think I see what you mean.As a response, I would say that while classed monsters were consistent, or at least offered the illusion of consistency, they offered their own set of problems.  I seem to remember people mentioning for years that classed NPCs were typically the weakest enemies at their CR, and that if geared properly, they dropped a huge amount of lower-level magical stuff in the PCs' arms.  You often had to be very careful in your builds to reach acceptable levels of AC, damage, or +tohit or your enemies became irrelevant.  And then, in 3rd edition if you were carefully building to reach acceptable levels, you already have a sort of a table for monster statistics, so the difference is that in 4th edition it's actually written out and acknowledged.To me, the main argument in getting away from the classed/hit die system of monster generation lies in the 4th edition minion/regular/elite/solo monster idea.  I think it offers a better way to create the kinds of encounters I want, and it would be difficult to achieve those kinds of encounters in 3rd edition.  As they have explained it, solo monsters have the kind of HP, damage output, and variety of actions necessary to challenge the party by themselves.  As a contrast, minion monsters have lower damage or HP, yet in both of these extremes both solo monsters and the minions have to-hit values that are relevant against the party's ACs.  In a system where hit dice/class are intrinsically linked to the to-hit values, a monster that has the HP to last 4-5 rounds against the entire party will hit them every time.  The equivalent of a minion will often need a 20 to hit.  Saves, and some other values have similar problems.  "Tough" monsters in 3rd edition were notorious for making all of their fortitude saves, since they almost invariably had a lot of hit dice and a high constitution.  Monsters that had a lot of hit dice also had a zillion feats, most of which weren't needed for its core role, and also made nearly all of their spot/listen/other opposed skill checks except in the case where they didn't take that skill in which case they made almost none.  There was no specific rule to how many hit dice a DM-made monster should have at a certain CR.  When advancing an existing monster, there was a rule for the CR, except that as has been noted countlessly, the rules didn't work all that well.While I value consistency, it's also important to realize that it's all part of a game.  In my mind, a game that offers a greater variety of adventures and opponents is more important that one that offers less variety but more consistency.Anyways, don't get me wrong.  I'm a tremendous fan of 3rd edition, I've had and am having a great deal of fun with the system.  I just think that at this point, I'm ready for a breath of fresh air and I think 4th edition looks like it will offer it.</blockquote>

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