D&D 3E/3.5 The 4E Monster Manual -- what 3.5 monsters need the axe?

[sckeener]

I wonder what race would stay in the monster manual if we had a survivor-ish poll...vote them off the island...I mean out of the manual...

 

[Stalker0]

Yeah, this is something I've noticed, too. I remember looking through the descriptions of the various Nightshade creatures, and trying to figure out where they came from. They don't look like corpses, and there's no "Nightwalkers are the spirits of dead giants who..." explanation, or anything like that. I'm kind of wondering if someone just decided that anything powered by negative energy qualified as technically "undead".

I hope they keep the nightwalker though, and the picture. Its my favorite one in the MM!!

 

[Korgoth]

Things I think must be kept:

Aboleths, beholders, mind flayers: these are some of the coolest monsters in D&D. If you don't like them, that's proof that you're not cool.

Hippogriffs: these are actually in mythology. In fact, iirc one is the steed of an evil wizard in one of the Roland stories. Keep keep keep.

Winter Wolves: A big white wolf that shoots frost out of its mouth? Heck yes. He's mister icicle, he's mister ten below!

 

[lukelightning]

Hippogriffs: these are actually in mythology.

"Actually in mythology" might not be the best argument. There are little elves that curdle your milk in mythology, but I don't think they should be in the MM.

I'm fine with hippogriffs being in the book, but also fine if they're removed. They overlap too much with griffins and you could just put in a footnote under the griffin entry "there is a variety of griffin known as hippogriffs...yaddayaddayadda, with +10' ground speed but doing 1d4 instead of 1d6 claw damage" or something like that.

Winter Wolves: A big white wolf that shoots frost out of its mouth? Heck yes. He's mister icicle, he's mister ten below!

It's pretty much just a dire wolf with cold immunity and cold breath. Easily replaced with a "elemental template" that could be applied to a variety of creatures, that gives energy resistance and a breath weapon. The sample creature for this template could then be a "frost-templated dire wolf" i.e a winter wolf.

 

[Korgoth]

and you could just put in a footnote under the griffin entry "there is a variety of griffin known as hippogriffs...yaddayaddayadda, with +10'round ground speed but doing 1d4 instead of 1d6 claw damage" or something like that.

I would consider that "keeping them". I'm not concerned about how they format or subdivide the entries. I just think that the hippogriff is a good monster with a fine mythic pedigree and merits inclusion.

 

[Celebrim]

Reading through those articles highlights one of the big reasons why my brain is resisting the 4e hype somewhat: the blanket statements of what's fun and what isn't. Losing equipment isn't fun. Save or die isn't fun. Antimagic fields aren't fun. And so on.

Mearls gave an interview once where he said something I really liked. From memory it was something like, "A good rules system doesn't tell you how it should be played. It should just provide tools and get out of the way."

It seems like that for the purposes of 4e, he's totally changed his mind on that. Fourth edition is expressly a system that tells you how to play. It's heavy on the (brand new) fluff, and heavy on deciding for you what content and play style that you want.

 

[Korgoth]

It's pretty much just a dire wolf with cold immunity and cold breat. Easily replaced with a "elemental template" that could be applied to a variety of creatures, that gives energy resistance and a breath weapon.

Ugghhh. I hate templates.

Is it really that hard putting some extra stats in the "Wolf" entry? How about a 3 column stat block... wolf, dire wolf, winter wolf? You can even widen the stat block instead of including a picture, because of all the things in the Monster Manual, I'm pretty confident I know what a "wolf" looks like and there are plenty of opportunities to see pictures of them.

If ample photographs of the creature exist in real life, I don't really need an artistic representation of it.

 

[Greg K]

I want to see pretty much every new WOTC monster introduced in 3.x removed. There are a few exceptions (e.g., the new dragons from dragonomicon), but not many.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

It seems like that for the purposes of 4e, he's totally changed his mind on that. Fourth edition is expressly a system that tells you how to play. It's heavy on the (brand new) fluff, and heavy on deciding for you what content and play style that you want.

Could you elaborate? In what way will it tell me how to play and decide on the style I want?

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Also, why are "orc" and "hobgoblin" not two different names for the same creature?

For my own campaigns, the two serve two different functions.

When I want isolated raids, and hack and slash brutes, and to generally have a bunch of nasty humanoids wreck up the place, I go for Orcs. When I want a more savage and tribal based humanoid monster, I go for Orcs. When I have a villain looking for some additional humanoid muscle, I go for Orcs.

When I want to have a massive army of well organized and disciplined and well equipped humanoids, I go for Hobgoblins. When I want evil humanoids that can occasionally appear in human cities, and work with humans as mercenaries, I go for Hobgoblins.

More generally, if you see a well organized army of mostly Orcs, you can be pretty sure that there is something else leading the army. If you see a well organized army of Hobgoblins, then it is a Hobgoblin war leader that is running the show.

END COMMUNICATION