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

[Wolfwood2]

No love for the girallon?

Carnivorous white-furred giant apes are classic pulp fantasy monsters. The Girallon would be right at home in a Conan story. I do think the stats could be toned down some so they're not so much the ultimate melee monster. Currently nobody dares face these things sword to claw, and I'd like to be able to have parties fight groups of them.

The base concept is sound, though.

 

[Greg K]

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.

In my opinion, he started doing that with the Iron Hero classes

 

[Celebrim]

Carnivorous white-furred giant apes are classic pulp fantasy monsters. The Girallon would be right at home in a Conan story.

Girallon = the Great White Apes of Barsoom

 

[lukelightning]

Carnivorous white-furred giant apes are classic pulp fantasy monsters.

Take a dire ape, describe it as white. If you must, give it some extra claws.

 

[Jhaelen]

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

Yeah, I'd like to know that as well, my crystal ball is a bit murky right now I cannot even tell yet what the 4E covers will look like!

 

[LightPhoenix]

The only monster I really care about not being in the MM is the Tarrasque. I know it's iconic D&D, but it's a total niche creature. Someone earlier in the thread was describing the rust monster as basically an in-joke for the D&D crowd, but I nominate the Tarrasque is the pinnacle of in-joke monsters. I'd love to have a poll of how many people actually use the thing in a serious campaign, and I'm betting the numbers are pretty low.

 

[Slife]

IIRC you took some damage and had to make a System Shock roll or something like that. Yeah, familiars have kind of always sucked. If they are kept, they should actually aid spellcasting or something. Its kind of busch league to run around with a toad in your pocket for a measly 3hp.

Aid another on spellcraft and concentration checks. It shares your ranks!

 

[AffableVagrant]

Goofy animals

Let's just summarily get rid of all the goofy animals from D&D entirely. There's too many to name off the top of my head, but...

Owlbear - For real? I'm still rolling this on random encounter tables?? "A bear is scary, but what could we combine with it to make it MORE scary? Hm... I got it! An owl!"
Seacat - Lame.
Seatiger - Lame with tusks.
Dire Badger - Because there are a lot of animals that are cooler than badgers.
Senmurv - Flying rainbow wolf?
Skiurids - Evil squirrels. If I killed a PC with these guys, my players would walk away from the table and never return.
Blinkdog - A non-evil version of a displacer beast only way less cool.
Dragonturtle - It's that critter from Never Ending Story.
Phoenix - Normally cool, except that it's obscenely powerful, good, and can't be killed... so why bother?
Worgs and Winterwolves - Basically, they are the same thing, as someone has already mentioned.

OK, there's plenty more, but you get the idea...

 

[Doug McCrae]

Girallon = the Great White Apes of Barsoom

Yeah. Simple formula -

IF NumLimbs > 4 THEN Author = "Edgar Rice Burroughs"

 

[Cam Banks]

No love for the girallon?

As a novelist, I have a lot of love for the girallon. And the dragonne, while we're on the subject. I suppose you could mimic them with a combination of templates and flavor manipulation (after all, in Dragonlance the dragonnes also come in tiger and cougar flavors) but I think wholesale kicking out of monsters just because "they're goofy" is missing the point of D&D monsters.

Cheers,
Cam