The Call of the World Builder

[LostSoul]

If it is in the fluff "These creatures are greatly feared because those they drain are instantly transformed into similar undead spirits under the control of their killer, and their bodies are lost forever in the transformation beyond even the reach of divine life returning magic." but not the mechanics then you have situations where it should come up from the fluff, but doesn't happen mechanically in the game. Such as when a PC or NPC dies from fighting one.

That's not fluff, that's a rule. If they can't raise a dead character, it's governed by mechanics. It breaks the normal use of the Raise Dead ritual.

If it is fluff, then the PCs can return someone who died from one of these things to life, but they'll need to roll some dice.

I suggest a skill challenge and/or a ritual.

 

[Hussar]

Sounds rather unimaginative to me. It would seem he didn't have to kill any 60 HD Balors in a straight-up fight in order to get to the top, at least.

If you can only conceive of power structures based on who can beat who up in a duel, well I'm not sure what to say. You can make Demogorgon any CR and I can always produce some advanced demon that's tougher. His rule, or that of any other demon prince-like creature, is ultimately going to be based on setting details (divine mandate, political mastermind, valuable alliances, etc.) unrelated to combat stats.
/snip

Hey, don't blame me. This is how it's presented in the D&D world. I didn't make this up on my own. Talk to James Jacobs.

I'm quite a fantastically lazy DM, if the game doesn't GIVE me inspiration, I'll go do something that does.

You'd be hard pressed to find a lazier DM than me. But, considering the MASSIVE amount of fantasy fiction out there in every media venue you care to name, do you REALLY think that the only source of inspiration is the MM?

The way I see it, it's fine if a monster entry says something like: "Shadow Barons create their Shadow Serfs through a ritual", and at least tells me the basics of the ritual - how long it takes and whether it requires rare components/blood sacrifice/etc.

But if the entry just says that a ritual is involved and I should make up what it is, that's not very helpful. Sure, it happens out of combat, but the effects are going to felt by the PCs. If Shadow Serfs are time-consuming/expensive to create, they'll be used sparingly. If the Shadow Baron can just pop one out every five minutes for free, they're going to be thrown at the PCs like popcorn, used to stand guard everywhere, sent to fetch drinks, and so forth.

Now I can already hear people getting ready to say "You're the DM, decide the ritual based off how many Shadow Serfs you want the PCs to fight." But that's the thing ... I don't need to decide how each monster ability works, I'm already deciding by the fact of picking a monster. Picking from all the different monsters available while also changing how those monsters work seems somewhat self-defeating.

If I already have a plot in mind that requires the abilties to work a certain way, then they'll work that way. But if I'm digging through the MM for inspiration, I want the abilities to have defined properties so I can get some ideas from them. Otherwise I'm just getting ideas from myself, and I don't need a book for that.

But, now you've stepped out of the realm of monster and into world building. How hard is it to create this Shadow Serf? is a question that the DM creating his world should answer, not the Monster Manual. Sure, they could give you guidelines (this is an Epic Tier Ritual for example), but, do they really have to break it down to the last GP?

That kind of fits with my original point. 3e detailed those elements to the last cp. You knew EXACTLY how much money was required to create a stone golem. So, a player could turn to the DM and request that he makes one too, regardless of what world the DM had designed. I.E. world building elements are now codified in the rules.

This gets back to what I was saying earlier about 3e defining mechanically your campaign setting.

Right. What does that mean when I sit down and play the game? Why should I use a succubus?

Because its an enemy that fits into the plotline you have created? Instead of the game dictating plotlines to you? If I want a succubus to be an evil temptress, I don't think it's too far out of the realm of possibility that people can come up with the plot lines on their own.

So far I agree with KM that the monster fluff from the excerpt wasn't that great. I am not sure if we have seen the full monster fluff, but if that's it, there probably should be some more. On the other hand, if I really get a handful of monsters on every level of 4E, maybe the loss of fluff is worth it. Not having to create stat-blocks is a big seller to me, after having created countless of these in my 3E campaigns.

QFT

I'm rapidly concluding that 3e and 4e are not such different beasties as I thought they were. They just approach the same thing from a different perspective, but are equally capable at what they do. The end result is the same - it's just a slightly different journey.

Pinotage

Again, QFT

On the whole Shadow spawning thing.

The 4e take would be, IMO, to have spawning mechanics that define what happens if a character is slain "on stage", be he PC or NPC, and whatever happens off stage is left to the DM.

And I think that many here will have a problem with that.

 

[Lanefan]

Unless I'm reading this all wrong, I must be doing things backwards compared to you lot.

If I'm designing a world I start with the physical world - mountains, rivers, that sort of thing...and ocean currents too! Then I figure out where the good guys live and what they are. Then I figure out where the bad guys live and what they are, in a broad sense. Then I start working out how they all got to where they are, i.e. world history. In other words, the monsters fit the world, not the other way around.

Same for if I'm dreaming up an adventure or story arc. The story comes first...what's the plotline in theory (and will the players stick to it), and only after that do I start thinking "what would be a decent opponent for them to face here, or here, and here". Again, the monsters/opponents fit the story, not the other way around. If I only want them to face some monster I think is interesting, said monster will simply happen to wander by sometime when it makes sense for it to do so...

That said, 3e's liberal magic-creation rules rather strongly suggest a different type of cultural world than do earlier editions.

Lanefan

 

[Voadam]

That's not fluff, that's a rule. If they can't raise a dead character, it's governed by mechanics. It breaks the normal use of the Raise Dead ritual.

If it is fluff, then the PCs can return someone who died from one of these things to life, but they'll need to roll some dice.

I suggest a skill challenge and/or a ritual.

My point is that moving this as is from mechanics to descriptions does not solve the problem.

The problem is the implications of how the rule works.

If they can use the standard mechanics to raise the dead but it needs a nonstandard ritual or action to accomplish (changes how the normal raise dead mechanics apply) then those exceptions should be spelled out in the rules IMO.

 

[Voadam]

But, now you've stepped out of the realm of monster and into world building. How hard is it to create this Shadow Serf? is a question that the DM creating his world should answer, not the Monster Manual. Sure, they could give you guidelines (this is an Epic Tier Ritual for example), but, do they really have to break it down to the last GP?

That kind of fits with my original point. 3e detailed those elements to the last cp. You knew EXACTLY how much money was required to create a stone golem. So, a player could turn to the DM and request that he makes one too, regardless of what world the DM had designed. I.E. world building elements are now codified in the rules.

It depends on what you want out of an MM.

If you only want a toolkit for making your own monsters then vagueness in monster descriptions is a feature in the MM so you can shape the basic statblock tools presented in the MM into your own vision of how you want monsters to be and decide all of these specific questions yourself.

If you want ready to use monsters out of the box then the more features that are defined in the MM the better.

 

[MerricB]

If you want ready to use monsters out of the box then the more features that are defined in the MM the better.

Hmm. Sort of.

I'd put the caveat that you want features that you'll actually use in play. It might be fun to have an orc breeding table (how many babies does mummy have this time!), but it's one of the things that most people will find a complete waste of space.

 

[Voadam]

Hmm. Sort of.

I'd put the caveat that you want features that you'll actually use in play. It might be fun to have an orc breeding table (how many babies does mummy have this time!), but it's one of the things that most people will find a complete waste of space.

There were orc baby tables in the 3.5 MM?

The 3e MMs were so short on descriptions I'm getting a disconnect on the desire for less description or less mechanically defined monsters in the 4e MMs.

The things people are complaining about shadow spawning, golem creation rules, etc. all seem like things I want already defined when I use these monsters in my games. I find it more useful to have default systems and decisions made in the books that mechanically work and then change stuff I don't like rather than make it all up from scratch myself in the first place.

 

[Spatula]

And all of this also applies to how a succubus can seduce a king. IOW, there is a lot more to world building than just blind application of a rules framework, so the lack of that rules framework shouldn't hurt world building any.

Right, D&D doesn't model seduction. I haven't paid much attention to that particular discussion, though. I imagine the disconnect for some is the difference in how mind control magic has worked in previous editions of D&D - from lasting days, which is useful in all kinds of situations, down to rounds, which is not. A succubus used to be able to control the minds of mortals through magic, and no longer can out of the box, and that doesn't match what some people think a succubus should be capable of (I'm guessing).

 

[Spatula]

I'd put the caveat that you want features that you'll actually use in play. It might be fun to have an orc breeding table (how many babies does mummy have this time!), but it's one of the things that most people will find a complete waste of space.

Where has D&D ever had breeding tables of any kind, Merric? (waits for someone to pull out some obscure table from the 1e DMG)

 

[hong]

Right, D&D doesn't model seduction. I haven't paid much attention to that particular discussion, though. I imagine the disconnect for some is the difference in how mind control magic has worked in previous editions of D&D - from lasting days, which is useful in all kinds of situations, down to rounds, which is not. A succubus used to be able to control the minds of mortals through magic, and no longer can out of the box, and that doesn't match what some people think a succubus should be capable of (I'm guessing).

No, the disconnect is basically down to people wanting mechanics for off-screen interaction.