D&D 3E/3.5 The design processes from 2e to 3e, 3 to 3.5, and 3e to 4e.

[The Souljourner]

They weren't perfect, but CR and EL made it a hell of a lot easier to built up and eyeball the difficulty of an encounter. Imperfect guidelines are inherently superior to no guidelines at all. I'm hoping the references we're seeing to monster level mean we still have more or less the same thing in another form, but I have my doubts. I also adored the CR-to-XP system. The notion that including the CR and EL system somehow hurt the game is the exact opposite of my experience.

I think you're mourning for something that's not dying. They are still going to have guidelines about what constitutes a good battle for a level X party. I think they've even mentioned that in general, 5 level x monsters will make a good fight for 5 level x PCs. And by good fight, they mean one that's knock down drag out, not the pansy equal CR fights they put aas standard in 3.x.

The way that it sounds like it's going to work is that all the annoyance and complexity of the CR/EL/APL stuff is getting pre-calculated, if you will, into the XP values of the monsters and the XP amounts required to level.

The example they gave was that if you wanted your 8th level party to fight 8000xp worth of monsters, you just grab 8000xp worth of monsters. I assume there will be guidelines as to how much XP worth of monsters is an "average fight" at each level.

I was never much of a fan of building magic items... I loved the MIC for all the great ideas. Hopefully they just do more of the same.

-Nate

 

[Samnell]

Oh definitely. But the guidelines are imperfect, and the calculations are a bit obtuse and sometimes counterintuitive. So are the guidelines for creating monsters, and the monster 'types.'

A monster of the animal type works just like creating a PC of the fighter type. Racial HD are a surrogate for the usual things that ride on level. I just don't see how this is counterintuitive.

In a recent D&D podcast, one of the designers said that while they were creating monsters for a more recent MM, they said that the original ways of designing a monster - with a 'monster type' hit dice - didn't have much if any relation to the power of the monster, and had lots of baggage with it, like big creatures (whales, etc) having massive attack bonuses, numbers of feats, etc just because they had to have lots of hit dice. They said that while creating monsters for a MM, they created some guidelines for what sorts of saves, attack bonuses, ACs, etc are appropriate for a given CR. After they had it, they realized that that's what they should have had at the beginning, to make monster design easier and more balanced.

The solution here doesn't sound like poison, but I'm still not convinced there was a problem that needed a lot of fixing. I wouldn't mind of CR mapped fairly well to HD, saves, and attack bonuses, but it's by no means an urgent concern for me. The number of new monsters I can create with minor effort by changing descriptions, throwing a template on, or adding a few class levels is virtually infinite and has been since the day the 3e MM came out. In the seven years since, I've never had the desire to create any monster from scratch. It would be a waste of effort. I understand it's harder for the guys at WotC since they get paid to churn out brand new fresh from scratch monsters all the time, and I don't begrudge them wanting an easier job of it, but making the game easier for the designers isn't a huge priority of mine.

That's the sort of progression I was writing about. In 3e, monster design is very logical - it works just like PC design, but without the inherent balance. In (presumably) 4e, they look at monsters more holsitically, in terms of how they actually function in the game, not in terms of an arbitrary hit dice level mechanic.

I don't see why monster types should be balanced against one another. As long as a monster of CR X is doing about what it should be doing to a party of four level X PCs, all's well in my world. It doesn't much matter to me if a dragon HD is superior to an animal HD. Also, it rings every alarm bell I have that you're describing 4e monster creation as illogical by default. I'd rather have no system than an illogical system. That's why I eventually gave up on pre-3e D&D. It wasn't a system; it was a madhouse of random subsystems cobbled together with little particular plan and less inclination to make sense of it all.

 

[Samnell]

I think you're mourning for something that's not dying. They are still going to have guidelines about what constitutes a good battle for a level X party. I think they've even mentioned that in general, 5 level x monsters will make a good fight for 5 level x PCs. And by good fight, they mean one that's knock down drag out, not the pansy equal CR fights they put aas standard in 3.x.

It stuns me after all these years that people still say things that were flatly contradicted in the original 3e DMG. The most it recommends is half of all encounters be EL=to party level, and the section on status quo encounters more or less says to design the site they're in according to its own logic more than EL vs. party level concerns. I like harder fights than the level=equal level of difficulty myself, but that's exceptionally easy for individual DMs to adjust for with the system as it is now.

The way that it sounds like it's going to work is that all the annoyance and complexity of the CR/EL/APL stuff is getting pre-calculated, if you will, into the XP values of the monsters and the XP amounts required to level.

The example they gave was that if you wanted your 8th level party to fight 8000xp worth of monsters, you just grab 8000xp worth of monsters. I assume there will be guidelines as to how much XP worth of monsters is an "average fight" at each level.

Well that would be nice, though I'm still not sanguine about the apparent return of each monster having a unique, fixed XP value. But then we're right back to what you're complaining about with assumed the "pansy equal CR fights" standard.

I was never much of a fan of building magic items... I loved the MIC for all the great ideas. Hopefully they just do more of the same.

I'm not a huge fan of it myself, but I don't see any reason why there shouldn't be a formulaic system for building simple items, and formulaic guidelines for more complex items. They seem to just be throwing up their hands and giving up here.

 

[pemerton]

A monster of the animal type works just like creating a PC of the fighter type. Racial HD are a surrogate for the usual things that ride on level. I just don't see how this is counterintuitive.

Why should a lion - 5 hit dice - have more skill points than a spider monkey - 1 hit dice or less?

That is what is counter-intuitive about the current monster mechanic, which (in many cases) equates size to hit dice and then equates hit dice to BAB, saves, skill points, feats etc.

 

[Samnell]

Why should a lion - 5 hit dice - have more skill points than a spider monkey - 1 hit dice or less?

How is it counterintuitive that more HD mean more skill points? I would have a great deal of trouble justifying anything else. The spider monkey can easily be more intelligent than the lion and get more skills that way without having to up its HD if that's what you want. I'm just not understanding your criticism at all.

 

[Branduil]

How is it counterintuitive that more HD mean more skill points? I would have a great deal of trouble justifying anything else. The spider monkey can easily be more intelligent than the lion and get more skills that way without having to up its HD if that's what you want. I'm just not understanding your criticism at all.

The Spider Monkey is limited to a max of 4 points in any skill. A Lion could theoretically be a better climber than a Spider Monkey.

 

[wedgeski]

I think it's important to keep in mind that 3e was going strong for WotC into this period. For the first time in maybe 20 years, we're seeing an edition made from a company in a position of strength. They're not trying to save the game, because it doesn't need saving: they want to make it better, and they have the tools, the long design cycle, the feedback about the previous edition, and the talented designers to do it.

That's a great point. Honestly there probably aren't any excuses for 4ed to be anything except excellent.

 

[blargney the second]

For the first time in maybe 20 years, we're seeing an edition made from a company in a position of strength. They're not trying to save the game, because it doesn't need saving: they want to make it better, and they have the tools, the long design cycle, the feedback about the previous edition, and the talented designers to do it.

That's an awesome point. I think you hit the nail on the head because WotC people keep on pointing to the crazy cool products they've made in the last year as examples of the kinds of things to expect in 4e. There's been something special going on behind those doors recently to inspire kick-ass stuff like PHB2, MMV, Bo9S, and SWSE.

 

[Samnell]

The Spider Monkey is limited to a max of 4 points in any skill. A Lion could theoretically be a better climber than a Spider Monkey.

That's what racial bonuses to skills are for. Ability score bonuses, skill ranks, and racial bonuses all function the same in the skill check. You get the result you want and it doesn't matter whether it comes from a racial bonus or from skill points. How is this a problem?

 

[Atlatl Jones]

That's what racial bonuses to skills are for. Ability score bonuses, skill ranks, and racial bonuses all function the same in the skill check. You get the result you want and it doesn't matter whether it comes from a racial bonus or from skill points. How is this a problem?

A creature shouldn't have to have lots of skill points, high will saves, and lots of feats just because it's big. Blue whales are not sages any more than killer whales. Your point about racial skill bonuses is well taken, but it's just one way to patch the problem. It would be better IMO to just deal with that directly.