D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[Li Shenron]

A very surprising post by Keith Ammann of TMKWTD. I'm passingly familiar with the blog, I check it out every now and again and I've always been interested to see how Keith breaks down monsters and suggests how they'd work in a fight. This is surprising to me, at least, because in the 5e-sphere this blog and book series etc. are fairly well known, and this guy really is not jiving with 5e24.
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Overall I have to say that his points all hit home for me, and I'm curious what y'all think... and, as per the questions he poses later on in the post, what direction you think he should take?

Keith knows what he's doing.

I've said it countless of times, I've spotted the trend already at Tasha's book, and I am happy that I stopped my D&D purchases at that point (meaning, without getting Tasha's).

 

[MonsterEnvy]

My point is it tradition to either make monsters based on looks, benchmarks, or both.

Making fun tactical monsters only existed in 3PP or the sacred cow grilling edition.

I would say 2024 monsters are closer to 4e Monsters and can be pretty tactically interesting

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My point is it tradition to either make monsters based on looks, benchmarks, or both.

Making fun tactical monsters only existed in 3PP or the sacred cow grilling edition.

Hence my aforementioned, in not quite so many words, "wow...feeling like you're getting snubbed for loving simulationism....must be so weird feeling like your preferences are being actively excluded from the Big Tent....wouldn't know anything about that...."

 

[Teemu]

"AC and hp and saving throws -- grounded, simulationist, I feel connected to the game world, I love it."

"Guard has 18 STR instead of 16? I'm out."

I know that's a flippant way to put it but honestly it's just the same thing we've seen over and over again. New things just don't feel good to some people. It's an emotional reaction, which is fine, we're all emotional. But when people try to rationalize their likes as somehow logical (the stats of creature X don't make "sense"), the argument falls short in my opinion.

 

[tetrasodium]

My point is it tradition to either make monsters based on looks, benchmarks, or both.

Making fun tactical monsters only existed in 3PP or the sacred cow grilling edition.

And mine is that the tactical element that 5e threw out in the 5e exclusive "tradition" as you want to call it is their ability to provide effective & specialized function rather than being mediocre generalists but you were too excited to defend 5e on an irrelivant but of line drawing over if that is tactical or not

 

[Minigiant]

I would say 2024 monsters are closer to 4e Monsters and can be pretty tactically interesting

If they all have the same monster role.

2014 gave monsters different unofficial roles but messed up the math.

2024 gave monsters the same unofficial role but fixed the math.

If somebody wants to complain that 2014 was better because the monsters all feel different in their simulation that's okay. The problem is that when they changed it in 2024 the same people have to admit that 2014 had messed up math in the calculation of the actual monsters.

You can complain that the 2024 monsters are samey but you would have to admit that 2014 monsters had bad math and its steering wheel was broken.

 

[Minigiant]

And mine is that the tactical element that 5e threw out in the 5e exclusive "tradition" as you want to call it is their ability to provide effective & specialized function rather than being mediocre generalists but you were too excited to defend 5e on an irrelivant but of line drawing over if that is tactical or not

I'm criticizing both.

I'm just saying that it's easier for a DM to adjust boring clones to new roles then it is to fix broken specialist who have roles. It's easier to adjust mediocre generalists. So if they're not going to give you rules to help you as a DM then give me the generalist.

Ideally you want specialists who have correct math but that only happened once in D& D's history.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Well the 4e monsters actually did have incorrect math at the start.

I also don’t think that the 2024 monsters are too samey for the most part. Though them having roles would not be a negative in my opinion.

 

[BenjaminPey]

Ideally you want specialists who have correct math but that only happened once in D& D's history.

Nope. I don't. We all have slightly, sometimes hugely different expectations and needs about this game. In fact, those MM24 monsters are veeeery near my sweet spot, much more so than any of the previous ones.

 

[Minigiant]

Well the 4e monsters actually did have incorrect math at the start.

I also don’t think that the 2024 monsters are too samey for the most part. Though them having roles would not be a negative in my opinion.

Yes. It wasn't even all of 4e. Just mid-late 4e. So only the 4e diehards saw that paradise.

2024 monsters do all kinda have the something between a Skrimisher and Soldier role. WOTC focused on giving many of them a good range attack. And a caster type monsters had their defenses greatly increased.

They fixed the Mage dagger and the Hill Giant boulder problem. But they have now close in strategy now. I acknowledge both the pros and the cons.

To me, having most of the monsters being Skirmishers and Soldiers is great. But there should be more monsters of other roles by bumping either their melee, ranged, or limited attacks above the baseline but keeping the rest of their attacks at base. I think that was hampered by BC.