The needed monster that's never appeared in the MM1 -- or at all, in some editions

[Wormwood]

Again, no wonder you hate D&D.

You were one of the 4e skeptics I actually admired, because you were able to discuss your objections without resorting to sleazy internet tactics.

 

[Celebrim]

You were one of the 4e skeptics I actually admired, because you were able to discuss your objections without resorting to sleazy internet tactics.

I'm afraid your opinion of me is rather irrelevant. Do you think I'm supposed to be afraid to say things for fear of losing your respect?

Exactly what am I stating that is contriversial?

a) By your own admission encounters like KM described 'excite you about playing D&D'.
b) By your own admission you don't presently play D&D like that (in any sort of regular way).
c) By you own admission you don't like D&D in its present incarnation.

What's sleezy about repeating back what you've already said? It's not at all illogical to draw the conclusion, "Wormwood doesn't like D&D because he doesn't play the game in a way that he would enjoy it."

You say that you 'admire' my argument. Well, that's great because you apparantly never listened to me. For weeks now I've been saying that so many of the 'problems' that they say that they are trying to fix aren't problems I experience. Do we freaking need rules for a monster being intelligently played? What sort of mechanical fix do you suggest for a DMs failure of imagination? How is that you 'admired' me, but didn't know what I was complaining about?

My complaint is the problems with 3.X that everyone is complaining about won't be solved by the suggested mechanical changes, and perhaps can't be solved by any mechanical changes. My complaint with 3.X was more like, "It would be nice not to have to kludge rules on the spot for what happens when a medium-sized player tries to board a gargantuan monster so it can pound it at close range." than "3.X isn't exciting and the combat is tedious". Now 4e comes along supposedly to fix that problem, and what do you bet that they don't actually address my complaint? Instead, they'll claim X mechanic solves the problem of not making combat tedious. HA! Wanna bet?

 

[Riley]

I'd do it as an Encounter Monster, rather than as a normal monster.

'Encounter monster' - a new term to me. Is this a term/game design that's been described somewhere, or is there advice on running these out there?

 

[YourSwordIsMine]

When we were playing GURPS still in one of our campaigns we had to fight a Sea Serpent that attacked our ship. We were in a fog bank so never saw it coming (bad rolls to those of us who could have detected it). It grappled our ship and began to squeeze it apart. The GM set it up thusly:

There were 4 coils wrapped around the deck of the ship, each coil had a set amount of hit points a Health Score and PD/DR. Realizing we didn’t have long before our ship was destroyed we attacked the coils we could easily get too. Our fighter leaped up to the wheelhouse to help free the captain and navigator trapped beneath one of the coils. Even though it was easy to hit (just a Passive Defense bonus) he rolled a natural 3 and caused a critical. As he was our strong burly fighter he did enough damage on the crit to sever the coil cutting off the Serpents tail. Enraged the serpents head rose out of the water to see what was hurting it and thus added a new combatant into the fray. Basically what were 4 separate monsters became 5 (4 after the tail was severed). 4 of the “monsters” were attacking the ship while the 5th (the head with its own stats) began attacking us. We finally killed it when our wizard nearly blew himself up by going over his mana threshold to cast a 50d6 Stone Missile spell and caused the Serpents head to vaporize… Luckily we were able to limp back to port.

Even though its not d20 you could basically do the same kind of thing as our GM did.

 

[YourSwordIsMine]

'Encounter monster' - a new term to me. Is this a term/game design that's been described somewhere, or is there advice on running these out there?

"Encounter Monster" is not a new concept to RPG's but I dont think it is used so much within D&D which has (IMHO) become a slave to its monster stat blocks.

 

[Klaus]

OK, in my Midwood campaign, one of the two groups is on a ship bound for Freeport. They see a sea serpent swimming alongside the vessel.

Let's go to the Monster Manual, and look up Sea Serpent, so I can have it ready, just in case they (OK, in case Renraw) do something irrational.

Not there.

Let's check Stormwrack. OK, MM2. Fiend Folio. MM3 ...

Not there, not there, not there.

(And no, the talking cutesey-wootsy Sea Drake does not count, especially as it's playing against type off a monster that's not even in the books.)

Despite the cover of Creatures of Freeport, a standard sea serpent really isn't in that otherwise excellent book. (Again, we get a sea serpent-like creature that plays against a type that doesn't show up anywhere.)

The closest we get are the dragons in Necromancers' Dead Mans Chest, which hopefully will show up in the 4E ToH, but what the heck? Why is one of the most iconic and seemingly basic monsters in myth and legend not in D&D at all?

Yes, I can take an eel and blow it up freaking huge, especially with the Freaking Huge template from Advanced Bestiary, but why should I have to? Instead of giving us the 4E equivalent of the phantom fungus, WotC, please, please, please give me a sea serpent next time around.

The crew and passengers of the pirate ship Melann thank you.

It's in the MM.

The name is Giant Constrictor Snake. With the Appendix "Improving Monsters" you can make it Colossal.




Other than that? They're in d20 Past.

 

[Piratecat]

Celebrim, you managed to take a cool thread and hijack it by getting personal. We're awfully tired of this sort of behavior; see you in a few days. But while we're looking at what triggered it...

You were one of the 4e skeptics I actually admired, because you were able to discuss your objections without resorting to sleazy internet tactics.

This is a pretty good example of an unneeded statement that seems designed to start a fight. This is the sort of thing you should be saying to yourself, not typing into your keyboard. Please, folks - think before you write, and if it doesn't further the conversation, don't write it.

Everyone else? Carry on with the sea serpenting, please!

 

[I'm A Banana]

But that's just dramatic, story based events really, same things you'd see in any book or movie with that kind of event. All the same, it reminds me of several different events across three different final fantasy games, without even really thinking about it.

For me, the videogame-ness comes in demanding the saves and skill checks. In a book or movie, the hero would just DO it. In D&D, and in videogames (like God of War) you'd have to DO something to succeed or fail. Skill checks and saves (die rolls) take that position over at the tabletop for me. In God of War, I'd have to press a sequence of buttons or rotate the analog stick. In D&D (or FFZ), I chuck some dice around.

In a way, they're sort of "minigames." You usually run right to left, you usually swing at AC's and whittle away HPs, but in this instance, you need to think a little bit different about what victory means. It's as if you stopped in the middle of Super Mario Brothers and started playing a round or two of Shadow of the Colossus.

It's not a new idea, but in D&D's obsessive cataloging, you can loose the fact that you're not really FIGHTING a SEA SERPENT as you are just avoiding getting eaten by something that you can't really effectively wound. It's an ant trying to wrestle an elephant! It's also something of an issue with the "battle grid" that D&D has embraced, because that abstraction looses some of the volatile chaos in the minds of the players.

That said, it's also a LOT of fun to be able to challenge something that big -- that's what makes the game heroic, after all. So my "encounter monsters" always include opportunities for the PC's to be resourceful, or just lucky. If the player of the fighter runs to the top of the sinking ship's bow and does a leaping cry for the serpent's neck, axe swinging wildly, I'm totally going to allow it (maybe treat it like a charge), and if he rolls a crit, confirms it, and deals his *3 damage, maybe the serpent will think twice about this attempted easy meal.

Similarly, say one of the characters knows Aquan and asks the Sahagin scavengers to help them in return for some future favor. Knowing the value of a favor owed (and persuaded with a high enough Diplomacy check), they maybe agree and they call a powerful druid to calm and subdue the beast. Of course, that gives me the perfect opportunity to put them in a tough situation with the Sahagin later.

I think the criticism that D&D has been too married to the statblock (and the battle grid) is pretty true. At the same time, in order for me to run that encounter, I'd *HAVE* to wing it, eve with a stat block. Nothing is going to tell me, for instance, how many feet in the air a charging sea serpent can launch it's head while it's teeth are clenched around the bow of a ship. That's...probably WAY too specific for it to be anticipated, but at the same time, if I had a regular ol' statblock for the Sea Serpent, it wouldn't be doing me nearly as much good as that particular bit of information.

It's a difference in scale. Something microscopic that the PC's can't really interact with isn't usually a monster -- it's a hazard. Something colossal that the PC's can't really interact with isn't usually a monster -- it's an encounter (or, if you like, more like a trap).

"Encounter Monster" is a neologism, but the idea is as old as games. It's an idea that FFZ embraces, and that I hope D&D4e puts in it's mix. It's a really useful way to think about beasts like sea serpents or kaiju monsters or stampedes of creatures or other great "forces of nature" more than "things you fight and kill."

 

[TwinBahamut]

I'd do it as an Encounter Monster, rather than as a normal monster.

-great post snipped-

I am probably getting to this bandwagon a little late, but...

This was a great post. Right along with Villain Classes, your Encounter Monster is a great thing. Using a monster as a scene or a monster as terrain are two ideas that D&D could stand to use a lot more.

Forget putting it in as a footnote in a Monster Manual, or a DMG, this kind of thing deserves its own book, full of nothing but detailed scenes of this kind. It would be a very useful resorce for DMs, especially those with little prep time.

 

[Wormwood]

Forget putting it in as a footnote in a Monster Manual, or a DMG, this kind of thing deserves its own book, full of nothing but detailed scenes of this kind. It would be a very useful resorce for DMs, especially those with little prep time.

I'd buy that in a second.

Publishers take note!