D&D 4E Thing I thought 4e did better: Monsters

[dave2008]

I'm confused. How do you mean the role system? I've always played them differently based on their lore, which has been in every edition. Unless I'm missing something. What in 4e makes that different?

Specific roles (brute, soldier, skirmisher, etc.) with powers that fit those roles is a 4e thing.

 

[Greg Benage]

I didn't play 4e, but my take on 5e monsters is this: They went overboard defanging the monsters that really need terrifying special abilities by eliminating save-or-die effects and effectively eliminating save-or-suck effects with all the iterative saving throws and nerfed "life drain." I'm thinking mainly of undead here, but it's not just undead. And at the same time, they added frivolous special abilities to monsters that don't actually need them. As DM, I can run kobolds or wolves as being good at "pack tactics" without a special ability called "pack tactics" that I have to remember and that, ironically, makes it harder to focus my attention on the actual pack tactics they should be using.

All that said, the designers probably made the right choice. My preferences for save-or-die and save- (or no-save) and-suck abilities such as level drain probably aren't representative of the hobby these days. But I really don't get why everything needs a special ability. There's still a DM, right? We can still run kobolds that use pack tactics and goblins that are devious ambushers, can't we?

 

[Shiroiken]

Which gets into ludicrous territory pretty quick, since a dungeon becomes "you open a door and see 30 orcs playing cards". I have to roll for all these losers, who have suck AC, suck damage, and then track all their friggin hit points. Its a busywork treadmill to achieve the same thing 4E did better with minions.

Minions in 4E generally had suck AC and damage too, you just didn't have to track HP. You could do the exact same thing in 5E by marking them like the "2 Hit" minions I saw many people using in 4E. Ignore the damage, as each creature dies in 2 hits (or one failed save for half damage).

Or you could design better encounters. Rather than having them sitting around playing cards, they could actually have fortifications to hide behind (while firing crossbows), scouts/guards to provide advance warning, traps to hem the players in and reduce HP by attrition. I did this in 1E with kobolds to a 26th level magic user (who'd gotten a bit too obnoxious); he never did manage to kill them all before he had to teleport to safety, and this was LONG before bounded accuracy.

Monsters in 5E are just sad, boring wusses PC's are meant to steamroll over in a round. The exception being casters (naturally...) which means I need another damn book handy, where 4E had the courtesy of keeping all the crap I needed to run a monster on the monster entry. It's like they designed for a party of champions all wielding non-proficient improvised weapons and stat arrays of straight 10-12's... God forbid you actually hand out magic items or let people use feats (or roll for stats).

The problem isn't the monsters... it's the lame Encounter Building guidelines that are specifically designed to be "easy mode." I used 2 Adult White Dragons on a "Hard" Difficulty that was very nearly a TPK, while the same group would handily defeat "Deadly" Difficulty x2 (or sometimes x3) of Giants and such. I knew this would be the case, because the dragon encounter was meant to be tough, while the Giants were not (regardless of what the guidelines said).

As for spellcasting monsters, this is a matter of preference. I would rather have more space to give out information about the monster (such as ecology, history, etc.) or to simply have more monsters. Page count is an important thing in publishing, and putting repetitive information down is going to bloat that to the dismay of most customers. The only thing I would really have liked to see is a page reference, so you can quickly flip to the appropriate page. Note cards are a good aid when using spellcasting monsters, or just reviewing them before the session. Even better would be a tablet and a PDF of the basic rules you have bookmarked, since most monster spells are there.

 

[Grazzt]

We can still run kobolds that use pack tactics and goblins that are devious ambushers, can't we?

Tucker's kobolds approve of this. (Link in case any one doesn't know the epicness of said kobolds.... http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/ )

 

[cbwjm]

Tucker's kobolds approve of this. (Link in case any one doesn't know the epicness of said kobolds.... http://www.tuckerskobolds.com/ )

Had to read it, that was brilliant.

Sent from my SM-G925I using EN World mobile app

 

[dave2008]

Monsters in 5E are just sad, boring wusses PC's are meant to steamroll over in a round. The exception being casters (naturally...) which means I need another damn book handy, where 4E had the courtesy of keeping all the crap I needed to run a monster on the monster entry.

To be fair I had the same problem with 4e monsters. They rarely had all the spells or powers I needed. They were typically one (maybe two) trick ponies that needed some messaging

It's like they designed for a party of champions all wielding non-proficient improvised weapons and stat arrays of straight 10-12's... God forbid you actually hand out magic items or let people use feats (or roll for stats).

They designed for many possible party compositions, but it is incumbent on the DM to make some adjustments to accommodate the specifics of each party.

 

[Dualazi]

Just want to point out that, in many cases, monsters with innate spellcasting have a very limited number of spells that are chosen to according to the monster's theme. The idea seems to be that whenever possible they re-use an existing spell, rather than writing a bunch of unique abilities that are all similar-to-but-different-than the spell (and each-other).

I'm not sure which is better, I think 4e put a greater emphasis on having everything needed to run a monster in the monster's stat block, while 5e is putting a greater emphasis on conformity across monsters.

I'd agree that this was likely their desired intent, it just comes off to me personally as sort of a cop out. It also results in a lot of monsters having strangely identical teleport distances and the like, to say nothing with having to constantly look up spells/buy spell cards. Furthermore, the more caster-y monsters might have a list of magic options so long that they might not get to use many of them with 5e's focus on speedy combats, while 4e usually had each monster have one gimmick in accordance with their role, which would actually be a better design path here in my opinion. You see the cool way the monster presents its threat/alters your strategy, you win, you move on.

 

[dave2008]

Furthermore, the more caster-y monsters might have a list of magic options so long that they might not get to use many of them with 5e's focus on speedy combats, while 4e usually had each monster have one gimmick in accordance with their role, which would actually be a better design path here in my opinion. You see the cool way the monster presents its threat/alters your strategy, you win, you move on.

This goes both ways of course. The long spell list is better for more depth, but requires more system mastery by the DM. The shorter power list is right at your finger tips, but may not have everything you need.

Back on the old WotC 4e forums people complained all the time about 4e monsters not being able to do this or that because they didn't have a power for it, or what happened to X,Y, & z abilities from previous editions. Of course they failed to realize that the stat block was just meant to represent the most common abilities, not the limit of the monster's abilities. It is the same for 5e.

 

[Dualazi]

This goes both ways of course. The long spell list is better for more depth, but requires more system mastery by the DM. The shorter power list is right at your finger tips, but may not have everything you need.

Back on the old WotC 4e forums people complained all the time about 4e monsters not being able to do this or that because they didn't have a power for it, or what happened to X,Y, & z abilities from previous editions. Of course they failed to realize that the stat block was just meant to represent the most common abilities, not the limit of the monster's abilities. It is the same for 5e.

Yes and no. The 4e design did lead to some intellectual pigeon-holing, that point I certainly cede. As for 5e though, there aren't a lot of options for most creatures to draw inspiration from, nor can I remember off the top of my head if there's a chart in the DMG for damage progress with CR for abilities like breath weapons or magical attacks. Furthermore, while it's an easy thing to houserule, even default options like grappling are presented as terrible options for 5e monsters, since they have to use their whole action rather than a single attack within the action like players can. Both of these factors lead to very bland presentation, and can lead to other complications from rules perspective. A creature that can cast misty step at will is still casting a spell, with all that entails within the rules, whereas a mind flayer's mind blast is not a spell and not subject to the same restraints.

 

[dave2008]

Yes and no. The 4e design did lead to some intellectual pigeon-holing, that point I certainly cede. As for 5e though, there aren't a lot of options for most creatures to draw inspiration from, nor can I remember off the top of my head if there's a chart in the DMG for damage progress with CR for abilities like breath weapons or magical attacks.

Not sure what you mean by there not being a lot of options in 5e, but there are definitely tables for improvising damage in the 5e DMG, page 249 and then 284 for spells (which works very well for a general single target or multi-target damage table)

Furthermore, while it's an easy thing to houserule, even default options like grappling are presented as terrible options for 5e monsters, since they have to use their whole action rather than a single attack within the action like players can. Both of these factors lead to very bland presentation, and can lead to other complications from rules perspective.

I don't feel your example describes a "very bland presentation." Of course, I think that is highly subjective and not really worth discussing. It just seemed like an odd statement given the context.

To clarify, I really like 4e and 4e monsters. I also like 5e and 5e monsters. Neither edition is perfect nor are the monsters, it is best to acknowledge the strengths and faults of both and understand that it is personal preference that determines what is "better." Personally I like to make my monsters a combination of both. I tend to give them a few thematic "powers" and then sprinkle in some spells for flavor and the addition of legendary and lair powers was a great addition IMO as well.