NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7004106" data-attributes="member: 6778044">And actually, that video explains pretty well everything I hate about 4th edition and its approach to monsters.The dragon is a good example because what makes a dragon interesting to me is not it's attacks and such, but its personality. Its intelligence is what makes them truly dangerous. It doesn't mean that I'm not open to some other ideas to modify them. But the modifications I'm interested in aren't to add "cool abilities" or attempt to design something that challenges the PCs more.The dragon is a creature that is highly intelligent, has survived centuries, and is well aware of its capabilities. Sometimes they get a bit overconfident, but that's because it's extremely rare that they are actually seriously challenged by any group. A large army, or whatever, sure, but that's something they'll fly away from. Now I have modified mine because I think they have become to easy to hit and kill. Mostly resistances and immunities as I feel an ancient dragon should be nearly invulnerable, and really if a party is actually going to attempt to slay a dragon, it involves a lot of research and planning, particularly looking for weaknesses, either in its defenses (such as figuring out a way to trap it in its lair), its personality, tactics, or other factors that would give you a benefit.Another good example is VGtM. I like a lot of the updates for older monsters, but can't stand the majority of the extra versions of creatures like the new giants, gnolls, orcs, etc. The biggest issue for me is one of world building. It's not that I can't fit them into my world, but they feel a lot like what is described in that video - let's find some cool abilities for these monsters, rather than worrying about whether they fit the world or not. The hobgoblin "Academy of Devastation" for example. In none of the existing lore for the Realms would indicate that hobgoblins have a sophisticated culture or civilization. Now they have an establishment of higher education?I don't have any issue with folks that enjoy these approaches, and I am probably in a minority as far as my perspective and preferences go. But this is something marketed as specifically a Forgotten Realms product, by its association with Volo (and to a lesser extent Elminster). It's just way off base from Volo's character as portrayed by Ed Greenwood. Sure, they're welcome to publish what they'd like, and you can argue that Volo is often way off the mark.Really, I'm not concerned, at all, about finding "more interesting" orcs to challenge the PCs. Orcs come from a relatively primitive, war-like society. They have to survive their own violent culture, and one of their primary survival tactics is to outnumber their opponents. That along with having pretty good combat tactics is enough to make orcs a challenge for almost any level. At least that's the way my players see it.</blockquote>

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