D&D 4E Unnecessary monster appearance changes in 4e

[DragonBelow]

So you'd prefer to buy 4E MM books with no new art?

I'm sure less people will complain about that.

They could have done new art while being consistent with the work done in 3.X.

 

[hong]

They could have done new art while being consistent with the work done in 3.X.

Consistent != identical.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Although I've been playing since '79, when I was looking through Paizo's (awesome) Monstrous Ecologies book the other day, their timelines of the artistic depictions of various iconic monsters over the years really brought home that some of the classic looks were, well, terrible. Likewise, the evolution of the mind flayer has been pretty much all to the good. But I suspect there were people who were outraged when the beholder showed up in the 1E MM looking about 10 times more frightening than it did in OD&D (although, compared to the beholders of today, it looks like a refugee from the Smurfs or something).

I'm not wild about nosehorns, but I'm trying to keep an open mind about the redesign until we've seen more of them.

WD - you should have seen the 'life-sized" version they had a GenCon - it sold me in heartbeat. (Actually they aren't horns, its armor plating.)

 

[Thurbane]

They could have done new art while being consistent with the work done in 3.X.

Exactly - this is one point I just don't get.

No one is saying recycle art from 3.X...you don't need radical monster visual revamps to have new art.

Otherwise, what, humans have to be green with antennae otherwise there'll be no new art in the PHB?

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

I dont know about miniatures but when I saw the new Beholder pic, my first thought was Half-brass Dragon Beholder.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

In an alternate universe, WotC releases 4E with no new art whatsoever, and people are up in arms about how they're being "ripped off".

Not quite so alternate.

An unbelievably huge percentage of the B&Ming over the Star Wars Saga Edition is that it reused art from multiple OCR and RCR sources.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

All minis are tournament legal, they have only retired one mini, and it was because its abilities were broken

question, why is this mini still worth so much online even though its retired?

 

[Zoombaba]

question, why is this mini still worth so much online even though its retired?

Because roleplayers drive the value of DDM miniatures, not skirmish players.

 

[Glyfair]

Exactly - this is one point I just don't get.

No one is saying recycle art from 3.X...you don't need radical monster visual revamps to have new art.

Otherwise, what, humans have to be green with antennae otherwise there'll be no new art in the PHB?

But the standards seem to be different for monsters than humans.

"That's not a human! I haven't seen any humans in previous editions with such big noses. I don't like this change to 4E."

"They are messing with the scale. In 3E the human miniatures were 6' tall by scale. That human is 7' tall and this other one is 4 1/2' tall. Why don't they stick to the 3E humans?"

 

[Lurks-no-More]

No one is saying recycle art from 3.X...you don't need radical monster visual revamps to have new art.

Otherwise, what, humans have to be green with antennae otherwise there'll be no new art in the PHB?

I've yet to see these radical visual monster revamps (I don't think the trolls count). If anyone has some links, I'd be interested.