D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Defining Our Terms

[jadrax]

Science also says Polar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_climate
We certainly don't use "arctic" here in southern hemisphere, well, at least here in Brasil. We say "polar" for Antarctica.

Bizarrely, even under the Köppen System*, where 'Arctic' is defined* as 'Polar', its still keeps 'Subarctic' as a category.

Anyway, my point remains that it is not something that D&D has made up, it is how a lot of systems refer to the region.


*Which interestingly focuses on climate as a feature of terrain, and is probably the system closest to what were looking at.
**probably sensibly

 

[Li Shenron]

I found that really annoying in play tbh.

Odd. I would find it much more annoying if dozens of basic animals with near-identical stats would be spread around the MM between more interesting monsters.

 

[Klaus]

That would be an interesting alternative.

That is something I stumbled upon while doing the layout for Counter Collection 4E, where counters were arranged by level. It was interesting to look at the pages of counters and see, at a glance, all the typical enemies for that level.

 

[Zaukrie]

I am relatively indifferent.....but stuff Luke this should be aimed at less experienced SMs, imo. So, easier is better. The one thing I agree with above is that I would like monster treasure to include the value of the monster or it's parts as well asore traditional treasure. That would actually be a good set of tables or fluff that would be nice to have not just with each monster, but in a chapter someplace.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm thrilled they have finally begun looking at game world as game content. All three lists given are detailed and interesting. However, I would strongly suggest they do not begin creating world "tags" without a world creation module, which I'm suspecting won't be core. Environment, Monster, and Treasure typing now, without any integrated system to play, simply hampers the ability to make interesting games later. It would be easier to leave these tags undefined, at the very least in relation to each other, and then include a proviso that they are merely suggestions for the DM, not a balancing tool embedded in the basic (combat) system.

 

[Zaukrie]

Hate autocorrect sometimes.

 

[Dausuul]

Nah, the MM would be fine with chapters!

If you really don't remember the type, you go to the first page or last page (wherever the index is), you scroll down, and in max 10 seconds you find the page number which takes but a few more seconds to reach.

Which is a bunch of seconds being wasted for no reason.

There are two situations where I'm looking up monsters. The first is if I'm planning an encounter and am trying to decide what monsters to use. In this case, I want to see all the monsters together on a single page. I don't want to have to flip through the whole Aberrations chapter to see what's in it! Just show me a compact list.

The second situation is where I'm running an encounter in play. In this case, I'm not browsing. I already know the monster name and I want to go straight there. Once I get there, I need the full statblock.

The way to optimize both of these tasks is to organize the MM alphabetically, so going to a monster by name is as quick as possible. Then have index pages where monsters are broken out by category, by level, by terrain type, and whatever else seems useful.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Personally, I'm kind of over alphabetical monster encyclopedias. They're only useful in play if you already know the name of the monster you're looking up. An MM made to help exploration play would be organized by terrain. An MM made to help narrative play would be organized perhaps by alignment (hahaha!). An encyclopedia is probably the most "neutral" layout you can do, but it makes it hard for some things.

 

[Li Shenron]

An MM made to help exploration play would be organized by terrain.

Another innovative idea!

 

[Blackwarder]

I find an alphabetically orgenized MM to be the most annoying way to orgenized a book, if I know that the monster I search for is located in a certain chapter, and each chapter got a different page background, I can simply flip through the book until I find e chapter I'm looking for and than find my monster...

Warder