D&D 5E Wandering Monsters: Morons and Salads

[Hussar]

I'm still not sure what either kind is good for. What kind of adventures would I use them in? What's their role? I get Inevitables. They will be encountered as they go after people and for good reason. Where are modrons encountered? I understand the alien infestation angle they were talking about. What other use is there for slaads?

This. A Thousand times this. What is the point of having creatures in the game that are pretty much just so much background?

Stop trying to create world building engines out of the Monster Manual.

 

[Hussar]

Both fall into the camp of "difficult-to-deal-with, not-necessarily-hostile NPC's"

/snipping examples

In both cases, they fill a role similar to a lot of the old stories of the Fey: weird, otherworldly, powerful, incomprehensible, but not exactly hostile, either. Just different. Dangerous, but different.

If you want to "three pillars" it, they're primarily an Interaction challenge. Fail and they will become enemies in combat and will hurt your goal, succeed and they will become allies and will help your goal.

But, we already have that. They're called Fey. Why do we need a bunch of demon-lite Fey when we can just use actual faeries?

 

[MarkB]

Stepping back from the specific cases of modrons and slaadi, I wonder if there is a more general question here:

What should we do with polarizing monsters?

Some monsters are loved and hated in equal measure. Keeping them as is caters to the people that love them. Changing them caters to the people that hate them. Either way, someone is going to be unhappy.

The people who hate them likely do so for a variety of different reasons varying between individuals, so changing them can never be guaranteed to satisfy all or even most of those people. The only way to cater to all of them would be to remove the monster.

If a monster is equally hated and loved, perhaps the best compromise is to keep it out of the core and reserve it for more specialised material. Those who love it will seek it out, and those who hate it may never have to encounter it.

 

[Weather Report]

This. A Thousand times this.

A thousand times not that, just because you can't seem to handle it, doesn't mean squat

 

[GX.Sigma]

This. A Thousand times this. What is the point of having creatures in the game that are pretty much just so much background?

There is a plane called Mechanus. It would be pretty embarrassing if the game failed to answer the question of who lives there.

Even if you think your players won't fight them, that's not a good reason to omit them.

Stop trying to create world building engines out of the Monster Manual.

I thought worldbuilding was the entire point of a monster manual. What do you think the point of a monster manual is?

 

[I'm A Banana]

But, we already have that. They're called Fey. Why do we need a bunch of demon-lite Fey when we can just use actual faeries?

Why do we need a bunch of kinds of monsters when we can just use bandits?

If you start arranging an MM based on what you NEED, you'll quickly find that you don't actually need an MM. A couple of charts to get the math right and do it OD&D style.

An MM is 100% composed of things that some people might WANT.

And that includes entropic chaos-toads and geometric law-bots. And maybe for some folks that doesn't include faeries or fiends.

 

[pemerton]

I thought worldbuilding was the entire point of a monster manual. What do you think the point of a monster manual is?

In my own case, to provide me with compelling story elements that I can use to build conflict-infused situations. In trad D&D some easy examples would be mind flayers, demons, many of the undead and at least some of the humanoids. Some examples that are not quite as easy to us, but thyat still fit the bill, would be beholders, devils, rakshasas, and sahuagin.

 

[pemerton]

Why do we need a bunch of kinds of monsters when we can just use bandits?

If you start arranging an MM based on what you NEED, you'll quickly find that you don't actually need an MM.

<snip>

An MM is 100% composed of things that some people might WANT.

I think [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is saying that (i) wants a Monster Manual that contains elements for setting up in-play situations, rather than for simply describing the setting, and that (ii) he thinks that a MM that satisfies his preferences might be more widely useful also.

He may be right or wrong about (ii), but in my view it's certainly not a silly claim.

For instance, if we know that Mechanus is populated by Modrons, but the PCs are never going to actually encounter them - they just fill a spot in our imagined bestiary - then they don't need to be statted up in the MM. We just need some flavour text in the plane description.

 

[mlund]

double post - sorry

 

[mlund]

I think my problems stem from inconsistencies and faulty assumptions that justify these monsters. The most glaring issue is the thought that indifference to Good and Evil makes something Neutral. That's completely wrong. Those who persue personal or institutional goals with depraved indifference to how their acts harm the lives, freedoms, and welfair of others are Evil or Unaligned (if incapable of moral reasoning). Slaads have always been Evil as all get out, and Modron's aren't far behind but for the lack of opportunities.

The next problem is the idea that every alignment combination needs a sentient race to populate it's outer plane. I'd much prefer a relatively mindless Limbo and Mechanicus. I'd rather have the very nature of the realms give rise to it's own kind of "natural" hazards logical to primal chaos or static order. Beasts, weather, and even physics on these planes should be an endless supply of challenges for outsiderrs.

I'd much rather mordrons and Slaads be the eventual fate of powerful souls drawn to these realms after death and the fate of foreign beings that were unfortunate to be captured and assimilated / corrupted by the realms themselves.

- Marty Lund