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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6256378" data-attributes="member: 37579">Reading a dozen brand new powers also increases DM prep. Reading through dozens of monster entries to find powers that synergize well together increases DM prep. Having to make up a brand new lightning based effect and mechanic also eats prep time when you could just adjust lightning bolt. Otherwise you risk making a power that does something identical to a spell but of lower/higher power. The rules are there for you to use so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel for every monster. (But, if you want, you can choose to make up all new effects and spells with overlap. Just because the game doesn’t does not stop DMs from doing their own thing.) No set spells would be easier. Many other game systems have already done that. Heck, flexible spellcasting in a D&D environment was used in Dragonlance SAGA so it pre-dates 3e.  5e could do something like “you cast a spell. It affects an adjacent creature and does 1d10 damage +2d10/spell level.“If cast at range or affecting multiple creatures, drop the die size down by one. If both, drop the die size by two. “You can immobilize by reducing the number of dice by 1, stun by reducing by 2, and paralyze by reducing my 3.”Reflavour what the spell looks like and the damage type according to preference.  There. That’s the only spell D&D actually needs. A little number checking and fine-tuning and it would be balanced, it prevents quadratic wizards, and doesn’t give spellcasters cooler toys than martials. But does that make the game better? Not really.The opposite direction, with hundreds of thousands of unique powers has the same effect. It makes the game bland and boring. Because 90% are going to do the same thing: some damage and a little extra side effect.  If a monster needs to do something cool, by all means GIVE THEM SOMETHING COOL. But that should need to be unique. It should be something impossible to replicate by a class feature. But if it’s just fire damage over an area… call it a freakin’ fireball and save everyone time. If it’s not their A-ability, don’t give it too much thought.  That’s not a story reason, that’s a justification for continuity errors in Xena.“Magic” in a world should have rules, and all magic should obey those rules.  That tells me what they are and where they live but little else. But what do they eat? What are their goals? How do they live? Are they social: how often is “sometimes … live together”? Are they civilized or savage?   Look back at the aboleth entry. It tells me how to use them in an encounter, with each monster’s tactics called out, but not how to use them in an adventure or campaign. It’s basically “this monster lives underground and bends humanoids to its will.” Coming to that uninitiated (and unfamiliar with Lovecraft) one might get the impression of a dull-witted creature meandering through the underdark and turning people into zombies. It doesn’t mention their intelligence, their cities, or how the creatures bent to its will are its slaves that do its bidding. It doesn’t suggest Lovecraftian cults or the implied age of the aboleths.  Most of the early 4e monster fluff just fell flat in that regard. It told you what the monster was, but not its place in the larger world. Now, the 3e MM wasn’t much better, often having shorter entries. Both failed compared to the 2e Monsterous Manual.  Again, monster abilities that need to be unique should be unique. Of course. But monster abilities that are almost identical to PC powers should just be PC powers.  Again, I think that eats up too much space and is needless.Now, as I said, I admit that if the power is something the monster is likely to use each and every combat, it’s helpful to call it out and give it a quick write-up. If it’s something it *might* use in a very situational occasion or is a flavourful spell that it uses outside of combat, that can be something just listed by name. Which is a compromise between the design of 1-3e and 4e. Which is really the best of both worlds. It gives skilled DMs a greater number of choices but without overwhelming as most are not called out and you can run a monster right from the statblock. It moves the extra prep from mandatory to optional.  I was literally writing that post in bed minutes from sleep. My iPad has ruined me.My point was that many things can engage people, many things can be fun. Kids can be endlessly entertained by a cardboard box. Especially as inevitably comes up, there is not badwrongfun. (Drink!)So… as fun and engagement are so relative, so personal, and so broad and never wrong, they’re all but useless as measuring sticks when defining (and designing) a game. The end product should be fun and engaging yes, but you can’t just say “this game is fun” and expect people to know what the game is. That’s like saying “this car drives” or “this food has flavour”. It’s everything else that defining, the why it’s fun and what makes it unique from all the other “fun” activities and quadrillion games and hobbies.It’s not “nostalgia” it’s “familiarity”. You’re not nostalgic when you recognise the spell the evil wizard throws at you, you’re familiar with that spell.After a new player has seen a couple fireballs they don’t need it described again, but will also recognise it by the description. The player know that you need to make a Dex save, how much damage it will cause, and the area it will affects.  Realistically, the player never really need to hear what’s written down in the monster’s stablock. The DM is unlikely to say “the elf wizard uses his burning orb of doom power”. If a DM is describing something that looks and acts like a fireball the players will just assume it is a fireball. Even if the DM is no describing things and is just doing the mechanics, if the power does d6s of fire damage in an area it’s thought of as a fireball and mentally envisioned as a fireball.So if the name does not matter in play… KISS and just call it fireball. Depends on the monster. Many have a long history of casting spells so it’s just expected. A pit fiend should probably be lobbing balls of fire.Others… if there’s nothing else going for them, then maybe they could spit fire or summon flame or do crazy things. But if they already have 2-3 cool abilities, defining abilities that may or may not be attacks, it doesn’t hurt to slip in a few spells.It’s only half hyperbole.Reading through the RPG Shadows of Esteren right now and spells are a list of effect names (humidity, ice, spring, gust, sculpt earth) and the difficulty to cast is based on area, duration, number of targets, and damage. So there are really five different spell mechanics. Variables really. This is not the first game I’ve seen like this; many other game systems do things very similar.If there are too many AoE fire spells, if every single fire creature that makes an area fire attack uses a different variant, then fireball means as much as if it were a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] Ciricle spell doing 3D10 damage.I was talking about Next. Although, I believe death knights could just cast fireball in earlier editions as well (as well as a few dozen other spells). And checking now, the bugbear has lost the ability I was referring to along the way. Oops. Sorry.  Death knights are actually a good example of my point. They have “Eldritch Fire”, which has the area of fireball and comparable damage to fireball cast as a 7[SUP]th[/SUP]-level spell. It has half the range, but that doesn’t make it a new spell. But what does eldritch fire look like? What does it do? Is it a burst of fire or a wave of necrotic energy that bursts into flames? Do creatures just catch ablaze? Is it an exploding ball or a radiating pool of flame or expanding ring of fire?  We have no idea because there is just the mechanical game effect as it pertains to the PCs. Which is fine because adding a descriptive line is needless and wastes space. But this means NAMES are super, super important to monsters. Monster powers need to be descriptive and evocative but also explanatory. Because they’re all the flavour you are going to get. Something like breath weapon might work but panther strike or cunning blow don’t. Which could be problematic in 4e and I’d rather not see it repeated.  I love “that which man was not meant to know”. But you can’t just throw it around all the time. You can’t break it out to explain every spellcaster other than you. That’s something you reserve for the really Cthuloid s**t. If the party is fighting a 10,000 year-old larval mage from antediluvian times then, yeah, the mad scribblings in his spellbook should probably not be read. But if it’s just some punk elf conjurer… his spells should be garden variety.I have a fondness for Monster Vault. But its fluff was done in reaction to the 4e books.I’m less fond about the organization of the MV fluff. While good, it’s not consistent. You have to read the entire entry to find what you’re looking for, as the headings are descriptive not informative. A little more structure would have been nice.Which is fine if they’re using a special racial ability. If they’re casting a spell then it should act like a spell. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I never got much world lore from the 2e, aside from monsters copied from campaign specific accessories. While 4e monsters never gave me many plot hooks and motivations, mostly just backstory and how the monster fit into the new cosmology.</blockquote>

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