D&D 4E What does your dream 4e Monster Manual contain?

[Minicol]

Going out on a limb here with something that may be unpopular.

Seriously. The "role" of good aligned critters in most campaigns is sponsor, ally, friend, or something to be rescued. Do you need stats for that? Not really. From a game mechanic standpoint, does it matter if the individual sending the PCs on their adventure is a wealthy noble, a high level wizard, a gold dragon, an astral deva, or a couatl? They can show up in the 4e Monster Manual II, or in the equivalent of the BoVD as adversaries for evil PCs.

I don't agree with you : why should these allies be passive on the battlefield ? What if you are playing neutral or evil PCs ?

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

I don't agree with you : why should these allies be passive on the battlefield ? What if you are playing neutral or evil PCs ?

Someone else brought up the point of summonables, which I hadn't considered. Then again, a seperate "monster" book full of familiars, potential animal companions, summonable critters, mounts, and other PC pets would be preferable to having all of that stuff in the MM...in my opinion, of course.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Good art.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Leave all the Good aligned monsters out of the Monster Manual.

Excellent idea.

 

[Lord Zack]

Excellent idea.

No it's a stupid idea. What are my players supposed to summon using the Summon Monster spells? What about monstrous cohorts? What spells can that Gold Dragon the players are visiting cast? Can it heal they're wounds or what?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Leave all the Good aligned monsters out of the Monster Manual.

Seriously. The "role" of good aligned critters in most campaigns is sponsor, ally, friend, or something to be rescued. Do you need stats for that? Not really. From a game mechanic standpoint, does it matter if the individual sending the PCs on their adventure is a wealthy noble, a high level wizard, a gold dragon, an astral deva, or a couatl? They can show up in the 4e Monster Manual II, or in the equivalent of the BoVD as adversaries for evil PCs.

With the tiefling supposedly a core race ... what's an evil-doer to do without good opponents? Plus the minis game needs some good monsters to play against all the evil ones.

-- BREAK --

Templates: I think they are going. We've started to see this in the MMV, where instead of giving some creatures templates, they were explicitly built to be what they are (look at some of the Thoon creatures -- there is an explanation in there of why they didn't use templates). If you want to shorten DM prep time, you ditch templates as well as monster class levels.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Then again, a seperate "monster" book full of familiars, potential animal companions, summonable critters, mounts, and other PC pets would be preferable to having all of that stuff in the MM...in my opinion, of course.

You mean, so you have to buy a fourth book to use options that should be available in core? You crazy pixie, you ...

 

[Shroomy]

I hope to see the living spell and evolved templates retained and added to core. I love both of them.

 

[IanB]

As long as they leave out most of the anthropomorphic animal people (rakshasas, minotaurs, and gnolls can stay) I will be content.

 

[tsadkiel]

As long as they leave out most of the anthropomorphic animal people (rakshasas, minotaurs, and gnolls can stay) I will be content.

Now that you mention rakshasas - if they don't have freaking tiger heads in the new monster manual, I will be sold on 4E. Oh, and also harpies who don't charm with their song, and sirens who do. And a substantially improved ruleset, I guess.