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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4038927" data-attributes="member: 40961">On the off chance that this isn't subtle trolling-Nobody is saying that DMing 3e makes your skin burst with open sores, or your eyes bleed.  Its simply that, for a number of people, the 3e system for NPC and monster creation involved a lot more work than it justified with its results.  Statblocks for monsters are very large, and involve a lot of details that honestly aren't that important except that they're part of the construction process and other statistics derive from them.  Such at hit dice.  There are other rules, like getting a feat every three hit dice, that at high levels mostly bloat your monster or NPC with feats you don't intend to use.  And finally skill points can be a nightmare, because there's a lot of them to give out, and they don't necessarily do much for the typical role an enemy might play- combat foe.A lot of these rules are unnecessary.  The hit die rule, for example, exists to help you figure out things like what a reasonable fortitude save is for a particular type of monster at a particular level.  But the system that does it involves a lot of awkward reasoning in which you variously increase or decrease hit dice in order to finagle a particular outcome.  It would be a lot easier to just have a chart that TELLS you what the hit dice system is trying to create- a chart that says something like "eh, fort save for a level 12 encounter should be about +X for the average melee creature."  And then you can adjust as needed.Now, I know that monster and NPC design in 3e doesn't HAVE to use all these systems.  Rather than spending forever working out that your monster is a Large creature, so you have to adjust it in this direction, but that causes its CR to go up, and you'll have to lower its hit dice to bring it back down, but that causes its saves to drop, blah, blah blah, you can just guestimate answers.  That is, as an experienced DM, I know that a fortitude save for a level 12 melee monster should be around a +11, so I can skip the whole hit dice process and assign that value.  I might also know that I want feats X and Y, but don't need the next 3 feats 12 hit die creature is owed, so I might just skip those feat slots and assume they're used on something not related to combat.  That's what many experienced 3e DMs do, and it works just fine.But 4e supports that style of monster creation straight out of the box, and instead of expecting you to spend a few years learning the game so that you know things like "+12 fort save at level 11 for a fighty monster, +6 for a spellcaster," it just TELLS you that.  This saves you from having to retro engineer things like fortitude saves from seed stats like hit dice.Thus making things easier.There are a couple of other ways that things ought to get easier.  The reduced tendency of in game buffs and debuffs to affect seed statistics reduces paperwork.  The movement of magic items away from combat statistic boosts and towards providing new abilities means that a character without them will be less screwed- meaning NPCs won't need them as much, and reducing the time necessary for assigning them.  Stuff like that.</blockquote>

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