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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blackbrrd" data-source="post: 6037496" data-attributes="member: 63962">I just compared the Goblin in the AD&D 2nd edition Monstrous Compendium to the one in the 4e monsters manual. They have their pro's and con's, but I must say that I liked the AD&D goblin better. Partially because all the information is presented on a single page instead of the 4e version which is spread over 6 pages of goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears. The other part is how the entry on the 2e goblin talks mostly about how to incorporate into into a campaign, not in an encounter. It talks about how many there will be, organization, non-combatants (females and children), slaves (shackled) and what they eat - mostly everything, probably including the slaves as it does mention humans.What the 4e editon does well is create interesting mobs to throw into an encounter that will be and interesting fight, but it feels more like a board game where the encounter should be of an appropriate challenge.I ran some random 4e stuff a good while back and it was mostly encounters. Fun ones with just about the right amount of challenge, but there was no continuity to it. I didn't put much thought into it and just pulled monsters that made the correct amount of xp according to the party level. I just skimmed the fluff text and mostly looked at the stats.Looking at the 2e variant, I did the exact opposite - I looked at the fluff text and skimmed the stats. The Habitat/Society section was the part that got my attention. There is actual crunch for a complete society of goblins something which is completely lacking from the 4e entry.  At the same time, the 2e entry has an entry for "No. Appearing" and it just says 4-24 and really doesn't mention why you would meet them and what they are doing and what typical reactions and so on. Might be a tall order for a 1-page entry. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />Yeah, and I do mislike the whole "goblin family" (gobling, hobgoblin, bugbear) entry they did in 4e. I much prefer the seperate entries of 2e with completely different behaviour patterns and society. A little side note - I think the 2e combat cruch is AWFUL and the 4e crunch fun, the only positive thing to it is that is simple and combat is fast. Btw, I checked the Black Dragon entry in the monsters manual (the first one for 4e) and the entry there is nothing like the Monster Vault entry. It's as barren and bad as mentioned earlier. It's what I remembered as well, and probably what most people who stopped playing 4e thinks of the Monster manuals. Maybe the problem with 4e is that the first products produced where crap compared to the later ones? It really does feel like it.Please don't pick apart my post, was really tired writing it and just wanted to give some input. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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