Why arbitrary monster abilities are a bad idea.

[GAAAHHH]

A troll who was used as a trap detector wouldn't stay loyal for long.

 

[S'mon]

It is a fundamental truth of an organic game world that if an ability is possessed by a defeatable NPC, it is usable by a PC.

No it's not. A few players with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement born from playing 3e may think that; doesn't make it true.

 

[S'mon]

Likewise, if you send a horde of Nightmares at the party, and then the party wizard slays them and animates four of them to serve as steeds, then the party can now fly incredibly quickly overland, indefinitely.

Only if the GM is foolish enough to give zombies all the supernatural powers of the living creature. IMC a zombie nightmare would just be a shambling husk.

 

[Imban]

Only if the GM is foolish enough to give zombies all the supernatural powers of the living creature. IMC a zombie nightmare would just be a shambling husk.

Your players would be right if they chose to object that, per the rules as written, flying creatures made into zombies can and do still fly, and I've definitely seen appropriating stuff like Chimeras as zombie flying mounts go down during actual gameplay. Regardless, picking a specific and clear example of the problem and saying "But my houserules!" adds nothing.

But let's throw out non-mechanical limits and accept your argument (which still seems spurious to me). There are only two real solutions: monsters are limited so that they can't do anything a PC couldn't do (which would strip away most monster abilities), or that all monster options are available to PCs at some level and that would be the way to gauge and balance the power of the ability -- which works well in systems like GURPS and Hero, but doesn't really work well in D&D.

Hmm. I don't agree that those are the only real solutions: robertliguori's argument is that if, for example, PCs cannot burrow until 8th level, or fly until 14th level, or step into the feywild until 11th level, or what have you, you can run into problems if you write up a race of humanoid fey monsters who start at level 6 and all have the ability to take themselves and anyone they're holding between the feywild and the world at will - namely, when the PCs make an ally out of one of these monsters and start having him help them walk through walls in the real world that don't exist in the Feywild from levels 7 to 10, when The Rules say that PCs don't get to do that until 11th level.

Basically, if you want to make a system where there are hard tier restrictions on certain abilities, especially movement abilities, you need to think of monsters too.

(The other, more trivial one is that it's kinda questionable to print an ability that ruins the game as soon as it's used outside of the context of a combat encounter - the ability of a 3e Shambling Mound to gain nearly limitless amounts of Constitution if it's subjected to a lightning bath, for instance. Sure, that's a fair power in the context of a combat where you start 60' away from a Shambling Mound and both sides are hostile, but any force with the appropriate abilities and an allied Shambling Mound is going to have some fun with that.

Growing and gaining Constitution when hit by lightning doesn't need to be an ability PCs can have at any level, and quite probably shouldn't really be.)

 

[Reynard]

Hmm. I don't agree that those are the only real solutions: robertliguori's argument is that if, for example, PCs cannot burrow until 8th level, or fly until 14th level, or step into the feywild until 11th level, or what have you, you can run into problems if you write up a race of humanoid fey monsters who start at level 6 and all have the ability to take themselves and anyone they're holding between the feywild and the world at will - namely, when the PCs make an ally out of one of these monsters and start having him help them walk through walls in the real world that don't exist in the Feywild from levels 7 to 10, when The Rules say that PCs don't get to do that until 11th level.

Basically, if you want to make a system where there are hard tier restrictions on certain abilities, especially movement abilities, you need to think of monsters too.

Even assuming that the players are canny enough to get themselves a Fey ally (which is a cool thing, btw) that ally doesn't suddenly become an automaton under the direction of the PCs. If it was an NPC before, it is still an NPC, controlled by the DM. NPCs that feel used or marginalized by PCs tend to go from "ally" to "enemy" pretty quickly -- even hirelings and henchmen in 1E wouldn't stand for that kind of abuse.

Ultimately, the issue is that the PCs can only gain access to the kinds of abilities descried with DM consent, so by consenting the DM is accepting the responsibility of having the creature/NPCs abilities under the control of the players to some degree or another. The players can't accidentally break the game in these circumstances because the DM has given them permission to do so already.

 

[S'mon]

Your players would be right if they chose to object that, per the rules as written, flying creatures made into zombies can and do still fly, and I've definitely seen appropriating stuff like Chimeras as zombie flying mounts go down during actual gameplay.

IMC: Chimeras have wings; zombie chimerae can fly, albeit probably not very well. Pegasi have wings, likewise. They can fly until the feathers fall out, though the zombie might need boosting with a feather fall or levitate. Nightmares don't have wings; their flight is entirely supernatural, akin to a Fly spell.

Disclaimer: I run C&C now so I no longer have to worry about the nightmare of 3.5e RAW.

 

[S'mon]

Regardless, picking a specific and clear example of the problem and saying "But my houserules!" adds nothing.

The problem is with 3e RAW and the mentality it inculcates. Apparently 4e is moving away from that, and back towards something more traditional, and closer to my own approach. Saying "that's just your houserules! 3e RAW say..." doesn't cut it on the 4e forum.

 

[robertliguori]

No it's not. A few players with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement born from playing 3e may think that; doesn't make it true.

Players defeat monster X. Players go and defeat monster Y, which hates monster X. Players go capture creature Z, who monster X cares about. Players say "Do the job for us, and we'll slay Y, and a bunch like him, and let you and Z go in a couple of levels when we can do the job ourselves. Don't do the job, or get any bright ideas about clever double-crosses, and we'll feed Z to Y. (And then kill you and probably make our best effort at killing your race/nation/clan/extended family on general principle, but we're adventures; that goes without saying.)"

Houserules will not save you now; if your creatures have motivations, PCs can exploit them. The only way to prevent this is to declare that every NPC with an exploitable ability cares more about not using their ability for the PCs gain than everything else; having this be true in an organic world is ludicrous. The problem isn't just that there exist rule mechanisms to turn NPCs into player resources; its that if PCs interact with NPCs, and the NPCs are complex characters who respond to a variety of different interactions, then the PCs will be able to build their own mechanism, without needing to use houseruleable-away effects.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Robert, you entire theory rests on the players being able to "enslave" monsters for extremely long periods of time, mechanically, not just through role-play ('cause any half-decent GM could RP a monster out of being a problem without resorting to rules).

Is there any evidence that the 4E rules contain such abilities? I mean, based on what we've seen so far, I severely doubt it. I would be surprised if a "charm" or "dominate" ability isn't a "save per round"-type deal nowdays, so you're hardly going to be able to use a troll as an infinite trap detector.

So illogical is your argument, indeed, that my "infinite troll detector" is going off.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

For instance, what happens when, in response to you introducing a group of trolls, the PCs manage to get a troll on their side, either by sparing its life and gradually changing its attitude with diplomacy, directly by using magic to override its will, or by pulling in another plot point from a previous adventure you had not considered initially (such as collars of enslavement that burst into flame taken from a previous villain)? With any of such efforts, the party now has their very own trap-detector; if they make liberal use of Detect Magic, and can insulate the troll against fire and acid, they never need fear traps again, and have a powerful and deadly ally.

As soon as they buff that troll, that party is in for a world of hurt. At least they are by the end of the next encounter.

Though, seriously, if the DM wants to give players these tools to have access to monster slaves, then that's the DM's game.

Likewise, if you send a horde of Nightmares at the party, and then the party wizard slays them and animates four of them to serve as steeds, then the party can now fly incredibly quickly overland, indefinitely.

At the level where a wizard can animate these things to the point where they can fly, the entire party can travel like that through other means. With the animated nightmares, they at least have to make a ride check.