Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 3985489" data-attributes="member: 2067">If they're going to say "orcs are the greatest blacksmiths ever," I should get rules to support that in my game. Otherwise, they're telling me to make stuff up, which, again, sucks as a rule.If they're going to say "dragons are bestial marauders," then they should mechanically BE bestial marauders, low on Int, high on Con, ready to melee-rumble, but also with great perception to lead them to prey. It also takes time out of the middle of the game if I have to read a paragraph of prose to get to the business end of what, outside of combat, these things can do, whereas a quick reference to a skill or a feat or an alignment or a habitat/terrain or a specific noncombat ritual can communicate the idea much more effectively, and link to other mechanics that are shared between this creature and others.There's also the issue of this not really being "fluff." It doesn't affect combat, but with things like the Social Encounter system being presented, noncombat doesn't just boil down to opposed skill checks. But players will do much more with monsters than fight them.And a monster's noncombat abilities give it a pre-packaged niche in the world that can be used and expanded on the fly. The designers can tell me where this mosnter was intended to go, and then I can put it there in an instant. If they don't tell me that, I have to do the work myself, which eats up time.I don't know what social role I want them to have when I choose them out of the MM. I rely on the noncombat information to tell me, at a glance, what social role they could/do occupy. That +20 Religion might be useless for the BBEG's combat prowess, but it gives him a context that implies other relations that I can use on a moment's notice. That's why all I'm doing is expressing a concern. I'm not condemning them yet, I'm just saying that I would, under these circumstances. And it appears, from the language they use and the direction the design is taking, that these circumstances are not entirely unlikely. So it's a valid concern to have and voice.</blockquote>

Verification