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I am not frustrated by the monster design process. I think this will make it easier for msot folks to build encounters and such. I level a Sheldomar LG episode from APL 6-18, and it was a great challenge but very labor intensive.
I really enjoyed creating critters in 3.5, and got very good at sculpting challenges. Between Blackmoor and LG I have done 22 episodes. What I am worried about is precision in design. Scaling encounters for higher level play was very ahrd in 3.5 even with some pretty fine computational controls. I don't see yet how this will be better.
For homeplay, this should be a fine system as designing good fights for a home game is a different beast than designing for organized play.
My reaction to this is, "Ok. Let's see." My reaction to the fluff and marketing has been less than stellar.
How is it 'liberating' when it is actually a throw-back to 1e?What?!? There's THAC0 in 4E? How is 4E a throwback? I don't see anything here that looks like 1E, or atleast the 1E that I remember.
It's a throwback to 1st edition in the sense that monster abilities will be less predictive in effect and mechanic. It's *less* than 1st edition in the removal of Hit Dice.
It is advanced of 1st edition in its reporting of the monsters as a certain "level" (CR essentially) - though it was actually present in 1st edition, but was located inconveniently in the DMG.
Frankly, calling it a throwback to 1st edition is far too large a compliment.
And for the record, THAC0, while mentioned in the DMG, is not a prime feature of 1st edition - far more 2nd.
Reprinting the Petrification Gaze rules every time you write a monster that has that ability is a good idea all around (if you can spare the page count, it reduces the number of monsters per page/book).
That mean more monster manuals will have to be made. 3.5 we had 5 MM's, I guess 4e will have, what 8 or 10? Nice plan to increase revenue I guess.
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For the record
4e monster design is much more than guessing. It's rules are far more consistent than 1st ed.
I have created a much smaller % of unbalanced monsters with 4e rules than with 3e rules.
A part of me still prefers the 3e method, but that may be solely based on familiarity.
I do not recall 1st ed having any sort of monster design rules. Was that just a typo?
And is that number of monsters completely new ones, or just advanced versions of other monsters?
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I am sure that monster design in 4e is very easy on the authors and DMs. But how does it play? Are the monsters fun and challenging or will every black dragon automatically breathe as soon as it is Bloodied (as indicated in the excerpts we saw from DDX)?
LEGOs are a great medium for construction but I notice no one lives in a LEGO house.
LEGOs are a great medium for construction but I notice no one lives in a LEGO house.
Sigh. My first thought reading that (remembering my space lego) was "Hey, that'd be pretty cool." My second thought was "What is wrong with me?"
Not all dragons will have to do that, though all the dragons they stat up for the MM might. The point of the system is that you could, instead, give it the ability to Bite, shake the PC who Bloodied him, and then toss (game term would be Push) him up to, say, 25 feet away, as an immediate action instead of the breath.
Or go back to some of the exception based abilities in 1E and 2E (in flavor) and give a Kobold the ability of, let's say, Stake.
Stake
Encounter Power; Martial, Weapon
Standard Action, Melee Weapon (kobold spear)
Primary Target: One Creature
Attack: +4 vs. Reflex
Hit: 1d6+4 damage and the target is Immobilized (Save does NOT end this effect) as he is staked to the ground. Removing the spear takes a Minor Action. Either the victim or an ally can remove the spear.
Something like that. That, of course, is exceedingly lame and boring, but it's the principle behind the 4E approach to monsters. You use formulas to hit a certain range of numbers (the crunchy parts) and the creature has several appropriate Abilities that you add as you see fit. It will take some care on the DMs part, but you can do a lot of things very easily.
And, remember, with their Exception-Based system a Specific rule notation marked in an ability takes precedence over a general rule of the system. So, Immobilized targets always get a Save is the general rule? Well, since the Ability says that this isn't the case the Specific rule takes precedence over the General rule.
What?!? There's THAC0 in 4E? How is 4E a throwback? I don't see anything here that looks like 1E, or atleast the 1E that I remember.
There was no THAC0 in 1E or AD&D. There was an arbitrary hit matrix which was in most cases generatable with assumd THAC0 values, and a lot of people made a house rule to that effect to simplify looking up the table every time someone attacked. THAC0 was imported into the basic game with the 2nd edition AD&D Player's Handbook. A move which also came with shifting the attack rules from the Dungeon Master's Guide to the PHB (in AD&D days the Players weren't supposed to know what the rules for hitting and missing were).
That mean more monster manuals will have to be made. 3.5 we had 5 MM's, I guess 4e will have, what 8 or 10? Nice plan to increase revenue I guess.
Oh totally. Pretty much the entire thing can be seen as an exercise in increasing page count and reducing writing time - two moves which increase the profitability of the enterprise. The sample pages for the Gnolls are a great window into this. Since each and every Gnoll is unique, you can (and must) print a new Gnoll for every single role and level that a Gnoll might fit into. That uses up a lot of pages in the Monster Manual. Also it allows you to publish new Gnolls in future Monster Manuals without that being a waste of space.
The Monster Manual 4 was kind of insulting in that the 3rd edition rules allowed people to level up elves and ogres to their heart's content. There was no real reason to have pages given over to Drow and Ogres who happened to have levels. But in 4th edition there seriously isn't a rubric for advancing these guys. If you want a 12th level Gnoll Skirmisher, that's a unique creature which needs a unique write up.
Ahem. The fact that I am a UK citizen...
No you are not. You are a UK subject. The United Kingdom doesn't have citizens.
-Frank
[snip]
That [...] is the principle behind the 4E approach to monsters. You use formulas to hit a certain range of numbers (the crunchy parts) and the creature has several appropriate Abilities that you add as you see fit. It will take some care on the DMs part, but you can do a lot of things very easily.And, remember, with their Exception-Based system a Specific rule notation marked in an ability takes precedence over a general rule of the system. So, Immobilized targets always get a Save is the general rule? Well, since the Ability says that this isn't the case the Specific rule takes precedence over the General rule.
So, basically, monsters get special monster feats that allow them to break the standard rules? The idea seems to be to design an easy way to make monsters different from the standard variety. That is a good idea IMO - with 3e, building unique monsters can be quite time-consuming. But this way, you need a full write-up of the monsters abilities for every monster encounter, as every monster can come with its own special rules. Less rulebook flipping during an encounter, for the price of even bigger stat blocks, and special ability descriptions leaving less space for monster descriptions. I´m not sure if this is an improvement, but then, we don´t know the full deal yet.
Stefan
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There was no THAC0 in 1E or AD&D. There was an arbitrary hit matrix which was in most cases generatable with assumed THAC0 values, and a lot of people made a house rule to that effect to simplify looking up the table every time someone attacked. THAC0 was imported into the basic game with the 2nd edition AD&D Player's Handbook. A move which also came with shifting the attack rules from the Dungeon Master's Guide to the PHB (in AD&D days the Players weren't supposed to know what the rules for hitting and missing were).
Several of the early TSR UK modules used THACO; The Sentinel and The Gauntlet that I know of, and presumably all subsequent ones, including adventures in Imagine magazine (RIP), but I'd have to check.
Seems it was a house rule that many people used, or at least many TSR UK employees!
The only fly in the ointment for using it with 1st Edition, was that part in the hit tables with the recurring 'natural 20 required' that appeared 6(?) times in each column. Once 2nd Edition did away with that, the math was much more streamlined. I never had a problem with it, despite knowing some who did.
I´m not sure if this is an improvement, but then, we don´t know the full deal yet.
Stefan
Actually, We Do.
You can copy/paste "Pack Attack" into all the Gnolls if you want. But chances are that a Gnoll Magician won't even have that. But the Gnoll Claw Fighter has a "Clawing Charge" and the Gnoll Marauder has a "Quick Bite" attack instead. So the Gnoll Claw Fighter can attack with his claws but not with his teeth, while the Gnoll Marauder can attack with his teeth and not with his claws.
Each monster is given about 2-4 abilities that they can use in combat which are distinct to that creature. The Level 6 Brute Bites, and the Level 8 Brute does not, because he has his own unique abilities instead (Overwhelming Attack, for example).
Easy to write? Hellz yeah! There's a "Level 8 Brute" range of numbers which is pretty narrow. So you just pick some numbers in that range. Then you start making up special abilities and you only hand out like 3 of them.
-Frank
Actually, We Do.
Thanks for posting this link. Judging from this example, this seems to give the DM some possibilites to plan encounters differing from the standard monsters without too much work. This is a concept I like. It still does not seem to make the DMs job that much easier in the fight, as there are a number of abilities to remember. But that is business as usual. Hey, this is the first thing I like about 4e.
Stefan
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It seems to me there are two camps in the homebrew monster making world. The first is the "slavishly loyal to the rules camp" and the other is the "creative/wing it" group. It would appear that if you fall into the "slave to the rules camp", making unique monsters under 3e is a challenge because of the perception that the rules are cumbersome and the feeling that exception based design is not available under 3e. Thus the 4e approach to making monsters is a huge relief because there is essentially nothing to remember and no feeling of violating the rules when making exceptions because exceptions are the rule. If, however, you fall into the "creative/wing it group", then the ruleset upon which the monsters are based is not seen as a limitation and the creative pieces can be rapidly added regardless of the technical underpinnings.
I fall very strongly into the "creative group" and have no problem running an encounter out of the MM with 4 advanced ogres in plate using Large heavy crossbows and carrying Large greatswords supported by an ogre barbarian augmented with 3 levels of cleric wielding a large +2 greatclub of human bane. I can do this without statting everything up beforehand and will get better than 95% of the details right on the fly. If I don't, I don't worry about it, and neither do my players (a couple of which are rules lawyers and they never even know I am winging it). If this seems bad or impossible to you, then I can see why 4e monster design is so appealing to you.
I can also see why 4e monster design is so appealing to game designers who can't technically afford to "wing it" (though they do make use of exception based design a good deal in 3e so I am not sure of the breakthrough here). In this case, having no rules means expending far less effort, and less effort means more revenue per hour all other things held constant. However, I am not a professional game designer and therefore am not overly interested in making it easy for game designers. I spend good money for a professional to provide me with the rigorous basics and I take it from there.
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(though they do make use of exception based design a good deal in 3e so I am not sure of the breakthrough here).
Indeed, in his 'proud nails' article, Mike Mearls kinda railed against exception-based design. Tons of legacy monsters from D&D have completely nonsensical design elements. Tiny little creatures with overwhelming attacks. Creatures with big fanged maws and no bite attack at all (my, what big soft flabby useless teeth you have, Mr. Gnolls and Mr. Orc!).
Exceptions abound, and I have very much appreciated how they've been toned down in later editions, with a concentrated effort to make creatures consistent and better able to be fit to a party challenge (I believe the Ogre Mage was his go-to creature for a proud nail. A fairly unimpressive 5 HD critter that could Cone of Cold the entire party to death once per day!).
4E seems to be stepping back to 1st Edition, in that sense.
... (if you can spare the page count, it reduces the number of monsters per page/book).That mean more monster manuals will have to be made. 3.5 we had 5 MM's, I guess 4e will have, what 8 or 10? Nice plan to increase revenue I guess.
The 4e MM will have 300 monsters. The 3e MM has 200. I know it's easier to just assume everything WotC does is designed to destroy the game and hurt the player, but even so you might occasionally double-check.
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The 4e MM will have 300 monsters. The 3e MM has 200. I know it's easier to just assume everything WotC does is designed to destroy the game and hurt the player, but even so you might occasionally double-check.
How many of those 300 will be variants on a theme. We have a skeleton, an exploding skeleton, an archer skeleton and a really tough skeleton. Does that count as four monsters or only one? In the 3e MM it was just one skeleton with notes on advancement allowing you to make 3 out of those four. Add in a template and you can now make any monster explode. Now if the four different skeletons one can face only count as one monster then I will concede that 4e will have more monsters in the MM. But from what I have heard thus far I suspect that the 300 means something like 75-100 monsters with 3 or 4 variations for each one.
According to the information released at the DDXP, there will be 500 statted monsters in the MM.
According to the information released at the DDXP, there will be 500 statted monsters in the MM.
Hrm. I thought I had heard that, but the info on ENWorld hadn't been updated, so I assumed I was mistaken.
Even so, we have no reason to believe you couldn't advance any of the monsters in 4e, just like 3e. It's just not going to require the same amount of anguish 3e does.
Anyway, a quick perusal of the 3e MM reveals 9 different skeletons, so I wouldn't point to it as a example of being succinct.
The 4e MM will have 300 monsters. The 3e MM has 200. I know it's easier to just assume everything WotC does is designed to destroy the game and hurt the player, but even so you might occasionally double-check.
Not that I don't believe you but could you post a link to this? I hadn't heard this. You have to admit what I said was a safe assumption based on the info I had. Reposting effects over and over, increased page count per monster. One would think something would have to give.
one question. With AD&D and 3.5 I was able to write the monsters I used often on index cards and refer to them quickly instead of referencing my MM all the time. It helped speed up play and also less books to haul if I didn't play at home. For anyone who has seen much info on the new format, will this still be possible? It seems like the stats might be pretty wordy.
No you are not. You are a UK subject. The United Kingdom doesn't have citizens.
-Frank
OED gives Citizen as follows: a legally recognized subject or national of a state or commonwealth.
So we are both citizens, and subjects.
Just sayin'
I love 3.5e monster design because, done correctly, it lets you use both hemispheres of your brain. Your right brain comes up with the creative concepts you want, and the left sorts through existing mechanics for parallels and similarities, and then crunches things from there. Can it be done strictly mechanically? Yes, but then you get fairly bloodless, cardboard-like monsters. Can it be done all-right-brained? No. So, it's tipped maybe slightly left-brain, unless your creative juices are really flowing.
The 4e system sounds like it tips the balance VERY firmly into the right-brain camp. That being the case, I'd derive greater satisfaction from just drawing pictures of my new monsters, if all I'm going to get to use is one hemisphere.
Not that I don't believe you but could you post a link to this? I hadn't heard this. You have to admit what I said was a safe assumption based on the info I had. Reposting effects over and over, increased page count per monster. One would think something would have to give.
one question. With AD&D and 3.5 I was able to write the monsters I used often on index cards and refer to them quickly instead of referencing my MM all the time. It helped speed up play and also less books to haul if I didn't play at home. For anyone who has seen much info on the new format, will this still be possible? It seems like the stats might be pretty wordy.
Swirler, the 500 monster number was reported by several live bloggers at DDXP. You can get a run down of the presentation here.
Also, the stats for the monsters that have so far been released would easily fit on to an index card, probably easier than the 3.5e since everything is self-contained.
It seems to me there are two camps in the homebrew monster making world. The first is the "slavishly loyal to the rules camp" and the other is the "creative/wing it" group. It would appear that if you fall into the "slave to the rules camp", making unique monsters under 3e is a challenge because of the perception that the rules are cumbersome and the feeling that exception based design is not available under 3e. Thus the 4e approach to making monsters is a huge relief because there is essentially nothing to remember and no feeling of violating the rules when making exceptions because exceptions are the rule. If, however, you fall into the "creative/wing it group", then the ruleset upon which the monsters are based is not seen as a limitation and the creative pieces can be rapidly added regardless of the technical underpinnings.
I fall very strongly into the "creative group" and have no problem running an encounter out of the MM with 4 advanced ogres in plate using Large heavy crossbows and carrying Large greatswords supported by an ogre barbarian augmented with 3 levels of cleric wielding a large +2 greatclub of human bane. I can do this without statting everything up beforehand and will get better than 95% of the details right on the fly. If I don't, I don't worry about it, and neither do my players (a couple of which are rules lawyers and they never even know I am winging it). If this seems bad or impossible to you, then I can see why 4e monster design is so appealing to you.
I can also see why 4e monster design is so appealing to game designers who can't technically afford to "wing it" (though they do make use of exception based design a good deal in 3e so I am not sure of the breakthrough here). In this case, having no rules means expending far less effort, and less effort means more revenue per hour all other things held constant. However, I am not a professional game designer and therefore am not overly interested in making it easy for game designers. I spend good money for a...
From what I've read it seems that 4E monster design will be similar to 3E monster design (ie, some basic formulas to help determine appropriate stats for level X) but with a lot of the more tedious clutter left out (no need to assign dozens or hundreds of skill points, no need to pick out feats, etc ...)
If you already mostly wing your custom monsters, I'm not sure 4E is going to be throwing you many curveballs. I would suppose (on your axis) I'd fall more into the "slavishly loyal to the rules camp". I normally prepare in advance, and don't customize monsters very often (since I mostly run modules). When I do customize, I follow the guidelines presented and often find myself with all kinds of skill points/feats/what-have-yous that are pretty time consuming to allocate. Add in giving intelligent creatures a bit of loot and it can become a voracious time devouring engine of arithmetic. :P
YMMV, of course, but I'm pretty excited to see 4E's take on monsters. And it sounds like Clark Peterson is too.
Cheers! :)
No you are not. You are a UK subject. The United Kingdom doesn't have citizens.
-Frank
OED gives Citizen as follows: a legally recognized subject or national of a state or commonwealth.
So we are both citizens, and subjects.
Just sayin'
You're a Citizen of Scotland, Northern Ireland, or England and Wales (citizens of Scotland or England and Wales are considered to be citizens of Great Britain). You are a Subject of the United Kingdom.
/End Derail
-Frank
Not that I don't believe you but could you post a link to this? I hadn't heard this.
I got it from the Amazon page. 288 pages, "more than 300" monsters. As several people have noted, they said 500 monsters at DDXP, which is more recent information.
You have to admit what I said was a safe assumption based on the info I had. Reposting effects over and over, increased page count per monster. One would think something would have to give.
It's perfectly reasonable to assume the monsters would take more space, which means either longer or more frequent Monster Manuals. It was your conclusion--the reason WotC decided to print the abilities was to take up room to print more books--that was an issue. And wrong, as it turns out; WotC is printing more monsters, in less space. The stat blocks really are that much more concise.
Anyway, as anyone who's invested in a significant number of 3.5 books can tell you, WotC isn't exactly shy about shoving marginally valuable material out the door. They clearly don't need the "we didn't have room for this in the first book" excuse.
With AD&D and 3.5 I was able to write the monsters I used often on index cards and refer to them quickly instead of referencing my MM all the time. It helped speed up play and also less books to haul if I didn't play at home. For anyone who has seen much info on the new format, will this still be possible? It seems like the stats might be pretty wordy.
Check out the gnoll pages. Should be pretty easy to fit on a stat card.
It's perfectly reasonable to assume the monsters would take more space, which means either longer or more frequent Monster Manuals. It was your conclusion--the reason WotC decided to print the abilities was to take up room to print more books--that was an issue. And wrong, as it turns out; WotC is printing more monsters, in less space. The stat blocks really are that much more concise.
Actually Check it Out
The monsters take up more space. A Choker or a Chuul takes up an entire page. However they now have an advanced form of each as a distinct entry. So both those creatures count as two monsters now. Basically the advancement line has been replaced by individual monster entries for each advanced monster, and they are counting each advanced monster as a unique monster entry.
So the "number of monsters in the book" has gone up. However, the "number of monsters not in the book" has gone up as well.
-Frank
It's a throwback to 1st edition in the sense that monster abilities will be less predictive in effect and mechanic.
Just curious but why can't you have a custom effect for a 3.5 monster that does something the players don't know enough about to predict?
Just curious but why can't you have a custom effect for a 3.5 monster that does something the players don't know enough about to predict?
Too true! Our DM recently threw a vampiric alligator againthe DM fenst our group and we were taken for a loop. Was is "by the book"? No. Did it work? Sure.
I like that 3.X has the tools to create creatures that work according to pre-given formulae. That shouldn't serve as a straitjacket for a DM's creativity.
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It's a throwback to 1st edition in the sense that monster abilities will be less predictive in effect and mechanic.Just curious but why can't you have a custom effect for a 3.5 monster that does something the players don't know enough about to predict?
I think that would work for some EX and SU abilities but not for spell-like stuff. Then there is the whole class thing - why should all users of arcane magic act like Wizards or Sorcerers? Do all rangers have the exact same abilities even if they are from different or alien races? Why would a near immortal celestial or infernal bad guy forget spells like a frail human wizard? Does a dragon ranger need to choose archery or 2 weapon fighting?
I think exception based design gives GMs and writers/designers the flexibility to add the flavor they want without having to reinvent entire sets of classes, abilities, and feats.
Just curious but why can't you have a custom effect for a 3.5 monster that does something the players don't know enough about to predict?
You're welcome to. But 3.5 has a lot of side effects and implications you have to think about.
Let's say you want to add the ability to throw a blast of negative energy to a skeleton. No problem, you do that. Except now the skeleton really needs Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot if they want to have a hope of hitting anything. You get to choose between: advancing the skeleton to give it room for feats, adding class levels, bumping its Dex to make up the difference, and cheating. You can't bump its HD to get feats--it doesn't have an Int score; besides, we don't want to make it tougher, just to give it a ranged attack. Class levels have the same problems. Bumping the skeleton's Dex increases its AC, so you'd have to make it easier to hit somehow (and that fix is likely to have other side effects, as well). Cheating is far and away the best choice.
In other words, if you want to add a ranged attack to a skeleton, you're getting zero help from the 3.5 rules. Any system where people argue "It's not difficult at all, because you can break the rules if you need to" is, almost by definition, too difficult.
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Just curious but why can't you have a custom effect for a 3.5 monster that does something the players don't know enough about to predict?
You can!
I think one thing that 3.5 did poorly is making monsters predictable in terms of building them, and then not giving away enough tools to do the job. Sure, I can build that dragon with 2 extra arms. Now is there a template somewhere? What is the effect of adding arms on difficulty of slaying the beast? I think the DMG/MM do a poor job of helping DMs - experienced and newbie alike - determine the actual effects of exceptions. There are certainly some rules in the advancement and improvement sections that mostly work, but figuring out synergies between additions and normal abilities is always hard.
As an example, the best small alteration I've used against my players is a golem who exploded when he died. The fact that the players were pretty much slowed the whole time and then got (basically) hit by a fireball at the end of the encounter made them glare angrily at me. :D I gave them fair warning in the form of glowing arcane cracks on the body of the golem as it got more damaged. Now, the CR bump from this was about 1, iirc. The synergy between the slow and the explosion was just killer, though.
I don't know how well 4e will do at making these difficulty estimations easier, but it looks like it won't matter as much since everyone has more HP, does smaller amounts of damage, and has a much greater pool of "moves" to draw on, at least at lower levels.
*Edit* Drat! Scooped!
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....Why would a near immortal celestial or infernal bad guy forget spells like a frail human wizard?...crosswired mind:
To go off topic for a moment, just to clarify- since you use the phrase 'forget spells'- which edition are you referring to on this point? As believe has been pointed out on other threads, the concept of 'spell memorisation' was replaced with 'spell preparation' time in recent editions.
This does not argue against your position on exception based design giving flexibility, however.
Preparation is what I was thinking about but I just can't get the whole "fire then forget" thing out of my head.
What's with the negativity guys?
Maybe it's easier and better, maybe it isn't.
If it is, great. One thing to consider is that one of the reasons it might be easier is that it is not as easy to screw up the "CR" and have a TPK. (Due to the new increased HP, double bonus saves (STR or For, etc.), lack of instant death effects and "standardized" selection of PC abilities.)
Also I don't appreciate the name calling. If X product has Z draw back or X company has a tendency to do Y then say so, otherwise be nice. Polite isn't an option.
So you think the level system wont be as easy to screw up as the CR? In fact have we seen what determines the level of a monster? For all we know level is the new HD. Sure monsters are easier to make, but are they better balanced?
I understand his excitement, his published monsters can't be nitpicked on rules. (Of course necro was pro 4e before they saw a single rule). That doesn't translate to less TPK's to me. Before we had a system to change monsters, now we just randomly add things. Which most DMs have done before. Will adding wierd powers at the wrong levels kill characters or make too easy monsters? Of course. The new system isn't going to change that.
Has it been confirmed that a 3rd party monster manual works under the GSL? The whole idea of OGL was to make adventures, could the GSL allow new monsters only in adventure books? Which would make sense. If it is so easy to make monsters without tpk fear who needs 3rd party books of monsters cept if they fit in a particular adventure. It would also prevent many monsters from bieng made before MM2.
The monsters take up more space. A Choker or a Chuul takes up an entire page. However they now have an advanced form of each as a distinct entry. So both those creatures count as two monsters now.
You're vastly overstating the brevity of the 3.5 MM. Check out page 120. Or page 109. Or 114. You're looking at roughly 2 monsters per page, and there's plenty of cases where they threw on class levels (Hound Archon paladin) or listed a ton of more-or-less cookie cutter advanced monsters next to each other (like the elementals and skeletons).
But even beyond that, compare the difference between the 3.5 MM Small and Medium Air Elemental and the difference between a 4e MM Gnoll Marauder and a Gnoll Claw Fighter. With the gnolls, your players are going to pretty quickly realize the big, burly ones are slower but have that nasty bite, the wiry ones are dancing in and out of melee range, and you really don't want to get surrounded by three of either of them at once.
In other words, each of the monsters in the 4e MM feels different from one another. The big distinction between the Small and Medium air elementals in the 3.5 MM? The Medium one has Dodge.
Then there is the whole class thing - why should all users of arcane magic act like Wizards or Sorcerers? Do all rangers have the exact same abilities even if they are from different or alien races?
Personally, I think WotC really passed up a real opportunity by pushing PrCs like they're candy. IMO, they should have focused on class variants. Give me a 1001 class variants, one for each region, deity, race, subrace, etc. Those would make much more sense to me. i.e. every fighter at the training academy in Zhental Keep would have Power Attack, or a sea ranger variant that focuses on thrown weapons.
The homebrew I am working on, the only allowable classes are the ones in the PHB (and maybe one of the alternate magic systems as well). But variants of those classes will be a dime a dozen.
I think exception based design gives GMs and writers/designers the flexibility to add the flavor they want without having to reinvent entire sets of classes, abilities, and feats.
I don't see it. I don't see how 3.5 is so constraining that you can't do that with 3.5. I think there is a missed opportunity with making exactly what you're saying. But I think what you're saying is a whole heck of alot more doable in 3.5 then from what we know of 4E.
Yes, there will be exceptions, but if you build an entire world around exceptions, is it an exception anymore or just a world of insanity and complete weirdness?
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Just curious but why can't you have a custom effect for a 3.5 monster that does something the players don't know enough about to predict?Too true! Our DM recently threw a vampiric alligator againthe DM fenst our group and we were taken for a loop. Was is "by the book"? No. Did it work? Sure.
I like that 3.X has the tools to create creatures that work according to pre-given formulae. That shouldn't serve as a straitjacket for a DM's creativity.
I agree completely. Here is my example:
Last week I ran a "Crystal Remorhaz" at my party of ice-cave explorers. Buffed up to face a white dragon or polar worm, they were more than mildly surprised when the transparent remorhaz breathed forth a cone of frosty white gas, turning the barbarian and druid to crystal permanently. The looks on the players' faces were priceless.
I was able to work from the remorhaz in the MM, increase it to Gargantuan, add CON, remove a few grapple/swallow abilities and tack on a CON-based breath weapon in about 20 minutes. I blew off the skill increases (class skills were all of the sensing type) and gave the creature tremorsense 120' to deal with those pesky invisible types and help the thing hunt in the blinding and low-contrast snowfields that are its home. It created a very memorable CR14 encounter.
3.5 design is only constraining if you allow yourself to be constrained or if you are a professional writer that must get every nuance right. I am certain I missed something but the special abilities were very easy to do. The hard parts were making sure I improved the bite attack for size, researching dragon breath weapons to be sure I wasn't overpowering the thing, and calculating the new BAB and AC.
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4E monsters may be easier to design but 3.5 monsters can be as easy and as free as you want in 3.5 (you don't have to follow the creation rules as a DM) but for sticklers all the tools are there.
You want a monster who has powers that don't match a spell give it to them.
It needs more or less skills or points either give them or don't use them all.
Remember as with EVERYTHING IN D&D the books are only guidelines, it is your game your world do as you please.
You can just give the skeleton bonus feats ... Bonus feats don't work for you? Give the creature a racial bonus to hit with its necroblast ... I do think it is misleading to claim that 3e couldn't do it either.
That's exactly the point I was making. 3e doesn't tell you how to add bonus feats in the rules. Or how to add racial bonuses. The rules spell out three ways to improve monsters: class levels, templates, and bumps to HD. To intelligently design monsters for 3.5, you have to break the rules. And once you're doing that, you're right back to square one.
It certainly looks like 4e is going to make the whole thing a lot simpler. Explicit monster roles, clearly written powers with fewer interactions, vastly simplified advancement rules. There's no way to argue 3.5 did that just as well.