One of the interesting things about 4E - that has both supporters and naysayers - is that monster entries are much more concise, and specific powers don't have a description of what that power does. It is usually obvious from the name of the power, the context of its mechanics, and the background of the creature itself.
But not always.
I have found this both wonderful and terrible at the same time. It both frees the imagination, letting one fill in exactly how a power works, and thus being able to describe it in the perfect way for one's party.
But sometimes, it means you come across a power where the only response is... "What?"
You know the ones I mean - something that just seems out of place, or has a vague enough name that you can't even remotely figure out what it is supposed to represent.
So, I was curious - what are some of the best and worst examples of this that one has come across? The powers that have most fired the imagination, along with the ones that have left you confused and confounded?
BEST
One of my favorites is auras, and specifically ones that expand as a monster gets bloodied. A good example is the 'Frost Titan Avalanche' from today's DDI Bestiary article:
Icy Terrain (Cold) aura 2 (or 5 while bloodied); enemies treat
the aura’s area as difficult terrain.Simple and reasonably straightforward, especially for a powerful solo, right? But it simply conjures this fantastic image in my mind of a Frost Titan lumbering across the battlefield as icy blood pours forth from open wounds, sheeting the ground in a black-red frost, ice spraying further from his injuries with every swing of its mighty fists...
This is only further supported by some powers that unleash a frosty burst when the Titan is hit by an attack - I visualize icy shards exploding in every direction when it is struck, pinning foes to the ground where they slowly freeze to death...
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So, anyone else have any monsters or abilities that ended up being unexpectedly inspiring -...
Depends on the power and the creature but large bidepal critters that wield a weapon that can daze or knockback I use the desciption(or something similar) 'with a wicked smile the brute swings his weapon up at your head sending you reeling backward/knocking you senseless.'
Or an agile attacker with knockdown ' in a sudden twist he slices at the back of your knee which buckles dropping you onto your back.'
In fact more often than not I taylor the powers of the ctitters to the style I feel appropriate rather than sticking to the hard and fast ones in the MM.
We've been bumping into this as well with a bit of mixed results. Oddly enough the players that have a fair bit of DMing under our belt (myself and one of the other players in our group) don't have problems with this as we throw out some narrative for the DM. I've found that the players that are not old hand DMs tend to demand explanations as opposed to providing them. It kind of feels like a habit from older styles of play were one was always on their toes to make sure the DM was not trying to screw you.
Interestingly enough I think that DMs of 4E have to be very careful not to play the game in a manner that is designed to blind side the players partly because of this sort of issue. In 3.5 the game really supported a lot of out of the blue tricks that would confound the players and its simulationist nature meant that the tricks either had some kind of concrete backing within the rules or followed logically from the rest of the system, It was, in many ways, the perfect edition for DM trickery because a prepared DM could always back up the trick but in 4E pulling this kind of fast one more then once in a blue moon will lead to a player vs. the DM mentality which I think 4E has a difficult time supporting in large part because monster powers 'just are' and its partly the responsibility of the players to help with the narrative in making them seem cool.
I've also been considering something I heard on a Fear the Boot podcast not so long ago. They were discussing a sci-fi game but I think the DMs response fits well with 4E D&D as well. Apparently what was happening was the characters were under attack by guys firing laser rifles and one of the players, trying to find an edge, asked "what exactly are they shooting at us?". The DMs response was "Special Effect #4".
4E works very well as a highly cinographic game, the fact that the Titans power triggers when its bloodied can be a cool way of coming up with a description of how the power looks but its not necessarily required. That a power triggers from the bloodied condition does not necessarily mean that DM must work in why a wounded creature has the power now. One could just as easily say the Titan roars at the top of its lungs while ice emanates out from where it stands covering everything in a 5 squares.