General Discussion

[Malrex]

I am SERIOUSLY done for now. There will be no more replies for a few weeks, no matter what you throw at me. @Beoric is right, we've (all) abused Bryce's D&D forum. Did you have fun?

I didn't abuse Bryce's forums. You have tried to drag me into this conversation twice and made assumptions about me and my way of thinking to use for your...'opinion'.

Looking forward to you coming back, hopefully with your manners returned, childish tantrum subsided, and keeping to subjects of D&D.

 

[Beoric]

For listing 10 questions? Don't want to be called a child?, then don't act like one. Done with you.

What the hell, man? Malrex avoids all these political digressions, and never has a mean word to say about anybody. Insulting him is over the top.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Seriously folks. I've been "on-line" since 1980 (300 baud!). Do you really think I am some tech-ignorant Boomer that's been hyponotized by the evil internet and that you are yourselves somehow the only ones immune?

Gotta love Boomers:

"I've been around, you can't fool me! What's that? My computer has a virus and I need to fix it or I'll go to jail if I don't? Why yes, I'll gladly pay for this unsolicited computer repair session with Google Play gift cards. Thank you, heavily-accented IT hero!"

 

[Beoric]

So, I'm reading 3e Eberron modules, again, and getting annoyed, again, about late edition design choices. "Late design" might be a bit unfair, since I'm not sure it is happening in 5e, and there was somewhat less of it in 4e. So yeah, 3e is the worst offender.

At low level, you expect to fight a bunch of skeletons and zombies, which can give you a bit of a rough time. As you get to mid-ish level, if there are skeletons and zombies, you expect there to be more of them and, unless there are rule-nerfing amulets to make them harder to turn,* you expect to have an easier time with them.

So there's a progression, and it's built right into Appendix C, where you expect to encounter certain monsters early in your career, and as you gain experience you are either dealing with more of those monsters, or you are dealing with more powerful monsters. So you (a) get a sense of progression, as you begin to have an easier time with monsters that give you trouble, and (b) get a greater variety of experiences which change as you level, because you are dealing with different monsters at different points in your career.

Anti-turning amulets are antithetical to this. When you give these to your undead mooks, you are nerfing an ability that the players/characters worked for, and you remove that sense of progression.

What is worse - and this is a big pet peeve with 3e - is when you make all your monsters nearly infinitely scalable. I'm reading a 6th level 3e module right now, and what are the PCs having to deal with? Skeletons and zombies. But not more skeletons and zombies, which would help with that sense of progression, but tougher skeletons and zombies. So you are still fighting the same number of skeletons and zombies, it's just that the zombies are made from gray render corpses and the skeletons are made from cloud giant corpses, so as to be a "suitable encounter for a party of 4-6 6th level characters."

3e has like 8,000 Monster Manuals and related splatbooks, the PCs are now comfortably into the mid-levels, you couldn't come up with something more interesting than leveled-up skeletons and zombies? Maybe a wight or a wraith for a little variety? I don't know, maybe module designers were asked to show off the monster-upgrading rules, or maybe they use these as (intensely boring) filler encounters because the interesting monsters are relegated to being bosses.

And I recognize that this is a matter of taste, but for me personally, as a design objective of my game, I want players to feel a sense of accomplishment when they level, and have a chance to flex their newfound abilities. They should have the experience of encountering a monster that gives them trouble, to being able to handle them fairly easily, to being able to handle a lot more of them, to sending your troops to deal with them because they are no longer worth the PCs' time. And I want them to have experience the variety that comes with "unlocking" different and more interesting opponents.

Any, that is my rant for the evening.

*Which, given the time and expense of making magic items in 1e, I have difficulty understanding why a necromancer would pump resources into this, when they could just make more skeletons and zombies.

 

[Ineffective Voulging]

Slightly disagree in that some monsters should have a wide spread of power. But the unusually powerful then should take their logical place in the world as leaders and legends rather than mooch around dungeons just to embarrass PCs.


The other side of the coin is powerful monsters nerfed because the designer cant think up an interesting normal encounter. eg I remember some Dungeon FR nonsense which had a raiding party ….of 1st and 2nd level drow. Yuck.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

"Late design" might be a bit unfair, since I'm not sure it is happening in 5e, and there was somewhat less of it in 4e. So yeah, 3e is the worst offender.

No, you're right. They scaled back the whole Templating thing after 3e went a bit nuts with it. Everything was becoming "X monster with Y template" - Ogres with the Abyssal Outsider Template, trolls with the Feytouched template, kobolds with the Aspirant Lich template, etc. It seemed like instead of creating new and weird encounters, they just wanted to add extra powers to existing encounters, which results in "super skeletons" as you point out.

 

[The1True]

But you've tricked me into rambling on about politics past my deadline.

Hey man, thanks for replying.
Honestly, reading this makes me feel like we're living in two alternate realities slowly pealing away from each other.
I just kind of wish your reality wasn't imposing itself on mine at the moment. :\

 

[Beoric]

Slightly disagree in that some monsters should have a wide spread of power. But the unusually powerful then should take their logical place in the world as leaders and legends rather than mooch around dungeons just to embarrass PCs.


The other side of the coin is powerful monsters nerfed because the designer cant think up an interesting normal encounter. eg I remember some Dungeon FR nonsense which had a raiding party ….of 1st and 2nd level drow. Yuck.

Sure, I don't mean it to be a rule, more of a guideline.

Dragons have been an exception since 0e. But I actually don't like that you can encounter them so early on in the dungeon, per DMG 1e Appendix C, I think it diminishes the iconic boss monster by fighting baby dragons off the hop. I much prefer how the MM did it, reserving baby dragons for dragon families - something think was lost in later editions.

However, NPCs with PC classes are a good example of an exception to the "rule," because you expect them to be able to level like PCs. But IMO true mook types should be encountered in greater numbers, rather than leveling up.

No, you're right. They scaled back the whole Templating thing after 3e went a bit nuts with it. Everything was becoming "X monster with Y template" - Ogres with the Abyssal Outsider Template, trolls with the Feytouched template, kobolds with the Aspirant Lich template, etc. It seemed like instead of creating new and weird encounters, they just wanted to add extra powers to existing encounters, which results in "super skeletons" as you point out.

This is something I like about 4e; templates don't increase the level of a monster, they make the monster tougher at the same level. So if a 3rd level standard goblin is given the Demonic Acolyte template, it becomes a 3rd level elite Goblin Demonic Acolyte, which counts for two regular goblins. You could rewrite it as a 7th level standard monster, but by default it is treated as a monster that will be encountered at the same level as the mooks.

Or you could tweak it to turn your 3rd level elite Goblin Demonic Acolyte into a 3rd level level solo Goblin Demonic Acolyte, and use the solo monster as a boss, the elite monsters as lieutenants, and the standard monsters as mooks. All three will share recognizable abilities, but the elites have twice the hit points and additional capabilities, and the solos have quadruple the hit points and still more capabilities.

4e still has a bunch of canon monsters that are a higher level version of the original monster, frequently because one of them is an "Abyssal" version of the original. I think because the designers still had 3e habits, and I notice they almost never used the templates. But by default, tougher DYI monsters inhabit the same space as the originals they were based on.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

This is something I like about 4e; templates don't increase the level of a monster, they make the monster tougher at the same level. So if a 3rd level standard goblin is given the Demonic Acolyte template, it becomes a 3rd level elite Goblin Demonic Acolyte, which counts for two regular goblins. You could rewrite it as a 7th level standard monster, but by default it is treated as a monster that will be encountered at the same level as the mooks.

I vastly prefer individual entries from scratch rather than modifying existing monsters - I find there's little to be gained by keeping a bunch of residual statistics from a weaker thing, when you can just stat-out a whole new monster using basically the same amount of effort.

My personal rule is this: don't make monsters tougher - make tougher monsters.

 

[Beoric]

I vastly prefer individual entries from scratch rather than modifying existing monsters - I find there's little to be gained by keeping a bunch of residual statistics from a weaker thing, when you can just stat-out a whole new monster using basically the same amount of effort.

My personal rule is this: don't make monsters tougher - make tougher monsters.

I do that as well. But what I am trying to get across with respect to how 4e template work, is that the abilities of the original monster remain relevant in the elite and solo monsters. I'm tied up with deadlines, but I will make a couple of stat blocks in the next day or so to show you what I mean.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

But what I am trying to get across with respect to how 4e template work, is that the abilities of the original monster remain relevant in the elite and solo monsters.

No no, I get it. I still think it's not worth the effort though.

Like, let's say the task is making an encounter with a bunch of goblins led by a goblin vampire. You could say "apply vampire template to goblin" or "apply goblin template to vampire", or you could write down "goblin vampire - 40' MV/fly, 50hp, 16AC, 1d8+3/1d8+3, bite 1d6+3 (heals for amount damaged), Regenerate 5hp/round, Dominate (DC 15)" and be done with it. Sure, it won't be statistically accurate to either goblins or vampires, but it will do the job for the non-scrutinizing players, assuming it has AC/hp/damage output appropriate for the required encounter CR.

 

[Beoric]

No no, I get it. I still think it's not worth the effort though.

Like, let's say the task is making an encounter with a bunch of goblins led by a goblin vampire. You could say "apply vampire template to goblin" or "apply goblin template to vampire", or you could write down "goblin vampire - 40' MV/fly, 50hp, 16AC, 1d8+3/1d8+3, bite 1d6+3 (heals for amount damaged), Regenerate 5hp/round, Dominate (DC 15)" and be done with it. Sure, it won't be statistically accurate to either goblins or vampires, but it will do the job for the non-scrutinizing players, assuming it has AC/hp/damage output appropriate for the required encounter CR.

Sure, you ca do that in the early editions and 5e, maybe even 3e, but 4e monsters are more complicated. Taking your example, here is a fairly typical goblin. It's an early version and the numbers are off, but it will do for our purposes.



Goblin Tactics is something all goblins have; if somebody misses them they can scooch away without provoking an opportunity attack. This particular goblin also rages when he loses half of his hit points.

Then this guy gets killed by a vampire, and he gains these characteristics:



I have a program that applies templates and lets you export them. It's easy to use but damage values always need tweaking. This is what it gave me, without the tweaking (but note I don't usually bother doing this because I just plug the data into macros on a token in my VTT):



Our goblin vampire get a fair bit more complicated, but he also counts as two creatures, so it evens out. The sheer diversity of abilities present a challenge when making up something like this on the fly.

One thing I like about this is that the consistency lets the players learn about their opponents, and apply that practically. All goblins have Goblin Tactics - and they can teach it to their pets, so if they know that, and a wolf shows up using Goblin Tactics, the players can infer that it was goblin trained, and there may be goblins nearby. If the PCs have become good at fighting goblins, that is going to be helpful fighting a vampire goblin.

Bandits and brigands often have the Surprise Strike attack, which can be countered if you know about it; if you served in the military, and the bandits instead have Takedown Strike, you know that they were originally mercenaries.

Vampire thralls have a difference suite of powers than vampire lords; also there are variant vampires, so if you are dealing with a lot of vampires you can start recognizing strains of vampirism, and vampire "families."

So the consistency is something I am going for in my game. I may modify a template, or make my own template, or a custom power, but I always make sure that creatures that have culture, or training, or heritage in common, will also have a player-recognizable mechanical feature(s) in common. I've seen players get pretty excited when it suddenly dawns on them that there is a connection between this thing, and what they encountered earlier in the campaign, or in a different campaign, and it's gratifying.

 

[Ineffective Voulging]

Ooof

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Our goblin vampire get a fair bit more complicated, but he also counts as two creatures, so it evens out.

What do you mean by "counts as two creatures"? As in XP value? CR balance? One goblin sitting on the other's shoulders?

Or are you just talking about statblock size? XD

One thing I like about this is that the consistency lets the players learn about their opponents, and apply that practically. All goblins have Goblin Tactics - and they can teach it to their pets, so if they know that, and a wolf shows up using Goblin Tactics, the players can infer that it was goblin trained, and there may be goblins nearby. If the PCs have become good at fighting goblins, that is going to be helpful fighting a vampire goblin.

Bandits and brigands often have the Surprise Strike attack, which can be countered if you know about it; if you served in the military, and the bandits instead have Takedown Strike, you know that they were originally mercenaries.

Vampire thralls have a difference suite of powers than vampire lords; also there are variant vampires, so if you are dealing with a lot of vampires you can start recognizing strains of vampirism, and vampire "families."

So the consistency is something I am going for in my game.

I agree consistency is important - maybe the most important part of being an unbiased adjudicator. Players definitely pick up when you aren't being consistent.

I'm a little more pessimistic about players than you are, I think. The idea that some players would infer mercenary past or goblin training based on a creature's ability seems... uncommon. Especially if you don't announce the abilities (i.e. if you don't say "and this wolf uses Goblin Tactics, so he gets to move a square because he missed an attack"). Like, if I were trying to establish vampire family traits, I suspect players would more inaccurately ascribe those traits to just "vampires gonna vampire" rather than "oh, they used a Dominating Gaze rather than a Hypnotic Gaze - they must be of the Sorazorra vampire family". Just my experience though.

 

[Beoric]

What do you mean by "counts as two creatures"? As in XP value? CR balance? One goblin sitting on the other's shoulders?

The first two. A goblin with a template becomes an "elite" goblin. A elite goblin is worth double the experience and is the equivalent in toughness to two regular goblins.

I agree consistency is important - maybe the most important part of being an unbiased adjudicator. Players definitely pick up when you aren't being consistent.

I'm a little more pessimistic about players than you are, I think. The idea that some players would infer mercenary past or goblin training based on a creature's ability seems... uncommon. Especially if you don't announce the abilities (i.e. if you don't say "and this wolf uses Goblin Tactics, so he gets to move a square because he missed an attack"). Like, if I were trying to establish vampire family traits, I suspect players would more inaccurately ascribe those traits to just "vampires gonna vampire" rather than "oh, they used a Dominating Gaze rather than a Hypnotic Gaze - they must be of the Sorazorra vampire family". Just my experience though.

The name of the power and some of the effects are displayed in the chat. Also, players do recognize things that hurt the PCs.

But it is true, from the player side they might not notice mechanical similarities, so if they don't notice and I want them to know, I can hint or outright tell them. Start with "you think you have seen this fighting technique before," and maybe eventually move on to "your dogsbody remembers the Poison Spider goblins using this technique."

 

[DangerousPuhson]

The name of the power and some of the effects are displayed in the chat.

Ah right, the whole VTC thing. Yeah, that's pretty declarative. Don't get me wrong - I actually like the idea of dropping little connections or signature moves that players can deduce and leverage to their advantage. I'm just not optimistic they'll actually catch on to them very often.

 

[Beoric]

Also, players do recognize things that hurt the PCs.

As an example of this, there are a number of creatures that get to do something with their dying gasp; an example is to get an attack on everyone standing next to them. So you don't want to stand next to them when they die. The first time one of those go off in a fight, the players say something like, "Ah, fuck, these are those things that explode!" [figuratively], at which point them as has polearms step up to do melee, and everyone else falls back to make ranged attacks.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

There are a lot of TTRPGs out there. No wonder nobody can agree on what the OSR is or isn't.

My running count is presently at 607; someone pick a number between 1 and 607, and I'll tell you what to play!

 

[The1True]

someone pick a number between 1 and 607

I'm feeling pretty good about #333. Lay it on me. (Fingers crossed it's a word-for-word 1st edition Rifts clone with dodgy AI art!)

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I'm feeling pretty good about #333.

Your pick is... *drumroll noises*

Dusk City Outlaws