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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 4:50PM
#1
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Date Joined:
Sep 28, 2009
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Which monsters do you think should be in the initial monster book?
My list uses the 4e Monster Vault - my favourite ever D&D monster book - as a base, but is somewhat modified. It contains what I think to be the most iconic monsters, as well as a few of my personal favourites from across the editions. It has the bare minimum needed to run any fantasy sub-genre, from Swords & Sorcery to Wuxia.
- Aboleth
- Bat
- Beholder
- Bullywug
- Carrion Crawler
- Choker
- Death Knight
- Demon
- Devil
- Dragon
- Drake
- Drider
- Drow
- Dryad
- Dwarf
- Elemental
- Elf
- Ettin
- Gargoyle
- Gelatinous Cube
- Ghoul
- Giant
- Gibbering Mouther
- Gnoll
- Goblin
- Golem
- Gray Jester
- Grick
- Hag
- Halfling
- Human
- Kenku
- Kuo-Toa
- Kobold
- Lich
- Lizardfolk
- Lycanthrope
- Mimic
- Mind Flayer
- Minotaur
- Mummy
- Myconid
- Ogre
- Oni/Ogre Mage
- Orc
- Otyugh
- Owlbear
- Purple Worm
- Redcap
- Roper
- Scarecrow
- Shadar-Kai
- Skeleton
- Spider
- Stirge
- Tiefling
- Treant (Including a corrupted evil version.)
- Troglodyte
- Troll
- Twig Blight
- Umber Hulk
- Vampire
- Wight
- Wraith
- Yuan-ti
- Zombie (including a fungal zombie, and a clockwork enanced zombie.)
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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 7:14PM
#2
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Well, first and foremost, it needs to have all the traditional cannon-fodder monsters: Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Skeletons, and Zombies. After that it needs the iconic monsters like dragons, carrion crawlers, and displacer beasts.
I think one of the most important things though is that is needs enough monsters for every level that the DM isn't left with "Oh, the party is still in the 10-14 level range. I guess that means more frost giants."
Also, they need to make sure that the monsters that fit a given level range don't all or mostly have a single predominant resistance or immunity (assuming such thins get used). If a DM has a fire mage character in his group, he needs to be able to (though not necessarily restricted to) throw a diversity of monsters at the group and never run into fire immunity or resistance.
Why Mechanics-Alignment Integration is Bad
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so why even play a fighter if you can play the paladin the exact same way behaviorally and get added power to boot. "Paladin" is about accepting better game-enhancing mechanics at the price of more rigid in game behavior.
Really? So it goes something like this?
Fighter: "I want to be a paladin."
NPC: "Really?"
Fighter: "Yes."
NPC: "Very well." Starts reading from a holy book while still in-character "Do you accept having to choose and stick to the lawful good alignment, eventhough neither of us actually knows that it exists or what it is?"
Fighter: "I do."
NPC: "Do you reject good game balance because you accidentally rolled a high Charisma?"
Fighter: "What?"
NPC: "I don't know what it means either."
Fighter: "Oh. Umm, ok I do."
NPC: "In the name of all that is metagamey and broken, accept these better game enhancing mechanics."
Fighter: "These what?"
NPC: "Just get out there and try to fulfill a million different people's notion of good while not violating and part of any of them."
So the system is designed such that every single hit needs to be described to avoid confusion? Here's a scenario. The players are nudists, everybody in the world are nudists, it's not weird, it's totally normal in this land. They are naked and they fight drakes taking damage throughout, but healing up with surges. Later they meet the guy who raised the drakes.
Part 1: I didn't describe any of the hits. What does he see?
Part 2: Lets say I described the drakes as biting the players, yet they healed up. What does he see?
D20 Modern Toon PC Race.
Mecha Pilot's Skill Challenge Emporium.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 7:17PM
#3
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id like to see a mash up of the 1st ed mm1, mm2, and fiend folio
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1 year ago ::
Apr 14, 2012 - 11:44PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Nov 13, 2004
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I think it'd be kind of nice if the Monster Manual only contained stuff from the Material Plane (or whatever you want to call it), and then a few months later publish a Fiend Folio filled with celestials, fiends, and other weird planar crap like achaierais, ravids & tojanidas.
4e D&D is not a "Tabletop MMO." It is not Massively Multiplayer, and is usually not played Online. Come up with better descriptions of your complaints, cuz this one means jack ****.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 15, 2012 - 12:55AM
#5
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Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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I think more important than the actual list of monsters are the monster creation tools. I love 4E's ones, they are brilliant and work very very well. I want to see the same for monsters in D&D Next. I have a blog on my thoughts for monsters in D&D Next, too, which insofar seems to have very positive feedback (it might be because those who don't like it didn't bother with answering neither there nor in other threads, but still). However, this has it's importance too. My list comprehends roughly the following:
- Humanoids. From elves and humans to orcs, kobolds and goblins, the common humanoid races should be here and have various templates for various levels and different challenges (i.e. I want a goblin shaman, not just a goblin mook; and no, I absolutely don't want NPCs and monsters to follow PC rules because it doesn't make any sense and is too restricting for the game; I'm ok with class templates à la 4E though). This includes stuff like trolls, kuo-toas, troglodytes and the like.
- Animals. A quick and dirty list of animals with stats is helpful in certain situations, but I don't want more than two or three pages for this stuff. And I don't want stats for housecats, I want stats for horses, rhinos, bears, wolves, tigers, snakes, dinosaurs and the like. And of course I want the badass dire animals too.
- Aberrations. All the classic ones like aboleths and mind flayers, with a good deal of lore on those creatures too. Also, stuff from the Far Realm, because it's really cool to have.
- Undead. Zombies, ghouls, ghosts and wraiths, vampires, werewolves, skeletons... All those are needed in a good monster manual to be sure.
- Constructs. Not too many of these, I'd like to have a few that I can modify as needed: classic golems are enough probably.
- Outsiders. Demons, devils, angels (please, please keep the 4E angels, they're wonderful in concept), slaads, inevitables, elementals, feys, shadow creatures... All the classic ones.
- DRAGONS! And please, make them epic this time. I know only 3.5 and 4E dragons, and both were terribly... lacking. 3.5 ones were basically casters with a huge bunch of hps and wings that had a breath weapon for mopping up the party. 4E ones were... solos. 'Nuff said. I love the catastrophic dragons in MM III and generally use those when I need a dragon: something like that is what we need. With a breath weapon.
Are you interested in an online 4E game on Sunday? Contact me with a PM! Spoiler:
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Reflavoring: the change of flavor without changing any mechanical part of the game, no matter how small, in order to fit the mechanics to an otherwise unsupported concept.
Retexturing: the change of flavor (with at most minor mechanical adaptations) in order to effortlessly create support for a concept without inventing anything new.
Houseruling: the change, either minor or major, of the mechanics in order to better reflect a certain aspect of the game, including adapting the rules to fit an otherwise unsupported concept.
Homebrewing: the complete invention of something new that fits within the system in order to reflect an unsupported concept. Ideas for 5ESpoiler:
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1 year ago ::
Apr 15, 2012 - 6:52AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Oct 24, 2007
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I think a good rule of thumb should be that if a monster has been present in the first Monster Manual of 2e, 3e and 4e then it should be in the first Monster Manual of DDNext. I'm not saying there can't be other monsters in addition to those, but if a monster was popular enough to be in almost every edition's first Monster Manual then it's probably iconic enough to be in DDNext's first Monster Manual too.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 15, 2012 - 7:29AM
#7
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2009
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A recoupling of all the MM1's Monsters would be great !
Yan
Montréal, Canada
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1 year ago ::
Apr 15, 2012 - 8:44AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Sep 28, 2009
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DRAGONS! And please, make them epic this time. I know only 3.5 and 4E dragons, and both were terribly... lacking. 3.5 ones were basically casters with a huge bunch of hps and wings that had a breath weapon for mopping up the party. 4E ones were... solos. 'Nuff said. I love the catastrophic dragons in MM III and generally use those when I need a dragon: something like that is what we need. With a breath weapon.
I second this. Dragons need to be terrifying, magestic, and unknowable.
My Twitter
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1 year ago ::
Apr 15, 2012 - 10:19AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Nov 13, 2004
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Dragons need to be terrifying, majestic, and unknowable.
Hmm...
#1 - Terrifying: Make these suckers intentionally broken as heck for their level. Even optimizers need a maguffin to stand a chance against one that is supposedly below their level.
#2 - Unknowable: Perhaps give dragons their own menu of spell-like special abilities they could pick from. Optimizers and DMs may know what these things are capable of doing, but a good chunk of the player base would only know/remember an ability that rocked their world last time they fought a dragon.
#3 - Majestic: Besides being both scary and mysterious (see above), extra advice on where to best place or use a dragon in a campaign would help.
4e D&D is not a "Tabletop MMO." It is not Massively Multiplayer, and is usually not played Online. Come up with better descriptions of your complaints, cuz this one means jack ****.
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1 year ago ::
Apr 15, 2012 - 12:26PM
#10
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2e MM has a great selection of foes to choose from. Would like to see them avoid creatures that are entirely too setting dependent. Thinking mostly of the spelljammer entries.
My favourite compendiums are the Ravenloft 1&2 and 3
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