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I tried to keep an open mind about the monsters, but after the players fought the 13th goblin/hobgoblin, my eyes started to glaze over. The monsters are way too similar. There are not enough mechanical differences to justify having goblins, hobgoblins, or any of the monsters that don't have significant differences. This is especially true if the only true difference is a couple hp, AC points, and maybe the weapons they use (1d6+1 instead of 2d4-1). I'm sorry but the monsters are way too bland.

I can understand that they don't want super complex 4E monsters with 10 different special attacks and defenses, however we need something to distinguish the different monsters from each other.

My suggestion would be to have a single power/defense that is unique to a monster role.

Striker goblins might have advantage if two or more are threatening the same character.

Defender goblins might grant disadvantage to attacks of all adjacent enemies if they forego their action and move in a round.

Controller goblins might force adjacent enemies to roll a dex save if they try to move through their threatened area, on failure they might be prone or at disadvantage.

Leader goblins might grant advantage to one adjacent ally if they choose not to move.

This alone would allow for a wide variety of goblins and hobgoblins, I wouldn't get bored with this.

May 28, 2012 -- 10:52AM, Bodyknock wrote:

I agree that monsters should if possible have some ability that is unique aside from just raw numerical differences if possible. It's one of the things I like most about 4e monsters.

Now to be fair DDN does give many of the monsters a unique ability of some sort.  Among humanoids for example Kobolds have Stength in Numbers, for instance, Bugbears can Bushwhack, Goblins get Dirty Tricks, and Orcs have Furious Charge. And then within those there are examples of leaders who have additional abilities. So DDN monsters are still a step up from monsters in 3e, for instance, where the goblins, kobololds and orcs have no special combat abilities and mainly just differ in their stats.

So I say keep the differences if possible, the more the better.   As long as things don't get TOO complicated then I say the more variety in the way different monsters work.

Yeah, but all of those monsters (minus the leader) play exactly the same. Even humans in real life have different roles in combat. Some fly planes and drop bombs, others go in lightly armored vehicles or on foot with weak weapons that wouldn't affect an armored vehicle. Other go in tanks. yet they are all human.

I wouldn't even care if they didn't have roles. They could just list 2-3 powers and say pick one. As long as I can have a couple different monsters of the same type I'm fine with it.

May 28, 2012 -- 11:09AM, Calithrand wrote:

This seems like it's straying awfully close to making core monsters too complex. (I know I'm guilty of this for weapons, but nobody's perfect!) Why not have base, core monsters, with a few variants that don't smack of MMO roles?

(Soapbox: That, more than anything, is what made me run far and fast from 4E. If I want to tank with my mage, or crowd control with my fighter, that's my perogative. Don't try to tell me what role my class is supposed to fill. But I digress.)

I mean, historically, is it not "thing" that goblins are individually weak and that their danger comes from sheer numbers? From the standpoint of humans, a goblin is a goblin is a goblin, and I'm sure that they feel the same about humans. Sure, warbands or raiding parties are probably led by a more powerful goblin. Maybe they even have one capable of using some kind of magic in their ranks. But I don't think it helps to system to have five different kinds of goblin, when we could just have one base goblin, and a set of guidlines outlining how to modify that base creature into a more boss-like creature.

Kind of like how the vast majority of every human inhabitant of a world is a more-or-less useless peon that will crumple and die if you so much as look at them funny. 

(Now then, racial features are something else entirely, but those should really be common to all creatures of that type, so even with them every goblin works like pretty much every other goblin.) 

I don't  think 2 special powers per monster would be too much to ask. One they get for being that monster species and one they choose from a list. The list doesn't have to be long. It would be just 3 powers long. That would allow us to have a huge variety of monsters. That's at least 3 types of goblins, 3 types of hobgoblins, etc...etc...

Another way would be to have 3 powers based on race and 3 power based on role, then you mix and match 1 power for race and 1 power for role. This would make for 9 combinations of one monster with a little work. Combining vectors is always the easist route to variety.

To me whether a monster is interesting or not depends a lot more on the fluff than any mechanics.  The behavior, culture, and attitude of the monster is much more real and interesting than a mechanical combat maneuver.  Not to say that having unique combat features isn't cool, too.  It's just that the truly interesting thing about a monster is who and what it actually is, not how it fights.