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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 7:57AM
#51
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- Forum Guide
- Hero Craftsman Gold Medalist
- Master Dungeon Master
Date Joined:
Jun 23, 2005
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i dont know wrecan, i give you an a for effort, but to me, calling this 4e monster creation is kind of like getting really drunk and squinting at an ugly chick until she looks hot.
How is it really different? You have a level and power rating, just like in 4e. Those stats are used in determining balanced AC, hp, attack, damage, and XP, just like 4e.
The only differences are...
- Dropping monster roles (which had only a minor effect on a creature's numbers)
- Dropping minions in favor of low-level mooks
- Adding an XP factoring for special abilities
- XP budgets are based on adventuring day, rather than encounter (and this is really more pertinent to encounter/adventure design than to monster design).
That's it. Other than that, Mearls describes how you can use the abilities to determine stats, which is designed to make folks like dmgorgon happy, while keeping the balanced level/power matrix of 4e to keep those of us who liked 4e monster design happy. Sure, we don't know how fiddly the XP factor for special abilities will be... but wouldn't that have been something nice to have had in 4e? Wouldn't it be nice to know that if you have two creatures who are identical in every way, except that one has a power that lets it inflict a stun effect, that the creature who can stun you is significantly tougher to defeat, and thus should eat up more of your XP budget? I suppose you could simply ignore the XP additives for special abilities, and then you'd have a system even closer to the 4e system.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 7:59AM
#52
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Date Joined:
Nov 21, 2009
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i dont know wrecan, i give you an a for effort, but to me, calling this 4e monster creation is kind of like getting really drunk and squinting at an ugly chick until she looks hot.
haha! "design googles" 
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 8:09AM
#53
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These are specifically big, heavy hitters. As a necessary drawback, anything that hits really hard is going to have fairly lousy accuracy. Otherwise, it just goes around beating people into paste, and that's not a ton of fun.
Remember, +1 magical armor is not the assumption. Magic armor is supposed to feel like a big advantage against anyone not weilding a magical weapon. I suspect that they're going to back away from the stacking benefits of a magical armor and shield, simply because that lets the math get out of control way too quickly, but they may have not realized that part yet.
Solid comment.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 8:09AM
#54
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How is it really different? You have a level and power rating, just like in 4e. Those stats are used in determining balanced AC, hp, attack, damage, and XP, just like 4e.
You and I read a different article, I think. By my reading, Mike Mearls said the Minotaur's AC should have been 12, but he decided to boost it to 16 because he felt like it, and because checking other monsters at a similar XP value it seemed right to him. If your very optimistic view of this article is accurate, then I will be pleased. However, I would prefer to remain critical during the writing stage of 5e. I want 5e to be a great game, as a DM and a Player, and blindly trusting in the optimistic view to be the accurate view is not going to accomplish that.
I fully believe WotC is on the right track for this game. If the new stuff they're adding in for Fighters in the next playtest makes them really fun and dynamic, I will be really excited for all aspects of this game except the Rogue (and I'm hoping they're going to make the Rogue just as dynamic). But I find it absolutely necessary to look for the flaws in what they're saying at this level, not to tear the game down, but to promote the game's betterment.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 8:19AM
#55
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On Adventure Design Guidelines: This reinforces earlier articles about XP budget and adventure design. It also makes it clear that the budget is for an “adventure day” (as opposed to the more indefinite “adventure” ). This creates a clear unit of measure that can be designed around. It also makes it very easy to modify this unit to accomplish differing story paces. You could easily make this an “adventure hour” or an “adventure week” if that fits your campaign. The conclusion of an adventure “unit” allows daily resources to refresh. This goes back to my idea of modules as dials. You simply set the “story pace” dial to hour, day, or week (or non-time based measures, such as “session” or “chapter” ) and have guidelines on how these positions on the dial interact with other parts of the game.
Frankly I don't put a lot of stock in the whole "adventure XP budget" thing. If an 'adventure' is nominally 4 at-level encounters worth of stuff, then the budget is really just 1/4 of what they say, per encounter. 4e already for instance told you that a good guideline would be party level * 4 +5 levels worth of encounters, so in essence there's no fundamental difference. The thing that I am not seeing is any realization that 10 small encounters DOES NOT equal 1 big encounter, and never will unless the combat system is so swingy that no other factors really matter either. At least 4e was living in reality where the size of each encounter was the major factor in difficulty. This adventure XP budget thing is VERY unlikely to be workable. Actual practice is more likely to be it is paid lip service and then you're told outright that "this basically only works if you have the recommended 4 encounters, if you have more or less than that you'll have to follow this other rule of thumb as well..." lol.
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 8:19AM
#56
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Date Joined:
Nov 21, 2009
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On Monster Creation: This part of the article reads more like Mike’s instructions to his design team for making monsters, rather than an early draft of the DMG entry on making monsters. From this perspective, I really like this view inside the design process. I don’t really like conflating monster power (mook, elite, and solo) with monster size. Monster size should affect the statistics, but that might be better as a separate consideration. Or perhaps a subset; there won’t be a lot of small solos, but there should be guidelines for how monster size and monster power interact. Ability scores are more central to the design of Next than in past editions. Particularly for monsters or NPCs what will interact with characters outside of combat, more consideration has to be given the assignment of ability scores. At this stage (while they are still working out the basic math), an approach of “what feels right for a monster” is fine. But at some point that needs to graduate to “how will this monster interact with the PCs, and how will the ability scores reflect that.” The other thing not to overlook here is the narrower range of ability scores. I think we can forget about frequent ability score raises (either inherent or through magical items). If your ability scores are not going to significantly change over the course of your career (and more dangerous monsters won’t have substantially higher scores), this reinforces the need to find other ways to define increased potency. This probably also means first level characters with any ability score above an 18 will be rare. The rest about attacks, AC, and special abilities look good right now. I like the direction of the rage attack; it opens up new ways to make use of the fact that you are rolling two dice. XP calculations that take everything into account (if extensively playtested and done right) allow for more granularity in monster levels. I always felt in 4e that varying monsters of level X were just not the same threat (particularly leaders), and this could help achieve that differentiation.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 8:30AM
#57
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Date Joined:
Nov 21, 2009
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Frankly I don't put a lot of stock in the whole "adventure XP budget" thing. If an 'adventure' is nominally 4 at-level encounters worth of stuff, then the budget is really just 1/4 of what they say, per encounter. 4e already for instance told you that a good guideline would be party level * 4 +5 levels worth of encounters, so in essence there's no fundamental difference. The thing that I am not seeing is any realization that 10 small encounters DOES NOT equal 1 big encounter, and never will unless the combat system is so swingy that no other factors really matter either. At least 4e was living in reality where the size of each encounter was the major factor in difficulty. This adventure XP budget thing is VERY unlikely to be workable. Actual practice is more likely to be it is paid lip service and then you're told outright that "this basically only works if you have the recommended 4 encounters, if you have more or less than that you'll have to follow this other rule of thumb as well..." lol.
On one big encounter not equaling 10 little encounters: This depends on how non-daily powers refresh and how hitpoints are regained over the course of an adventure day. If these things can recover at similar rates in combat as outside of combat, then the biggest difference is in how the big encounter is structured. If everything hits you at once, then it is absolutely a harder encounter regardless of refresh mechanics. If things come in waves, then it is more manageable for the party. And this comes down more to DM guidance than mechanics.
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 8:30AM
#58
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One thing that strikes me as odd about the mention of monster types (mook,elite,solo) is it seems unneeded in terms of a bounded accuracy system. If the system really doesn't provide much attack and defense progression then a "solo" is just basically a higher level monster. The designation may still be relevant in terms of how you envisage using the monster and thus what abilities you give it, etc. but unlike 4e where level had a big impact on all the numbers in 5e basically it is going to determine hit points (roughly at least) and damage, and may suggest whether defenses are higher or lower in the range. If the goal is to be able to fight orcs still at 10th level and have them be 'minions', then likewise the same design should result in fighting a dragon at level 5 making it effectively 'solo'.
Also, I am still heavily advocating for the inclusion of monster roles. They were and are an invaluable guideline both for creating monsters and for designing encounters. Sure, they don't have a lot of effect on the core numbers of 4e monsters, a brute and a skirmisher at the same level have pretty similar defenses, attack bonus, and only moderately different hit points. The 2 types of monster DO however feel quite different because the designer was clear on what he was designing. Thus their traits, powers, etc all contribute to clearly defining the method of fighting used by that monster. It is particularly useful when designing a family of monsters like a humanoid race. Each type of hobgoblin clearly fits into the overall hobgoblin fighting scheme, making them a team of monsters instead of the all-to-common AD&D situation where the monsters are just a collection of either identical mooks or some sort of random hodge-podge that pretty much never had any real synergy except by sheer luck. I mean CLEARLY this minotaur IS a brute. What's the big problem with just friggin saying so?
That is not dead which may eternal lie
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 8:39AM
#59
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Date Joined:
Nov 21, 2009
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Also, I am still heavily advocating for the inclusion of monster roles. They were and are an invaluable guideline both for creating monsters and for designing encounters. Sure, they don't have a lot of effect on the core numbers of 4e monsters, a brute and a skirmisher at the same level have pretty similar defenses, attack bonus, and only moderately different hit points. The 2 types of monster DO however feel quite different because the designer was clear on what he was designing. Thus their traits, powers, etc all contribute to clearly defining the method of fighting used by that monster. It is particularly useful when designing a family of monsters like a humanoid race. Each type of hobgoblin clearly fits into the overall hobgoblin fighting scheme, making them a team of monsters instead of the all-to-common AD&D situation where the monsters are just a collection of either identical mooks or some sort of random hodge-podge that pretty much never had any real synergy except by sheer luck. I mean CLEARLY this minotaur IS a brute. What's the big problem with just friggin saying so?
+1
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11 months ago ::
Jul 23, 2012 - 8:41AM
#60
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I dont like the new article. I cant point anything specific,sorry, but it feels "wrong" to me.
Maybe it reminds me too much of 4th ed monsters?.
If i'll understand what's wrong i'll edit my post.
Edit: now i got it.
Mr Mearls,while i have all the possible respect for your professionality and design capabilities (i approve almost all you have done until now about the design choices for DDN), i also strongly believe that you are off target now.
When i was younger,i had many fun afternoons going to the beach with my friends,and while taking sun we had fun playing D&D.
My equipment was: 2nd ed DM Screen,a pencil,a set of dices and some sheets.If i had to design a monster,let'say a sewer worm, my reasoning was: hp=average hit dice?check. damage? 1d6 for wrmlings,1d6+1/1d8 sting( mature ones)? check. roll to hit?look thaco table. check. saving throws?look table. check.
Design time? 30 second or maybe less.
In the article instead,i see several problems:
- I have to guess characteristics
- bonuses for stats have to be added to the math
- i have to invent "+" for proficiency
- different sizes means different roles and math
- different hit dices for various creatures
- and so on..
While The system given in the article is perfectly fine imho is suitable for long term monsters,but not for "on the fly" ones.
The flavor of a monster is NOT in the math,but in the dm capability of painting a scene..i couldn't care less for a complex,overdetailed enemy. That's imo is a gamist approach legacy of more recent editions.
But i care MUCH about easy and fast play.
So,my idea is:leave that system for detailed,long term,reusable monsters, but give me also a fast system (a table maybe?) with all the math already done that i can reflavor as i see fit,and who can be inserted in a dm screen,as it was in 2ed screen.
It's a bit off? who care, they are just for fillers..and DM eventually can tune up the results.
Strive for semplicity.
I cant play with 3.5ed or 4ed on the beach with my nieces,but you could let me play with them at DDN.
Your choice.
I think Mike hinted at this, though he didn't go into a lot of detail when he talked about generic stat blocks. In other words your quick monster could simply be "level X mook stat block" and that gives you a quick baseline for all the various numbers. You can simply use it as is, maybe slap something interesting on it quick, decide how to flavor the generic parts, and you should have your "30 second monster". Seems like that SHOULD do the trick?
In this vein, the quick baseline can advise which abilities to use, whether to use the “mook” array, the “standard” array, the “elite” array, or the “solo” array. If DMs deviate from the guideline they can tweak the overall xp value accordingly.
Also “Brute Smash” (aka Power Attack) simply trades attack for damage. Usually the DM can throw it on top of a monster design, and not worry about any other numbers.
Probably “Brute Tough” trades AC for hit points. Likewise, the DM can throw this on top of a monster design.
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