Comments on the 4th Ed fact thread

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I don't lke this approach for a monster. I want to know what it does in its free time etc etc.

Agreed. OTOH, that information is quite likely going to be dependent on the campaign setting. Certainly, we know that goblins in Ravenloft act a lot differently from goblins in Eberron or goblins in Faerun, etc. So even if they did include a lot of fluff in each entry, a lot of it's bound to get tossed out by DMs who want their goblins to be sailors, their drow to be technology-oriented, etc.

Perhaps they'd going with an SRD-style approach of giving us the bare crunch, in the monster entries, and will fill out the fluff (non-combat powers and know-how included) in themed splatbooks? If they're not going to start up another "Complete Class" series, with new PHBs coming out once a year, they'll need to expand on something to keep new supplements on the shelves.

[Jester of the FoS]

Personal opinion: BLEAH! ! ! I don't lke this approach for a monster. I want to know what it does in its free time etc etc.

And how often has this been done? Ever. By any game company for any RPG.

Then let's pray that they have included that somewhere clearly stated in the Monstrous Manual. Saying with bold letters: The stats you see are only for the few rounds of combat; Monsters have more abilities for out of combat use that we haven't included.

Because contrary to what Omum says, the Rules lawyers and actually anyone not familiar with pre-4th edition will say: "Whaaa?! How can the pit fiend create undead and illusions?! He can only move around or blow up his subordinates! ! !"

Also when I run a campaign with the evil PCs, I would like to have at least a better idea what their Pit fiend patron could do. Yes, "Anything you need him too" may sound easy, but at least I would like some guidance.

You mean like in 3e where the *only* goblins, orcs, dwarves, humans, etc (according to the monster manual) are warriors without a single farmer, craftsman or noble?

Again, 4E is a RULE SYSTEM. Everything else is secondary. Because no one ever has arguments over vague fluff, but vague rules can tear apart a group.

[JinnTolser]

alhoon has a point though: if the monsters' stats are not going to include anything beyond the abilities you'd expect them to use in their 5-6 rounds of combat life, which is apparently all most people care about, then it needs to be made crystal clear in the book that these are NOT necessarily the only abilities monsters possess, merely the only abilities they're likely to use in combat.

[alhoon]

Personal opinion: BLEAH! ! ! I don't lke this approach for a monster. I want to know what it does in its free time etc etc.

And how often has this been done? Ever. By any game company for any RPG.

Hmm? It was done excellently by WotC before... in Fiendix Codex I and II. It was done quite well in manual of the planes.
Or simpler: In more books you had to buy.
If MManual will be SRD like and "combat stats only" the need to buy more books increases. Also Monsters will be able to be characters... later. I.e buying books like savage species again.

Someone noted that giving the Pit fiend a single wizard level would give him a limited number of spells like a 26th level caster.

However: In the light of what Rotipher has said it seems better. How many DMs use pit fiends in their campaigns in regular basis? I think I have used one in the whole 3rd edition. As a player I have also fought one.

Also I can't blame WotC for looking for profit. Yes, I would prefer less monsters, more fluff.
But if the level 5-15 monsters are better then you'll have no complains for me. As far as I have seen the archons are excellent. When I saw them I said "WOW! Usefull, interesting elementals! And easy to play too!"
I guess I will have to buy the optional books. However I'll buy the optional books for monsters I care for.

NOTE: The Pit fiend still stinks. He's a one dimensional monster with loot. I hope they put out the new manual of the planes quickly! Before the "complete elves" or "complete arctic druid" books at least.
His blow up ability is good and fluff BTW. It is useful for keeping minions in place and it shows something: For the Pit fiend, his subordinates are like "Bombs with claws, weapons and abilities" tools and nothing more. This ability shows that clearly. A wounded 25th level devil that would be killed before doing any more damage (i.e he has used his actions) would blow up. "Be useful or go BOOM!" the new Pit fiend Moto, along with the "I don't have fireballs anymore, so I have to blow you up!"

NOTE 2: It is quite cartoonish though. Think of the legions of hell invading the home world. Much of it occupied already and the defenders of a holy city defending the walls... against an onslaught of exploding lemures!

Which would be cooler: A fireball dealing 2d10+15 damage or a lemure thrown like an exploding catapult ball towards the defenders and blowing up?

[alhoon]

You mean like in 3e where the *only* goblins, orcs, dwarves, humans, etc (according to the monster manual) are warriors without a single farmer, craftsman or noble?

Again, 4E is a RULE SYSTEM. Everything else is secondary. Because no one ever has arguments over vague fluff, but vague rules can tear apart a group.

The MManual has rules to make them though. Orcs tend to be barbarians etc. Also look at the stat block, one every 10-15 of them is a leveled creature and half of them are non combatands.

[Jester of the FoS]

Shifting topics over: the Realms.

100 years have passed. Gods have died or left. Nations have fallen. The map has been redrawn. Magic has changed. It really is an impressive series of changes for the world, easily the largest changes done to that setting ever. Compared to other 'changes' from prior big events, which amounted to gods having Avatars (Time of Troubles) and some orcs in lands previously entirely human (horde invasion).

But compared to half the crap that's been pulled on Dragonlance, or even the Grand Conjunction, the Realms' "nuking" seems big but not that bad.

[Pamela]

Mind you, there's been a lot of books written on various parts of the Realms and they're past and present history. A lot of it will be rendered useless depending on where people's campaigns are set.

Question re: Grand Conjunction- how much of an effect did it have on players way back when? I was playing D&D but not Ravenloft, so I don't know if it had much of an impact at all.

[Jester of the FoS]

Not really. It'd be like having a campaigns set pre-Conjunction or pre-Cataclysm.

[Jester of the FoS]

This is the big one for changes:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drfe/20080111a

The big changes seem to be the increase of Baldur's Gate's importance, fall of several empires around Sea of Falling Stars, rise of the Shades, introduction of a dragonborn empire, and the 100 year timeline change.

I'm liking the changes so far, they make sense. It seems half-motivated by the edition change and half by problems with the setting, which is the way to make changes.

The timeline works nicely for removing the NPCs of the setting. So it won't be a world of a dozen crazy-high level characters. A good chunk of the humans are expected to have just died of old age.

And it really does make the setting seem less daunting. Instead of hundreds of books and old editions you just need the current book and the timeline. It'll get filled up quickly but a new campaign there might be nice.

And they're launching a FRWiki, which will really help with the setting and keeping everything cohesive and referencing all the novels, adventures, and forthcoming LVR.

[Sorti]

So, to kill a character with 200 hp I have to deal 300 damage, and if he's at -99 and anyone casts any cure spell on him he goes back to positive???

I assume dead characters mean less books sold, no other possible reason...

Ah, and it doesn't apply to monsters: after all, they didn't pay anything to WotC

[Ornum]

So, to kill a character with 200 hp I have to deal 300 damage, and if he's at -99 and anyone casts any cure spell on him he goes back to positive???

I assume dead characters mean less books sold, no other possible reason...

Ah, and it doesn't apply to monsters: after all, they didn't pay anything to WotC

Yeah, that's pretty stupid. I'm officially not a fan of that particular bit of 4e. I predict that in 5e, there will be no hps. Instead, when your character is damaged, you lose XP points until such time as you have none left. Sure, it'll suck at first level, but....nevermind, the joke is retarded, as is this 4e rule. Lame.

[Sorti]

So, to kill a character with 200 hp I have to deal 300 damage, and if he's at -99 and anyone casts any cure spell on him he goes back to positive???

I assume dead characters mean less books sold, no other possible reason...

Ah, and it doesn't apply to monsters: after all, they didn't pay anything to WotC

Yeah, that's pretty stupid. I'm officially not a fan of that particular bit of 4e. I predict that in 5e, there will be no hps. Instead, when your character is damaged, you lose XP points until such time as you have none left. Sure, it'll suck at first level, but....nevermind, the joke is retarded, as is this 4e rule. Lame.

Better: when your character dies you can send 10$ to WotC to have him not die. DMs get 1$ for every character killed. After all, we can't blame them for trying to make money, can we? That's what every company does.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

So, to kill a character with 200 hp I have to deal 300 damage, and if he's at -99 and anyone casts any cure spell on him he goes back to positive???

Looks like. Granted, we don't know how much damage a monster that's suitable to fight 300-hp PCs can dish out in one round, or if there's a coup de grace rule in the works. And the rolls to determine whether you bleed to death seem to be a straight 50% chance -- no bonuses or penalties for level, Con, etc -- so a downed PC who's left unattended for three rounds might just be a goner if they roll badly, whether they're 1st level or 30th.

We also don't know if resurrection-magic and so on is going to get any more costly, this time around. Perhaps this is an excuse to make raising people from the dead the miraculous rarity it should be, not just "Insert Coin To Continue"? If so, I could probably learn to put up with it.

[Jester of the FoS]

So, to kill a character with 200 hp I have to deal 300 damage, and if he's at -99 and anyone casts any cure spell on him he goes back to positive???

Yeah, but better than to kill someone with 200 hp you just need to do 211.
Granted it is really, really silly but no more than any other system.
Or how an injured 1st level fighter and injured 20th level fighter, both down to 1hp, but die after the same amount of damage

Really, once you're down there's no reason to track negative hp with this system, unless you take extra damage which is probably a coupe de grace situation.
It's there so high level fights who've taken a couple hits and knocked down to 20 hp fighting a monster that does an average of 30hp each swing won't be auto-killed. 10 extra hitpoints means nothing in mid to high level games.
The point is to negate or reduce auto-death from all but the deadliest attacks.

If you're down, you're down.
If you're healed, you're back in the fight.
If you're down you have as few as three rounds before death.

[Isabella]

We also don't know if resurrection-magic and so on is going to get any more costly, this time around. Perhaps this is an excuse to make raising people from the dead the miraculous rarity it should be, not just "Insert Coin To Continue"? If so, I could probably learn to put up with it.

That was the impression I got from the way they were talking, although we'll have to see if it actually turns out that way - with this and the removal of instant death effects, GMs may be able to remove the option of resurrection from the game without making it completely unplayable. Maybe 4e's raise dead spell will be more like the some of the revival spells that require the priest to run and cast it in the next round, or it won't work. I'd have to see it in action, but I could prefer it over 3.5's current "rocket tag" environment - people may complain 4e looks like a video game, but 3.5 and its "respawn points" aren't really less so.

Edit: I recall a few years back we hit upon an interesting conundrum when my brother was playing a barbarian - he got more than ten extra hit points when he used his rage ability. What this meant was that if he ever was knocked unconscious, he fell out of rage and died instantly, and it was literally impossible for anyone to stop it. Now, I realize that from an outsider standpoint this might sound in theme with the barbarian, who fights on even after he's mortally wounded and doesn't notice, but from a player standpoint, it was a nightmare! Every time he used his signature ability he was playing Russian Roulette with his character. Nor was it fun for me, the priest, to chose between healing the barbarian who might get hit, but would die instantly if he did, and other players who needed it more but could be saved in the negatives.