How many monsters does a D&D edition need to start with?

[K]

As much as I would personally use a generator (and likely tweak results here and there if it needs to be a bit slower or needs its Ice Web changed to an Acid Web or whatever, assuming the generator doesn't allow for these changes in the first place), there really is something to be said for monsters straight out of the book...

It may be hard to remember after 17 pages of vitriol and ad hominem attacks, but the original idea is that the system be easy enough that the 100 are just the "full description" monsters that get a full page of backstory, history, full flavor text, and role in your setting. The candidates are things like orcs and dragons that will be iconic parts of your setting and often used.

Everything else can just be a notation. An "Ice Spider" only needs a paragraph of flavor text to tell you that its a spider monster from a certain snowy place that tosses icy webs on fools. The rest can be "Vermin 7. Abilities: Poison Bite, Fearsome Jump, Scything Strike, Web of the Ice Spider." The ease of being able to refer to Vermin 7 for the Vermin 7 base stats and abilities cannot be underestimated, especially after people have played for a while and generally remember what they are.

Then you fit 20-30 monsters per page to your last ten or twenty pages. It's not like Fog Giants are really so important to 99% of campaigns that they need a full page.

When you publish adventures, you can do full write-ups on new monsters that are important for that adventure and have backstories that interact with the story or just abbreviate them to their notation if it's a monster with a backstory that's not important to the adventure. A new monster that is just one Wizard's Golem variant that is only guarding a door and will be curbstomped doesn't need a backstory, but a story about an invasion of githyanki red dragon crossbreeds might easily deserve several full write-ups of several variations if you'll be taking down lots of them over the course of the adventure.

[shadzar]

I have now done something that the entire planet was made to do. I have realized what Deep Thought designed Earth for.

How many monsters does a D&D edition need to start with?

42

we can all die knowing the meaning of our lives now, was to connect the threads purpose questions with its answer.

[Username17]

The problem is that templates is a 3e term.

Nice try, but it's also a 4e and 2e term. Face up to it: DSM had you exactly dead to rights. Literally the only differences between the way you said you'd handle things and the way I said I'd handle things is that I include a customization step and also derive numbers, while you simultaneously want to freeform all the numbers (seriously?) and want to have no customization step at all. You are correct that removing these two things speeds up the system, but I would argue that it only does so by making the outputs bland and shitty.

I really have no idea how you expect people to swallow dodgy gelatinous cubes when it is historical reality that when the 4e Monster Manual came out people did not accept that. I also have no idea how you expect to be able to output an Ice Spider at all if you don't have a customization step.

Really, you've sacrificed all usability on the altar of speed of use.

-Username17

[wotmaniac]

Your implication is that MM1 should not contain things made with the system. To which I ask why?

If I understand Frank correctly, then I think that you have the cause->effect backwards (at least by your wording):
His baseline is 3-400 monsters before you have enough for an adequate sample size (15-20 monsters for each level) .... that's enough to completely fill your entire first MM.
So, the actual cause->effect is that "by the time you have a large enough sample size from which to build your monster generation model, you happen to already have enough monsters to package for your MMI".

I'm not completely convinced in the power of unique abilities.

making the outputs bland and shitty.

That being said, if you (as MC) want to have unique monsters, it's because you want it to have a memorable impact ..... in which case, this is something that you will have taken the time to craft away from the table, and not something that you're just going to throw out on the fly.

The problem is that templates is a 3e term.

Really? You're getting hung up on a naming convention?
A new edition means new stuff, right? That's been one of your substantive points. "Template" is a generic term; and while, yes, it does have some D&D-specific baggage attached to it, so does the idea of what a particular monster means.
You want to talk about slaughtering sacred cows; but then you want to make one out of the word "template"?

[*] Design Your Challenges. You're making a level based system, which means absolutely nothing works until you set your challenges for your various levels. In a fantasy heartbreaker, this means monsters. You need them designed right now before you can even start breaking down what a level really means or what kind of class progressions you have.

[*] Design The Player Classes. So now you have a bunch of enemies and a pile of game mechanics, but you obviously don't have a game until stuff appears on the player side as well. So here's where we design the player character class progressions, keeping an eye always on what the hell they have to be able to actually do when you're handing out increases in abilities and numbers.

So help me out here ....
What would be the pitfalls of designing the PCs first, then using other PCs as your "challenges", and then form your monsters from that?
Figure out the scale of your level improvements -- i.e., what are the proportional differences between each level (and across the span of several levels), designing abilities from there. And then monsters are a mix-mash of PC abilities, or variation thereof (and then "unique" abilities can be eyeballed from there).

[TiaC]

What would be the pitfalls of designing the PCs first, then using other PCs as your "challenges", and then form your monsters from that?
Figure out the scale of your level improvements -- i.e., what are the proportional differences between each level (and across the span of several levels), designing abilities from there. And then monsters are a mix-mash of PC abilities, or variation thereof (and then "unique" abilities can be eyeballed from there).

It's a pretty narrow band of challenges. There are going to be some major blind spots with stuff like size differences and abilities that are generally not given to players.

[Username17]

What would be the pitfalls of designing the PCs first, then using other PCs as your "challenges", and then form your monsters from that?

It is historical reality that when people do that, we get the vanilla action hero problem. Whatever the wizards and priests can do, the fighters just get twenty levels of "hitting things with a stick". And then, you have to accept that either you can't ever have adventures under water or in cloud castles or against foes unreachable with swords or you include those things anyway and try to balance it all with the idea that the Magic User is totally necessary for all the high level adventures, but the Fighter's hitting things with a stick ability... also exists.

It's simply much easier the other way, because unlike with player characters it actually is OK if a Monster is only useful in a narrow situation. That is, after all, the narrow situation in which it will be used. You may have to invoke plot contrivances to convince the players to fight a golem in a situation where its "hitting things with sticks" ability actually comes into play, but such plot contrivances can be used. The player characters actually have to have something to do in almost every single scenario or the players will get bored. The monsters only have to be able to do something meaningful in the type of scenario that they are actually being used in.

Or to put it another way: the PC abilities are keys and the challenges are locks. Every lock you add requires that you make a key that fits it. Every key you don't make is a lock you can't make. So if you create a bunch of challenges first, then you can look at them and say "Well, Swordy McSwordypants needs a way to hit incorporeal enemies by level 4". While if you make the classes first, then you look at it and say "Well, Fighter doesn't have any means of damaging incorporeal foes, so we can't include any incorporeal enemies ever.". Obviously, the latter is far more disruptive to the design of the game than the former.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

While if you make the classes first, then you look at it and say "Well, Fighter doesn't have any means of damaging incorporeal foes, so we can't include any incorporeal enemies ever.". Obviously, the latter is far more disruptive to the design of the game than the former.

I do hope the obvious gigantic logical... gap... evident in that statement is obvious to everyone.

[K]

The problem is that templates is a 3e term.

Really? You're getting hung up on a naming convention?
A new edition means new stuff, right? That's been one of your substantive points. "Template" is a generic term; and while, yes, it does have some D&D-specific baggage attached to it, so does the idea of what a particular monster means.
You want to talk about slaughtering sacred cows; but then you want to make one out of the word "template"?

Yes, "template" is a sacred cow that I'd like to lose.

Why use a term associated with a fiddly and wildly time-consuming process that only builds on Ivory Tower monster design when my system doesn't have any of those qualities? Why even put that in people's heads when my system doesn't work in the same general or specific way?

Using "template" only confuses people and spoils any argument I might make.

[Username17]

Dude. Template is just a fucking word. It was used in 2nd edition and it was used in 4th edition. No one fucking cares. Hell, it was used in nWoD. It's just a word that means exactly the thing you are talking about: a thing you selected from a list that opens up one or more additional lists to make selections off of. That is what it actually means.

And you throwing your hands up that the word has sacred connotations that it must be associated with specifically 3rd edition racial templates is just you being either clueless or willfully obstructionist. Not only would it not be a problem if it had such connotations, but it literally doesn't have those connotations. Hell, even 3rd edition had "blast templates" and "stat templates" in addition to racial templates. It's just a fucking word, which has a natural English meaning. And the meaning happens to be the same as the cumbersome "list of lists" that you're talking about, just in one word instead of several.

This isn't even an important part of this conversation, and you are objectively wrong. You should just let it drop and move on to talking about the shit where you are subjectively wrong. The really large part where we agree obviously not being worth mentioning or talking about.

-Username17

[wotmaniac]

Or to put it another way: the PC abilities are keys and the challenges are locks. Every lock you add requires that you make a key that fits it. Every key you don't make is a lock you can't make. So if you create a bunch of challenges first, then you can look at them and say "Well, Swordy McSwordypants needs a way to hit incorporeal enemies by level 4". While if you make the classes first, then you look at it and say "Well, Fighter doesn't have any means of damaging incorporeal foes, so we can't include any incorporeal enemies ever.". Obviously, the latter is far more disruptive to the design of the game than the former.

Okay, I get that. However .....
So, becoming incorporeal is a thing casters can do -- this is older than D&D, and since D&D is a kitchen sink of all things legend, myth, and folklore, then that is an ability we give casters. If you are using the classes as benchmarks, then you already know that Swordy McSwordypants needs a way to hit incorporeal enemies -- you don't have to have a monster to know that.
Now, that may just be an instance of a flawed example. But sure, I can see how it would be easier to dream up cool schtick abilities for themed creatures than it would be to draw up an exhaustive list of hypothetical PC abilities in a vacuum.

While if you make the classes first, then you look at it and say "Well, Fighter doesn't have any means of damaging incorporeal foes, so we can't include any incorporeal enemies ever.". Obviously, the latter is far more disruptive to the design of the game than the former.

I do hope the obvious gigantic logical... gap... evident in that statement is obvious to everyone.

I see what you're getting at, but then you've relegated yourself to playing whack-a-mole throughout your development process.

[ishy]

I agree with K that template does have the 3e baggage associated with it. Since nobody uses templates in 4e (even the designers said so), nobody really cares about 2e and as such in my experience, whenever you talk about templates, people think of the shitty way 3e handled it.

I'm not completely convinced in the power of unique abilities.

making the outputs bland and shitty.

Honestly, I thought one of the biggest strengths of the 3e monster manuals was the sparring use of unique abilities. Really feels like D&D monsters shouldn't have many unique abilities at all.

[PhoneLobster]

I see what you're getting at, but then you've relegated yourself to playing whack-a-mole throughout your development process.

What else do you think the development process IS?

Or do you actually think that, maybe, just maybe, if you write 400 monsters straight out of your ass you WON'T be whack-a-moling "unique" monsters to the end of time?

[Username17]

Okay, I get that. However .....
So, becoming incorporeal is a thing casters can do -- this is older than D&D, and since D&D is a kitchen sink of all things legend, myth, and folklore, then that is an ability we give casters. If you are using the classes as benchmarks, then you already know that Swordy McSwordypants needs a way to hit incorporeal enemies -- you don't have to have a monster to know that.
Now, that may just be an instance of a flawed example. But sure, I can see how it would be easier to dream up cool schtick abilities for themed creatures than it would be to draw up an exhaustive list of hypothetical PC abilities in a vacuum.

But PVP comparisons don't tell you anything at all. The fact that a wizard can put up a temporary defense buff and grind the fighter to bits isn't interesting in the slightest. It tells you nothing at all about how the classes are actually balanced. When two PCs go at it in the arena, one of them has the advantage. That advantage may be very large, and it still means jack fucking shit.

The Bard gives group bonuses and loses a one-on-one sword fight against the Fighter in your PVP demo. Quick: which character is underpowered? The answer, obviously, is that you can't tell. It could be either or neither or both. You wouldn't really expect a character with a bunch of buffs expected to slather onto three allies to outfight a character who was simply personally very bad ass.

If the Assassin can reliably win initiative against the Wizard and drop him with burst damage, that doesn't tell you very much either. It certainly doesn't tell you that the Wizard needs to be so good at scouting and initiative tests that they can deal with Assassin first strikes.

The fact that one of the other player classes has an ability that would make them win in an arena against one of the other classes doesn't mean that the other class needs something to deal with it. They may need something that deals with that kind of thing, but losing in PVP arena doesn't show that at all.

The player characters ultimately need to triumph in moderately interesting ways against challenges in the Same Game Test. They don't need to win or even put up a good showing in specific one on one fights against other player characters or even monsters out of the book. It's OK for there to be one on one fights that your character is expected to lose. It is not OK for your character to be unable to contribute to the adventure. You literally cannot answer that question if you start from the PC side. And that is why the 3e Monk was unable to even hurt the vast majority of level appropriate enemies.

-Username17

[K]

I agree with K that template does have the 3e baggage associated with it. Since nobody uses templates in 4e (even the designers said so), nobody really cares about 2e and as such in my experience, whenever you talk about templates, people think of the shitty way 3e handled it.

Exactly.

I think the most interesting part is how I am supposed to be objectively wrong for using the term I prefer for my idea that is not related conceptually to the old term's historical use at all.

I guess grognards don't even like new terms when they don't refer to old ideas.

Still, when people think that getting your numbers off a level and type chart is "freeform" and that randomly picking numbers to do math with before altering the numbers willy-nilly is systematic, I guess we are in some kind of post-term apocalypse.

[Username17]

I think the most interesting part is how I am supposed to be objectively wrong for using the term I prefer for my idea that is not related conceptually to the old term's historical use at all.

I guess grognards don't even like new terms when they don't refer to old ideas.

Stop trying to martyr yourself. You're objectively wrong for throwing a hissy fit that I'm using a different term than you that means literally exactly the same thing.

You're the one who launched into this giant tangent about how you were totes not on doing literally exactly the same thing as me because you were too hipster to use the word "template". You don't even have a fucking term for what you're having people select, you're just assuring people it will be totally different and also that it won't be called a template.

-Username17

[K]

I'm not completely convinced in the power of unique abilities.

making the outputs bland and shitty.

Honestly, I thought one of the biggest strengths of the 3e monster manuals was the sparring use of unique abilities. Really feels like D&D monsters shouldn't have many unique abilities at all.

You missed Frank's point. He thinks that interesting numbers make monsters interesting and memorable and not abilities, and that choosing abilities off of big lists is not customization.

That's why he demands the freedom to make up numbers out of hat, do math with them, and then change them arbitrarily in order to do math with them again. It's also why he won't even design a monster generation system that isn't fiddly and time-consuming.

He also thinks that getting all of your stats off a pre-determined chart for monster type and level is "freeform," but that just sounds like he had a stroke.

[K]

I find it really amusing that I'm not allowed to use my own terms for my system, and that I'm somehow at fault for not agreeing to three people's demands to use a deceptive term, especially when that term seems to be confusing them (or they are deliberately misstating statements).

The fact that my refusal to use an incorrect term is also be framed as some kind of demand to others is also baffling.

I won't use the word "template" because I don't think it fits for selecting choices off of several lists and has a historical meaning in DnD that is completely different from my idea. There really is no amount of ad hominem attacks or childish attempts at public shaming that will change that position.

[Username17]

You missed Frank's point. He thinks that interesting numbers make monsters interesting and memorable and not abilities, and that choosing abilities off of big lists is not customization.

So very close. Actually we both agree that choosing abilities off big lists is good and that having different abilities on different creatures is necessary to making them feel even slightly interesting. We can table that part of the conversation, because we are in total agreement. Where we are apparently in disagreement is that I also believe that a creature has to have verisimilitude in its numbers, while you apparently don't. The 4rries mocked me for my beliefs when I told them that the gaming community wouldn't accept high reflex defense on a Gelatinous Cube, and well, their game is fucking dead. Because it is historical reality that people didn't accept that shit.

We also have a separate disagreement, where I think it is absolutely imperative to have a build-a-power system that is capable of making webs that freeze or burn or whatever, and you apparently don't? I honestly think it could be as simple as "linking" two lower level powers and calling it a single power. I'm honestly not sure why that piece seems to make you balk.

But more on the numbers issue, because now that you've said more about it, I can see where you're coming from. You're still wrong of course, but I can see where you are coming from. Earlier you were just ranting about how a creature wouldn't have different stats from other creatures, which was clearly insane, but now that you've clarified that you didn't actually mean that, let's go into it a bit more:

The ease of being able to refer to Vermin 7 for the Vermin 7 base stats

See, that's the part you failed to mention earlier in this 21 page clusterfuck. That you would have a stat line for each creature type at each level and just reuse it blindly for each creature. If you had enough creature types, that would even work (though it would still be annoying that the Ogre Mage and the Ogre Champion had the same stats). But I don't think you can have enough types. I really don't.

But basically, I see you making two core mistakes: one from 3rd edition and one from 4th edition. Using the 3rd edition "taxonomy classes" was a bad idea then and it's a bad idea now. And a stat line isn't one size fits all even within a class and level, as 4th edition demonstrated by sucking ass.

I am actually really surprised to see you trumpet the idea of the 3rd edition taxonomy classes. I thought it was pretty well established that they didn't make any sense and made associations that made no sense. Even before we get to the "and other stuff" taxonomies of Magical Beast and Aberration, the needs of different kinds of Undead are pretty extensively different. I mean, we showed that back when we wrote the Revised Necromancer Handbook together. Specters and Charnel Hounds just aren't the same kind of monster and don't make any sense lumped into the same class.

Giant Birds should not have the same stat line as Giant Alligators. Heck, Giant Flying Birds should not have the same stats as Giant Flightless Birds. An Axebeak isn't the same kind of monster as a Swarm of Bats, even if they are both CR 2 Beasts. Even for things that are the same rough "kind" of monster, there are still important questions of focus. The Ogre Magi and the Ogre Champion are the same level and the same basic race and the same role in the story and in the combat (leader of a bunch of ogres). But the Ogre Champion is the most dangerous because he is the strongest, toughest, meanest ogre; while the Ogre Magi is the most dangerous because he is the smartest, cunningest, most casts-cone-of-coldiest ogre. It is a failure of the system if they both come out with the same strength and the same intelligence.

-Username17

[John Magnum]

It seems like PL and K are dodging the issue of how hard it would be to make a monster generation system that does all they want it to do relative to writing up an MM's worth of monsters because the former has never been done before effectively and they can maybe just pretend it's super easy.

K apparently wants a monster generation system that is so broad that it can generate multiple MMs worth of extremely distinct monsters with no post-generation eyeball phase and also a monster generation system that can be fun so fast that MCs can use it at the table instead of looking up stat blocks. I am extraordinarily skeptical that this is even possible, even more so that designing such a system can be accomplished in less design effort than writing up a shitload of monsters and challenges.

A question for K: You seem to hate the idea of tactical role-based not-templates. Your specific example is it's shitty if players go "Orcs can't sneak up on us, they're not Lurkers". But in your system, orcs would be some class, like Orcs or Humanoid or something. How is Stealth handled in your system that dodges this question? Is the question of how stealthy a monster is just not answered by your monster generation system and left up to the MC every time he generates a monster?

[Emerald]

The 4rries mocked me for my beliefs when I told them that the gaming community wouldn't accept high reflex defense on a Gelatinous Cube, and well, their game is fucking dead. Because it is historical reality that people didn't accept that shit.

[...]

I am actually really surprised to see you trumpet the idea of the 3rd edition taxonomy classes. I thought it was pretty well established that they didn't make any sense and made associations that made no sense. Even before we get to the "and other stuff" taxonomies of Magical Beast and Aberration, the needs of different kinds of Undead are pretty extensively different.

Even if it's not a good idea to use taxonomy classes instead of role classes as a basis for monster stats, might it be a good idea to hook the "numbers verisimilitude" into taxonomy templates? Like, a gelatinous cube might be a Bruiser or whatever with the [Ooze] template, and in addition to opening up a list of Ooze abilities to pick from, that template says something like "reduce Reflex by X and speed by Y, increase hit points by a factor of Z, because oozes are slow but sturdy"; the ice spider demon from earlier would be a Lurker or whatever that gets "+X to Climb and Jump, -Y to Fort, because insects are skittish but fragile" from the [Spider] template and "+X to all saves and resist fire 5 and electricity, because demons are awesome" from the [Demon] template.

You told Omegon that you can't possibly come up with enough balanced general-purpose stat-trading rules to make each monster unique, but you can make a bunch of type templates, attach some numerical fiddling to each one, and add a template or two to each monster to make a pixie feel pixie-ish and a gelatinous cube to feel gelatinous.

[ishy]

The 4rries mocked me for my beliefs when I told them that the gaming community wouldn't accept high reflex defense on a Gelatinous Cube, and well, their game is fucking dead. Because it is historical reality that people didn't accept that shit.
-Username17

That is an absurd argument.

The 4rries mocked my for my beliefs when I told them that the gaming community wouldn't accept English letters in a fantasy RPG, and well, their game is fucking dead. Because it is historical reality that people didn't accept that shit.

That being said, high reflex save Oozes are stupid. But slow moving no-ranged attack Oozes as a serious challenge are stupid from the get go anyway.
I'm okay with a monster generation system that can't output joke creatures, because I can't think of any way to make Oozes an interesting fight (other than a trap / closet troll) without a system either.

[K]

It seems like PL and K are dodging the issue of how hard it would be to make a monster generation system that does all they want it to do relative to writing up an MM's worth of monsters because the former has never been done before effectively and they can maybe just pretend it's super easy.

Writing up random crap is so easy that it's trivial. Put a gun to my head and I can probably give you 400 monsters in 24 hours if you don't mind getting the flavor text later. The only problem is that they'll follow the classic DnD model of being almost all crap.

Designing a monster generation system that interfaces with summons, polymorph, traps, and companions is hard. It's so hard that it's never been done in any meaningful way by anyone, but we know that it can be done because PC classes with spell lists exist and they work and have worked for decades.

The only question is whether you want to take the easy route of crap or the hard route of producing quality.

There are strong arguments for crap: Pathfinder is a proof of concept that you can make money by only making cosmetic changes to a "new edition" and churning out endless crap. Art design and good flavor text will hide a surprising number of sins.

The argument for quality is that quality will always win. 4e failed because it was not better than 3e and 5e will fail for the same reason.

A question for K: You seem to hate the idea of tactical role-based not-templates. Your specific example is it's shitty if players go "Orcs can't sneak up on us, they're not Lurkers". But in your system, orcs would be some class, like Orcs or Humanoid or something. How is Stealth handled in your system that dodges this question? Is the question of how stealthy a monster is just not answered by your monster generation system and left up to the MC every time he generates a monster?

Stealth can just be a selectable ability, and it probably should be considering the utter failure of skill-based stealth in every system.

In 3e, designing a stealthy orc was a fucking chore. Getting the numbers right and writing it all down took enough time and expertise that you wouldn't do it in 9/10 times that you'd want to use it.

In a fast monster generation system, it's as simple as replacing an ability. You won't even have to change stats. You can just say, "Well Orcish Rage is an iconic orc ability and we don't want to touch that, so I'll just need to replace Dirty Attack with Stealth for my Ninja Orcs."

[DSMatticus]

But slow moving no-ranged attack Oozes as a serious challenge are stupid from the get go anyway.

A lot of oozes are actually stealthed and explicitly live in confined spaces. If you don't know how to make a serious challenge out of something that cannot always be seen until you are in attack range and has mobility-denying attacks (i.e. grabbing people) a threat, especially to level 3 characters, then... I don't know. I don't have anything witty. I'm just going to stare at you like you've said something dumb. Is it working? Can you feel my disdain?

You can argue that "oozes aren't interesting and I don't want them, BAH" but D&D is full of dumb melee bruisers you can autowin against by pinging to death and I don't think that's gonna change. Or should it. Low-level characters need things that are both stupid and monstery to stab. Any and all such beasts definitely need to have numbers in the 1-5 range, because nobody past that cares about them, but they can exist and do their job of requiring murdering by the PC's/expending PC resources.

Like, a gelatinous cube might be a Bruiser or whatever with the [Ooze] template, and in addition to opening up a list of Ooze abilities to pick from, that template says something like "reduce Reflex by X and speed by Y, increase hit points by a factor of Z, because oozes are slow but sturdy"; the ice spider demon from earlier would be a Lurker or whatever that gets "+X to Climb and Jump, -Y to Fort, because insects are skittish but fragile" from the [Spider] template and "+X to all saves and resist fire 5 and electricity, because demons are awesome" from the [Demon] template.

Well, if you don't want spiders to be physically beefy, then you just don't make bruiser spiders. I don't really understand the point of trying to turn bruiser spiders into lurkers through mechanics in the spider template. Just make all your spiders lurkers, and when someone wants to make giant tarantulas that are less sneak and more "look how fucking big I am" they pick bruiser instead.

And you do not want to sum bonuses and penalties on a per template basis, because template stacking is a bad idea and convoluted monsters just end up having weird numbers that don't look anything like the level they should. Templates are going to have standardized bonuses/penalties representing "really shitty, shitty, bad, average, good, amazing, really amazing" or whatever, and you're going to want to combine those in a way that doesn't let amazing+amazing=out of bounds OR good+good+good=really amazing. I'm honestly a little unsure how to handle it, but I do know that "fuck it just add them" and "fuck it cap it at really shitty/really amazing" both make me unhappy.

[ishy]

But slow moving no-ranged attack Oozes as a serious challenge are stupid from the get go anyway.

A lot of oozes are actually stealthed and explicitly live in confined spaces. If you don't know how to make a serious challenge out of something that cannot always be seen until you are in attack range and has mobility-denying attacks (i.e. grabbing people) a threat, especially to level 3 characters, then... I don't know. I don't have anything witty. I'm just going to stare at you like you've said something dumb. Is it working? Can you feel my disdain?

Are you off your meds DSM? You seem to have lots of issues with reading and reading comprehension in this topic. Look at the sentence underneath the one you quoted:

because I can't think of any way to make Oozes an interesting fight (other than a trap / closet troll) without a system either.

So yes, I do feel your disdain for sanity.

[Username17]

Designing a monster generation system that interfaces with summons, polymorph, traps, and companions is hard. It's so hard that it's never been done in any meaningful way by anyone, but we know that it can be done because PC classes with spell lists exist and they work and have worked for decades.

This doesn't follow. At all.

The class system only outputs one kind of thing: adventurers. And the only part you're even counting is the part where it outputs adventurers who use magic as their primary means of doing anything. And that's reasonable, because I don't think anyone outside of the rpgsite neckbeards really pretends that fighters contribute to anything.

Pointing to a system that successfully outputs functional fire wizards and darkness wizards and conjuring wizards and illusionist wizards (if and only if the players take good spells and voluntarily avoid using any of a number of broken tricks) is all very good as a proof of concept for a system that makes wizards. You have no real evidence there that such a system can even make things that aren't basically wizards.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but making even mid-level Wizards in D&D takes an ass long time. Always has. Your claim that you can make anything fast based on this evidence is specious at best. Even the "simple" act of selecting daily spells takes an ass long time, selecting spells for the spell book is considerably more time consuming.

Basically, I openly scoff at your claim that you even can make a system that allows you to make a new creature in the time it takes between when someone casts summon monster or polymorph self and the other players get bored and wander off to play Smash Brothers. That such a magical unicorn system would actually produce things that were any good is just make believe fairy tales about other make believe fairy tales.

-Username17