New Edition: Monsters

[Koumei]

In before "Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale".

Whenever anyone wants to "prove" that creatures with LA are overpowered, they wheel out the Anthro Baleen Whale (+0 LA, 3 crappy racial hit dice and... huge STR, CON and natural armour) and the Feral template, because "BAWWWW it has fast healing!" (or pounce, or "it's better than a half-orc fighter or barbarian of equal ECL")

[Username17]

Also anthro-bat. The anthromorph template almost never gets discussed because people want to play TMNT D20. It is almost always in the context of "there's some totally bullshit edge case where the completely arbitrary rubric of the anthro template produces big wholesome numbers in one category or another for no explicable reason."

How many times do you see anthromorphic foxes or anthromorphic horses or anthromorphic eagles discussed?

-Username17

[Koumei]

Yeah, the bat too.

I've never seen anthro foxes discussed in regards to that template, just in a generic "I want to play an anthro fox, especially one with nine tails!" way. The others? Never.

But if four players wanted to be a group of anthro turtles, with levels in "Ninja", I'd totally run with it and make it as awesome as possible.

[JonSetanta]

1200141159[/unixtime]]In before "Anthropomorphic Baleen Whale".

Whenever anyone wants to "prove" that creatures with LA are overpowered, they wheel out the Anthro Baleen Whale (+0 LA, 3 crappy racial hit dice and... huge STR, CON and natural armour) and the Feral template, because "BAWWWW it has fast healing!" (or pounce, or "it's better than a half-orc fighter or barbarian of equal ECL")

My fix for this, the bat, and others is to increase racial HD to a point where it's no longer a problem for same-level encounters. Many animals have waayyy too few for their abilities.
Sadly, it doesn't take much for the 'half orc barbarian' to catch up.
Poor, poor furries.

[Crissa]

Yo, I know you're too busy fursecuting, but the philias of Plushophilia and costume sex are hardly any more common or unique to the Furry fandom than the rest of the world. Honestly, have you heard of Real Dolls™?

Sheesh. You guys talk so much about Furries more than most Furries I know.

Anyhow, fur is merely no different than having a different skin tone, not a big addition to the game, but should be supported as a suggestion.

-Crissa

[Draco_Argentum]

1200135714[/unixtime]]You forgot to consider the shocking popularity of the Anthropomorphic template in D&D.

It gets my vote for worst template concept in d20. I don't think anyone ever has said they like it so I don't know where you're getting popularity from. Unless you mean popular as the butt of jokes.

[JonSetanta]

1200216231[/unixtime]]

1200135714[/unixtime]]You forgot to consider the shocking popularity of the Anthropomorphic template in D&D.

It gets my vote for worst template concept in d20. I don't think anyone ever has said they like it so I don't know where you're getting popularity from. Unless you mean popular as the butt of jokes.

Maybe that's it... infamous.

[virgil]

Although if it wa something really weird, where they are potential devas who got their souls switched with lowly insects in order to screw them over, that would be different.

I'm imagining a race of people on the verge of reach Nirvana, getting tricked by grifters, stuck in the state of bugs where their overall chances of enlightenment just got pushed back an age while the swindlers laugh all the way to true enlightenment.

[Username17]

Potential tragedy where the swindlers ended up not getting enlightenment either because they had been jerks?

That makes me kind of want to make the Garuda more Kenku like, and join the two storylines into one.

-Username17

[virgil]

Heh, reverse situation (really people, but look like bugs) and a joint storyline, something I could live with.

In other thoughts, was there ever a decision as to whether the common encounter rubric was one opponent per PC or one opponent per party (with shades between and beyond)? Or could you actually have that kind of designation with the monster itself; such as orcs being noted and designed for a 2:1 ratio, while an asura is designated as a 'solo' encounter for a party of that level.

[Username17]

1200826881[/unixtime]]
In other thoughts, was there ever a decision as to whether the common encounter rubric was one opponent per PC or one opponent per party (with shades between and beyond)? Or could you actually have that kind of designation with the monster itself; such as orcs being noted and designed for a 2:1 ratio, while an asura is designated as a 'solo' encounter for a party of that level.

Yes.

I'm thinking that a "stressful encounter you should win" should be:

• Swarm units (Imps) 4:1
  
• Monsters (Displacer Beast) 2:1
  
• Brutes (Golem)/Closet Trolls (Basilisk) 1:1
  
• NPCs (Rakshasa) 1:2
  
• Boss (Lavos) 1:4

And then you can increase those ratios by 50% to make it "climactic" and by 100% to make it "coin flip." So you would expect the main villain to actually ride in on a bronze bull and have a group of 4 skeleton warriors taking point.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

I like the sound of that. Something about needing three friends to beat up on one imaginary enemy just seems lame to me.

[Koumei]

I agree. Many video games (Streets of Rage, Raiden, Gunstar Heroes, Sonic the Hedgehog etc.) teach us that the "baddies" should outnumber the "goodies", to prove how awesome the good guys are.

It lessens the awesomeness when four good guys wait for the villain to step out of the bar at night and set upon him with socks filled with half-bricks.

[Username17]

So the amount of time it takes an average character to go through a basic level appropriate swarm monster is an "Imp Time." So in a "standard" encounter you are subjected to 10 imp times worth of swarm monsters attacking you personally.

In a climactic battle you would get 21 imp times. One IT of 6 imps, 1 IT of 5 imps, an IT of 4 imps, an IT of 3 imps, an IT of 2 imps, and a final IT of 1 Imp. Roughly twice as much whup ass comes down on the player, and almost half of it happens in the first two ITs.

And in a coin flip battle, those 8 imps will be roughly speaking subjecting you to 45 imp times worth of Imp Attacks (and combat will take 8 imp times to complete).

----

For a Brute or Boss to feel tough, it therefore needs to take longer than 4 imp times to beat down. In fact, because it's going to be taking the brunt of 4 player characters rather than 1, it needed to last longer than 4 imp times just to make it to the second round. I submit therefore that such opponents should be twenty to thirty times as resilient as a basic imp, skeleton, or mephit.

-Username17

[Yahzi]

And I had better do this before someone gets annoyed:

Too late. I'm already annoyed. I find your uncomfortableness with other people's fetishes to be creepy, and I don't like having it shoved in my face.

The only appropriate, acceptable public reaction to anyone's sex life is humor. Because, let's face it, whatever you do to get your freak on is pretty goddamn funny when seen from the outside. Your sex life is inherently funny to other people, however significant it might seem to you, and if you bring it up in public, expect to be laughed at.

Ditto for your uncomfortableness with other people's funny.

Pretty much the same for politics and religion, too.

Counterpoint: Gawain and the Green Knight.

Good point. D&D is supposed to tell more than just Arthurian stories. You can limit your world to that kind of fantasy realm, or you can expand it to the crazy Jack Vance level (I can totally see Vance having somebody stabbed every five minutes to keep them down).

[Orion]

Can we have multiple level entries for one critter?

As in,

Ogre -- Level 2 Boss, Level 4 Closet Troll, Level 7 Mook?

[CatharzGodfoot]

1200977879[/unixtime]]Can we have multiple level entries for one critter?

As in,

Ogre -- Level 2 Boss, Level 4 Closet Troll, Level 7 Mook?

That might work, but remember that you want bonuses to be roughly appropriate. If an Ogre is a decent challenge for a level 2 party, it does not have the bonuses needed to challenge a level 7 part, even as a mook.

And remember that we really do want bosses to have more depth than mooks, so a level 7 mook ogre should have fewer tricks than a level 2 boss ogre.

[JonSetanta]

From what I gather of Frank's statements, all characters of a level-appropriate encounter should be the same level. This keeps BAB, saves, skill ranks, and such on the same intensity.
What they accomplish with those levels is up to the purpose of their class/monster role/whatever.
So, and as I agree with such a concept, it would seem what you ask would be difficult to work with that, Boolean.

[Crissa]

Well, we need to know what the attack/save bonuses are appropriate for each of those. But yes, you could have those flags. Most things (attributes, hitpoints) need not change to be level appropriate. Differing amount of hitpoints just means how long the critter lasts.

-Crissa

[Username17]

Tactically a Brute is not going to look like a Mook, even if they are at a similar ratio of threat vs. player characters.

For example: the brute at level 8 is supposed to take 20+ imp times of punishment before it goes down from a level 8 party smacking on it. And it walks in with a to-hit roll for level 8 which is kind of sucky and does a fair chunk of damage.

At level 13 you'd be expecting 10 times as many brutes coming in. But they're still probably walking in with more hit points than a 13th level Mook.

----

What is probably going to end up happening is that different monster types are going to go obsolete at different rates. Rather than closing our eyes and pretending that it's not true (see the 3.X Monster Manual), we should probably make the numbers on PCs/NPCs go obsolete at the rate we want and then actually check what happens with Brutes, Monsters, and Mooks by actually checking.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

It'd be kind of interesting if mooks didn't have hp. They just got like improved evasion or something and like if they took any damage at all, they were out of the fight. Makes it easier to put down a bucket load of goblins and track them.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1201137433[/unixtime]]It'd be kind of interesting if mooks didn't have hp. They just got like improved evasion or something and like if they took any damage at all, they were out of the fight. Makes it easier to put down a bucket load of goblins and track them.

Depending on implementation that could be cool (and is pretty much how Feng Shui does it). In some implementations, however, it might disproportionately disadvantage bruisers.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

It'd be kind of interesting if mooks didn't have hp. They just got like improved evasion or something and like if they took any damage at all, they were out of the fight. Makes it easier to put down a bucket load of goblins and track them.

That can't work. From both a combat perspective and a world verisimilitude perspective you can't have a level 13 imp going down to a single level 1 attack.

[Crissa]

The level 1 attack wouldn't hit.

Would it?

-Crissa

[Username17]

The 1 Hit Point Imp is a possibilty. It stays level appropriate by having its Armor Classes and attack bonuses keep pace. In that scenario a couple of things happen:

• Fighting Imps ignores MAD Since you care about the attack roll exclusively, whatever stat you use for your "damage modifier" or whatever can go fvck itself. The only thing that matters is your to-hit bonus, which is just one stat.
  
  
• Rate of Fire is King Whether it's an area of effect or a flurry of blows, multiple attacks are king against Imps. High damage, low rate of fire attacks like Hyperbeam are craptastic.

Another possibility would be to give Imps infinite hit points, an effect threshold of 1, and a lowish Wound threshold. This would mean that you could satisfactorily juggle them with just about anything, but only a mildly decent hit would actually drop one. That would preserve the utility of more damaging attacks and atacks with nice side effects.

-Username17