[5E] Is Mearls planning to snow Hasbro and the fanbase?

[Lago PARANOIA]

ScottS, can you link to the 4E D&D preview vid if it's up on a site that allows comments? I want to see what the Internet at-large thought.

[shadzar]

By comparison, the 5e vid isn't anywhere near as bad. But everything they're trying to accomplish this time is so terribly cliché. Who are they expecting to buy this thing?

DAve actually knew the system mostly that he was running the game for, from all accounts in the WotC forums and the comments below the livestream (still haven't been able to view it. seems my ISP blocks Twitch.TV, wonder if they have heard of YouTube yet for putting videos out?) Mearls doesn't seem to understand DDN.

That right there is pretty telling and damning for the edition. the HEAD of R&D, research and development, doesn't know what is going on, and doesn't seem to understand why the ghoul needs work and needed it PRIOR to showing off the playtest packet they are using in ADVANCE of doing it live and just says "fuck it, lets go on!"?

didnt the first 4th adventure have something like a whitre dragon causing instant TPKs because they didnt bother making things work first? history repeating itself?

well even though i cant watch the livestream thing, here for those that forgot is the video podcast paragon tier "adventure" preview of 4th edition rules.

https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.asp ... 0080618e23

what i love most about this is that half the players dont look like they even give a shit to be there, cause well friday is their half-day for work at WotC and these were the people that got conned into staying after noon.

[ScottS]

I originally watched it on iTunes which doesn't look like it supports comments for individual tracks(?). The only comment threads I've found so far are just on the Wizards forums (search "podcast episode 23"); the hate isn't as pure as we would like, but there are some decent bits:

Huh. That game actually looked really painful to me. And it really didn't make the 4th ed mechanics shine - it looked like a total grind. 45min for 5 turns of pounding against hundreds of hit points just sounds boring. And exceedingly difficult to maintain excitement and suspension of disbelief.

Don't bother.. dull dull dull.
I hope this isn't something they thought would encourage someone to start playing. It's a poor representation of an rpg, any rpg.
Ironically we've seen two WotC DMs through the podcast and neither is particularly good.

If by entertaining, you mean funny to think they would actually want to air it, then I guess so. Otherwise it just looks like a bad group, and shotty AV production. I have seen better videos from middle schoolers from low income communities about 10 years ago.

I agree that the players really seemed like they didn't have a clue on what their characters could actually do.
My issue was this looked exactly like my current gaming group.
They had no actual plan, no cohesiveness as a group, they were all over the board, the 'roles' weren't there the fighter was trying to be a wizard, the wizard wasn't 'controlling' no leaders, no team play.
This could have been a showcase on what the 'roles' actually do and how the 'roles' work together to make a 'tight-knit' group.
I am making my group watch this video to show them just how bad of an actual group they really are.

My only complaint is it seems as though the players weren't having any fun. Well not a lot anyway. Though that could be a result of some of the worst rolls I have ever seen.
I would have played another session that showed people clearly having a good time. It's just better for marketing.

[shadzar]

I originally watched it on iTunes which doesn't look like it supports comments for individual tracks(?). The only comment threads I've found so far are just on the Wizards forums (search "podcast episode 23"); the hate isn't as pure as we would like, but there are some decent bits:

If by entertaining, you mean funny to think they would actually want to air it, then I guess so. Otherwise it just looks like a bad group, and shotty AV production. I have seen better videos from middle schoolers from low income communities about 10 years ago.

this brings back memories. I think i also mention the backwards facing Crown Royal dicebag seen on the table and how promoting drinking to the age group D&D was marketed to was just shitty idea from a game company as well.

good times, good times! and my predictions about 4th edition prior to the books being released were spot on except for the thing about ring requiring X level to be had, but they made it poor to understand when they previewed magic item levels to begin with. wonder if my Residuum calculations still exist on the WotC forums somewhere? well i say "god times" but this was the GLEEMAX! era so, it was never really good, and never got better for WotC or consumers since.

GLEEMAX!, and "4th edition ze game will remain ze same!"

[ishy]

I remember some comments here about a 4e video run by Chris Perkins I believe. I remember someone pointing out how stupid it was when someone tried to use his 'dark fire' (not sure) on the door and then the DM told him, you can't do that, since the target line says creature.

Someone else linked a RPG site thread for the 5e play cast. I haven't seen it, but there they were talking about how Mearls didn't know the rules and kept asking what the rules were, how Mearls wasn't asking people for DCs but if they rolled below a 5 (you can set the DC after they roll!). How deadly the ghoul encounter was, but Mearls soft-balled it and how stupid his tweet, that it would have been a very different encounter if the cleric was not the first to enter the room, was.
And how great everything in 4e was.

[Lago PARANOIA]

With apologies to CaptTThePirateG:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20130701

For instance, the elemental planes will be divided into three basic rings that surround the prime material plane. The innermost ring consists of the border elemental planes. These regions are like the regular world dominated by a specific element. The border plane of fire is a land of ash deserts, billowing volcanoes, and lakes of lava. The next ring out consists of the deep elemental planes, which are areas of pure, elemental energy much as the elemental planes were portrayed in the Planescape material. Finally, the outermost ring is the elemental chaos, a region of pure, fundamental elemental energy.

When it comes to the outer planes, we're treating Planescape as our default assumption. It's a much-beloved setting and one that's fairly easy (by design) to integrate into existing campaigns. That means the return of the Great Wheel, the Blood War, and other classic elements of the D&D cosmos. The same process for the inner planes applies to the outer planes, with our intent to add elements to the cosmos to increase storytelling opportunities and make the Wheel as flexible as possible for different settings and different DMs.

No, fuck you, Mearls. The Great Wheel sucks monkey fuck. And unless you're bringing in classic alignments again (and hey, you might be; I don't keep up with 5E retardedness) it won't even work for your campaign setting in the first goddamn place.

More importantly than that, though, is that Planescape explicitly contradicts what you're trying to do with the default setting. The planes in that setting are infinite. You just described some of the border elemental planes being concentric. If you have concentric planes, either the universe is cylinder-shaped or one or more of the planes aren't infinite.

The biggest setting change we're looking at concerns Spelljammer. In the past, it incorporated all of D&D's settings as places you could visit. I'm not sure that's the strongest selling point of the setting. In my mind, Spelljammer was an interesting exercise in placing D&D in space. Adding in Faerûn, Oerth, and other worlds muddied its initial vision. It also says stuff about settings that might be fairly jarring given a world's flavor and feel. Not everyone wants the equivalent of spaceships in their campaign, so I think that when we talk about Spelljammer as it relates to other settings, we're going to focus on it as its own setting and downplay its role as the connecting tether between various D&D Next worlds.

What is this drivel? Spelljammer is a nostalgic joke. Seriously, the most recent focus they've gotten is a parody article in Something Awful. People may actually want to do D&D in Space, I don't know. But I do know that they don't want the goofiness that came along with it.

But what's the icing on the ass-shaped cake is this: 'and downplay its role as the connecting tether between various D&D Next worlds'. I don't even know what to say to that. First of all, if people don't like a campaign element -- and people aren't going to like the idea of Athas and Faerun being a mid-level hop, skip, and jump away from each other -- it might be your clue not to put it in entirely.

Secondly, you can't have a connecting tether between D&D Next worlds and have it matter in more than a superficial way. It's straight-up impossible. Even superficially similar settings like Faerun and Krynn have differing cosmologies and assumptions about the afterlife and pantheons and basic rules for how magic works or doesn't work.

Some of you might remember the Gen Con Keynote last year where we told you about the Sundering, a huge event that will change the Forgotten Realms forever. The time has come to revisit that topic briefly now so that you know this: Check out DungeonsandDragons.com tomorrow and find out how you can participate in the various events tied to the Sundering and how you too can play a part in reshaping the future of the Realms.

What the fucking hell? Dude, Forgotten Realms is dead. Bruce Cordell flayed it alive and giggled as it slowly died of bleeding and whole-body infection. What you should be doing is coming up with a massive reboot and consolidation of the setting, Marvel Ultimates style. Or just leave it dead and come up with your own campaign setting. Or just farm it out to the FR fans. Not taking another hookworm-infested bloody diarrhea dump over the corpse.

I also see that the aforementioned chickenfucker is still on staff and is your Number Two after Monte Cook bailed out. What makes you think that any project involving Bruce Cordell and a major campaign setting is going to go well? He already fucked up Forgotten Realms and you're going to give him another bite at the apple? Really? Really truly?

[infected slut princess]

What the fucking hell? Dude, Forgotten Realms is dead.

How dead is 'dead'? Is there a way to quantify how dead it is? I find it interesting from a business standpoint how they so stupidly butchered one if their most valuable settings for the brand.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, here's a list of 3.5E Forgotten Realms products:
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/L ... s_products

That's 29 products over 7 years.

Here's a list of 4E Forgotten Realms products:
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/C ... adventures

Add the Forgotten Reams Player's Guide and Campaign Setting. So that's 7 products over 4 years. Of course they didn't release anything in 2009-2011, so whatever. Furthermore, in less than two months Forgotten Realms will have been lacking a new hardcover sourcebook for five frickin' years.

The setting is just fucking dead, dude. It may be able to be resuscitated, but the franchise is seriously in the same position the post-Burton, pre-Bale Batman franchise was a couple of years after Batman and Robin came out.

[infected slut princess]

That's hilarious. And pathetic.

[Judging__Eagle]

I have trouble reading anything less than the Queen'sStephen Fry's English. Now sure, that's my problem, I'm not demanding that every person get their use of English up to that level, but it does set a low bar for my tolerance of any posts.

This actually reminds me of a monologue by Stephen Fry on the use of language that I saw earlier today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY

[Fuchs]

FR died when they dropped the main attraction to its fans - a rich, complicated and complex and very, very detailed setting with hundreds of novels tied in - and turned it into a simple points of light setting with as much detail as a 10 second ad for soap.

I still cannot fathom why they thought this would be a good idea, instead of releasing a PoL for the PoL fans, and keeping the FR fans happy with Details and lore.

[sake]

Who was in charge of 4E around the time of the third players handbook? I recall it being a lot better done and more interesting than the previous 2. Though, that may have just been due to lowered expectations.

I honestly considered the phb3 to be the point where 4e started it's downward spiral, not that it was much of fall to make.

Crap fests of fluff such as the Runesmith's "the Brilliant Scribe and Enchanter of the Gods (primary stat: STR)" and the Battlemind's "I'm quite literally powered by my massive douchebag-ness and sad delusions of grandeur"

The stunning originality of the new classes, like Yet Another God Damn Melee Beatstick Leader... Now in Psionic Flavor and For Some Reason We Couldn't Just Give the Druid a Magic Archer Build Even Though Many People Had Complained They Didn't Like Using the Awkward Wildshape Mechanics.

After spending two years and multiple books and web supplements to finally create mechanics for summoning that was sort of balanced, generally worth using and people were mostly happy with... For the Psion's summon dailies they decide to trash all that to go back to using their very first attempt at summon creature rules that did nothing but eat healing surges, waste actions, and be an all around trap option in any and all situations.


Many of the Psion's and Seeker's powers were the start of the Essentials' 'Mother May I' paradigm for Controllers where zone effects happen at the end of a turn, for the sake of all those poor put upon DMs who kept getting inconvenienced by mean ol' controllers that actually managed to fulfill their intended roles instead of being happy as shitty aoe blasters and dispensers of piss-ant little debuffs.

And finally there were just all sorts of signs that they just completely gave up on the game, like turning the monk into a psionic striker despite it having no actual connection to the sole unifying game mechanic of the other psionic classes, and ditching the Psionic Crown implement concept at the last minute even though every damn psionic character in the book had already been drawn with one.

[shadzar]

well....

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20130708

Monsters come in packs like 4th edition. they have these "rules" of thing they associate with and specific reason why they act this way for D&D.

yes, not seeing an "old school feel" in this at all. I prefer monsters to have the right to choose, not someone sitting in some other fucking state jerking off at his paycheck from "the makers of D&D" and his name on a D&D book telling me why my monsters do any fucking thing.

these goblins like humans because.. i say so...

those goblins hat humans because.. i say so.

i am the DM, i create the world i give it depth and interest. i don't want to play the same 5 goblins everywhere following some structured rules why they are in the same faction as bugbears. might as well remove INT stat from monsters and just replace it with whatever save or skill you want it to have if they are all mindless automatons that follow a preset path forced by the rules.

sounds like they are still designing off of DDM skirmish game where you have TEAM EVIL works together always by virtue of being TEAM EVIL

if you are going to give examples of WHY then do it for ALL other monsters in a cross-referenced chart, or do it for NO monsters but a general sense. don't even mention "hags" at all. let the DM decide when HE designs his world, since you in NO way can force people to play whatever shitty setting you design the way Ed Greenwood wants us to play it. Elminster... he died of dysentery, so who gives a shit what novel you want to put him in.

so eating winged fey makes all creatures grow to enormous sizes huh? shouldn't that be in the fey...no... fuck the Fey, get your stupid names for shit out of here. sprites, nixies, pixies, etc dont all need to be related from the same fucking plane of whatever.

if it isnt universal that eating such creature makes you grow, then why the fuck do these spiders do it?

and really, preview a monster for D&D based on a mutant Gollum from LotR where he tries to betray Frodo to take the ring? can we jsut get rid of ettercaps already? it is one thing for the core races which are common in MANY a folklore, but to create a monster based on a specific character and scene from LotR is taking a bit to much from Tolkien along the same lines of Nazgul being in OD&D.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Honestly, the fluff is so bland that I can't bring myself to muster more hatred. (Though Shad has a good point when he points out that everyone and their mom should be eating those damn fairies). Woo, there are bad things in the woods.

Naturally more depth will not include things like plot-usable powers, so we will not see demons using fabricate to subtly undermine the economy through inflation, but we will be told the goblins have blue hats and they will continue to use Slaviceks (sp?) revelation that monsters can't do anything outside of combat and are not allowed to have nice things.

I have no idea who they expect to buy this product.

[Username17]

Writing up more interactions between monsters is in abstract good. Like how it was a good thing when the Monster Manual told you that giant weasels showed up in Kobold warrens or that Frost Giants kept winter wolves. The specific tirade they brought out for Ettercaps was pretty lame, and more importantly it was bizarrely specific enough that it's difficult for me to imagine how they could write up the whole monster manual without contradicting themselves repeatedly.

I mean, they are talking about how "eating the flesh of enough Grigs turns you into a shapechanger", but putting this information into the writeup of a creature which is neither one of the shapechangers you can turn into by doing this nor the Grig sprite you would eat to accomplish this. This really seems like a recipe for creating contradictory declarations and secret facts.

Perhaps more importantly for the game, they were talking about how they intended to have all these effects alluded to without influencing the stats. Meaning that all that spiderherding and fairy eating and shit is supposed to be completely unplayable because it won't have any fucking rules.

The only thing they learned from 4e is that people are angry when there isn't any flavor text. But they didn't learn why people want flavor text.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

But they didn't learn why people want flavor text.

To know fun facts such bears live in caves and forests? And that they also kill prey with their claws?

[hogarth]

For the benefit of those who have shadzar on Ignore, here's the article under discussion:
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20130708

Honestly, I thought the ettercap example was fine. They toss out a few obvious encounter seeds (adventurers kill some spiders and ettercaps look for revenge, ettercaps ambush the party as they walk through the forest, pixies ask the adventurers to rescue their missing friend) and they give an advancement option (some ettercaps get magic powers). I'm not sure what the point of "ettercaps don't like to shoot webs at people but they totally can" is, though.

[ishy]

Reading it annoys me slightly.

# They tend to spiders, feed them, and watch over them in the same manner a shepherd watches over a flock of sheep. They watch over spiders in much the same way that treants watch over forests. They are creatures of the natural world that lair in deep forests, where they quietly dispose of creatures that wander into their areas.

# Through a Forest Darkly: Ettercaps delight in silently killing explorers, travelers, and homesteaders

What is the point in repeating your information like that?

>They covet pixie dust, and they collect it to sell to hags and other evil folk.
What do they do with the money? How and why would they even contact 'other evil folk'?

> Ettercaps that consume enough fey flesh become creatures of magic themselves
> Ettercaps also feed captive fey to their spider
So do they eat them or feed them to their spidews?

[tussock]

Meaning that all that spiderherding and fairy eating and shit is supposed to be completely unplayable because it won't have any fucking rules.

Not playable, as such, but you'd see it in game if the Faeries in everyone's campaigns were always in need of liberation from Ettercap terror, and they in turn were always surrounded by Spiders and Giant Insects. When killing the biggest spider makes the Ettercaps appear and fight to the death, otherwise they're all sneaky bastards. In everyone's game.

Player's can't really do anything about any of it but follow the plot train, but it does provide a shared experience that ties in with making it "feel like D&D" when you play it. Unless they fuck it up.

And when there's no rules, they can't make stupid rules that cause the game to explode. So there's a bonus.


EDIT: NB: Shadzar's kinda talking out his ass. This sort of this is massively 2nd edition flavoured. The Monstrous Manual 1-monster-per-page format gave endless piles of bullshit fluff for monsters that didn't make much damn sense but you did get to see in everyone's games as a result. And also let them re-write the same goblin stats five or six times with different fluff.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That monster entry is so disorganized and a waste of space. But that's how the majority of 4E D&D fluff goes.

Me, if I was trying to save on 4E D&D space, I'd standardize the fluff portion of monster entries like so:

• Basic biology: The biology of a creature is by far the most important part of predicting how a monster will behave. There isn't much reason why myconids should be massively different from grimlocks based on the stats, but we know that grimlocks have extreme difficulty conducting trade, are carnivores (and have a lower population density), and soforth. Biology will almost certainly include the social structure of the monster, too. Knowing if a monster lives eusocially or in pair bonds or in loose federations with the same (or different) creatures is a huge help in knowing how monsters are like.
• Basic psychology: This one should be obvious. This is where crap like saying a vampire is physically compelled to get permission to enter a private domicile or how derro have a high chance of violent schizophrenia or whatever. Some people say that biology is intrinsically linked with psychology and while I agree, you don't have enough room in a monster entry to show the man behind the dualist curtain. And besides, it organizes nicely.
• Basic sociology and politics: Is this monster xenophobic? Do they take slaves? Are they engaged with a divinely mandated blood war against one or more species? Or are they like elves or orcs in which there isn't a standard socio-political situation and PCs are expected to play it by ear? Obviously, if you're fluffing out a creature like a Purple Worm you can skip this section.

And what I WOULDN'T put in is stuff like:

• Basic tactics: Most DMs can extrapolate how to use a monster based on their stats just fine, thank you.
• Standard equipment: By and large useless space-filling information. A storm giant should not be defined by the fact that they use a giant sword. Only creatures whose equipment is specifically supposed to be a unique plot point like githyanki should get these.

[nockermensch]

That monster entry is so disorganized and a waste of space. But that's how the majority of 4E D&D fluff goes.

Me, if I was trying to save on 4E D&D space, I'd standardize the fluff portion of monster entries like so:

• Basic biology: The biology of a creature is by far the most important part of predicting how a monster will behave. There isn't much reason why myconids should be massively different from grimlocks based on the stats, but we know that grimlocks have extreme difficulty conducting trade, are carnivores (and have a lower population density), and soforth. Biology will almost certainly include the social structure of the monster, too. Knowing if a monster lives eusocially or in pair bonds or in loose federations with the same (or different) creatures is a huge help in knowing how monsters are like.
• Basic psychology: This one should be obvious. This is where crap like saying a vampire is physically compelled to get permission to enter a private domicile or how derro have a high chance of violent schizophrenia or whatever. Some people say that biology is intrinsically linked with psychology and while I agree, you don't have enough room in a monster entry to show the man behind the dualist curtain. And besides, it organizes nicely.
• Basic sociology and politics: Is this monster xenophobic? Do they take slaves? Are they engaged with a divinely mandated blood war against one or more species? Or are they like elves or orcs in which there isn't a standard socio-political situation and PCs are expected to play it by ear? Obviously, if you're fluffing out a creature like a Purple Worm you can skip this section.

And what I WOULDN'T put in is stuff like:

• Basic tactics: Most DMs can extrapolate how to use a monster based on their stats just fine, thank you.
• Standard equipment: By and large useless space-filling information. A storm giant should not be defined by the fact that they use a giant sword. Only creatures whose equipment is specifically supposed to be a unique plot point like githyanki should get these.

While in the topic of doing D&D right, I'd buy a "Tome of Tactical Tricks" that expanded upon the lack of tactical information on your proposed monster manual and provided encounter design analysis written by people who are actually good at it. Bonus points if the book gave something akin to "more uses for the skills you have" for the special combat actions.

Such a book probably wouldn't be marketable without "Spells! Feats! Prestige Classes!" so you'd have to include some.

[Sashi]

And what I WOULDN'T put in is stuff like:

• Basic tactics: Most DMs can extrapolate how to use a monster based on their stats just fine, thank you.
• Standard equipment: By and large useless space-filling information. A storm giant should not be defined by the fact that they use a giant sword. Only creatures whose equipment is specifically supposed to be a unique plot point like githyanki should get these.

I disagree. "standard tactics" is incredibly important if you're grabbing something out of the monster manual with no prep because something weird happened and you're improvising. Especially for 3E monsters, who sometimes have feat and spell lists so massive it's nice to see "This construct casts cloudkill and then stomps around in it beating on people with a -5 power attack (included in the current attack calculations).

Standard equipment, though, is useless (it already says "greatsword" in the attack routine, guy's got a greatsword).

[shadzar]

I mean, they are talking about how "eating the flesh of enough Grigs turns you into a shapechanger", but putting this information into the writeup of a creature which is neither one of the shapechangers you can turn into by doing this nor the Grig sprite you would eat to accomplish this. This really seems like a recipe for creating contradictory declarations and secret facts.

i think they are trying to attract the pokemon fans. because pokemon was what i just thought of when i went back and read that the monster "evolves" into this Aranaea thing. like during combat an ettercap will eat a pixie or whatever and evolve so is no longer almost dead, but a brand new fresh monster?! do the PCs get to pull out their PokeDex and look up the new monster when Ettercap has evolved into Aranaea?

[shadzar]

EDIT: NB: Shadzar's kinda talking out his ass. This sort of this is massively 2nd edition flavoured. The Monstrous Manual 1-monster-per-page format gave endless piles of bullshit fluff for monsters that didn't make much damn sense but you did get to see in everyone's games as a result. And also let them re-write the same goblin stats five or six times with different fluff.

no this is complete bullshit. this new ettercap is a spider farmer while 2e they were maybe close to spiders, maybe not.

this new format follows 4th edition and Bill Slavisek with his "imagine they are two basketball teams of players" concept along the lines of two DDM armies fighting a skirmish. you could use the ettercap with 2d4 spider or not. odds are in its "lair" the ettercap is working with spider, when not for some reason you might find a loan ettercap. DDN says ettercaps are always grouped up with spiders. don't want one, then don't use the other. that is NOT the same tenor in "flavor". likewise the association to hags is too specific and like others have pointed out, why do they work with these hags? why is it pixies and shit?

now the flavor tries to incorporate some stupid "team ettercap" grouping so you find ettercaps, spiders, and hags in the same encounters. this is vastly different from Mind Flayers enslaving goblins and such as thralls. seriously, why is a hag working with ANY other creature for ANY reason? it makes no damn sense other than once again changing the mythology to try to make a D&D-mythology for everything that was ever based on Greek, Roman, Viking, etc mythologies. just no! stop it! if the original mythology isnt good enough, you know since it can actually teach the stupid players something while they play, then just make something up and stop using things from "REAL" mythology. throw out:

Medusa
Gorgons
Minotaur
Centaurs
Nymphs
Dryads
Elves
Dragons
etc

everything doesnt need a D&D branding on it to be used in D&D just to protect the copyright of the flavor text. so in tern they can Disney the mythological creatures and try to claim nobody else can use them in a game because the name is trademarked to WotC, like Disney tries to do with every fucking public domain story it adapts and folds into its copyrights and trademarks. WotC is just furthering the 4th edition mantra of make it for D&D and to rally onward the Primal Order mistake made with Elric mythos and such that TSR also made, but this time trying to flat out STEAL mythos.

EVERYTHING doesnt need to be made in D&D's image. D&D isn't god. the people that like medusa and centaurs like it the way they heard them BEFORE D&D and will do it their way anyway, so LET them, and stop trying to give a D&D version of every damn thing!

fluff should be something that shows what this create is MORE THAN how it works in D&D-world, because there is no ONE D&D world. but we saw with the cosmology article there are trying to make a ONE D&D-world for all settings. this is WRONG and it is only beginning here at the monster level. Wyatts article furthers the stupidity of this even more!

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... d/20130709

Ettercaps are creatures with ties to the Feywild that watch over spiders in the same way that treants watch over forests. They tend to spiders, feed them, and protect them in their deep forest lairs.

quit with the fucking Feywild shit! NOBODY wants it to infect D&D anymore, this is why 4th edition failed. throw its ideas the fuck out!

See what happens? We've created an ecosystem, or part of one, and connected six different monsters—ettercaps, giant spiders, giant insects, pixies, hags, and araneas. Instead of looking at the ettercap entry in the Monster Manual and wondering, "Why would I ever want to use these guys?" I can suddenly imagine crafting a whole adventure that ties into this ecosystem. Maybe hags actually drive the adventure, or a campaign arc of several adventures, but the ettercaps and their pixie prey can form a whole adventure, and not just a random encounter.

now you have made a single use monster with NO reason to use it outside of its pre-designed encounter. No thanks. I as the DM will choose why these monsters are "teaming up" as the DM is the one that builds the world for HIS players. there is not just a single D&D world, you fuckmook!

again its the whole skirmish design. draw a card and it has an encounter on it for you. I have both of those from TSR thanks, and don't want to use them all the time. Deck of Encounters 1 and 2 are used only when i need to wing it in an undetailed area.

is WotC going to have EVERY adventure having either of these 6 monsters always have the other 5? if not, why detail it in such a way?

what about ettercaps in Raveloft where there are no sprites/pixies/etc?

HELL isnt the feywild mostly the goody-gooodies and the shadowfell all the baddies? night hags in the feywild? WHAT!?!?! seriously just through out feywild and shadowfell. use those pages from 4th as toilet paper and flush them with the rest of the shit in the bowl.

and Rev. Wyatt, nobody wants to play with you, your livestream performance showed you to be a fucking metagaming Munchkin player, so please get the fuck out of D&D. you don't have a split party and just decide to ask across the table what the other group learned when the characters arent near each other. you were smacked down pretty rightfully when asking that player for information, and by the player himself no less!

[tussock]

EDIT: NB: Shadzar's kinda talking out his ass. This sort of this is massively 2nd edition flavoured. The Monstrous Manual 1-monster-per-page format gave endless piles of bullshit fluff for monsters that didn't make much damn sense but you did get to see in everyone's games as a result. And also let them re-write the same goblin stats five or six times with different fluff.

no this is complete bullshit. this new ettercap is a spider farmer while 2e they were maybe close to spiders, maybe not.

XP VALUE: 650.

Ettercaps are ugly bipedal creatures that get along very well with all types of giant spiders. These matures of low intelligence are exceedingly cruel, very cunning, and are skilled in setting traps - very deadly traps - much like the spiders that often live around them.

Ettercaps stand around six feet tall, even with their stooping gait and hunched shoulders. The creatures have short, spindly legs, long arms that reach nearly to their ankles, and large pot-bellies. The hands of ettercaps have a thumb and three long fingers that end in razor sharp claws. Their bodies are covered by tufts of thick, wiry, black hair, and their skin is dark and thick. Ettercaps’ heads are almost equine in shape, but they have large reptilian eyes, usually blood-red in color, and large fangs, one protruding downward from each side of the mouth. The mouth itself is large and lined with very sharp teeth.

Ettercaps do not have a formal language. They express themselves through a combination of high-pitched chittering noises, shrieks, and violent actions.

Combat: If caught in a battle, an ettercap first strikes with its claws, causing 1-3 points of damage with each set. The creature then tries to bite its opponent, inflicting Id8 points of damage with its teeth and powerful jaws. A successful bite attack by an ettercap enables the monster to inject its victim with a powerful poison from the glands above the ettercap‘s fangs.

The poison secreted by an ettercap is highly toxic and very similar to the poison of giant spiders. A creature injected with it must immediately roll a saving throw vs. poison. A failed roll means that the creature dies within ld4 turns when the toxigen paralyzes the victim’s heart.

Many adventurers never get the chance to raise a sword against ettercaps because of the devious traps they use for protection. Ettercaps prefer to ambush unwary travelers and lead them into traps rather than fight them face to face.

Like spiders, ettercaps have silk glands located in their abdomen. The thin, strong strands of silvery silk-like material these glands secrete are used by ettercaps to construct elaborate traps made up of nets, trip wires, garottes, and anything else the monsters can make out of the strands. The traps are designed so that they often immobilize the adventurer who stumbles into it. If this is the case, ettercaps never hesitate to attack that character first, trying to poison the victim before he escapes. Different ettercaps prefer different trap designs, so encounters with different ettercaps should expose the adventurer to new traps each time.

Habitat/Sodety: Ettercaps prefer to dwell in the deepest part of a forest, near paths that are frequented by game or travelers. The creatures’ nests are made of a frame of strands filled with rotting leaves and moss. The lairs are often located on the ground, but can also be found up in large, sturdy trees. No treasure is to be found in ettercap lairs, but occasionally items dropped by adventurers who have fallen into ettercap traps are found nearby.

Though usually only one ettercap is encountered at any time, on rare occasions a pair of ettercaps can be found together. The pairs encountered are always mated couples, though the female and male appear to be identical. Ettercap young are abandoned as soon as they are born, so adults are never encountered with young.

Ecology: An ettercap eats any meat, regardless of the type of creature from which it comes. Upon capturing a victim, the ettercap poisons it so it cannot escape; once the creature is dead, the ettercap immediately devours as much of the corpse as possible. Typically, an ettercap can consume an entire deer or a large humanoid in a single sitting. Anything remaining after the ettercap has gorged itself is left for scavengers.

Often (40%), 2d4 spiders of some monstrous type are found cooperating with an ettercap. The ettercap uses any giant spider webs available when it designs its traps. Creatures killed by an ettercap in the web of a giant spider are shared with the spider instead of being devoured entirely by the ettercap.

Ettercap poison is highly valued, partly because of its extreme toxicity and partly because it is rather difficult to obtain. An ettercap‘s poison glands hold only one ounce of poison at any time, but this ounce is worth up to 1.000 gp on the open market.

You're right, the 2nd edition one is vastly worse. I apologise for comparing the flavour of them. 150 words of largely useless bullshit beats 1000 words of largely useless bullshit every time.

Can I get a "hell yea" for 1st edition? Fiend Folio no less?

LEVEL/XP VALUE: IV/165 + 5 per hit point

A biped, roughly man-sized, with very long arms, protruding pot-belly, short legs and hairy skin, the ettercap has clawed hands and two poison fangs protruding one on each side of the mouth. Ettercaps are cruel, cunning and treacherous.

The ettercap attacks with its claws for 1-3 hit points of damage each and also inflicts a poisonous bite for 1 - 8 hit points of damage.

The creature has silk glands like those of a spider located near the anus. These glands secrete a thin, very tough, silvery cord which the beast uses to make assorted weapons and devices - lariats, nets, garottes, tripwires and so forth. Each ettercap has its preferred weapons and trap devices, so an encounter will vary according to an ettercap's preference, though they will always lay traps and prepare an ambush if there is time to do so.

Ettercaps get along well with all forms of spider.