Monte Cook Back to Work

[Username17]

Yes, I am working for Wizards of the Coast again. It's no big deal. They had some wastebaskets that needed emptying, floors that needed sweeping... that kind of thing. We're still haggling over some things in the contract, though. I don't do windows.

All snarking aside, while we all predicted that Monte Cook would be rehired in some capacity to make 5e more palatable, there really isn't any evidence that Monte Cook is being brought in as anything more than a marketing stunt.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

Didn't Monty Cook put his name on Iron Heroes?

I know he didn't write it, but if he's willing to put his name on a clearly unfinished product, I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Username17]

Didn't Monty Cook put his name on Iron Heroes?

I know he didn't write it, but if he's willing to put his name on a clearly unfinished product, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Yeah, it was called "Monte Cook Presents: Iron Heroes". On release, when it clearly wasn't even done. It was written by Mike Mearls, but Monte Cook put a foreword on it and they used his name to shovel that crap. They did the same thing with a bunch of other stuff: Monte Cook signed his name on it and wrote a couple of paragraphs of introduction and walked away with a check for however much his name is worth in marketing.

Of course the things he actually wrote weren't much better. The Book of Experimental Might is literally a list of half-formed untested ideas.

-Username17

[Dominicius]

Ah Monte Cook.

He is the one guy who I can actually get behind in the position of a lead designer even if he does need an editor breathing down his neck day and night.

He is certainly leagues better than the current assclowns WotC has been putting in charge of managing D&D.

[hogarth]

Well, if I was stuck with one old WotC designer to do 5e, I'd pick Monte because he seems to be the only one who comes up with functional ideas at all.

I mean, he comes up with a lot of shitty ideas too, but with enough playtesters and an iron-fisted editor you can weed out the shitty ones.

[citation needed]

My favourite Monte Cook innovation is the swordaxe. Because gluing an axe head to a sword is awesome and totally not stupid at all.

[Seerow]

Well, if I was stuck with one old WotC designer to do 5e, I'd pick Monte because he seems to be the only one who comes up with functional ideas at all.

I mean, he comes up with a lot of shitty ideas too, but with enough playtesters and an iron-fisted editor you can weed out the shitty ones.

[citation needed]

My favourite Monte Cook innovation is the swordaxe. Because gluing an axe head to a sword is awesome and totally not stupid at all.

Wait....

What?

[RobbyPants]

Well, if I was stuck with one old WotC designer to do 5e, I'd pick Monte because he seems to be the only one who comes up with functional ideas at all.

I mean, he comes up with a lot of shitty ideas too, but with enough playtesters and an iron-fisted editor you can weed out the shitty ones.

[citation needed]

My favourite Monte Cook innovation is the swordaxe. Because gluing an axe head to a sword is awesome and totally not stupid at all.

I'm pretty sure that one dates back to 2E's Combat & Tactics.

[Username17]

Well, if I was stuck with one old WotC designer to do 5e, I'd pick Monte because he seems to be the only one who comes up with functional ideas at all.

I mean, he comes up with a lot of shitty ideas too, but with enough playtesters and an iron-fisted editor you can weed out the shitty ones.

[citation needed]

My favourite Monte Cook innovation is the swordaxe. Because gluing an axe head to a sword is awesome and totally not stupid at all.

Wait....

What?

If this is what I'm thinking it is, it's probably one of the long list of "double weapons" that Monte wrote up for AU. The harsh reality is that double weapons are mostly stupid with the exception of the quarterstaff and the double sword (actually called a "bladed staff"). But the 3e people really thought people would want them, and was equally concerned that they would somehow be overpowered.

My favorite is actually the pick/spear, because I cannot for the life of me figure out how that would even work. The Dire Flail earns mad props for being a weapon that it is literally impossible to use without hurting yourself, but the pick/spear isn't even a thing.

-Username17

[Seerow]

If this is what I'm thinking it is, it's probably one of the long list of "double weapons" that Monte wrote up for AU. The harsh reality is that double weapons are mostly stupid with the exception of the quarterstaff and the double sword (actually called a "bladed staff"). But the 3e people really thought people would want them, and was equally concerned that they would somehow be overpowered.

Okay, that makes sense. The way he described it sounded to me like it was an longaxe... but instead of a long wooden or rounded metal pole, a sword blade, that at the tip expanded into the axehead, and you would swing the thing with just the sword hilt.


Really, given that, a double weapon with an axe on one end and a sword on the other is almost reasonable.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I'm pretty sure the swordaxe was an exotic 1d8 19-20/x3 weapon that was literally a sword whose blade ended in an axehead for the 'best' of both worlds.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

The urgroch (the spear-axe) is a real weapon. It's just not used as a double weapon.

[RobbyPants]

Ah. The 2E version I mentioned looked more like what Hogarth described.

[hogarth]

I'm pretty sure the swordaxe was an exotic 1d8 19-20/x3 weapon that was literally a sword whose blade ended in an axehead for the 'best' of both worlds.

I'll post a picture when I get home, but it's just what you're thinking of: a longsword with an axehead stuck on the end. It's not a double weapon. Even better -- you can glue spikes and shit to it and make it a DIRE swordaxe. Sweet!!!!!!!!!

[Username17]

Ah. Having done some more research, it appears that the "swordaxe" is essentially a "dire khopesh". With the exception of the fact that putting hooks and points on swords like that would suck, it's actually a fairly real weapon:



It's a fantasy game, so putting extra spikes on your armor is awesome, instead of retarded. So giving that, it's fairly reasonable. A khopesh is a real weapon, and it looks like this:



The real issue with swordaxes is that spending a feat for a 19-20 x3 crit is actually a stupid waste of a feat in almost all circumstances.

-Username17

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I had to look at a copy of Arcana Evolved just to see how stupid a swordaxe was, since I was hoping it was just something more akin to a khopesh (ignoring that a khopesh doesn't actually work at all like an axe, it tends to be equated to such). I'm not sure who's to blame for thinking completely ridiculous looking weapons are cool, but they should be beaten with their own impossible masturbatory material. It's a shame that people automatically equate shaolin pole weapons in fantasy with stereotyped asian culture, since some of them are at least nominally feasible.



Looking at Monte Cook's weapon weights, I can't help but think a great deal of people's issues with a gold economy would be solved by adjusting the value of a pound to make those numbers less idiotic.
(edit:2x to get picture right, 1x typo)

[Josh_Kablack]

Well reality has had its share of implausible, if not stupid weapons.

I mean you can buy an authentic double-barreled boar spear

And as soon as you accept that both mage hand and caltrops are common in the game world, then pretty much every weapon that isn't a magical IED is equally implausible within that world - so I refuse to accept that "sword axes are conceptually stupid" is a condemnation of anyone's design skills.

Especially not when there is a mechanics issue to rant about right there:

Having to pay a feat for XWP to get a weapon that deals +1 average damage or has an additional crit range or multiplier is generally a retread move when other feats give you a +1 to hit. But the bigger issue is just how little weapon numbers matter at all after mid levels - since before you even get 4th level spells, you'll have some subset of Greater Magic Weapon, Keen Edge, Flame Arrow, Energy Substituted versions of Flame Arrow, Heroism, Power, Enlarge Person, Divine Favor, Bless, Aid, Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace and crap that's not core modifying your attacks, it really doesn't matter if the base damage is a d6 or d8 or even something crazy like 3d6. Between averages of the least damaging weapon (unarmed strike) dealing 1d2 and the best weapon (Greatsword) dealing 2d6 - there is a variance of all of 6 points of average damage. Yet: there's a 3.5 average damage difference between having flame arrow or not; there's a +2/+2 or 3 difference between having Bulls Strength or not; there's a roughly -1/+3 difference between having Enlarge Person or not ; there's a +2/+2 difference between having an 8th (6th in 3.0) level GMW up and running; it's the same for a 6th level Divine Favor;. So pretty much, once you can collect 2 meaningful buff spells, you've increased you attack potential by the entire range of available weapon damages plus a bonus to hit. Hence, once PCs can reasonably collect two or more meaningful buffs, they don't really care about weapon stats - aside from a couple edge case builds where the crit range and multiplier matter because you're trying to trigger massive damage often enough to abuse the 3.5 "nat 1 is autofail on saves" ruling.

[hogarth]

And as soon as you accept that both mage hand and caltrops are common in the game world, then pretty much every weapon that isn't a magical IED is equally implausible within that world - so I refuse to accept that "sword axes are conceptually stupid" is a condemnation of anyone's design skills.

You like the swordaxe? I guess it takes all kinds.

My next "favourite" bits from Arcana Evolved are the warmain -- that's weaker than a 3.5 fighter -- and the oathsworn -- that's weaker than a 3.5 monk.

[Swordslinger]

5E is fucked.

Monte is a terrible designer with terrible ideas. Mearls has some decent ideas at least, though has no real clue to implement them. At the very least, I felt like pairing someone good at fine details would be okay to refine Mearls raw ideas.

Monte Cook is just a total hack. He doesn't write good rules, he doesn't have good ideas for the direction of the game.

Mearls at least understood the dangers of handing out excessive bonuses and breaking the RNG, Monte still does not even understand that.

[Psychic Robot]

Mearls at least understood the dangers of handing out excessive bonuses and breaking the RNG, Monte still does not even understand that.

Righteous Brand Cleric Attack 1
You smite your foe with your weapon and brand it with a
ghostly, glowing symbol of your deity’s anger. By naming one of
your allies when the symbol appears, you add divine power to
that ally’s attacks against the branded foe.
At-Will ✦ Divine,Weapon
Standard Action Melee weapon
Target: One creature
Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and one ally within
5 squares of you gains a power bonus to melee attack rolls
against the target equal to your Strength modifier until the
end of your next turn.
Increase damage to 2[W] + Strength modifier at 21st level.

[sake]

-

Oh goddammit, it looks like a fucking keyblade. Yes, all records of this weapon must be destroyed now, for the god of humanity, before some anime freak who jerks off to kingdom hearts sees it.

[Chamomile]

-

Oh goddammit, it looks like a fucking keyblade. Yes, all records of this weapon must be destroyed now, for the god of humanity, before some anime freak who jerks off to kingdom hearts sees it.

Hey, now that you mention it, that does look kind of like a keyblade...And I could totally make a Keyblade Master class to go with it!

[hogarth]

Monte Cook is just a total hack. He doesn't write good rules, he doesn't have good ideas for the direction of the game.

No, K was right. Monte has plenty of decent ideas, and plenty of terrible ideas, too. What I'm skeptical about is K's comment that good playtesting and editing can turn lead into gold. I mean, it doesn't sound impossible, but it would certainly be the exception, not the rule.

[Seerow]

Having to pay a feat for XWP to get a weapon that deals +1 average damage or has an additional crit range or multiplier is generally a retread move when other feats give you a +1 to hit. But the bigger issue is just how little weapon numbers matter at all after mid levels *snip*

It is worth pointing out that 4e tried to help this issue by making most attacks a multiple of weapon value, and reducing other damage modifiers. Maybe it didn't work perfectly, but weapon dice do tend to matter more there.


Like what if to try to make your weapon type more valuable, you did something like you can trade 2 points of strength bonus damage for 1 extra weapon damage? So instead of a 18 str fighter having 1d8+4 for a longsword in one hand, and a 2d6+6 for a greatsword in two hands, you could have 3d8 for the long sword, and 6d6 for the great sword. Now you no longer need to provide an arbitrary bonus for two handed weapons, their bonus is they scale way better. Your average damage for melee goes up, but people get to roll more dice, and it scales automatically.

The exact numbers may need to be tweaked, but simply making weapon damage dice scale helps alleviate a lot of the problems with exotic weapons doing shit. (And things like crit bonuses always scale pretty well regardless. Personally I'd probably be tempted to spend a feat for a really good crit rate, especially if it stacked with Keen. 19-20x3 is basically a 10% average damage increase, given that you hit on a 5 [pretty reasonable at mid level]. Okay that's probably not all that great, but it's sadly a lot better than many 3.5 feats.)

[Username17]

The [W] notation had promise to keep weapon die damage in the game as something people gave a fuck about. If you're rolling the damage die four times, you by definition care whether it's a d6 or a d8 four times as much.

The problem with 4e was that they removed every other little innovation that 3e had to make you give a fuck what your weapon was, and the math did not work.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

What I'm skeptical about is K's comment that good playtesting and editing can turn lead into gold.

Even 4E would have been about 10 times better with a serious and strict play testing regime.

No. Really. Totally would have. Pointing out that Skill Challenges don't work, the math is all funky, fights are padded sumo and the players find all the options depressingly boring is EXACTLY what play testing is for.

Instead Merles and Friends had a beer and pretzels RPG group that used a secret house ruled version of 4E and they called THAT "play testing". Result? Nothing good.