Monster roles are a big joke.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This doesn't even get an anatomy of a failed design title or attention, because there's so little to talk about here.

Artillery and Controller should not be differentiated from each other. The only meaningful difference I see is that controllers throw out status effects more often--a distinction that goes away at late heroic-tier.

Lurker, Brute, Soldier, and Skirmisher should not exist at all. Soldier is a particular idiotic role; they don't do appreciably less damage than brutes and all they do is get more defense and attack bonuses. Everytime I have designed an encounter I have never used soldiers, because it's fucking boring to fight a monster more powerful for no real reason.

[RandomCasualty2]

Soldiers are just the tank monsters. I always found brutes to be a sorta pointless role. I mean, they're really low AC things that are supposed to rush up in melee, which means they just get crushed. And their attack bonuses suck ass too.

[Username17]

You could make distinct monster roles, and indeed that would be pretty useful as a set of templates to make monsters off of. But yeah, Brute and Soldier as written aren't different except that Soldiers are better and Brutes are worse. And the fact that "Leader" isn't even a role, it's a sub-role that you can apply to anything is just really insulting.

But basically, you could seriously decide that you wanted to split up the stat lines so that you could quickly whip up a monster that:

• Was individually weak but collectively dangerous.
• Was dangerous at range, but vulnerable in melee.
• Was dangerous in melee but susceptible to battlefield control.
• Acted as a force multiplier on others on its team.
• Was especially dangerous to soft and high priority targets on the player side.
• Was versatile in both melee and range abilities.

And you could call those roles: Minion, Artillery, Brute, Leader, Skirmisher, and Soldier. You could totally do that. That would be a fine thing to do. But... the way that 4e did it was really bad. And I think it was really bad because they didn't have a clear concept of how encounters actually work and didn't bother doing math.

Heck, you could even put in a distinction between Force Multiplier monsters that grant bonuses to their team and Force Multiplier monsters that penalize team hero. So you could even have a separate Controller and Leader. You would just have to do the math and have the discipline to carve up the kinds of numbers and abilities things had so that those things would be different.

-Username17

[MartinHarper]

Brutes are meant to have more HP and/or more damage to compensate for their reduced attacks/defences. That could be a legitimate tactical distinction. Controllers would prefer to target brutes, as their hp doesn't help them against status effects, and Defenders would prefer to mark brutes, as the -2 makes a bigger difference. It's also a help for the GM: if you run an encounter with lots of Brutes it may be swingier than one with lots of Soldiers, so this can be planned for in various ways.

I haven't looked closely enough at the numbers to figure out whether the increased hp/damage really does compensate for the decreased attack bonuses and defences, though.

[Username17]

I haven't looked closely enough at the numbers to figure out whether the increased hp/damage really does compensate for the decreased attack bonuses and defences, though.

They... don't.

A Bugbear warrior has 9/8 the hit points of a Dwarf hammerer. And he does 12.5/7.5 of the damage. But he is -4 to-hit and has -5 AC. Also he has much worse powers and lacks a ranged attack.

It's seriously not even close. The Bugbear Warrior (Brute 5) is just much much less threatening than a Dwarf Hammer (Soldier 5) at any level where you are supposed to be encountering either.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

Brutes are meant to have more HP and/or more damage to compensate for their reduced attacks/defences. That could be a legitimate tactical distinction. Controllers would prefer to target brutes, as their hp doesn't help them against status effects, and Defenders would prefer to mark brutes, as the -2 makes a bigger difference. It's also a help for the GM: if you run an encounter with lots of Brutes it may be swingier than one with lots of Soldiers, so this can be planned for in various ways.

Well no actually you want to target soldiers with non-AC attacks, since their defenses aren't as high as their AC, yet they have less AC than brutes. Brutes are supposed to be real vulnerable to AC attacks. The problem comes in that soldiers also get big bonuses to hit, and that's what really puts them over the top. Brutes are supposed to do the high damage column for their attacks, but it doesn't compensates for medium damage at the soldiers attack bonus.

[Koumei]

so that you could quickly whip up a monster that:

• Was especially dangerous to soft and high priority targets on the player side.

Except that this is 4E, and there ARE no soft or high priority targets. I mean, when the softest person in the team can stand in front of a gatling gun for over a minute and still be fine, the term really doesn't apply.

[Amra]

The Soldiers-Are-Just-Better theme carries on up the levels. Comparing a Level 15 Brute (Azer Rager) with a Level 15 Soldier (Rakshasa Warrior) is another no-contest bout.

Initiative +9 Senses Perception +9
Warding Flame (Fire) Any enemy adjacent to two or more azers at
the start of its turn takes 5 fire damage.
HP 181; Bloodied 90
AC 27; Fortitude 28, Reflex 25, Will 24
Immune fear; Resist 30 fire
Speed 6

Spiked Gauntlet (standard; at-will) ✦ Fire, Weapon +18 vs. AC; 1d6 + 6 damage, and ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends).

Chains of Flame (standard, usable only while bloodied; encounter) ✦ Fire
Close burst 5; +17 vs. Reflex; 3d8 + 5 fire damage. Enemies adjacent to an azer or with ongoing fire damage are immobilized until the end of the Azer Rager’s next turn.

Versus

Initiative +13 Senses Perception +16; low-light vision
HP 142; Bloodied 71
AC 31; Fortitude 29, Reflex 28, Will 28
Speed 6
Longsword (standard; at-will) ✦ Weapon
The rakshasa warrior makes two attack rolls and keeps the better result; +21 vs. AC; 1d8 + 5 damage, and the target is marked until the end of the rakshasa’s next turn.

Claw (standard; at-will) +21 vs. AC; 1d8 + 5 damage.

Tiger Pounce (immediate reaction, when a marked enemy within 5 squares of the rakshasa warrior shifts; at-will) ✦ Weapon
The rakshasa shifts to the nearest square adjacent to the enemy
and makes a basic attack against it.

I mean, really. The Rakshasa has only 78.5% of the Azer's HP, but his AC and Will are 4 places better, his Fortitude 1 place better, his Reflex 3 places better. Worse yet, the Soldier is doing exactly the same damage as the Brute when he hits, but he's hitting 90% more of the time [1]. Yikes. +4 to attack over the Brute, plus he gets to roll twice for every basic attack.

And this is another monster where the Defender's stickiness is laughed to scorn; being able to frickin' Tigger-bounce next to anyone who shifts within 5 squares of him as an immediate reaction, and get a basic attack into the bargain - which will hit because he gets to roll two dice - is not an ability he's going to forgo due to getting scratched every round by a mark.

Apparently, "Soldiers engage the party's Defenders and Leaders" but this puppy is going to engage pretty much anyone he wants to, and either keep on doing it or be dishing out opportunity attacks when they try to just walk off instead.

Actually, I think the Thundercat is a pretty cool monster but he does help illustrate the point that Brutes suck and Soldiers are just all-around better.

[1] This... could well be wrong, statistics not being a strong point of mine, but "an awful lot more often" is certainly accurate

[MartinHarper]

Worse yet, the Soldier is doing exactly the same damage as the Brute when he hits, but he's hitting 90% more of the time [1].

The ongoing 5 damage shouldn't be ignored. That's always five damage, barring special abilities, and averages ~8 or so. The encounter power isn't terrible, nor is Warding Flame. There is an attempt to make damage compensate for a reduced to-hit bonus, even if it's ineffectual.

[Heath Robinson]

Warding Flame is bizarrely written. Would it be too difficult to use the phrase "adjacent to two or more enemies with this ability"? That way you'd be able to give it to Fire Elementals and have them stack with Azers. As is you've creatures with orthogonal fireyness, which is totally unexpected by normal people.

I'm not interested in D&D4E so I haven't read any of it - is that kind of design decision common?

[Amra]

The encounter power isn't terrible, but neither does it seem to compensate for the difference in attacks and defenses. You're right that I shouldn't ignore the ongoing damage. It would have been far better to have discussed absolute damage done rather than notional damage per attack in the first place.

Multiply out the damage each attacker is doing by the probability of them hitting in the first place and the Soldier is doing more damage than the Brute, which lends credence to the "Soldiers are just better" statement. Yup, their higher bonuses are supposed to be balanced by Brutes doing more damage per attack so that's fair. But take into account the fact that the Soldier's at-will immediate reaction is going to get him a lot more attacks, more-or-less all of which are going to hit, and the balance goes heavily in favour of the Soldier again.

My argument isn't in any way that the Brute is awful examined as a stand-alone challenge, but that it sucks relative to the Solider. Ironically, that Tigger Bounce power would make the Thundercat a damn good Defender if only it had a few more hit points.