DnD monsters for dummies? [4E]

[Ramos]

Nope, that's not a crash-course on learning the secrets of DnD monsters. It is rather about monsters being dumbed down so much that they can be run even by surgically decerebrated dummies under the effects of a confusion spell while at the same time being as interesting to run as a generic commoner with arbitrarily high ability scores. Let's take a look at the new devils for example:

Succubus

Succubi tempt mortals into performing evil deeds, using their shapechanging abilities to appear as attractive men and women. Although seduction and betrayal are their forte, succubi are also practiced spies and assassins. Succubi serve more powerful devils as scouts, advisors, and even concubines. Because of their guile and shapechanging ability, they are frequently chosen to serve as infernal emissaries to important mortals.

Succubus Level 9 Controller
Medium immortal humanoid (devil, shapechanger) XP 400
Initiative +8 Senses Perception +8; darkvision
HP 90; Bloodied 45
AC 23; Fortitude 17, Reflex 21, Will 23
Resist 20 fire
Speed 6, fly 6

(m) Corrupting Touch (standard; at-will)
+14 vs. AC; 1d6 + 6 damage.

(m) Charming Kiss (standard; at-will) * Charm
+14 vs. AC; on a hit, the succubus makes a secondary attack against the same target.
Secondary Attack: +12 vs. Will; the target cannot attack the succubus, and if the target is adjacent to the succubus when the succubus is targeted by a melee or a ranged attack, the target interposes itself and becomes the target of the attack instead. The effects last until the succubus or one of its allies attacks the target or until the succubus dies.

If the target is still under the effect of this power at the end of the encounter, the succubus can sustain the effect indefinitely by kissing the target once per day. The succubus can affect only one target at a time with its charming kiss.

(r) Dominate (standard; at-will) * Charm
Ranged 5; +12 vs. Will; the target is dominated until the end of the succubus’s next turn.

Change Shape (minor; at-will) * Polymorph
The succubus can alter its physical form to take on the appearance of any Medium humanoid, including a unique individual (see Change Shape, page 280).

Alignment Evil Languages Common, Supernal
Skills Bluff +15, Diplomacy +15, Insight +13
Str 11 (+4) Dex 18 (+8) Wis 19 (+8)
Con 10 (+4) Int 15 (+6) Cha 22 (+10)

Nice flavor-a change over the dream-assaulting, soul-eating demon of the past, fits with the new devil theme. Now, let's look at what we lost from the old monster sheet:
Defences: We see the four standard defences everyone has plus fire resistance. That's it. There is no other defence whatsoever. That means we lost 3 resistances and 2 immunities plus Damage Reduction. WTF? Apparently, a bunch of special qualities that made outsiders different than a human with a fire resistance robe which, we must note, were static numbers, required no rolling and thus didn't reduce game speed and just about anyone knew what they did anyway are far too complicated for the average DM to handle.
Attack options: Lemme see, one standard attack, a charm effect and a 1-round domination. So, effectively, only three options in combat: attack in meele for an average of 9 damage, force someone for 1 round to attack instead of you from 25 feet away and get a meele bodyguard-which has you stop moving in combat otherwise it is useless. And that is for a devil controller monster. WTF? The 3.5 commoner has more options in combat. He can attack with a club/improvised weapon in meele, throw stones/improvised weapons in ranged, try to trip, grapple, charge, disarm... need I mention more? The stats block for the succubus has no grapple or base attack so she can use combat maneuers or improvised weapons and neither does it have ranged bonus so she can use improvised ranged attacks. All she can use are the three attacks mentioned. This probably means WotC thought 4E DMs would be confused by too many combat options so they neutered their monsters...
Utility options: I can see shapechanging and... yep. Only shapechanging. Gone are the detect thoughts, detect good, ethereal jaunt, all the non-combat uses of the charms, the telepathy, the teleportation ability. At least they kept the tongues ability if the "supernal" note under languages means that-else the succubus wouldn't be able to communicate with 3/4 of the beings out there. WTF? Seems monsters are only good for combat now as they do not have any non-combat options.
Skill set: Three skills-diplomacy, bluff, insight. Yeah, they'll keep up very well with their new emissary/spy/assasin flavor. I mean, being a spy doesn't need any sneaking skills, does it? Nor do they need any athletics-related skills such as escape artist, jump and tumble or utility ones like use rope, disarm, pick lock, disguise and so on. WTF? How are we supposed to use a primarily noncombatant adversary (according to the flavor) if they don't have ANY noncombat skills?
Customisability: You might have noticed that there are no skill points in 4E. You might also have noticed that monsters do not have feats. At all. Nor do they have armor/weapon proficiencies. Nor do they have a treasure entry. Nor do they have HD and thus variable HP. WTF? How are we supposed to customise them? Every monster is identical to every other monster of the same race.



Yeah, seems WotC made all monsters crappy this time around and we will have to homebrew the entire monster manual to make interesting encounters. But at least they didn't miss the CR mark and the balancing...

[Skjaldbakka]

Yep. Isn't 4E great?

Sometimes the internet is confusing. So I feel the need to sometimes specify. Yes, I am being sarcastic.

[Reel On, Love]

Ethereal Jaunt and Greater Teleport shouldn't have been given to the succubus in the first place. Handing Greater Teleport out like hotcakes wasn't very good or the game. Also, the succubus is now worth 400 XP, meaning that one succubus would be a fair fight for 4 PCs with 100 XP each (of course, you're not supposed to fight a solitary succubus). Succubi have apparently been demoted, which explains their lack of fifty different freaking abilities, resistances, etc.
Outsider monsters really did have too many SLAs.
I suspect that everything has had resistances toned down.

4E monsters are meant to come in groups. One succubus? Kinda dull. One succubus, one leader-type monster, and two brutes? Suddenly you've got a whole lot of tactical options.

The basic weapon attacks will be covered by the basic weapon attack rules, not in the succubus' stat block. (Similarily, any special attacks like disarm will be covered in the general combat rules.) The succubus would get a basic attack, half her level plus dex (the already provided +8 beside Dexterity) with a bow. That +8, incidentally, is also her sneaking, her Atheltics (or whatever they replaced Tumble with), and her Thievery.

[Charity]

Many of the points you make would be cleared up for you if you were to look at this http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=221806
and perhaps if you were to wander around here http://www.enworld.org/forumdisplay.php?f=317
you might find some more data to base a view on...
Then again you might wish to simply decide to hate 4e from the onset, in which case pray continue to reiterate WTF in bold text and save yourself some time.

Oh and as Reel says above 1 succubus is an appropriate challenge for a first level party of 4 in 4e, as opposed to a level 7 party in 3e perhaps thats why they made them a tad weaker.

[Skjaldbakka]

None of the above changes the fact that 4E is all about removing options, because options are complicated, and we can't handle complicated. After all, the wizard in 3E was so broken because it had so many options, so we should clearly start playing a game with no options, to remove any possibility of brokenness.

[Reel On, Love]

None of the above changes the fact that 4E is all about removing options, because options are complicated, and we can't handle complicated. After all, the wizard in 3E was so broken because it had so many options, so we should clearly start playing a game with no options, to remove any possibility of brokenness.

Eyeroll.

No, 4E has a shift from strategic to tactical, and from single monsters to multiple monsters. If you're going to run four monsters instead of one, they have to be simpler. You want to run a succubus, a bone devil, and two babau in a fight against PCs? You want to tell me how long each round takes to resolve, especially if you're really playing tactically?

(Of course, if you're really playing tactically, the demons can do stupid things like teleport away, wait for short-term buffs/debuffs to run out or have the succubus use Charm/Suggestion to get someone to heal them, and teleport back.)

4E removes some options from the succubus... because the succubus is lower-level. An encounter wouldn't have fewer options. It'd have a lot of tactical options (the succubus' abilities suddenly become a lot better when you pair her with a brute monster who can take advantage of succubus-messed-with PCs).

[Charity]

No one is suggesting you cannot continue to play your broken mages rule 3e.
Feel free.

[Skjaldbakka]

Feel free to play 4E. Please refrain from making assumptions about my playstyle. I don't prefer 3E because mages are broken. I prefer 3E because 4E dumbs down the game, and removes options.

Perhaps I prefer a "strategic" game to a "tactical" one. I can't even begin to describe all the reasons I don't like 4E. In some cases literally.

[Kizara]

Eyeroll.

No, 4E has a shift from strategic to tactical, and from single monsters to multiple monsters. If you're going to run four monsters instead of one, they have to be simpler. You want to run a succubus, a bone devil, and two babau in a fight against PCs? You want to tell me how long each round takes to resolve, especially if you're really playing tactically?

(Of course, if you're really playing tactically, the demons can do stupid things like teleport away, wait for short-term buffs/debuffs to run out or have the succubus use Charm/Suggestion to get someone to heal them, and teleport back.)

4E removes some options from the succubus... because the succubus is lower-level. An encounter wouldn't have fewer options. It'd have a lot of tactical options (the succubus' abilities suddenly become a lot better when you pair her with a brute monster who can take advantage of succubus-messed-with PCs).

I run games like this, and as a DM would have a field day with the example encounter. I also might throw in a level 8 evil cleric and/or wizard to really spice things up. Managing all of these monsters and abilities at once would be an exciting challenge for me.

I would make extensive use of buffing, crowd-control and have the monsters play strategically and maximise use of their save-or-X SLAs.


I generally don't have monsters run off, but I would certinally have a succubus TP out if injured or overpressed. She isn't willing to risk her life most probably. As for charming a PC to heal her? That sounds like a great idea.


For the record, my PCs love my DMing and I encourage optimization and heavy tactical thinking at my table. If you pick ad-willy abilities and play like a fool you are going to get rolled, and your party won't appreciate the TPK.


Assymetry, options, consistant rules for all aspects of the game (hp, abilities derived from types of HD, DCs determined by set calculations, same combat rules apply to PCs as monsters etc) are some of the main reasons I love DnD. 4E kills much of this.


The only thing I do like here is that succubuses are a bit lower CR, so they can be used a bit earlier in the game. I would like a 'lesser succubus" in my 3.5 games, to use as a non-violent evil outsider that is great for RPing and can progress my plot/provide unique encounter for PCs before level 5-7.

Likewise, I can use the current succubus as a greater, more advanced creature for more important or involving roles.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

One thing I'd like to point out, the Charming kiss is actually useless.

What does it do? You can't attack her and you have to take hits for her if adjacent.

Solution: Don't be adjacent, especially since it doesn't limit your movement in any way.

Any PC hit by that ability just needs to move away and then the Succubus needs to keep following them around doing what the PC wants, not a good strategy.

And if you have multiple enemies? It doesn't say anything about not attacking the Succubus's allies. Worst ability ever in my mind.

Also, it has rules for keeping it constantly active, that's nice, but if an encounter ends with everyone dead except the charmed player, he just runs away. She can't control him unless she standard actions every round, and you'll overcome it half the time, so you just leave.

[Swordguy]

Not to mention that a Succubus isn't generally a combat monkey in the first place. It's fairly trivial to have a Shapechanged Succubus use her Kiss ability on a major friendly NPC of the party, and bam! Now the Succubus can funnel information on the party from the NPC to her masters who can use said info against the PCs.

THAT'S how a Succubus should appear in a game. Almost never should they flit around a full-on battlefield, so the lack of battlefield skills isn't all that crippling. Her abilities are for behind-the-scenes seduction, corruption, and information-gathering. Not for combat.

Had you picked an actual combat-heavy critter to complain about it'd be a more reasonable argument. Sorry.

[Mr. Friendly]

Thanks for this post; you are reminding me why I have given up on D&D entirely.

No, no - it isn't 4th Edition which seems kind of cool.

It's people. People who, without seeing the whole picture compain about 4e endlessly.

The same regurgitated talking points over and over, combined with annoying snarkiness creates an atmosphere that has utterly destroyed my enjoyment of D&D, in all forms.

So, thanks again. I will have plenty of free time and money to go play EQ2 (or some other MMO) instead of D&D; which is better because it means I don't have to deal with annoying people as much.

[Swordguy]

Thanks for this post; you are reminding me why I have given up on D&D entirely.

...truth...

So, thanks again. I will have plenty of free time and money to go play EQ2 (or some other MMO) instead of D&D; which is better because it means I don't have to deal with annoying people as much.

To be completely fair, you can substitute ANY talking point on the internet for "D&D" in your post and have the same result.

[Charity]

Feel free to play 4E. .

Thank you I shall.

Please refrain from making assumptions about my playstyle.

Nope I think I shall continue to make assumptions about you and indeed everyone, they are not exclusively bad or wrong. I shall however continue to not post my opinions as if they were fact.

I don't prefer 3E because mages are broken. I prefer 3E because 4E dumbs down the game, and removes options.

I do not agree. The unified mechanics of 3e get in the way, leading to tedious two hour two round battles, making things simple =/= dumbing things down.
It adds options to everyone but the full casters, but they are entitled to be the best at everything after all.

[Ramos]

On 4E in general:

Non-combat abilities for monsters are gone.

4E has a shift from strategic to tactical, and from single monsters to multiple monsters. If you're going to run four monsters instead of one, they have to be simpler.

Then why remove their out of combat abilities? The in-combat abilities are not the biggest issue here. The biggest issue are the non-combat ones. Not even a single monster stat block has out of combat abilities so far. In addition, the options meant for combat have no or very little out of combat usability whatsoever. Take the succubus' kiss for example. All it does is have the victim shield the succubus from attacks. It doesn't help in social interaction, doesn't make the victim more friendly to the devil, nothing. Only combat functionality. Which bugs me.

You can't customise a monster without homebrewing it.
That is a second very important point. 4E doesn't have skill points and in addition monster skills are fixed-you can't customise a monster's skills. It also doesn't have monster feats so that option of monster customisability is gone. The statblocks are also missing any monster advancement rules. All in all, you can only customise if you homebrew a monster with new abilities because monsters don't have any options. At all.

Combat options for monsters have been removed, combat ability remains the same.
Yeah, this point bears repeating. Monster HP have increased all over. Their standard defences also have increased in most monsters we've seen so far. Special abilities, special qualities and more than a couple combat options have been removed. In the end, monster power is the same overall. It just depends more on static numbers than any kind of combat options-which is bad.






On the succubus:

Succubi have apparently been demoted, which explains their lack of fifty different freaking abilities, resistances, etc.

Not power-wise. Their hit points have been nearly tripled. Their defences have increased. Their ability scores are higher on average. However, they lost all the cool abilities they had. In effect, the new succubus is about as strong as the old one overall but it doesn't have any options. Besides, higher level creatures don't have more abilities either.

4E monsters are meant to come in groups. One succubus? Kinda dull. One succubus, one leader-type monster, and two brutes? Suddenly you've got a whole lot of tactical options.

But it doesn't work like that. Look at the flavor-they are temptresses, spies, assasins, scouts, emissaries. ALL of their roles, flavor-wise, pretty much demand solo appearances. So they won't have four more monsters along.

The succubus would get a basic attack, half her level plus dex (the already provided +8 beside Dexterity) with a bow. That +8, incidentally, is also her sneaking, her Atheltics (or whatever they replaced Tumble with), and her Thievery

That's the point, isn't it? The DM has to spend time to work out the basic numbers for each of those values if he wants to use them. If you have some skills in the stat block, why not all eight of them? Would it fill up too much space or something? As for the combat statistics/base attack thingy, why not put the numbers in the statblock?

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

Not to mention that a Succubus isn't generally a combat monkey in the first place. It's fairly trivial to have a Shapechanged Succubus use her Kiss ability on a major friendly NPC of the party, and bam! Now the Succubus can funnel information on the party from the NPC to her masters who can use said info against the PCs.

Which would be great if the kiss actually did anything. But unlike say, Charm Person in 3.5, the kiss in no way convinces an NPC that he should tell her anything. Or otherwise helps her outside of combat. This kiss is purely a combat disable, and not even a good one.

[SamTheCleric]

No, the Dominate is for that... you know, that dominate they have at will?

[mostlyharmful]

I like the move back to standardized XP rewards for monsters. That's it. So much for single antagonists, out of combat encounters, out of combat skill use, out of combat tactics or really much of anything that isn't two teams of guys wailing on each other.

[Roderick_BR]

Sure, I prefer to read 400+ pages of rules to run a one and a half hour session twice every month

[Hunter Noventa]

No, the Dominate is for that... you know, that dominate they have at will?

The Dominate that lasts a single round? And is a standard action?

I have to agree, the relegation monsters to nothing but targets by removing all out of combat abilities is a little irritating. Either they really want to make a tabletop MMO, or they're leaving it to the DM to adjucate out of combat effects.

From the way things seem, it's more likely the former.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

No, the Dominate is for that... you know, that dominate they have at will?

You mean the one that lasts one round, and is very obvious, and has a chance to fail each time?

Succubus: *Dominate* Tell me about X.
NPC: Blah Blah, hey what are you doing?
Succubus: *Redominate* fails on role
NPC: Guards! Help this lady is trying to control me! *Runs away*
Succubus: Well Crap.

[lord_khaine]

i think i agree on most of what you are saying Ramos, i really dont like those new stat blocks, and think they are missing most of the things that made 3.5 monsters interesting, like damage reduction and regeneration.

[SamTheCleric]

It last until the end of the succubus' next turn... if it succeeds, you get them to be adjacent to you and they take the damage for you... I can't image that the will defense of some of the characters is going to be terribly high at 4th level or whatever level it is you fight them, and she attacks +12 vs Will. That's not going to fail too often, I don't think.

She's listed as a controller type... not an OMG I BLOWZ J00 UP type. She won't be alone.

[mostlyharmful]

She's listed as a controller type... not an OMG I BLOWZ J00 UP type. She won't be alone.

And there in lies at least some of the problem. She's a Succubuss. She should be alone. That's her role and what her fluff says she should be good at. As is she can never go off on her own and do the things a succubuss should be able to. Cause she sucks at it.

[Mr. Friendly]

And there in lies at least some of the problem. She's a Succubuss. She should be alone. That's her role and what her fluff says she should be good at. As is she can never go off on her own and do the things a succubuss should be able to. Cause she sucks at it.

So the problem is that this succubus is supposed to be a master manipulator, who sneaks into locations and takes control of people, so that's why she should only show up in a combat situation alone. Instead of, you know, taking control of people and using them to beat the stuffing out of the party, while she takes control of other party members....

Yeah...

The unfailing logic of 4e hate wins again.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

It last until the end of the succubus' next turn... if it succeeds, you get them to be adjacent to you and they take the damage for you... I can't image that the will defense of some of the characters is going to be terribly high at 4th level or whatever level it is you fight them, and she attacks +12 vs Will. That's not going to fail too often, I don't think.

Heres the problem, she has no way of forcing th charmed creature to be adjacent to her.

So we have:

1) She's alone. Everyone delays actions to go right after the charmed PC, Charmed PC moves away, everyone else attacks succubus without worrying about the charm.

2) She's not alone. Everyone delays actions to go after charmed PC. Charmed PC attacks a different enemy then the Succubus, everyone else attacks the Succubus or other enemies whichever they want, with no worries about hurting the PC.

[Chosen_of_Vecna]

So the problem is that this succubus is supposed to be a master manipulator, who sneaks into locations and takes control of people, so that's why she should only show up in a combat situation alone. Instead of, you know, taking control of people and using them to beat the stuffing out of the party, while she takes control of other party members....

I believe the primary complaint is that:

She has no way of taking control of anybody ever!

[Mr. Friendly]

Unless of course, there are rules that we haven't seen yet, that might, perhaps, have special rules and definitions of a "charm"-type attack.

[SamTheCleric]

Heres the problem, she has no way of forcing th charmed creature to be adjacent to her.

So we have:

1) She's alone. Everyone delays actions to go right after the charmed PC, Charmed PC moves away, everyone else attacks succubus without worrying about the charm.

2) She's not alone. Everyone delays actions to go after charmed PC. Charmed PC attacks a different enemy then the Succubus, everyone else attacks the Succubus or other enemies whichever they want, with no worries about hurting the PC.

1) You don't know the mechanics of delay, maybe they don't work that way.
2) You don't know the mechanics of "Charm", maybe it doesnt work that way. Maybe it's not just "charm person" where the person treats her as favorable, but more like dominate and the succubus can make them do whatever she wants. Kiss + Dominate would be a potent combo for a monster in the back, being the controller type and all.

Sure, in the context of 3.5, this succubus probally wouldn't do well. But it's not a 3.5 stat block. Even the "fluff" of the succubus has changed, the stat block says that they serve other devils as scouts, infiltrators and assassins. Not as bodyguards.

[Storm Bringer]

but the point remians is that she's lost all her non combat abilites. IF the aim of 4th ed is to streamline and speed things up, why aren't the relevent stats on her sheet? As pointed out, even combat relevent things are missing, like BAB.

THAT'S how a Succubus should appear in a game. Almost never should they flit around a full-on battlefield, so the lack of battlefield skills isn't all that crippling. Her abilities are for behind-the-scenes seduction, corruption, and information-gathering. Not for combat.

but.... she hasn't got any powers that work outside of combat. All she's got is bluff and diplomacy. She can generate a magical complusion with an effect that lasts a mighty 6 seconds, and she can stop a person attacking her and willing to stop melee attacks at her. Neither of those effects actaully help her when she is not on the battlefield. One doesn't last long enough to help and the other doesn't work out of combat.

Now, if thier was a seperate out of combat block added under the combat stuff that included all the skills and abilites that aren't used in combat, I'd be happier. but as far as i can tell, you'd need to cross reference against a generic table every time you want to make a spot roll for her, or a hide roll.

In short, almost none of the infomation that help you when working with her out of combat is located on her sheet, if it even exists. To attempt the sort manipulations she's supposed to do, the DM has to either make stuff up as he goes along or locate the relevent infomation in another location, possibly even another book.

wasn't one of the aims of 4e to reduce the DM's workload?


edit: I'm really arguing for arguments sake here, since I readly admit that I havn't been keeping up to date with the 4th ed teasers.