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[Sean Mirrsen]

You said 6 AM will be in 17 hours for you. Ergo, midnight will be in eleven hours. 10 PM in nine hours. The math seems right, so who is wrong?

[Akigagak]

Your phrasing.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

There's a logical failure with the exclusion of Good monsters from the monster book: it assumes the only reason to encounter a thing, or hear about it, is to kill it and take its stuff.

Some campaigns differ from that model.

If you're an early adopter and you start a campaign before they release the book of Good monsters, your campaign world doesn't contain them. There just aren't any Lammasus or Unicorns or Flumphs or Silver Dragons.

Unless you stat it up yourself, in which case why buy the book at all?

I just think it's a clever boardroom idea that probably should have gone a different way.

[CJ1145]

I might, MIGHT (highly stressed might) be able to make that. However, two problems make that highly variable for me.

1. My mother hates the computer, DnD, and me staying up late. Combining these three are a recipe for disaster.

2. My father works late and needs sleep. Combining THAT with the previous turns my mother into the human equivalent of Satan when he's had one too many and found his wife cheating on him: REALLY. FUCKING. PISSED.

[Neruz]

There's a logical failure with the exclusion of Good monsters from the monster book: it assumes the only reason to encounter a thing, or hear about it, is to kill it and take its stuff.

Some campaigns differ from that model.

If you're an early adopter and you start a campaign before they release the book of Good monsters, your campaign world doesn't contain them. There just aren't any Lammasus or Unicorns or Flumphs or Silver Dragons.

Unless you stat it up yourself, in which case why buy the book at all?

I just think it's a clever boardroom idea that probably should have gone a different way.

If you're not going to kill it and take it's stuff, then it doesn't need combat stats.


The only creatures that need to be statted out are the ones that the PC's are intending to kill.



The Monster Manual is not a list of all the creatures that exist in the world, it is merely a reference guide for some of the more dangerous creatures that the PC's are likely to face. Thats all it is.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It does need combat stats if you are, for some reason, defending it from something, or enlisting its help to defeat something.

[Cthulhu]

Darnit, you predicted my Save the Unicorn story arc.

[Neruz]

It does need combat stats if you are, for some reason, defending it from something, or enlisting its help to defeat something.

Both of which are outside the 'standard' expected encounter in 4e, as the system does not really support NPC friends (in fact it kind of breaks a bit).

And if all else fails, you can hijack the stats from something similar.

[Cthulhu]

Hijacking stats is my favorite.  All the fun of making monsters without any work.

Anyway, 8 hours right?  This is a benchmark for RAM to judge his time on, because time zones make no sense.

[RAM]

Spoiler: sorry, I remembered that I wasn't going to derail this thread just as I finished... (click to show/hide)

And good doesn't always co-operate. You might be trying to steal the widget of cleansing from a gold dragon's horde and need stats to try to bluff your way out. Or that a paladin order will destroy your ability to get a peace treaty and need to be stopped. Simply stating that good creatures don't fight good PCs has a significant impact just by itself.

[Sean Mirrsen]

8 hours from this posting, yes. I should go to sleep if I want to make it.

And yes, there are numeorus occasions when you need stats for stuff you won't even be fighting. A sizeable oversight on the WOTC's part.

[Neruz]

Hijacking stats is great, it's hugely encouraged for 4e too since the mechanics don't give a shit about the flavour; all that matters from a mechanical standpoint is that the numbers are right.


Also, the DMG has a fun little section on creating monsters from scratch; the math is pretty simple and with it you can throw together a pretty decent monster in about 10 minutes, or less with practice. I've gotten so good with the underlying 4e mechanics that i can design monsters on the fly (something which still slows me down sometimes in 3.5).

And good doesn't always co-operate. You might be trying to steal the widget of cleansing from a gold dragon's horde and need stats to try to bluff your way out. Or that a paladin order will destroy your ability to get a peace treaty and need to be stopped. Simply stating that good creatures don't fight good PCs has a significant impact just by itself.

That's not technically what they're saying; what they're saying is that on average, 'Good' monsters will not appear opposing the PC's all that often. You can come up with a situation to justify anything, but WotC are looking at the averages, and on average most of the Good monsters in the previous Monster Manuals were not used very often, the Devs felt that it would make more sense to remove the Good monsters from the first Monster Manuals and address them at a later date in a specific 'Good Aligned' Monster Manual, and frankly i agree with them. Most of the time i have absolutely no use for good creature stats, i'd much rather not pay for a Monster Manual that has a bunch of creatures i can't really make all that much use of.


Also, Metallic's arent Good anymore; they're Unaligned. Although like everything else they can be Good or Evil, just odds are that any Metallics the PC's face will be Unaligned, rather than Good.

Also why are you stealing from a Gold Dragon? (The situation you just suggested would also be solved with a Skill Challenge, not a combat Encounter.)

[Cthulhu]

If the gold dragon has the MacGuffin, and doesn't understand that the humans need it, the dragon is a selfish douchebag and deserves to die.

[Neruz]

If the gold dragon has the MacGuffin, and doesn't understand that the humans need it, the dragon is a selfish douchebag and deserves to die.

And is also not Good aligned.

[Cthulhu]

Dragons live in caves.

Dragons hoard treasure.

Dragons eat people.

Screw alignment, that is begging for an adventuring party to go ruin its day.