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MonsterEnvy posted:For anyone that will be getting the monster Manuel and playing with it. Here is a useful Monster by CR Index That's one thing that hasn't changed from previous editions: there's vanishingly small support for playing above 10th level. ONE COLUMN OF MONSTERS FOR TWO TIERS OF PLAY YAAAAAAAAY
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Sep 11, 2014 02:13
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Stop calling it the monster manuel unless you are making a joke. It's making me embarrassed for you.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:20
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Stop calling it the monster manuel unless you are making a joke. It's making me embarrassed for you. Who was it, Davis Chenault? They said that squats filled with illegal immigrants were basically irl dungeons complete with treasure and monsters for the civically-minded with guns. In that horrible case, Monster Manuel would fit.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:21
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Arivia posted:That's one thing that hasn't changed from previous editions: there's vanishingly small support for playing above 10th level. ONE COLUMN OF MONSTERS FOR TWO TIERS OF PLAY YAAAAAAAAY Well they said that would be the case as low level monsters are used the most. Add on in 5e it works better at least. Given that lower level monster can be used across more tiers of play. Though I do wish we had some more high level monsters. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 02:28
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MonsterEnvy posted:Well they said that would be the case as low level monsters are used the most. Add on in 5e it works better at least. Given that lower level monster can be used across more tiers of play. Though I do wish we had some more high level monsters. Absolutely! 
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Sep 11, 2014 02:34
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At least that monster list has confirmed some things, like mules are more dangerous than jackals or hyenas. Also elk are bigger threats than bandits.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:34
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Lord of Bore posted:At least that monster list has confirmed some things, like mules are more dangerous than jackals or hyenas. Also elk are bigger threats than bandits. Mules are assholes and elks are terrifying. This seems 100% reasonable.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:36
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MonsterEnvy posted:Well they said that would be the case as low level monsters are used the most. Add on in 5e it works better at least. Given that lower level monster can be used across more tiers of play. Though I do wish we had some more high level monsters.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:38
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Let's break down those numbers. But first, let's pretend that there's no outlier Tarrasque and that the CR range is actually 1/8th to 24, which gives us 28 different CRs once you count 0, 1/8, 1/4, and 1/2 (lol...) So minus the Tarrasque, there are 431 monsters in the Manual. The first half of the CR list (0-10) contains 86% of the monsters. The second half (11-24) contains 14%. The last quarter of the list (18-24) contains 3.9% of the monsters. Compare this to "monsters" with CR 0, who comprise 7.7% of the list. 39% of monsters are CR 1 or less. Monsters with CR 1 or less comprise nearly half of all monsters 0-10. 31% of the monsters have a CR less than 1. There are more than twice as many monsters with CR < 1 than with CR 11-24.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:54
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Well, it's not like D&D is usually worth playing past level 8 or so anyway.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:56
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Like a fifth of the monsters are of fractional CR. What's the point? Doesn't CR 0 literally mean, this is pointless? The CR 0 guys are almost completely made of beasts that pretty much exist just for the Druid to turn into. I don't even think most of the animals get any art.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:00
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MonsterEnvy posted:The CR 0 guys are almost completely made of beasts that pretty much exist just for the Druid to turn into. I don't even think most of the animals get any art. And also for you to fill out your wonderful complete setting with, of course. Can't have D&D without toads!
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Sep 11, 2014 03:04
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Night10194 posted:Well, it's not like D&D is usually worth playing past level 8 or so anyway. The fact that most Games don't go past level 10 is the reason why most monsters are low level so your statement is reason why we lack High level monsters. Along with the fact that more monsters are usable across all levels of play then before. AlphaDog posted:Let's break down those numbers. Can we do the list again skipping out creatures that exist just for the Druid to turn into. Arivia posted:And also for you to fill out your wonderful complete setting with, of course. Can't have D&D without toads! "I Baron Toadeaterguy need adventures to go into a bog and murder all the toads who live there. Which Mighty Adventurer will take on this task." MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 03:06
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MonsterEnvy posted:The fact that most Games don't go past level 10 is the reason why most monsters are low level so your statement is reason why we lack High level monsters. Along with the fact that more monsters are usable across all levels of play then before. No because that's not the actual purpose of any of them, no matter how much you smoked today.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:10
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LongDarkNight posted:Not an option in DMG. Probably never. You have got to be loving kidding me on that wording "introduced changes to the core rules" - what core rules? They make it sound like there has always been a "Base D&D" that 4th edition then messed about with
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Sep 11, 2014 03:12
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MonsterEnvy posted:Can we do the list again skipping out creatures that exist just for the Druid to turn into. No, because they're in the Monster Manual as monsters.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:16
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I guess if you skip a third of the monsters, the monsters are challenging, but then it's not much of a manuel with BONUS PAGES 15% FREE.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:17
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Arivia posted:No because that's not the actual purpose of any of them, no matter how much you smoked today. I am pretty sure thats why they exist. They have 25 pages at the back of the book of beasts and giant beasts. Unless the DM really wants the party to fight some elk most of the creatures there are just for the Druid to turn into or to serve as familiars or summoned woodland beings. A good deal of them are in the PHB as well for that very purpose.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:17
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Why don't they put the animals the druid player turns into into the player's handbook, and the monsters you fight in the manuel?Mr Beens posted:You have got to be loving kidding me on that wording "introduced changes to the core rules" - what core rules?
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Sep 11, 2014 03:20
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MonsterEnvy posted:I am pretty sure thats why they exist. They have 25 pages at the back of the book of beasts and giant beasts. Unless the DM really wants the party to fight some elk most of the creatures there are just for the Druid to turn into or to serve as familiars or summoned woodland beings. A good deal of them are in the PHB as well for that very purpose.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:21
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Mr Beens posted:You have got to be loving kidding me on that wording "introduced changes to the core rules" - what core rules? Well that kind of is the case right there in the example. Both of those things never existed before 4e.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:22
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Nihilarian posted:Obviously they were included in order to let you play a game where the players are low level hunters/taxidermists. Obviously you're wrong and it's actually so fans of Mouse Guard can finally participate in the one true RPG experience.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:23
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It's so you can make a whole bunch of giant vampiric half-demon prairie dogs or whatever when the template module comes back. Right? Right!?
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Sep 11, 2014 03:24
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Why don't they put the animals the druid player turns into into the player's handbook, and the monsters you fight in the manuel? They did. They also put more monsters that the Druid can turn into in the monster manual. The Moon Druid can turn into a lot of stuff.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:25
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Then why are they wasting their 15% extra pages at no extra cost with things that are in the player's handbook? Especially if it's like a third of the manuel. They could give us more monsters to fight after the first level.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:25
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If you ignore all the crappy non-monster entries, the monsters-by-CR list doesn't look quite as lopsided! Game's fine!
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Sep 11, 2014 03:26
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MonsterEnvy posted:I am pretty sure thats why they exist. They have 25 pages at the back of the book of beasts and giant beasts. Unless the DM really wants the party to fight some elk most of the creatures there are just for the Druid to turn into or to serve as familiars or summoned woodland beings. A good deal of them are in the PHB as well for that very purpose. If they're in the PHB for the express purpose of being a "THING DRUIDS CAN CHANGE INTO" then why the blistering neon gently caress are they comprising thirty percent of the Monster Manual? EDIT: Before you try to pedant your way around this, let me go ahead and correct that to "Fifteen Percent".
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Sep 11, 2014 03:26
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moths posted:It's so you can make a whole bunch of giant vampiric half-demon prairie dogs or whatever when the template module comes back. Right? Right!? We have the Half Dragon Template so you could make a Giant Half Dragon Badger. (Prairie Dogs are not in the Book.)
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Sep 11, 2014 03:27
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Then why are they wasting their 15% extra pages at no extra cost with things that are in the player's handbook? Especially if it's like a third of the manuel. They could give us more monsters to fight after the first level. I don't know why. The Beasts just happen to take up 25 pages. Stuff like the Blink Dog, Fire Beetle and all the Giant Beasts are in that 25 page count, So I don't know how many pages the Whogivesashit animals take up. I don't know everything as I don't own the book. I don't think this is a good thing ether. Still at least they did not take up more space by giving all the normal animals art and detailed descriptions. Bassetking posted:If they're in the PHB for the express purpose of being a "THING DRUIDS CAN CHANGE INTO" then why the blistering neon gently caress are they comprising thirty percent of the Monster Manual? See above. I don't think this is a good thing. I don't like it, I am just pointing it out. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 03:33
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Like a fifth of the monsters are of fractional CR. What's the point? Doesn't CR 0 literally mean, this is pointless? Arivia posted:And also for you to fill out your wonderful complete setting with, of course. Can't have D&D without toads! It's actually this, remember that the only forums Mearls ever visited in the lead up to 5e was ENWorld, and "4e DOESN'T HAVE NORMAL ANIMALS" was a big complaint there. Like, mules especially became some really dumb meme.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:34
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Why would you need stats for a toad, anyway? Like, a toad, specifically, instead of a generic statblock for any harmless creature? Maybe with the choice of one or two special qualities, like 20 ft. fly speed or the ability to breath underwater. Maybe have a first level spell that lets you transform into one of these harmless creatures, and if you cast it in a higher level spell slot you get more/better abilities?
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Sep 11, 2014 03:39
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Nihilarian posted:Why would you need stats for a toad, anyway? Like, a toad, specifically, instead of a generic statblock for any harmless creature? Maybe with the choice of one or two special qualities, like 20 ft. fly speed or the ability to breath underwater. The DM Basic rules contains the stats for a Frog Frog Stats posted:Frog Your idea would have been better. The Frog statblock does not bug me, but it is fairly pointless.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:42
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If you eliminate "normal animals" (I used the metric of "everything that might appear in a nature doco" and didn't include swarms), there are only 42 mundane animals of CR 0-3 out of 258 monsters. This includes stuff that PCs could reasonably be expected to fight (like bears, panthers, snakes, sharks, etc). There are also 16 NPCs listed in the CR 0-3 range, including the famous monster "The Commoner". So it's not just things like that making the list all lopsided.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:44
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But how can the frog feed on insects if it has no effective attacks? This doesn't check out.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:46
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AlphaDog posted:If you eliminate "normal animals" (I used the metric of "everything that might appear in a nature doco" and didn't include swarms), there are only 42 mundane animals of CR 0-3 out of 258 monsters. This includes stuff that PCs could reasonably be expected to fight (like bears, panthers, snakes, sharks, etc). The Commoner is in his own little section of NPC templates. Still Commoners are at least useful and unlike the Goat and Frog many games will probably feature them. Ferrinus posted:But how can the frog feed on insects if it has no effective attacks? This doesn't check out. It can only kill poo poo like flies that don't even get the honer of a stat block.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:47
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Nihilarian posted:Why would you need stats for a toad, anyway? Like, a toad, specifically, instead of a generic statblock for any harmless creature? Maybe with the choice of one or two special qualities, like 20 ft. fly speed or the ability to breath underwater.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:48
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MonsterEnvy posted:The Commoner is in his own little section of NPC templates. Still Commoners are at least useful and unlike the Goat and Frog many games will probably feature them. Why the gently caress would many games feature combat with CR 0 commoners?
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Sep 11, 2014 03:48
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Let's compare to the Pathfinder Bestiary 1, the immediate competitor. Two notes: 1) There's actually a lot more monsters in the Bestiary than this. They're variant monsters - a ghast is a ghoul with the simple template applied, so it doesn't have its own stat block and asks the DM to do a little math to use them. Since they don't have their own stat blocks, I'm not including them. 2) The same goes for templates: the sample template creature (generic human skeleton, for example) is included, but not all skeletons. I'll ignore the Tarrasque too, to be fair. So monsters in the Bestiary go from CR 1/8 (bat, toad) to CR 23 (solars.) The top your PCs should fight this stuff monsters are at CR 20, for balors, pit fiends, and tarn linnorms. In total there are 26 different CRs in the Bestiary. In total there are 361 monsters, which is actually less than I thought! There are 304 monsters from CR 1/8 to CR 10, or 84%. The 57 monsters from CR 11 to CR 23 make up 16%. The last quarter (18-24) is 14 monsters or 3.8%. Compare to monsters below CR 1, of which there are 34 or 9%. So there's similar amounts at high levels in both books, but the amount at very low levels (below 1 CR) is far more in proportion. There's more higher-level monsters, and the very low level monsters aren't even as much proportionally as the monsters in the first half of the book. That's better diversity, even if it still leaves high-level games hanging. edit: Oh, and I just included all monsters. Even the ones specifically called out as player familiars that could be used for regular animals as well. Everything is expressly meant for fighting or whatever.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:49
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AlphaDog posted:Why the gently caress would many games feature combat with CR 0 commoners? Protecting them from some Orc Raiders. Or being a jack rear end and killing them for xp or something. (They are worth 10 xp a piece.) Leading a group of them into combat. That stat block is the majority of people in the D&D world. They can also fight wussy as they are and unlike the old days they can beat a house cat. Commoner stats posted:Commoner Cat stats posted:Cat MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 03:51
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I guarantee the frog statblock is there because someone wants to polymorph things into frogs, but absolutely needs to know what stats they'd have. I guarantee this because it was one of the complaints about a wizard spell in 4e.
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Sep 11, 2014 03:59
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