Let's Read the Dark Sun Creature Catalog!
As I write this, RPGnet forum user zedturtle is just starting a Let’s Read of the Dark Sun Campaign Setting for 4e, and I thought I’d join in on the fun by doing a parallel Let’s Read of the Creature Catalog.
The Creature Catalog was published alongside the Campaign Setting in 2010, and is the “second to last” monster book published for D&D Fourth Edition. The last one would be Threats to the Nentir Vale, which I already covered and which can be read either in my blog or on the RPG.net forums. It did still come after the Monster Manual 3, and so enjoys the rules and formatting improvements that came with that book.
The book opens up with a short description of the stat block format, and tells us that the book is divided into two sections. “Monsters A to Z” is the kind of thing you’ve come to expect from a monster book, and “Personages of Athas” is a bunch of important NPCs and major villains like the Sorcerer Kings.
Fourth Edition Monster Rules: A Refesher
I posted something similar at the start of every monster book Let’s Read, and I’ll do so again this time, since it’s been a while.
Level and Role
Unlike 3e and 4e, Fourth Edition D&D doesn’t have the concept of a “Challenge Rating”. Monsters instead have levels ranging from 1 to 30, just like PCs. A monster’s base attack bonus, damage, defenses, and HP are all based on its level, with adjustments for its combat role.
A monster’s combat role determines the monster’s baseline stats and most of its preferred tactics:
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Skirmishers are highly mobile melee combatants.
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Soldiers have good AC, accurate attacks, and usually some ability that helps draw PC attention to themselves. They form a “front line” that protects Team Monster’s squishier damage dealers.
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Brutes deal heavy damage and have more HP, but are a bit less accurate and easier to hit. They’re also good components of the front line, particularly when paired with soldiers.
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Controllers are good at both melee and ranged combat, and have lots of area attacks and other powers that impose negative conditions on PCs.
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Artillery monsters have strong and accurate ranged attacks, but are worse at melee and kinda fragile.
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Lurkers are fragile in a direct fight but have attacks that deal huge damage if certain conditions are met. Most commonly, that’s when they attack from hiding. They have abilities that let them re-establish that condition, so a typical lurker will attack one turn and spend the next one hiding again.
In addition to this “primary” role, there are some extra roles a monster might have. An Elite monster is worth two regular monsters, with double the HP and some ability to perform multiple attacks per turn. A Solo monster is worth five regulars, has four times the HP, attacks that affect a large number of PCs at the same time, and usually some resistance to being “stun-locked”. Minions are weak monsters that deal half the damage for their level and always have 1 HP (but cannot be damaged by missed attacks). Four to six minions are worth one regular monster.
Finally, a monster tagged as a Leader will have abilities that enhance their buddies somehow.
This famous post from the Blog of Holding has the individual monster design formula written out as compactly as possible. This also shows us that it’s easy to adjust a monster’s level on the fly, if needed.
Origin and Type
Monsters also have an origin and a type, though that’s more of a lore component and doesn’t affect mechanics like it does in 3e and 5e.
The origin tells us the place in 4e’s cosmology to which the monster is most closely tied, even if it’s not currently where it lives. Each of the big planes has its own origin tag. Natural monsters are from the natural world (known as the “Prime Material” in other editions), Fey monsters from the Feywild, Aberrant monsters are tied to the Far Realm, and so on.
Monster type is largely “vibes” based in a way I really like:
Beasts behave like animals; magical beasts look like animals and behave like people; humanoids look and behave like people; animates are non-intelligent things that move because of magic. A giant ant is a natural beast, an elf is a fey humanoid, a shield guardian is a natural animate, a zombie is a shadow animate.
Humanoid doesn’t even mean “two arms and two legs”: centaurs are fey humanoids! I love this system. In previous readings, I tended to go with Int scores and the like to guess if a monster was sapient or not, but in this one I’m going mostly from the classification.
Encounter Design
When designing encounters, the GM decides the encounter’s level (which is usually from 1 to 35). That and the number of PCs in the party gives them a XP budget for the encounter. The easiest way to fill this budget is to add a number of regular monsters equal to the number of PCs, of the same level as the encounter. Obviously GMs can mix it up by varying monster levels, and adding minions, elites or solos too.
Encounter level doesn’t have to be equal to the party’s level. An “equal level” encounter is considered a easy-to-moderate difficulty fight. Level-1 or Level-2 are easy, and anything lower than that is not worth playing out using the full combat rules. Level+4 or Level+5 are scary nightmare battles where victory is no longer assured, suitable for final boss fights. Anything harder than that will dramatically increase the chances of a TPK.
Encounters don’t have to be “perfectly balanced”, not anymore than they do in any other edition. What this system does is deliver consistent encounters. If you want them to be easy, they’ll be easy. If you want them to be hard, they’ll be hard. The number of times where the opposite of what you want happens is kept to a minimum. And that’s why I love these rules to bits.
Coming up Next
Starting from the next post, we’ll get right to the monster entries!