On Monsters

When I first saw the 3e rules, one of the things I immediately liked was that the monsters used the same rules as the PCs. This meant that levelling monsters should be simple - to create an orcish shaman I could just add a mix of Wizard and Druid levels to the base orc, and call it done, and so on.

Unfortunately, this was yet another area where the seeming mathematical elegance of the rules actually proved a burden in actual use. See, 3e characters are extremely complex, what with classes, feats, skills, spells, items... And so, 'quickly' adding levels in any class was just a pain.

When 4e was in development, then, I initially opposed the move to break that link again. However, when it comes to actual play, 4e has a real advantage in this regard - most of a monster's stats are automatically assigned based on the role it plays in the game and the level of the monster. The rest basically comes from a small set of unique powers associated with the creature.

Of course, as with everything else, 4e managed to mess up its own improvements. In this case, it did it by having a monster's stats advance in lock-step with the expected improvement in PC capability by level. And so, assuming an optimised PC, if you needed a '10' to hit orcs at 1st level, you probably needed a '10' to hit Orcus at 30th level. Additionally, the game vastly reduced the options available to any given monster, which would have been a good thing except that they also vastly increased the hit points of those monsters, so that instead of dying quickly they now ran out of interesting things to do. This was also largely responsible for each 4e combat taking an hour to resolve, which had such horrible knock-on effects to the game as a whole.

With Nutshell, my view of monsters is going to be something of a hybrid between the two methods. Monsters will have the same "numeric elements" as the PCs - they'll have attack bonuses, skill bonuses, and the same defences - but these will be derived in a rather different manner (and will, indeed, be simplified). They will also have a small number of unique abilities, intended to capture the unique differences between monsters. However, they will also have far fewer hit points than in 4e, in most cases, and will hopefully have "just enough" powers to see them through their shorter lifespans.

Probably the key difference with Nutshell will be that monster attack and skill modifiers will vary in steps of +5, as will monster defences. Meanwhile, all monster attacks will either do Nd6 damage, or will do 1d6+N damage.

The reason for this is pretty straightforward: players don't notice minor adjustments. This is especially true if you roll behind a screen - the difference between 1d6 and 1d8 damage is 1 point on average, which adds up, but not so as to be noticable. Meanwhile, the difference between +1 and +2 is sufficiently small that the players are just as likely to assume you forgot which modifier to apply, if they notice at all. However, by insisting on using big steps between abilities, you can be pretty sure that the players will notice the difference, especially if they realise that the Ogre has a huge AC but a rubbish Will defence...

To give some idea of what I'm looking at, here are a handful of low-level monsters:

Orc

The common orc is a brutish warrior, armed with an axe. In combat, he fights with berserk abandon, generally fighting to the death and even beyond...

Movement: 30 ft (6 squares)
Hit Points: 10 (Bloodied 5)
Resilience: 10 (Shaken 5)
Defences: AC 15, Combat Def 15, Fort 15, Ref 10, Will 10, Social 10, Alertness 10
Initiative: +0
Attack: Battleaxe +0, 2d6 damage
Ranged: Thrown Axe +0, 1d6 damage (carries 3 handaxes)
Skills: +0, Athletics +5, Endurance +5, Intimidate +5
Special: Die Hard: When reduced to 0 hit points, orcs fight on until they either suffer one more hit, or until the end of their next turn, at which point they drop dead.
Loot: Orcs tend to carry a mix of crude weapons and armour. For every 6 orcs slain, award one bundle of poor loot.

Hobgoblin

Hobgoblins are a militant, organised race. Lacking skill in farming, they instead form war-parties, raiding human lands for plunder. Were it not for their relatively low numbers, they would be a dire threat indeed.

Movement: 30 ft (6 squares)
Hit Points: 10 (Bloodied 5)
Resilience: 10 (Shaken 5)
Defences: AC 15, Combat Def 15, Fort 10, Ref 10, Will 15, Social 10, Alertness 10
Initiative: +0
Attack: Longsword +0, 1d6 damage
Ranged: Spear +0, 1d6 damage
Skills: +0, Craft +5, Endurance +5, Engineering +5
Special: Coordinated Strike: When hobgoblins Gang Up to gain Combat Advantage, they gain a +5 bonus to attack rolls, instead of the normal +2
Loot: Hobgoblins keep their weapons and armour in good condition, but must carry everything they own with them. For every 6 hobgoblins slain, award one bundle of poor loot.

Zombies

A zombie is nothing more than the animated corpse of a dead humanoid. Horrific and shambling, they are extremely hard to destroy with mundane weapons.

Movement: 20 ft (4 squares)
Hit Points: 20 (never Bloodied)
Resilience: Immune
Defences: AC 10, Combat Def 5, Fort 10, Ref 10, Will Immune, Social 0, Alertness 10
Initiative: +0
Attack: Slam +0, 1d6 damage
Skills: None
Special: Headshot: When subject to a critical hit, a zombie is immediately destroyed.
Loot: None to speak of.

I should probably note that none of these is the definitive version of the stat blocks, as I haven't had time to sit a work through them all. It's even entirely possible that I've missed some key parts out! Still, hopefully, this should give some indication of what I'm thinking - additionally, although the stat blocks all look quite similar, the differences between them should serve to show the different flavour of the three monsters.