My regular game group rotates DMs, so I’m not running right now. I’m playing a Pathfinder Adventure Path–Rise of the Runelords. However, I’m already planning my next campaign. It’ll be Dark Sun, and it’ll use the Pathfinder rules and the 3e conversion put out by the folks at Athas.org.
As I abandon 4e and pick up Pathfinder, I find myself liking certain elements enough that I want to keep them.
Minions
In previous versions of D&D, a monster typically had to be near the level of the party to be a threat. As the party progressed in level, that meant more pointless chopping up of high hit die monsters that weren’t meant to be major parts of the encounter.
Minions allow the DM to place more figures on the table, giving the PCs something to hack at without having to tie them up for round after round after the monster has used its one trick.
If you have trouble with the idea of an 8th level monster with one hp, look at it this way. If they were 5th level monsters with full hit points, the characters would be doing a substantial amount of damage relative to the monsters’ hit points with each attack. Typically, when fighting monsters with this function, the PCs can either one-shot them or cut their hit points in half with a single attack routine.
The one hit point simply reduces record-keeping. It doesn’t change how tough the monster normally is—just their toughness compared to PC offensive power. If they were fighting with each other with no PCs involved, you’d have to count a normal hit point total.
Likewise, using an average damage instead of rolling for each attack speeds up combat.
No Vanilla Monsters
I’m combining two things I like here. I like the ability to make monsters unique by giving them powers directly tied to their role or flavor from 4th edition. I liked the round-by-round tactical suggestions from 3e/3.5.
The monster descriptions I write for personal use combine these. Here’s an example from a guard
Round 1 Bleeding cut, 1d8+2 and the target cannot be healed for 1 round
Round 2 Rattling strike, 1d8+2 plus demoralize the target for 1 round
Round 3+Punishing strike, 1d8+2. If the target is injured, +4 damage
These guards are cruel and efficient. They want to cow the PCs back into submission, but they’ll kill them if the characters don’t surrender. However, I’m not going to spend a lot of time worrying about assigning specific feats, skills, and all that. Because I don’t expect them to last more than 3 rounds each against the players, that’s all the detail I need.
I have a barbarian who uses “powers” that reduce his armor class but inflict terrific damage. That makes him very brute-like in 4e terms. A psionic monster of Athas might have a ranged attack like detonate, then activate a defense, and then move into melee.
Elites and Bosses
I like the idea of adding hit points without needing to jack up attack values, saves, and spell lists. It also lets me tack on another power or two, because the monsters will live long enough to use them.
Bloodied
Bloodied is a good marker. It lets the players know something they’re going to ask anyway, and I like the idea of being bloodied triggering effects. You can also create feats around it.
Pushing and Pulling
I love the idea of pushing characters and monsters around the battlefield. It makes terrain and positioning more important. It also allows for low-powered spell/monster abilities. “1d8 damage plus push one square” is a lighter touch than “1d8 damage plus a negative level.”
Shift
Saying “shift” is less cumbersome than using the term “5-foot step.” I’ll keep calling it that. Similarly, “opportunity attack” is slightly easier than “attack of opportunity.”
Specific Feats
Although I don’t have anything in mind right now, I’m pretty certain that I’d adapt some feats without much fuss. I like at least one feat design principle of 4e better—no long feat chains that require characters to all have identical builds if they want the big payoff at the end.
More?
I reserve the right to claim that 4e had more valid points to it. I might not have thought of everything while writing this.
