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RPG Superstar 6 Season Star Voter. 172 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists.


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Hi I have a player making a character right now (for an upcoming game), an Elementalist Wizard from the APG and a question came up. Is the elementalist spell list in the APG the only spells an elementalist wizard can learn, or is this list just for bonus and opposition spells? Thanks!


Jessica as the Gray Maiden - that's some impressive armour!


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:


I like it but a couple of things cross my mind here. One is every defence is pretty close to identical. Getting some more differentiation there may make the monster more interesting to fight for your PCs.

My other concern is that the creatures defining feature seems to be a shift between being ranged artillery and this really bad ass melee combatant. When that slam attack works your players are sure going to notice which is great but I'm concerned that in most combats it may not really come up because the Grey Ape is being locked down by a high AC defender where its unlikely to get off two hits.

One way to get around that and show this off its pure brutality is possibly to give it an encounter power that kicks in only when first bloodied that allows it to ignore marks for one round. If the tactics mention that it should save its action point for this moment you'll hopefully get a chance to really drive home the switch from artillery to bloodthirsty melee combatant to your players by the simple expedient of having it do two of those double slam attacks on some low AC party member like the mage or rogue. If you pull off the onging damage as well, so much the better.

There are other ways to go about this as well, of course, but my main point is considering something that really highlights the switch over too your players.

Excellent ideas. You're right, giving the creature a power to avoid marks would allow the ape a lot more freedom to run rampant and prevent it from getting pinned down by the defender. Plus, as an elite it’s not really a big deal to add another power to it.

I should be able to update the Shadow in the Trees this weekend or Monday.
I have to admit, I never really give defenders the attention they deserve when I'm designing combats (a blind spot of mine) - probably because my own interests as a player center on strikers and controllers.


Part two of Shadows in the Moonlight is up, featuring another of the Hyborian age's infamous grey apes - the Shadow in the Trees. Mechanically I went for the same sort of thing I did with Thak - only this time it's an artillery monster that transforms into more of a brute when it gets bloodied.


The monsters sound very cool, but I use miniatures in my games, not counters, so I would rather pay that money for a hardcover than get a softcover and tokens.
That giant mimic sound pretty awesome though.


Something a little different this time - a monster theme, the iron shadow, inspired by Shadows in the Moonlight. It essentially turns any monster into a metal gargoyle.


Sweet!
That encounter sounds like a lot of fun. Glad to hear that Thak worked out.


Awesome, let me know how it turns out.


Now updated - thanks for the help!


I was worried it was a little too simplistic for an elite. I added the damage bonus to bring it more in line with a brute of that level when it lost its remote trigger power, but I like the rending idea better - not only will it up his damage it actually fits the story a little better flavour-wise without making it too complicated to run with a bunch of traps.


Very cool. How hard was it to make the mold in the first place?

Please post pictures of the large one too :)


Cool. Both of these are interesting systems. When you guys use these do they replace the action point system? I think that you could use both, but the niche that action points play seems to be the slot where you'd insert a house rule like this. I don't think that the game loses anything by having Karma of Dark Influence replace Action Points - in fact I think it does a great teal to tie the characters more deeply into the fabric of the setting. I love it when mechanics and flavour come together :)


Rogues in the House is up, with the first of the Hyborian age's infamous grey apes, a heroic tier monster named Thak.


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
With the hazard in particular I would have liked to have been able to read an introduction consisting of a few lines or a paragraph on what this is and what it does. If I'm searching for am interesting Hazard for my next encounter and have not read this Conan story I have no idea whether this Hazard might fit the bill until I've gone over the whole thing. I suppose that is true of monsters as well but I might not notice as much because I've been trained by D&D to read a monster statblock quickly and efficiently. That is not the case with Hazards.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, you're right. On second look neither the quote I selected nor the blurb at the beginning really tell you what it is that the hazard does exactly. The way I generate these hazard statblocks (in Photoshop) makes them kind of annoying to edit, so I'll probably leave changing it until I collect the whole thing together in one big PDF, or until I get enough time to go back to that post.


Part two of The Pool of the Black One is up, with a nasty 7th level hazard, the emerald pool of sacrifice.


There's been some downtime on the blog for the past month - mainly due to my web host going out of business and deleting it.

Just wanted to let you guys know it's back up (with a new web host), and regular posting will resume shortly.


It's been a little while, but this time there are two monsters (one of the few 'monster races' from the Conan books): the black one thug and the voice of silence from The Pool of the Black One.


Yes, the lasting animated dead seem very interesting.
I sometimes think that there is a tendency in 4e for it to turn into a series of encounters where the game takes a break in between for some hand-waved exposition (D&D encounters is big on this). Anything that bridges the gap between encounters and reminds players that the game is still 'on', that there characters are still acting in the game world, is a good thing in my opinion.


H. T. J. Munchkineater wrote:
Would that I had the time, I'm afraid. I'll try and remember to let you know how things go on this thread from time to time, though.

Cool, I'd love to hear how things turn out.


I've updated Thog and made a few changes based on Jeremy and Blazej's recommendations (again, thanks so much guys, I really appreciate it).

I've upped the damage and attack, added another gotcha to the aura (adds vulnerability to poison, which also helps with the damage output), I got rid of the concealment trait (it was from the source material, but you're right it discourages movement and I want this guy to be rampaging all over the place), I added in a blinding burst power when it's bloodied (taken from the source material to replace the concealment trait), and clarified the excise the compromised flesh power.

All in all, I think it works a lot better now, and still reflects its literary counterpart.


Thanks for the awesome advice guys. I'm going to have to check out that errata for the numbers on damage and attack - I just assumed that the math the monster builder used was up to date (and it kind of sucks if its not). I do remember stepping the damage down one notch because it inflicted ongoing damage (and it seemed that every monster that did that had a weaker initial attack).

I'm going to crack the creature open again, make some tweaks and re-test it.


H. T. J. Munchkineater wrote:
Just stumbled across this and wanted to say thanks, as I'm definitely going to use some of these in a planned Hyborian 4E campaign. Keep up the good work. :)

Thanks! If you've got a campaign journal or website let me know I'd love to see how you run things.


Looks good so far. I don't have the Legacy of Fire adventure path, but I think the encounter design issues you bring up are great considerations for any 4e game. Plus I really dig the world of Golarion.


Thog, the monster from The Slithering Shadow is up - the first solo monster I've made for monsters of the hyborian age.


At first glance I thought the game was called Pirate Flu! OMG pirates have gone viral!


Very cool. Thanks for the link.


Black Colossus is up, and I've statted my first Conan evil wizard: Thugra Khotan.


There are tons of great artifacts that haven't been touched since 2e. I think some of the following would make great adventures:

Baba Yaga's Hut would make a great location for a high level adventure, it's a bit like the TARDIS - bigger on the inside, and there's even an old Roger Moore adventure in Dragon - the dancing hut of baba yaga that you could adapt. Plus if you're campaign is in Golarion it fits perfectly since the mother of witches plays a big role there.

The Machine of Lum the Mad and the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O are also great classics. The machine, like the hut, makes a great location based adventure (there's also an adventure in the online Dungeon featuring a different machine of Lum's - PCs might want to follow that up by seeking out the original artifact).

An adaptation of the old silver anniversary boxed set The Rod of Seven Parts, might make a cool campaign.

Nothing's ever really been done with either Heward's Mystical Organ, or the Throne of the Gods - both artifacts that have been around since OD&D...

Well, that's just off the top of my head. If you have a chance to flip through the 2e Encyclopedia Magica there's a lot of inspiration in there.

Star Voter Season 6

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
David Roberts wrote:
Widow’s Lock
* It's really just a +4 CMD item with a strange ability to cause difficult terrain just one square in front of you? Probably not an item I'd ever see anyone spending 5,800 gp to buy...or even 2,900 gp to create.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate you putting in the time to go back over all these items.

To clarify, the item affects a 5-ft. radius, so it should affect all the squares around you... but perhaps I should have used the 'squares' terminology to make it clearer... and its pretty obvious there was no digging of the flavor anyway so I can see why it was rejected.

Star Voter Season 6

Thanks for taking the time to critique, don't hold back anyone:

Spoiler:

Widow’s Lock
Aura faint transmutation; CL 3rd
Slot belt; Price 5,800 gp; Weight 1lb.
Description
This belt is fashioned from a long braid of silvery white hair that expands and contracts like a living, breathing creature. The belt harnesses the years of bitter loneliness the hair has absorbed to keep enemies at bay. When worn, the animate hairs uncoil and whip at any creature that gets too close. The distraction gives the wearer a +4 competence bonus to Combat Maneuver Defense.
As a standard action, the wearer can command the belt to unknot so the hairs can lash out with their full length, hampering movement. This creates a 5-ft. radius emanation, centered on the wearer, which causes any creature entering it to treat the area as difficult terrain. This effect never hampers the movement of the wearer. The wearer can cancel this effect as a swift action.
Traditionally the command word for the belt is the name of the widow’s lost love.
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, animate rope or entangle; Cost 2,900 gp

Star Voter Season 6

Ever since I ran The Temple of Elemental Evil in high school, I've thought that portable holes were cool (along with Daern's instant fortress). I like this take on that classic item, especially since you made it much more accessible.

Star Voter Season 6

This item is awesome, congratulations (easily my favorite of the right hand column). This combines together two things I see fantasy assassins doing - leaving behind a flower as a cool ego signature and finding new and sneaky ways to deliver poison.


The Tower of the Elephant is up, which is definitely in my top 5 Conan faves.


Yeah even if the movie sucks, how cool would it be to have a cameo in it? It might even be more cool if it really sucks...

Incidentally, the guy who writes the blog Legends and Labyrinths is involved with the film. His stuff there is really awesome, so that's a good sign for the movie. I'm excited about this movie, but I've been burned before (remember when Dragon ran all those articles hyping the first D&D movie?).


The Scarlet Citadel - part two, is now up.


Fabes DM wrote:
And mortality? ;)

:)

Whoops


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:

Its the wuxia moves that I'm talking about. Players have so many good powers and especially combos of powers that they like to use together. In some sense part of character design, especially for later levels, is a kind of build your own Wuxia moves.

My experience with 4E (up into the lower half of Paragon) has convinced me that 4E has something of an unusual design paradigm in terms of health and healing. Really low level characters (1st and 2nd level) have a lot of hps per surge compared to the amount of damage they are likely to take from a monster. The result is a feeling of plenty in terms of healing surges. Second Winds are great uses of ones round because you get so many hps that sort of thing. Your rarely going to use them all and each one is a big boost to overall hps.
The next few levels (3rd, 4th to a lesser extent 5th) have a slightly different dynamic. Individual healing surges are getting less potent with each passing level but by these levels healing potions are very comparable to in hps gained to what you'd normally get from a healing surge and they are now plentiful. For a while you can just keep chugging potions and gaining healing surges that way. So for these levels characters remain really quite strong.
Its what happens after 6th and beyond where the game starts to feel harder - often a lot harder. By this point the game is...

This is a good description of the change between the tiers. The campaign I'm a player in is in the Paragon tier now and I'm finding it a lot different than the heroic tier - pretty much as you describe. If we're not working together well and/or have a spate of bad rolls, things get pretty deadly pretty fast. You realize that all those healing surges don't really mean much when you only get to use two of them. Despite the impression the Heroic tier gives, morality is definitely an issue at the Paragon level.


Jeremy Mac Donald wrote:
I just want to say that I really like you sight. Its campy and fun and there are some interesting monsters there. While I'm not a S&S type gamer myself, preferring a game full of Wuxia moves, monsters are monsters and they pretty much work in whatever environment the DM designs for them. I love what your doing and will check in when searching for that elusive monster to add to my campaign...after all pulling something from the web to add to my adventure document is even easier then using adventure tools...and I'm all about the lazy.

Thanks, it was definitely my intention to create monsters that would be usable in different types of campaigns. If you do use any of the monsters I would love to hear about it.


The Scarlet Citadel - part one, is up.


Wow, sure beats Tower of Doom (which admittedly I fed far too many quarters into back in the day).
Thanks for the link.


John Robey wrote:

Thanks to reskinning, 4E can actually be very good at creating monsters for every mood -- I was going to try my hand at a 4E sword-and-sorcery campaign at one point and I had a lot of fun making the stats fit the story.

Unfortunately, on the players' side of the screen, the mechanics were still fighting against us the whole time. I think if I could have 4E monsters and PF characters, I'd consider it the best of both worlds!
-The Gneech

When it comes to creating characters, I have to agree, there is no beating the customization and versatility of 3.5/PF, but I think that 4e really shines when creating and running monsters. Rather than spending your time worrying about how a creature can accomplish something DMs can focus on what they want the creature to do.

(This isn't a knock against either edition, I just think each has its own strengths and weaknesses).


Fabes DM wrote:
Great stuff! Look forward to more.

Thanks, I'm working on the Scarlet Citadel right now.


In an effort to educate myself about the literary roots of the game, and improve my monster-fu in designing critters, I've started a new project over at my blog: Ménage à Monster called monsters of the Hyborian age. I'm reading through R.E.H's Complete Chronicles of Conan and each week (or so) I'll tackle another story with a stat-block and illustration (because strings of statistics without a picture suck). First up is the slave of the ring from the story the Phoenix on the Sword .

In general the blog gives me an outlet to deal with my obsession: monsters. So expect a lot of talk about D&D monsters across the editions.

Stop by and let me know what you think.


Dalgrim, son of Dalgror wrote:
...some great soundtracks

...but, you're only missing the most awesome gamer soundtrack ever recorded! The Conan soundtrack by Basil Poledouris! Play the first track while you're setting up the battlemat for an important combat encounter and let loose the dogs of war :)

Star Voter Season 6

This is cool. I imagine its power to sacrifice its zombies to heal and gain spell-like abilities would work something like a devourer. That would work nicely.

It's true that having to stat up zombies would be a pain, and not sure how much I buy the assassin angle, but what a cool picture. This is the kind of undead I want to throw at my players.

Star Voter Season 6

Add me to the list of people wondering why the thing 'fishes' with its tongue when it has a ranged attack.

Get rid of that and you've got a cool, blind, ninja frog (maybe Zatoichi Frog is better), with some fun and interesting tactics. I can imagine a cave full of a couple of these things making a great higher level underdark encounter (for some reason I just can't stop thinking of the ice toad illustration from against the giants).

Star Voter Season 6

Jason Nelson wrote:

It's very weird, but it's dancing along the edge of weird for weird's sake. The backstory is terrific, but will PCs ever have an occasion to learn any of it? Good or bad, the pitch here is for a bestiary-type monster, not a 4000-word write-up a la Dungeon Denizens Revisited and its brethren. This would be a fun monster to read about as a DM, but I'm less convinced of how fun and useful it is at the table. Maybe if the entry had a little more on the powers it would be easier to see it.

Overall: A neat idea, with a strange visual that might or might not be be cool (multicolored teeth - could be cool or could be lame). The controlling other people by pulling them into its land of insanity is cool - it reminds me of the supervillain Proteus from Marvel/X-Men comics. It's intriguing in its possibilities, but it's not quite coming together for me.

I've got to agree with this. I'll also add that you're writing is very good and I sincerely hope you make it to the next round just so I can read it. On the other hand I'm really worried about the visual here - the first thing I thought when I read it was the disembodied mouth from the Burger King commercials, and that's not good.

However, like I said I may just have to vote for this to see what you do.

Star Voter Season 6

Wicht wrote:
I kind of like this creature but it seems to me to simply be a renamed nurgling without the campaign fluff. Its not an exact match but that was the first thing that came to mind when I read the beast's description.

Is it weird that I love those little guys?

I also immediately thought of nurglings when I read this entry, but I think Lief went way beyond what was a possible inspiration or starting point and went a long way with it. I think its a great monster because there are things I absolutely love about it, but it isn't a perfect monster, because there are things I absolutely hate.

To Love:
-The visual
-The hit and run tactics combined with the desire to spread infection
-origin and the potential for tie-ins (I mean, think of all the improperly disposed of corpses adventurers leave in their wake - there would be a veritable army of these things chasing after the party)

To Hate (but easily fixed to make the perfect monster :)
-The name (I'll add my vote to the revenant cyst - that sounds cool)
-Creature type (I'll echo the judges). Making it a fey or aberration just seems like you're being cute with the creature type. With a cyst for a body and rib bones for tusks and claws it's so clearly an undead. Maybe its an undead from the fey world, but its still an undead. These things seem like the perfect fodder for Clerics and Paladins to smite into oblivion - don't take that away from them.

Sorry if the criticisms seem harsh, I just think that this great creature could become a perfect one (I want to see this in print dangnabbit).

Star Voter Season 6

Clark Peterson wrote:


We didnt like the messing with magic items (potions) and reference was made to the old AD&D potion combination table in less than flattering ways as an example of bad old school design. Now, in fairness yours doesnt do that. We also didnt like the math homework. Actually, it was just Sean and I that didnt like it. We got it before Wes read it.

The biggest problem is that an item that takes two magic items, deconstructs them and changes them really is more of an artifact. Its disenchanting and reenchanting all at once. I got what you were going for. We just werent buying.

Thanks for the honest critique. It's funny you mention the potion miscibility tables - the idea definitely came up when I was hammering out the concept in conversation with my partner. I can see what you are saying about it being more of a minor artifact than a wondrous item.

Time to take a break and enjoy the show (lets see how the 32 handle the monster concept) before girding myself for Superstar 2011!

Star Voter Season 6

I like this item. In fact I think it's the best Bard item this year.

Here's why I don't think its just a spell-in-a-can. It takes the spell effect (zone of truth) and tweaks it into the established rules for bardic performance (substituting Perform for some other skill, save, or DC). It basically adds a new bardic ability that most players would find useful. I also think that opposed rolls (bluff vs. perform) are inherently more exciting to play out than the enemy simply making a Will save (zone of truth). I have a great image in my head of a Bard, sweat poring from his brow, furiously strumming the lyre trying to trip up a silver tongued assassin or mind-controlled cats-paw.

That said I think the changes SKR recommended would make the item even better.

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