Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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Having finished reading the entries, I got notion to do a quick breakdown on exactly what we ended up getting monster-wise, both in type and toughness. For your amusement purposes, the following:
Type
6 Undead (2 templates)
4 Construct (1 template), Ooze (1 template)
3 Fey, Magical Beast (1 template)
2 Monstrous Humanoid
1 Outsider, Plant
0 Aberration, Animal, Dragon, Elemental, Giant, Humanoid, Vermin
I don't think it's surprising that undead ended up the most common, but would anybody EVER have guessed construct and ooze would be in a tie for second place? And no aberrations? With the deranged minds left in the contest (mine included)?
BTW, if you made 'templates' a separate category of monster, it would have finished in 1st place - 5 total templates vs. 4 non-templated undead.
CR
5 CR 5
4 CR 6
2 CR 4, 8, 9, 10, 15
1 CR 1, 2, 3, 7, 11
Nothing too surprising. In the comments threads after last round, people definitely asked for easily playable monsters. Most of the entries were right in the mid-level wheelhouse, only a handful in double-digit CR, and nothing over 15. I'm curious how a CR 18-20 uber-monster would have been received in this round. Might be something worth trying if this contest is repeated with similar tasks.
There were 5 templates, and I went ahead and rolled in the sample creatures for each template to the total for each CR. (Weirdly, if I hadn't added in the CR 1 dream goblin, my entry would have had both the lowest (2) and highest (a tie at 15) CR creatures.)
Constructs make nice themes, but having oozes but no aberrations is a tad odd. Maybe people felt like filling the gaps.
And generally I have noticed that very few people during the entire contest have done anything with dragons. What happened to Dungeons & Dragons?
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And generally I have noticed that very few people during the entire contest have done anything with dragons. What happened to Dungeons & Dragons?
There's a perception that D&D gamers are oversaturated with dragons and tired of them. It's not true in my case, but I could see it being an issue for some.
But hey, I'm the bozo who keeps playing the same CD over and over until my roommate goes psychotic and destroys it before they haul him away, so what do I know about overdone?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I have noticed that very few people during the entire contest have done anything with dragons. What happened to Dungeons & Dragons?
Speaking for myself: I already have dragons, thanks.
When I throw a dragon encounter at my players, I don't introduce them to a rage drake, or an elemental-fire dragon, or flame drake, or the scarlet-swarm dragon, or any of the several dozen new and exciting variations in DRAGON magazine, or based off DreamBlade minis.
I have the chance the DM an encounter that touches the base of the game experience, and so the party encounters a red dragon.
(There was once an exception:
The PC's noticed and, in their interrogation of his corpse, asked him about that. His ghost explained that he had tried to use an actual red dragon, but there were none within his summoning power, so he'd made do with what he could find. The party shrugged it off...
...and were surprised by the Githyanki / Red Dragon invasion, four levels later.
I tend to avoid dragons just because I think that dragons should be impressive. Really impressive. And thus should only be encountered occasionally.
I do have a country that is dragon heavy in my campaign, but it's far away and difficult to get to. And the PCs are scared of it. As they should be.
When I throw a dragon encounter at my players, I don't introduce them to a rage drake, or an elemental-fire dragon, or flame drake, or the scarlet-swarm dragon, or any of the several dozen new and exciting variations in DRAGON magazine, or based off DreamBlade minis.
It wasn't just this round: there were no dragon villains, and I can`t remember if any of the countries featured dragons.
It's a bit odd, I think.
aka Robert G. McCreary
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It wasn't just this round: there were no dragon villains, and I can`t remember if any of the countries featured dragons.
It's a bit odd, I think.
I was originally going to do a dragon (even had it mostly statted out), but I changed my theme and so dropped it. (An ooze dragon, anyone? Nope, I didn't think so either.)
That being said, there is a dragon in The Ooze Imperium, albeit a bit hidden. It's the silver great wyrm palanquin of the Ooze Imperator. Not a new dragon perhaps, but better than nothing! :)
CHOOSE OOZE!
I was originally going to do a dragon (even had it mostly statted out), but I changed my theme and so dropped it. (An ooze dragon, anyone? Nope, I didn't think so either.)
I fought one of those. It was a pain.
Played in an event where they had a Gargantuan black with the gelatinous template. Oh, and a nifty little ability where it spat out a black pudding every d4 rounds or something.
I think that may have been the very last combat ever where I cast shield other.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I was originally going to do a dragon (even had it mostly statted out), but I changed my theme and so dropped it. (An ooze dragon, anyone? Nope, I didn't think so either.)
Oh, yes. Ihad great succedd with an ooze dragon once.
In another campaign, in the middle of the Red Hand of Doom (can you tell I like the adventure?), the party decided to investigate to see what was going on with good-aligned dragons.
(I suspect some were thinking there was going to be like a DragonLance set-up, where they would eventually find and unlock the secret that allows the good dragons to come ally with them.) There is one metalicdragon in the module, the corpse of the bronze dragon in the Fane of Tiamat.
But what's it doin' there? And while I was at it, could I address why there weren't any white dragons in the adventure?
So I came up with a ill-fated love between the male bronze dragon and a female white. When the High Wyrmlord found out about it, he set a trap for them. The cult slowly killed the bronze dragon, and turned the white dragon into a semi-intelligent dragon-shaped goo (gelatinous creature template, Savage Species), in front of one another, so she saw him disembowled, and he saw her intelligence fade into grief.
And they set her as a guardian over part of the Fane. All she had the brain-power to say was her name, the name of her love, and that she was terribly, terribly sorry. She no longer remembered who that name was, or why she was sorry, or that she'd ever loved him.
The party, seeing a gargantuan gelatinous white dragon, attacked on the spot.
I tend to avoid dragons just because I think that dragons should be impressive. Really impressive. And thus should only be encountered occasionally.
I concur. I have only fought, in my 18 years a mere four dragons and thrown them against a party about as many times. Dragons should be used spareingly, to great effect.
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I tend to avoid dragons just because I think that dragons should be impressive. Really impressive. And thus should only be encountered occasionally.
I agree with this. My game-setting has only a few known dragons, and they almost all have their own domains. In total there are between five to eight 'true dragons' (fire, song, storm, decay, winter, sun, moon/mist and shadow) in the world, and most of them would be the end of an epic adventure path to reach. The Storm and Winter dragons would be the only ones likely to be encountered outside of an established power-base (as the Storm dragon doesn't seem to have one, and the Winter dragon roams widely, vainly attempting to curb it's insatiable hunger by plucking whales out of the sea).
But I love dragon-based themes, which serve to reinforce the vast powers commanded by the dragons themselves, and have no problem with half-dragons, draconic creatures, dragonwrought kobolds, pact-bound adepts, etc.