Jim Groves' Ardorwesp


Round 3: Create a Bestiary entry

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Liberty's Edge Contributor, RPG Superstar 2012 , Star Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 9

You provided nice interpretations of the ardorwesp's abilities and gave the creature reasonable motivations for making alliances. You also picked up the thread about Calistria from the round 2 entry.

Nice work, and I wish you luck in this round!

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7

What I don't like:

1. I still don't know *why* it's called an "Ardorwesp". There's still nothing here that says "ardor" to me.

2. It's ecology still makes no sense. It favors magical beasts, familiars and fey for its young. But any sentient creature will do. These things have an Intelligence of 10, so this isn't instinct at work. They know any sentient creature will do.

With an Intelligence of 10 they should know to avoid magical beasts, familiars (and their accompanying people) and fey, and instead prey on really weak sentient creatures like goblins or kobolds. That prey is likely to be much more common and really no match for a swarm of wesps.

Limiting it to magical beasts and other magical creatures would make more sense to me. It increases the likelihood of encounters with PCs and its needing magic to grow explains why casting a spell on an implanted victim causes a wasp to burst out.

3. Did you compare this to the giant wasp when you made it? Both are CR 3, but when I compare them, the ardorwesp seems more powerful.

The wasp inflicts slightly more damage, as it only needs one hit versus the wesp's three, and has better hp. But the wesp has a higher AC and DR 5.

In addition, while the wesp's paralysis has an easier save, it only takes one failure to paralyze a creature, compared to the wasp's 6 possible saves with only 1d2 dexterity damage each time. I'd give the wesp the advantage there.

Finally, the wesp has adamantine claws, telepathy and the intelligence necessary to use tactics and interact with people.

All that makes me wonder if the wesp needs to be bumped up a CR (or maybe the giant wasp is on the bottom of CR 3 and this is at the top).

What I like:

I do think you did a good job writing this, and it is nice to see lower CR creatures. I was not a fan of this last round and your work really warmed me to it. Between that and your work in rounds one and two, you're still one of my favorites.


Quote:
Also, no monster that uses wings to fly has perfect manuverability, so you can't fault the ardorwesp for only having good manuverability.

Make that no LISTED monster does, but that's only because there is no listing for a giant dragonfly :-)

A dragonfly can hover, changed directions easily, and even fly backwards. I'd have to say if statted up, that would qualify for perfect.

Anyhow, love the way this creature turned out, although I am still not a fan of setting-specific creature names or references. I prefer my creatures to be more general; if I bring this into my game, my players will be asking "Where's Andor?" (except for the one who's more-or-less a rules marshall). Still, it works for me, and gets my vote.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16 aka tejón

I was not an ardorwesp fan, which makes this the third creature in a row which I like a lot better this round. I still don't love the core creature; many of the reasons are stated by Eric Randall, just above. It's got a lot of aspects that beg questions. However, you did a fine job padding the corners.

Some of the rules are a bit clunky. The judges didn't seem to particularly mind that the Armorbane ability targets two different DCs, but except for a few "miss by 5" effects on skill checks, that's something I've seen 3e specifically avoid; for instance, delivering a touch attack with a fist requires that you hit the full AC, rather than checking both. Beyond that, I think the ability might be too good to start with. Making it trigger from critical hits (and giving them a 19-20 threat) would probably work better.

Hmm. I'm picking on minutiae. Yeah... overall, this is pretty damn solid.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16 aka tejón

I voted for this.


Erik Randall wrote:
...2. It's ecology still makes no sense. It favors magical beasts, familiars and fey for its young. But any sentient creature will do. These things have an Intelligence of 10, so this isn't instinct at work. They know any sentient creature will do...

Going over the Implant ability, it says that magical beasts and fey get a penalty to their save against the ability. I assume that means that they're less likely to reject (in game terms by making their saving throw) an implant attempt once they're paralysed, and so makes them the most optimal hosts to target.

Liberty's Edge RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16 , Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9 aka JoelF847

Since I'm behind on R3, I'm going to be brief. I liked this entry, despite some minor technical issues. I thought the R2 version was interesting, but didn't like that it only made sense as a Calistra themed monster, but it wasn't able to be one since R2 banned world specific content. Therefore, the single best thing you did was to directly link the Ardowesp to Calistra in your write up, as the R2 version tried to - I particularly like that you included it as a summon monster choice - good job there! I do have to agree though, that a reference to it's name would have been helpful - especially to those who aren't followers of Golarion, and don't know Calistra from Pharasma.

The smoke vulnerability was a great addition - not only does it fit well with the giant bug theme, but I like monsters with a weakness that rewards the use of knowledge skills and/or crafty players. As much as I like it though, there's a problem, with it. By limiting the description to smokesticks and pyrotechnics spells, you technically make it unaffected by other smoke. What about an eversmoking bottle? What about just a lot of smoke from a fire? Similarly, there could be other smoke effects in supplements that haven't even been written yet - so a more general way to describe the smoke that can trigger this ability would be better.

I also like what you did with the armorbane property, and while I don't have an issue with the name, armor rending might have been better. By making it a) tie to CMD and b) do damage equal to the claw attack, you make this a nasty surprize for PCs, but not overpowered by instantly destroying their armor. After taking a hit once that damages their armor, I can see heavy armor characters suddenly running away out of melee range, using combat expertise or fighting defensively, etc. In fact, I wish you had used a similar thought process with the implant/cure spell trap. Instead of being an all or nothing ability (1 hp cured = brand new ardorwesp) you could have set a total - so that the egg hatches after the host receives 15 hit points of magical healing. A lesser amount would let the victim feel the egg grow in size (and maybe cancel the healing by dealing an equal amount of damage), and thus warn the PC that they better get the egg out before getting more healing.

Despite these issues, I like what you did here, and will probably be voting for your entry. Great job!

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7

Charles Evans 25 wrote:
Erik Randall wrote:
...2. It's ecology still makes no sense. It favors magical beasts, familiars and fey for its young. But any sentient creature will do. These things have an Intelligence of 10, so this isn't instinct at work. They know any sentient creature will do...

Going over the Implant ability, it says that magical beasts and fey get a penalty to their save against the ability. I assume that means that they're less likely to reject (in game terms by making their saving throw) an implant attempt once they're paralysed, and so makes them the most optimal hosts to target.

It only makes them optimal if the risk of attacking them is less than the gain from that -3. For some magical beasts, it might be. But magical beasts do have Fortitude saves as one of their good saves, while humanoids (for example) do not.

Most of the fey these things might encounter have a selection of charm effects while ardorwesps have a weak Will save. Many fey also have DR that is overcome by cold iron, not adamantine, so the wesp may not even succeed on its attacks.

Familiars are usually in the company of wizards, who are dangerous foes alone, and even more so in groups.

In all, it is a lot of danger and work for that -3. A few of the magical beasts may be worth it, but I don't see them taking on fey or familiars unless desperate. (Interestingly, most of its preferred prey doesn't wear armor, but the creature has adamantine attacks and armor rending.)

Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9

Erik Randall wrote:


1. I still don't know *why* it's called an "Ardorwesp". There's still nothing here that says "ardor" to me.

"Ardor," as in:

1: extreme vigor or energy
2: sexual excitement

The whole "I'ma gonna implant you with my lovehate-child that's gonna burst out of your gut in the morning" doesn't say "twisted sexual excitement and extreme vigor" to you? ;)

Erik Randall wrote:


In addition, while the wesp's paralysis has an easier save, it only takes one failure to paralyze a creature, compared to the wasp's 6 possible saves with only 1d2 dexterity damage each time. I'd give the wesp the advantage there.

I'd note that each failed save of the giant wasp's poison is going to make a target easier to hit, which increases damage over time, time the wasp has due to the increased hit points.

A lower AC means more power attacking from the party, which reduces the significance of the DR.

-Ben.


Good job! Good luck! [I think the entry speaks for itself this time]


This is one of the cleanest examples of a stat block this round, and gets the first of my top 3 votes.

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7

terraleon wrote:

The whole "I'ma gonna implant you with my lovehate-child that's gonna burst out of your gut in the morning" doesn't say "twisted sexual excitement and extreme vigor" to you? ;)

That really just says "wasp" to me. Nothing written about this creature makes me think it is any more ardorous than any other wasp.

terraleon wrote:


Erik Randall wrote:


In addition, while the wesp's paralysis has an easier save, it only takes one failure to paralyze a creature, compared to the wasp's 6 possible saves with only 1d2 dexterity damage each time. I'd give the wesp the advantage there.
I'd note that each failed save of the giant wasp's poison is going to make a target easier to hit, which increases damage over time, time the wasp has due to the increased hit points.

Every other failed save. The victim is only easier to hit if they roll a 2. But it's a good point, and I'll give the giant wasp a little more respect for the "you die slowly" bit. :)

terraleon wrote:


A lower AC means more power attacking from the party, which reduces the significance of the DR.

Except that the ardorwesp is the one with DR and it has an AC 4 points higher than the giant wasp. So there is less power attacking on it than on the giant wasp.

I'm just curious how it holds up to another CR 3 creature in the same niche. It's probably not a CR 4 creature (gargoyles and harpies live in CR 4 and they're pretty tough), but I am curious.

I may have to carve out some time to run a couple of encounters with each and see.


Lief Clennon wrote:


Some of the rules are a bit clunky. The judges didn't seem to particularly mind that the Armorbane ability targets two different DCs, but except for a few "miss by 5" effects on skill checks, that's something I've seen 3e specifically avoid;

Off the top of my head, I can think of 2 examples in 3e that use this... climb checks and swim checks. There are probably more, but I'm not at home and without a PHB.

As for this submission, I also wasn't a fan of the original ardorwesp. While this entry had a few quirks I didn't like (see Erik Randall's comment on the -3 save, for one), overall it stayed close to the original concept (something I was looking for this round). What you did add was an improvement, in my opinion.

Once again, you got my vote. Keep up the good work.


Congratulations on making it through to Round 4, Watcher.

Belated Edit:
And I notice that on another thread you have posted that you had been unwell recently. :( I hope that you are now well on the road to recovery.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Charles Evans 25 wrote:


Belated Edit:
And I notice that on another thread you have posted that you had been unwell recently. :( I hope that you are now well on the road to recovery.

Thanks Charles. I don't want to belabor discussion of that because I don't want it misconstrued that I want any sympathy. Deadlines are deadlines in business, and rules are rules in contests. That being said, it did get worse before it got better, but I'm not in bad shape now. I'm never going to go down easy, and I'm never going to take the faith that people put in me for granted.

I do want to say two things:

First, I'm aware of the growing sentiment of that excessive 'thank you's' are more of a distraction and an annoyance than anything else. So I'm toning that down. However, now that the voting is over I do want to do this one 'general' thank you to every person who voted for me. If you can't hear the sincerity in my words, please know that they're there in my heart. Getting this far in the contest has meant so much to me, and I couldn't have done it without you. Thank you.

Second: I want to apologize, but I have to postpone my response to the questions and comments concerning the ardorwesp. Dealing with real life has cost me any free time that I could spare to write about Round 3. I hope you'll understand that I need to focus on Round 4 first, and then maybe next week I can go back and catch up. Like Mr. Spicer, I love to write at great length, but I have set some priorities.

Thanks again everybody!

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Jim Groves wrote:
...Like Mr. Spicer, I love to write at great length....

What?! Hey! Who says I love to write at great length?!

Oh. Right. It was me. Heh.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Hi there folks!

Now that Round 4 is in the hands of the Judges, I have some free time to do some Q & A on the ardorwesp. Similarly, while I really held off on elaborating on the ardorwesp due to health and time constraints, this seems like a more appropriate moment to talk about the ardorwesp, as I won’t be impacting on any potential Round 4 entry.

I’m going to be following Richard A. Hunt’s excellent format by going through the thread and picking out specific questions first and answering them to the best of my ability. Then I’ll go back through and pull out choice rhetorical comments and observations and reply to those as well. However, first thing I’ll do is write a short statement about how I approached this Round and the inherent challenges that I noticed that maybe no one else picked up on.

I warn you! This will be a long post! However, I’ll break it up as best I’m able.

Spoiler:

My own thoughts and reflections on the ardorwesp in hindsight

First of all, I want to thank Alex MacLeod for letting me play with his magnificent beastie. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was far from my least favorite either. It was built with a theme in mind and I appreciated that. Frankly, I also selected it because I didn’t think there would be a lot of other versions of it (which was correct), and because I thought it could be designed well under CR 6. Add to that, I had a good insight on how to handle the sundering ability that was described in the text. Those are all the good things!

Bright and early on Thursday morning, after having struggled with it Wednesday evening, a few things dawned on me. The role that the ardorwesp fills is that of a flying melee opponent. However, it is Tiny in the original text (“as big as a house cat”), but nevertheless it’s a non-swarm melee fighter. Think on that for a few moments. That’s a brick wall I slammed into that nobody (including me) picked up on in the original write-up. Thanks to weapon finesse the attack rolls can be adjusted upwards, but where do you get the damage output? (That’s a rhetorical question; my final design answers it to the best of my ability). If I increase the strength, it would be a ridiculous with a flying cat sized creature picking up one end of a sofa. Pathfinder / 3.5 works with a flat strength scale, not a proportional one. Table 3-1: Natural Attacks By Size (on page 302 of the Bestiary) provides guidelines for natural attacks according to the size of the creature. The table allows you to deviate from it (which I did eventually), but one has to be able to ‘sell’ how much you deviate from it.

As it stands, I deliberately and purposefully deviated from the Paralysis ability, and that was not received well. Don’t worry, we’ll talk about it and why.

At this point, I almost chucked the ardorwesp and started over with the lahamu. I’m glad I didn’t make that decision, even if the ardorwesp has been considered semi-controversial. I really wanted Jason Bulmahn to give me an A, particularly since my knowledge of mechanics has been questioned ever since seducer’s bane. That being said, every time you advance to the next Round, one should celebrate and not question it. :D

One decision I made was to increase the size to Small. From there I was able to more comfortably increase the claw damage output. Both Bite and Claw are considered primary attacks, but based on Alex’s description, I treated the claw attacks as the more dangerous of the two types.

Another final comment of my own- I felt it was my job to interpret the ardorwesp mechanically. I approached the Round as if I had been contracted by an Editor to make a creature based on a written concept. Part of fulfilling that obligation is not to just gutting the concept and submitting something else that superficially resembles what I was given to start with. Many people didn’t like the ardorwesp to start with, and I tried my best to make them like it. I’m proud that in a great many cases I succeeded. However, some of the issues I felt were just extensions of the individual’s dislike of the creature from Round 2. I categorically could have selected another monster, that’s quite true. However, I chose this one and I played with the cards I was dealt. I still feel believe that is the best way to approach the challenges of this particular Round.

Specific questions

Jared Goodwin wrote:
It's a metal wasp. How does it make alliances with humanoids if it can't speak?

Actually it is a wasp that has a partially metallic carapace and exoskeleton; hence the DR/bludgeoning, because it is organic inside and subject to being ‘swatted’.

The communication issue was a critique in the original ardorwesp write-up by Alex MacLeod, and I specifically addressed the concern. The ardorwesp is intelligent and speaks two languages, Elven being its native language (as being sacred to an elven goddess), and it gets Common by default. Neither my or Alex’s write-up suggest that it is deaf. I added telepathy to its abilities, and that is right in the stat-block. It can hear spoken language and reply telepathically.

Jared Goodwin wrote:
Speaking of the paralysis, how does it work? Is it poison, do they bite your spine, what?

It is a toxin, because that fits with the theme of being an insect. That will beg the question of why I based it off Cha instead of Con, which I’ll address later in this post. As for biting specific body locations, I compared it to other monsters written in the Bestiary and didn’t see the necessity to add that level of detail, i.e. where it bites in order to paralyze you. How the poison attacks the system is certainly a worthwhile topic for an Ecology of the ardorwesp article, but wasn’t appropriate here and with the word count allowed.

”Charles Evans 25” wrote:
Like other posters I'm not clear on why the paralysis is Charisma based in this case?

And this seems to be one of the bigger questions, so let’s tackle it! Charles, I’m not going to try to side-step this, or sell you a bill of goods. I did it because I wanted the Save DC to be higher, period. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake, but it was no accident. I did it on purpose. (I feel I have to underscore that, because of the perception that I’m unclear on the rules sometimes).

Now let me tell you why I did it. The ardorwesp is under-performing in damage output in melee combat. It not only does less than average damage for it’s CR, it’s a point shy of the recommended lower level of damage output. In the spirit of monster creation as outlined in Appendix 1 (starting on page 290 of the Bestiary), when a creature lags in one attack or ability, it is considered acceptable to boost it in another ability. A CR 3 creature should be doing between 13 and 9 points of damage (or 11), when considering all of its attacks to have be successful. You determine a creature’s average damage output by looking at the damage of all its attacks, and using Table 1-5 from the Bestiary on pg 293 to determine what the die rolls would equate to. Now let’s look at the actual ardorwesp I submitted. The ardorwesp’s damage output is 8.5, or if you round down.. 8.

The best target number is 11. The minimum should be a flat 9.

So I goosed the Paralysis save, by having it based off of Cha instead of Con. I justified (to myself) see-sawing the Paralysis Save up because of the lowered damage output. And I got called on it. :D It was red-flagged.

That being said, there was a method to my madness. Damage output was the secret issue with this monster. If you give it more strength it looks silly. Increase the size, and you’re not staying true to the original write-up and intruding on the niche the giant wasp. There are practically NO creatures in the Bestiary with bonus feats, so I considered using a bonus feat to be bad design. I already deviated from the natural attacks slightly, and didn’t want to push it with Improved Natural Attack; and again, I would have to sacrifice either Flyby Attack or Weapon Finesse, both of which were thematically perfect. I could have taken Ability Focus for Paralysis, but again, I had no feats to spare. Weapon Specialization has Weapon Focus as a prerequisite. <shrug>

Ultimately, I should have left the Paralysis based on Con and been done with it, and let the damage output be what it was; or just sacrificed the Flyby Attack. Hard choices, Charles. Hard choices.

Incidentally, the damage output makes me take the armor sundering complaints with some perspective.

”Charles Evans 25” wrote:
Which being the case, the skills maths is correct but leaves the question of 'why does this creature which relies on flying to get around only have one rank in Fly?' instead.

Well, when I handed out the skill points I looked at what the final skill bonus would be rather than just the number of skill points I was assigning. I realize that Alex MacLeod wrote that they’re “amazing” flyers, but how much do I have to gimp the creature in order to match the prose? I actually discussed this issue with my proof-readers and we had a debate about the actual benefit of bloating the Fly skill past the point of a good return on the investment of skill points. For example: turning greater than a 45 degree angle by spending 5 feet of movement is difficult (DC 15), but the ardorwesp as submitted can barely fail that roll! Not shabby for CR 3! If you roll anything greater or equal to a 3, it will succeed. The one or two skill points I could have invested didn’t seem worth it. However that one skill point I did invest gave the creature the +3 class skill bonus. That was sensible in my opinion.

I was pleased that I gave it Bluff and Intimidate, as those seemed to be logical tie-ins with Calistria. The end result was well rounded creature.

”Joel Flank” wrote:
By limiting the description to smokesticks and pyrotechnics spells, you technically make it unaffected by other smoke. What about an eversmoking bottle? What about just a lot of smoke from a fire? Similarly, there could be other smoke effects in supplements that haven't even been written yet - so a more general way to describe the smoke that can trigger this ability would be better.

You’re absolutely correct Joel. My intention was that any smoke would have this effect, and the example of pyrotechnics and a smokestick were only intended to spark the imagination of how PCs could quickly generate a good amount of smoke in combat. However I would not restrict this ‘weakness’ (since it’s not a vulnerability) to just combat situations. Given the opportunity I would correct this. Good catch!

Rhetorical Comments and Observations

F. Wesley Schneider wrote:
There's a few turns in there I don't like - an odd numbered penalty/bonus is a bit unusual, and making the reader go to rules for another ability to understand the Heal check is awkward.

Oddly enough, out of all the critiques and observations this one affected me the most. Not that I take it personally at all, it’s great feedback, but the Heal Check was something I put a lot of time and thought into how I would present it.

First, I’m puzzled by the ‘odd numbered penalty/bonus’ remark. I don’t understand it, and I’m not sure what I did wrong. I’ve started to ask around about this, but I’m not seeing what is wrong about it. Again, I’m not offended or defensive, but for the moment it is going over my head.

Regarding the Heal check; I tried hard to emulate Alex’s original text which gives the impression that the egg can be removed surgically. The Heal check is the only model the game has to simulate that sort of action. What I was seeing in the playtesting was people rushing up to the implanted character and saying “I do a Heal check” and rolling their dice. That’s not surgery. That’s not what the original text was describing.

In fact, if I can segue for a moment- I can’t remember the last time anybody really bought healing kits in any game I GMed or played in. I rarely can remember very many people taking the Heal skill at all. Usually you have a cleric or at least a wand of cure light wounds. Pathfinder / 3.5 is highly dependent on magical healing. That’s part of what makes the ardorwesp so maddening. Which some people appreciate, and some people loathe. However, I’m not trying to teach people a lesson! I’m trying to stay true and authentic to the creature I chose to write up.

I got questions at playtest like, “Can I take 20?” Which you can’t do in any case, because that implies automatic failure prior to making a genuine success. Or, “Can I roll if Cleric Bob fails?” That’s not surgery.

By making the egg a deadly wound, the described action in the Core book simulates surgery. That is, it takes 1 hour and you need supplies in order to cut it out, dress the wound, and stitch them back up- all of which is covered in your healing kit.

I could have written it better. Example:

“This violent, traumatic birth inflicts 3d8 points of damage. The egg may be removed prior to hatching with a remove disease spell or surgically with a DC 20 Heal check, treating it as a deadly wound.”

Or I could have relented and just allowed the GM to interpret a Heal check however they like. I was torn on how well to honor the original write-up. Case in point, not living up to the perception of being an “amazing flyer” gets red-flagged, surely softballing this part of the original description would have too?

I would love to hear your advice on this Wes, time permitting.

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Format comments

I hang my head in shame. I should have looked much more closely at the example format. When I wrote the ardorwesp up I typed it from hand while looking at the printed out e-mail that we received from Ross. I should have copied and pasted the format from the website to Word, and then deleted all the example text. I never noticed the uniform number of equal signs.

Regarding “Damage Resistance”, I probably had a Hero System flashback or something.

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
I like the Armor Bane ability, though I don't like the name.

I second guessed myself badly. I had it as rend armor and I blinked. I pounded my head on the desk after I read this; not only because you didn’t like it, but because when it was called ‘rend armor’ the special abilities were alphabetized, which was another one of your critiques. I forgot to re-alphabetize them after I changed the name.

If any 2011 contestants read this: ‘Don’t second guess yourself!’

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Buried in the creature's description is the bit about familiars and such being easily detected as if the ardorwesp had scent; that sort of thing should be in the stat block somewhere.

I’m not sure how I would have formatted it, because the ardorwesp has scent to start with? Would it have fit in the Senses line? Sean, if you read this, could I have added this as a special ability?

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
Given its metal components (especially adamantine), as a player I'd want to know why I couldn't retrieve some metal bits from this thing as treasure.

Agreed. I should have found a few words for this.

”Charles Evans 25” wrote:
Even though it was written for 3.5 rules, based on the way that the Rovagug article in the fifth installment of the Legacy of Fire adventure path expanded the summon monster lists for clerics of Rovagug's faith, my guess is that any ardorwesps summoned by means of summon monster IV by Calistrian clerics should be described as gaining the extraplanar subtype.

I drew my inspiration from Sean’s write-up of Calistria in PF 17, Part 5 of Second Darkness. I thought about this Charles, and finally I took a good hard look at summon monster, particularly the chart on page 351 of the Core Book. Normal creatures and giant normal creatures seem to get a template, but extraplanars do not. However, per SKR’s write-up of Calistria, summon monster v gets you an spider eater without a template, which is a large magical beast. I made a judgment call and decided no templates for magical beasts with SKR’s write-up being the only precedent I had.

”roguerogue” wrote:
Their 10s in Wisdom and Intelligence don't scream craftiness to me, and their passion is not connected to their reproductive cycle at all. Other than the weird bee theme of that goddess, I'm not seeing it.

This was also some matter of discussion with playtesters and proofreaders, as I had the Int up to 12. Part of me wishes I had left it at 12, but what came out of the discussion was relativity. That being Int and Wis of 10 is really intelligent and crafty for any vermin. Of course, this is a magical beast and not vermin, but the insect theme is there. I suppose I was concerned about bloating the stats of a CR 3 melee opponent without good cause.

The passion, for me, comes out of their territorial nature and chaotic neutral alignment. I don’t go for CN as crazy, but I was trying to moderate Alex’s “violent” description because it rubbed against their ability to form alliances in a bad way. You’ll notice I described them as “temperamental”. I do see your point however.

”Eric Morton” wrote:
The implant ability could have been slightly improved, since a -3 penalty seems somewhat random, and the meaning of "juvenile ardorwesp" needs to be clarified. Presumably, it is an ardorwesp with the young template, but it would have helped your entry if it also specified that juvenile ardorwesps cannot use the implant attack, thus preventing 'ardorwesp farming.'

Exactly Eric. You said it so well I’m not even going to belabor it.

”Erik Randall” wrote:

It favors magical beasts, familiars and fey for its young. But any sentient creature will do. These things have an Intelligence of 10, so this isn't instinct at work. They know any sentient creature will do.

With an Intelligence of 10 they should know to avoid magical beasts, familiars (and their accompanying people) and fey, and instead prey on really weak sentient creatures like goblins or kobolds. That prey is likely to be much more common and really no match for a swarm of wesps.
Limiting it to magical beasts and other magical creatures would make more sense to me. It increases the likelihood of encounters with PCs and its needing magic to grow explains why casting a spell on an implanted victim causes a wasp to burst out.

You touch upon some worthwhile points. The problem with limiting it to magical creatures is that you really eliminate their use as an antagonist of the PCs. One thing I definitely wanted to avoid was them implanting cows and dogs and the like, because that really would lead to a population explosion (which would be countered by the lack of food supply, but it would still be an instant problem). Sentient creatures opens them up to being a threat to small villages; or sets them up to bully a tribe of goblins into doing what the ardorwesps want or face being implanted themselves. Limiting as you suggest only makes them a threat to pixies and unicorns, who the PCs might want to help; however this way there are many other different ways to get them engaged in a story.

”life Clennon” wrote:
The judges didn't seem to particularly mind that the Armorbane ability targets two different DCs, but except for a few "miss by 5" effects on skill checks, that's something I've seen 3e specifically avoid; for instance, delivering a touch attack with a fist requires that you hit the full AC, rather than checking both. Beyond that, I think the ability might be too good to start with. Making it trigger from critical hits (and giving them a 19-20 threat) would probably work better.

Actually, armorbane isn’t as big a threat as one might think. I have an entire Excel spreadsheet devoted to an in-depth analysis of the effectiveness of it.

No foolin’. ;D

What I personally like about it is that it doesn’t require an additional roll or save. It’s straight-forward. But enough of me blowin’ my own trumpet, let me tell you what I see.

This list represents the average number of times an ardorwesp MUST exceed both the AC and the CMD of a target with a claw attack, and roll at least average damage, in order to give their armor a broken condition. Not destroyed mind you, but just broken.

Studded leather (small) = 2
Chain shirt (small) = 2
Studded leather (medium) = 3
Chain shirt (medium) = 4
Scale mail = 4
Breastplate = 5
Full plate = 7

Studded leather +1 (small) = 3
Chain shirt +1 (small) = 4
Studded leather +1 (medium) = 4
Chain shirt +1 (medium) = 5
Scale mail +1 = 6
Breastplate +1 = 6
Fullplate +1 = 8

Now that might look scary, but you need to figure that the ardorwesp needs to beat the AC and CMD, roll at least average damage; while the GM considers what the ratio of ‘wesps to the PCs is going to be. One ardorwesp to (4) 3rd level PCs and all of a sudden this doesn’t look so bad to me. For example, is the ardorwesp going to be able to really stay focused on just one target? That luxury doesn’t usually happen a lot at CR 3 (though I grant you paralysis might change that, but after the ardorwesp implants a target does it actually have to hang around?) The fighter is going to be mad more than anything, because of the minor repair bill. That is if the wizard doesn’t patch it up with the mending cantrip.

Whew! Word tells me this monster post is pages long! You’ll forgive me if I probably don’t look back at the ardorwesp after this post, but if you read all of it- you’re a superstar too! Sincerely, I do appreciate the support and I hope I answered your questions. I didn’t take any of it personally, and I hope I can show you all how much I learned from this.
--Jim

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32 , Star Voter Season 7

Jim Groves wrote:
You touch upon some worthwhile points. The problem with limiting it to magical creatures is that you really eliminate their use as an antagonist of the PCs. One thing I definitely wanted to avoid was them implanting cows and dogs and the like, because that really would lead to a population explosion (which would be countered by the lack of food supply, but it would still be an instant problem). Sentient creatures opens them up to being a threat to small villages; or sets them up to bully a tribe of goblins into doing what the ardorwesps want or face being implanted themselves. Limiting as you suggest only makes them a threat to pixies and unicorns, who the PCs might want to help; however this way there are many other different ways to get them engaged in a story.

I agree. It is also my preference for them to attack a broad range of creatures (and I love that you limited it to sentient creatures). The idea of them attacking familiars and other magical beasts seemed popular in round 2, so my suggestion was based on retaining that idea while giving them a reason why nothing else is a satisfactory target.

Personally, I could do without the fey and magical beasts mention. As I noted elsewhere in this thread, these things have very little incentive to make those creatures a favored target. The penalty to the save helps, but for creatures who can lay an egg every day the risk still isn't worth it when weaker sentient creatures are much easier targets.

Of course, if you had removed the favored targets, people may not have liked it and it could have cost you votes. In all, I think you did a good job working on a creature with a couple of strong contradictions, and the concerns I had about it during the last two rounds didn't stop you from getting my vote.


Jim Groves wrote:
First, I’m puzzled by the ‘odd numbered penalty/bonus’ remark. I don’t understand it, and I’m not sure what I did wrong. I’ve started to ask around about this, but I’m not seeing what is wrong about it. Again, I’m not offended or defensive, but for the moment it is going over my head.

You aren't the only one still wondering why an odd numbered skill bonus or save penalty is bad. All I've gathered so far is that it is uncustomary, but that doesn't make it bad.


Quote:
You aren't the only one still wondering why an odd numbered skill bonus or save penalty is bad. All I've gathered so far is that it is uncustomary, but that doesn't make it bad.

I go further on this topic, I think odd-numbered bonuses are a good thing. It's amazing how hidebound and tied to 'tradition' gamers can be sometimes (considering that this is largely a creative hobby.) Be wild! Let loose! Get your chaos on!

Contributor

One reason to stick to +4 and +8 is because it's easier to remember. If a monster's racial bonus is either +4 or +8, you don't have to keep track of as much precision data. It's just a question of "Is this monster good at this, or is it REALLY good at this?"

As opposed to giving some monsters +3, some +4, +5, +6, +7, +8, +11, and so on. Because really, does Monster X's racial bonus really need to be 5% better than Monster Y's racial bonus? Is +5% really going to make a difference within the monster's CR? Or are you trying to bump the monster into the "this is its gimmick, it's better at this than it would be for it's CR," in which case you should go for the +8 instead of the +5, +6, or +7?

It reminds me of an old 1E module, where if you touch an evil altar (or perhaps say the devil's name associated with it), there was a 7% chance the devil would appear. Really? Not 1%? Not 5%? Not 10%? But exactly 7%?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but when you have to remember 1000 pages of rules, it's nice to take memory shortcuts and know that monster racial skill bonuses are generally +4 or +8.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Got it! Thanks Sean!

RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Sean K Reynolds wrote:
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but when you have to remember 1000 pages of rules, it's nice to take memory shortcuts and know that monster racial skill bonuses are generally +4 or +8.

This is very true from a developer's point of view, and creates a nice easy to remember shorthand.

That being said, 90% of my 3.5 players thought that monster skill bonuses were generated out of the ether - it's not something most people ever think about one way or another, even if they read the statblock carefully.

If you really, really get the PF/3.5 monster design process, most of those fiddly rules hide the fact you can pretty much do whatever you want if you have to -- check out WotC's 3.5 MM3 for perhaps the clearest example of this process taken perhaps a little farther than it should go. Some of the HD/ability score combinations in that book are craaazy...

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