Hi, I just received #117 in the mail and while looking at the adventure "The Winding Way", I got a little confused. Don't get me wrong, the adventure itself is great, but I just have on question about one of the stat blocks.
For Marik, the last boss in the trial of the Winding Wind, it says his head plops off and it attacks the PCs immediately. It also says that the body remains seated in the lotus position (Don't know what position this is, maybe it might be the source of my confusion). So I took a look at the stat block and it had "Unarmed Strike" under the attacks, namely 4 attacks in a full attack, plus a bite and two lashes with the entrails. So my question is: Does he use these unarmed strikes with his head?
It'd look sort of silly that a head would be bumping into them and doing a good amount of damage. Now I'm probably missing something because I also see that for the tactics Marik would use "Improved Trip" and those sorts of feats, so if someone could clear this up, it would help me. Thanks ahead for any replies!
Creative Director
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One of the cooler aspects about monks is that when they use their unarmed strike, they can use pretty much any part of their body to make the attack. In Marik's case, he uses whatever he can to attack. Granted, the image of him head butting his foes might seem a bit wacky. It's probably easier to assume his "unarmed strike" comes from whiping and lashing at his foes with some nasty, greasy, dangly bit of entrails, attacking like a whip and striking any one of a number of key pressure points on a victim. I suppose he could do the same with a head butt, or even by biting. In any case, his bite and entrail lashes are secondary attacks that are available to all pennangolans. Since he has much more effective attacks from his monk levels, these relatively "minor" attacks can be thought of as simply less effective versions of his unnarmed strike attacks.
If you want to get really strange, of course, you can even rule that his body animates and fights alongside the head, and it is thus from the body that these unarmed strikes originate. I'd recomend that head and body have to remain in the same five foot square and that they share one common pool of hit points and Armor Class; you should effectively treat the head and body as one single creature. Of course, this is an ability that pennangolan (which is a realy hard word to spell) don't normally have. It doesn't really change Marik's stats much, but it certainly makes him look different. In fact, I believe this was how Nicholas had originally envisioned the encoutner. I cut it back to standard pennangolan abilities (no animated body) simply because, by the book, a pennangolan's body can't do this. And in cases like that, I tend to err on the side of established rules. Althouugh the concept of the head and body fighting together is kind of neat...
Anyway... kind of a long-winded answer to what really only needed a short answer: "Unarmed strike is an abstract concept that doesn't require specific body parts to initiate."
Of course, if the Hall of 10,000 Blades does its job, the PCs won't reach Marik anyway, right? ;)
So my question is: Does he use these unarmed strikes with his head?
I'm not sure what the author's intent was, but my assumption was the Marik would use the end of his intestines for his unarmed attacks, and use the uppermost part for the entrails attack. This could be just overthinking on my part, though.
The lotus position is the way you usually see the Buddha depicted, which doesn't help answer your question, sadly.
You could have the body fight without it's head. When I playtested it, that was loads of fun. Or you could just call it that the intestines and organs can be used to make both the entrails attack and Marik's unarmed attacks as well. Oh I see James got to this already! OOPS! ;)
And I agree, how did anyone get past the hall of 10,000 blades!!!
::Nick makes note to self to make next adventure much much more difficult:: ;)
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Creative Director
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Hall of 10,000 blades??? Hmmmm... dimension door, ethereal jaunt, gaseous form, blink... Give any of these spells to a rogue and let him get to the lever (giant trap like that HAS to have a off switch)...
Not to spoil anything too badly, but chances are that the builders of the Hall of 10,000 Blades planned ahead for some or all of those spells... (insert evil villain laughter)
I assume you are looking for where they appear in 3.x books... Bhut and Hullathoin appear in the 3e Fiend Folio (Pages 20 and 96) and the Pennaggolan appears in the 3e Oriental Adventures (Page 189)
hope that helps.
I thought this was a cool adventure as well. In fact I am kicking myself as I have misplaced my copy (see my other post). But did anyone else find the picture of the guys head falling off ... disconcerting?
I normally don't have to "hide" reading my Dungeon as the artwork is usually superb. But I did for this as I didn't want my daughter to see something so gruesome. And on the train I suspect some people must of thought I was into beheading or something. It also seems a little unusual for Dungeon who generally errs on the conservative side when it does its drawings (re: gruesomeness).