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.
Great stuff! Look forward to more.
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
Great stuff! Look forward to more.
Thanks, I'm working on the Scarlet Citadel right now.
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).
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 GneechWhen 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).
John Roberts can obviously elaborate but what I thought I read was '4E characters behave in a certain manner that is not really indicative of classic (i.e. Conan) swords and sorcery.
I'd agree with that statement if that was the intent. 4E characters behave like the characters in the Lord of the Rings movies or Kill Bill and other 'fantasy-fu' movies of the last decade. Its a simulation of modern fantasy action cinema, which is cool in its own right, but not really classic fantasy literature.
Well honestly, I'm not sure I'd even go as far as to say 4E characters behave like the characters in LotR, either, although some of Legolas' wuxia moves might count.
Most characters in S&S are pretty darn mortal ... even Conan is more "remarkably durable" than "superheroically strong". No glowing nimbuses of fire, no leaping 30' down into a pit and shrugging it off, and certainly no teleporting 5 squares as an encounter action. You can reskin some of this stuff, of course, but after a certain amount, it becomes easier to just chuck it all and start over with a different system.
3.x/Pathfinder is better about this at low levels, especially with judicious pruning of races and classes, although it starts to get to be a problem around 5-6 and really goes out the window by the time you hit 8-9.
(I'm currently toying with the idea of making a Pathfinder-compatible S&S campaign guide ... it can be done with the right choice of classes/archetypes and a level cap around 10 or so, so I've been ruminating on this particular topic for a while now.)
-The Gneech
Personally, I think 4e does S&S better than previous versions and is the only edition I've seen Fafhrd and the Mouser modelled well.
Here's how I would run 4e S&S:
Restrict PCs to the Martial power source
Only allow access to Arcane power source via multiclassing
Ban Divine power source
Use inherent boni from DMG2 or Dark Sun Campaign Guide
The Scarlet Citadel - part one, is up.
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.
Well honestly, I'm not sure I'd even go as far as to say 4E characters behave like the characters in LotR, either, although some of Legolas' wuxia moves might count.
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.
Most characters in S&S are pretty darn mortal ... even Conan is more "remarkably durable" than "superheroically strong". No glowing nimbuses of fire, no leaping 30' down into a pit and shrugging it off, and certainly no teleporting 5 squares as an encounter action. You can reskin some of this stuff, of course, but after a certain amount, it becomes easier to just chuck it all and start over with a different system.
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 becoming balanced more around the leader type players themselves. Characters that can hand out a healing surge with phenomenal bonuses. That is very powerful but what it does is it makes normal healing surges like ones from Second Wind increasingly weak. From this point on using a healing potion is a really sub optimal way of using one of your healing surges and its something of a mistake to do it except in the most dire circumstances where a small chance of managing to remain standing is better then no chance at all. You'll notice that your players go from everyone carrying four potions of healing down to just having two and finally down to just one because its such a sub par last ditch type item that you never need to try in more then once.
The very fact that the game is balanced around all the players build your own wuxia moves and inter-party combos actually makes the group weaker even though it appears to make them stronger. In effect the game presumes that the players use their abilities in a reasonably optimized manner and that they don't have long strings of terrible luck with their really souped up attacks. Here though is where things can really fall apart for them. If they screw up on the team work or just get really unlucky all their souped up abilities are not going off very well - they are not getting much bang out of them and, in this case the combats going to go really poorly for them. By this point combat only occasionally comes down to their at wills - its mainly about their combo's and the onus is on the players to use them and use them well or they loose.
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.
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.
And mortality? ;)
And mortality? ;)
:)
Whoops
The Scarlet Citadel - part two, is now up.
The Tower of the Elephant is up, which is definitely in my top 5 Conan faves.
Black Colossus is up, and I've statted my first Conan evil wizard: Thugra Khotan.
Thog, the monster from The Slithering Shadow is up - the first solo monster I've made for monsters of the hyborian age.
Very cool and very creepy.
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. :)
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.
Thog, the monster from The Slithering Shadow is up - the first solo monster I've made for monsters of the hyborian age.
So I'm looking over Thog and I have to say I'm quite impressed, he looks like a fun solo to face ones PCs with. Still I'd like to give some feedback on my thoughts on the monster.
The Slime Trail trait is pretty good but I'd consider throwing in another 'gotcha' for your players to overcome here as Solo's should usually have several abilities that force your players to adapt tactically. The idea of a slime trail makes me want to disallow charging against this creature...though I've never made such a power before so I'm not sure if its possible to word this in a way that makes Thog unchargable and remain true to the rules. I think I float that one in my question thread.
The Hungry Shadows power is a bit of a red flag. If its true to the source material I'd keep it in but powers like this should be used cautiously. This power gives a big incentive for Thog not to move and that is usually not as much fun in actual play.
The Biting Tentacles power seems a bit weak on damage output. I've not looked at the DMG2 damage table recently but hits for 12 or 13 points of damage sure ain't going to phase a 10th level party very much. The ongoing 5 poison is not bad but I'm concerned that everything Thog does has poison damage attached and PCs of this level can sometimes give themselves resistance to a single type of damage. If your players can get resist poison 5 on themselves this fight will be pretty easy.
Tentacle Frenzy might be a little to common at 4-6. I'd consider cutting back on this to 5-6 and then having it go to 4-6 when bloodied. Its awesome when it happens but big boom powers like this seem less exciting when they happen all the time.
Excise the Compromised Flesh confuses me. When you say effect do you mean a condition like dazed? An effect like ongoing fire 5? Both? This could be a bit more clear.
So Scott Betts confirms that you could make a power that nullifies charging. He suggested a wording along the lines of 'a charge cannot be started in the aura and if a charging creature enters the aura it ends immediately'. Your players might complain that they just lost their action (and probably the main thing they where going to do this turn, I'd just tell them to suck it up...this is a Solo.
In any case even if this idea does not appeal I suggest you think a bit about that aura a little more and consider adding something more to it beyond just difficult terrain.
The damage output seems to low. Have you seen the damage tables in the errata? I really, very strongly, recommend a DM use these as guidelines to damage in actual play - the improvement you get to the game in terms of eliminating grind and just general excitement is very significant. I pointed this errata out to our DM and, since he started using this in our Scales of War game, combat has been much more exciting.
According to this table a 10th level creature does ~2d8+9 damage but a brute gets +25%-50% on that. Maybe 3d6+7 or any number roughly in that area. The damage from the Tentacle Frenzy should be boosted too. The errata says 2d6+6 so with a brute maybe 3d6+6.
Also Mr. Slimy's attack bonus seems to be on the low end. The book calls for around level +5 and I'd be careful about going below that number unless your trying to convey something specific with your monster. At 10th our front line combatants had ACs between 25-32 so to just hit our Paladin he'd have needed to roll a 19 or 20.
It looks awesome, it looks like it would be a fun encounter. But the Retaliatory Strike should probably be either a Free Action or an Opportunity Action because I believe creatures only get one Immediate Reaction per round.
I'm not too sure how dangerous it is though. I am not sure if it is balanced for its level, but I'm comparing Thog to the Hydra from Monster Vault. The Hydra is also listed as a Level 10 Solo Brute and does a lot more damage. Assuming the party doesn't let the Hydra grow more heads, the hydra can make up to four attacks (+15 vs AC for 3d10 damage). If it has less heads, then this gives less attacks, but more damage per attack. One head using this power would be +15 vs AC for 3d10+15 damage.
And then it also has an out of turn attack that lets it attack people trying to be in melee with it (2 attacks +15 vs AC; 3d10 damage) as free action that it can do as many times as there are PCs.
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Shooting to be closer to that, I would suggest turning Retaliatory Strike into an Opportunity Action and removing the restriction on how many times per round he can use it. Increase the bonus on its attacks by 2. Increase damage on biting tentacles to 3d10+8 plus 5 ongoing poison (save ends). Increase damage on the tentacle grab to 3d10+5 and target is grabbed and also boost the sustain minor to deal 10 poison damage (I also think Essentials might have changed the rules for escape DCs, I'm not sure).
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I would recommend not adding in an effect to prohibit charging for this creature. Even before increasing it's damage, it really seems to love people to get in close to it and having them be unable to get away. In my mind, charging this creature is doing half the work for it.
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.
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).
Damn - I've been assuming that too but its starting to look like its not. They really need to upgrade that program.
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.
I like it, I like it a lot. That phosphorescent blood power rocks - great power for this solo, feels like it fits the theme and the blinding will really make players scramble to deal with this twist should be fun times.
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.
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.
I like the changes you made to it. It feels like a big mean powerhouse and the blinding effect looks like a great surprise for the party.
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.
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.
You are really good in your monster creation in evoking the weird and unsettling; very fun read.
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.
Part two of The Pool of the Black One is up, with a nasty 7th level hazard, the emerald pool of sacrifice.
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.
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.
Rogues in the House is up, with the first of the Hyborian age's infamous grey apes, a heroic tier monster named Thak.
Rogues in the House is up, with the first of the Hyborian age's infamous grey apes, a heroic tier monster named Thak.
Leader of traps...that is actually a pretty neat concept. I don't really see a problem with the stat block considering the role he is likely to play. I considered complaining that he was too basic but if you have two or three traps also in the vicinity that have some capability to reach out and touch the players his simplicity will probably be a boon.
Rogues in the House is up, with the first of the Hyborian age's infamous grey apes, a heroic tier monster named Thak.
I do like him and I do agree that although he looks pretty simple for an elite, with the lairs he will be set up with, I doubt that he will be lacking options.
I do wonder though how well he will hold up once he becomes bloodied however because he loses that cool ability in favor of +4 to attacks and he knocks people prone with his attacks. Although, sliding and prone would work pretty well against many melee characters and it still would mean that he could throw them into the traps he has around as well.
I'm tempted to say that it might benefit him and the theme, instead of the current bonuses, that the grey ape had a pair of slam attacks and a rending ability that lets him deal more damage if he hits with both attacks against a single target. That way he loses the option to just throwing people into traps while he is bloodied in favor of just ripping them apart with pure strength.
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.
Now updated - thanks for the help!
I'm glad to help. I like the changes you made to him and I would be actually pretty concerned about the damage he can deal out now. But since he is a Elite Brute, it is about what I would expect.
I actually think I will be able to use him this week in my game. I'll post here on how it goes.
Awesome, let me know how it turns out.
The battle was pretty entertaining if not completely devastating for the PCs. I paired him with a Flame Jet and a Poisoned Dart Wall traps together making a level 6 encounter for my four person party. I had expected more players so I had ended up removing some additional guards to back up Thak. The traps were pretty damaging, but the party focused all their attention on taking down Thak before dealing with them. He quickly feel to bloodied at which point I used his action point to use a Rending Maul twice, but bad rolls meant that he didn't manage a single hit in that flurry. The party was able to kill him before he had another chance to correct that.
I could have designed the encounter better, with some soldiers to distract and harry the players, but at the end of that battle, if he managed to hit either of his targets with both attacks of the rending maul, those characters would have gone down so I can't say he did poorly for an elite brute of the party's level.
He worked well as a monster and I would love to use him again another time. Probably with less powerful traps and more minions between him and the party.
Sweet!
That encounter sounds like a lot of fun. Glad to hear that Thak worked out.
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.
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.
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.
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.