Living Graffiti - great concept, weird mechanics?

[Asgetrion]

When Bestiary 3 came out, I fell in love with the Living Graffiti, and I already have a couple of rough adventure ideas built around this monster. Yet I have a problem, since I just don’t get how some of its defining traits (namely Backdrop and Surface-Bound) work.

It’s a two-dimensional creature, a bit like the Shadow, and it’s ”bound” to the surface it was created on. It can move 25 ft. per action, but only on the flat surface it is inhabiting. The art in the Bestiary seems to imply it can take on a three-dimensional form to attack, but this is naturally just fluff, as it cannot actually step out of the surface at all – it can just attack adjacent creatures.

So far so good, right?

Yet I just cannot understand how the boundaries of a surface are defined. For example, if it is drawn on the outer wall of a building, can it move around corners, or is it limited to moving only on one side (wall) of the building? How about inside a building; can it transfer itself from a wall to the floor or ceiling? Or from a painting (canvas) to the wall the painting is hanging on?

And what counts as ”flat enough” for the Graffiti? Does the surface need to be perfectly flat, or do cobblestones or rough tiles count? What if the surface is slightly cracked, is it enough to stop the Graffiti from moving farther in that direction?

Come to think of it, how do you even destroy the surface? Is it enough to deal any damage, or do you need to surpass its BT, or perhaps completely demolish it? It’d have been great to have at least one sentence explaining how this works. I also find the bit about crit failure potentially damaging the surface weird... so you might actually inflict 2d6 extra damage to the Graffiti, or outright destroy it, on a critical failure?!? Wouldn't it make more sense if you destroy the surface on a critical hit, and damage your weapon on a crit fail?

Finally, I just don’t get the thing about abandoning it in the desert. Why? Isn’t it easier to trap the Graffiti in a portable surface (e.g. a canvas), and levitate or fly 30+ feet up to safely destroy it? Also, it’s a low-level creature, in any non-desert campaigns a completely trivial encounter for teleporting PCs.

I love the concept and think this could be a great monster with lots of story potential, but sadly, I find the execution a bit lacking. Is there any additional information about this monster somewhere, or have I just misunderstood how its traits should actually work? Has anyone else had to wrestle with these same issues in their game?

[Zapp]

Basically: all your answers should be what results in the most fun.

I was inspired by it (it's one of the extra monsters in Extinction Curse) to place essentially a playful gnome girl (in grafitti form) in a church tower in the adventure.

A combat encounter that hopefully leads to a social encounter. Which it did - they recruited "her" to their circus :)

About my initial answer: this monster is so outside of the baseline you are much better off NOT going down the rabbit hole of trying to establish clear boundaries.

SO I was dead serious when I gave the above answer. There really is no alternative.

If you can't use monsters fast and loose I HIGHLY recommend you drop it and use something else. It's just not worth it to try to pin down exact limits to this monster, trust me.

[Gisher]

I can't get Prismo, from Adventure Time, out of my head. :)

[Asgetrion]

Thanks for your reply, Zapp!

That's pretty solid advice there. One of the ideas I have is a murder mystery featuring a Living Graffiti as a local boogeyman or "back-alley slayer", kind of a side-quest type of encounter. I guess I was overthinking, so that I'd get everything "just right". You reminded me that one of the beautiful things in 2E is that I can customize any creature to make it truly unique. So my "back alley boogeyman" should be able to do what the story requires, not what it literally says in the Bestiary. :)