Game Design (X): Balancing monster defenses, resistances

One of my favorite innovations in 4E is the fact that, unlike previous iterations of the game, there are well defined formulas for combat math, and they are nicely laid out in the DMG for DMs and players to see. This is great for making informed decisions regarding character building or combat tactics, but there is a flaw in the plan: some very relevant stats are left out of the fun. It’s straightforward to find out when you have a good AC, or how much damage it takes to kill a monster of your level, but once you need to know whether you should take an attack power that targets Fortitude or Will or which flavor to choose for an Armor of Resistance, you are out of luck. In today’s article, I will discuss how the contents of a Monster Manual can affect character effectiveness, and suggest ways to make this influence more consistent, predictable, and transparent to the players.

The problem

There are two problem areas: defenses and damage types. I will address them in order. The issue with defenses lies in a lack of definition of their relative importance - looking at the DMG tables, one can’t tell that there’s any difference in expected values between Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. It turns out that, although the values for average defenses are well known, there are no useful guidelines regarding which defenses should be stronger or weaker for a given set of monsters. The DM guide actually suggests deriving this from the monster Ability scores, which are mostly useless stats with arbitrary values to begin with. For practical purposes, defense generation using this method can be modeled as a random process. If this randomness resulted in an even distribution across different defenses, it would all work out just fine, and I wouldn’t be writing this. Unfortunately, when we look at the data, monsters have a tendency to be big, dumb brutes (regardless of whether they are actual Brutes), and as a consequence, average defenses skew heavily towards strong Fortitudes and weak Wills. This means that a player character picking an attack power that targets Fortitude will be at a significant disadvantage (equivalent to roughly a -2 penalty to hit!) compared to an attack power that was otherwise identical but targeted Will instead. This is a huge difference, and one that isn’t documented anywhere on the PHB or the DMG - you’ll only find it by checking the stats of monsters in your Monster Manual (or, for that matter, in your adventures), and averaging them out.

Conversely, the defenses targeted by monster powers don’t seem to follow any rules other than what feels right to the designer in each case. One would expect AC to be the target for most attacks, with Fortitude, Reflex and Will taking an even share of the rest. However, this is only true in part: AC seems to be the predominant defense, with Fortitude and Reflex showing in similar numbers, but Will tends to be underrepresented.

Similar issues arise when we look at damage types: the types resisted by monsters (or that they are vulnerable to) and the types used by monster attacks are chosen on a case-by-case basis. And, again, this results in highly skewed numbers. For most damage types, resistances and vulnerabilities only show up in small numbers, but there are a few major outliers: there are a lot of monsters that are resistant or immune to Poison and Necrotic (and, to a lesser degree, Fire), or vulnerable to Radiant damage. This is mostly due to the Undead effect: Undead represent a very important portion of the monster population, and are almost universally resistant to Poison and Necrotic damage, and vulnerable to Radiant. Thus, we can conclude that player powers using Radiant damage will have a significant advantage over the rest, whereas Poison and Necrotic powers are severely crippled. Once again, this is an undocumented feature. As for the damage types used in monster attacks, there is a predominance of Fire, Necrotic, Poison and Psychic damage, relative to other types. That said, this is a far less relevant issue than the previous ones, as it only comes into play in the relatively rare scenarios where player characters have resistances.

What should be done

With the above points in mind, I have defined some requirements that a fixed system should have:

• A predictable distribution of defense values and resistances/vulnerabilities for monsters. This distribution should be known to players and DMs, so that they can properly evaluate each defense or damage type.
• A method to generate this distribution in newly-designed monsters.
• A low-effort method to retrofit current monsters to use this distribution.
• Equivalency between defenses and between damage types. I strongly believe that Fortitude, Reflex, and Will values for monsters should have similar values, on average. Likewise, each damage type should be, on average, equally useful in damaging monsters.
• Monster stats should make sense and meet player expectations.

On the other hand, I have given up on some related issues, as I think they harder to solve, and not relevant enough to be worth the effort:

• Balanced distribution of damage types in monster attacks
• Balanced distribution of targeted defenses in monster attacks

Fixing monster defenses

I should start by clarifying that, when I talk about monster defenses, I refer to fortitude, reflex, and will. AC works properly under the current rules, and will need no further tweaking on my part. With that said, “just” fixing fortitude, reflex and will is a daunting task, as it involves adjusting stats for all of the thousands of monsters out there. The only realistic way to achieve this is by generating these stats from simple rules derived from some monster property, such as race or role. Here, I monster role becomes the natural fit for defense generation, since it is already used for other basic stats such as AC, hit bonuses, or damage.

For simplicity’s sake, we’ll assume that all monster roles show up in similar numbers. This is not entirely accurate, as Artillery and Lurker monsters are underrepresented, appearing only half as often as other monster roles in the monster manuals. Nevertheless, I consider this a good enough approximation for now - and I will try, at some point in the future, to study this role disparity  and maybe try to address it too.

Anyway, the new defense generation guidelines work as follows: for each of Fortitude, Reflex, and Will, a monster role can have an “average” score (the defense value suggested by the DMG tables), a “strong” score (equal to the average score + 1) or a “weak” score (equal to the average score -1). In order for all defenses to be roughly balanced, each defense will have as many roles with “strong” scores as with “weak” scores. I suggest the following values:

• Soldier: Strong Fortitude, Average Reflex, Average Will
• Brute: Strong Fortitude, Weak Reflex, Average Will
• Skirmisher: Weak Fortitude, Strong Reflex , Average Will
• Controller : Average Fortitude, Weak Reflex, Strong Will
• Lurker: Average Fortitude, Strong Reflex , Weak Will
• Artillery: Weak Fortitude, Average Reflex, Average Will

I included AC values to give a better view of each role’s relative defenses. If we organize the scores by defense rather than by role, they look as follows:

• Fortitude:
• Strong for Soldiers, Brutes
• Weak for Skirmishers, Artillery
• Reflex:
• Strong for Skirmishers, Lurkers
• Weak for Brutes, Controllers
• Will
• Strong for Controllers
• Weak for Lurkers

Note that, although each defense has equivalent scores on average, some show different degrees of variance. In particular, Will has a single Strong and Weak role (rather than 2 of each, like the other roles). This lets me give the Soldier role above-average defenses (with no weak score), and the Artillery role below-average defenses (with no strong score).

These values should provide a good baseline that can be applied to all existing monsters, or be used when designing new ones. As an option to add some variety, I suggest applying a +1 modifier and a -1 modifier to any two defenses (other than AC) to each individual monster, as the designer or DM sees appropriate.

Fixing monster resistances

Under the current rules, damage types are unbalanced because certain large groups of monsters get built-in resistances or vulnerabilities. Removing these resistances/vulnerabilities is not a very compelling option: on the one hand, they add a good deal of flavor and variety to monsters and, on the other, there is little point in having a damage type system unless we embrace resistances and vulnerabilities in monsters. The solution, then, is to go the opposite route, with a caveat. We will add many new group-wide resistances and vulnerabilities, but ensuring that for every damage type that is resisted by a monster group, there is another monster group of comparable size that is vulnerable to it (and vice versa). The result should be a system where damage types are relevant more often, but without having types that are clearly stronger or weaker than the rest.

We use the following assumptions as a starting point:

• Most Undead monsters are vulnerable to Radiant damage, resistant to Necrotic damage, and immune to Poison. About 15% of monsters in the game are Undead.
• Many monsters are resistant to Fire damage, including Devils and Fire-based monsters.

We decided to apply the following changes:

• To streamline monster design, we implement resistance/vulnerability guidelines. Whenever the majority of a monster group tends to have a resistance or vulnerability, we make an explicit rule stating that all monsters of the group should have that trait. Hence:
• Undead monsters have Vulnerable Radiant
• Devil and Tiefling monsters have Resist Fire
• Ooze monsters have Resist Acid
• To balance damage types, we change some current resistance/vulnerability guidelines, and add some new ones as well:
• Undead and Construct monsters have Resist Poison (instead of immunity)
• Fey, Plant, and Swarm monsters have Vulnerable Poison
• Aberrant, Immortal, Blind and Plant monsters have Resist Radiant
• Shadow monsters have Vulnerable Radiant, Resist Necrotic
• Undead monsters that are not of Shadow origin no longer have Resist Necrotic
• Immortal monsters have Vulnerable Necrotic
• Fire monsters have Resist Fire (in some cases instead of immunity), Vulnerable Cold
• Cold monsters have Resist Cold
• Cold and Plant monsters have Vulnerable Fire
• Water monsters have Resist Acid
• Construct monsters have Vulnerable Acid
• Finally, we add a few resistances/vulnerabilities for flavor purposes
• Aberrant monsters have Vulnerable Psychic
• Construct, Plant and Eladrin monsters have Resist Psychic
• Dwarf monsters have Resist Poison

If our proposed rules for resistances and vulnerabilities are used, these are resistances/vulnerabilities with no damage limit. Otherwise, add a resist/vulnerable value appropriate to the monster’s level (e.g. 5 per tier).

Our balancing takes into account the number of monsters of each type currently in the Compendium. You can check out the numbers we used in this spreadsheet. It is not really possible to achieve a perfect match between monster types and damage types without introducing some awkward flavor, so a few damage types still have a predominance of resisting monsters or vulnerable monsters. In particular, Poison slightly weaker than average, while Radiant leans on the stronger side. However, this effect is much smaller than with the previous rules, and not as one-sided - Poison becomes very useful against some fairly common monster types, whereas Radiant loses a lot of effectiveness against many foes.

To be honest, my ideal system for damage types would involve cutting the number of types by half or so, but that would take even more effort, and destroy any semblance of backward compatibility.

With our suggested changes, the resistances and vulnerabilities for each damage type end up as follows:

• Poison -  R: Construct, Undead, Dwarf; V: Fey, Plant, Swarm
• Radiant - R: Aberrant, Immortal, Blind; V:Undead, Shadow
• Psychic - R: Construct, Plant, Eladrin; V: Aberrant
• Necrotic - R: Shadow; V: Immortal
• Fire - R: Fire, Devil, Tiefling; V: Plant, Cold
• Acid - R: Ooze, Water; V: Construct
• Cold - R: Cold, V: Fire
• Lightning, Thunder, Force - no group-wide resistances or vulnerabilities.

Or, organized by monster type:

• Undead - R: Poison; V: Radiant
• Fey - V: Poison
• Immortal - R: Radiant; V: Necrotic
• Shadow - R: Necrotic; V: Radiant
• Aberrant - R: Radiant; V: Psychic
• Devil - R: Fire
• Construct - R: Poison, Psychic; V: Acid
• Blind - R: Radiant
• Fire - R: Fire; V: Cold
• Cold - R: Cold; V: Fire
• Ooze - R: Acid
• Plant - R: Radiant, Psychic; V: Poison, Fire
• Water - R: Acid
• Tiefling - R: Fire
• Eladrin - R: Psychic
• Dwarf - R: Poison

A note on Variable Resistance

A monster mechanic that is very relevant to the topic at hand but hasn’t been considered so far is the trait shared by all Demon monsters, Variable Resistance. The wording on this ability is rather ambiguous, and depending on your interpretation, Variable Resistance can vary in effectiveness between a minor, situational boost, to an almost permanent resistance for the five elemental damage types. I suggest using a new wording for this ability that makes it less ambiguous and a bit weaker, so that it can be considered as neutral for the purposes of damage type balance. 

Variable Resistance - At-Will - Free Action
Trigger: The character takes damage of one or more elemental damage types (elemental damage types are acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder).
Effect: Choose one of the triggering damage types at random. After the damage is resolved, and until the end of the encounter, the character and all allies with this ability gain Resist against that damage type, and Vulnerable against another elemental damage type chosen at random. This effect ends when the monster or an ally use Variable Resistance again.

Note: A character with this ability must use it whenever it triggers. If the ability would trigger simultaneously for several allied characters, only one of them chosen at random can use it.

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Game Design (VIII): Minions, elites and Solos

Like a kind of messier, deadlier game of basketball, the default combat scenario in a 4E encounter has 5 guys on each side running around and beating on each other. As a consequence, your average monster is roughly equivalent to a single adventurer. Now, to spice things up a little, the game also includes the option for trading normal monsters for lots of weaker critters (i.e. minions), or for fewer, stronger opponents (elites or solos). And this is a brilliant idea that adds depth and variety to encounters, but suffers from a less than ideal implementation. Simply put, non-standard monsters aren’t all that well balanced relative to standard ones: elites rarely perform as well as two regular creatures, solos require a ton of work from designers and DMs to be credible threats, and minions are mostly harmless. In today’s article, I’ll discuss what’s wrong with the rules for these monsters, and how to address it.

The value of a monster

First, let us go over the relationships between different monster types in theory, and in practice. The game assumes the following to be true:

• Standard: One standard monster is a match for a single adventurer
• Minion: One standard monster is equivalent to 4 or 5 minions (depending on level).
• Elite: 2 standard monsters are equivalent to one elite monster
• Solo: 5 standard monsters are equivalent to one solo monster

All these comparisons are based on same-level characters, and are valid for any given level.

How does all this hold up in real play? Unfortunately, not all that well:

• Standard: The standard monster-to-adventurer equivalency is mostly true, and the glue that holds together 4E as a game. To be fair, PCs are quite a bit stronger than their monster counterparts, but this is only to be expected - the players should win same-level encounters most of the time, and this is fine as long as combat remains moderately challenging and some degree of risk exists. For the most part, Standards are at the right place, power-wise.
• Minion: Here is where things start to go wrong: minions fail miserably at threatening adventurers, even when in large numbers. Interestingly, their base stats are fairly well tuned, and they would actually meet the game’s expectations (being worth 20%-25% of a standard monster) if adventurers were limited to regular attacks and the occasional area explosion. The problem is, the PCs tend to cheat in this regard, turning minions into a joke - there are way too many powers that let you kill minions by the droves, with little effort involved, and no risk of failure. Simply put, anything that lets a character deal even a small amount of automatic damage (auras, stances, conjurations) will make a mess of any minion in sight and, to make matters worse, the current game balance makes such powers highly desirable for adventurers (even without taking minions into consideration), virtually guaranteeing their presence in most parties.
• Elite: Close, but not good enough. Though elite monsters sure take punishment as well as two regular monsters, and likewise tend to dish out about twice the damage of a Standard, they are effectively twice as vulnerable to any kind of negative condition, or penalty - and those both are extremely common and have a huge impact in encounter outcomes. If stunning a single monster is usually crippling, negating a big bad that takes up two monster slots with no additional effort is, more often than not, devastating - and Elites have barely any advantage over smaller monsters to make up for that. To make things worse, as is often the case, this Elite weakness is something that you can already notice when playing with casual parties, but is extremely aggravated when any kind of character optimization takes place (since one of the optimization rules for 4E is “take stuns over just about anything”).
• Solo: See Elites, above. Solo monsters have the same problems of their weaker Elite cousins, turned up to 11. Any penalty or condition imposed by an adventurer gets turbo boosted to 5 times its usual effectiveness, and while solos often include rules aimed at mitigating these (such as the saving throw bonuses, or the newer dragons’ resilience to stuns), it is clear that these mechanics fall way short: they are usually limited to a subset of the wide variety of nasty tricks available to adventurers, and anything that falls through the cracks (say, an immobilization, or a -5 penalty to attack) will reduce the Ultimate Villain to a vaguely intimidating bag of hit points, inviting adventurers to come collect some free experience and treasure. In order to put Solos up to the standard of, well, Standard monsters, they absolutely need to have a way to reliably mitigate any and all kinds of effects that adventurers can impose - yet, and this is the tricky part, in order for players to enjoy fighting said Solos, these mechanics should not just give a blanket immunity, but merely reduce condition effectiveness by about 4/5.
  As a side note, it is interesting to note that, as it happened with minions, once we take away the one flawed mechanic (i.e. condition vulnerability), the stat block of a Solo has the right power level. This may not be all that intuitive, since in their current form, Solo monsters are equivalent to 4 Standards in survivability, and between 3 and 4 Standards in offense - but they take the place of 5 standard monsters. However, it turns out that concentrating all that much power in a single unit (again, if negative conditions didn’t exist) is much more effective than spreading it out, since the Solo’s ability to damage the party doesn’t decrease as it takes damage - so giving it 75% the raw stats of its lesser counterparts is a fair deal, after all.

So, to summarize, Standards are our reference benchmark, minions need to stop blowing up with automatic damage effects, and Elites and Solos need a reliable way to resist negative conditions. In order to achieve this, I came up with the following rules:

Minion Elusiveness: Whenever a minion takes damage from a source other than a hitting attack, it can make a saving throw. If the saving throw succeeds, the damage is negated and the minion is knocked prone.

Elite Resilience: At the start of its turn, an elite or solo monster can choose to take damage equal to 10 per monster tier, ignoring resistances and immunities. If it does, it can choose a condition (other than marked) or penalty affecting it, and make a saving throw; on a successful save, the monster can ignore an instance of that condition or penalty until its next turn. This ability can only be used once per round.

Veteran readers will recognize Minion Elusiveness as a streamlined version of my previous houserule for minions. It’s something I have long used for my campaigns, and I believe it provides minions with the right amount of survivability, and it weakens auto-damaging effects in a way that players can find fair and flavorful.

As for Elite Resilience, it’s a rule that needs to solve a complex problem, and it has gone through many iterations. There are several aspects of its implementation worth discussing. First, there’s the slightly awkward text about “ignoring” the condition or penalty for a turn, rather than simply ending it. Though it is easy to come up with alternatives that are more elegant and intuitive, most of them fail to address a crucial issue: we want to give monsters a way to deal with powerful effects from daily attacks without rendering them pointless - so just shrugging off a condition that’s supposed to last for the whole encounter is out of the question. In order to avoid such effects, a monster will need to roll to save (and take damage) every turn. Speaking of which, the damage aspect is a way to compensate players for having their powers failing to work - granted, 10 or 20 extra damage may be a poor consolation for a lost stun, but it all adds up. As for the saving throw part, it means that, barring any modifiers, you will be able to stick your worst condition on an Elite monster 35% of the time, whereas Solos will only be affected 20% of the time - a difficult maneuver to pull off, but a highly rewarding one.

Not by coincidence, both new rules make use of the saving throw mechanic, which barely saw any use before. This presents some interesting design opportunities when I get to introduce new monsters and new player content. I’m particularly interested in leader-type monsters boosting the saves of nearby allies, but also in separating controllers from other roles through the use of save penalties.

 

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Monsters of the Trollhaunt: Index

I have been working for months in an article series updating the monsters in adventure P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens to modern (i.e. post-MM3 standards). Here is a list of the articles released so far.

Introduction

1. Trolls
2. Encounter 1
3. Encounter T2
4. Encounter W1
5. Encounter W4
6. Encounters W2, W3
7. Encounters W5, W6
8. Encounters I1, W7

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Monsters of the Trollhaung VIII: Encounters I1, W7

Monsters of the Trollhaunt: Index – Previous - Next

** SPOILER ALERT**
These articles update monsters in adventure P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens – reading them may spoil encounters in the module!

A couple of big, bad trolls…

Skalmad the Troll King (Level 13 Elite Soldier)

The players at last get to meet the King, and it should be a scary fight. The original stat block for Skalmad is surprisingly decent, though it suffers from outdated stats (i.e. poor damage) and a real, Elite-like double attack. With a few updates, it should prove a worthy foe

1. Changes introduced

• Toned down Troll Healing - see previous article about trolls as a race. Since Skalmad is an elite, I gave it twice the usual amount of regeneration and had Troll Healing bring it back with more HP.
• Modern Elite: Elite monsters should have roughly as many attacks as two standard monsters, so I gave Skalmad an at-will double attack in Dual Axe, and boosted the encounter and recharging powers to a more impressive level. I also added a bit of damage to Baleful Eye.
• Modern Soldier: Aside from lowering attack bonuses, I changed the basic attack to mark as an effect. Toppling Swing became a downright scary attack with the addition of a daze (on top of the existing prone effect), but I made it target only marked enemies. This prevents Skalmad from using all its most powerful attacks in the first round, and adds quite a bit of strategy to the monster.
• Removed redundancy: The claw attack was pointless, so I deleted it.

 

Warren Troll (Level 11 Brute)

See Encounter W1.

Nothic Gazer (Level 11 Artillery)

See Encounter W6.

Thurk, Troll Smith (Level 12 Soldier)

1. Changes introduced

• Toned down Troll Healing - see previous article about trolls as a race. Since Skalmad is an elite, I gave it twice the usual amount of regeneration and had Troll Healing bring it back with more HP.
• Modern Soldier: Aside from lowering attack bonuses, I changed the basic attack to mark as an effect. Toppling Swing became a downright scary attack with the addition of a daze (on top of the existing prone effect), but I made it target only marked enemies. This prevents Skalmad from using all its most powerful attacks in the first round, and adds quite a bit of strategy to the monster.
• Removed redundancy: The claw attack was pointless, so I deleted it.

Redspawn Firebelcher (Level 12 Artillery)

1. Changes introduced

• Updated defenses, attack bonuses, and damage. This is a simple yet serviceable monster, so a couple of straightforward number tweaks should leave it ready for use. I upped the ranged attack accuracy, increased damage all around, and boosted some defenses which where excessively weak.

Grimlock Minion (Level 14 Minion)

1. Changes introduced

• Added Role (Brute). As an old minion, this one was missing a role. Brute was the most fitting, by far.
• Updated defenses, attack bonus, damage. This monster’s stats were unusually low, to the point that they wouldn’t have been out of place in a minion with several less levels. Now it’s up to par with modern minions.
• Added Trait (Grimlock Resilience). I stole this one from the Human Slaves in Dark Sun, and I think it’s an amazing design. This lets you have threatening minions even if you don’t use any special houserule for minions. With our house rules, they were pretty impressive, though not to the point of becoming unbalanced.

All images are (C) 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. These statistics blocks were generated using the D&D Adventure Tools, despite the tons of bugs. Except for the ones where I gave up, and used MS Word instead. Read More......

Monsters of the Trollhaunt VII: Encounter W5, W6

Monsters of the Trollhaunt: Index – Previous - Next

** SPOILER ALERT**
These articles update monsters in adventure P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens – reading them may spoil encounters in the module!

There’s one of these in every dungeon…

Adult Black Dragon (Level 11 Solo Lurker)

The template for fun, challenging dragons has been laid out in the Monster Vault, so the following stat block won’t be much of a surprise to anyone. Still, not all levels of dragons appear in that book, so I’ve had to scale the Young version all the way to level 11. For the most part, I left the original design untouched, except for one significant exception.

If you are interested in further discussion on dragon redesign, I recommend my previous articles on black dragons (now obsoleted by more recent books) and white dragons.

1. Issues identified

• Acidic Blood is a beating. Seriously, I’m all for tough solos, but acidic blood can wreck any party moderately reliant on melee attacks, unless they are loaded with acid resistance potions. Shroud of Gloom aggravates this to ridiculous proportions.

2. Changes introduced

• Level up: I used the Young Black Dragon from Monster Vault as baseline, and increased its stats.
• Acidic Blood nerfed: I simply changed the damage to ongoing damage. This prevents multiple triggers from stacking, but is still painful enough for PCs to try and find a workaround, particularly if Shroud of Gloom is active (which it will).

3. Errata

• Breath Weapon is enemies only. I missed this from my stat block (didn’t realize it had changed!), but it was not an intended change on my part. Note that I haven’t simply fixed the stat block due to the way the Monster Builder works (it doesn’t) – once I have saved as an image, I’m pretty much done with the monster, unless I want to start again from scratch. Incidentally, this is why I have switched to Word for stat blocks of later monsters.

Option for Encounter W5: one Water Elemental (Level 11 Controller)

I felt like the dragon encounter could use some spicing up, so I decided to add a Water Elemental lying in the pool. In this case, I merely took the monster from Monster Manual 3 and used it as written – I love when I can do that!

Warren Troll (Level 11 Brute)

See Encounter W1.

Boulder Troll (Level 9 Artillery)

One of the trolls is supposed to stand back throwing stones, so I switched it for a more appropriate artillery version. The Boulder Troll is described in Encounter 1

Nothic Gazer (Level 11 Artillery)

1. Issues identified

• Lack of variety. Rotting gaze is not a bad attack, but it’s the only one. I usually like some encounter or rechargeable attack, to make a monster more interesting.

2. Changes introduced.

• New power: Rot Burst. This is a strong area attack that requires rotting gaze to be active on a target. Typically, it will take a nothic gazer several turns before rot burst can be active, since an enemy can save against the rot before the nothic’s next turn. However, when you have multiple nothics in an encounter, they can focus fire on a target so that the second nothic will be able to use rot burst if the first one hit. Then again, a significant portion of the damage from rot burst is non-stacking ongoing damage, so a third nothic might prefer to use rotting gaze against a different target. At any rate, the mechanics encourage players to keep away from rotting allies, which is a flavorful and fun effect.

All images are (C) 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. These statistics blocks were generated using the D&D Adventure Tools, despite the tons of bugs.

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My Minion rules

One of my favourite things about combat in D&D 4E is the existence of minion monsters. These little guys add a new dimension to encounter composition: we are no longer constrained to skirmishes between roughly equivalent groups, or straightforward boss fights. Rather, we can have the PCs face dozens of foes at a time, in battles of epic (though not necessarily Epic) scale. However, as much as I like the basic concept of minions, I can’t help but notice that their implementation doesn’t get everything right.

The point of minions is to be fragile. That is the tradeoff they present: lots of monsters which don’t hit quite as hard, and die like flies. In principle, having PCs slaughtering them with ease should be a feature, not a bug. However, the way this is handled in 4E can only be classified as, well... overkill. Area attacks are bad enough, but at least they take some commitment, and are not 100% reliable.What is really troubling is the interaction of minions with sources of automatic damage (mostly daily attacks like Rain of Steel or Wall of Fire, but also present in class features like Flurry of Blows), which most parties have in enough numbers to guarantee that, in any encounter featuring lots of minions, it is extremely rare to have any of them survive past turn 2.

The bottom line is that minions are not threatening, as monsters. It’s not just a matter of XP cost: more often than not, adding more of them to a fight only causes them to die in droves after managing to make just one attack (if any), unless you are fighting in huge open spaces, and the minions in question have ranged attacks. Recent monster design technology tries to mitigate this with tricks like death triggers, which are nice enough, but ultimately, the only reliable way to have minions impacting a fight past turn three is to have them enter the fight past turn three. In fact, I have found relative success with staged groups of minions in my encounters. Also, you can just add one or two minions to an otherwise normal fight in the hopes that they escape PC attention long enough to survive the dreaded first rounds - I have found that this often works. Nevertheless, the problem remains that you can’t just have a group of minions make up a significant part of an encounter, and expect it to work. This needs to change.

After a lot of trial and error, I came up with the following house rule, which has addressed most problems with minions in my games:

Whenever a minion takes damage that is not the result of a hitting attack, if it is not prone, it can make a saving throw. If the saving throw succeeds, the minion is knocked prone and the damage is negated.

What does this do? The rule is intended to tone down the most egregious minion-wiping methods, without rendering them completely useless, while leaving fair minion-killing powers intact. That is to say, it gives a minion a chance to survive a Rain of Steel, Flurry of Blows, or pre-errata Flaming Sphere, to name some of the most common examples, but doesn’t stop tamer stuff like Cleave. Autodamage remains a very useful tool against minions, since it still provides a 45% chance of killing, and 55% of proning - and multiple instances should kill just fine, as prone minions can’t benefit from the save. Missed attacks are unaffected, since they still deal no damage to minions.

Applying this rule in my Trollhaunt campaign took some time to get used to (particularly for the monk player), but I can say that it had quite a positive effect in many minion-heavy encounters. Attacks that would have single-handedly destroyed the enemy hordes now left a few survivors to counterattack. A few heroic minions were even able to survive until the later stages of an encounter, more of an annoyance than a threat, but one that contributed to make the fight more exciting - we even joked about promoting a particularly persistent troglodyte minion soldier to standard status, after its prolonged combat experience.

As far as I can tell, this rule only negatively affects attacks that were on the abusive side against minions, with one remarkable exception: the Wizard’s Magic Missile. This power has already suffered enough from errata, and is the perfect attack to allow guaranteed minion slaying, so I would add the following line to it:

“Special: Any minion targeted by this attack is automatically reduced to 0 hit points”.

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Monsters of the Trollhaunt VI: Encounters W2, W3

Monsters of the Trollhaunt: Index – Previous - Next

** SPOILER ALERT**
These articles update monsters in adventure P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens – reading them may spoil encounters in the module!

Something is rotten in the Trollhaunt Warrens – and it’s the monsters in today’s article!

Marrowmaw Mauler (Level 8 Soldier)

1. Issues identified

• Claw attack is redundant, serves no purpose
• Relies too much on Bite for damage.
• Lack of mark punishment

2. Changes introduced

• Attacks: reduced accuracy, increased ranged damage. Damage shifted from Bite to Greatclub. Note that this monster’s melee damage was already competitive with MM3 guidelines thanks to minor action Bite.
• Defenses: –1 Fortitude
• New power: Enduring Stench
• Removed power: Claw

Kasszt (Level 9 Elite Controller - Leader)

1. Issues identified:

• Claw attack is redundant, serves no purpose
• Cavern Curse is extremely weak, no point in casting it.
• Chant of Renewal has not enough impact for an Elite standard action power.

2. Changes introduced.

• Attacks: Increased damage and accuracy for Quarterstaff, increased damage for Poison Ray, Cavern Curse. Quarterstaff now pushes. Cavern Curse is now at-will.
• Powers: Double Ray now gives a choice of Poison Rays or Cavern Curse. Chant of renewal now costs a minor action.
• Defenses: –2 AC, –1 For.
• Removed power: Claw

Nothic Stalker (Level 11 Skirmisher)

1. Issues identified

• Dazing Gaze too annoying as an at-will. Also, triggering Dazing Gaze off a Retaliate is too frustrating
• No Skirmisher mobility

2. Changes introduced.

• Attacks: Increased damage and accuracy for Claw, increased damage for Dazing Gaze. Dazing Gaze is now recharge 3+. Claw now grants extra shift.

 

Troglodyte Mauler (Level 6 Soldier)

Using level 6 monsters against PCs of level 11 or 12 is downright silly. These should have been minions instead. I used 2 types of minions for this: Troglodyte Grunts, and Troglodyte Warriors.

Troglodyte Grunt (Level 12 Minion Skirmisher)

There is a skirmisher troglodyte minion in Monster Vault, which could be used with minimum update effort, once I had added some levels to it.

1. Issues identified

• Lack of a ranged attack. I wanted at least some of my minions to have a Javelin attack, since the encounter was designed with Maulers, which have one.

2. Changes introduced.

• Level Up:  +6 to attack and defenses, +3 to damage. +5 Initiative.
• Attacks: I added a slide effect to the Club attack, to make it a bit more interesting.
• Defenses: –3 For, +1 Ref, +1 Wil
• New Power: Javelin ranged attack.

Troglodyte Warrior (Level 12 Minion Soldier)

1. Issues identified

• Old school minion. The warrior lacked a proper role, decent damage, and compelling abilities. Basically, this called for a completely new design.

2. Changes introduced.

• Soldier Role: Since the Maulers I were replacing with minions were soldiers to begin with, I wanted these Warriors to be Soldiers, too.
• Attacks: +2 attack and damage for Club.
• Defenses: +3 AC, +1 Ref, +2 Wil
• New Trait: Defender Aura. I could have used a mark as usual, but I wanted to experiment with different mechanics.
• New Power: Ferocious Bite. I liked the Mauler’s Bite attack, but minor action attacks don’t make a lot of sense for minions. This is a vicious ability for this kind of monster
• New Power: Ferocious Reflexes. I needed a mark-enforcing power, and the threat of Bite should be an effective deterrent.

3. Gameplay Notes

To my knowledge, there is no precedent for monsters with defender’s aura. I have been playing for months in a party with a Cavalier, and I must say I loved the mechanic and wanted to see how it played out on the monster side. And it was quite a success! These minions were not particularly sticky (since they did not punish enemy shifts), but the ability to defend a zone works great when present in multiple creatures. My players took a while to get used to it, but it felt fair, fun, and quite different from traditional mark mechanics. I’ll definitely use this for future monsters, both minion and not.

 

Marrowmaw Impaler (Level 9 Artillery)

See Encounter W1

Ssark, Battle Champion (Level 11 Elite Soldier - Leader)

1. Issues identified:

• Excessive damage. The Battle Champion Tactics trait combined with two attacks from Double Attack and a third from Bite combines for impressive amounts of damage, that can be concentrated on a single PC. I found this to be too dangerous for a monster of its level.
• Redundant Claw attack.
• Inspiring Assault is very unimpressive. I had the luck of scoring a critical hit during my encounter with Ssark. Unfortunately, I can’t say this highly situational trait did much for the monsters – it needs to provide a better reward.
• Soldier without marks. Too common in older monsters.

2. Changes introduced.

• Attacks: Reduced accuracy and increased damage for regular attacks. Bite damage was reduced, because Ssark already gets a damage boost with combat advantage. Added mark to Greatclub and Bite, and leader effects to Greatclub and Javelin. Changed Double Attack to prevent using both attacks on a single target. Changed Javelin to target one or two enemies.
• Defenses: –2 AC, –1 For
• Traits: Battle Champion Tactics damage reduced to 1d10
• New Power: Champion’s Revenge – the necessary mark punishment mechanic.
• Removed Power: Claw

All images are (C) 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. I tried to generate the statistics blocks using the D&D Adventure Tools, but I’m fed with the endless bugs. I ended up writing them on Word instead.

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Monsters of the Trollhaunt V: Encounter W4

Monsters of the Trollhaunt: Index – Previous - Next

** SPOILER ALERT**
This is a series of articles about the monsters included in the adventure P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens- so you may want to stop reading, if you intend to play the module anytime soon.

 

Our party keeps delving into the dungeon. Here are the updated monster stat blocks for their second encounter there.

Blackfire Flameskull (Level 10 Artillery)

Aside from its outdated stats, this flameskull isn’t as broken as you’d think by looking at my extensive list of revisions. Several of the changes I made were due to my personal preferences and expected party composition, rather than things that were inherently wrong. If you want to remain more faithful to the original monster, just changing the Fireball and updating damage would do the trick.

1. Issues identified:

- Flying Artillery. Your mileage may vary, but I find that combining flight and monsters that can attack at long range can often lead to annoying encounters unless a DM deliberately makes poor strategic choices. This is particularly true at heroic and lower paragon levels, where melee PCs can’t be expected to have a method to counter flying enemies other than ranged basic attacks. Given that 60% of the enemies in this encounter were flameskulls, and that my party was very melee-heavy, I really wanted to change the monster to prevent turn after turn of throwing javelins.
- Lack of reach. I only realized this after playing the encounter. Once the monster’s near immunity to melee was taken away (by limiting flight), we found that it could become extremely vulnerable to certain varieties of defender, on account of having reach 0 on its melee attacks. Typical artilleries get screwed enough when engaged by a defender, on account of having terrible AC and HP, and lousy melee attacks, but flameskulls are even worse off. Against a defender that punishes shifting (like fighters or cavaliers), reach 0 means that you can’t even make a bad melee attack without taking damage.
- Devastating opening attack. As bad as it is for wizard PCs, Fireball makes for a great monster power. It is not rare for a flameskull to target all PCs with its fireball on the first turn of an encounter, dishing out quite a bit of damage. This is particularly troublesome in multiples, though - put two (or three, like in this encounter) of these monsters together, and you can end up with most of the party bloodied before they even know what hit them!

2. Changes introduced.

- Added maximum altitude. Maximum altitude is a mechanic I’d like to see on more low-level flying monsters. Setting this at two stops flameskulls from sitting comfortably at the dungeon ceiling without worrying about melee attacks, though they retain an amazing level of mobility.
- New melee power: Fiery Assault. This is not particularly elegant, but after seeing three (!) skulls locked down by a cavalier, unable to do anything without taking considerable amounts of radiant damage, I am persuaded that they need a method to use their humble bites against defenders.
- Blackfire Ray blinding toned down. Blinded (save ends) is way above the power curve for an at-will attack from a non-Controller monster. I opted for gradual blindness instead.
- Fireball now has ongoing damage. After lowering Fireball damage (or, rather, not increasing it) to leave it as 100% of a normal attack instead of 125%, I was still worried about the effect of multiple instances of the spell burning down a party in a single round. By making part of its damage ongoing, we penalize this course of action, and create an interesting decision for the DM: use all fireballs at once, or try to wait to maximize damage?
- Tweaked resistances and vulnerabilities. I prefer to cap monster resistances at 5/tier unless there is a very good reason, so fire resistance took a small hit. I also dislike how radiant vulnerability can have an excessive effect on undead monsters; having radiant damage shut off regeneration instead of hitting harder is still good, but not as crippling.
- Tweaked damage and defenses. Damage was brought up to MM3 standards, ranged accuracy was increased a little, and I slightly reduced reflex because having defenses much higher than AC doesn’t feel quite right, to me.

Dire Bear (Level 11 Elite Brute)

The Dire Bear was one of the lucky monsters to get revisited in Monster Vault, so I didn’t need to change much for its stat block. Still, I was not entirely happy with how the side effects of its attacks worked.

1. Issues identified:

- Grabbing enemies is too difficult. An effect that relies on hitting with two consecutive attacks might end up not triggering at all during a whole encounter, particularly if defender PCs are involved. Since this is the only special ability of the bear (apart from Ursine Crush, which only works against grabbed targets!), there is a definite risk that the monster will end up excessively boring, in play.

2. Changes introduced.

- Make the grab trigger off a single hit. Letting the bear get a sucessful grab almost every turn doesn’t break anything, and makes for a far more compelling monster. There is even a remote chance to have multiple grabbed enemies at a given time, which led me to tweak Ursine Crush in order to affect “all grabbed creatures”. It won't come up all that often, but it should feel great when a DM gets to live the dream.

Troll Vinespeaker (Level 14 Controller)

1. Issues identified:

- Thorny Burst provides excessive control. I am usually wary of ongoing action-negating effects for at-will attacks that target a single character. On an area attack, it definitely crosses the line, particularly when attached to a permanent area of damaging difficult terrain. Something has to go, or be moved elsewhere. There is also the concern that the troll has four standard action attacks, and very little motivation to use anything but Thorny Burst.

2. Changes introduced.

- Toned down Troll Healing - see previous article about trolls as a race.
- Added Forest Walk. This is a minor change, but I thought it would be fitting for the troll to ignore difficult terrain from his own.
- Tweaked damage and defenses. Will defense in particular was extremely low, so I raised it by a whopping 5 points to leave it at standard levels.
- Redesigned Thorny Burst. Since the bramble zone was the coolest part of the power by a mile, I left that and took away the absurd immobilization effect. I turned it into a slow, which still has huge synergies with the permanent zone. This also allowed me to turn Ray of Thorns (the ranged attack) into a tempting option, by granting it the immobilization rider, but only against slowed enemies.

All images are (C) 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. The formatted statistics blocks have been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools. But not with the last version, which lacks a Monster Builder. The one before that, which works despite the billions of bugs. Read More......

Adventure Tools updated, now with 100% less Monster Builder!

Those who have been following this blog for a while know that my attitude toward the D&D Insider service errs towards a cautious optimism. Today's news, however, offer me no bright side to look upon. A new version of the Monster Builder has been released, completely devoid of the most basic elements you would expect in such a tool - notably, the ability to Build Monsters. Thus, for the first time ever, I have sent Wizards of the Coast an Angry Letter (tm), which I reproduce here for your enjoyment and shared indignation.

To: Wizards of the Coast customer service

Re: Missing feature (Monster Building)

The newly released online tool for DDI has been wrongly announced as a Monster Builder. This is an unfortunate mistake, since its monster building capabilities are almost nil. The removal of this essential feature would have been a serious letdown to me, had it been properly communicated. However, there has been no official word on the matter, and I have only found out when browsing the tool, by clicking hopelessly in search of the most basic functionality. This makes things so much worse.

This is not a product ready for public release. I have been following its progress since the beta, and I can see the polishing effort that has taken place since then. However, its current feature set provides no value at all to me, being little more than an alternate interface for information that I could already access from the Compendium. I was excited to see this tool, because it didn't cross my mind that it would be released without editing functions.

I honestly wonder what led you to think this could be a good idea. If editing features are to be added at some point in the future, you should have waited until they were ready. If they are not, I guess this still has value exclusively as a component for the virtual table - so you should have released it whenever the VT came out. The importing feature could have been a redeeming point, if not for the fact that the original Monster Builder has been bugged into almost uselessness for months now, so I am unable to generate non-corrupt monster files. The only thing this tool has managed to do is annoy me.

Please, don't do this again. I can take delays and cancellations, and even a certain amount of bugs and instability on a release, but trying to pass off some hollow piece of software as the real deal is utterly pointless, and a waste of your time, as well as mine.

Edit (23/03/11): The following comment has been posted by WoTC_Trevor on the official forums, addressing many of the concerns expressed above. I'm not sold on their arguments, and it comes a bit late, but it's certainly better than nothing.

Now on to the topic of "why did you release something that wasn't feature complete?" questions/complaints. Main reasons, short and sweet - we wanted to give all the DDI members a chance to check out what we're working on, and we wanted to make sure that all DDI members had the chance to use the MB to import monsters into their VT games during the next step of the VT beta.

You still have access to the classic MB (you can download it right now). We won't be doing any more updates to it, but it's still there and still usable. Yes it has issues, but I'm hopefully most people understand that we won't be working on the old tools while adding features to the new tool. With the web-based MB, we have something that gives very basic functionality and is usable with the VT that we wanted to get into everybody hands, not just the small group of testers that we had before.

The VT point is a bit more tangible - Having the web-based MB out, even in this limited form, makes imputing monsters into the VT 1000% (statistic completely made up) better for DMs. So getting this out to DDI subscribers who will very soon be testing out the VT seemed a pretty important thing.

I am definitely sorry that I haven't given you more news on what to expect with this AT release these last few weeks. I'm also sorry if I led you to believe that the AT would be more robust than what the closed beta testers had access to. We did add a couple features, but the biggest changes are on their way. I will be back in the coming days with more information on the features we'll be implementing, focusing on whatever the next big thing is.

So at least we can expect the current state of affairs to be temporary - editing will be added, eventually.

Also, although I haven't seen it documented anywhere, there IS an upside to the latest update, as they have introduced a very cool feature that I could actually enjoy using. The Monster (sigh) Builder now has the ability to display pictures for each monster in the catalog. Currently, only a very limited selection of monsters features any art (try looking at Monster Vault or Monster Manual I creatures, for example), but they intend to add it for all of them.


The idea of having art in the MB was definitely a good one and we want to do that as well. For now we've implemented a lot of the art that was in the Monster Vault along with some additions, and we definitely want to get more art in there. I personally would love to have some contests for people to submit some art for those creatures that don't have any, and then use the winners as our official pieces of art in the MB. We'll see how things work out as we get more features/content.

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Monsters of the Trollhaunt IV: Encounter W1

Monsters of the Trollhaunt: Index – Previous - Next

** SPOILER ALERT**
This is a series of articles about the monsters included in the adventure P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens- so you may want to stop reading, if you intend to play the module anytime soon.

The adventurers finally get to the main dungeon. I update the opponents in the first dungeon encounter, and suggest a new monster to spice up the fight.

The most defining feature of this encounter is the gate of the Great Warren, which can create a huge bottleneck if blocked by a Warren Troll (or by the PCs). This can easily degenerate into a static fight at the gate, with half the trolls being unable to get to melee at the narrow passage. Because of this, I replaced two of the Warren Trolls with soldier trolls armed with spears, with enough reach to fight behind the Warren Troll at the gate.

Warren Troll (Level 11 Brute)

This is a big, dumb brute. It’s slightly more interesting than the baseline Troll, in that it has a respectable encounter attack, so I just added a push effect to its melee attack, and updated the stats.

1. Issues identified:
- Outdated stats.

2. Changes introduced.
- Toned down Troll Healing - see previous article about trolls as a race.
- Added push to claw attack
- Increased damage and accuracy
- Fixed defenses. These were way too low for a monster of its level. I brought them up to be on par with the standard guidelines.



Warren Guard (Level 11 Soldier) - New Monster

1. Issues identified:
I needed some of the melee trolls to have reach, so that they could fight from the back lines in the Warren Gate encounter

2.Design goals.

A straightforward melee troll with reach. The soldier role seems fitting for this theme, and a marking melee attack and a punishing power would have great synergy with the reach, and be quite interesting to play.

3. Implementation Notes
- Take Warren Troll as baseline, changing stats to match Soldier role.
- Give it melee reach 3.
- Greatspear (melee basic attack) - A simple attack that marks for a turn, whether it hits or missses.
- Troll Revenge (immediate reaction) - A basic attack that triggers when a marked enemy ignores the troll. It can trigger from a range of up to 3 squares, and it knocks prone on a hit for added fun.

4. Gameplay notes

I half feared, half hoped that I could use these trolls in some sort of phalanx, with the brutes blocking the way and acting as a meatwall, and the soldiers hitting from behind and being all kinds of annoying. That was not to happen, though, as my paragon tier party proved to be far more mobile than I had expected. On the first round of combat, the Assassin teleported through the gate troll, while the Monk ran over the walls past it, and the Sentinel summoned a critter in the middle of the room. So it ended up as a chaotic skirmish where the troll guards’ reach didn’t matter much - but the monsters themselves performed quite well, doing soldiery things all around.

Marrowmaw Impaler (Level 9 Artillery)

The Marrowmaw Impaler is an artillery monster without artillery stats. The usual accuracy boost is nowhere to be seen, as are the reduced AC and HP. Add to that its Troglodyte Stench trait, which significantly improves its survivability in melee, and you end up with a ranged monster with a better ability to resist melee attacks than the average soldier of its level! This clearly needed a revision.

Apart from that, I found that I liked the concept of the monster’s main attack (Impaling Shot, a rechargable ranged attack with a chance to restrain the target), but not its execution. The restrain trigger is both very powerful and very random, making for a monster whose effectiveness swings wildly depending on how the dice roll. I knew I wanted to make this effect easier to control, at the cost of requiring some setup.

1. Issues identified:
- Stats don’t match artillery role.
- Impaling Shot mechanics too swingy.

2. Changes introduced.
- Lowered AC, Fortitude, HP. This brings these stats much closer to what is expected for an artillery monster. I still has slightly above average HP, and the Troglodyte Stench aura to make it sturdier than other artilleries.
- Removed Claw attack. I guess this was there for flavor reasons, but a second melee attack that is strictly worse than the alternative is a waste of space.
- Increased base damage and accuracy. To match its role, and the new damage guidelines. I left damage for its basic attack a bit below expectations, to compensate for the added effect and the great rechargable attack.
- Redesigned Impaling Shot. I removed the secondary attack roll, so that the attack now always restrains on a hit. The catch? It now can only be used against enemies granting combat advantage, which isn’t easy to pull off at range. Of course, I very conveniently changed the base Javelin attack to cause the target to grant combat advantage. Because of this, the Impaler should now present a sequence of attacks: use basic attacks until you hit, and then Impale the target. It also makes multiple Impalers focusing on a same target a deadly proposition...



All images are (C) 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. The formatted statistics blocks have been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools. But not with the last version, which lacks a Monster Builder. The one before that, which works despite the billions of bugs. Read More......

Online Monster Builder, integrated DDI tools.

The D&D Insider service has seen better times. During the last months, subscribers have suffered a slow, but noticeable decline in magazine content (particularly when it comes to new options for players), a Monster Builder plagued by annoying bugs, an awkward transition of Character Builder to an online model (which many people perceive as a downgrade), and many delayed updates. The good news, such as the announcement of the beta for the Virtual Table(or rather, the confirmation that the VT would actually exist!) and the promise of a tighter development process for magazine content, were hardly enough compensation, and we couldn’t help but feeling that the service just wasn’t as satisfying as a year ago. The latest announcement from Wizards of the Coast may be the first step towards correcting this trend.

The long promised online Monster Builder is ready to enter beta this week, which should be great news for those who had been struggling with its buggy offline incarnation. As with the Character Builder, the move to an online model means that the tool is no longer usable if you let your DDI subscription expire, but the fact that the offline MB hasn’t been working all that well for a long time means that this time the change has a clear advantage for current customers. It could be argued that the most annoying bugs, which weren’t present when the tool originally launched, should have been more than fixed by now, but at least this is a solution.

Anyway, the bit that has got me excited is a different one. In the following days, the Virtual Table beta is going to incorporate new functionality, as they will enable the connectivity with Character Builder and Monster Builder. I think this is a great improvement, and the first tangible benefit we get from having online tools. The VT beta has been going for a couple of months, now, and I even received an invitation a while ago. I tried it out, and found that it was a solid piece of software, with a nice user interface and most of the features I needed (keeping in mind that I have no real interest in playing online sessions, but was intrigued by its potential as an aid for my tabletop games) except for one crucial point: creating characters and monsters was a pain. Integration with the remaining DDI tools was the logic solution, but not only was it missing from the beta: it wasn’t even mentioned for future plans. So it is a relief to know that they had actually though of this and that it is, in fact, almost done now.

So it seems like we aren’t too far off from a fully functional Virtual Table and Monster Builder. If we add to that the dozens of Character Builder bugs that have been addressed in the latest update, we are approaching a point where the DDI tools can have most of the functionality that was offered a year ago, and add some really cool stuff on top of that. Now they just need to put some actual content in Dragon magazine...

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Monsters of the Trollhaunt III - Encounter T2

** SPOILER ALERT**
This is a series of articles about the monsters included in the adventure P1: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens- so you may want to stop reading, if you intend to play the module anytime soon.

The monsters in this encounter have little to do with the main antagonists of the adventure, but make for good recurrign villains in wilderness battles.

Chuul (Level 10 Soldier)

1. Issues identified:
- Soldier without mark: This comes up too frequently in earlier monsters... immobilizing with opportunity attacks or after three consecutive hits is not a reliable enough defending mechanic, so we should improve it somehow.
- False flexibility: The double attack can be focused on a single enemy or split between two - but why would you ever choose the latter? Spreading damage is rarely the strongest of tactics, and there’s additional incentive for focusing on your target in the immobilization trigger. This kind of flexibility contributes little to the monster, except the chance for a poor or distracted DM to make a suboptimal play. Also, when all is said and done, the chuul will spend all its turns doing the same thing: Double Attack a single enemy, not unlike a PHB ranger. And we know what I think about rangers...

2. Design goals:

I’d like to convey the idea that the Chuul’s attacks gradually paralyze its victim. In addition, it would be nice to make the number of targets to attack a non-trivial decision, so that the monster becomes more interesting to play.

3. Changes introduced.

- Basic stat adjustment: As an old school soldier, it required lowering the attack bonus by 2 points. Also, I reduced its Fortitude value from absurdly high to merely good (level + 14). Incidentally, its base damage was already on spot for a modern monster (meaning it was quite a bit overpowered under previous standards), thanks to the at-will multiattack. That said, the extra damage against immobilized foes is excessive even today, so I’ve toned it down.
- Gradual immobilization: The monster’s attacks got a general overhaul. I had it mark on every hit, and automatically immobilize on subsequent attacks against marked targets. This means that a Chuul can now be quite sticky against a single target, but also provide a respectable defender against groups. Spreading marks around is a good reason to consicer splitting a double attack, but the right call will usually depend on context. Finally, note that the monster’s marks only last until the start of its following turn to prevent immobilization from becoming too easy.





Will o wisp (Level 10 Lurker)

The Will-o-wisp presents a rare design, in that its mechanics have been far more influenced by flavor than most monsters in 4E. This emphasis in story elements is not a bad thing in itself, but in this case it has led to a set of powers that doesn’t entirely make sense, with redundant rules text, and game options that aren’t really worth using. Overall, I found this monster to be unusually complex, and hard to adapt.

As a side note, there are two versions of will-o-wisp printed, each with different wordings but almost equivalent functionality. The one in the Rules Compendium corresponds with the stat block from King of the Trollhaunt, and its wording is slightly more confusing than the other one (from Monster Manual 2).

1. Issues identified:

- Poor handling of insubstantial - Insubstantial is a trait that shouldn’t be thrown around without a reason. Unless it comes with some kind of vulnerability to bypass it, or a condition to turn it off, it contributes nothing of interest to a monster: damage is halved, hit points are reduced by a factor of two, and the net result is the same as when you started. The will-o-wisp falls in this trap, but it also fails to correctly reduce HP numbers, so it ends up with 50% more HP than expected for its level and role. This clearly needs to be addressed.
- Fey Light. This is the one difference between the Trollhaunt version (where this power makes little sense) and the MM2 one (where it’s slightly better). Basically, Fey Light is a free action power which has two different effects: turn on the wisp’s light, which doesn’t really have any effect, and turn it off, concealing the wisp, allowing it to hide, and preventing any attacks. In Trollhaunt this can be used as a free action power, meaning that it’s possible for the wisp to attack every turn and then turn off its light - so there’s no real point in having two states. MM2 fixed this by making it a 1/round issue, so you can expect the monster to become hidden every other turn. However, this has the side effect of breaking the Blink Out power, since Fey Light will typically be spent for the rond by the time the monster can use an immediate interrupt.
- Luring Glow isn’t worth it. As flavorful as it is, Luring Glow suffers from the lack of damage, to the point that it’s very rarely worth using.

2. Design goals:

More than any other monster reviewed so far, the will-o’-wisp is full of personality: it has great themes in its intermittent lights that let it switch from stealth mode to attack mode, and the ability to lure its victims to their doom. I’ll try to keep these ideas, while making the monster more functional and easy to use.

3. Changes introduced.
- Force damage ignores insubstantial - It won’t come up too often, but it should be more interesting than having insubstantial always on.
- Fey Light clarified - I replaced the complex 2-state power with two different game elements: a light aura, and a power to turn it off and hide.
- Increased lurking - I really like the new philosophy for lurkers of spending turns to hide, then hitting very hard, so I tried to add a bit of that to the wisp. To that order, I added a significant bonus to damage dealt from hiding, but reduced regular damage to compensate. Also, I made Extinguish Fey Light a standard action, so it now takes a significant investment... unless the monster can Blink Out.
- Stat changes - Hit points were too high, AC too low (I guess it assumed permanent concealment), and damage followed the old standards. All of this has been updated.
- Luring glow as a minor action - Dazing and pulling was cute, but hardly worth sacrificing damage for a turn - and sustaining save ends powers has always felt wrong, to me. I took the really iconic part of the power (the pull), and made it a minor so that it can actually see play.


All images are (C) 2010 Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. The formatted statistics blocks have been generated using the D&D Adventure Tools. But not with the last version, which lacks a Monster Builder. The one before that, which works despite the billions of bugs. Read More......